by Aiden James
Still busy in the kitchen, Evelyn paused to watch her grandfather pull aside the bandages on David’s neck. He grimaced while John cleansed the wounds and added a topical antibiotic before dressing them with a surgical bandage.
“That should last awhile,” John advised. “But before you leave later today, we’ll dress it once more. ‘Must’ve been quite a dream.” He eyed him thoughtfully.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” said David.
Evelyn joined them in the living room.
“Dinner should be ready within the next twenty minutes,” she said. She seemed worried, her gaze focused on his bandaged neck. “We’ll get started soon enough on the other, after we’ve had a chance to enjoy our meal and chat for awhile.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the chef today?” David chided John. He didn’t want to think long about Evelyn’s troubled look, his last hope.
“It started out that way, but she’s the boss.”
“You’re so funny, Grandpa,” she said, her mock serious expression with a raised eyebrow reminding David of Miriam. He missed her more than ever right then. “If I hadn’t come to your rescue, we wouldn’t be eating anything ‘til late tonight!”
She alternated her gaze between him and David and then sauntered back to the kitchen area. “You could make it up to me by setting the table,” she said over her shoulder.
“Yes, I suppose I could.” He chuckled.
“I’ll join you,” said David, getting to his feet.
Together they moved into the kitchen, mindful to stay out of Evelyn’s path as she moved from the grill to the oven and then to the counter where she had just placed a delectable apple pie. The dining table set flush against the cabin’s rear wall, and once they finished setting the plates and utensils, dinner was ready.
John and Evelyn sat across from each other while David took the seat in the middle facing the wall. An antique electric lantern that long ago ran on gas or oil hung upon the wall above a portrait of John’s late wife. The lantern radiated soft light upon the table loaded with food.
Excellent steaks, along with everything else Evelyn prepared, they soon enjoyed light conversation. She talked about the Masters Degree in civil engineering she presently pursued at the University of Tennessee in nearby Knoxville, along with her recent engagement to the boyfriend John mentioned previously. David’s eyes misted as he shared family pictures from his wallet. Meanwhile, John seemed pleased by the conversation between his cherished granddaughter and their guest.
After dessert, David and John cleared the table. With the dishwasher humming in the background, Evelyn asked David to join her at the table once more. John moved into the living room, where he relaxed in a recliner across from the television set.
Evelyn brought a deck of large cards and a leather bag over to the table, along with a thick white candle. She sat down in her chair and motioned for David to return to his chair next to her. Once comfortable, she lit the candle and closed her eyes, speaking a prayer in a language unfamiliar to him. When finished, she smiled and asked to see his hands. She brushed her fingers over the back of his hands and then turned them over to examine his palms.
“I’m not a fortune teller.” She chuckled.
Watching her fingers trace the lines in his palm, he looked up into her face. Her words matched his silent musing exactly.
“Don’t let it alarm you. I’ve been able to read thoughts since I was young,” she explained, continuing to examine his hands. “It comes from Grandpa’s side of the family. I bet he hasn’t told you that his grandfather was once a powerful Cherokee medicine man.”
“No, he didn’t,” said David, glancing to where John sat, seemingly engrossed by the movie he watched.
“Don’t let him fool you,” she whispered, her grin wry. “I’m sure he’s well aware of what we’re discussing now. He was once next in line to be a shaman for our people, but didn’t want the burden. My grandmother used to tell me when I was young he hoped somehow the line would be broken, that no one else would be saddled with the gift and the enormous responsibility that comes with it.”
“It didn’t happen, obviously,” David observed, wondering now if John could’ve handled the proper disposal of Allie Mae’s Treasures without enlisting her help.
“Don’t worry, David, you’re in good hands with me,” she assured him, again revealing his thoughts were open to her. “I’ve spent many years practicing my gifts, and as such, am much better prepared to deal with the spirit and her powerful wiles. Grandpa would be no match for her when she brings her wrath full force, which could happen at any time.”
She closed his palms and nudged his hands back toward him. Next she pulled out the deck of cards, closing her eyes again and passing her hands over the deck before asking him to shuffle the cards.
“Your lifeline is strong.” Evelyn watched him struggle with the cards, larger and thicker than a standard poker deck. “Your destiny is not to die anytime soon, provided you take care of yourself. So says your hands.”
He continued shuffling the cards, dropping a few on the table.
“Take your time, and be careful not to expose the card faces,” she advised after picking up the cards that had fallen, placing them in a neat stack to her left near the wall. “When you feel at peace, stop and cut the deck.”
He nodded, focusing his attention on the cards. Determined to shuffle the awkward deck evenly, he finally found a rhythm. After several more shuffles he set the cards on the table, and removed the top third before setting it next to the rest of the deck. She picked up the larger stack and took the first nine cards, setting them face down on the table, five vertical and the other four bisecting the middle to form a cross.
“I’ve been told by some very good readers how I do this incorrectly,” she advised, while laying the cards down. “But, these same readers have vouched for my accuracy. I’ve come to understand the cards are merely a guide for what my visions and intuitions already tell me. I’m also clairaudient, which means I often hear the information I’m given about a person or situation. That’s actually my strongest gift, which is how I read thoughts. I hear what people think.”
Again he nodded, feeling even more self-conscious in her presence. She began to turn over the cards. The intricate artwork on each one surprised him, some beautiful while others disturbing in their rich detail. True to her heritage, all of the cards featured Native American imagery. Other than that, he had no idea what any of them meant.
Her fingers lingered the most on three cards. The first two depicted a colorfully adorned Indian chief and a proud warrior. The other card depicted a skeleton obscured by a black cloak, the universal depiction of death.
“You’re correct about this one,” she said, tapping the face of the grimly decorated card. “It doesn’t always mean something bad. It can mean the end of some process, like a resolution.” She pulled the card aside, studying it in silence before pushing it toward him. She then moved on to the card depicting the chief.
“This one represents you,” she advised. “It tells me you hold the key to your own salvation in this matter.”
She lifted the card and placed it on top of the one depicting Death. Next she moved onto the warrior card. For a moment she hesitated before picking it up, as if unsure what to do with it and cocking her head sideways while she decided its fate.
“This is the result you’re after, David,” she told him, lifting the card and placing it on top of the other two. “I believe it signifies your eventual cure, your conquest over the force that has tormented you these past two weeks. But the other cards on the table point to a struggle for this victory, and I can see the difficult journey your soul has already taken.”
She pointed to the other cards left from the cross, which included a dejected Native American male hanging from a tree, two lovers embracing, another male disheveled with a comical expression, and a beautiful Native American girl with a full moon behind her. The last card she pointed to on the ta
ble depicted a demon of some sort, similar to the totem pole icons he once saw long ago in Washington during his football days at the University of Colorado.
She picked up the other cards that fell to the side when he shuffled the deck earlier, removing the middle one. Another Indian girl, this one held a pair of scales and ready to add an item to the lighter scale to balance them.
“This is what she wants,” said Evelyn, setting the card next to the other three. “She wants justice for a wrong she blames you for.”
David studied the card, reliving the events of the past two weeks in his mind. It seemed ironic that a card painted so wonderfully, with a lovely female wearing a faint smile, should be defined as ominous. Evelyn didn’t have to tell him what Allie Mae wanted in order for justice to be served.
“My guides are now speaking to me,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. He looked away from the card and into her face. Her eyes half open, she seemed on the verge of falling asleep. “They say there’s a way to be saved, but you must listen well and follow their instruction.”
His nodded eagerly that he would.
“The spirit of the girl feels a connection to you,” she continued. “They tell me the ravine where you and your wife visited is special to her. She spent a good deal of her lifetime there, and it’s a sacred place. I say this for reasons I’ll get to in a moment, but for now know that she considered the ravine her haven.”
“Okay,” he said, waiting for her to go on.
“Her spirit is angry…thirsty for revenge.” She opened her eyes fully as she said this. They seemed brighter.
“Allie Mae is like a child in some ways, and not in others. You remind her of someone, and I feel certain this is the man who took her life. But there’s something else with her…something that comforts her in the darkness and is also a part of the ravine. It’s what drew her there in her early youth.”
Evelyn asked to hold his hands again. David placed them in hers, while her eyes remain closed for a couple of minutes.
“Grandpa showed me what was inside the trash bags from your motel room,” she said once she opened her eyes again. “And now it makes more sense. This girl was indeed a witch during her brief lifetime. That’s important for several reasons, and not just because it helps determine why she created the shrines.” She released his hands and motioned for him to pull them back.
“The force that’s with her makes her worse,” she continued. “Combined with her own special telepathic abilities and the terrible anguish she died in.... You’ll need everything we can give you in order to break her determination to take your soul. She’s not just interested in your life, David. She would’ve found a way to kill you already if that was the case, like she did to your friend in Colorado. She wants all of you forever—to absorb the very essence of your being!”
She paused again to make sure he understood the gravity of what she told him.
“Here’s the strangest thing about all of this. My guides keep telling me ‘it’s not just her—it’s not just her’. It’s the other thing with her who really wants you, your life and soul. Think of a flashlight that contains both a low beam and a high beam. Allie is the low beam, and she brings enough mischief on her own. She would be a terrible ghost to deal with, but one that could be subdued without the risk of life and limb. This other force is the high beam, and is much stronger and more malicious than she herself is.”
“So, how in the hell do we defeat it? I mean, can we?” The situation already seemed hopeless, but now it felt like he had one foot placed firmly in his grave.
“Bring me the bag of her keepsakes.”
He got up from the table and asked John where he took his jacket. John directed him to the first bedroom down the hallway from the fireplace. His coat lay on the bed near the pillows. He retrieved the bag and returned to the table, handing it to her.
Evelyn opened it and peered inside; inhaling the mixture of floral and musty odors that again included the slight female scent. Rather than empty the contents, she studied them by jostling and shaking the bag until she could see all five items. She cleared a spot next to the candle and set the bag within an imperceptible circle she drew with her index finger on the table’s surface, chanting more unfamiliar words.
Next, she took the leather bag and emptied nine onyx stones into her hand, which she immediately closed into a fist. She instructed him to close his eyes and reach inside her hand, to remove three stones. David placed the stones in a row on the table, per her instructions, with the gold symbols engraved upon each one facing up.
The symbol on the first stone resembled a slanted ‘F’. The one on the second stone looked like a diamond shape where the widest portion had been attached to a vertical line. The last stone’s symbol closely resembled a modern “P”, but primitive to where the rounded edges straightened and the letter’s curve pointed.
“These are known as runes and they predate the use of Tarot Cards, which are what I’ve used so far,” she explained. “The Appalachian people have used runes since long before the Revolutionary War. They seem to help with my magic since there’s almost always a direct correlation between them and the cards. The ones I use are Norse in origin, and the names of the three you picked are ‘Ansuz’, ‘Thurisaz’, and ‘Wunjo’.”
She stopped to make sure he followed what she said. He nodded again, despite three more weird words and a divination tool he never heard of before now.
“I’ll make this as simple as possible, but try to stay with me,” she said, her tone soft but serious. “All three runes you selected correspond to the cards I gave you. Ansuz has the same meaning as the Tarot’s Death card. Thurisaz corresponds to the Chief card, and Wunjo is the same as the Warrior card.”
“So, where does ‘magic’ come into play here?” He struggled to understand the logic behind all of this.
“The magic comes from the synergy created by these two methods,” she said. “We will use this synergy to try and block Allie Mae’s immediate schemes to destroy your life.”
She instructed him to place the three runes around the cloth bag, setting the stones to where they formed a pyramid around it. She then took four of the remaining six runes and set them just outside the pyramid along its north, east, south, and west perimeter. She closed her eyes and uttered another prayer.
“This should hold her for now, and buy us enough time to put together a permanent spell to banish her from your life,” she said, when she opened her eyes. “It’s critical the bag and runes remain like this until the spell is complete.”
“How long will it take?”
“I’d like to incorporate the moon’s power, and the moon is now fading since its fullest power was this past Tuesday night. It’ll definitely have to happen no later than tomorrow night, or you’ll have to wait until the next moon cycle.”
“I guess finishing tonight is out of the question.… Can we make sure this gets done no later than tomorrow? I’ve got a plane to catch back to Denver on Sunday, and I sure as hell don’t think Allie Mae will cut me a break for much longer.”
She smiled compassionately, and placed her hand on the back of his.
“There’s still enough time, so long as we prepare and follow through completely,” she advised. “The moon should still be strong enough to enlist its power, and leave me enough time to put the prayers and root pastes together that you’ll need for protection. I have one errand to attend to tomorrow morning, and afterward I’ll pick up the necessary ingredients and meet you here in the afternoon. Until then, I’ll need you to quietly reflect on all that’s happened and what you wish to accomplish, both for you and her soul that suffers too.”
“I’ll do that,” David assured her. “I appreciate you doing this for me. Let me at least pay you for your time and supplies.” He pulled out his wallet and began to remove several twenties. She stopped him.
“I can’t accept your money,” said Evelyn. “It’s customary for a shaman, even an amateur medicine woman like me, to be paid
only in goods and services. What you’ve already brought to my grandfather is worth far more than my expenses, and my own intrigue compensates me for the readings.”
“What have I done for John?” If anything, he felt indebted to him for all of his help these past few days.
“I think you know,” she said, smiling as she gathered her cards and the rest of the runes not in use. “Your friendship has lifted his heart.”
She blew out the candle and stood up, moving over to a small tote bag near her grandfather’s recliner. John pulled the lever to bring the chair up straight once he noticed her presence.
David didn’t know how to respond. In his mind, John had been a better friend to him—not the other way around. He watched him attend to his granddaughter, and hoped their friendship proved to be a lasting thing after this ordeal ended. He also realized John’s presence in his life the past few days had helped him cope with Norm’s death, even though painful loneliness still awaited him once he returned to Colorado.
Nearing five o’clock, he stood up; ready to gather his coat and head back to Gatlinburg. But Evelyn stopped him.
“You must stay here tonight,” she told him, her tone serious again. “I’m sure Grandpa won’t mind your company. Regard-less, it’s too dangerous for you to leave right now since it will be completely dark soon. When daylight returns tomorrow morning, you can take care of whatever business you still have in Gatlinburg. Until then you need to stay here, indoors and preferably away from the windows.”
“If John’s okay with that arrangement, I don’t mind staying. But what’s so dangerous about tonight as compared to any other night this past week?” He trusted her admonishment, but wished he had his beard trimmer and toothbrush with him.
“Like I told you earlier, and as you’ve already known in your heart, she’s coming for you,” said Evelyn, grabbing her coat and purse, and pausing to give John a kiss upon his cheek before leaving. She walked over to where David stood, just inside the kitchen area. “Allie Mae likes the imagery of a spider seducing its prey. She’s spun her web several times, which is what her shrines represent. And she’s already played with your body and mind, growing more intense with each visit. All that’s left is to tear a whole in your being and suck out your soul!” She pushed on his chest for emphasis.