by J. D. Horn
She knelt beside the stove and turned the handle on its side door. The wood beneath had burned to nothing but glowing red coals. She pierced them with the poker, giving everything a good shake until the logs on the top of the pyre fell to the bottom, popping and shooting sparks. Something about the sparks fascinated her. They felt like little eyes peering out from the smoke. She shuddered, then laughed at her own silliness. Working quickly, she leaned the poker against the wall, pushed another split log into the stove, and closed the door before any more smoke could spill out into the room. Coughing, she waved her gloved hand before her face to dissipate the smoke. She stood and returned the mitt to its holder. And then she froze.
Poppy knew she was just letting her nerves run away from her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. She looked over her shoulder and then turned all the way around. She could see she was alone in the room. Her eyes fell on the windows. The curtains had been pulled tight. Certainly no one could be peeping. She made her way to the house’s front window and pulled the drape aside, looking in the direction the truck had gone, hoping to see its cockeyed headlights pointing her way, but the overhead light was still on. In the glare, her own reflection and the image of the room behind her was all that she could see. She leaned in, nearly pressing her face to the glass, but the world outside was still hidden by her own features.
Though Poppy had promised her nana she wouldn’t worry, she couldn’t help it. She recognized this feeling for what it was. There was magic in the air, and it made her queasy. She loved her nana, but she couldn’t wait to escape back to Charlotte, where she could just be a simple working girl, a seamstress, not Mother Wills’s granddaughter.
She and Henry had made a plan. They were going to marry, and he was going to join her in Charlotte. They’d leave Savannah and its ghosts and magic behind. Lead a normal life. She felt a smile come to her lips. Soon she wasn’t going to be a Wills girl at all. She was gonna be Poppy Cook. Mrs. Henry Cook.
She would miss her nana. She would always love her, but a part of her could never forgive her for getting messed up in such dark forces. Poppy worried about her younger sisters. She felt guilty about leaving them trapped in Nana’s odd world. Maybe after she and Henry got settled, they could send for Jilo and Binah. But what if she and Henry started having their own children right from the get-go? Would Henry want to take responsibility for a brood?
In the distance she heard a rumble, a sound she recognized as Henry’s truck. Her shoulders relaxed, and she only then realized she’d been holding her breath. Poppy pulled open the front door, a lingering sense of disquiet prompting her to leave it gaping wide in spite of the night’s chill. She eased the screen door forward so its protest wouldn’t wake the little ones. She stepped out onto the porch, drawing her arms around herself to fend off the cold. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Here, without the glare of the electric light blinding her, she could make out the approaching truck pulling onto the tracks that ran up to the house. The one headlight seemed permanently aimed at heaven, but the other sputtered to life and lit the ground. Poppy was surprised to find the house surrounded by a dense, low-lying fog. Thick, dirty billows had turned it into a virtual island.
Henry pulled the truck up before her, stopping nearly on top of the bottom step, but he didn’t kill the engine. Poppy did not see her nana with him. He banged his shoulder into the driver’s door until it popped nearly halfway open.
“Where is Nana?” she asked, her stomach falling into her shoes as she ran down the steps to greet him.
“Don’t worry about that now,” Henry said, pressing her back with such force she nearly stumbled backward onto the stairs. “Get the girls. We gotta get out of here.”
Poppy dug in her heels. “What is wrong? You tell me where Nana is, or I ain’t taking another step,” she said, although her eyes remained fixed on the fog. It began to glow.
“What . . .” she said, pointing down, but a sound cut her off. A roar, filled with violence and hunger. She grasped Henry’s hand. Tried to step backward. To pull Henry and herself up the steps and into the shelter of the house. But by the time she’d begun to move, it was already too late.
Red eyes consumed her. Her mouth opened to scream, but something rushed inside it instead. The pain was so keen, she felt like she was being ripped apart. Skinned alive from the inside out. She was in a dark room. No, she was imprisoned in her own mind. And this thing inside her was suppressing her will, taking her over, striking out at her from within.
“Poppy,” Henry called. The familiar sound of his voice pulled her above the wave that had invaded her, and she saw his blood dripping from the points where her hand, transformed into a claw, had pierced his skin. She managed to release him, but in the next instant, like a man drowning, she was back under. Though she could watch what was happening and feel her body move, it was the intruder wearing her, rather than her own will, pulling her along.
“Run,” Poppy screamed from deep within to Henry, to her sisters, but the sound never reached her lips. Instead, she heard a gravelly laughter, much deeper than her own voice could ever muster. The invader raised her head and sniffed the wind. Oh, God, she thought. Oh, God, she prayed. The beast within her was searching for the children’s scent. She could smell the sweet scents of Jilo’s nighttime bath and Binah’s talcum. The saltiness of their flesh that lay underneath. Feel the heat of their pulsing blood. And it made her hungry. Her body mounted the first step, and although she struggled to pull back from the house, the second. She bounded over the last and onto the porch, and her hand reached out to grasp the handle of the screen door. It screamed in protest as she flung it open. Her body began to cross the threshold, but she stood frozen, pressed up against the open air as if it were a brick wall.
The thing inside pushed forward, straining so hard it felt like her skeleton would rip from her flesh. Something overhead caught the thing’s eye . . . caught her eye. The haint blue of the overhang was glowing, its enchantment preventing the beast from moving her forward. But its hunger drove it like a wild dog. It clawed at the opening, stretching, straining. Whining.
Henry, unknowing, unaware, thinking he was out to protect her, pushed her forward, his force enough to carry the beast inside her past the blue’s protection. Poppy screamed in anguish as the beast stumbled into the front room. Once inside, it pulled her body to its feet and turned to look at Henry. When his terrified eyes met with the thing looking out from her eyes, she could tell he realized his mistake. He stood there for another long moment, seemingly frozen. Uncertain of which way to turn. Then he made a dash around her toward the hall.
She realized he was trying to make it to the room the little ones shared so he could protect her little sisters from her. Poppy summoned all her will, tearing at the beast who shared her skin. But it felt so strong. So ancient. Poppy knew she could never defeat it on her own, but she didn’t have to beat it. She only had to slow it down.
She steadied herself, preparing to strike out against it. But it snapped her will like a twig and flung her body toward the wall. After grabbing ahold of the iron fire poker, it jumped clear across the room.
Henry turned, raising his arms above his head in an attempt to protect himself. She watched, helpless, as the creature brought the heavy iron down against her love’s arms. He shrieked, a piteous, weak sound, as his arms fell broken and bloody by his sides.
The thing inside her was enjoying the sight and smell of Henry’s blood. The breaking of his bones. Henry stumbled backward a foot or so down the hall. Pursuing him, the creature raised the rod again and brought it down with a heavy crack against Henry’s skull. Henry dropped to his knees. No. No. No, she pleaded even as her arm pulled back to deliver the fatal blow.
Poppy wanted to drop the iron, or at least close her eyes, but she was in control of nothing. Sensing her anguish, the beast hesitated so that it could savor it. Soon, though, it had consumed its fill of her pain. The poker began its descent, but it stopped
in midair when the beast perceived the form of a small girl in the shadows of the hall, just outside her bedroom door. The poker slid to the floor. Poppy’s body crouched and prepared to pounce. Jilo’s eyes widened. The poor thing was horrified, but she still didn’t scream the way Poppy would have done at that age, at any age. Jilo dived back into her room and slammed the door behind her.
Poppy’s body tensed and leaped over Henry. She landed on all fours, like an animal, slipping a bit in Henry’s blood.
Somehow, Binah had slept up until then, but the noise must have finally roused her, for her powerful voice sang out in an angry wail. The sound excited the monster inside Poppy. It forced her to crouch by the girls’ bedroom door and scratch against the wood. Making giddy sounds with her vocal cords, it drew in more deep breaths, savoring the smell of one child’s confusion and the other’s fear. Saliva began falling from her mouth, and her stomach rumbled.
There had to be some way to stop this. Or at least a way to shut it out. Would she really have to witness this devil devouring her sisters? Dear God, would she have to taste them?
She saw her hand reach up to touch the doorknob. The door had no lock. It provided the girls with no protection.
Binah’s crying continued, but it sounded muffled. Then it came to a sudden stop.
Had Jilo stifled her sister’s cries in a misguided attempt to hide herself? Or had she realized what was happening, the hopelessness of the situation, and seen to it that Binah wouldn’t suffer? Poppy began to turn away in her own mind. Let herself drift. Though she could still feel the beast’s impressions, its sick desires, their impact was somewhat lessened if she didn’t try to interfere. She watched as the hands that had once been hers turned the doorknob and pushed the door wide open.
Jilo stood near the window, a sheet hanging over the ledge. The beast moved Poppy’s body forward, still crawling on hands and knees as it breached the threshold of the room. Her head reared back in a delighted howl as her body carried her nearer and nearer her sister.
The beast turned Poppy’s head to scan the room, but there was no sight of Binah. Hope rose up inside Poppy like a blooming vine, but then the curtains of the window behind Jilo billowed inward, causing the beast to raise her nose and sniff the wind that made them dance. It caught Binah’s scent. She loped to the window and looked out. The moonlight betrayed a wisp of auburn hair. Jilo had lowered the child out of the window and to the ground, swaddled in the hanging sheet.
Jilo stepped quickly away from the window, as if she were trying to draw its attention away from her baby sister. For the moment, it seemed to work. The beast circled Jilo, bumping into the little girl and pressing her nose right up against her flesh. Poppy wondered how her sister could stop herself from fleeing, as Jilo stood frozen in place. The creature and Poppy experienced the same thought at once. Something about the girl’s scent wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t quite human. Jilo had something more, something different about her. The creature was disgusted by what it smelled on her. So was Poppy. The two conjoined beings both willed a step backward, away from her.
Jilo cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, out the window, reminding the beast of the other morsel awaiting him. This odd one was not right, but the smaller one smelled delicious. The softest, sweetest flesh. The beast carried Poppy over to the open window and pressed her hands against the ledge, preparing to swoop out and carry the child off into the quiet of the pines before tasting her flesh. Down below, poking out through the tangled sheet, Poppy recognized Binah’s tiny head. The beast within her smiled, ready to leap through the opening. Ah, but then a sound, the tiniest of cries, came from inside the chifferobe, behind them. The beast stopped, and Poppy felt her head wrench to the side. The beast eyed the chifferobe, then began padding quickly toward it.
“No,” Jilo screamed, leaping on Poppy and riding her, pulling her hair, scratching, screaming, doing anything she could to stop her. Poppy’s arm twisted backward at an impossible angle and struck out, knocking Jilo to the floor. Poppy felt herself lunge across the room and claw open the cupboard’s door. Inside lay Binah. Her diaper had been removed. Poppy realized that had been the source of the scent; the auburn hair, she realized, belonged to Jilo’s favorite doll. For an instant she felt so proud of her little Jilo. Her plan had almost worked. She had almost lured the beast outside, where with any luck Nana’s charms would have held it at bay. But her moment of pride was fleeting, for the beast beat her back down and turned to lay hold of its feast.
When she realized the inevitability of what was about to occur, Poppy tried again to step back, to turn away. But the beast that was riding her wouldn’t allow it. It somehow held her consciousness in place, forcing her to experience its every action, its every hunger. She watched as her hand reached into the cabinet, lowered itself to lay claim to Binah’s tiny wriggling form.
Poppy felt Jilo’s hand grasp her shoulder again, the girl unwilling to be defeated. The beast turned, intending to destroy the pesky little bug that was coming between him and the thing he so completely craved. It reached out for Jilo with both hands, intending to snap the child’s spindly neck, but then there was a blinding flash of light, and the world around it seemed to freeze. It was now the beast’s turn to cry out in anguish, but Poppy couldn’t understand why. The flash had left her eyes confused, unable to focus. Then, little by little, they resolved on the image of Jilo standing—no, her feet weren’t touching the ground, she was floating—before her.
Lights, some white, some blue, burst like fireworks around the room. The earth beneath the house itself began to shake. And the creature began to lose its hold on Poppy. She could feel its power draining away. Jilo had somehow tapped into the demon’s energy, and she was burning it up. The creature raged, but when it could not escape the girl’s thrall, it tried to make a dash out the window. The moment it rose up on Poppy’s legs to make the leap, Jilo turned her head toward the window. It slammed shut. The beast bounded toward the glass, but though it tried to use Poppy’s body to leap through the window, the thing was ripped clear out of her instead. The windowpane splintered into a thousand shards.
Jilo slipped back down to her feet and rocked back and forth a few times before falling forward unconscious.
EIGHTEEN
The New York Clarion
December 8, 1942
Page C12
Making Spirits Bright, Singers Entertain the Troops at USO
With crooner John Briggs acting as MC and dozens of beautiful girl singers in the lineup, the tinsel on the tree wasn’t the only thing sparkling last night at the USO canteen.
“Those Jerries aren’t going to keep our boys from having a good Christmastime. Not if we have anything to say about it . . . and we do,” said stunning redheaded, hazel-eyed singer Betty Wills, pictured here with Briggs and several of our adoring servicemen looking on. Her words were met with thunderous applause. Miss Wills, 28, and many of her peers from last night’s performance will be taking leave of our shores soon to spread holiday cheer to our troops stationed around Europe and Northern Africa.
January 1943
May shook her head several times as she held the newspaper clipping up to the light, doing her damnedest to recognize any familiar part of her former daughter-in-law in the black-and-white—mostly white, May noted—photo that accompanied the text. Sure, it was Betty all right, all hips and curves and victory-roll hair, but if May hadn’t known it was her, she could’ve passed this woman on the street without looking twice.
The article had arrived by itself, with the words “Show my girls their mama” scrawled beneath the photo in a slanting, loopy script May’s eyes had been hard-pressed to decipher. May wasn’t sure she should let the girls see it.
May grunted as her eyes fell again on “Miss Wills’s” age. Twenty-eight years old with a twenty-one-year-old daughter. True, Betty still looked good, May could tell as much from the photo, but the reporter’s acceptance of Betty’s claim spoke more of his infatuation with his subject th
an anything else. May wondered just what the newspaper fellow had gotten in return for the write-up.
May’s eyes focused again on the newsprint she held. A semicircle of besotted and uniformed white boys gazed adoringly at Betty. Betty, who was about to set sail with them. For all May knew, those boys might all be over in Europe now. Might even be dead.
Her eyes drifted from the photo to scan the text once more. Imagine it. Betty singing over in Europe. Even setting foot on Africa. Opal was in the Orient, working as an army nurse—the army wouldn’t let her say where—and for a moment May found herself imagining the two meeting up overseas, Opal a black nurse, Betty a “stunning redheaded, hazel-eyed” white singer. Would the two even recognize each other if they were allowed to congregate in the same hall?
May nearly wadded up the newsprint, but something made her hesitate. Maybe Poppy would want it. She could mail the article to Poppy in Charlotte, but no. It would probably just get returned, unopened, like every other letter May had sent her over the last two years. Poppy blamed May for the horrors that had unfolded on Christmas night two years back. She had left Savannah swearing that she would only speak to her grandmother again if May gave up working magic. It broke May’s heart every time she thought of her girl. Lord knows May would like nothing better than to give up the magic. The problem was that the magic didn’t seem ready to give her up. When May finally made it home that Christmas night, she’d been greeted by the Beekeeper, sitting sprawled out on her front steps. The damned creature hadn’t raised a gloved finger to help May’s girls. “I wanted to see how the little one would handle herself,” she’d said, screeching with laughter as she began to recount the acts of savagery that had just taken place in May’s home.