by Kenny Soward
“Good. Now, I want you to do one more thing for me.”
“Shit, Torri…” the girl shot her mama a look, then stood up straighter and wiped the sweat off her own forehead. “I mean, sure. What is it?”
“Can you fetch me some gnarl root? The ones that grow around the oak trees? Might need a tiny spade to dig some out.”
“Yeah. We got a big oak out back. I’ll check there.”
“Perfect. Thanks.”
“How are you doin’, Sara?”
Sara screamed in reply, causing Torri’s shoulders to clench up. Then the pregnant woman half-rose from the bed, lingering at the apex of pain, before collapsing once more, gasping curses and prayers at the ceiling.
“Good, Sara.”
Torri told the woman to lean up, then repositioned the pillows beneath her to provide a little more support.
“That better?”
Sara nodded
Torri got situated between the woman’s legs, checking her for dilation and the general health of things down there. She’d done this hundreds of times and could instantly tell things seemed fine. And when she ran her hand over the woman’s pelvis, she could discern no additional complications. The baby was positioned well enough for now. She just hoped there was nothing tangled up inside.
She’d just have to deal with complications as they came, using whatever magic she could to save Sara’s child.
Sliding off the bed, Torri got on her knees and fished through her backpack, taking out six or seven ingredients. She crawled to the nightstand and placed them there, stirring them into the pot of smoking water: salt, witch hazel, and rosemary, along with the ground bones of a black squirrel and some relatively fresh rabbit’s blood. Turpentine and some other things, too.
As she worked, she whispered a common Earth prayer. One of protection and light, something to sweeten the pot.
Green grass, hear my prayer…
Brown dirt, hear my prayer…
Rock and field, root and tree…
There is nothing more fae than thee…
The words caused the contents of the pot to swirl counter clockwise, little bits of green and brown twisting and turning inside the mixture as if every particle were dancing with life.
Torri smiled, but she still needed that girl. “Lida! Where are you?”
“Coming!”
Sara’s hand shot out and gripped Torri’s arm. Her eyes were terrified, lips quivering with a combination of fear and desperation. “Is my baby going to be okay?” And she didn’t mean was her baby going to come out okay. No, this woman already had one child and could birth a baby. What Sara wanted to know was if her baby was going to be born blessed with the light of the Lord and not something, well, something darker.
Sara’s fear ignited Torri’s will. This should be a happy moment, not dark and terrifying. Fixing Sara with a serious look, Torri said, “Your baby is going to be better than fine. I ain’t gonna let anything happen to him, you hear me? You just do the pushin’ and I’ll do the rest. And we’ll beat this thing. Got it?”
Sara’s expression got bolder. Her jaw set. Her eyes flared with determination. She nodded but then, just like that, another contraction wracked her frame, knocking the steady look right off her face.
Torri got between her legs again and noted that her dilation was about as large as it was going to get. The baby was coming soon.
Running feet came down the hall, and Lida burst into the room, her hands covered in dirt as she held out two handfuls of the gnarl root.
“Just in time…” Torri took them to the pot, peeled off the excess green, and cut the root into tiny pieces with her pocket knife. She stirred the contents into the steaming concoction, whispering the words of a spell, and the root disintegrated, congealing the mixture into a thick paste.
“What are you doin’?”
“I’m making an Earth poultice. It’s a general kind because I wasn’t expecting…” Torri glanced at the shotgun. “Just do me a favor and set the rest of those candles out around the bed. Get `emlit, and make sure they don’t tip over. Got it?”
Lida nodded and got to work.
With the poultice cooling, Torri gave the shotgun a dirty look. The thing looked plain enough, but something dreadful had attached itself to it, Torri was sure. The haunting of an object was not so bad, usually. The malevolent spirit might cause the thing to malfunction in some way, or become bent or useless. But sometimes the spirits were smart and determined enough to want their own sort of freedom from the thing, possessing those who used them. Men like Jack Kirby.
That’s when spirits became the most dangerous.
Another pained yell from Sara got Torri’s attention. “Okay, Sara. Curl up like a pill bug and push!”
Sara got her knees up, grasping them, and leaned into the next push. Her cheeks puffed out. The veins and tendons in her neck made cords as she strained.
Torri gave Sara’s leg a little slap. “Well, I’ll be, Sara Kirby. There’s the crown. I see the little feller.”
Sara tried to smile but was too busy breathing like a locomotive between contractions. Her eyes were tired but lucid.
“I’m done with the candles,” Lida said, standing next to the bed and waiting for her next instructions.
“Okay, Lida. I need you to shut the door and lock it. We can’t let your Pa in no matter what, okay?”
Lida nodded. She rushed to the door, slamming it shut and locking it. Then she moved a small wooden box from the closet to help bolster the thing. Still, it was a thin little door and it wouldn’t hold for long.
“Good. Now, there’s a big bag of salt in my backpack. Take it out and open it but don’t do anything yet.”
“Okay.”
The girl knelt beside the pack and rooted through it. Poor thing was probably frazzled to death on the inside, but she didn’t let it show a single bit. That’s what Torri loved about the hill folk. Stolid as oak trees and with plenty of fight in them.
“Sara. Take a deep, deep breath, and push!”
The woman did as she was told, spittle flying as air burst between her lips.
After that one, Sara fell back. “I cain’t. It’s never gonna end.”
But Torri Dowe saw the baby coming, its precious little head pressing out from between Sara’s legs.
There was something else, too. Some oily slick substance coating the baby’s head, sliding up between Sara’s legs and grasping, pulling the child from its mother.
Torri clamped her lips against her rising terror. “You fight for this baby, Sara Kirby. You fight right now. It’s trying to separate you from your child. Before, together, you were too strong for the evil. But when your boy leaves you, he’ll be vulnerable.”
“Then I shouldn’t push.”
“No! It’s too late for that now. That baby has to come out of you if he’s gonna live. Keep pushin’ and I’ll protect him from the dark thing.”
Sara nodded and got back to it—taking a deep breath, pushing, screaming—then quicker breaths.
Torri retrieved a handful of the poultice from the pot. It was the color of mud, maybe a little darker, and had an earthy smell to it. She rolled the doughy substance into a ball, the sap from it staining her hands. She made a little mark on her own forehead, then at the hollow of her neck.
As she did so, she whispered the Earth prayer.
Green grass, hear my prayer…
Brown dirt, hear my prayer…
Rock and field, root and tree…
There is nothing more fae than thee…
Then Torri spread the poultice all over Sara’s thighs, up and down and in between, over the baby and making sure it got everywhere. She repeated the Earth Prayer as she worked, asking the rocks and roots to grant them strength, feeling the energy of the land come seeping up to her through the floorboards. It charged her like a battery, crackled in her ears.
Sara cried out in pain once more, her breathing erratic now.
Torri had to hurry.
&nb
sp; She put one knee up on the bed and leaned over Sara, making the same markings with the poultice on the woman’s forehead and in the hollow of her throat.
Sara’s entire body clenched up. She gasped.
“It’s okay. That’s natural. It senses me now. It knows I’m gonna try to drive it out.”
There came a rapping on the door.
“Hey! Y’all all right in there? I got the tractor running.” The doorknob rattled. “Hey, why’d you lock the door? Hey! Godamn it, lemme in, Lida!”
Torri got between Sara’s legs again. Now the dark substance had seeped up to Sara’s knees, wrapping around them like some kind of octopus or something, locking her legs apart and pulling that baby right out of her. Once out, it would try to infest that baby, and the child would be lost to them.
Torri needed to destroy the darkness now while it was out in the open.
“Lida,” she said. “Start pouring the salt from candle to candle.”
“Like connecting the dots?”
“Exactly. You connect all the dots but leave one side open, got it? Go all around the bed, too.”
“Okay. What about Pa?”
“Don’t pay no damn attention to your Pa. He ain’t hisself right now.”
“Okay.” And Lida got busy pouring the salt.
Torri placed her hand on the child’s crown, feeling the oily substance slide around beneath her poultice-stained fingers.
Sara pushed, another scream escaping to shake the room.
Torri closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then she addressed the spirit. “I see you, spirit. You see me, too. I’m the woman of the wilds. Grassgall they used to call me when I was a child in the Old Country. I’m the protector of the people of the hills. I’m the destroyer of demons, the bringer of Earth’s light and hope.”
The black substance drew back a little from its hold on Sara’s knees, constricting like a salted slug.
Blood was just about everywhere now, up the woman’s thighs and soaked into the mattress.
“I bring guidance to lost souls,” Torri continued. “I free the possessed, and I offer you the opportunity to release this mother and father and their child, to go back to where you came from. I promise that I will lead you to another place where you can find the peace and harmony that was always intended for you.”
At the part about releasing Sara and her child, the substance expanded once more, tightening its hold on mother and child. Sara screamed, not from the baby, but from the pain of her legs being pressed apart. The evil spirit would break her like a wishbone before it would give them up.
Sighing, Torri withdrew her hand.
“Okay. I’m done with the salt. Now what?” Lida’s voice quavered as Jack tore at the doorknob.
“Lida, pick up that shotgun and point it away from the door. Point it at the other side of the room. That’s right. Grip it as tight as you can, and don’t let it go no matter what.”
“Okay,” the girl whimpered, holding the big gun and pointing it at the wall.
“Lida, you open this door right fuckin’ now, or I swear to God I’ll knock it in.”
“I can’t, Pa—”
“Hush, child,” Torri said. “If your Pa comes in, you keep that gun away from him, you hear.”
The poor girl just stood there with the shotgun in her hand, her skinny little legs quivering. She looked over her shoulder with fear-soaked eyes and nodded. “I’ll sure try.”
The door shuddered as Jack threw himself against it.
Leaning over to the nightstand, Torri took up one of the candles and held it between Sara’s legs. She hoped she’d gotten the turpentine mixture correct in the poultice.
Too late now.
She set the candle to Sara’s thighs.
The poultice caught fire in a big whoosh, heat and flame engulfing everything.
Torri kept her hand down there as the dark substance twisted and jerked, finally constricting into a ball where it rolled onto the mattress.
Snatching it up, Torri held the black ball in the palm of one hand, squeezing it tight as she stumbled off the bed, falling to her knees by the door. She turned, grabbed up the bag of salt, and quickly finished connecting the last two candles.
Now the evil spirit couldn’t get back to Sara or her child. At least there was that.
It jerked once toward the bed then jerked back the other way. But Torri held it with both hands now. It tried getting inside of her, pulling itself toward her mouth so hard she had to clench her whole body to hold the damn thing.
“No, that ain’t gonna happen,” Torri said with scowl, turning her whole will on the thing.
The door came tearing open, the wooden box falling over as Jack tripped his way into the room. He wasn’t concerned about his wife and child possibly dying on the bed. No, he glared at Torri Dowe because she held the thing that had possessed the gun all these months. The thing that had bent Jack to its will, keeping the family divided and keeping Sara from getting any real help.
“What the fuck is going on in here?”
Torri held the ball out to him. “You been cursed, Jack. But I got it. I—”
The thing ripped out of her hand like a dark bullet to zip across the room and into the gun. The barrel surged like a garden hose filling with water, a metal and oil snake writhing in Lida’s tiny grip.
“You hang on now, Lida. Hang on.”
As skinny as she was, the girl clung to the gun like nobody’s business, even as it jerked her back and forth.
“Gimme that damn gun!” Jack roared, lunging for his daughter.
Torri tackled him square. Drove him into the paneled wall with a crash. He tried to throw her off but Torri was wiry strong and kept herself atop him long enough for…
Both barrels of the gun went off with a boom!
Lida cried out and let the gun go, and it clattered to the floor.
“The salt, Lida. Get the salt.”
The little girl nodded and got the bag while Torri stayed on top of Jack, hissing under her breath. “Your wife is dyin’, Jack Kirby. You’ll quit your damn fussin’ if you want me to save her.”
Lida knew what to do by now, and she kicked the gun to the a clear spot on the floor then poured salt all around it, trapping the evil spirit inside the smoking weapon.
Jack Kirby fell limp beneath Torri, his expression turning confused as the evil spirit’s influence fell away. He looked over at his wife laying there on the bed, covered in blood but not burned a single bit. He nodded, eyes filled with remorseful tears.
Torri lurched to Lida’s side. “You okay?”
Lida nodded, staring at the burned hand that’d been holding the barrel when the shotgun went off.
Back the other way, Torri dove back onto the bed.
The baby was here.
“Okay, Sara. Now you push like you ain’t never pushed in your life.”
Torri staggered onto the Kirby’s front porch to the glorious sounds of a baby crying in its mother’s arms. She let the door swing shut behind her and came down the stoop, holding the exercised shotgun in one hand. Her legs were a little wobbly, and she was up to her elbows in blood, but damn did she feel good.
The outcome had been better than she could have hoped, what with her getting there so late and all, and with the dark spirit having gotten good and dug in with the family, but it could have been worse. One, or both of them, could be dead now, possibly at the hands of Jack Kirby himself. Hell, all three of them, four of them, could be dead.
But the end result was that the hills had another son, and a curse had been lifted. And that was a goddamn good thing.
“We thank ya, Torri Dowe.”
Torri staggered a few more steps then turned to find little Lida smiling at her from the porch.
“Well, you’re welcome. But remember how brave you were. If you can be half that brave the whole rest of your life then you’re gonna be fine, yes ma’am.”
Lida could barely contain her pleasure. She gestured toward the back
yard. “You can sit on my swing if you want. I always go there when I want to think.”
Torri looked out that way and saw the tire hanging from one of the lower branches.
“You know what? That sounds mighty nice. Thanks.”
She started in that direction and Lida called out that she’d bring her some ice tea. Again, fine by Torri.
The grass in the backyard was a little long and spotty, bright green in the places where water had gathered, lighter on the high ground. Soon, nothing would be growing as Fall cooled everything down and got things ready for winter. That’s what she loved about this part of the land, these Kentucky Hills. The changing seasons. It reminded her of the Old Country.
Torri dropped the shotgun in the grass, grabbed the rope, and swung one leg over the tire. Then she got the other one over and let her momentum just sorta swing her lazily around.
She wanted nothing more than to be home on her own hill now, in her own cabin with a nice hot cup of black tea in her hands. She missed her cat, Tavia, and her garden. She would undoubtedly miss her own bed before too long. The Kirby’s would need her for another few days at least.
Letting her arms dangle over the top of the tire, she put her head down and closed her eyes, listening as the wind picked its way through the trees, whispering things only she could hear. Endearments, mostly. Caresses across her skin that felt downright heavenly. But sometimes the wind teased her, too, tousling her hair around her face or giving her a cold snap.
It was just playing with her, of course, as the wind was want to do.
As her mind settled, she picked up reverberations of a more ethereal nature. She was tuned to those types of things, as all witches were, to the waves of power emanating from spirits and souls and everything in between. From the physical to the metaphysical, Torri Dowe had a line on most things within a certain distance of her home. She even sensed some tremors in the between world, the Fade, whenever a monster crossed into this world from someplace else. Especially if they were real mean and powerful. Torri heard and felt those things like a regular person might hear all the things in a forest when they walked through. The birds and insects. The rustling leaves. A shimmering brook.
As far as other witches went, she and her coven mates lived distant from one another, settling all over the United States so she hardly ever felt their reverberations. Usually, she had no idea what they were up to unless she called them through the water line.