by Billy Coffey
The knob jiggled and turned as the door cracked open. A tired baritone voice spoke. The past days had been unkind to Medric Johnston. In some ways, he suffered worse than the others. That old dead raccoon only played a small part of a larger danger, one that even now he felt charging up behind him. “What you doing here, Hays?”
“Come to see how you were. Come every day since what happened, but you ain’t been here.”
“Been taking care of business. Now you get on from here. Ain’t safe. Sides, I don’t think I wanna see you.”
“I’m sorry,” Hays said. “I only meant to sneak the key. Scarlett was the one who wanted to go up to the mines. None of us thought anything would happen.”
“That’s your problem,” Medric said. He looked around to make sure no one was watching. “Y’all din’t think. You know better, Hays. You know what kind can a worms you opened?”
“Can I just come in? Let me explain?”
Medric said, “Ain’t nothing to explain. People after me now.”
“They’re after all of us. The grocery got tore up last night. People are getting sick.”
“You don’t think I know? Now you get on. Parlor ain’t open for business. I’m shut to further notice.”
The door went to close. Shotgun or not, Hays blocked it with his boot.
“Something followed me, Medric. I need help.”
“What you mean something followed you? From Alvaretta’s?”
He nodded, and in that nod was an agony I cannot describe. “It was in the shed, Medric. The shed. It’s bad things in the shed. I’ve seen it around my house, following me. Glimpses. But I can feel it more. I don’t know what to do.”
“You pray, that’s what you do. And stay outta sight.” He said it again: “You know what can a worms you opened? You gonna get me killed, boy.”
“Why?” Hays asked. “Everybody knows I took the key. You haven’t done anything.”
“Go,” Medric said. “I ain’t joking with you.”
It didn’t seem right. None of it did. I wouldn’t say Medric was much loved by the town. Neither was Hays. I guess that’s the sort of thing two people can share in common and make something of a friendship out of in spite of their differences in age and skin. Medric never had kids. Hays would say he’d never really had a daddy. They both just took to each other I guess, drawn by a fascination with death and things unseen. And in all the time they’d spent together, not once had Medric acted so strange. Not like he was scared, more that . . .
“Medric, you hiding something?”
“No. Now get on, Hays. I mean it.” He racked his shotgun.
Hays nodded slow. “Okay. I’m sorry. Okay? I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Nobody did,” Medric said. “But that don’t matter now.”
Hays backed off the porch then, shrugging like whether it mattered or not, he was still sorry. He glanced down long enough to clip one of the pots with the edge of his foot. Both the plant and the dirt inside went sprawling.
“Dang it,” he said. “I’m sorry. I can clean—”
“Just get,” Medric told him.
Hays got. He turned and stepped off that porch and kept his hands in his pockets, acting just as innocent as he could be. Medric cussed and stepped out the door to survey the mess. Hays turned then, slow and in stride—and saw something that sent a chill down his back. He fought the urge to run screaming. As it was, he only allowed himself to break into something like a trot. Medric saw his wide eyes and hollered, wanting Hays to come back.
No way was that boy ever going to do that. Not now.
Not after seeing all those crow feathers stuck to the bottoms of Medric’s boots.
-4-
It was nearing supper when Bucky finally told Cordelia they had to get on home, and then only because Belle said they all had to get ready for revival. I don’t think Bucky or Cordy much wanted to leave, even if the place they were leaving was the ruined wreck of Foster’s Grocery. Going home meant facing Angela, you see, and having to deal with everything Kayann had said. In a week that had been full of uncomfortable conversations, Bucky didn’t want another. Especially that one.
Sheriff or not, he still went home smelling of filth and sweat. They’d all pitched in that day, though by the end it was plain to everyone the grocery would be closed for a good long while. Cordy had spent much of her time as close to her daddy as she could get, fetching him drinks and a sandwich from the Exxon for lunch. About the only time she drifted away was when Hays sent a text. Cordy checked with Scarlett and Naomi. They’d gotten one too.
Bucky kept the window on the Celebrity down so Cordelia could breathe something like fresh air. The radio played Brad Paisley, pining on the pleasures of country life. Bucky turned it off.
“You okay?” Cordy asked.
“I guess.”
“Ith Mom?”
“Hope so,” Bucky said.
“You know thee loves you, wight?”
Bucky reached over and squeezed his daughter’s knee. He smiled. “I know.”
On and on that went, Cordy slurring her words and Bucky trying to understand them enough to answer right. But all them two did was pass the fifteen minutes between the grocery and their house the same as always, chitchatting away but saying nothing much at all.
It was like that for the other families too—the Fosters and Bickfords and Ramsays. On the surface, Alvaretta’s curse had changed everything. But underneath, things weren’t much different than they’d ever been. The parents still worried of their jobs and the bills past due, the kids still worried how popular they weren’t and how ugly they looked, and nobody really said anything to anyone else of value. No one really said what they thought or felt. And in a way, I believe that was part of the witch’s curse too. It reminded every family in Crow Holler just how thick the walls between them had grown.
Angela had her best I’m-sorry supper waiting on the table. Fried chicken and dumplings, Bucky’s favorite. She spoke nothing of what had happened at the grocery at first, saying only that Reverend Ramsay had called to personally invite them to revival. Angela spoke that bit of news from behind the prettiest smile either Bucky or Cordelia had ever witnessed. Seemed as though Bucky’s newfound prominence in Crow Holler had paid off already.
When the meal had descended into the same awkward silence Angela had sworn would be banished from the supper table, she felt she had no choice but to wade into murky waters and put Bucky at ease.
“You know Kayann, always so paranoid about everything. And really,” she said, “you can’t listen to a word that woman says after all that’s happened. You’d likely be speaking nonsense, too, and nobody would much listen because they’d know it was just your hurt talking. Why, their whole lives have been upended. Everything they spent years building up, torn down in a night. It’s a shame,” Angela said, and yet there lay a grin upon her mouth and a lightness to her words.
There wasn’t much argument when Cordelia said she’d rather stay home. Bucky tried saying things still might not be safe, but she countered by saying everyone in a dozen miles would be at church. Besides, she wasn’t feeling well. Nothing to be worried about, she said, just tired from the day’s work.
I think it was plain to most everyone in Crow Holler what David Ramsay and Mayor Bickford both had in mind for the night. It was solutions both men were after, and while one would speak of the Lord and the other of the community, each would stress the only way to bring Crow Holler back to the slow and dying town it had been would be for everybody to start helping each other.
For Angela, though, all business of witches and demons and evil came in a distant second to what the night truly meant. This was her time, and she was going to shine. She put on her favorite dress, a dark blue one that somehow made her look skinnier than she really was, and demanded Bucky put on his burying suit. When he came down the hallway with that big belly of his peeking out from his jacket, Angela looked to swoon.
They kissed Cordeli
a good-bye and told her to keep the doors locked. She promised she would and glanced at the clock on the TV stand. It was 6:27. Half an hour until revival, and an hour before Hays would arrive to take her to Harper’s Field. Cordelia still had to text everyone else to make sure they were going. Had to get dressed, find more paper and a new pen in case Scarlett ran out. She needed her parents gone so bad that she didn’t even give pause when she heard Angela ask Bucky if she looked fancy enough, and how she only wished she had that diamond bracelet to wear.
-5-
Friend, you ever have occasion to attend a proper country revival? I ain’t talking about a quiet little gathering where the preacher talks on taking the country back for the Lord while your young’uns are off cutting out paper crosses and singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” I mean revival—steepled church with its doors and windows wide to the world; everybody crowding inside, fanning themselves from the heat; bodies swaying as the piano grinds; voices singing of sin and blood; preacher’s face streaked with sweat, Bible in hand as he paces, calling down the Spirit and shouting down the devil. You never been to one a those, I don’t expect what I tell you next will make much sense. Don’t make much sense to me neither, and that’s why I stay away from church. There’s no grace to a revival, only judgment, and maybe that’s the point of the whole thing. If a man of God can’t convince you to embrace heaven, I guess he figures scaring the hell out of you will accomplish the same thing.
Pretty much the whole town started making its way down to the Holy Fire after supper. Men and women and children alike, crowding into those pews and aisles. Didn’t take long for folk to notice not a single one of the kids who’d gone to Alvaretta’s was there. Even the Reverend’s own daughter was missing, having told her daddy the shakes in her bones were just too horrible. Medric wasn’t there neither. And though Maris Sullivan had shown up early with her Bible in hand, her husband the doctor had not. Just tired was what she told the Reverend, all those patients they’d seen over the week.
Didn’t take long for things to get hopping. Reverend had set the whole first pew apart special. Belle sat there, along with the mayor and the Fosters. Raleigh Jennings showed up late, having first stopped at a place in the woods across town for a revival of his own with his men of the Circle. He squeezed between Kayann Foster and Briar Hodge, who whispered to Chessie that John David had the right idea in deciding to skip the circus show. Of course the Holler’s new sheriff and his wife was there too. Not banished to the back where there was neither room nor air, but up front with the town’s elite.
My, but it was a sight to see. There was sick girls come for healing and parents come for answers, everybody determined to find both and scared they’d leave with neither. There was a power inside church that night. You could feel it straight off—anticipation and desperation and fear and anger, all coming together to explode. Medric couldn’t see much from the little side window of the funeral parlor across the street, but he could hear, and every note sung and word preached only filled him with more dread.
Reverend began with prayer like he always did, though this time he got down on his knees and bid everybody do the same, with mixed results. Lord or not, Chessie Hodge would never take such a position of submission without a measure of resistance and enough cussing to turn everybody in the front row red with embarrassment. It took Briar and Bucky both to get that woman back in her seat.
A silence settled in as David took the pulpit, broken only by the peeps and thrashings of the town’s girls under the witch’s curse. They sat apart from their families toward the back, huddled together like lepers, their only comfort the sufferings of one another. David looked at them and nodded in much the way Belle had seen him do with Naomi just the day before. Telling them all was well, the battle had already been won.
He spoke: “I feel the power of the Lord in this place tonight.”
And all his flock said, “Amen.”
“I will say I have not felt power these past days. I have searched for the Lord, friends. I have panted for Him as a deer pants for water. I have gone to Him as a broken man for the healing of my daughter, just as you have gone to Him for yours.”
“Amen.”
“And I know you’ve done so because we are a God-fearing people. We are a community of the righteous. The chosen few who carry the banner of heaven into a dark and desolate place.”
“Amen.”
“We war against the powers and principalities, legions of doom and destruction, the dominion of eternal night, and we are seen. Never let it be forgotten, good people. We are seen. By heaven, oh yes, and upon us the angels gaze and rejoice, for we are the light of the world. And yet every man and woman of God who dares speak His truth to an unbelieving generation will catch the devil’s eye as well. The Prince of Darkness will curse our light, for it reminds him of the beauty and truth he once possessed, and he will seek to snuff us out.”
Softer: “Amen.”
“And what is next when the devil finds us? Brothers and sisters, what shall we do? For a pale horse has come to Crow Holler, and its rider is death, and her name is the witch.”
David looked to the mayor as he said this. His hands flexed open and closed as he paced the floor, like thunderbolts danced between his fingers.
“Long have we known she lurks, hiding in the bowels of the mountain as she consorts with the powers of darkness and mocks our way of life. We let Alvaretta be. We believed the truce between us and thought that the Christian way. Well, I ask you tonight, good people—is there truly peace where darkness can dwell? Can we say there is light when evil is allowed to gather and grow?”
Louder: “Amen.”
“I say no. And I say I stand before you tonight as one accused no less than any of you. I know of Alvaretta Graves. I’ve seen her power. I know what she seeks. And I know I am not the only one.”
Wilson’s eyes narrowed.
“I stood idle even as the Lord charged me with protecting Crow Holler. I did not seek out Alvaretta Graves and demand she turn from her wickedness or flee our town. And for that, I have failed you all.”
There came no amen at that, friend, just the silence of a people shocked and stricken. And it was right about then pretty much everybody inside the Holy Fire started realizing this weren’t like any revival they’d ever been to.
“Yes,” David said, “I have failed you. I have not been a good pastor. At times, I have not been a good husband. And I’m sure you all know enough of my family to agree when I say I have not fulfilled my duties as a father. Only a few days ago, my Naomi went to a party with some of her friends. I won’t name them; you know who they are. I’m sure you’ve all heard stories of what happened after. Most of them will be wrong. Where we can all agree is those children run across the witch—led there by . . .” He paused. “Something. Devil or demon, call it what you will. But I know my daughter, and I know she speaks the truth. They were cursed. Now that curse is ours. All of ours.”
The Reverend stopped his laps back and forth on the raised stage. He looked out over all those faces staring back in nods and tears and want, and I think he realized what his flock needed wasn’t the holy sword of God’s Word or the threat of damnation, but the truth. Only that. He laid his Bible down and stepped forward to the small ledge in front of the pulpit, where he sat. And when David spoke next, it was no longer as one of authority. It was as one of them.
“What are we doing, good people? The witch comes for our children, and so we come at each other? We lay the burden of what has happened on the victims, but not ourselves? We destroy the property of those we love, people who share this same building with us every Sunday and pray and worship and give of their labor so that our lives may be sustained. Can we call such a thing of God?
“Brothers and sisters, I will tell you with joy that according to Maris Sullivan, there were no new instances of the curse brought into the clinic today. Praise the Lord for that.”
“Praise Him,” came the reply.
; “But I tell you with a heavy heart that those who suffer from it suffer still. I have spoken with many of you these last days. I have prayed over your stricken children, and I will be the first to say it has had no good effect. They are still sick. They are still hurting.
“Look at our children back there,” he said, pointing, “and tell me who it was did this. Was it anyone other than Alvaretta Graves? Should that not be where our rage is focused?”
Someone tried, “Amen,” but David was already shaking his head.
“Should it be the creature Alvaretta summoned to draw our children her way?” he asked, and this time no one said a word. “No. If we want to know where to lay blame, let us look not to the witch or the darkness in which she dwells. Let us look to ourselves.”
And now silence. One so deep and penetrating that it seemed a spirit in itself.
“Can we call Crow Holler a place of grace when we give safe harbor to one who has killed a man named Wally Cork and has ruined both crops and lives with her incantations?”
The Reverend now looked at Chessie and said, “No more than we can call ourselves children of the living God if our right hands dip into the poisons of this world even as our left hands reach heavenward in praise.”
To Landis and Kayann: “Or seek the fruits of the earth rather than those of the Spirit.”
To Angela: “Or seek the Lord’s blessings while refusing to see how He’s blessed us already.”
And, finally, to Wilson: “Good people, can we ever hope to overcome the poison of the witch’s deeds if we do not confess the poison in our own? And I mean to confess, brothers and sisters. What has befallen us is what we deserve.”
“That’s enough,” Wilson said.
Chessie and the Fosters seemed to agree. Angela, too, though she was so embarrassed by then she couldn’t say it right out.
“You turn all that’s happened around to us, Preacher?” Wilson said. “That ain’t right, David.”