From Twisted Roots

by Tobias Wade

  Four days after Leah first dreamed of her co-worker, Carlotta put a pistol to her head, just above her ear, and pulled the trigger.

  “Her family said she’d been struggling with depression for a while, but they thought she’d been getting better,” Leah told me on her way back from the funeral.

  “People hide things too well, sometimes.”

  “Something’s going on, Jackie,” she said grimly. “I’ve dreamed of people twice now, and both times they’ve died in a way similar to my dreams.”

  “I know,” I reluctantly replied. “It’s weird, but…”

  “But what can I do about it,” she finished for me. “I don’t know.”

  “Me neither.”

  I wished I could help ease her mind and give her an explanation for what was happening, but we were both equally lost. She sounded so worn out when we hung up, so unlike herself. I almost started to cry.

  I was woken late that night by my phone ringing on my bedside table. I felt around for it and practically dropped it against my ear with a sleepy, “Hello?”

  “I had another one,” Leah was shaky and breathless. “Addy, my supervisor, there were maggots! They were falling out of her mouth and burrowing from her stomach. Something’s going to happen to her!”

  It took almost an hour to get Leah calm again. She wanted to call Addy then and there, at one in the morning, to warn her that she was mere days away from death. I finally convinced her that might work against her. At best it would make her seem like she’d gone off the proverbial deep end, at worst, coming across as threatening her boss.

  I booked a ticket on the first flight out at 8am the next morning before we’d even hung up.

  Leah met me at baggage claim. She was drawn and jumpy, sliding the teardrop pendant along its chain with nervous energy as I walked up. The hug she gave me was the tightest I’d ever received.

  “I’m not crazy,” she said after we’d gotten into her car.

  “If I were going to worry about your sanity, it would have happened a long time ago starting when you decapitated my teddy bear to see if he had a spine,” I said. I was relieved to see her crack the faintest of smiles.

  We let the ride lull us into silence until we got back to her apartment. Somehow, it just didn’t feel like the kind of conversation one had in a car. It was too big, too deep, too serious. She paced the living room once we’d gotten inside, and I perched on the arm of her couch, my arms folded over my chest.

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. “I was fine. Wo were Gary and Carlotta, and now all…” she waved an agitated hand, “this.”

  “I still think it could be coincidence. You noticed subtle signs, your brain did the math when you weren’t looking and spit it out as dreams.”

  “Come on, Jack, you don’t believe that. If you did, then why come all the way here?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “Something must have happened. You saw something or heard it, a trigger of some kind.”

  “Nope,” she shook her head. “Gary was the same dick as always. Carlotta was looking forward to her cousin’s wedding in a couple of weeks.”

  While she spoke, she constantly fiddled the pendant. The light glinting off its red stone drew my attention, and I watched it pass repeatedly between her fingers.

  Hadn’t I given her that necklace shortly before all this started? Hadn’t she been wearing it constantly since she received it? And hadn’t that gem managed to still shine in all of those photos that seemed to have a dark film over them?

  She must have noticed that I was distracted; she paused and followed my gaze to the necklace.

  “What?” she asked, looking back at me.

  “I was just thinking about what had changed before your dreams began and, well…”

  “You think my necklace has something to do with it? That’s...that’s...I want to say that’s stupid, but it makes about as much sense as anything else.”

  “Where’s that certificate that came with it?”

  We found it, folded up and tucked away in her kitchen junk-drawer after tossing through her living room and bedroom. The description on it was short, little more than what I’d read off in the car on the first day. It belonged to an eighteenth century herbalist, including a line thanking the DeWitt family for the piece.

  With nothing else to go on, we latched onto the name.

  Q quick internet search revealed a slew of DeWitts in the area. Only one branch of the family had articles dedicated to their wealth, philanthropic efforts, and their old ties to the community. They seemed like the best place to start looking for answers.

  Most of the family members named in the articles were unlisted, which wasn’t surprising given their prominent social status. The youngest daughter, Eloise, was an attorney however, and she had a website complete with contact information.

  “Should we call?” Leah asked with a hint of nervousness.

  “No,” I was already inputting the office address into my phone. “Come on, it’s already two. I want to make sure we get there before they close.”

  The Dewitt & Siegfield Law Firm was an imposing, modern building. The receptionist we met inside was an imposing, modern woman, all angles and sleek. She eyed us all the way across the lobby with a polite, but suspicious, stare. I guessed she didn’t see such casually dressed people wandering in very often.

  “We’re here to see Eloise DeWitt,” I said, keeping the question out of my voice.

  Direct and confident, that was what these sorts preferred. I hoped.

  “Is she expecting you?” The receptionist’s expression didn’t change.

  “No. We’re here to discuss an heirloom donation she made; it will only take a moment.”

  Beside me, I could hear Leah’s pendant sliding back and forth along the chain.

  We were told to take a seat while the receptionist put a call back to Ms. DeWitt. I kept expecting us to be told that she wouldn’t see us, to be dismissed. The receptionist hung up and simply returned to her work without another glance toward us. We sat stiffly on the leather couch, glancing between each other and then back at the receptionist, silently debating if we should ask what was going on.

  I was on the verge of getting up to approach again when the door beside the reception area beeped. It was pushed open by a petite woman with silver streaked hair and a stern countenance even when she was smiling.

  “Ms. DeWitt?” Leah spoke for the first time since our arrival.

  “You two must be from the Heritage Society. I apologize for keeping you waiting, I didn’t think our meeting was until tomorrow.” She held the door open for us, and we walked through without correcting her. “My office is the third door on the left.”

  She took her seat behind a large oak desk covered in files and paperwork and waved us into two chairs opposite her. She was still smiling while we got settled, until Leah was facing her with the necklace hanging in plain sight. The way her lips thinned and her shoulders squared was slight, almost imperceptible: the practiced control of a courtroom attorney.

  She knew something.

  “We’re sorry to just drop in like this,” I started to say, hoping to ease into the topic of the necklace, but Leah cut me off.

  “We’re not from the Heritage Society, we’re here because of this,” she jabbed a finger toward her neck. “Your family donated it to a secondhand store and, ever since I put it on, weird shit has been happening. I want to know why.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eloise replied primly, her hands folding atop her desk.

  “Bull you don’t,” Leah argued.

  “Ms. DeWitt, we just want to know—” Again I tried to speak, and again I was interrupted, this time by Ms. DeWitt.

  “I just told you, I don’t know anything about that trinket.”

  “And I told you that’s bull,” Leah, driven by sleepless nights and fear, slammed her hands on the desk and stood over her.<
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  “Do I need to call security?” Ms. DeWitt was reaching for her phone. I grabbed Leah’s wrist to drag her back into her seat.

  “We don’t want problems, ok? We just want to know what’s going on. If you’re worried about us repeating anything, we swear, anything you tell us stays here. My sister just needs answers—” I was beginning to wonder why I bothered at all; Leah started talking over me mid-sentence.

  “People are dying! And if it keeps happening, you better believe I’m going to find a way to tie it back to you and your whole family!”

  This was not the approach I had hoped to take. Ms. DeWitt studied Leah’s reddened face, weighing her options behind a slight frown.

  “How many?” Ms. DeWitt finally asked. “Have died, I mean.”

  “Two so far,” Leah relaxed slightly. “I had dreams for three days before both, and now I’m having them again about a third person.”

  “You’re lucky then. It took my family years to put the pieces together. We lost over a dozen while that...thing was in our possession.”

  “So it is the necklace that’s causing it, then?”

  “No,” Ms. DeWitt sat back and peered at the pendant from over the top of her glasses. “It’s what’s in the stone.”

  Eloise DeWitt was one of the last in a long line of descendants of Maeve Bringwell. According to their extensive family history, she’d been, as the certificate of authenticity had said, an herbalist who specialized in the healing arts. What it left out, however, was that she practiced in blood as often as she did herbs. Every remedy she provided, be it a poultice or potion, was said to contain blood. Sometimes it was her’s, sometimes it came from family members of the afflicted or animals she had sacrificed.

  She recognized that there was power in blood: a restorative property that she was able to tap into in times of need.

  Her gift was twofold. In addition to her use of blood, Maeve also had what came to be called the “healer’s sight”. She could see physical ailments that no one else could. Pregnancies, internal growths, rot; Maeve could pinpoint it all with total accuracy.

  She said that it came to her in her sleep, whispered by the Lord’s angels so that she might tend to His flock.

  When anyone dared to say that it was witchcraft or claimed she communed with Satan, Maeve would stand in the town square, reading from the bible and reciting prayers to prove that she was as God-fearing as any other good, Christian woman. It was simply her gift, and she gave it freely to her community.

  Even in the face of adversity, she continued her work. She was the reason they made it through poxes and diseases that wiped out nearby towns, and she was the reason that children became adults and adults became elders.

  And her husband was the reason she was put to death.

  He, along with a handful of others, including her father and brother, had grown to fear Maeve as a consort of the devil, and they conspired against her. They gathered while she slept one night and slipped into her bedroom where they stabbed her over and over again.

  She did not die right away and, in her final moments, she splashed her blood upon them and cursed them to have her sight without the power to help or heal.

  The legend said that her blood drops hardened into rubies upon contact with her killers. For weeks after, they would fall from their pockets and roll out of their shoes, marking them for their role in her death.

  “Supposedly, the nightmares followed, like the ones you had. They would see their loved ones being eaten alive by insects and animals and, shortly after, those same loved ones would die of sudden onset maladies. Maeve’s husband, possibly beset by guilt, started wearing one of the rubies around his neck until he hung himself some months later. That is the pendant you’re wearing now.”

  Ms. DeWitt nodded at Leah. “It’s been passed down for generations. Now whoever wears it sees as she did, but is unable to help or heal. If you’re around someone with an existing condition, physical or mental, it exacerbates it rapidly and in a matter of days, they succumb. I lost nannies to it, my brother, a teacher… The list goes on.”

  “There was a darkness in Leah’s photos since she put it on,” I said suddenly. “What is that?”

  “I’ve always assumed it’s Maeve. She becomes most clear right before a death, as if it makes her stronger. I’ve seen it happen many times in my own photos.” Ms. DeWitt’s voice became distant, fogged by memories.

  “And you just gave it away?” Leah’s voice quivered with a barely controlled rage I’d never heard before.

  Ms. DeWitt’s smile was razor thin. “It doesn’t matter. Give it away, try to destroy it, bury it, burn it. It always finds its way back. An eternal curse against the family that betrayed her.”

  My sister yanked the necklace and it fell away with a soft snap. She hurled it at the older woman as she shoved herself to her feet.

  “Good,” Leah hissed. “You deserve it.”

  I followed Leah back to the car, and we sat there for a long time, just staring at the office building.

  Leah never had another dream like those she’d experienced while wearing the necklace.

  She learned later that her supervisor, Addy, was rushed to the ER with a ruptured appendix that same day, but she survived.

  We didn’t talk about what happened often. There wasn’t much left to say. No one would believe us, but I knew Leah still struggled with some guilt afterwards. Instead of dwelling and being dragged down by it, though, she used it as motivation to return to school. She earned additional certifications in blood work and genetic studies and became a genetic counselor, helping people test for predisposition to hereditary issues and early detection.

  Maeve Bringwell had known the importance of blood. She knew there was power in it, and she’d used it, for better and worse, both in life and in death.

  Leah knew that power, too, even as a kid.

  It was what drew her to it.

  Although she would never admit it, I think Leah felt a kinship to the misunderstood Maeve, at least to the person she’d been before her murder. In her own way, Leah has chosen to continue seeing things that Maeve saw: the things that blood shows us if we know where to look. And like Maeve, Leah uses her power to help those around her heal.

  Ring Once

  I’d never been good in storms, but I was even worse in hospitals. When the choice came to visit Nana, my ma’s mother, or stay home and brave the thunder and lightning on my own, I only hesitated for a moment before making my decision.

  “You sure you don’t want to come, Hannah?” Ma asked, hovering uncertainly in the doorway leading to the garage.

  Dad was already out in the car waiting for her.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I didn’t add that this was my attempt at facing my fear of thunderstorms head on. I was thirteen already; it was time to stop being such a baby. Besides, I’d have Thaddeus, our five year old Lhasa Apso, with me. It wasn’t like I’d be totally alone.

  “Ok, we have our beepers if you need to reach us.” Ma shifted the large photo album in her arms and continued to linger. “We’ll only be a couple of hours.”

  Behind her, the garage door creaked open and the car started: Dad’s signal that he was getting impatient.

  “I’ll go with you next time. Tell Nana I said hi.”

  Ma planted another quick kiss on my head and checked just one more time that I was sure I wanted to stay home before finally leaving. I watched my parents pull out of the driveway from the living room window. I tried to ignore the fat, angry clouds gathering overhead, grabbing Thaddeus to head to my room to read.

  The storm broke only moments later.

  The first peal of thunder had my little dog pressed against my side. The second had him shivering so hard that my whole bed vibrated. I cuddled him close and whispered soothingly to him, hoping that he didn’t notice how I jumped with every rumble or flash of white lightning. I tried to distract us both by reading aloud.

&nbs
p; It worked for a while; I was so focused on the story that the howling wind and pounding rain became background noise. Thaddeus continued to shake, but between keeping his face buried in my side and (I like to think) the sound of my voice, it became more intermittent, only occurring when thunder actually rolled. I had thought we could ride out the whole storm together that way.

  A particularly bright flash of lightning followed by the immediate sharp crack of thunder proved me wrong.

  I squealed, Thaddeus whined, and we both bolted from my room, leaving my book face down and forgotten on the bed.

  “I was hungry anyway,” I grumbled, trying to save face as we hurried down the steps toward the kitchen.

  I turned on every light on the way down. It made me feel better, less alone, less like Mother Nature was going to burst through my windows. Thaddeus stuck close to my feet while I went from the pantry to the fridge and then back again, trying to decide what I wanted to snack on.

  The phone ringing shrilly from its place on the wall beside the fridge made my heart skip a beat.

  It rang just once, then went silent.

  I swallowed hard and looked down to Thaddeus, like he was the one who had been startled. “It’s just the phone, it’s ok,” I told him.

  He licked his lips and wagged his tail once in response. I knew he just wanted a bite of cheese (there was no storm big enough to make him not want cheese), but I took it to mean he agreed that we were fine. It had probably just been a misdial or something, and the person hung up when they realized their mistake.

  I put together a little plate of tortilla chips and cheese, some of which went to Thaddeus, and stuck it in the microwave to melt. Once it was done, we took our snack and went to the living room to watch cartoons at a high enough volume to block out the storm.

  A few minutes after we’d sat down, the phone on the living room table rang.

  A little less on edge this time, I reached for it and plucked the receiver from its cradle.

  “Hel—” I started to say, but was cut off by the dial tone.

  I frowned and set the phone back down. Maybe the storm was messing with the lines or something. I thought I remembered Dad saying that could happen when the weather got bad.