Eva stood and wandered through the house, turning off the lights and settling the wood burning stove and cook stove for the night. The stoves would keep the house warm at least. And in the morning she’d get up and go to town, whether Malachi liked the idea or not. If it had stopped snowing she was going to go into town and talk to that man. They had to do something for Adelaide. She knew that the girl couldn’t take much more and if she could help she would.
Eva didn’t rest well but got up the next morning prepared to go out as far as she needed to. She looked in on Adelaide and saw she was still tied to the bed, her eyes closed. Eva cleaned her up, put fresh clothes and sheets on the bed, and released her bonds before she woke Malachi up. She was calm now; almost comatose really, she didn’t need to be tied. Eva rubbed some salve into the raw marks on Adelaide’s wrist and felt like her soul was burning in Hell already for agreeing to tie the girl up.
“Where are you going?” Malachi asked sleepily as he came out of their bedroom, scratching at his hair.
“There isn’t much snow. I’m going to find this Ben fella and talk to him. Find out what we can do. If the doc shows up don’t let him take her!” Eva stood firm, her face set in a stubborn line Malachi knew not to argue with.
“Make sure you’ve got dry socks with you then, and take some stuff to make a fire, just in case you get stuck somewhere. And wear your knit scarves, it’s going to be cold out there. Take some biscuits too, just in case.” Malachi seemed to run out of words at that point and stood with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t like it, he felt useless, but he knew it had to be done.
“You can deal with her better than I can. This doesn’t make you weak Malachi; it makes you the stronger one because you have to put up with that. It might take a couple of days to find the guy but I’ll be back as soon as I can. I love you.”
She kissed his lips, ran her hand over his fuzzy cheek, and left, already focusing on the walk down. The snow made it a slippery walk but the unmarked snow also gave her some traction in places. She walked very carefully, pacing each step to make sure she didn’t slide.
Eva breathed in deeply, the cold air helping her to concentrate. She had just put her foot down on the road when she felt her shoe sliding along the slick surface. She tried to correct the way she stood but her foot kept sliding, twisting as she fell on her side. Her head hit the pavement and she started to scream as she heard a car approaching. The fear overwhelmed her, and with the stress she’d already been feeling combined, Eva did something she had never done in her life. She passed out cold as the sound of the engine grew closer.
∞
Eva became aware of being in a warm soft bed, the sunlight that had hurt her eyes now gone. She cracked an eyelid, realized she wasn’t in her own bedroom and sat up, pushing the thick pile of quilts covering her down to her feet. Her head felt woozy as she sat up and she put her hand out to steady herself.
“Woah, Eva, take it easy sweetie.”
Eva looked up to see her friend Maisy and Doctor Avery looking down at her.
“Where am I?” She asked, confused.
“You’re at my house. My husband found you out on the road and brought you here. I called Doc Avery and he came to look you over. You’re exhausted honey, totally exhausted. And you’ve twisted your ankle, you’re not going to be walking anywhere for a while.” Maisy told her, sitting on the side of the bed.
“How long was I out?” Eva wondered out loud, seeing no sunlight glowing through the curtains.
“Well, it’s around seven in the evening now. It’s gone dark already. You’re going to have to stay here tonight. Most of that snow melted today but the roads are freezing up again. Doc Avery said he’d take you back home once the roads are passable.”
“I sure will, Eva. What brought you down here? Is Adelaide worse?” The younger man asked.
“I don’t know that she’s worse but she sure is acting strange. I actually came looking for Maisy’s cousin Ben. Malachi wants to talk to him.” Eva tried to give Maisy a conspiratorial look but guessed she failed miserably because the woman just looked at her expectantly.
“Well, he knows about things don’t he? Things doctors don’t know a lot about.” She tried to be cryptic but could see the doctor figured her out. Maisy did too because understanding dawned on her face.
“Ah, right. Yes. Well he’s just next door; I’ll go talk to him and see if he’ll come over. You just sit here with Doc Avery and have a chat, alright?” Maisy’s grandmotherly face broke into a considerate smile and she gave Eva a gentle hug before she left. “I’m so glad you’re awake now. I was so worried for you!”
“Thank you, Maisy. Hello there Doctor Avery.” Eva tried not to look guilty as she stared at her hands. She didn’t want the doctor to know what they were up to but knew he suspected already.
“I wish you’d have let me know things hadn’t improved up there, Eva. I know it’s difficult but I could have helped.” He sounded sad and Eva felt even guiltier. “I’m waiting on some letters from my colleagues now, they’ve sent me some information and reports about injuries such as Adelaide’s suffered. They didn’t want to give me a diagnosis over the phone but they did suggest we take her to a proper hospital. I’ve put it off to respect your wishes but Eva, we need to get her to a hospital as soon as possible.”
Eva refused to meet his gaze. “I ain’t letting you take my girl off to the crazy house. She’s not crazy. I’ve heard tales about those places, about the horrors that go on in them. I ain’t letting nobody do those things to my girl!”
“Eva! Who said anything about taking her to an institution? I’m just talking about a hospital.” Doctor Avery was confused; he didn’t understand why Eva thought he’d meant anything else.
“Yes, well, that’s as it may be, but I know what comes next. Some other doctor comes in, declares her crazy, and I never see her again. I know how these things work for poor folk like us. The state would rather hide her away than help us out! Out of sight, out of mind. That’s not happening to my little girl!”
“Eva, I’d never let anything like that happen to Adelaide. Ever! I swear that to you.” He assured her.
Eva still refused to look at the doctor and shook her head.
“I said no. Let us handle things our way, please. If it doesn’t work we might talk about bringing her down here to you but she’s not going anywhere she can disappear from.”
Eva was adamant about that and refused to talk to the doctor about it anymore.
“How’s my ankle? How long before I can walk. It don’t hurt me none, maybe I can get back in the morning?”
“I’ll take you home in the morning but you won’t be walking much anytime soon on that ankle. I gave you some pain medicine; it won’t be hurting you for a while.” Doctor Avery told her, his words sounding defeated.
“Good, could you give Malachi some of whatever it is? His knee is paining him awful but he won’t admit it. It’s not helping his temper none and with everything else we’re suffering, a little relief from that knee pain would do him good.”
“I’ll make sure to bring something up with me in the morning. I guess I’ll head home then. Have Maisy call me if you start to have any other problems in the night. That was apparently quite a nasty fall you took. Your face is probably going to be bruised tomorrow but I believe you’ll be alright. You might have a knot on your head but I don’t think it’s anything like Adelaide suffered. Just let me know if you need me, alright?” Doctor Avery shook her hand before he left, taking his black bag with him.
Eva hated upsetting the man but she was afraid of her daughter being drug off when she just knew that she could help her. If only her sons had come home, they could help her. But she hadn’t even had a letter back from them. Eva sniffed back her tears and waited for Maisy to come back in. She’d get some answers now, she just knew it.
Maisy wasn’t long and she soon brought her cousin Ben in with her to see Eva. The man was a few years younger than Eva and Maisy but he
looked decades younger. Town life treated you better than life in the hills did, it seemed. Maisy lived in town with her husband but up until ten years ago they were in the hills too. Maisy’s kids had gotten really good jobs and moved their parents out of the hills. Eva had to sniff back tears once more as she thought of her sons who couldn’t even write her back.
Eva felt a moment of rejection and then anger as she thought about her sons. They’d just left and not come back. She’d told herself they’d be back, some day they’d come back. They hadn’t so far, not even when Eva wrote to tell them their sister was in bad shape. She allowed herself a moment of resentment then pushed it away, she had more important things to worry over.
“Howdy, Ben. I got some questions for you. Maisy, where’s my handbag? I need to write this stuff down.”
Maisy handed Eva her bag but also handed her some pink paper decorated with roses. It was the finest paper Eva had ever seen and she was speechless for a moment as she looked at the paper and matching pen. She wrote her name with the pen and was amazed at how smooth it was compared to the scratchy pencil she’d been keeping track of for years now.
“That’s amazing! Thank you Maisy. Now Ben, tell me how to deal with the Moon-eyed people. Malachi said you’d know how to deal with them.” Eva let her excitement and desire to know overrule her manners.
“Pardon?” The man asked, taking a chair.
“That’s what’s wrong with my daughter. Those demons are trying to take my daughter from me.” She responded, her words quick and fast. “They are terrorizing her. I need your help and Malachi said you could help.
“Well, did you put up hexes?” The man asked his words tentative. He was used to being made fun of over this, not treated as a sage.
“I sure did, just like my momma taught me. They didn’t work.”
“Ah, they got to her good before you found her then. Maisy said Malachi found her in the road. I bet they’d been tracking her the whole time.”
“What do you mean? Do you think they caused her accident?” Eva had wondered the same thing. They were devious those Moon-eyed people.
“Oh I’m certain of it. If they got through the hexes then they had marked her already. You’re going to have to make a difficult choice now. The cure ain’t so simple and it could kill her.”
“No.” Eva was devastated at this news.
“Yes, it could. You’ll have to go up in the woods, find some ginseng, some yellow-root, and blood root. You know what blood root is right? It’s that one that looks like it’s bleeding when you snap it. You can’t use the dried stuff, you have to use the fresh and it’s going to be hard to find at this time of year. It usually ain’t growing good until the spring.”
“Right, we’ll find it. What then?”
“Well this is the hard part. You’ll have to wait until the full moon, two weeks from now, and at midnight you have to slit her wrist and rub the blended herbs into her wounds. Then you have to let her blood drain out until she’s almost dead, sew the wounds up, then you have to take your Bible and cast them out while you hold your Bible. That will get rid of them.”
Eva looked at the man like he’d gone insane. “And how do I know when it’s time to sew her up?”
“That’s the hard part. You need to let most of her blood drain out but not too much.”
“You come and do it then. You know how much is enough.”
“It has to be a parent or relative. It can’t be me or the doc, or even Maisy. It has to be one of you.”
Eva was horrified. “This is the only way to get rid of them?”
“It is, ma’am, the only way. I’ve seen it work too. It’s the only way to cure your daughter.”
Eva sighed, and looked down at the words she’d written. Slit her wrist, she had to slit Adelaide’s wrists. She didn’t know if she could do it, and she wasn’t sure Malachi could do it either. That was a hard thing to ask of a person.
“Thank you Ben. I appreciate your help.” She spoke as the man got up to leave.
“You’re welcome Ms. Eva. You need to know anything else you just let me know.”
Eva didn’t hear his words, she was still staring down at the paper advising her to slit her own daughter’s wrists and let her blood drain out until she was almost dead. She wasn’t sure this was the way either. But if it saved Adelaide, maybe she could.
Chapter Nine
“Are you out of your mind?” Malachi stared at his wife the next day, almost wishing she had never left. Not because of the horrid night of worry and constant fits from Adelaide but because of the words she spoke to him once the doctor had left. Doctor Avery had insisted once more that Adelaide needed a hospital after looking her over but the parents insisted they knew what was best. Now Malachi wasn’t so sure that they did know better.
“No, it’s what Ben told me we had to do.” Eva spoke quietly, washing her daughter’s sweaty face clean once more. The girl and her father had a rough night it seemed. “What happened exactly?"
“About an hour after you left she started that weird talking stuff she does. First real low and quiet, then high-pitched and screaming. She was screaming for us to find her, to free her from the snow-white people. Then this growling stuff started and she started rising up off of the bed again. I’d do almost anything, Eva, almost anything, but I’m not cutting her wrists. I’m not sure I can let you do that either. I just don’t see how that can work.”
“I couldn’t either, Malachi but I prayed about it all night and it finally came clear to me this morning on the ride up here.” Eva spoke calmly but her words were a plea for understanding. “We have to get the bad blood out, they’re in her blood. If we starve them of her blood they’ll leave her be as they look for somewhere else to go. They’ll leave us all alone because they can’t get to us; we know what to do to keep them away.”
“But Eva, we could lose her.”
“We might anyway if we don’t.” Eva’s blunt words made them both feel cold and lost.
“You’re right.” Malachi’s shoulders slumped and he shook his head in agreement. “Let me think about it. I’m going to take a nap for now, that was one long night.”
“Sure darling, go ahead. I’ll get some supper going as well in a little while. I’ll get Adelaide settled in then I’ll cook. Get yourself to bed for now.”
Eva wasn’t happy to have to convince her husband to do this but they had to do whatever it took. And right now that meant cutting their daughter's wrists. Well, first they had to find the herbs, then do the ritual. Eva wasn’t sure she’d be able to find the herbs but she knew where the plants grew on their part of the mountain and if it took her a month of digging up frozen ground, that’s just what she’d do.
She went to get fresh water and came back in to find Adelaide awake and lucid for the first time in a long time.
“Oh Momma, where have I been?” Adelaide sobbed, her eyes clear for the first time, but filling with tears. “I’ve been to the most horrible place! I don’t want to go back there. Don’t let me go back there.”
“Hush now baby, Momma’s working on it, I swear. It’s the Moon-eyed people baby. You tell them to leave you be, that you’re a child of Jesus. Just tell them and fight them hard baby. You got to fight hard for your soul.”
“But Momma, I’m one of them in that world now. How can I fight them? They’ve made me one of them!” Adelaide wailed in misery and sobbed hard.
Eva let her cry it out, wiping her face gently. Adelaide soon fell back to sleep and Eva cleaned her up as well as she could without disturbing her daughter. If Adelaide could fight them on her own they wouldn’t have to do the ritual. Eva would search out the herbs but they’d give her time to fight on her own first.
Eva went into the kitchen and began peeling potatoes to go with their supper. Her nerves were so bad she could barely peel the potatoes; her hands were shaking. The weeks of terror and exhaustion were taking their toll. And the doctor had been right, her ankle was aching today. But he’d left pain m
edicine for her and Malachi, so hopefully that would help them both.
Eva pulled a deep breath into her lungs and let it out slowly, trying to steady herself. She had thinking to do. She felt like an awful mother, one moment trying to do some kind of exorcism on her daughter then contemplating bleeding her almost to death. Surely she was in some kind of nightmare herself? This wasn’t really happening was it?
Eva remembered the day Adelaide had gone out as a bright and happy one. She’d been looking forward to canning the fruits her daughter brought back and enjoying supper with her. Adelaide had always been so helpful and sweet. What came home that night had started this nightmare world she now lived in.
That reminded her of Adelaide’s words. I’m one of them now. That’s what Adelaide had said. Eva could see that she wasn’t one of those pale white people, though she was paler than she had been that day. Illness and lack of sunlight were taking their toll on the girl’s skin but she wasn’t as pale as those people were said to be. Was she really one of them now?
Eva caught a flash of something out of the corner of her eye and turned, wondering if Adelaide had gotten up from the bed. There was nothing there but Eva felt herself go cold. It had been something white and tall. She immediately went and checked on Adelaide. The girl was having another fit and Eva went in to try to soothe it out of her.
“You can’t win.” Adelaide’s words were strangled and garbled but Eva understood.
“Yes I can. I’m her mother, I’ll always win.” Eva promised, holding her daughter’s thrashing body.
Eva stayed until the fit was over, cleaned Adelaide up, then went back to preparing dinner. As soon as she was done with that she went through every room in the house, casting the hex that would keep them all safe. Her resolve hardened. She would not be beaten, Adelaide was her daughter.
Eva got up as soon as the sun came up the next morning and went out looking for the herbs. She’d taught Adelaide where to look for them; she knew where they were as well. She had the hardest time with the ginseng. She looked for hours and couldn’t find any. She’d have to send Malachi out for some or ask one of the boys that came up to find some for her. She’d gritted her teeth to find this batch but her ankle had become inflamed as she walked and now it was paining her fiercely, the doctor had been right about that part, anyway.
Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story) Page 28