The bloodroot and yellow-root she found easily enough. Their leaves were dried around the roots and she just had to shuffle the leaves. Ginseng was harder to find because people had started to dig it up to sell. Eva finally gave up and went back towards the house. Her frustration was growing.
“Please Lord, help me! We need to help Adelaide. It might be selfish but I just can’t lose my girl, Lord. She’s all we have left and we need her!” Eva slumped against a tree in the forest and let her tears flow, sobbing loudly as her body shook with her grief. It had been a hard couple of months and there was no end in sight.
Eva finally picked herself up and walked back to the house. There’d been no answer but she needed to be patient. Sometimes the Lord worked slowly, you couldn’t rush him.
Eva heard Adelaide’s screams before she even got to the front door. She rushed in to see her daughter tearing at her own flesh, her eyes unseeing once more as she stared at her own arms. The skin was bleeding badly and Eva watched as Adelaide dug her now shortened nails into her own flesh, tearing at it.
Malachi was trying to hold her down and tie her arms up but couldn’t manage both tasks on his own. Eva moved, pulling the girls left arm up then her right so Malachi could tie them once more. She finally realized that the screaming was words and felt new heartbreak as she realized what Addy was screaming.
“Not my skin. It’s not my skin. Get it off of me, it’s not my skin!”
In Adelaide’s world her skin was white once more, the day was gone, and the world was black, lit only by campfires spread around the village. They weren’t letting her out of the cage anymore; their ritual to turn her into one of them had changed her skin but not her mind. Her mind was still her own.
She’d stopped praying however when her lamentations and begging had resulted in nothing. They were still torturing her and despite her white hair and white skin her eyes were still their normal brown. She knew this because they kept pointing at her eyes and she’d finally figured out there was no glow around her, just her normal vision. The Lord had abandoned her but she supposed his one concession had been allowing her to remain herself, if only partially.
She was losing her mind, she knew that, knew that well. You couldn’t endure all of this and not lose it. She tried to pull her own flesh from her skin so they staked her out once more, restarting the ritual that was supposed to claim her body and soul. But she remembered her mother’s words from another time, another place.
“Jesus loves me! He will save me. You can’t overcome the will of the Lord. I am a child of God. You must stop this at once!”
The naked people around her ignored her words and kept pounding stakes into the ground. Adelaide tried to struggle, tried to break free, but the men were strong and she only grew weaker with each passing moment. Finally she collapsed, her body and mind going somewhere else, to that dark place where nothing intruded.
She couldn’t feel her body twitching or the sharp clench of her jaw as the seizure shook her body, she didn’t know anything at all. Reality, or her version of it, brought her back to the cage, growing smaller with each day now as the drying sinew pulled at the wood it held together. She’d started to notice that every time she came back from the black place that the cage had grown just a little smaller. The cage that had been as large as a room was barely big enough for her to stand up in now. She had to pull her head down slightly to keep from rubbing against the top.
Adelaide wondered what would happen when she woke up with no room left. Would the cage crush her or would she finally break free of it? Did she just have to hold out until the cage shrunk that much? Would she be free then or would they just build another cage as they performed the ritual over and over again. She’d lost count of how many times they’d done it now. It never fully worked though, her eyes remained her own and her mind did as well.
Adelaide sat down in her cage once more, determined to find a way to break out of her prison. She didn’t know if she’d be able to escape them once she broke free but she’d die trying if she had to. Her parents needed her and she wanted out of this Hell.
Adelaide moved to a dark corner of the cage as a group of men approached her. She dreaded their presence. This was also a daily occurrence. It could be worse but this part made her cringe as she worried about the day this ritual changed.
“You choose mate.” The biggest of the men said, a tall man with a cruelly scarred face.
“No.”
“You choose mate!” Adelaide knew he’d repeat the demand four more times then go away, frustrated. She dreaded the day they decided to take away the decision, she knew it was coming.
“You choose mate.”
Adelaide turned away from the men, refusing to look at any of them. There was no point in refusing, eventually they’d decide for her. All of the men were hideously scarred, some with open wounds or sores that continued to grow worse as her time there passed. She couldn’t count days because it was always dark in this place now.
“You choose mate!”
Adelaide put her hands over her ears and started to hum to herself, willing her mind to retreat to that dark place she’d come to love so very much. This time it wouldn’t come though and Adelaide listened as the men finally stomped away. She decided to try praying once more. Perhaps she’d given up too soon.
“Dear Lord, please bring me from this place. If I’ve died, because I’m starting to think this is really Hell and you’ve sent me here, please just let me know I’m dead. I could maybe come to accept this place if I knew I was dead, but I’m not certain. I dream about my Momma and Poppa so surely I’m alive somewhere? Please, Lord, hear my plea. Let me go home. They need me and I can’t take much more of this place. Please Lord, I just want to go home!”
Adelaide’s quiet prayer ended with a sob as she sank to the ground, longing for the soft cushion of her mother’s lap. She didn’t know if she’d ever get to feel that again.
Chapter Ten
“I can’t find ginseng anywhere, Malachi.” Eva’s words were a cold dose of water over Malachi’s already flushed skin.
He shifted in his seat on the couch. “I’ll go look for some, Eva. I’ll be gone about an hour or so.”
Malachi wasn’t feeling well but he was willing to do whatever it took to help his daughter. He wrapped himself in his long winter coat, a scarf Eva had knit for him from black wool, and put on the matching mittens. He picked up a spade once he was outside and headed off into the woods.
Malachi had a hard time, even with the ground dried after the last snow had melted. The pain pills the doctor gave him helped but he still didn’t balance well on the knee. He stumbled a few times as he headed for the spot where he knew a patch grew and finally sat down at a tree. He felt incredibly hot, sweaty, and clammy for some reason. He hadn’t gone far from the house but he felt sick to death as though he’d just marched twenty miles.
He rested against a tree, wishing he still smoked cigarettes but Eva had made him give up that habit when he came home from the army. He hadn’t wanted one in years but now he did. Just something to calm his racing heart and give him some pep. He breathed in deeply, trying to ease some of the indigestion in his chest but it didn’t help.
His eyes soon closed and Malachi dreamed he was sitting with an old army buddy, one that had been killed in battle, as so many had.
“You know this isn’t right, don’t you Malachi? It’s that old hillbilly nonsense we talked about so often.” Marshall spoke with the authority of the city bred.
“I would have said so a month ago myself, Marshall. But I’ve seen things, things I can’t explain and that Eva can.”
“Have you really seen what you think you’ve seen Malachi, or is it just an unobservant mind filling in the blanks?” His old friend, still young, asked as a cigarette dangled from his lips.
Malachi reached out for the cigarette and Marshall handed it over. Malachi took a long deep drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs. He felt the familiar sensation and blew the s
moke out, enjoying the taste of the unfiltered tobacco.
“No, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I know what I’ve seen. She levitated off that bed, her eyes bleed, I’ve seen them too, but I ain’t told Eva about it. Them people she goes on about. I’ve seen them lurking around Addy’s bed. That night Eva was gone I kept chasing them off with my Bible in my hand but they tormented her awful.” He took one more drag of the cigarette then gave it back.
“Did you see them Malachi, or did you see shadows?” Marshall asked smugly.
“Oh buzz off Marshall. I ain’t got time for your foolishness or your questions today. Just buzz off!” Malachi struggled to get up and realized he was asleep. He woke up to see the sun had started to set and he hadn’t even made it to his patch yet!
How was he going to explain this to Eva? She must be worried too; he’d been sitting there sleeping for hours!
He rushed back to the house, feeling much better now. He went in to see his wife in tears but happy to see him home.
“I thought I’d lost you! Oh Malachi, we can’t go on like this, we just can’t. Come in, sit down, you’re freezing my darling!” Eva guided Malachi to the couch and put a blanket over his lap. She’d crocheted it from yarn out of old sweaters she’d pulled apart when they started to get holes in them.
Eva sniffed at him then looked at him like she’d caught him snatching cookies from the jar.
“Have you been smoking Malachi Harmon?”
“What? No! I haven’t even held a pack of tobacco in ten years.”
“I swear I can smell it on you. Anyway, you’re home, that’s all that matters. What happened to you, you don’t look too good?”
“I’m alright my love. Just got a bit distracted and lost. I’ll go out again tomorrow, I promise.”
“Are we doing the right thing, Malachi? I have my doubts, but I know I’m right. I can just feel I’m right.”
“Did you ever tell Addy about these people at any time, Eva?” Malachi asked the question that had been bugging him for a while now.
“No, never. You told me not to.” She said a bit defensively.
“No, it’s alright darling, I was only asking. How would she know about them otherwise?”
“I suppose someone else could have told her. But surely she’d have mentioned it somewhere along the way.” Eva looked rattled for a moment, wondering who might have told Adelaide about the Moon-eyed people.
“I don’t think she ever knew about them. That’s why I started to believe you. She started talking about them but she didn’t know about them. She couldn’t do that if she wasn’t seeing them.”
Eva thought Malachi was right and patted his hand, hoping the intimacy of her touch expressed her love.
“The Lord will provide, Malachi. One way or another our Lord will provide. We just have to be willing to accept what he does provide. I’m not sure I can but I’ll try.”
Malachi wasn’t so sure anymore, he wasn’t sure about much at all. The only thing he was certain of was that none of them could endure much more and he was tired. He was tired to his very soul and his indigestion was back. He had a funny feeling running down his arm as well that was starting to worry him as well. He was certain Eva and Adelaide were exhausted as well. Both were developing dark circles under their eyes and Eva’s usually plump face was starting to develop hollows he’d never seen there before.
No, they couldn’t take much more of this and something had to give soon. Malachi shifted on the couch, reaching for his Bible once more. He felt as though he’d read every page a hundred times but still no answers came. He put the book down while Eva saw to Adelaide once more, wondering if it was his own wavering faith that was the problem.
Malachi couldn’t help it if he didn’t have the blind faith so many others did. He’d been taught to accept the words without question, to see them as holy but the things he’d seen in his life, the injustices and the cruelty shown to some while others lived a happy and carefree life just made no sense to him. All the unanswered prayers that seemed to go unheard, why would the Lord let so many of his children die as they had, due to accidents or illnesses?
Malachi knew all of the answers people gave, the Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes the Lord’s greatest gift was not answering a prayer, who are we to question the will of the Lord? That didn’t mean he couldn’t reject those answers as nonsense, even if he didn’t say so out loud. But he’d also seen things he couldn’t explain with logic, things that defied science, like Marshall, the ghostly inquisitor who left the smell of cigarettes on him somehow.
Malachi felt as though his soul was being torn apart and had never quite admitted his problem to anyone, not even his wife. He knew most wouldn’t understand and would tell him he needed to just pray about it. He’d tried that. He’d tried just having faith and he couldn’t do that either. Malachi felt like Job but without the faith that Job had to get him through. He felt certain that this haunting was real, this possession, whatever you wanted to call it. He’d seen things now that he just couldn’t explain.
How could he care for his daughter’s soul, guide her back to them if he had no faith to do that with? How could he fight this evil if he had no good within him to fight it with? He couldn’t be good if he was not a believer, only the true believers were good, that’s what he’d been taught anyway. Perhaps it was time to talk to Eva.
He considered it, ran the conversation through his mind, and dismissed the idea. Eva would just fuss at him for even questioning what their community held as sacred, holy, and above reproach. She had the faith he lacked.
Maybe she had enough for both of them? He wondered and settled back into the couch. This pain in his chest was not getting any better. He just needed some rest he told himself, there wasn’t anything wrong with him, he just needed some rest.
Eva came back into the living room and saw that Malachi was asleep once more. She pulled the blanket up over his chest and sat down in a chair at the table. Something was wrong with him. She’d go after the doctor tomorrow if he was no better. She didn’t know how she’d cope with two sick people to care for but she’d find a way.
Eva pulled out another piece of paper and started another letter to her sons. She thought she’d have heard something from them by now, at least a get well wish to Adelaide, but she’d received nothing. Her last letter must not have made it to them. That was the only way she could explain the lack of communication. Her boys were busy but not so busy they couldn’t respond to their mother surely?
She started the letter with that very question, did you not receive my letter? Why haven’t you responded? Your father and I are having a very tough time, she wrote. Your sister is very ill and now your father is ill as well.
She went on to tell them about the madness that had been going on for so long and told the boys how hard it had been to cope. She wrote that she didn’t want them to come rushing home but a letter back would have been nice. For the first time she gave a gentle rebuke to the boys for being gone so long without even checking on their family.
Eva could take a lot in life, and had, but her sons should at least acknowledge their mother. She’d done the very best she could for them, encouraged their studies. Malachi had taken up the slack for the boys when they had tests at school or projects to do. If this was the thanks they were going to get, this callous disregard for what was happening to their family, then they could just stay out there in that faraway place.
She felt a bit better after writing the letter, some of her frustration released, and put it aside, meaning to rewrite the letter later without so much anger. She knew her boys were busy but deep down she was starting to question their behavior. Were they ashamed of their family? No, she decided, she would send the letter the next time she had to go out or the doctor came out. It was time they answered some of her questions. She deserved that much.
Chapter Eleven
Eva gave her letter to one of the neighbor boys that came the next day to check on them once or twice a
week and went through the house dusting all the nooks and crannies she could find. Adelaide was quiet and Malachi was still in bed. She was worrying about him and asked the boy to have his mother call the doctor for her. Malachi’s color was off and he wasn’t staying awake very long when he did wake up. This had all taken its toll on the man and he just couldn’t fight anymore.
It was alright, she had enough fight in her for all of them. She’d promised the boy a chicken if he found her some ginseng as well. She told him the root had to be fresh, not dried and hoped he’d bring her some. Luckily the chickens had been plentiful in their hatching this year. She had quite a few left, enough to breed a new crop of hatchlings next spring anyway. The older hens and roosters would go in pots over the winter to keep them all fed.
Eva wished she had a record player just to kill some of the quiet. She didn’t so she hummed some of the songs she knew to herself as she cleaned, occasionally stopping to look out of the window. She wasn’t sure why but she felt like she was supposed to be keeping an eye out for someone. That was part of the reason she was cleaning, she felt like she had visitors coming. Perhaps it was just sending the letters out to the boys, but she felt like visitors were on their way so she wanted the house spotless.
Around midday she sat down on the couch to have a little rest and was asleep within five minutes. She was tired as well and found she couldn’t open her eyes after a couple of minutes. She stopped trying. For once in a long time the house was quiet, nothing needed doing, and she had time.
Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story) Page 29