Forever Ash: The Witch Child of Helmach Creek (Frost & Flame Trilogy Book 1)

by Rick Kueber

  “Mom,” Shari started, “can I take this box of photos back to my apartment to look through tonight? I promise I will bring it back to you.”

  “Of course you can sweetie, but I’m gonna hold on to this one. I think I’ll hang it up in the sitting room at home.” Her mother said as she wrapped her arms around the framed memory as if hugging it. “We can come back tomorrow and go through some more boxes if you want.”

  Shari folded the flaps of the box over themselves to seal the top of the box saying “Okay. I’ll call ya in the morning.” She stood up and picked up the water stained, dusty box of her family’s history. “Do you need me to help with anything before I go?”

  “No, but thanks. I’m just going to leave everything right where it sits and lock up on my way out. Be safe sweetie, and have a good evening. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” Her mom smiled at her knowing how difficult it must be for Shari to say good-bye to her mom since her gramps had passed. Her mom was all that she had left, besides an aunt and a couple of very distant cousins.

  Shari was an only child, and at twenty-six had not had a relationship that lasted more than a few months with one exception. Her high school sweetheart had been her steady man since her freshman year and they had split up when he was almost twenty and had been in college for a year.

  Shari clumsily fumbled with the door knob trying to open it without dropping the box of precious history, and memories she was yet to have. She pushed past the front door shouting a final “BYE MOM!” as the door closed behind her. She sat the box on the hood of her car while she unlocked the car and opened the passenger side door. She placed the box carefully in the seat, closed the door and proceeded to get in the driver’s side. She sped off toward her apartment anxious to explore more of her pictorial family tree. Once home, she unlocked the front door and turned the knob leaving the door slightly ajar while she retrieved her precious treasure box from the front seat of her less than precious car. Inside the sparsely furnished apartment, she sat the box on the floor of the mostly empty living room.

  Heading to the kitchen for a sandwich and a soda, she found it strangely difficult to turn her back on the old cardboard container, and kept eyeing it over her shoulder, or peeking around the corner while she put her sandwich together. ‘Is it going to do something magical, or maybe someone is going to come through the door and snatch it up and run…’ she thought to herself, and she couldn’t resist the urge to stop right in the middle of the simple sandwich making task and go to the front door and lock it, peek out the window and then return to her makeshift meal. Sandwich made, and mess put away, she took her paper plate and aluminum can meal with her and sat next to the box on the living room floor. Holding her sandwich in one hand and taking a bite, she began opening the box with the other and removing one picture at a time ever so cautiously.

  She studied the faces and scenery of each photo intently making mental notes if she recognized any of the people or places. When she had looked at a dozen or so, she thought to herself that they seemed to be getting older the further down she dug. Not seeing anything familiar in one particular photo, she turned to the back and noticed a date, place of the photo, and the names of the two people in the photo, none of which rang a bell. With each new picture she drew out, she turned to the back to see that most had similar information penciled across them, though some of the letters or words were no longer legible. Shari was very intelligent and well organized, so she began to sort the photos by date, and laid them out across the floor, row after row. Each photo was someone's memory and even though they weren't hers, Shari felt an emotional attachment to them. They were, after all, her ancestors.

  When she neared the bottom of the box she found another box hidden beneath the photos. This one was about the size of a cigar box, but hand crafted of cedar with a brass latch on the front. Her curiosity was peaked and she took the wooden box with her to the dining table and turned on the overhead light. With a flick of her thumb she unhooked the brass latch and lifted the lid.

  Inside there were three envelopes with writing penned on the outsides of them. On the first envelope was written:

  Do not open! For A.S.H. Do not open! She carefully picked up the yellowed envelope. It was crisp and dry and she was afraid it might disintegrate in her hands, but it did not appear to have been touched since it was put into the box so many years ago. She could feel something inside the envelope, nothing paper, but something small and unusually shaped. She was careful not to disturb its contents, placing it cautiously on the dining table.

  The writing on the second envelope simply read:

  Deed to farm

  The words penned on the final envelope brought tears to Shari's eyes. They said: To: My dearest daughters

  It was getting late in the evening, but she couldn't wait until morning. Shari called her mother and told her about all of the wonderful pictures she had seen and about the hidden box within the box and the envelopes it contained. She described the beautiful penmanship and the words that were written on each envelope. She asked her mother to please come over and open the envelopes with her. The curiosity was more than either of them could bear. In less than an hour Shari's mother was dressed and had come over.

  Dr. Em stood up and cleared her throat bringing us all back to reality. “I need a drink of water. Would anyone else like something?”

  We all declined her offer and patiently awaited her return. When she did return, we were all on the edge of our seats awaiting the rest of the story. Dr. Em could have been an author or a narrator and done just as well as she had being a dentist. We were mesmerized by her tale, and the way that she conveyed the story to us was fascinating.

  While the good doctor excused herself from the room, we talked amongst ourselves, discussing a few things about our experiences and theories that we hadn't completely explained to each other. In a few minutes Dr. Em returned carrying an old dirty looking cardboard box. She placed it on the floor in front of us and knelt down. When she pulled open the flaps of the box dust sparkled in the sliver of sunlight that slipped past the edge of the curtains and cut its path across the room. Emily began to dig through the many layers of photos in the box and retrieved the small wooden box, placing it on one of the empty theater seats. Once opened she lifted out the envelope on top and showed us the envelope much the way a grammar school teacher shows a photo or page to their class.

  “Well, Sarah called me on her way to Shari's house and explained to me what had been found and how. I stayed on the phone with her listening to the story that you have just heard until she arrived and when the time came she read aloud the writing on the envelope that was addressed to us, and we both agreed it should be opened then and read aloud over the phone. So that is what happened. Inside the envelope was this letter.” With that she opened the envelope and removed the letter. She handed the empty envelope to Jenn, who studied it well, inside and out, and then passed it on to Katie who did the same, and then finally to me. While we conducted our inspection, Dr. Em unfolded the yellowed parchment and began to read the letter.

  “My dearest daughters, If you are reading this letter, it is most likely because I have passed on from this earth to be with our heavenly Father. I am sorry I did not take the time I should

  have with you both as your earthly father, and I am

  sorry that I did not tell you both how proud I am

  and always have been of you. Along with this letter,

  there are two other envelopes. One has all of the papers and the deed to a farm in West Virginia that our

  family has owned since the mid 1800's. No one has

  lived there since my great -great Grandfather Elijah Covand. There has been a trust account set up with the Greater Appalachian Bank of West Virginia and all of the property taxes and such will be paid for out of that fund. You will find information on the document on how to contact the bank and put the farm and trust into your names until it is passed to the next generation.

  That house and
the farm itself is cursed. Please do not attempt to go there, or sell our family farm. This is something our family has taken care of and passed down

  from generation to generation, and now the burden falls to you. Once you have the documents in order, find a safe place to keep them, and just leave them be until you are old and gray , and the next in line is ready to take responsibility. The third envelope in this box contains an item from the farm that my father, and his father believe to be cursed. Do not open the envelope. Do not even hold it for too long. This thing put the fear of God into my fore fathers, and now I pass it onto you, my daughters.

  Keep it safe, keep it hidden, and keep yourselves in the good graces of our heavenly Father. Your mother and I will meet you at the pearly gates.

  Until that day, You have all of our love,

  Your Father “...and at that point, we were all in tears. My sister, my niece and I were all so emotional, but also confused. I mean, every family has its secrets that they keep hidden from the world, but, to us, this was not just a secret, it was a mystery why this old family farm was never mentioned, and why it wasn't just sold to get it out of our family if this was such a cursed place...and if this place was so cursed, then why is this envelope,” Em pulled out the second envelope and placed it on the seat beside the wooden box, and removed the third envelope, held it up in the air for a moment and then handed it off to Jennifer, “...said to hold something cursed, and not to open it. Furthermore, who is this A.S.H., and why would a cursed item be saved for A.S.H.?”

  We each examined the envelope and the writing on it. Each of us carefully felt the envelope to try to figure out what its contents were. Tipping it from side to side it sounded like there may have been some loose sand inside, looking at it from all angles, we could see that there was an 'ovalish' egg shape on one end, and something oddly shaped that protruded off to one side. After all of the close inspections the only clue we had found was the presence of several blackish smudges.

  Watching Katie holding the envelope, I asked, “Humor me for a second, and imagine you have just placed this thing inside and pretend to do what you would do next, sealing the envelope.”

  Katie smiled and though we could tell she felt a bit silly doing it, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and when she reopened them, she had a very apathetic look on her face. Jennifer and I watched carefully as she acted out her interpretation of what would have happened. She picked up the envelope with both hands, pretended to lick the invisible flap, and then ran her thumb along the glued edge to seal it. She pinched the left corner of the envelope top and slid her thumb and pointer finger along the top edge as if to crease it. Then she did something we hadn't anticipated, she pressed the envelope to her heart and pulled it away looking at it and finally setting it down in front of her.

  “Did you see what I saw?” I asked Jenn.

  “The smudges? That's what I noticed. All of the black smudges coincide with where Katie's fingers touched the envelope.” “Exactly!” I picked up the envelope again and tipped it back and forth next to my ear, listening to the grains slide from side to side free of the object in question. “When this was put in this envelope, it was done by someone with dirty blackened hands, and I bet this dirt, sand, or whatever inside here is black too.”

  “You can see that this envelope is much older than the others. It is the only one with black smudges, and the hand writing is different. My guess is that this one wasn't done by your father.”

  “Yes, I agree” said the good doctor picking up the final envelope from the seat. It was obvious by its size that it contained several papers and was slightly larger than the others.

  “My sister called me back the next day and asked if I was interested in a weekend trip to West Virginia so we could transfer the deed and trust documents to our names. I truly wanted to go, but I had a seminar planned for that weekend and asked if she minded going without me. She said it would be alright with her, and that Shari wanted to go along anyway, so she wouldn't be traveling alone.” Dr. Em held us spellbound while she continued her story describing in detail the journey of her sister and niece and simultaneously arranging the ancient photos on the floor according to the dates on them.

  “The sun hadn't risen yet. It was a chilly Thursday morning in mid-March when Shari and her mother set out of the rolling foothills of the West Virginian Appalachians. They hadn't really gone anywhere together since Shari had moved out on her own. The sky began to turn periwinkle and from that everything began to brighten and though the spring felt like it was arriving very slowly, the world around them had begun to green up and the colors in the scenery around them sprang to life with the rising sun.

  It was a typical trip for them stopping every few hours to eat, use the restroom, grab a hot cup of coffee, or gas up the car. When they finally arrived in Summersville, West Virginia, it was nearly 3 p.m. and following the GPS they quickly found the bank in the old town square of the small town. They pulled up curbside in front of the antebellum brick building that housed the bank offices. Shari and her mom stepped out of the car and something caught her eye. Something glistened in the space between the street and the sidewalks, paved in brick and lined with black iron street lamps. Shari bent over and picked up a small coin. Golden in color and bearing engravings she was unfamiliar with, the date 1861, and 2 ½ on the reverse side. She held it up towards the sky between her thumb and index finger.

  'Look mom! It’s a gold coin! This must be my lucky day! I wonder what it’s worth.' She said looking at her mom with a smile beaming from ear to ear.

  'I don't know honey, but it could be very valuable if it's really gold, and we are at a bank. They might be able to tell us something.' Her mother walked up to her and holding the deed envelope in one hand, she reached out with the other and took her daughter's hand and strolled carelessly into the bank. Shari clutched the lucky coin in one hand and her mother's hand in the other. So far, this had been a very good day.

  After only a brief wait the two women were escorted back to the office of Tom Carlyle V.P. Shari turned toward her mother and whispered, 'You gotta love a small town bank.' Her mom smiled back at her and winked.

  Once inside the office the formalities began. Tom took the envelope containing the documents and within half an hour had the new paperwork ready to sign for the deed and the trust. After the business was finished Shari asked Tom Carlyle to take a look at the coin she had found.

  'Very interesting!' he said to her, turning on his desk lamp to get a better look. 'This coin is one, of course from 1861, and was originally valued at two and a half dollars. These were used to pay union soldiers during the civil war. Most of them were melted down for other purposes since then. According to history books, this was equal to a month’s pay back then. The gold weight value alone is going to be several hundred dollars, but today this little coin is worth about eight to ten thousand dollars to the right collector. Looks like your lucky day.' He handed it back to her and turned off his lamp.

  'See! I told you mom. It is my lucky day. Since I'm feeling so lucky, let's go find our old family farm and just take a look around.' 'I don't see what it would hurt. We are already here, and it’s supposed to be around here somewhere. We can stop for a little while if we can find it, but then we will have to get to the hotel so we can get a good night's sleep before heading back tomorrow.'

  Tom was new at this bank compared to most. He had been there for less than ten years, which was a short time in this little town. He didn't know about the farm, as it was a tightly guarded secret. There was a legend about a haunted house on a cursed piece of ground that everyone within fifty miles knew about and it was so well believed that even most adventure seekers refused to go there. Had Tom known that the farm they were heading out to find and the legend were one in the same, he would have urged them to not go with every ounce of conviction in his heart. The legend had been growing for over a hundred years and just talking about it scared some of the more superstitious locals.

&nbs
p; 'Ask Louise at the teller counter and she will give you a local map that shows a lot of the country roads that don't show up on the fancier maps and those high tech GPS things.' Tom motioned towards the counter, and the two of them left the office, getting the map from Louise, a plump, fifty-something woman with a 1972 hairstyle and a blue and white polka dot dress that appeared to be an even older style, on their way out.

  Shari had written down the address from the deed that read more like coordinates. 4200 north, CR-9/5 at Helmach Creek Rd. Through a series of turns and turn-arounds they eventually found Helmach Creek and thanks to the polka dot woman at the bank, they spotted what may have been a driveway or road at some time in the very distant past. It was so overgrown that they had to park the car just off of county road 9/5, and fight their way through the thick brush until they came to what seemed to be a very young forest compared to the rest of the surrounding trees. They wandered through the woods in the direction they believed the road once went. The sun lowered in the sky and the clouds and wind grew stronger and darker with every step.

  'If you get me stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, in the dark, in a storm... you are never going to live it down, ‘Ms. I'm feelin' lucky!' her mother joked with her even though she was ready to turn back and head to the hotel as soon as Shari gave the word.

  'LOOK!' Shari shouted. In the dim light of sunset, maybe fifty yards off of the main road, there it stood, crippled in the dusky light of the evening. She took off running until she reached what had once been the front yard. Her feet suddenly froze themselves to the ground and she couldn't help but stare at the place her mother and aunt had just inherited. A once quaint little white farm house, now an ivy covered, gray and greenish, warped wood sided house stood before her. A large tree branch had fallen causing damage to the roof and covered porch many years ago and had since began rotting until a part of it had fallen in on itself and moss hung like haunted icicles from the eroding, jagged roof edge.