by Chris Neeley
Anna checked the kettle of water that was heating on the stove. Steam was just starting to rise from the surface. She went to the herb cabinet and got the jar of rose petals, noticing that she was almost out of them. She'd have to take care of that soon.
She took it over to the kettle and dumped about half of what was left into it. Leaning over, she let the steam rise to her face and breathed in the scent that the petals released. She slid the kettle to the cool side of the stove and put a huge lid on it to let it steep and went to get some fresh towels.
She sat down on the side of the bed and rubbed her aching feet. They were starting to swell a bit. She'd have to start drinking some herb tea to sap the water out of them. After undressing, she started to raise her arms above her head and stretch, but then remembered something that her Momma had told her. ‘Never raise your arms above you head when you're with child. It will cause the cord to wrap around the babe's neck’, her Momma had said. Anna wrapped her arms around her stomach instead and padded across the cool wood floor to the stove.
She lifted the steaming kettle from the stove, its handles wrapped with dish cloths, and carefully walked to the tub. She took it slow. She didn't want to splash the water on herself and she didn't want to strain herself, either. After pouring the rose petal-scented water into the tub, she set the kettle down on the floor beside it.
She took a match from the mantle on the fireplace and lit the pressed beeswax candle that sat at the corner of the mantle. On a whim, she pulled the heavy ancestral recipe book from the other corner of the mantle and ran her hand across the worn leather binding. She started to leaf through it while she waited for the water to become tepid.
It wasn't really a recipe book. It was a book of herbal spells. Her ancestors had brought it over from the old country, all the way from Ireland. In it were medicinal spells, love potions, the reading of omens and signs and folklore. Anna's Momma had been teaching her from this book since Anna had been old enough to know the difference between poison ivy and teaberry. She browsed through the book now, looking for something that might help her bring Seph back to her.
She found a spell toward the end of the book that looked promising. She smoothed the yellowed page with her hand and moved closer to the candlelight. The spell told her to prick her finger with a pin, then take the pin with her blood on it and write her lover's name on a candle. When the candle burned down low enough, her lover would appear before his name disappeared from the candle.
Anna reverently placed the book back on the mantle, opened her sewing box and removed a pin. It glimmered in the candlelight. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, getting her mind set to work the spell.
When she was in the right frame of mind, she opened her eyes and stuck the pin in the tip of her finger. A droplet of blood formed. She rolled the sharp point of the pin around in the blood, covering it with the dark, red liquid. Holding the beeswax candle carefully in place, she inscribed Seph's name into the side of it with the blood-covered pin.
Satisfied, she threw the pin into the fire and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. By the looks of the flame on the candle, Seph would be here before two hours had passed. She ran her hand languidly over the surface of the water, the rose petals following the path of her fingers. She swung first one leg, then the other into the water, then slowly lowered her tired body down until the water came up over her shoulders and lapped at her chin.
Anna leaned her head back on the metal edge of the tub and closed her eyes. The Epsom salts soothed her muscles and the scent of roses surrounded her. She listened to the crackling of the fire and the crickets singing outside and let her mind drift.
When her parents had driven the old truck off the Shaky River Bridge, no one had cared much about Anna. She had been twelve years old then.
She remembered that a neighbor had come to tell her that her Momma and Pa were dead. Anna had grieved and the whole Hollow had pitied her. She hadn't liked it. No one had checked on her after the funeral, though. They must have just figured that she had gone to stay with family. They left her alone. She stayed at the shack and made it on her own. The school that she had went to, had sent someone around once, but Anna had hid in the woods until they were gone and no one had ever bothered to come back. It was as if the city people didn't have time to fool with some backwoods girl from the Hollow.
She rested her hands on the swell of her belly. She would bring up this child on her own. The old way. She could teach it everything that it needed to know and all those people be damned.
She dreamed of the babe that would come right about after the New Year.
The babe that would tie her to Seph forever.
***
Old Matthew called out when Seph pulled the rattling truck up to the barn and shut off the engine. "Well, look who decide to pay a visit. I could've sworn that you thought I had the plague or somethin'," he called to Seph.
Seph got out of the truck, slammed the door and walked into the yellowish glow of the barn.
He slapped Matthew on the back. "Couldn't get away, Matthew, just couldn't get away. You got anything to wet my whistle with? It's been an awful long time."
"I do. You bet I do." Matthew went to the back of the barn and came back carrying a gallon jug filled with clear liquid. "Just got this today. What say we sit and talk awhile?" Matthew opened the jug and handed it to Seph.
Seph hoisted it to his mouth and took a swig. He jerked the jug down, trying not to spill it as he struggled to catch his breath. "Good Lord, is this a strong brew," he stuttered, when he was able to speak.
Matthew grinned and his wrinkles made a road map on his face. "Separates the pups from the hounds, that it does. Well, have a sit. Some of the boys'll be comin' over after a bit and we'll play us some cards."
Seph sat himself down on an old wooden chair beside old Matthew's famous card table. Seph wasn't going to lose any money tonight. He just wanted to sit a spell and have a few drinks. Matthew had gone to the house and now he came back with some low glasses and handed one to Seph. "There you go, Son. Now this time, take that old thing that you call a truck home with you. I don't want Sarah asking me all those questions about how you get home again. Lord knows what she'd tell Chloe."
"Don't you worry," Seph said, pouring some moonshine into his glass, "I'm not going to drink that much this time. You wouldn't believe what I had to go through over that little situation."
"I can imagine," Matthew said, nodding his head, his raggedy hair bouncing.
Seph took a sip of the 'shine. No, I don't think that you can, he thought.
He had told Chloe that morning that he had passed out at Matthew's because he had drank so much. When she had asked about the truck, he had told her that Matthew had drove him home because he had the heaves and Matthew had taken the truck back home with him. James had gazed at him the whole while with eyes that belonged to a man and not a boy. Seph wondered sometimes just what was going through James' head. James had acted like he was fifty years old by the time he had reached five. He surely was a different child.
Over the past few months, Seph had done the chores and taken care of the hogs and put up with James' eyes watching him as if he was looking for a sign. Chloe had given him the silent treatment for about a week, then she got back to her old self. But Seph had waited before he decided it was safe to have a few drinks again. It wasn't Chloe's silent treatment that bothered him so much.
It was the watchful eyes of his son.
Seph poured himself another glass of 'shine and listened to the racket as the men in the barn played cards. Four more men had shown up and they were getting pretty rambunctious by the time that Seph felt his head go funny. He wiped at his face. It was like something was pulling at him, making him want to head back to that old shack back in the Hollow.
The shack where the girl lived.
He didn't want to go back there. Bits and pieces of that night had come back to him over time. He had remembered the way that she had bedded him, out in tha
t field, like a wild thing. That mating was every man's dream, but Seph, the sober Seph, had felt like he had bedded his own daughter. That girl was young enough for James.
Seph was thirty-eight, nigh on to forty. That girl would've fit much better with his son.
It was getting hot in the barn now, hotter than it should be. Seph downed the last of the glass and got up from his chair.
"Hey, now. Where you going, Seph?" Matthew asked, "I'm a-winnin' real good and you're wantin' to leave?"
Seph wiped at his face. "I've got to go." He started to the barn door.
"Got to run home before the wife comes lookin'" a voice behind him said.
He kept on walking, hardly feeling the ground beneath his feet. He hadn't drank that much, but he sure felt funny. The men behind him chuckled. Seph paid them no mind, got in his truck, started it up and took off down the road.
Before Seph realized where he was, he was pulling up in front of the shack. He killed the engine. The funny feeling inside him had grown, pulling at him. He had to come here. He got out of the truck and walked toward the porch with a picture of the girl floating in his head.
***
James stood at the front of the barn.
He had seen his father leave right after supper and he knew that he was probably going over to old Matthew's for some of that moonshine the old coot always had around. He remembered the last time his father had gone there and the sounds in the night that had woke him.
Something had happened that night. James had felt it. His mother had told him once that he knew things that he shouldn't, but he couldn't help it. It just came to him.
James wandered out to the edge of the driveway. The light was dimming and the crickets were singing fast and high. He looked down the road and wondered. Would he hear the wind tonight?
He would sit and listen, he thought. He would listen to the wind and the woods as they told their whispery stories to him and wait for his father to come home.
***
Footsteps on the porch startled Anna awake.
The water splashed as she jerked up and looked at the candle. It was burned down to within an inch of completely disappearing.
Someone moved on the porch and she heard the doorknob rattle.
It had to be him.
She had plans for Seph tonight. She would tell him about the babe.
And he would love it.
***
Seph felt for the door handle that would let him in the shack. He felt like he was outside of himself, watching himself from far off.
He found the handle and opened the door.
His breath caught in his throat when he saw her, standing there in the middle of an old washtub. His eyes traveled over her body.
She was wet with the water from the tub. Things that looked like rose petals, clung to her golden body here and there. The vision raised her hands and bid him to come to her.
Seph sleep-walked toward the bathtub and took her in his arms, lifting her from the water. She was slippery, like silk. She smelled of roses. The fire lit her, giving her hair a fiery glow.
Seph carried her to the bed that stood in the corner of the room, not noticing that his shirt was soaked through to the skin. He was too busy gazing into the grey eyes that seemed to hold his soul inside them.
He laid her on the bed and she pulled him down to her.
They thrashed together, man and girl. Seph still seemed to float above himself, watching his hands and his mouth do things to the girl that he had never imagined doing to his wife while his mind screamed this is wrong, wrong. He had no power to stop his body as his mind reeled with what was happening. The fire crackled and the crickets stopped their singing so that they could listen to the sound of the bedsprings that screamed out in a pain of their own.
Seph opened his eyes and was immediately lost. How had he gotten here? He sat up in the bed and looked around the shack. He looked down beside him, and there was Anna looking up at him, her eyes glazed.
"Oh, Lord," Seph moaned. He got up from the bed, the springs squealing in protest. He dug around on the floor for his clothes. As he reached under the bed for his pants, his hand brushed up against his boot--the boots that he had left on that other night. Seph pulled them out along with his pants. He would take them home, too. If he had a home to go to.
He sat down on the side of the bed and put on his shirt. A hand slid up his back.
"Don't."
Anna sat up beside him. "You don't want to leave," she whispered in his ear.
Seph jerked away from her. "Yes. I do."
He stood up and looked for the boots that he had been wearing when he had mysteriously come here. They were nowhere to be seen, so he settled for the old ones that he had left there before.
"No, you don't want to leave," Anna said again. She crawled from the bed and stood in front of him where he sat in the rocking chair trying to put his boots on. She reached for his hand and placed it on her naked stomach. "Do you feel it?" she asked.
Seph jerked his hand away. "What are you talking about?"
"Your babe. Your babe is in my belly. From the last time." Anna tried to put his hand back on her stomach but he pulled away from her.
"If you have a baby in your belly, it sure ain't mine. I don't know what kind of witch you are, girl, but I have a family."
"Your family will include this child," Anna said, her eyes flashing.
Seph moved toward the door. "I don't know what you're doing or how you got me back here," he began, feeling light-headed, "but I ain't takin' on your child and I ain't comin' back here. Lord, I'm old enough to be your father." Guilt crashed in on him. Had he gone and gotten this girl pregnant?
Anna strode toward him, her eyes flashing fire. She put her hand on his chest. "You will give this child your name. I will not allow you to doom it to the life of a bastard. If you don't, I'll curse your family 'til my dying day."
Seph felt a cold chill run down his back. He wasn't sure who or what this girl was, or how she had gotten him here, but there was no way that he was going to destroy his family by acknowledging a child that he wasn't even sure was his.
He backed out the door, almost falling down the steps in his haste to get away from her. Anna walked to the door and watched while he clambered into the truck and threw it in gear.
"You will give this child your name, Joesph Mayhew, or so help me, you will regret it!" she called into the night.
Seph careened the truck in a wide circle and took off down the dirt track, tires spraying dust high into the misty fog that had begun to blanket the Hollow.
Chapter Three
James watched his father closely as he worked around the farm with him. He had acted pretty peculiar since he had gone over to old Matthew's barn, last Friday night.
Last Friday, James had heard things in the night again.
Strange things.
James had sat on the porch Friday night until his mother had threatened to wail him with a broom if he didn't come inside. When he had went in, she told him to go directly to bed because he had to get up early and help his father get the chores done.
James had went to his room and stripped off his clothes. He lay on the bed, clad in just his shorts, and listened to the sounds of the woods through his window. It was quiet for being an August night. He had sworn that he heard crickets earlier, but now they were silent.
James had rose up, propping himself on his elbow and peered out his window.
The moonlit the yard across the back field all the way to they edge of the woods at the back of their property. James tilted his head.
He thought he could hear a thrumming sound, low, coming from the woods. He turned off the light that shed a circular glow in the corner of his room and padded to the window.
He surveyed the field. Nothing moved. He trained his eyes on the edge of the woods.
The trees stood like soldiers along the edge, guarding secrets that only they knew.
James wondered where his father was. W
as he really at Matthew's? Somehow, it didn't feel right.
The thrumming that barely brushed against his eardrums took on a rhythm, a heartbeat. The woods were a living thing, the sound washing toward James on a light breeze. He listened closer.
He could distinguish two heartbeats in the breeze. Tiny heartbeats, with fast rhythm, each echoing the other. He'd heard sounds like this before, when he had been a young boy and had laid his ear on his dog's stomach when she had been near to delivering her pups. He had heard the pup's heartbeats.
He wondered whose or what's heartbeat he was hearing now because it wasn't anything of this world.
What was about to be born?
Saturday morning had dawned blazingly bright. James had walked into the kitchen, the floor still cool on the bottom of his feet. From the looks of the morning, it wouldn't be cool for long.
James' mother, Chloe, stood at the kitchen sink, an apron tied around her waist. She was already doing dishes. James' father didn't believe in automatic dishwashers, so Chloe was destined to do the dishes by hand.
"Where's Dad?" James asked, sitting down at the table. He pulled a box of cereal to him and poured some in a bowl that his mother had put there for him earlier.
"He's out and about," his mother said, without turning to face him.
James took a bite of cereal, the crunch aggravating what was going to be one heck of a headache by afternoon. He hadn't slept, and whenever he heard things in the night, his head paid for it the next day. It was like his brain didn't want to take in such things and tried to spit them out. He breathed deeply.