Blood Born

by Chris Neeley

  "Your Momma, James."

  He had heard something this time. He became still, his hand resting on one of the bumper guards. A light breeze came up behind him, a breath on the back of his neck. He felt the hair there rise. He waited, listening for the voice to come again. The sun glared off of the chrome. He squinted. He stayed frozen in that spot and waited for the voice to come again.

  It didn't take long.

  The breeze kicked up, more forceful this time and a chill rippled down his back.

  "James, stop your Momma."

  James turned his head toward the house, his neck feeling as if it was made of steel. Stop his Momma? Stop her from what?

  He rose from his spot, his body creaking in slow motion.

  Gravel crunched loudly in his ears as he walked to the house. Everything stood out in stark relief, edges clearly defined. He saw his hand reach for the latch on the screen door, open it, and reach again for the doorknob. The doorknob, the one on the door where he had peered through the filmy curtains last night, turned ever so slowly in his hand. He opened the door.

  Everything speeded up.

  His mother stood just inside, in her hand was an axe. She stood looking at him, a puzzled look on her face.

  "Mom?" James said. She had an axe in her hand. In the kitchen. What was it doing there?

  'An axe in the house brings sickness about. Remember that, James,' Aunt Doll breathed in his ear, words spoken long ago.

  James put his hand on the handle of the axe. "Give it to me," he said, pulling it from his mother's hands. She raised a hand to her breast and coughed, a tiny, wet cough.

  The handle of the axe was warm in James' hands. He turned back to the door and carried the axe outside. He stood on the back step, staring straight ahead, the axe heavy and growing heavier in his grasp.

  He though he heard laughter carried on the breeze, sounding like tinkling bells. A sweet laughter, so sweet that it was evil. James turned his gaze to the woods across the road.

  The laughter ended in a giggle and a cloud passed over the sun.

  ***

  Anna had seen the axe fall into the house.

  Which was only right, the way she had planned it. Seph, unknowing, dumb to the reading of sign, had caused sickness to enter his home.

  It was fitting. The axe would be picked up by the woman, she knew, because most women down in the Hollow spent their lives in the kitchen.

  But then the boy, the bigger of the two, had come out of the house with the axe in his hand.

  Did he know sign? Time would tell, Anna thought.

  She eased her potato sack up off the ground and slipped the handles over her shoulder. She had more work to do. She probably shouldn't have laughed but the thought of Seph cursing his own home without even knowing it pleased her to the point that she was tickled.

  Anna picked her way back through the woods.

  The first spell had been cast and there would be many more if Seph didn't own up and sing her child's name.

  There would be a great many more.

  ***

  Seph slicked his hair back and splashed on his smellies, as he liked to call his cologne, and went in search of Chloe. He was mighty tired, but it sure would be nice to spend the afternoon in bed with her. He remembered the days, when they were younger, that they had lain in bed and whiled away the day just enjoying each other. True, they were older now, but his mule could still kick and Chloe was still easy on his eyes, anyway, even if she did have a few wrinkles and everything wasn't sitting up as high as it used to.

  He headed down the stairs, his bare feet slapping on the wood. She was probably in the kitchen. It was her favorite room.

  He walked into the kitchen.

  No one around. Seph scratched his head. He looked at the spot where he had left the axe. It was gone. One of the boys, probably the one who had left it where he shouldn't have, must have seen it and decided that it would be best to carry it back to where they had gotten it from. He wondered where the kids were.

  The boys were probably out in the woods, as they were wont to do on a summer's day. Fern had probably gone to visit a girlfriend. She was getting at that age, the age where she would rather be seen around the town than stay at home with her mother.

  He sidled on into the living room.

  "Chloe, are you sick?" he asked. She was lying on the couch, her arm thrown over her forehead. He didn't know how he had missed her when he had come downstairs. He had to pass right by her on his way to the kitchen. He walked over and sat down on the edge of the couch beside her.

  "Chloe?" He took her arm from her forehead and moved it down to her waist. It felt awfully warm. He searched her face. She seemed to be asleep. This wasn't like her, asleep in the middle of the day. Tiny beads of sweat shined on her forehead. It wasn't that hot in the living room. He shook her. "Chloe, are you okay?"

  "Hmm," she said. She opened her eyes a crack. A small smile crossed lips that were pale, no color. "You must be hungry, Seph. Let me rest here for just a minute and I'll make you something to eat." Her eyes closed again.

  Seph put a hand to her forehead. It was on fire with fever. He smoothed her hair back. "Chloe, you should be in bed. You're sick."

  Her eyes opened again. "No, no, no. I'm not sick." She started to raise herself up, planting a hand behind her. Her eyes rolled in her head. She raised a hand to her face and rubbed it across them. "I'll fix you a sandwich."

  "No, you won't. You are going to bed. You have a fever," Seph said, pulling her up from the couch. "Let me help you up to bed."

  Chloe moaned a little. "I do have a headache." She coughed, catching spittle in her hand.

  Seph rubbed his hand across her back. "Come on. I'll fix myself a sandwich later."

  Chloe nodded, not arguing anymore, and let Seph hold her arm as she started for the stairs. She swayed for a minute, then caught herself. She giggled. "I think I'm coming down with something, Seph. I'm sorry."

  "What are you sorry for? You can't help it." Seph led her to the stairway. His plans for making up were going to have to wait. Chloe was sick. It had come on all of a sudden. He hadn't seen her, this sick before. He put his arm around her waist, noticing how sweaty she really was, and helped her up the stairs one at a time. Maybe he should call the doctor. They didn't make house calls any more but maybe he could tell Seph what to do before she got sicker. It was probably just the flu. He had heard there was one going around. He hated it when Chloe was sick. Every time that she got sick, the house ended up in a shambles. She didn't get sick very often, but when she did, the kids drove him crazy.

  Seph led Chloe into the bedroom.

  "Seph, you turned back the covers?" Chloe asked, in a small voice.

  "Yeah. I had some wrestling in mind for this afternoon, but it can wait."

  Chloe smiled prettily. "Wrestling, huh? Been a long time since we've done that."

  Seph moved her to the bed, slipping the robe from her shoulders. She hadn't gotten dressed yet. Not normal for Chloe. She looked sleepily sexy, even if she was sick. Her blond hair, a touch of gray mixed with the gold, hung in scattered curls around her head. With the sun shining through the window, Chloe's hair glowed silver and gold, a halo. Her face had the pinkish cast of fever but it only made her look like a child. Seph sat her on the bed and lifted up the sheet and the light blanket so that she could slide her legs under the covers. He lifted the cover over her, noting that the veins on her legs were much bluer than he had noticed before.

  Chloe laid her head back, nuzzling into the big feather pillow. She shimmied a shiver. Seph pulled the covers up and tucked them in around her shoulders. She reached her hand up and patted his. "Crawl in here with me, Seph," she mumbled.

  Seph sighed. "I'll get you some aspirin and a glass of water and then I'll come to bed with you."

  "'Kay." Chloe smiled sleepily and laid her hand underneath her cheek.

  Seph trudged downstairs for the aspirin.

  Nothing was going right these days. He g
ot a glass out of the cupboard and turned the water on, letting it run until it was ice cold. He filled the glass and drank it himself. Wooziness washed over him for a second, the after effects of the moonshine and water mixing together, causing what Seph called a cheap drunk. He filled the glass again, got two aspirin from the bottle on the windowsill, thought better of it and tapped out a third one into the palm of his hand. He probably should take some himself but his stomach couldn't take it.

  He hollered out the back door for the boys.

  Cliff answered him from the backyard. "What?"

  "Cliff, come here," Seph called. He leaned his head against the screen of the door. Yelling had made his head throb. Cliff jogged into view. "Cliff, I want you and your brother to take care of the chores today. Your mom is sick in the bed and I'm not feeling so good either, so you boys take care of things."

  "All right, Dad," Cliff said, standing on the back step with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. Seph could tell by the look on the boy's face that he didn't much like the idea of working on such a summery day. Cliff scuffed the toe of his shoe on the step. "What about Fern?"

  "You find Fern, wherever she's took off to, and tell her that supper is her job tonight," Seph said, turning from the door.

  If Chloe wasn't better by suppertime, he would call the doctor, he thought, climbing back up the stairs.

  Lord, he was tired.

  ***

  James had taken the axe back out to the shed and hung it where it belonged on the wall. He walked back out into the sunlight. As he walked across the yard to the barn, Cliff came from the direction of the house. Cliff waved for him to stop. James stopped and waited.

  "You'll never guess," Cliff said, sarcasm dripping from his words, "We have to do all the chores today because they," he hitched his thumb toward the house, "are sick." Cliff was actually pouting.

  James hooked his thumbs in his back pockets. "What do you mean 'they'?"

  "Well, Dad just hollered me up from out back and said I should find Fern to fix supper 'cause Mom's sick in the bed and Dad's going to bed with her, so me and you get stuck with all the work."

  "How sick is Mom?" Fear tickled his senses. His mother hadn't been sick yesterday. Now today, he finds her holding an axe in the kitchen, for Christ's sake, a sign that sickness is coming, and within an hour, she's sick in the bed. Not a good sign. Oh, Lord, not his mother.

  Cliff shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but if she's in the bed, she must be pretty sick."

  "I'd better go check on her," James said. He took a few steps.

  Cliff grabbed him by the arm and swung him back around. "You're not leaving me with all this work."

  James knocked Cliff's hand from his arm. "Don't push me, Cliff. Not today."

  Cliff pouted. "Well, if you're not doing anything, neither am I."

  "Geez, Cliff, will you act your age? I never said I wasn't going to do anything. I just want to go check on Mom, that's all."

  "Well, I'm not the only one around here that has to do anything," Cliff said, then he stormed off in the direction of the hog pen.

  James shook his head. What was wrong with everybody? They were all acting crazy. James was going to have to keep an eye out, watch for more signs. He racked his brain as he walked to the house, trying to remember everything that Aunt Doll had told him years ago. He wished that she was still alive, still here to help him and guide him because he knew that something was going very wrong and he didn't know why. One thing Aunt Doll had always said was that when you saw more than one sign that meant the same thing within a short period of time, then something was definitely afoot because nature usually didn't send more than one or two signs at the most. If there was more than that, well, someone was mixing the stew with their fingers. Who would want to cause the family trouble? No one that James knew about, that was for sure. Unless...

  Unless his father had gotten into some kind of trouble.

  If he had though, why would anyone resort to using the old way of taking their revenge? There were plenty of other ways to get back at his father that would be quicker. All James could figure was that if someone was using the folk magic way to get back at them for some slight that the family had done, it must be someone that knew about the old south. Someone that wanted to make his father suffer long and hard.

  An idea dawned as he walked through the door and into the kitchen.

  Maybe the reason his mother had come down sick out of the blue was because that someone was using his mother to get to his father. That could be it.

  James stomped up the stairs, hesitating at his parents' bedroom door.

  If he was right, he'd have to find a way to stop the person.

  But who was it?

  ***

  Anna was busy.

  She wanted her curse on the Mayhew clan to be as strong as she could possibly make it.

  She had gone back to her tiny shack full of glee after watching as Seph carried the sickness down upon his family. She went inside the shack and began sifting through the mess. After all, she was going to have to have a place to sleep. The hole in the roof didn't matter. It didn't matter, either, that the crow that had been with her in the night was still perched upon the tree limb that hung through the hole. It cracked its beak at her when she got too close. Anna thought that it looked like it was smiling at her. Maybe, she thought, maybe. The crow suited her as she was now. She had seen Fuzzy, peering at her from the woods. She had no worry about the cat. He'd always been a good mouser. He could fend for himself. She thought she might try to find something to feed the crow after a bit. Its feathers glowed blue-black. Anna thought it matched the tone of her heart.

  She worked, gathering up the bits and pieces of her old life that the storm had saw fit to destroy. Everything that could be burnt, she laid by the fireplace. Everything else, she tossed out across the front porch and into the yard. She tied her dirty hair back with an old piece of string and went out to her garden. She needed an onion, a red one, for the next spell that she would cast. She had put some in this spring and they should be ready now. She knew that the woman was probably down sick by now but the onion spell would clinch it.

  The woman would be the first one that Anna would take down. Anna wasn't sure if the woman knew about signs but she didn't want to take any chances. If the woman knew signs, she might figure out what was happening before Anna was finished with her revenge.

  No, the only one that would stop her from what she was doing would be Seph. He knew what he had to do, or he would when he saw his family being struck down one by one. She would go to him and tell him that she would finish his clan if he didn't do what was right and proper. But she wouldn't tell him right off. She wanted to see some of his own suffer.

  Anna knelt down into the moist dirt of the garden on her bare knees. She dug her hands into the dirt, not bothering to use a tool. Her hands were better now, the skin just a bit pink from the burn and the 'coon bite was wrapped and medicated with a poultice. The green shoots of the onions had been beaten down by the storm and lay like they were dead in the dirt. Tiny puddles lay in the low spots of the garden, the sun not yet drying them up from last night's storm. Anna's knees sunk into the dirt down to the dampness below the top layer. She dug around and onion set, then grasped the green top shoot and wiggled it free from the dirt. It came up, root dangling from the bottom of it. She carried the onion, about the size of the palm of her hand, into the shack and set about her business.

  Crow cawed his hunger at her.

  "Hush, now. I'll fetch you something in a while," she told him, then sat down in the middle of the floor and started spreading her tools in front of her. She took the butcher knife that she had found in the drawer and carefully dug the heart from the onion without disturbing the outer skin any more than she had to. She pulled the heart from the onion and tossed it to the crow. He caught it, swallowing it hungrily. It amazed her that he ate it. He cocked his head at her, glassy eyes watching. She pulled the potato sack close to he
r and started digging for ingredients. Her eyes watered but she knew better than to touch them with onion juice on her fingers. Besides, her tears falling on the ingredients of the spell might make the spell that much stronger. She pulled out the tin of dried cayenne pepper seeds that she had saved. But first she had to write the name of the intended on the onion's skin. She tried to remember the name that she had seen next to Seph's on the mailbox out in front of their house.

  It had started with a C. Anna tapped her palm with the knife blade. Ch. Chloe. That was it. Had her worried there for a minute. The spell would be no good if she couldn't remember the name. She sniffled, her nose running thanks to the onion, and wiped it on the back of her hand.

  She picked up the onion and carefully carved Chloe's name into the skin, making sure that every letter bled onion juice from it. Her eyes stung, tears running freely from them, but she couldn't stop. She held the onion, the hole where she had taken out its heart on top, and reached for the pepper seeds. Her hand knocked over the tin, spilling the seeds onto the floor. Some fell through the cracks. The crow flapped his wings above her. She felt around on the floor, her fingers pinching up the seeds, shoving them into the onion where its heart had been. It took her a while, but she finally got the opening of the onion filled with the seeds.

  Now all that she had to do was plug up the hole. She pulled a candle stub up from the floor where the wax had dripped down and anchored it earlier. She shaved a round piece of wax from the candle and rolled it between her palms to make it soft. She molded it and plugged the hole in the onion with it.

  All she had to do was bury it close to Seph's house. Then, the onion would represent the woman and the cayenne pepper seeds would burn, eating at the woman's heart.

  She'd have to wait until dusk.

  She didn't want to get caught digging in front of their house.

  She tucked the loaded onion into her potato sack.

  "Crow." The crow opened its beak, smiling.

  "Let's find you something to gnaw on." Anna got up from her place in the floor, bid the crow to follow her and went back outside.