by Chris Neeley
The girl was on the porch now.
"Name my Babe Rose, Seph Mayhew. Name her or you'll pay!" she yelled.
"Never happen!" He tried the key. The engine sputtered and died. "Shit," he muttered, pumping the gas pedal.
She was coming down the steps now. "You can't hurt me, Seph. You don't have it in you." She laughed again. "I killed your woman, Seph. It was me. I made her heart shrivel up like a dried out pea." Her laughter filled the night.
"You're crazy!" Seph yelled. Damn this truck, he thought.
She was at the passenger door now, her hands splayed on the glass of the window. Seph turned and looked into her eyes. They glowed in the dark and for the first time, Seph was really scared of her.
"Name the Babe, Seph," she said, her voice sounding more like a growl.
"No." Seph started the truck. He spun the tires.
She jerked away.
He swung the nose of the truck toward the road.
"I'll get your kids, Seph!"
He looked in the side mirror. The girl was running behind the truck. "You name my Babe, Seph or you'll watch your kids die right before those blue eyes of yours!"
Seph floored the truck, leaving her behind in a cloud of dust.
He drove by instinct, his hands shaking so hard that he had no idea how he was steering the truck. He felt light-headed.
She had said that she had caused Chloe's death. God, did she? Was she a witch? She could mess with his mind easily enough, he knew that, but could she really kill someone? Then, there were the hogs. He had seen her there last night, before they had gone wild. He knew that she had something to do with that.
She couldn't kill anybody, he told himself. Calm down, calm down. He swerved around a curve, almost losing control. She had threatened his kids. No, she couldn't do anything to them. The voices in his head battled and argued. She was just a crazy old girl, one of them said.
Wasn't she?
He floored the truck, feeling a desperate need to get home.
Chapter Ten
Anna seethed at Seph's words. How could he threaten her? Didn't he know who he was dealing with? She wasn't just some backwoods country girl. She was a Caine! Anna had studied the book of her ancestors like it was a religion. Her Momma had told her stories, stories of her Granma and her Momma before her and how powerful they had been in their day, when the Tennessee hills were still wild. There had always been two girls born to each, two to her Granma, two to her Granma's Momma, all the way back. Anna's Momma had told her that two girls were born to make sure that the line continued. When Anna had asked where her sister was, her Momma had said that there had been problems, problems that Anna was too young to talk about yet, but not to worry, Anna would carry on just fine. Anna was carrying on now. Her power was growing daily. Why she couldn't make Seph name her Babe Rose confounded her, but when he had threatened her, she had felt herself grow hot with anger.
She had screamed at him as he turned tail and left her shack. She had chased that truck and even told him, she had told him, that she had cursed his wife and killed her and he had acted like he didn't believe her. He just kept on going.
She would show him. She told him what would happen to his kids. If he didn't go and get her Babe Rose before the dawn broke over the top of Big Hoary Mount, it would begin.
She stood in the middle of the dirt track. Rage, red and swirling, filled her mind and body as the gritty dust of the road settled around her.
The woods were quiet as if afraid to let any noise, chirp of a cricket or hoot of an owl, escape its boundaries and filter out between the trees so that the crazy Anna Caine could hear it.
Anna slowly unclenched her fists and turned back toward the shack. She was going to watch Seph in the mirror to see if he did her bidding. If Seph didn't name her babe, at the first chirp of the birds, one of his children would die. She didn't know which one yet.
She'd see.
***
James' asthma was kicking in with a vengeance. He slowed his pace, he was so close to home that he could see the outline of the house. He walked, head hanging, the muscles in his legs twitching with a life of their own, as his throat slowly started to close off.
His body turned into the driveway of its own accord, his mind concentrating on his breathing, trying to control it, trying not to panic, because this time, he had left the house without the inhaler in his pocket.
Gravel crunched loudly beneath his feet, battering his ears.
Slowly, counting his steps, he made it to the back door. He opened the door and went inside. The light above the kitchen sink was on, casting a dim light. The rest of the house was dark and quiet.
James' breath whistled through his open mouth. He felt along the top of the refrigerator for the inhaler that he always kept there 'just in case'. Dust clung to his sweaty fingers as they groped along. Finally, his fingers touched the smooth plastic cover. He closed his hand around it and leaned against the cool front of the 'fridge. The inhaler hissed into his mouth and he held it there, struggling to pull the medication down into his lungs. He pushed the release again and tasted the coolness of the spray as it passed over his tongue. He dropped the hand that held the inhaler, keeping his fingers closed around it.
Little by little, he felt his throat opening up and after a couple of minutes, his whistling stopped and he breathed easier. His shoulders relaxed. He hadn't realized how tense they were until the muscles finally let go.
"Your Pa, talk to your Pa...." Aunt doll had told him. He took a deep breath, the first deep breath in what seemed like a lifetime.
He turned, still leaning against the 'fridge and moved the curtain away from the window in the back door.
The security light shined down on the driveway.
No truck.
James let the curtain drop back into place.
Yeah, his father was probably over at Matthew's barn getting pie-eyed.
He pushed off the refrigerator, his hand still clasping the inhaler, and wandered into the living room.
He dropped onto the couch, and sank back into the cushions. God, it felt good to sit down.
They msut have burnt the carcasses while he had been gone because, now that he could breathe, he could smell the sickly sweet odor of burning hog flesh. Made him wish that he couldn't breathe. How were they ever going to get the smell out of the house?
James leaned over and rested his chest on his knees. He put the inhaler on the coffee table and un-laced his boots. He sat back and kicked them off.
Ah, heaven. His feet could finally breathe now too. His socks were soaking wet with sweat. He pulled them off and dropped them on the floor beside the couch.
He lay down on the couch. When his father would get home, he didn't know. He settled into the couch and let his body relax. He was so tired. He'd just wait right here. He'd hear him when he came in. James crossed his arms over his stomach and closed his eyes.
James hoped that his father wouldn't be too drunk when he finally blew in.
James sighed.
Then, he fell into a deep sleep.
***
Anna sat cross-legged in the middle of the disheveled bed.
She could still smell Seph. His scent was in the bed clothes, on her hands, in her hair. She held the dark mirror in her lap, fingers stroking the smoothness of the glass. It was cold, black ice under her touch. The candles were burning low. Anna missed Crow. She even missed Fuzzy the cat, too. She didn't have anything now. No Babe Rose. No Seph.
No one.
The mirror was her only link.
She gazed into it, hoping she would see what she wanted to see. If she didn't ... well, things over at the Mayhew's would start changing faster than they would like. She'd see to that.
She inhaled deeply, Seph's manly scent filling her. The mirror turned a cloudy gray, then blended to the color of night. Images started to form in the round circle of glass, first what looked like two lines of trees with a long stretch of nothing in between them, then the road took shape. It was
like she was watching a moving picture, (she had seen one once, in Rockside when she was younger), as if she was traveling down the road, the trees whizzing by, blurring together, becoming a mirage. Seph's pick-up appeared, two red taillights glowing like a pair of evil eyes, moving just above the road. They swerved around a curve, then she saw Seph, hunched over the steering wheel as he drove.
The scene switched to what he was viewing through the bug-splattered windshield. Anna knew the road now. It was The Bend, the same road that the Mayhew farm was on. Her face started to grow hot, hot with anger as she watched. The Mayhew farm was just up ahead and through the windshield view, Anna could tell that he was slowing the truck. He was going home. She concentrated harder, wanting to be shown the interior of the truck. The mirror widened its perspective. The seat of the truck was empty, save for Seph. There was no Babe Rose. Anna's stomach lurched when Seph turned the truck sharply into his own driveway.
Suddenly, the motion of the picture stopped and Anna realized that Seph was getting out of the truck. The image followed him as he walked to the house, his buttonless shirt flapping at his sides.
Anna's eyes widened.
He wasn't going to get her babe.
Didn't he believe her when she had told him that if he didn't get her Babe Rose and name her that his children would be the ones to suffer her vengeance?
The mirror burst with color, bright red, swirled with black. She couldn't control her anger and the image of Seph was lost.
"How dare he!"
Anna almost threw the mirror against the wall, but stopped herself before she did. She would be needing it.
He would pay, he would apy, HE WOULD PAY!
She vaulted from the bed and snatched up her potato sack.
She flew through the door of the shack.
While she walked, heading for the Mayhew farm, she repeated over and over, "He will suffer as I did, suffer as I did, suffer as I did while he watches his children die."
Anna knew which would be the first to go, if luck was with her.
The boy, James.
***
Seph swung into the driveway, spraying gravel. He shut the engine off and got out without bothering to take the keys with him or roll up the window. As he walked to the back door, he had the uncanny feeling that he was being watched. He hesitated, holding the screen door open with one hand, his other hand resting on the door knob of the inside door. He looked around. The security light above the barn lit up the driveway. Nothing moved. He heard Georgia move in her stall in the barn, but that was all.
He shook his head.
The girl had him spooked. There was nothing out here. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling.
Seph went on in the house.
The house was dark. The kids were probably all sleeping, but he'd check on them anyway. Just to ease his mind a bit.
He walked quietly through the kitchen, thankful that he no longer staggered from the effects of the beer and the moonshine. Dealing with the girl, after his head cleared up anyway, had sobered him up quicker than if he'd been stopped by a State Trooper. He walked through the living room, on his way to the stairs, when he caught something out of the corner of his eye. James, asleep on the couch. Seph noted the inhaler lying on the coffee table. The boy had pushed himself too hard today. Seph fingered his shirt. He'd better not wake him up and tell him to go to bed. Seph didn't feel like concocting a story about why his shirt was ripped and didn't have any buttons. His mind was too weary to think anything up that would sound like the truth.
He'd leave the boy alone, let him sleep on the couch for tonight. He looked like he'd be okay. But maybe he should lock the doors, just in case.
After locking up, Seph continued on to the stairs, stepping as lightly as he could.
When he got to the top, he heard Cliff snoring, loud as a bear as usual, and knew that he was okay. He went to peek in on Fern. He opened her bedroom door a crack. Her nightlight that sat on the bedside table shone dimly across her bed, illuminating her face. She was sound asleep, her cheek resting on one hand, looking so much like her mother that Seph's heart ached.
He quietly eased the door closed.
Seph stepped into his empty bedroom, his eyes immediately locking on the equally empty bed. Chloe, he thought, did that insane, evil girl kill you? If she did, it was really his fault, wasn't it? His screw up had cost him way too much.
He pulled off his useless rag of a shirt and threw it in the trash can in the little bathroom that was connected to the bedroom. So much for that, he thought.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror above the tiny sink. A haggard old man stared back at him with bloodshot eyes. Disgusted, he went back into the bedroom, dropped his pants and fell onto the bed.
He buried his face in the pillow, Chloe's pillow. Tears spilled from his eyes. He could still smell Chloe's perfume faintly on the pillow. Seph missed her. He missed his safe southern life where the worst thing that happened was when Chloe would get mad at him for drinking.
At least the kids were home, safe, asleep in the house.
Seph's tears wet the pillow that used to cradle Chloe's curly-haired head.
He cried himself to sleep.
***
Anna skirted Seph's house and slinked inside the barn.
She spotted the sow, sleeping in the far stall, in a shaft of light that came through the wall and fell across the sow's huge belly.
Anna had an idea.
She wasn't sure how the sow had escaped the spell that she had put on the feed, maybe it hadn't eaten, but she had a use for her now.
Anna pulled her last candle from her trusty potato sack and hunkered down behind the ladder that led to the loft. There were scraps of lumber in a pile and she re-arranged them to make herself a flat area to work on.
She got out her book and started to read.
The barn reeked with an oily smell, not unlike burning flesh. Anna wondered what would put off that type of smell but then she hadn't seen any dead hogs out in the sty so maybe they burned them. That thought tickled her.
She started pulling things out of her sack, mixing this and mixing that until she had the right combination. When she got everything just as she wanted it, she searched the barn for something that the sow would want to eat.
She found the feed and a bucket on the floor beside it. Anna saw that the light was starting to take on a pinkish tint as it sifted through the cracks in the barn. She'd better get a move on. She took a handful of feed and dropped it in the bucket.
The sow woke up in the stall, gave a snort and got to its feet. The sound of the feed hitting the bottom of the bucket must have woken it up. Perfect, Anna thought.
She went back to her little work spot under the ladder and took the concoction she had just mixed up and added it to the bucket.
Anna walked over to the stall where the sow was with a light step, swinging the bucket as she went.
She leaned over the gate. The sow snorted at her, then raised its snout, sniffing.
"Are you hungry?" she asked.
She poured the contents of the bucket into the low metal pan that was on the ground inside the stall.
Anna smiled as she watched the sow pig out on the food.
She replaced the bucket, put all her things back in her potato sack, and sneaked back out of the barn and into the woods.
She found an old hollowed out fallen tree, a little farther inside the woods than the raspberry bramble, and settled down inside.
She still had a bit of work to do.
***
James rolled onto his side.
Someone was knocking from the wall. The wall behind the couch. James forced himself awake and turned onto his back.
Knock. Knock.
He looked at the wall. Someone must be in the kitchen, but why would they be knocking? He swung his legs around and noticed that it was daylight. He rubbed his face with his hands, wondering if his father had made it home.
Knock.
"
Okay, who's in the kitchen?" James called.
No one answered.
Knock.
He lurched up off the couch, banging his shin on the coffee table. He grimaced and limped into the kitchen, ready to kill the first person he saw for waking him up.
No one was there. The kitchen was empty.
James scratched his head. He walked back into the living room.
Knock. Knock, knock.
James kneeled on the couch, facing the wall, and placed his palms on it.
KNOCK.
He jerked his hand away. He had felt it, like someone was in between the walls. It was a sign, no denying that it was a sign. It had to be. He searched his memory.
"Jaaames," someone said, faintly, in a singsong voice.
Knocking on a wall. It came to him. Knocking on a wall. A ghost will knock on a wall when someone in the house is going to die.
"James."
Someone was calling his name. It sounded like it was coming from outside, but very faint.
A woman's voice. One he didn't recognize.
Knock, knock, knock.
James' head was starting to spin. He had to go to the bathroom. Badly. The noise in his head was growing, the knocking a continuous rapping, the voice, the one he didn't know, kept calling, calling. He passed Cliff on the stairs on his way to the bathroom. Cliff said something. James heard the name Georgia, but that was all. Aunt Doll was talking to him now. He walked down the upstairs hall, heading for the bathroom, wanting to put his hands over his ears. In his head, the voices assailed him.
"Jaaamess, James come out to the barn," the unknown voice taunted. "James, boy, don't you listen. Don't you go out there," Aunt Doll chimed in. The knocking, rapping, rap, rap, rap, came from the bathroom wall now as he tried to piss, but it wouldn't come, and his bladder was ready to burst. "James, come to the barn, the barn," the voice again. Rap. Rap. "Jamesboy, the knocking ... die, someone ... don't go ... you're the onlyest one to save ..." Aunt Doll stuttered. Rap-rap-rap-rap. "James boy, don't go out. You're meant for something else," Aunt Doll said, loud and clear. "Jaaamesy," the other called seductively. James tried to shut them out, close down his mind. Finally, the urine exploded out of his body. Instant relief flooded through him.