by Chris Neeley
"Hello, Doc. Listen, I can't tie up the line ..."
"What's wrong? Something happen? Is everybody all right?" The Doc sounded genuinely worried.
James sighed. "Could you come over, Doc? Something real bad has happened. I need you to take a look at Georgia."
"What's wrong with Georgia?"
"She's dead."
"Dead?"
"Dad shot her."
"Why'd he do that?"
James leaned against the wall. "Could you just come over? I'll explain it to you then, all right?"
"I'll be right there." The Doc hung up without saying good-bye.
James hung up the phone and went back outside. Custer sidled up beside him and laid down on the step, laying his head on his paws. A glossy black station wagon pulled in the drive, moving so slow that it reminded James of a hearse. Custer didn't even raise his head. The station wagon coasted to a stop in front of the steps and James read the words on the driver's door. County Coroner. A spindly little man with thick glasses got out of the car. He squinted at James.
"You Mayhew?" he asked, his voice thin and reedy.
"I'm James. If you'll come with me to the barn ..."
"That where the body is?" the man asked, falling into step beside James.
For some reason, the man calling Cliff 'a body' pissed James off. He immediately disliked the man. He didn't like his eyes that looked three times normal size behind his thick glasses. He didn't like the prissy little way that he walked. And, he especially didn't like his attitude. "My brother is in the barn. A hog disemboweled him this bright sunny morning," James said as sarcastically as he could.
The man just nodded his head and shoved his glasses up on his nose, as if this was the kind of thing he ran into every day of the week.
James took him into the barn and showed him the stall where Cliff still leaned in the corner. Cliff was starting to draw flies. James stomach turned. The man looked in the stall, then turned to look at the mess in the barn floor that used to be Georgia. "That the hog?" he asked.
James nodded his head.
The little man eyed him curiously. "You call the vet yet?"
"Yes. The man looked around some more. "You don't have any more hogs 'round, do you?"
James was growing impatient. Why didn't he do something about Cliff instead of letting him rot there inside the stall? "No. That was the last hog and I doubt we'll ever have any more. Now aren't you going to do something about my brother?"
The man wrinkled his nose and 'hmph'ed at James. He went inside the stall and bent over to get a better look at what had once been a strapping young boy. James walked back outside, wishing that this part of it was over. He wanted the man to take Cliff to the funeral parlor so that they could work their magic and make him look like Cliff again, even though a dead Cliff.
I'm only sixteen, seventeen soon, James thought. How am I supposed to deal with all of this? He walked to the steps again and dropped down beside Custer to wait for Doc Varner. He needed to see a familiar face right now. He wished that it could be Aunt Doll, Aunt Doll who knew how to deal with things like this, things like backwoods magic and signs and folklore.
He rested his chin in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees and watched one of the barn cats, sitting just outside the barn, as it languidly washed its face. There would be a storm coming, he thought. When a cat washes its face, it meant bad weather.
Funny, James thought as he remembered what that sign meant, he was starting to remember more and more of what Aunt Doll had taught him.
He would need it.
***
Anna was almost home, about another half mile to go maybe, when she saw a snake drop from a tree and land on the ground in front of her. It slithered through the underbrush and disappeared. The sun was waning to the west and the light in the woods was taking on the greenish-gray cast of evening as it sifted down through the treetops and speckled the forest floor. Anna could feel the pressure of the oncoming storm, a light pushing against her eardrums, as she walked, watching the trees overhead. Anna didn't like snakes. It must be a bad storm coming if the snakes were dropping to the ground in search of shelter. She looked up into the trees and down at her feet, up and down, watching for the slimy snakes and trying not to trip over anything.
Something moved in the brush to her right, a quick movement, furtive as a feline. Then it was still. Anna glanced out of the corner of her eye. The light was a dusky film, throwing shadows and blurring edges of bushes and ferns together, making it hard to distinguish one thing from another. She kept walking, softer than before, listening.
A maidenhead fern rustled, brushing lightly against her ankle. She let out a 'whoop' and jumped away from it. Whatever was pacing her had no fear of her if it wasn't afraid to come that close.
It was dark now, the sun already down below the next ridge. Anna could barely make out the trunks of the trees, let alone whatever was following her. She started walking like a woman on a mission.
In another fifteen minutes, she would be back at the shack. She was tired and worn out. She needed some rest so that she could recharge herself. Casting spells made her a bit weak, she had to put so much of herself into them.
She heard a noise. Claws scrabbling up a tree trunk up ahead.
Anna kept moving, anxious to get home and rest. She had a lot of matters to attend to when the sun came up. She kept her eyes peeled on the ground, knowing that she was almost to the edge of the woods.
She didn't see the cat until it was too late.
Fur and claws dropped from above onto Anna's head, the claws scrambling for purchase on her scalp. Anna screamed, a banshee in the dark, dropping her potato sack. Both hands reached up, trying to get a hold on the thing that was tearing her head apart. She grabbed a handful of silky fur and pulled, realizing too late that it was the wrong thing to do. Two sets of claws dug into her left cheek and sunk like railroad spikes all the way to the bone. Two more sets of needle sharp claws dug in, one in the back of her head, one in her right ear. Anna wailed, letting go of the fur and took off running. She bounced into a fat tree trunk full-faced. The thing on her head let out a yowl and changed position, sinking its claws in again. Anna's face and head were on fire. She slammed her head against the tree trunk, the cat, she knew it was a cat, taking the brunt of the blow. Its claws retracted and it yowled again, only this time in pain. Anna grabbed for it, getting it loose from her head this time. It hissed and spit, claws and legs flailing at her arm, ripping her skin in long gashes. Anna grunted and slammed it against the tree again. It still wouldn't give up. She could hear it growling, deep in its throat, as it twisted its body, trying to work its way out of her grasp.
Suddenly, it became still.
Anna heard her own breath rasping, coming in gasps.
Then, she heard something else.
A low growl, barely audible, was coming from the cat.
The moon lit the cat's head, only for a second, then it was dark again. Anna had seen enough. The cat was no other than old Fuzzy. Her cat.
The cat's growl sounded different from anything that Anna had ever heard. It didn't sound like an animal at all. The growl changed as she held the cat at arm's length. The cat was ominously still in her hands.
The growl formed into something that resembled a human voice.
Anna's eyes widened in the dark.
"Mmmmommmaddolll ..." Fuzzy growled.
Anna bashed the cat's head against the tree with more strength than she thought she had. She heard Fuzzy's skull crunch, then he went limp. Anna threw him as far away from her as she could and took off for the shack, completely forgetting that her potato sack, with all of her magical tools and spices and her priceless book, was lying a ways back where she had dropped it.
Anna's feet pounded on the dirt track as thunder cleared its throat in the distance. A cooling breeze swept across her bleeding face as she ran, setting it to burning.
She vaulted up the porch steps and slammed through the door, quickly closing it behi
nd her. She fell against it.
Anna knew that she was in for quite a battle.
Of that she was sure.
***
Seph opened his eyes.
Artificial light, dim, with a greenish cast, fell down on him from above. Outside the reach of the light was darkness and he knew that it was night.
He was lying on his back, something stuck up his nose, and a machine beside the bed, beeping, letting him know that, yes, he was still alive. His eyes traveled around the room. It was dim, but he could make out the shape of another bed to his left. It looked empty. There was a bag of clear fluid hanging on a metal pole with a tube-like hose running down from it and then snaking up under the too-white sheet that covered him. The thing in his nose bothered him. He reached up to touch it. It was an oxygen tube, he guessed, two nose plug things hooked to tubing that ran across each of his cheeks, around his ears like a pair of glasses, then back down in front, coming together into one larger tube just under his chin. The larger tube ran up from the bed and was hooked into an outlet in the wall that was labeled oxygen supply.
He supposed that he'd better leave the blasted thing in his nose.
He wondered where the kids were. He closed his eyes, trying to hold back the tears that threatened when all that he could see in his mind was Cliff, as he had looked after Georgia had got to him. It was a good thing that he had followed James out of the house. If he wouldn't have, he wouldn't have shot the damn hog and he probably wouldn't have any sons left tonight. James hadn't been the friendliest son, not since Seph had started his drinking, but Seph loved him all the same. He supposed that James didn't like him much, especially when he drank, but maybe he could change that now.
His chest tightened a little. He tried to think of something else.
It was hopeless.
He hoped that James had understood him when he had tried to tell him about the babe buried by the tree and the crazy woman, but he had no way of knowing, not when he was locked up in here. Maybe he could get out of here somehow. Not now. Maybe in the morning.
James had to understand. He was going to have to do something to stop the girl before she took another one of the family. Seph wished that he could talk to James, make him understand what must be done. It's entirely my fault, he thought sadly. I'm the one that brought this down on the family.
If only he had known.
***
James hated the thought of the sun going down with only him and Fern in the house. The coroner had called for help with Cliff. James had seen the flashes of light through the barn door as the coroner took pictures of his brother. They wouldn't let James in the barn now, said he would get in the way.
Doc Varner pulled in the drive just as the sun went down.
James was standing just outside the barn door.
Doc Varner got out of his truck and closed the door. He stood beside it, his eyes traveling from car to car, trying to figure out what was going on. There were two Coroner's Office vehicles in the drive and the hearse from the funeral home was backed up in front of the big sliding barn door.
James started walking toward the Doc.
"What's goin' on here, James? What's the coroner doin' here? Where's your Pa?" Doc Varner asked, sounding even more worried than he had on the phone.
"Cliff. He's dead. Georgia, she--she killed him."
Doc Varner's face went through a range of emotions, from disbelief, to shock, to anger. "What do you mean 'Georgia killed him'? That sow was fine yesterday. What in the world happened?" The Doc took James by the arm.
"I don't know," James began, "I got up and I passed Cliff in the stairway. He said something about Georgia, and the next thing I knew, I heard screaming coming from the barn. I got to the barn quick, but it was already too late. Georgia was eating him."
The Doc shook James. "Did you say eating him?" The Doc's face was getting paler by the minute.
"Eating him," James repeated. "She would have gone for me, too, if Dad hadn't have shot her."
The Doc let his hand drop from James' arm and looked toward the barn. He stared at it for a moment then looked back at James. "Where is your Pa?"
James looked down at the ground. "We called an ambulance. Dad--I think he just couldn't take it. The EMTs said they thought that it was a heart attack. I called the hospital a little while ago and they said that Dad was resting, that it was a mild heart attack, and that we should wait to come see him in the morning.
"They had to give Fern a shot though. She kind of came unglued. She saw Dad shoot Georgia, but at least she didn't see Cliff. I stopped her before she could get there."
The sliding barn door slid open and the men from the funeral home were wheeling a gurney out.
"Hey, hold up there!" Doc Varner called to them, raising his arm. He headed for the back of the hearse. James watched from where he stood. He didn't think that he could look at Cliff again.
The Doc said something to the men and they nodded. They unzipped the black bag that Cliff was in. Doc Varner took a step back, then composed himself. He leaned over the body that had at one time been Clifford Mayhew.
James scuffed his boot in the gravel, a tiny cloud of dust rising up from it like a ghost. When he looked up again, the Doc was walking toward him and the men at the back of the hearse closed the door on his brother.
"Let's go in the barn now, James," Doc Varner said, getting what looked like a physician's black bag out of the front seat of his truck. "I want to take a look at that hog. Do you think you can handle it?" James nodded grimly. Doc Varner slapped him on the back. "You're a good man, James."
James walked with him into the barn. The little man who was the coroner was on his way out. He looked at James and the Doc, nodded his head and left the barn, his assistants trailing behind him like puppies.
James heard their car doors slam and their engines start. He turned to watch them pull out of the drive. The coroner had never even told James his name. He turned back to the Doc.
Doc Varner was already kneeling in front of what was left of Georgia. His glasses were perched on the edge of his nose and he was looking into the cavity that used to house Georgia's brain. James walked over to stand beside him. "What do you think caused her to attack Cliff?" James asked.
"I don't rightly know," Doc said, shoving his glasses back up on his nose. "Your Pa did a sure fine job of blowing her head off, I do say. I'm gonna have to take some samples of her brain, if I can with what's left, and a few other parts of her. I'm not gonna take her carcass back with me. I should be able to find out what I want to know from the tissue samples."
James watched as the Doc reached in his bag and got out what looked to be a very sharp knife and some baggies. "It sounds like you already have an idea," James said, as Doc Varner slipped plastic gloves onto his liver spotted old hands.
The Doc rested his plastic covered hands on his thighs and looked up at James. "I found something in the stomach of that hog I took back to the office with me."
James crouched down beside the Doc.
"Now, don't think I'm a crazy old coot when I tell ya," Doc said, raising a glove-covered finger at James, "but that hog, the one back at the office, was poisoned."
James raised his eyebrows. So, the girl he had seen had been at the hogs. She had poisoned them. Why? "What kind of poison?"
"Now that's the funny thing." Doc Varner started digging around in his bag again. "That hog was poisoned with mandrake root."
James had never heard of it. "What's mandrake root?"
Doc stopped fiddling in the bag and looked James in the eye. "Mandrake root is a root that was used long ago by what us older folk used to call the Holler Witches. The Holler Witches was supposedly a pack of women that lived back in the crook of the Hollow. I always thought that it was some old story that the ones older than me had concocted to keep nosey people out of the Hollow, but every once in a while, you'd hear of some old dog a'dyin' and they'd say, must have been the mandrake, dog must've kilt one of the Holler Witches'
critters, and nothing more would come of it. Well, that's what set your whole pack of hogs to go wild. They ate mandrake root."
James looked at the Doc, puzzled. "How would they eat mandrake root? They don't get anywhere near any kind of roots or weeds. We keep them penned up."
Doc was digging in Georgia's head.
"Somebody must have fed it to 'em," he said, without looking up. "But, it had to be somebody who would know about the old ways, the ways of the Holler Witches that is. No one else 'round here would do a thing like that to a man's livestock." He glanced over his shoulder at James. "Someone must be awful pissed at you all. Someone that maybe you should be worried about."
Chapter Twelve
Anna swabbed her face with a piece of cloth that she had wet in the sink. The cat had torn long gashes into it and Anna knew that she would never look the same.
Someone had set that cat onto her, she thought as she washed away the blood that had already caked to dry rivulets and ran all the way down to her breasts. She knew who that someone was, too.
'Mommadoll'.
This 'Mommadoll' could control animals. She also protected the boy James, but she hadn't protected the other one. Anna wondered if maybe her power wasn't strong enough to protect both of them. Maybe 'Mommadoll' just couldn't do two things at once. Anna dipped the rag into the cool water again, and placed it over her face, letting it lie there. Her face, she could feel it, was starting to swell.
Blood was caked into her hair, too, but she didn't care. She wondered about Crow. Would 'Mommadoll' send him after her, too?
Thunder shook the sky above the shack, letting it be known that, yes, this storm was going to be a humdinger. Anna listened to the echo of the thunder as it bounced off the mountains and reverberated, a hundred storms voicing their anger. Let it rain, she thought. There was nothing more that she could do, not tonight anyway. Her power was ebbing, like the ocean's tide, which Anna had never seen.
Anna had never left the Hollow, not even when her parents had died. She had written a letter to the public school a few days after, claiming that she was her Aunt from Up North and that she was taking her poor orphan niece back with her. The school must have accepted it because no one ever came to check, except that one time, and Anna had survived that winter thanks to all the stores that her Momma had put up and canned the summer before. She had killed a chicken a time or two, but didn't want to kill too many. She had waited until the next summer to start selling the eggs in town. Nobody paid her much attention and they just left her alone. Nobody cared about a backwoods girl, as long as she didn't bother them.