by Catie Rhodes
Loretta Nell reddens. "Fine. I just want to read something to y’all."
She opens the book, Mohawk’s book.
My heart begins to thud. I don’t want to hear this after all, and I don’t want to see what it did. I concentrate, trying to push myself out of the vision.
Loretta Nell begins to read. The words sound like gibberish at first, but then my brain relaxes and I hear them for what they are.
"You are a wave sweeping over the earth, reaping the red harvest. You feel this wave, rising inside you. You are of a single power. You are of a single purpose. You were made to reap the harvest. You were made to cleanse this earth of the undeserving.” Loretta Nell reads on, but the words all mean the same thing.
A boy in front of us turns and winks at me. A memory belonging to the girl whose body I’m in flashes. In it, this winking boy mashes his lips against hers, hand squeezing one breast so hard it hurts. She tries to push him away, and he shoves his knee between hers. She slaps his face. He slaps her back and walks away.
Anger burns in the body I’m borrowing. Loretta Nell’s recitation from Mohawk’s book seeps into the anger, stirring it. My skin heats with is fever.
That boy—his name is Kevin—needs to be taught a lesson. He needs to be cleansed from the earth. Boys like him, boys who think they can get away with treating girls like toys, shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
Around me, other kids shift in their seats, a few murmuring. Our fury joins together. It gains strength.
My anger trips into fury as I stare at the back of Kevin’s head. I could hit it and hit it until the skull cracked open and I saw his brains.
From the back of the room comes, "You nasty bitch. I’ll teach you to spread rumors about me." A pained scream follows.
The fury inside my head pounds, begging me to show Kevin I won’t take his shit. I grip my purse strap in both hands, slip it over Kevin’s head, and yank down with all my weight.
The pigtailed girl beside me watches with parted lips. Every once in a while, she licks them. Her hazel eyes flash, and she’s on me, yanking at my hair.
"You bitch, you think you’re better than everybody else." Her fingers search for my eyes.
I let go of my purse to stop her, and Kevin leaps over the back of his seat, arms outstretched. He tackles me to the floor, planting his knees on my chest. He slams his fists into my face over and over. The sound of my skull shattering is like the crack of a wet branch.
In the background, Loretta Nell is shouting, "In his name. In his name. All in his name, you snotty assholes."
A familiar voice woke me from the vision of hell on earth.
"Peri Jean! Look at me. Do not take another step. Peri Jean!" A clattering sound followed the words.
Something popped against my ankle. It stung. The vision faded. I came to, surrounded by a huge, blueberry sky studded by a million pinpricks of starry light. Nothingness stretched out before me. Orev perched at my feet, head reared back to give me another peck.
"Peri Jean, please listen to me. Please." This time I recognized Tanner’s voice. He wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d let him go because he might get hurt or killed. But now it was too late. He was here, and he wouldn’t leave until we did what we came to do. That snapped me back into the real world.
I stood on the barn’s roof, a long, damn way to the ground. Panic beat at my chest. Had I climbed up here? I didn’t remember. What had happened in that barn? I’d lost control.
A wave of fear swam in my head. My foot slipped. A scream tore from my throat. Heart slamming, I fought for balance.
“You’ll never have the Serpent God’s book,” Loretta Nell’s voice, perfumed with the grave, blew into my face. “It was entrusted to me.”
I fought for control, sucking oxygen deep into my lungs and letting it out slowly. My thundering heart slowed. Things began to make sense again. Loretta Nell thought me a thief. I’d just explain. Once she understood this was what Mohawk wanted, we’d be okay.
“The Serpent God sent me to retrieve the book.” My voice only shook a little.
“Liar.” Loretta Nell’s anger rose, chilling the night air.
“No. The Serpent God wanted to have a child with me. I didn’t want to do that, so I agreed to retrieve the book…” I quit talking as freezing hands pressed against the small of my back and gave me a hard shove.
I locked my knees and pushed back. One foot slid on the barn’s tin roof, slick with dew.
"Noo," I squealed and let myself go down on one knee.
Maybe that would keep me from overbalancing and toppling over the edge. I had seen the barn in daylight and knew how far it would be to the ground. The memory of that pile of junk, those bicycle spokes pointing at the sky, flashed behind my eyes. A whine escaped my lips.
“The Serpent God would never bestow his offspring on you. I was his chosen daughter, the keeper of his word, and you’re a worthless little shit stain.” She shoved me again.
I slid on the slanted roof, feet kicking for purchase. My heel caught a rough spot. I lay gasping, trying to slow my heart. If I allowed myself the luxury of panic, I’d die. I had to think.
Tanner’s voice came from below. "Listen to me. There’s all kinds of broken shit down here. It’ll kill you if you fall. Hear me?”
The image of those bicycle spokes loomed large in my memory. A falling sensation swept through me. I squeezed my eyes shut.
"Yeah." I barely got the word out.
"Hang tight, baby. I’m coming up there to get you. Just be still." His footsteps crunched on the dead end-of-summer grass.
I wanted to tell him not to, but I couldn’t. Uncontrollable shivers ripped through me. My teeth chattered. Tears leaked from my eyes.
Loretta Nell. Where was she? I twisted to see if she was still behind me. The wraith glowed against the dark night sky, malice radiating off her.
The world flashed, and that rage I’d felt in the vision came back. It pulsed at my temples and throat. Told me to get up and fight her.
I pinched the inside of my arm as hard as I could. The thoughts stopped. I turned over and lay flat on my stomach, the tin cold through my dew-dampened clothes, to watch Loretta Nell. My heart beat so hard I should have been able to hear it banging on the tin.
Loretta Nell inched toward me. Mad light danced in her eyes, but she controlled way more energy than most spirits. She had taken me into a vision, pulled me into a deep enough trance that I almost walked off the roof of this barn to my death. Then she’d forced the return of the emotions I’d felt in the vision. So far, she was winning.
I reached for the mantle. It gave me no more than a weak buzz. Perfect. In order to use my magic well, I had to be calm and in control. Right now, I was all out of sorts. Sweating, shivering, scared. So I used a method I’d developed where I called my power a little at a time.
First I concentrated on the air. I focused until I felt the slight wind drying the sweat on my back. I sniffed until I smelled the promise of dawn. Then water. I went through the same process of feeling the humidity on the air, the sheen of dew still standing on the barn’s roof. Then earth, the best one of all. I heard the rattle of the trees as the wind moved them, smelled the sweet scent of their leaves. Then I called fire. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a little bolt of lightning popped. I pulled the fire of that lightning into me, let it fuel my power.
Loretta Nell moved even closer, kneeling to watch me like a cat waiting for a mouse to move. All she needed was the writhing tail.
"It’s too late," she hissed and launched herself at me.
I gathered the mantle and aimed it at her. Spirit mediumship was my talent. A form of necromancy, spirit mediumship allowed me some control over spirits. The best forms of control required spell casting. But right then, I just threw power at Loretta Nell.
"Get the hell away from me," I screamed and blasted her with all the magic I had. The rage from the vision came back, and I poured it into my one shot at sending her away.
But that didn’t happen. Not quite. Loretta Nell brightened until the light coming off her almost blinded me. Then she began to fade. She opened her mouth, elongating her face into a horror mask, and let out a howl so loud it vibrated through my body.
My ears popped. My back teeth ached. I slapped my hands to my ears, but it didn’t help because the howl was coming from inside my head. Then she winked out of existence, and I was alone on the roof.
I lay on my back, gasping, and stared at the endless blanket of stars.
"Peri Jean?" Tanner’s voice came from nearby. He put his forearms on the roof and hooked his leg over the side. "You all right?"
"Got a headache." I put my hands over my ringing ears.
"I bet. That was some scream. I bet your throat’ll be sore tomorrow too." He crept over to me, the old tin bowing beneath his weight.
"I screamed? All I heard was Loretta Nell." I got my legs under me and tried to stand. Tanner had to grab my arm to keep me from overbalancing.
"You screamed too. Loretta Nell—that a ghost? You get her to tell you where the book is?" Tanner took my arm.
Warmth spread through me, making the awful day seem a teeny bit less bad. I grabbed his hand and brought it to my cheek.
"I’m sorry I treated you the way I did." The words kicked my Texas-sized pride right in the gonads, but they needed to be said. "Had you talked to me that way, I’m not sure I’d have come looking for you."
Tanner pulled his hand away and held his ground. He wanted more. I didn’t blame him.
"I want you here. I’m grateful for your help." I wracked my brain for more right words, but Tanner closed the distance and put both arms around me. He’d live with what little I had given him.
"It’s gonna be hell getting down from here," he said against my head.
Even though I wanted to cry from the frustration of nearly a whole day wasted, I laughed because Tanner was here. I didn’t have to do this alone.
5
Ten harrowing minutes later, Tanner and I climbed down the rickety ladder connecting the barn’s ground floor to the loft. My stang lay a few feet from the pot of grave dirt, which had been overturned. I retrieved both items, muttering to myself.
"What?" Tanner said from behind me.
I faced him. "Loretta Nell must have gotten me to break my protective circle while she had me in that vision."
I explained what I’d seen in my trip into Loretta Nell’s past but couldn’t quite put words to that pure, white-hot rage. Tanner recoiled as I detailed the experience. I didn’t blame him. What I’d seen, and my reaction, turned my stomach.
"I might have a theory on how she got control of you and why she wanted to bring you out here, if you want to hear it." Without waiting for my answer, Tanner shone his flashlight on the walls.
Gone were the dead bodies. Reddish brown stains marked where they’d hung. Age darkened the stains, blurring their edges. But that didn’t stop me from making out the purposefully rounded corners of a sigil. Fear crawled up my back.
Tanner pointed the flashlight at several more sigils. “It’s like somebody’s temple of worship.”
“Did she control me with these?” I muttered the question to myself.
Tanner answered. "From what you’re telling me, this Loretta Nell can do a lot more than the average ghost. And I might even know how it ties to the book."
"Let’s talk about it outside." I tightened my grip on my stang, tucked the pot that had formerly contained grave dirt under my arm, and led the way outside.
Tanner took my arm and led me around the side of the barn. "Loretta Nell was able to invade your consciousness because of the power in those symbols on the wall. I’m thinking those symbols were probably taken right out of Mohawk’s book. You agree?"
"I’ll agree for now." I’d take every chance I could to smart off.
Tanner twisted enough to give me the slow smile that had won my heart over the past months and put his arm around me. He whispered in my ear, "You’re going to pay for that later."
"Promise?" I planted a kiss on his lips. "Now finish telling me your theory about Loretta Nell."
"The Serpent God was worshipped by some religion or cult. Religions and cults have leaders, priests and priestesses. Think about it." We came to a stop in front of a pile of junk.
"You’re saying Loretta Nell was a priestess and, therefore, has special powers. That works. She told me she was Mohawk’s favorite daughter." I thought it might be possible, even though I didn’t quite understand how it worked.
"That’s exactly what I’m saying." Tanner gestured at the junk around the side of the barn. "This is what you’d have fallen on."
I couldn’t make out details in the darkness, but metal glinted in the moonlight. Tanner pulled out his flashlight again and flicked it on. Now I could make out part of the bicycle frame, twisted spokes aiming at the sky. I shivered. Tanner tugged me away from the wreckage and toward our trucks parked in front of the house.
I trudged along behind him. Loretta Nell’s ghost had tricked me from the first minute I got out that silly bundle of sage and tried to cleanse myself. As a priestess of Mohawk’s followers, or favorite daughter, she had power I wasn’t prepared to combat.
"I don’t know what to do now.” I said to Tanner’s back.
"I brought my scrying mirror. Why don’t we see if I can pick up a trace of the book?” He twisted and tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
We walked back to where he’d parked his beat-up old truck next to mine in front of the farmhouse. The vintage two-tone paint job glowed against the darker rust spots.
"Why don’t we leave?" I wanted away from this haunted place before Loretta Nell returned. She surely would since I hadn’t completed the banishing ritual I’d planned to do.
Tanner shrugged. "We can go, but if the book is somewhere on this property, this is our best chance of picking up its psychic signal."
I considered just getting out of here. But my time was running out. If Tanner’s scrying mirror worked, we could be on the road away from Devil’s Rest as soon as we had Mohawk’s book in hand. I nodded my okay.
Tanner began preparing to scry.
He placed a worn square of a striped, woven blanket in the bed of his truck and set his black scrying mirror on the fabric. Next to that he placed his incense bowl. From his pocket he drew a plastic packet with a little incense in it. He sprinkled this in the bowl and lit it, blowing gently to get the smoke going.
A new problem hit me. I gripped his arm to get him to stop. "This isn’t going to work. We don’t have a piece of the book like we did with Miss Ugly’s skull lamp, and I don’t have a connection with the book like I did with the wheel of life."
I let go of Tanner and dug around in my truck until I found an unopened pack of cigarettes. As I lit up, I realized I did have a connection. Mohawk had bitten me with his snake fangs. "Wait, I do."
I explained about the snakebite. Tanner made a disgusted face, but his preparations to scry for the book became more urgent.
Tanner jogged back to the truck’s cab and came back with two cheap prayer candles in glass containers. He lit them and placed them next to the incense. The candles flickered in the light wind, their glow playing over Tanner’s face.
Something in my chest twinged, deep enough to make me squirm. I liked him too much. It would never end well. Worries and thoughts jammed together. I smoked faster, consumed by it all, until I caught Tanner watching me.
He tucked a hank of hair behind his ear and lowered his head. He held out one hand to me. I took it and forced the worry out of my mind. A hum of magic passed between us. My black opal heated.
I didn’t have much power left, but our bond as lovers connected us. Together we had enough. The smoke from the incense drifted towar
d us, tracers following behind. It enveloped both of us. The black opal pulsed with each heartbeat. The hum of magic increased.
Tanner ran the index finger of his free hand over the mirror and let his eyes slide closed. I did the same. The spot where Mohawk had bitten me flamed to life, whatever venom he’d left throbbing all the way up my arm. Tanner’s breathing deepened. The candles began to gutter as though being blown by a hard wind. He gave my hand a soft squeeze, and we opened our eyes at the same time.
The scrying mirror at first just reflected the light of the sputtering candles, but then it opened to a blue, cloudless sky that overlooked the kind of green, hilly vista one could see from every high point in this part of central Texas. Then it went dark.
"Wait a minute," Tanner said and ran his finger over the mirror. This time, it stayed dark. He let out a frustrated grunt and turned to me. "You know that place?"
"Sure, it’s everywhere out here." I let go of Tanner’s hand and blew out the candles.
"That’s what I thought." He cleaned up his equipment, his movements angry and fast. "We’ll just have to figure out something else."
I started toward the house. "My witch pack is upstairs. I’m not leaving it."
"I’ll come with you." The truck’s door shut behind me, and Tanner jogged to my side.
"No. She tried to run me out the window." I pointed to the window I’d almost fallen from.
Tanner faced me and leaned so close I could smell the orange breath mints he liked eating. He gripped both shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze.
"I’m in this because I care about you. Don’t shit on it." He kissed the tip of my nose, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into the house.
I followed, bewildered that he’d risk himself over a girlfriend he hadn’t even had six months. His loyalty made my heart ache. I didn’t deserve it. I knew that much. But I couldn’t quite let him go to keep him safe.
We took careful steps across the porch. The front door was not only closed but stuck. No open invitation this time. Tanner struggled with it, lifting the door until the cords in his neck stood out. Either this was Loretta Nell’s way of keeping us out, or she was off somewhere licking her wounds from the blast I gave her. Finally Tanner’s efforts paid off. The door swung open, hinges groaning an off-key baritone.