In Iceland, she learned, people still refuse to move boulders because they fear upsetting the ‘hidden folk’ who live inside them. In many places, it seemed that the old beliefs in the fae still held sway over the people of the region. But why did Corvus care? What sway did faerie folklore hold over him?
Enthralled by both the content and the added mystery of the man who owned–well, stole–them, Celeste put the folklore books in the keep box. She would have to wait until they went back home before she could read any further though; she was far too on edge as it was. Normally, she’d be embarrassed by being so easily spooked, but after all the strange and unsettling events and dreams she had experienced in the farmhouse, Celeste was willing to cut herself some slack.
After the folklore books, came a couple of harlequin romance novels, their covers bearing images of half-dressed men holding onto dainty, yet buxom, women as their hair billowed in the breeze. Celeste assumed that the books belonged to Corvus’s late wife, Eileen, but she was also open to the idea that the old man had a secret passion for poorly written erotica. That theory seemed to fall apart as she skimmed the pages, though; there wasn’t a single folded corner in the entire collection. Trash.
At the very end of the bottom shelf sat an old atlas, well worn from use. Celeste perked up when she saw it, realizing that the book might contain some documentation of Corvus’s travels. As much as she would prefer not to be interested in the man’s odd life and ideas, she had to admit that even she had grown curious.
Celeste picked up the book and immediately noticed just how many of the pages had been dog-eared. There had to be dozens of them, each one promising a small little insight into the increasingly strange mythos of Corvus Wilson.
She opened the book to the first folded corner and found a road map of the entire state of Georgia. Several dots had been drawn in pen across the map, each one in a different city or town across the state. Celeste marveled a little bit at the sheer number of marked locations. Had Corvus traveled to all of them?
Using the map scale at the bottom of the page, she surmised that some of the cities marked were over 200 miles away from Dry Creek. The man may have never left Georgia, but he certainly seemed to have been well-traveled within the state.
As she turned to the next marked page, Celeste wondered idly about what he did on these trips. Did he meet with other farmers and go hunting? Or were they all pleasure trips he took with his wife?
The couple’s getaway idea faded when Celeste got to the next map, this one a close-up view of the nearest city, Blakely. There was a dot placed on a stretch of woods on the edge of the city, and next to it was a date–10/03/1993.
Celeste frowned. Didn’t Eileen disappear in 1992? That made the romantic getaway theory hold a lot less water.
She flipped to the next dog-ear and found a similar sight. This time it was at the Kolomoki Mounds State Park. A dot was placed in the forest with a new date–10/05/1994.
Every map that followed had the same treatment. Arlington, 10/01/1995. Damascus, 10/10/1996. Bluffton, 10/02/1997. Page after page, year after year, each one in the woods, and each one in October.
A small idea scratched at the back of Celeste’s mind as she flipped through the rest of the atlas and saw that the pattern continued. She pulled out her phone and typed each location and year into a note document. Something about it seemed disturbingly familiar; something that she didn’t want to name until she had more evidence.
Celeste sat the book on top of the shelf and resolved to take the car into town the next day. She had a hunch that she wasn’t going to like what she found.
***
Gravel kicked up as Andrew moved out of the driveway and turned left on the main road, heading out to pay a visit to his neighbor. A mission to scope out an elderly man and press him for information about his late grandfather was more than a little bit out of his comfort zone, and, all things considered, Andrew felt that it was a decidedly childish pursuit.
Of course, that wasn’t about to stop him from doing it. All of the information he had about Corvus came from his journal’s ramblings and ravings, and Andrew was starting to get desperate for an outsider’s perspective. Anything that could help him get a clearer picture of who his grandfather was would be worth it.
Helping his wife feel safer was a bonus too, he supposed.
Andrew pulled up to the house after only a few minutes and parked next to the old blue truck that Celeste had described. The couple didn’t own the best or nicest car in the world, but their mid-size sedan looked like a Tesla compared to the hunk of junk he was now idling by. It was the little things that reminded him to be more thankful.
Andrew put the car in park, which was quite the ordeal with his right arm in a sling, and got out. He approached the front door with caution, taking note as he did of a curtain in the living room window that dropped back into place when he looked at it. You couldn’t be too careful walking up to a stranger’s house out in the country. An uninvited guest was equally likely to meet the barrel of a shotgun at the door as they were a smiling face.
He walked up onto the porch and raised his hand to knock on the screen door when the interior door opened suddenly. A silver chain stopped it after a few inches, and Andrew was met with both a face and a gun barrel, although neither was smiling.
“What do you want city slicker?” The face asked, voice cracking slightly as it did.
“Hi,” Andrew said, awkwardly raising his good arm above his head. Off to a great start. He was not a fan of guns in general, and having one trained on him was certainly not going to make his list of favorite experiences. “I’m Corvus’s grandson, from down the road. I’m getting his property ready to sell now that he’s gone, and I was wondering if I could talk with you for a few minutes.”
The interior door slammed shut, and the sound of the chain scratching on the door as it slid and fell could be heard on the other side. A second later, the door opened fully this time, and Andrew was face to face with his neighbor. Thankfully, his gun was pointed at the ground.
“What’s your name, son?” The old man asked as he stepped up to the screen door, clearly hesitant to come out any further.
In the light, Andrew had no idea how Celeste could have been scared of the guy. He was a good foot shorter than Andrew, and outside of the paunch on his stomach, he was all skin and bones. Frail arms trembled slightly as they held the shotgun, which was still plenty frightening, despite the body that was wielding it. He wore striped overalls and a bathrobe, both of which looked and smelled like they hadn’t been washed in a long while.
Looking at him behind that screen door, Andrew wondered if this old man wouldn’t be next on the grim reaper’s list.
“My name’s Andrew,” he replied. “May I ask yours?”
“Name’s Elliot,” he said. “What is it you want to know?”
Andrew’s confidence was bolstered a little by Elliot’s question. Certainly exchanging even the smallest of pleasantries meant that he was at least safe from having a gun pointed at him again.
“I was wondering if you could tell me whatever you might know about my grandfather. He was always a bit of an enigma to me, and I’m afraid I’m having the hardest time piecing together who he was.”
Elliot’s eyes narrowed for a moment. “Aren’t you the boy that came and stayed with him back when his son died?”
Andrew was somewhat taken aback; he didn’t expect anyone to remember him, much less a neighbor that he had never spoken to.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s me.”
“Then shouldn’t you know your own granddaddy better than I could? You lived under his roof for a couple of years.”
This conversation might be going nowhere fast.
Andrew opened his mouth to speak a few times, trying to find the right way to explain himself. After a moment, he settled on candor, figuring that a man like Elliot would appreciate him being direct more than him being tactful.
“Sir,” he began, maybe lay
ing it on a bit too thick. “With all due respect, my grandfather was an odd man. He kept to himself and kept a lot of secrets. I’m just trying to figure out what those secrets were, and anything you may know could help me greatly.”
Elliot seemed to consider this for a moment, his jaw moving back and forth as he did.
“You’re right about Corvus being odd, that’s for sure. He and I both kept to ourselves mostly, but I always thought it was weird how much time he spent out in the barn at night.”
Andrew leaned forward, tantalized by the revelation.
“Excuse me?”
“For as long as I can remember, every year in early October, your grandpa would spend about a week straight going out to the barn in the dead of night. He’d leave for a day or two, then come back in the middle of the night and back his truck up to the barn to unload something. I always figured he was hunting early and dressing the deer in the dark to keep it a secret. But it doesn't take a week to dress a deer, so I got no clue what he could’ve been doing the rest of the time.”
Elliot paused to check on Andrew, who stood dumbfounded.
“I take it you didn’t know that?” He asked.
Andrew could only shake his head.
“Well,” Elliot said. “I told you all I know, and I don’t want to miss any more of my program than I already have.”
Andrew snapped out of his stupor. “Thank you very much, Mister Elliot.”
He eyed Andrew up and down once more before saying, “You have a good day now, son.”
“You too, sir,” he responded as he made his way down the porch steps.
“And young man,” Elliot called out.
Andrew turned to look at him once more. “Yes sir?”
“Don’t come round here anymore, you understand? I don’t appreciate visitors.”
“Absolutely.”
Without another word, the old man closed the door, and the sound of the chain could be heard as it slid back in place. Andrew made a face as he walked back to his car. The spirit of southern hospitality hadn’t reached his house yet.
As he turned the key in the ignition, Andrew wondered about Corvus’s late-night visits to the barn. The only new detail he had seen was the pile of deer skulls; a feature that seemed to line up with Elliot’s illegal hunting theory. He remembered the October trips Corvus would take but had Andrew never noticed his grandfather staying out in the barn all night for a week straight?
Of course, that was assuming that Elliot was a trustworthy source. Nothing about him screamed reliable witness, but if Andrew was willing to take him at his word, then that meant that Corvus had something secret hidden in the barn. That was worth looking into.
He made a quick pit stop on his way back to the house, turning left into the field across from the gravel driveway. Parking by the barn, Andrew looked up at the looming structure. A thick sheet of darkening clouds loomed in the distance behind it, threatening to bring rain. He remembered the forecast calling for a heavy storm Thursday night; maybe it was coming early.
The interior of the barn was exactly as Andrew remembered it when he fell. The tools on the workbench were where he had left them, and the tractor remained in the center of the space, right where Corvus always parked it. As he started poking around, Andrew made a mental note to finally drive the old thing before he and Celeste went back home. Maybe he could take her out for a ride to celebrate finally skipping town.
Unsurprisingly, Andrew found nothing in his second search that he hadn’t already found in the first. There were no secret panels on the tool bench, no hidden compartments in the tractor, and no room in the loft to hide something, not that he had been able to climb up and check. His shoulders slumped as he made his way back to the car.
It seemed that his neighbor was either right and Corvus was out cleaning illegally caught deer in the dead of night, or he was wrong and there was nothing to be found out there. Either way, Andrew was no closer to understanding his grandfather than when he started that day.
Thanks for nothing, Elliot.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
During dinner that evening, Andrew updated Celeste on his conversation with Elliot, reassuring her that he seemed harmless enough. When she asked him if their neighbor knew anything useful about Corvus, Andrew told her no.
It wasn’t completely a lie, the way he saw it. He had already known about the deer skulls in the loft, and he wasn’t even certain whether or not he could trust the old man. Andrew didn’t see any reason to make Celeste more uncomfortable than she already was.
The couple finished up dinner and wound down for the evening, snuggling up on the couch to watch another movie Celeste had downloaded on her laptop. This rom-com was about a photojournalist who discovered she could take pictures of people’s true emotions after dropping her camera in a wishing well fountain, and Andrew found himself strangely sucked in by the story.
After a whole movie of using the camera to help other people fix their problems, the protagonist’s best friend took the camera from her and used it to help fix her problems too. It was cheesy, corny, and had a soundtrack ripped straight out of the 90s, but Andrew had a great time watching it. He would have to request more movies like it in the future.
Andrew woke Celeste, who had fallen asleep on his shoulder a little over halfway through the film, and said, “Hey babe, it’s time to get up. You can’t sleep on the couch all night.”
Celeste stirred for a moment, then yawned, stretched, and rubbed at her bleary eyes. “Did you like the movie?”
“Weirdly enough,” he said. “I kinda loved it.”
“Oh good,” she laid her head back on his shoulder. “We’ll have to watch it sometime.”
“Yeah, you definitely need to go to bed.”
Andrew helped Celeste make her way to their room, halfway carrying her up the stairs. Sleepy Celeste was both incoherent and uncoordinated. Once he had walked her into the room, she collapsed on the bed and started snoring the moment her head hit the pillow. Smiling to himself, Andrew pulled the blanket up over her shoulders and turned out the lights.
While going to the bathroom, Andrew saw Celeste’s inhaler on the sink and realized that he had forgotten to have her take it before bed. He left the bathroom with her inhaler in hand, ready to rouse her enough to take a puff, but upon hearing the sound of her snoring resonate through the hallway, Andrew decided that she would be okay for one night without it. After the past few nights she had had, Celeste deserved to rest. Plus, once she was out, it took nothing short of a literal slap in the face to wake her up.
As much as Andrew would have loved laying in bed and listening to her snoring for an hour as he tried to fall asleep, he decided that now was the perfect time to finally enjoy a glass of that whiskey Jax had given him. The creaking of the stairs seemed quiet for the first time when compared to Celeste’s snores, and he chuckled to himself about that fact as he descended into the living room. The whiskey bottle stood as a glimmering beacon of hope on an otherwise bleak and barren countertop, one that Andrew would happily answer the call of.
Plucking the cork off the bottle and taking in a nice, deep whiff of the scent, Andrew felt his muscles relaxing. He needed this. He poured himself a little more than he normally would, thinking that it would help him get to sleep faster if the snore of the century didn’t subside soon.
The armchair in the living room groaned quietly as he sat down, protesting the unexpected weight. Andrew took a small, slow sip and let the flavor wash over his mouth as he swallowed. Warmth spread through his chest as the whiskey made its way to his stomach. A small sigh escaped his lips.
The whiskey may have been cheap, but it sure was delicious.
Andrew found himself staring at the journal while he took a few more drinks. It was late, and his appetite for strangeness was depleted for the day, but the siren call of the journal wouldn’t let him go. After another minute and a bigger gulp, Andrew reached over and plucked the book off the coffee table in front of him.
He felt a slight buzz come over him as he turned to the last dog-eared page and started reading. There were fewer entries by this point, Corvus’s thoughts becoming more and more focused on the Ragged. Scribbles and sketches of the thing would show up in the margins and would even take up whole pages at times. Andrew skimmed over the bulk of September, looking for an interesting entry, and the one he did find was a doozy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
September 27th, 1992
I’ve been leaving spare meat out for Ragged every night after Eileen goes to bed for about a month now. Each morning I go outside and see that he ate it all up, or at least took it with him to wherever he comes from. I know there’s more to him though. There has to be.
Momma always told me that it was better to leave the fae alone, to just be respectful and leave them be. But I reckon momma never saw any of them in the flesh, looking up at her from the backyard.
I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to wait for Ragged outside tonight.
I’ve never seen God do anything for me, and I’ve lived my whole life trying to make Him happy. But I’ve seen Ragged and the things he’s doing for me. If he’s the one making my crops better, then I want to thank him myself.
***
September 28th, 1992
I did it! I met the Ragged!
Last night, I left the food out like I normally do, but then I went out the front door and snuck around the back of the house to wait for him. I watched for over an hour, but Ragged was nowhere to be seen.
I turned around to go back inside and he was right there behind me! Wouldn’t you know it, I fell down out of fright. That’s when Ragged stood over me and taught me things I never knew before.
The Ragged Page 10