Anna Darling

by Angela Hall-Averre

  “Nice place you got here,” said the agent.

  “It is nice here. This place has been in my family for four generations.”

  The agent’s heart was thumping hard the further they got away from where he’d parked.

  They headed for the barn. The low grass they were moving through seemed untouched. The handful of cows Jerry could see was clustered together as close to the barn as they could get.

  The horses in the corral, were behaving the same. They were crowded together near the back fence under an old oak tree. He heard a dog barking off in the distance. He figured he was chasing a rabbit or something. Then it seemed to him that he heard a man laughing, making a god-awful noise. A high-pitched sound, and then a howling came from the farmhouse.

  The horses got restless and the cows huddled closer together. “They’ve been like that since it happened,” Ralph said, “I thought the cow had died naturally, and then when I got closer to it I could see it wasn’t of natural causes,” Ralph said, “its eyes were gone, the tongue was gone and the ears were gone. The internal organs were cut out. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “On the phone, you said that your dog was nearby when it happened?”

  Ralph nodded. “He’s the only witness. I guess that’s what you would call him. Track is my coonhound. That night I remember he went to baying something awful and then he just stopped. I was about to go see what he had treed. But I wasn’t feeling well that night so I went to bed after he stopped his hollering.”

  This was part of the reason for the agent’s elevated adrenaline level, apart from being at the site of the cow mutilation itself. It was extremely odd for there to be any witnesses, or at least that is what he believed.

  They ventured into the house and Ralph called for his coonhound Track. Jerry immediately saw a reddish mark on the dog’s nose. He had been cut or scraped or maybe it was a burn? It was about the size of a quarter. Following Ralph’s lead, he bent low and saw similar marks on the inside of the coonhound’s legs. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about him. He’s been whining, shaking and drooling all over the place. Hell, he won’t even come out of the house anymore.”

  They made their way back to the barn. From the corral, Jerry could still hear the dog’s high-pitched wail. Almost a week had gone by and the animal was still traumatized. The agent wanted to take a closer look at the poor thing and run some tests. But first, it was time to see the dead cow.

  Without another word, Ralph led him toward the pasture where the incident had taken place.

  Even from a distance, the agent could tell that the cow was lying in a supine position in the grass and had died unnaturally.

  Its carcass was flat against the ground. Drawing closer, he could see no signs of predators or of any sort of defensive resistance. No deep hoof-prints or raised furrows. It had obviously died suddenly. According to Ralph, it had been a healthy animal, worth around four thousand dollars. The cow had been stripped to the bone in various places. Much of its hide was still present, but the wounds were prolific, from head to tail.

  “You have seen this sort of thing before?” Ralph asked, his voice low as they both stopped a few paces from the dead cow.

  Ralph watched as the agent pulled his rubber gloves out from backpack and moved the last few feet to the corpse. The agent’s heart was pounding so hard; it was hard to keep his hands from shaking.

  “Yes, over the past decade I’ve seen eight,” he said, “what’s even more terrifying, incidents like this have been going on for more than fifty years. I’ve only seen it happen in the Midwest. This exact same scene has been witnessed and documented on ranches all over Utah, Colorado, as well as in Arizona and New Mexico. There was a recent case like this in Kansas.”

  What had occurred on Ralph’s farm was violent and horrifying. It was part of a phenomenon made up of more than ten thousand individual incidents, in a half-dozen states… all of them completely unexplained.

  “The wounds,” Ralph whispered. “They look surgical. I don’t believe an animal did this.”

  Jerry didn’t respond. But as he peered closer, he could see that Ralph was right. The cow’s eyes had been carefully removed. Other wounds on the right of the carcass were precise, small incisions appearing surgical. Its internal organs had been removed. And the tongue had been taken. All that remained in the cow’s mouth was a pile of white fly eggs. The incisions were perfectly straight. And the weirdest thing…was there wasn’t any blood.

  “There isn’t any blood,” Ralph said, his voice trembling.

  No reddened stains anywhere on the revealed bones. There was a darkened area of ground just in front of the dead cow. In the sheriff’s report, he had called it a pool of blood.

  Both Ralph and Jerry were experienced enough with dead animals to know the difference between decomposing fats and other bodily fluids and blood. A cow, about twelve hundred pounds worth before whatever happened to it happened, should have contained about thirty-nine liters which equals around ten and a half gallons of blood. For whatever reason, this cow’s blood had been drained. There was no evidence that the creature had bled out. Either before it was killed, or after.

  “It’s as if someone picked her up and threw her down on her back. Predators don’t drink ten gallons of blood and leave the carcasses intact,” said Ralph, “do you think it was aliens?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. UFO sightings have been reported in many cases.”

  Now with both knees in the dirt in front of the animal, Jerry leaned forward, his gloved fingers warily reaching toward the cows partially skinned torso.

  “Looks like a long, T-like incision going down what’s left of the abdominal cavity,” he said, talking mostly to himself, focusing on the carcass where he could still see some flesh and trying to commit to memory what he would be putting in his field notebook, which he’d then share with his veterinary contacts. “The cows rear-end was cut out in an odd circular manner. With so many wounds there was not the expected blood pooling like you get from a wild animal predator. Even days later, there should have been blood around these wounds. “To tell you the truth Ralph, I don’t know what it was that did this.”

  “The sheriff had related that perhaps some sort of military agency must have been responsible for the killing, using high-tech lasers. Do you think the government is responsible?”

  Jerry took a deep breath, and shook his head. “I don’t see any burn markings,” he said, as he began taking photographs. And there is no scent of burning flesh or bone; that is a smell you will never forget.”

  “I can’t really tell you what it smelled like. I ain’t never smelled anything like it before,” said Ralph.

  “Just so you know, back some forty-seven years ago, if I remember correctly, a horse had been killed and similarly excised near here. Its head and neck had been skinned, and its hide appeared to have been cauterized and drained of all its blood.”

  Standing next to the dead Hereford, the terrified whine of the farmer’s coonhound rose above the wind. Jerry did his best to reassure Ralph that he was going to do everything he could to try to help him understand what had happened on his farm. He would run as many tests as he could on the cow’s corpse, perhaps even transport the carcass over to his veterinary source and take readings on the traumatized dog. But even so, he was certain that nothing he could say or do would be enough. In fact, at that moment, nothing anyone could say or do would be enough.

  In the FBI’s expert opinion — and over the past decade, Jerry had turned himself into one of the most knowledgeable investigators in the United States. The mutilated cow in front of them wasn’t the result of a predator. No animal could have caused these freakish wounds. Nor did Jerry or the sheriff see any evidence that pointed to human culpability. There were no footprints, tire tracks, or signs of violence that one would expect with cow taken down like this.

  The sheriff who had first investigated the killing felt it wasn’t a predator, and despite any actual evid
ence, had assumed it was some sort of act of animal cruelty. A sick Halloween prank maybe. Jerry believed the report only opened doors to more questions than it answered. In the history of animal mutilations, and there had been thirty thousand over the past twenty-five years, nobody had ever been caught or arrested. Every one of them had eventually been deemed unexplained.

  “You’ve seen this before,” Ralph said. “How could this be happening and nobody knows why?” he prodded. “You may want to speak to my neighbor Ted, he lives on the next farm up the road. He told me last week that he saw a beast of some kind in his field. He said that its eyes were glowing red. And it had three eyes. Scared the crap out of him and he high tailed it home and locked his doors.”

  “Why and how, that’s the question? This phenomenon is so vast, there were cases being recorded in the 1970s in more than a half-dozen states. Sometimes the reports were simultaneous, once in a while there would be as many as eight in a week. I’ll make sure to speak to your neighbor.”

  After taking many tissue samples and putting them in the plastic bags, he put them in the mini cooler he brought. Jerry stood up and pulled off his rubber gloves and put his hand on Ralph's trembling shoulder, leading him back to the house. He promised he would run several tests and get back with him if he found anything, anything at all.

  “Thank you for your time and effort,” said Ralph as they ventured toward agent Barker’s SUV. “If you want me to help you load the carcass I will. If not, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to bury her.”

  “I’ll get the plastic body bag out of my vehicle and yes, Ralph I appreciate your help in loading her up. And I promise you that as soon as the pathology reports are finished I will personally see to it that she is brought home so you can bury her.”

  “Thank you. Abby was her name. She was my favorite. I had her since she was a heifer. She had three calves that I know will also miss her. She had big brown sad eyes. And her eyelashes, they were beautiful. She had the longest eyelashes. Even longer than the fake ones women buy at the drug store. Yes, I’m going to miss her. I’m hoping that when she is buried my dog Track and the other cows and my horses start acting normal again.”

  “I’m sure they will, with time. At least I hope so,” declared the agent.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Moonstruck Sisters

  THE SISTERS MET after work most evenings at their mom’s house. One evening they ventured to the forest in search of the perfect limbs of Oak, Ash and Willow. After discussing what they needed to do when the moon was waning, the sisters decided to make their own wands. Using these sacred woods would help make their wands more powerful. The sisters agreed that they could not fail at saving Briar Glen from the Demon Dartmoor.

  They searched until they found the most fitting branches and returned home and shaped them down to wand form. Then they decorated them. Nadine had saved the crystals from the silver box. She chose the green crystal for her wand tip. Hanna chose the amber. Anna chose the rainbow amethyst for her tip, for the calming, protective, healing properties the crystal possesses and having shaped her wand smaller than her sisters she plastered a wicked sarcastic smile across her face and quipped, “Well, ladies, it’s not the size of the wand, it’s the magick in the tip.”

  Happy with their wands, they made their way to the forest clearing behind Hanna and Charlie's home. Rose joined them, and helped build the fire for the burning of the sage. As the smoke from the burning sage drifted through the woods, the coven began practicing their spells.

  “Being a Hedge witch, often referred to as a kitchen witch,” said Hanna, “It doesn’t quite work that way. Spells are like recipes. You can try and follow along, but if you don’t have the right ingredients or the basic understanding of the techniques, then it will be hit or miss when casting spells.”

  Anna gazed directly into her mother eyes, “We will get this right. I assure you with all of our power and the coven’s power too, we will succeed in making this right.”

  “But what if we fail?” Nadine whispered.

  “We are not going to fail. The most important tool for any witch is not the candles or cauldron, spells or even the wand. Our most powerful tool is our mind.”

  “You are right,” said Rose “What we believe is what we create.”

  “So the spells are just to help us with strengthening our minds?” asked Nadine.

  They practiced their spells.

  Anna smiled and asked if she could go first. Everyone smiled and nodded in unison.

  She began, “What was brought down upon this town, be returned but times three,

  Head to toe, skin and nerve may you get what you deserve.”

  Everyone clapped and Hanna exclaimed, “I believe you will go far my Anna Darling.”

  Nadine stood and inhaled a deep breath and exhaled slowly and began her spell.

  “The winds of change I feel tonight,

  The forest is calm the light shines through,

  Luck be mine, come into me, so mote it be.”

  Nadine stood tall and waved her wand around.

  “Today is not our day,

  Everything has gone astray,

  To keep us sane and keep our peace,

  I banish the pain,

  Pain will cease,

  I banish the sorrow,

  Our Gods and Goddesses

  Bless all of our tomorrows.”

  Hanna was proud of her daughters; she had not forced the Wiccan religion on them. Her and Charlie had allowed and even encouraged their daughters to read and seek out their own understanding and truth. Choosing whatever religion was right for them, even if it had meant choosing no religion at all.

  “Power and emotions tied,

  A witch’s heart is where it hides,

  Help us through our agony,

  Bless us with our memory.”

  Hanna completed the familial spell and let out a sigh. Anna was overwhelmed with emotion. Tears formed in her eyes, “I am so proud of you, my sister and of you my mother, for helping me grow and become the woman I am. I am High Priestess and I feel in my heart that the Demon Dartmoor does not know what he is up against.”

  Holding her wand up and spinning it in a circle Anna began a chant.

  “In this darkest hour,

  We call upon the sacred powers,

  Five we stand alone,

  We command the unseen shown,

  In innocence we search the skies,

  Enchanted with our newfound eyes.

  Together we search for what we need,

  To fulfill our witches creed.”

  “That was fantastic,” cried Nadine.

  “I feel so light and happy, like I could float away onto cloud nine,” beamed Anna.

  “I just wish your other sisters were here to join us,” added Hanna.

  The girls gazed into each other’s eyes. Nadine winked and they knew that their mom was going to be pleasantly surprised when their other two sisters finally returned home.

  Duke Dartmoor always watched the witches gather, and on this evening he never felt so alone, he was cold and tired. Hopelessness spiraled through him draining him of all his energy. He felt helpless as tears, something he had never experienced, clouded his vision. The rage he was accustomed to failed to come, failed to overpower his feeling helpless. He knew his time outside the portal was short and he still had not figured out what to do.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Labor of Love

  THERE WERE many evenings of magick schooling by Rose. The Hall women were learning about their own roots of magick. Rose’s voice rose as she instructed the women. “As witches we are a vessel of eternity, a servant of the Goddess, of wisdom of beauty, of truth, and a conduit of Love if you will. We are women awake in our femininity and the power of the Goddess in her temple that is her body. We are spiritual activists doing the work of the divine in the world. We are seekers, mystics, poets, dancers, lovers, warriors, mothers, sorceresses, and crones. Anna our Priestess allows all of the w
ays of the lovely lady to live in her. She is a revolutionary force of strength and fortitude, of kindness and compassion. She is here to guide us and lead our magical journey in life.”

  “Learning and experiencing our power is a labor of love,” expressed Anna.

  Rose continued, “Anna our High Priestess has taken the important next step in her progress: that of initiation into the responsibility of a true witch. As everyone in our coven has learned, each witch is responsible for any magick she or he does. The initiates of the ancient pagan Mysteries have been taught to say,

  ‘I am the child of Earth and Starry Heaven

  And there is no part of me

  That is not of the Goddess and the Gods’.

  If we in our own day believe this, then we will not only see it as true of ourselves, but of others also.”

  “I see what people would call the world of today as unreal, and see behind it something that is real and very potent. I saw the world of force behind the world of form,” Hanna added.

  Rose continued, “There are thirteen goals for every witch. First, you must know yourself. Second, you must know your craft. Third, you must always learn and grow. Fourth, you must always apply knowledge with wisdom. Fifth, keep balance in your life. Sixth, always keep your words in good order and seventh, always keep your thoughts in order. Eighth, always celebrate life. Wake up each morning being glad to be alive. Ninth, keep a journal and attune to the cycles of the earth. Tenth, always eat healthy and breathe. Eleventh, exercise your body and your mind. Twelfth, meditate daily and the thirteenth goal is to always, always honor the Goddess and God.

  The last chant of the evening was the Wiccan Rede:

  BIDE THE WICCAN Law we must,

  In perfect love and trust,

  These eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill,

  ‘An we harm none, do what we will’

  What we send forth comes back to us

  So we mind the rules of three

  Follow this with our minds and heart,

  Merry we meet and merry we part.