Souls Lost (Appalachian Souls Book 1)

by Bonnie Elizabeth

  “Kay Rees called,” Zoe said. “She’s coming back to town. I want to talk to her because for some reason I was thinking about her when I talked to Chief Rees about Momma.”

  “Don’t know why,” Ed said. “Not like she and your momma were friendly. Not even like your momma was friendly with her momma neither.”

  “Just something that was bothering me. Maybe Kay said something to me at the diner when I was there,” Zoe hedged.

  “That Dixie Fulton was always a piece of work. Course you can’t say anyone raised up in one of the hill shacks is going to be that sane. Probably mold and crap in there.”

  Zoe paused in the doorway looking back at her father as he mused about Dixie Fulton Pugh.

  “She liked to say she saw into the other world. Then, when she lost that baby she got all religious, practically lived at the Bible church for I don’t know how long. Then she got pregnant with Kay and was back to being a little more normal, but always was a little too fire and brimstone for me after that.” Ed shook his head.

  Zoe nodded, wondering what had caused Dixie to make such a huge change in her life. It seemed to be about the miscarriage, but women lost babies and they didn’t all suddenly become obsessed with their faith. Maybe her father was exaggerating.

  “What did she mean by the other world?” Zoe asked.

  Ed shrugged. “She wasn’t really in my class, you know?” Her dad’s family didn’t always associate with those up the mountain, in the shacks, as he called them. They were very class oriented, always trying to make sure they stayed on the right side of whatever line they had set for themselves in town.

  “Still, you knew about that,” Zoe pressed.

  Ed sighed as he sank down into the chair in the corner. Taran had filled the chair better than her dad did, although at one time the chair had seemed small for his frame. Her chest felt too small for the pain that she felt at that thought, constricting against it, pulling it deep into her heart as if trying to hide it from her being, but instead wounding herself further.

  “Everyone did. In high school we all thought Lorne Pugh was a fool to be so smitten with her. Teased him about a spell she’d set, though she said she wasn’t a witch. Only reason we let him off was because Dixie was so clearly interested in someone else and he didn’t give her the time of day. Can’t remember who it was. Football player, I think. Left town, but never amounted to much.”

  Zoe shifted her weight, hoping that wouldn’t distract her dad.

  “She used to say she saw things out in the woods. Figured she was just playing with us. It was only when she started talking about how demons could rope anyone into a compact—that was the word she used, “compact”—and that you had to be careful, that we wondered exactly what she saw. When she got all religious, there was some talk that maybe she had made a bargain with a devil and it had backfired, but no one knew what she would have bargained for,” Ed said finally.

  He shrugged. “I doubt that helps you much. But it’s one reason why your momma wouldn’t have been too friendly with her. Your momma and her family were always part of the Lutheran Church, and that whole deal with the devil was a little too religious for her. You know your momma, just one step up from an agnostic.” Ed chuckled at what had once been a joke around their house because Jodie had been so pragmatic about things. Church was always something of an afterthought, unlike most of the neighbors

  Zoe laughed with him, just a little, before she turned to go down the hallway and take a shower. The bathroom was dark and smelled of her usual mix of semi-unscented products that always seemed to have the faintest trace of rain or gardenia no matter how she tried to find something completely without fragrance. Zoe glanced up at the window that was at the end of the room as her hand shifted to the light switch

  There was a pair of lights out there that looked strangely like eyes looking in at her. Her finger leaped when she started and the lights blazed on. Zoe turned the lights off again quickly, hoping to catch whatever was out there, but it was gone.

  The glass was frosted so that no one could see in. Even in the bathroom, the window was above Zoe’s eyes. She’d have had to stand on a stool to press her face against the glass. What had she seen? Zoe shivered as she tried to decide whether she still wanted to take a shower before bed.

  Chapter 30

  The warm, humid air hit Taran the next morning, not quite suffocating him any longer but still feeling like a crowded, poorly-ventilated auditorium. The air smelled fresher, though, as if the everyday scents of the mountains had been tamped down by the excess water in the air. A bird chirped and then Taran heard the rustle of feathers against the last of the leaves on the tree when he came out of the house.

  He was on his way to see Frank Nilsen that morning. Taran had called him the previous night to see if Blake had gotten around to talking to him, as a sort of warning. Frank said the sheriff had been there. He didn’t sound happy about it. Taran said maybe they should talk so he wasn’t out of the loop. Frank agreed easily enough, although Taran could hear something in his voice that suggested he disapproved of calling in the County.

  Friday morning the streets of Corbin Meadow were quiet. Kids were in school, doing their work, wishing it were the weekend. Workers in town were wishing it was the weekend, and Taran was just late enough to miss the mini rush hour that went on first thing in the morning around town, when cars might actually back up a block or so down Main when the light wasn’t with them.

  Taran took the road that wound around to Frank’s, dropping into the dip that was mostly clear of water, though the pavement was still wet. The orange cones Johnny had put out the other day were on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. Taran could do it when he left Frank’s. Bobby Joe should have gotten to it, and Taran would have a word with him about it when he arrived for the evening shift.

  Frank’s house was set back from the road, hidden by a copse of trees, mostly rather generic broad-leafed things that cropped up everywhere, plus a couple of evergreens that kept the house from feeling exposed during the winter months. The drive curved around towards a detached three-car garage that looked like it might tumble down in the next storm, though to its credit, it never had.

  The house was nicer, all wood siding with a long front porch, the roof raised to a point in the middle like a witch’s hat stuck on the top of the house. Beneath the witch’s hat was a window that looked into the loft where Frank’s wife, Vi, painted. Not that she sold many paintings, but she enjoyed it and it allowed Frank to watch television as often as he wanted on the large screen television that sat in the front room of the house.

  Frank was opening the solid wood door, carved with the image of a panther on it, not because he admired the creatures in the mountains but because Frank was a football fan. Inside, the front room, eating area, and kitchen were painted white and trimmed in panther blue. The tile backsplash was colored in that same light blue the Panthers used.

  “Coffee?” Frank asked.

  Taran agreed to coffee. Frank had a good coffeemaker, not a fancy one, but it made a decent cup. The two of them took their mugs and sat in the big front room in recliners in blue—not quite Panther blue, but as close as you could come without special ordering fabric. Across from them was a sofa. The large television was mounted on the wall. The wood stove was angled in the corner behind the recliner that Frank had chosen. Taran’s was angled towards the eating area and the stairs that Vi would come down if she was upstairs painting.

  “How’s Vi?” Taran asked conversationally.

  “Off to some yoga class in Lenoir. Can you believe it?” Frank laughed.

  The knot in Taran’s stomach eased a bit. At least he didn’t have to worry about her listening in.

  They talked a little more about things in town—how Bobby Joe was working out, or not, and about Zoe Mason-Hyer Parker and how it was an interesting thing that the murders had started up just as she returned.

  “I doubt it’s about her,” Frank said quietly.


  “Why?” Taran asked. He had his own opinions but he wanted to hear Frank’s.

  “You get a feel for things when you work policing as long as I did.” He sat there, rocking a little in the chair, eyes staring off at something behind Taran.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “Not everything makes sense in this world, you know?”

  Taran nodded, agreeing with Frank.

  “I had a feeling that this wasn’t about the kind of killer that the sheriffs would find and arrest. Having them come in would just make a mess. I can’t believe you didn’t catch that,” Frank said. He straightened up, looking at Taran, his eyes sharp as ever, demanding and a little accusing.

  “I knew I was in over my head,” Taran said. “I thought they’d help.”

  “And have they? Or are they out chasing down old men like me trying to suggest I didn’t do the job I was paid by the town to do all those years?”

  “I have to admit, it may have been a mistake, but if there’s another murder, we’ll probably have the Feds in here.”

  “We will now,” Frank said. “Because the sheriffs will call them and ask for their help for a profile that won’t work because the Feds haven’t ever seen what we have here in Corbin Meadow.”

  Taran was about to say something, but Frank took in another breath like he was going to speak again, so Taran sat and watched.

  “But you’ve got a different town than I had. There are people from the outside who don’t understand why we might want to keep our policing in town. And you kids, you don’t hear the call the way my generation did. We knew it was the land calling us. But your generation started going off to college, meeting other people and leaving, or bringing back an outsider to town. Then, the women started thinking it would be nice to have fancy coffee and more tax dollars for better schools. Suddenly we were overrun with outsiders. The outcry from the newcomers when you failed would have been too big for even the mayor to protect you.”

  Taran waited, cup halfway to his mouth, his eyes watching Frank carefully. It was like he knew something, not just about the murders, but about what Taran had seen.

  Frank said nothing more, looking away with a partial head shake.

  “What did you tell Blake?” Taran asked.

  Frank shrugged. “Just that I thought that I knew the town. Thought I’d be the one they’d open up to. I used their forensic analysis which turned up squat, not that I was surprised, not after the first one.”

  “Why do you suppose it stopped it after Jodie Mason-Hyer?”

  Frank smiled. “No one else pissed it off.”

  It. As if it existed and was a thing.

  “What pisses it off?” Taran asked.

  “You know what it is?” Frank asked.

  Taran shook his head. He desperately wanted to tell Frank what had happened, hoped to find a kindred spirit, but he wasn’t sure how far Frank would allow his belief to go. There was something cagey about the old man, like there were secrets or things that he wouldn’t talk about, wouldn’t admit to, not unless his own life, or perhaps Vi’s, was at stake.

  Frank sighed. “Neither do I. But’s not quite human, I know that. Forgive me, Lord Jesus, but I think it’s a demon, drawn here to Corbin Meadow long ago and the town runs the way it wants it to. Maybe it hates women, or maybe just strong women. I don’t know. You think I’m a crazy old man, don’t you?”

  Taran shook his head, not too quickly, didn’t want Frank to think he was humoring him, but not too slowly in case Frank thought he was thinking about the best way to respond. “I think you might be right. The forensics can’t explain some of what we have. I mean the trowels are identical, not even minor differences in the way they were made.”

  Frank agreed quietly.

  “I wonder if there’s someone who could talk to it?”

  “Dixie Fulton could. Her mother, too, although her mother denied it. But I remember Dixie. I think it killed her son because she asked for something that pissed it off. Dixie did, too, I know. It’s why she was always at church doings for a while there and made sure Kay was brought up in that church. Did you know that?”

  Taran shook his head. He hadn’t. Kay went to church because she felt she had to, as if she was terrorized by the thought of not going, though she seemed to hate every minute of having to go. Her faith, if that’s what it was, was built on fear, not devotion. He’d just thought it was all the fire and brimstone and she took things a bit too seriously. But this suggested something else.

  “You aren’t arguing, though,” Frank said. “You know something or sense something and can’t put your finger on it. It’s why you’re here with me and not calling in the Feds. After talking to Blake, I was tempted to call myself just to put him in his place. He’s a piece of work, that one. I’d keep my eye on him.”

  “I am,” Taran said. “But you’re right. There’s something off here. And I think it visited Zoe Mason-Hyer Parker but I don’t know why.”

  “I wish I could help,” Frank said. “I never liked when people in my town died, but I could sense something. I just couldn’t understand it. I tried to enlist Kay, back when you were married, and I’m afraid that’s one reason she wanted to leave, didn’t like being thought of as her momma’s daughter, just when her momma had up and died…”

  Frank let the sentence trail off, and Taran put together the timeline from that summer two years ago. Kay was pushing him to apply to the sheriffs when they were hiring. She thought that would be a step up and a potential way out of Corbin Meadow. Her momma had just died the month before and suddenly she was all gung ho to get out, as if her momma was the only thing tethering her to the land. And then Bethany had died and Kay had freaked out.

  She’d lasted until Jodie Mason-Hyer had died and then she’d moved out of town. Because, she said, Taran cared only about himself and the town and not about her personally. She’d even filed for divorce, and Taran hadn’t had it in him to contest, not when he was reeling from the deaths and her leaving. And here was Frank suggesting that she might have known something more about what had been going on.

  Just like the creature that he’d talked to in his imagination.

  Chapter 31: Before

  The church had ceilings which were too low for a large building, windows that were too narrow for the long walls, and red carpet that didn’t quite suit Dixie’s style at all, but it was a church, the church her family had gone to and now she would go to ever after. She like to get there before the candles were lit for the service so she could smell the burning flame as the tiny fire took hold, reminding her of the flames that she might burn in if she wasn’t observant.

  The benches were too cold in the winter and too sweaty warm in the summer. Someone always put flowers on the alter which made the air, which circulated poorly due to the ceiling hanging so low, cloying. Kay often left the church with her nose stuffed and her eyes watering.

  It didn’t matter. Dixie wasn’t going to let Emrys steal her daughter’s soul.

  “Mommy. I can’t breathe in there,” Kay had said. She was probably eight, tired, having been wakeful the whole night.

  “Your soul doesn’t need to breathe,” Dixie said. Lorne wasn’t around. He’d have taken Kay’s side and said God wouldn’t care if she missed a Sunday, but Dixie wasn’t taking any chances.

  “But my nose does.”

  Dixie sighed and strapped her into the car so they could go to the church. When she closed her eyes, Dixie still saw Emrys sometimes, looking at her sadly. She imagined he looked at Kay with longing, but that demon wasn’t going to get her child.

  Lorne slowly came out of the house, dressed in nice slacks and a button down shirt. It was one of the few times he looked nice, like a man should. Still, he adored her despite the fact that she’d murdered their son by consorting with that demon.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Lorne insisted over and over again when Dixie would wake in the night, needing to confess.

  “But I talked to demons,” she
said quietly. “I engaged with them. They told me only I could save the town.”

  “Sshhh…” Lorne would soothe, quieting her over and over again, though his voice never quite reached the deep dark spot in her soul where the guilt lay. And blame. For she did blame Emrys for killing her baby. She didn’t believe it was just not meant, that there were problems with the fetus, that it never would have survived outside the womb. She was too far along for that to have been the case. The only thing that had kept her going during those dark days was the promise of a daughter.

  Now that she had her daughter and she’d told Emrys to leave her alone, Dixie tried to avoid his face. She rarely went to the backyard. She kept busy in the church, helping with rummage sales and taking food to those in need—and there were a lot of needy in Corbin Meadow now.

  If she just did enough.

  “I don’t like church,” Kay said loudly as Lorne got in the car.

  Lorne sighed.

  “Honey,” Dixie said, turning around. “Church is where you go to be closer to God. It’s not about liking it. It’s about worshiping something greater than yourself. If you don’t, you’ll die and burn in hell for all eternity.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that,” Lorne said mildly, watching Kay in the backseat where she looked miserable. Her nose was already dripping, probably the springtime blooms which were bothering her more and more each year.

  “That’s the important part,” Dixie said firmly. “There’s nothing more important than your immortal soul.”

  Kay sniffed and rubbed her eye which was already beginning to drip.

  Lorne started the car so they could get to the church. Dixie bit back the sigh she wanted to make, relieved because so often he didn’t listen when it came to church, wanting to let Kay out of going. He didn’t understand that his daughter was born to a sinful woman, a woman who had consorted with demons, however innocently.

  Kay sneezed and then sneezed again.