by Green, Jeri
She began the slow creep down Dead Man’s Hill.
Dead Man’s Hill was notoriously unforgiving anytime, but especially during periods of inclement weather. It was hard to say how many folks had crashed or bent fenders on this stretch of road. The incline was steep. The curves were treacherous and sharp. Alswyth geared down. The engine growled and protested. She smelled the brakes. They were overheating, but it was impossible to let off the pedal.
The pounding rain was coming down in sheets. Water puddles crept onto the hard surface, despite the angle of the hill. Alswyth felt like she was in a small paddle boat smack dab in the middle of a raging monsoon.
Why in the hell hadn’t they called off school today?
She prayed she would not meet another vehicle coming the other way or slowly going down the road in her lane. It wasn’t fit weather for cats or dogs, let along kids and their bus driver. Alswyth was still cursing under her breath.
It wasn’t worth it. Whatever the county was paying her to do this right now was not worth it.
Alswyth thought she heard a sound. Where did it come from? What was it? It was loud and sharp. Quick. Like a gun shot. Thunder? Maybe. But where was the lightning?
The loud crash on the top of the mountain above Alswyth had occurred when a boulder unseated. In the slippery mud, it started a domino effect as rubble and rocks began cascading down from toward the road below. A few small rocks bounced off her windshield. She thought it was hail that was pinging her windshield. Then it dawned her. These were rocks. Oh, dear God! Rocks and dirt rained down on her in an angry surge.
Alswyth screamed and cried and prayed and fought the steering wheel for control of the unwieldy bus, but it was no use. The big yellow box on wheels was brushed off the road like a child’s toy sprayed with a high-powered hose. It went careening down the side of the mountain, end over end, flattening trees in its path, pushed by the wall of rocks and mud that tumbled down the steep slope.
The officials were able to piece together what happened later because a small piece of the front end of bus 15 still stuck out of the debris and mud at the bottom of Doyle’s Holler. The rescuers stood in horror, imagining the terror that Alswyth must have experienced.
But, there was nothing they could do.
Granny Dilcie was summoned from her cabin in the backwoods. She immediately took charge of the young girls, packed up everything they owned, and carried them home with her.
A small memorial plaque beneath a newly planted oak tree in the Hope Rock County Elementary school yard was the only physical memorial that Alswyth McClanahan had ever walked the face of this planet called Earth.
Chapter Sixteen
“Don’t eat those taters, Dara,” Granny said. “They ain’t fer us.”
Dara put down the bowl. She took several steps back. She watched to see what the old woman would do next.
“These taters ‘er gonna be fer ya’ mama’s ghost,” Dilcie said.
The old woman picked up the bowl of steaming hot potatoes and stood at the open cabin door. When the sun had sunk down below the horizon, she stepped outside.
“Alswyth, honey,” Dilcie hollered loudly, “this hyar’s fer you. Now, ya et yer taters ’n’ go on to whar ya need to go. Ya hyar. Leaf us ’lone, Alswyth. Just leaf us be.”
Dara watched as Dilcie took the bowl of potatoes and sat them down on the ground near an old willow stump.
“Tomarrah, jus’ ’fore dawn,” Dilcie said, “I’ll go fetch them taters ’n’ bury ’em some place spe’shul. I’ll pick a right purty spot to dig, I promise. Alswyth’s spirrut will move on then.”
“You feel her here?” said Dara.
“I do, chile,” Granny Dilcie said. “Sumpun’ pow’ful. Makes me jairy as a cricket in a hot skillet. She’s come home hyar, where she b’longs, and that’s all right. She’s welcomed fer a short spell, but I don’t want her to roost, even if she is my daughter. She needs to pass on over to the other side. Her spirrut needs to move on ’n’ leaf us be.”
“Granny,” Chandra said, “you’re not serious. I feel like I’m back in the Dark Ages.”
“I am, chile,” Granny Dilcie said. “You only think you’re all growed up, Chandra Elanor, but you ain’t. You’re still a babe. There’s lots a things fer you to learn. Even more things in life you’ll never be able to untangle.
“I lived a long time. Seen things. Strange things. Things you would never believe. Marvelous things. Odd things. Fearful things. Things I cain’t explain. But dat don’t mean they ain’t fer true.”
Chandra laughed.
“Laugh all you want,” Granny said. “Your makin’ light of me still don’t mean whut I’m tellin’ you ain’t the truth.
“What you gonna do, Granny?” Chandra asked. “Go to the cemetery, call up some of your goblin friends, grab some dirt from the graveyard, ’n’ blow it in my face, ’n’ tell your graveyard goons to haunt me ’til they drive me crazy?”
Granny said nothing. She turned, disappearing into a dark corner of the old cabin. When she returned, she marched resolutely to Dara.
“Granny,” Dara said, “Chandra didn’t mean that.”
“Hey,” Chandra said, “I don’t need you taking up for me! Keep your nose outta this!”
“Shh,” Granny said.
Granny passed her hand in front of Dara three times, muttering some ancient charm in an indistinguishable language. The knotted knuckles of her work-worn hands placed a small red leather pouch tied with a red string over the young girl’s head.
“Dark Age mojo,” said Chandra. “I don’t believe this.”
There were three quick, hard knocks. All three females looked at the old wooden door. Dara paled. Chandra’s mouth dropped open.
“Hold yer horses,” Granny Dilcie said.
She opened the door. A young man in his early twenties stood on the porch. His features were lit by the orange glow from Granny’s fire.
“Granny” he said, “ya gotta come, quick. Bura Rose is havin’ a awful time. She’s been tryin’ ta have that youngin’ fer two days. Wilella sent me fer ya, Granny. She thinks it’s twisted up inside Bura Rose. We need you ta come quick.”
Granny put on her old coat. She grabbed a small leather satchel.
“Dara,” said Dilcie, “come with us. Hurry.”
Chandra looked surprised.
“You’re not going to leave me here in this wilderness alone, are you?” Chandra asked. “There are black bears out here and who knows what else!”
“Why not,” said Granny Dilcie. “A mod’un woman like ya’sef got all the answers fer a no-nuthin’ hillbilly place way out in the sticks like this. We in the Dark Ages. You seen the light.”
“But, Granny,” said Chandra said.
“Outback’s a graveyard,” Granny said. “Go up to the top of the hill, ’bout 40 yards to the left. Plenny my graveyard goonies out dyar. They be more than glad ta keep ya’ comp’ny. Come on Dara. We cain’t keep Bura Rose a’waitin’.”
They left Chandra standing alone in the old cabin, a look of disbelief and fear plastered on her face.
Well, if that didn’t beat all!
She would have the last laugh, she decided, standing alone in the lonely cabin. The wind picked up, and a limb brushed the window near the young girl. Chandra jumped out of her skin. Her heart was in her throat. How dare they go off to who knew where and leave her alone in this spooky relic of an old log cabin!
She’d fix them, she decided. She didn’t know how or when, but her day would come. All she had to do, Chandra decided, was be smart and wait.
A hoot owl screeched outside the cabin.
Chandra jumped again.
It was going to be a long night, she decided.
A very long and lonely night.
* * *
It was hard for Dara Elanor and Chandra Elanor to adjust to their new lives. Granny Dilcie’s cabin was located far in the backwoods. She had no running water or electricity. Worst still, there were scarcely any kids
in the area.
The few rugged cabins scattered loosely in the area were inhabited by shriveled old hags and goats. All of them, the twins decided, were throwbacks from the last century. Perhaps the century before last.
Dara was the youngest, born 12 minutes after her sister, at the exact stroke of midnight. She was the first to thaw to Granny Dilcie’s overtures, finally accepting the old woman’s invitations to walk the mountains and learn the old ways.
Chandra, at first, wanted no part of the loathsome old woman’s knowledge. She would soon be grown. She set her sights on getting out of the woods and being somebody.
But it was hard.
The two were quite isolated. Except for school, they had little contact with the outside world. At 17, both twins talking about dropping out. They had never fit in that world after their mother’s death.
Were they cursed? At the least, most kids and parents couldn’t get over the fact of the twins’ mother’s horrific death. Somehow, they believed that bad luck might brush off on them, so most folks just left the twins alone. Too scared to be friends with the lonely teenagers.
Of course, once the twins hit puberty, many of the boys brushed aside such foolish notions. These were mountain boys, after all. Rough. Indestructible. Whatever evil spirit was following those two, the boys reasoned, wasn’t really real. They were a thing of the past. If anything, that hint of bad karma only gave the two girls an edge of danger.
Mountain boys ate that up like fatback and soppers and gravy. Dara, the younger twin, was shyer and more reserved. She ignored their overtures. Chandra was reckless, and she quickly gained a reputation as “easy” among the boys her age.
It was three month’s until the twins’ 15th birthday. Dara wanted Chandra to go mushroom hunting with her.
“I’ll go with you,” Chandra said, “if you promise to go with me ’n’ Dougal ’n’ Arison. Dougal won’t go without Arison. Arison won’t go without a date. I want some real food. Dougal promised if you agreed to be Arison’s date, he’d take us to the Spoon for some yellow squash casserole and some fried pork chops and stewed apples. Dara, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Say you’ll go.”
“What do I have to do later?” Dara asked.
“Nothing much,” said Chandra. “You know, Dougal will probably drive us around. Maybe we’ll park by the side of the road and look at the stars.”
“You can’t see the stars from the backseat of Dougal’s car! I know what you do, Chandra. Granny Dilcie is always saying prayers to keep you from gettin’ knocked up.”
“I don’t need Granny’s magic to prevent that,” said Chandra. “I need a trip to the health department for some birth control. Simple enough in this day and age, but way out here, that’s about as hard as slaying a dragon.”
“I’ll go,” said Dara.
“You’ll go! Great!” said Chandra.
“No,” said Dara, “you didn’t let me finish. I’ll go into the woods today by myself. I’m sure I can find enough mushrooms for everybody’s supper. Y’all have a good time, Chandra.”
“Dara,” Chandra said, “you make me so mad! What is wrong with you! You act like you’re a nun cloistered up in these darn woods. Have some fun! You’re only young once!”
Dara grabbed a handmade basket from off Granny’s porch. Silently, she walked away from the rustic cabin. In the woods, it was peaceful. She could think here. She didn’t like Dougal Orner. She detested Arison Saydus. Both of those boys were bad news. Arison’s face was nothing but a fiery purple field of angry blackheads and pimples. Dougal Orner wasn’t nice. Dougal Orner’s mother, Estill, was a black witch.
Chandra was all about living in the moment. About having fun. About being carefree and worrying about nothing. Granny Dilcie said Chandra should shun the Orner clan like a bad penny. But the girl only laughed. She’d had more fun with Dougal Orner than anyone else. Let Dara be the good one, Chandra brooded.
* * *
Dara let the mountain fill her. Every day it surprised her with small wonders and beauties. The scenery, the animals, the plants. Dara loved all that was this place. She let her senses become attuned to what the mountain wanted to teach her. She heard the whisperings of the wind. She let the sun warm her in the day. She fell asleep to the twinkle of the billions of stars just outside her tiny loft window.
She soaked up everything Granny Dilcie taught her like a sponge. The old woman was kind and patient. Dara wanted to be like Granny Dilcie in so many ways, but most of all, the young girl wanted to help folks. She was sensitive to Mother Nature and felt that the natural world was magical, wonderful, and full of beautiful gifts.
Granny said that Dara was her “chosen” one, the one who would receive the knowledge of the Ancients. Dara’s heart swelled whenever she thought of being picked for that honor.
“Chandra is an outsider,” Granny Dilcie told Dara one day when they were in the woods foraging for roots and herbs. “She is not our blood.”
Dara said nothing.
How could Chandra not be her blood? Chandra had grown with Dara from tiny specks in their mother’s womb. Granny was wise about so many things, Dara thought. But she was wrong about this.
Chandra made Dara feel whole. They were so different in so many ways, Dara thought, but there was a bond that bound Chandra to Dara that she would never be able to describe to anyone else. Chandra was rebellious, Dara thought, because we lost our mother, because we lost our home in town, because of so many things. She would come to love this place as much as Dara did. Dara could feel it in her bones.
She wondered if Chandra would follow her into the woods that day. It would have been nice. Chandra’s company always turned mushroom hunting from a chore into something fun. When she didn’t, Dara began her hunt for mushrooms in earnest. There were two less eyes to spy out the treasures but still three bellies to fill.
But that day, luck seemed to be on Dara’s side.
She found lots of Leatherback Milkcaps and a few other varieties. How bountiful the mountain was to Dara.
Granny Dilcie was an expert when it came to woodland plants and fungi. Dara had learned quickly. The young girl’s heart swelled whenever she thought of that day, not so long ago, when Granny had given her the basket and told her to go hunting alone.
It was like a rite of passage. Like graduating from school.
And Granny Dilcie was proud of the young girl, too. How quickly she had taken to the old ways. Granny smiled. The old worries of having no one to pass them down to were things of the past. They were swept away like dust with her old grass broom. Granny Dilcie’s heart was filled with warmth and love for the girl. She was certain Dara Elanor was the one.
In so many ways, it had been a long journey, trying to find the right one to channel her knowledge and pass along the wisdom of the Ancients. It had to be someone who was her blood.
It was obvious from a very early age that Alswyth had no interest in learning from her mother. Then her daughter married and moved into town. It came as no shock to Dilcie when Alswyth’s marriage failed and her husband divorced her. That man was like the waves of the shifting ocean.
Granny Dilcie had warned Alswyth to wait for her true love. Granny had seen him in the clouds. He was coming soon, she had warned Alswyth. Cordell will bring you only sorrow, her mother had said. But Alswyth was impatient. At 17, she thought her marrying days had passed.
So, against her mother’s advice, she married Cordell. And just as her mother said, she’d missed the boat called Mr. Right. There was something Cordell had given Alswyth besides sorrow, but a tub of tears sort of went along with the sadness Alswyth reaped during her marriage.
And then, like a magician, Cordell did his vanishing act. Alswyth would never forgive Cordell for as long as she lived. High and dry, he’d left her. With two small children and no money, Alswyth was forced to get “public work” to support herself and her family.
It was all in the tea leaves and all in the clouds, Dilcie brooded. If only her
daughter had listened. Had believed her mother.
Dilcie was not against a marriage for her daughter, but she hated the man her daughter had decided to marry. Alswyth was besotted by him. A no-good deadbeat who drifted from job to job. Cordell was cut from the same cloth as his worthless daddy.
“It ain’t gonna work,” Dilcie said. “He ain’t the right one. I seen it, Alswyth.”
“Oh, Mama,” Alswyth said, “keep your signs ’n’ visions for somebody who believes in them. Cordell’s the one for me. I know it, Mama. I know it.”
It was no use. Alswyth was in love. Or at least, she thought she was.
She was convinced that her mother’s warnings were only imaginative ways to try to keep her chained to their little cabin and to the mountain.
“I ain’t gonna die a godforsaken hillbilly up here, Mama,” she had told Dilcie. “I want a decent home. Not some shack in the sticks. Decent, Mama. I want an indoor toilet, for goodness sakes. I ain’t gonna die no swamp angel, if I can help it.”
So, she married Cordell, who stayed with her just long enough to get her pregnant, and then he took off. Just like a fox with rabies. Cordell decided he was tired of being hooked to a ball and chain. Told Alswyth he’d found him a new girl who didn’t have to have a ring or a piece of matrimonial paper to have a good time. Bought himself a Harley and rode off into the sunset.
Alswyth was served divorce papers a few months later.
That was why she was driving the school bus.
She worked in the cafeteria at the elementary school, but one of the requirements for that job was that you had to drive a bus, too. The school board had deemed that making cafeteria workers drive the buses was the most efficient way to make use of the employees in the food and janitorial divisions.
Alswyth loathed that decision. As luck would have it, she had drawn the longest and curviest route. Her run was about 90 minutes longer than any other.
And the noise that the rambunctious elementary-age boys and girls made while she transported them to and from school usually ended up giving her a migraine.
