by Aiden James
The picture of the bed hardly revealed Allie Mae’s handiwork, which he feared since the flash failed. The outline of the cross made from feathers and lilies was obscured by a reddish haze. He noticed a faint outline of what looked like a face behind the haze and brought the picture closer. Curious if other pictures contained this faint image he sifted through the rest. Several more photographs contained similar outlines he missed at first glance. While studying one of the last pictures in the stack, a loud knock resounded against the driver’s side window.
“Sorry I’m a few minutes late.” John peered through the driver’s side window, his hands cupped to shield his eyes from the sun’s brightness. “Are you ready to visit Allie Esther?”
“I am.” David hoped John hadn’t noticed him cower when he startled him. He returned the pictures to the envelope while John grinned impishly, and then he stepped out of his car with the bag and photos in hand. “At least the weather’s nice. Hopefully, it’ll make for a much better experience this afternoon.”
“Hopefully, indeed,” agreed John, his attention drawn to the packet David held. “I take it those pictures were taken recently?”
“From this morning,” he confirmed. “Allie Mae paid me another visit last night.” He held out the package for John to take.
“I’d like to get a better look at these later,” John advised, after lingering a moment on the red-streaked photo of the bed. A sudden breeze moved through the towering evergreens behind the station, distracting him. When he brought his gaze back to David, he appeared worried. “We should really be on our way.”
David joined him inside the park cruiser, clearing a small stack of park brochures from the passenger seat. John handed him the manila folder from yesterday before heading down the graveled drive.
“Did the symbols that Allie Mae left in Colorado contain feathers and lilies?” he asked, once they were back on the main thoroughfare leaving the park.
“No, they didn’t,” said David, looking over at him. “Just hemlock leaves and twigs, along with the ugliest necktie collection known to mankind.” He laughed, hoping it brightened the mood.
Gravely quiet since they drove away from the station, John looked over at him, chuckling.
“So, there wasn’t a cross?”
“No,” David confirmed. “There wasn’t any blood either.”
John had returned his gaze to the road, but looked over again, his expression much more serious.
“What is it?” asked David, when John said nothing and returned his attention to the road again. “I knew it was real bad when I first saw it last night, and I left the room and didn’t return until this morning. She tore the place up while I was gone, including nearly every stitch of clothing I own. I’ve got it all in trash bags inside my trunk.”
“Including the feathers?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to take a look inside the bags when we return from Rocky Grove,” said John. “I now have a few questions of my own for Allie Esther today.”
David looked over at him, curious.
“What you’ve described is a form of witchcraft,” John continued. “It wasn’t prevalent in the cove, but witchcraft was much more common among white settlers in Appalachia than folks today would like to believe.”
“You think Allie Mae was a witch?” David thought of Sara’s observations and the strange whispered phrases he heard last week.
“Yes,” said John. “Over the years I’ve come across a few references to witchcraft, even though the community here was very religious and close-knit. Such a thing wouldn’t be taken lightly or even tolerated. If a person dabbled in anything outside of what the churches deemed as acceptable behavior, they’d be ostracized.”
John soon turned north on a narrow highway leading to Rocky Grove. The hills on either side dressed in a lush array of fall colors, it gave the illusion of unspoiled beauty until they reached an area where a large section of land had recently been stripped bare. A brand new luxury subdivision called “Cheshire Landings”.
“I guess it won’t be long before there are a whole slew of restaurants, gas stations, and stores up this way,” said David, as they passed by the development. It made him think of a pristine area he and Miriam once loved in Colorado, where casinos and hotels sprung up near Cripple Creek.
“Everybody wants a piece of heaven on earth,” observed John. “If only the earth’s resources were infinite and able to handle the demands placed upon her by us all. There’s a prophecy my grandfather told me when I was young, that a day will come when the Great Mother will shake herself like a flea-infested dog, freeing herself of us. Legends say it’s happened before, and deep inside we know it’ll happen again.”
They exited the highway a few miles further up, where John had David read the directions to Allie Esther Edder’s home. The first few roads were paved, and led further into dense wooded hills. They soon reached a graveled road called Bear Ridge Lane. Located at the very end, the Edder cabin overlooked a bluff providing a gorgeous view of the Smoky Mountains less than twenty miles away.
John pulled the cruiser up to the front and parked. A pack of large dogs, all shepherd mixes, barked loudly as they surrounded the vehicle. They snarled menacingly while John and David looked at each other, fearful. A young man dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt appeared on the front porch. Clad in a John Deere cap pulled down far enough to hide his eyes and sporting an Amish beard, he stepped down from the porch aiming a double-barrel shotgun at the windshield.
“What the hell do ya’ll want?”
John rolled his window down just enough to be heard while keeping the dogs’ snouts out of the cruiser.
“We’re here on official business from the Smoky Mountains National Park!” he called out. The young man stepped over to the driver’s side. “We’ve come to speak with Allie Esther Edder!”
“The hell you say!” snarled the man, moving closer and positioning the end of the shotgun just outside John’s window. “I’ll give ya’ll thirty seconds to get your goddamned asses out of here!”
“Our concerns with her will take fifteen minutes at most,” said John bravely.
The gun’s barrel tapped the glass.
“I don’t give a fuck what you’re here for, just get—”
“Vernon, put yer gun down, son!”
A pale elderly woman appeared atop the porch steps. Dressed in a long gray smock with matching slippers, she wore a knitted blue sweater pulled over her shoulders. With her long white hair pulled back in tight braids, she peered through thick prescription glasses while leaning on her walker. She shook an angry finger at the young man.
He looked back at her, whom David assumed must be Allie Esther. He trembled with rage but respected her command, lowering the gun down to his side. For the moment he glared at the car’s occupants.
“Call yer dogs and put ‘em in the pen out back for now,” she told him from the porch. “Then I want ya to grab two chairs from the kitchen and bring ‘em out here so we can visit with these men. ‘Ya got that, son?”
“Yes, Granny,” he sighed.
Vernon whistled shrilly and the dogs obeyed, following him away from the cruiser. Once he and the dogs disappeared behind the cabin, John opened his door and stepped out. David joined him carrying the bag, pictures, and manila folder.
“Come on up here, ya’ll,” invited the woman. “We can visit for a ‘lil while on my porch.”
They climbed the steps and joined her. In the middle of the porch sat a circular oak table flanked by a pair of weathered pine rockers. The one closest to the front door contained two yellow seat cushions, and the other sat bare.
They introduced themselves and David apologized for upsetting her the previous afternoon, to which she thanked him. Caught off guard yesterday, she was now ready to discuss her deceased aunt, Allie Mae McCormick.
She moved to the cushioned rocker, and by the time she sat down, her grandson arrived with two oak chairs from her kitchen. Vernon set the c
hairs next to her seat, and then brushed past the two visitors over to the other rocker and sat down. John sat in the chair closest to Allie Esther and David took the one next to him.
“So what do ya want to know about my momma’s sister?” she asked, after David and John officially greeted Vernon, who only nodded in response.
“As he told you yesterday, David recently came into possession of a small bag we are fairly certain belonged to her,” said John, motioning for David to hand it to her.
“We’d also be grateful for anything you’re willing to share about your aunt,” added David. His heart pounded heavy, and he hoped his nervousness wasn’t obvious. He stood at the door to salvation, and the old woman seated just a few feet away held the key to get in.
She took the bag from him, bringing it close enough to examine through her thick eyeglasses. She seemed to study the stains and momentarily closed her eyes as if meditating. She then loosened the strap to pour the items out onto her lap.
John and David braced themselves for possible embarrassment. But it didn’t happen. Only the contents’ original musty scent drifted and hung in the air around them. She sifted through the various items, lingering the longest on the torn locket and broken tooth. She turned the bag to where the cross-stitching faced her, running her fingertips across the faded blue letters.
“Vernon, go inside and fetch the box I showed ya this mornin’. It’s sittin’ next to the TV in the livin’ room,” she instructed her grandson without looking up, for the moment focused on the objects laid upon her lap.
He obeyed and again brushed past David and John as if not there. He disappeared inside the cabin and soon returned with what she requested. Roughly the size of a small shoebox, the hand-crafted mahogany container with primitive designs appeared quite old. She took it from him and carefully set it down on the table next to her. Once open, she removed a small cloth bag almost identical to the one lying on her lap. The cloth much cleaner than Allie Mae’s, the stitched title in green thread appeared worn and much more faded. It read “Emma Sue’s Treasures”.
Allie Esther loosened the bag’s leather strap and emptied the three items it contained on the table: a satin green ribbon frayed at the ends; a sleigh bell like the one inside Allie Mae’s bag; and, the front half of the torn locket. A gold chain attached to the locket appeared to be the original one, based on the etchings along the chain link’s ridges, identical to the markings on the locket’s outer rim and clasp.
She picked up the sleigh bell and shook it. A soft jingle resounded from the bell and she smiled sweetly, revealing a pair of yellowed teeth more than a couple of inches apart. The rest of her gums were barren.
“A Christmas bell,” she told them, eyeing David as if aware he wondered why something mundane would be included in both bags. “Nice presents from elsewheres were scarce back then, or so my pa used to tell me when I’s young.”
John agreed, chuckling as he mentioned how his own father once told him the same thing, trying to impress how much better John had it than his father did when a child.
“May I?” he asked her, reaching for the locket to get a better look.
“Go on ahead, if you’d like,” she said, allowing him to reach over and pick it up. “I’m sure ya noticed it’s the other half of the one ya’ll brought today.”
“Yes, ma’am, I did,” said John, examining it while David looked on. It lacked an engraving since it was the front side of the locket. He gave it back to her, and she set it next to the bell and ribbon on the table.
“I dreamt of my momma last night,” she said, after placing the items from “Emma Sue’s Treasures” back inside the bag. “She looked just like I remember her before she took sick, sittin’ on the swing we used to have in Cades Cove.”
John and David nodded, very interested in what she had to say.
“Momma told me I should try and help ya’ll, that yer in some real trouble.” She eyed David seriously. “She kept sayin’ ‘remember the song, Esther. Sing em’ the song yer great uncle Josiah taught ya when ya’s young’....”
She grew silent and looked away, slowly rocking herself in her chair. They waited patiently for her to continue, while the shadowed eyes of her brooding grandson watched them. Finally, she looked over at Vernon and gave him a slight nod.
“Son, I want ya to get yer banjo out so I can sing em’ the ode.”
“For these two? Granny, they’re friggin’ strangers for Christ’s sake!”
“Don’t give me no lip, boy!”
“But, Granny, they ain’t worthy! They’re—.”
“Damn it, Vernon, stop!” she warned him, rising up from her rocker to lean over the table. “It’s what yer great grandma prefers, and I’m tellin’ ya one last time to fetch yer banjo!”
This time he deferred to her authority, eyeing David and John coldly as he moved past them. He again disappeared inside the cabin, the screened door cracking loudly against the doorframe. She watched him until out of earshot, and then returned her gaze to them.
“Ya’ll think we’re a coven of witches, don’t ya?”
“We have some questions concerning certain events David and his family have experienced recently. It doesn’t mean we think you, Vernon, or most of your family have ever practiced witchcraft,” John told her, after exchanging surprised glances with David.
David started to pull out the pictures to show her, but John waved him off.
“But ya think my aunt was a witch,” she said, leaning back in her rocker again. “It’s the reason folks in Cades Cove quit lookin’ for her soon after she disappeared long ago. My pa told me a devil’s circle was found deep in the woods behind my grandpa’s house, and my momma and aunt were accused of conspirin’ with Satan. It didn’t matter none that grandpa and grandma were upstandin’ members of the Methodist Church back then. My grandpa’s ma, great grandma Ginny, had a reputation as a dabbler in the Indian’s religion and it weighed heavier in folks’ minds. Most church folk felt she and her two granddaughters gave therselves to the devil. It was all plum shameful!”
She began to rock again.
“What kind of circle was it, if you don’t mind me asking?” asked John, gently. He motioned for David to now hand the packet of photographs to him.
She stopped rocking and studied them both for a moment, a slight smile on her lined and weathered face.
“I believe ya both already know,” she said. “We’re not all witches, though Aunt Allie might’ve been. Momma definitely wasn’t, but the fey runs strong in our blood, at least with the women in the McCormick line. That was Momma’s maiden name before she married my pa…. Before she died, she gave me the bag that’s sittin’ here on the table. She told me to hang onto it, and I could reach her through it.”
“So, your mother has contacted you before from the other side?” David almost wished he hadn’t asked this question, since she eyed him suspiciously.
“Yes, she has,” she said. “But until last night and earlier this mornin’, I hadn’t asked her much since the passin’ of my boy Ezra and my husband Milton. Momma’s bag will go to the next girl born in our family, probably through Vernon.”
She craned her neck to the porch door. John and David followed her gaze. Vernon stood inside the doorway, frowning with his banjo strapped around his neck. He obviously heard the last part of their conversation, and now John pulled the packet closer to him, as if fearful he’d destroy the photographs before Allie Esther ever saw them.
“Come on out here, son. We’re ready for ya now.”
Vernon stepped through the doorway, careful to keep the screened door from slamming against the doorframe this time. Sullen, he moved back to his seat, adjusting the rocker to allow enough room to comfortably strum his instrument. Allie Esther sat up, coughing lightly as she prepared to perform the song she told them about.
“Son, would you mind gettin’ me a glass of tea before we start?” She smiled sweetly at her grandson, and despite his irritation of having to set aside the banj
o in order to respond to her latest request, he returned her smile. “I believe it only right if you’d also pour a glass for them too.”
He frowned, shaking his head as he went back inside the cabin.
“He’s really a good boy,” she commented after he left their presence. “He’s more ‘n able to take care of himself, but he prefers to keep an eye on his granny. I’m grateful for it.”
They both smiled politely, though David couldn’t picture where such a surly young man would find a place in today’s society. Vernon returned with four iced teas, deciding to make one for him as well. After handing a glass to John and David, he placed his grandmother’s glass next to her on the table and returned to his rocker. David hesitated before taking a sip, wondering if Vernon slipped something into his and John’s drinks, or added some disgusting bodily fluid. After John took a hearty drink from his glass and commented how good it tasted, he took a small sip as well.
“This song’s been played by our family for almost ninety years,” said Allie Esther, after she sipped her tea and Vernon took a moment to tune his banjo. “We call it the ‘Ode to Allie Mae’.”
Vernon began to strum the banjo and Allie Esther tapped her right foot on the porch. After getting in rhythm with the intro she began to sing. She surprised David by the clarity, strength, and passion in her voice, revealing a strong will to live that so belied her frailty.
“She’s born in the spring of eighteen and ninety-nine.
Her ma and pa came from Carolina to the valley so fine.
In the meadows of Cades Cove with sister Emma she’d play.
‘Til the night someone took darlin’ Allie away.
Oh, where’d ya go, darlin’ Allie Mae?
Why can’t we find ya in the valley ya so loved?
