“So, it’s true?” asked Drew. “This isn’t some kind of trick? All of the stories… my memories… all true?”
But the Witch ignored him.
Zach had seen enough. He pushed from the wall, fled down the hallway. The sound of his footfalls on the stairs and a door slamming shut on the second floor made clear what he thought.
How could you have allowed this to happen? It’s only been seven years! Was one man worth so much that you’d throw your life away because of what he did?
“You killed her, just like you killed our father!” barked Williams. “You may have killed his body, but you’ve killed her soul.”
No! the Witch wailed, clearly upset. No. I came back to atone for what I did to Jack. It was wrong, but it seemed so clear… so right. But I’ve learned.
“Why have you come back?” railed Williams, sensing her weakness and pressing the advantage. Drew fell into old patterns and allowed his brother to take control of the situation. “Why? So you can torment her all the more?”
No.
“So you can gloat over your murder and what it’s done to her?”
No!
“So you can finally kill her, just as you wanted to back then?”
NO!
The blast of her answer knocked Drew and Williams off their feet, blew out the windows in the room, sending glass and debris flying in all directions.
NO! I can only take so much. You’re killing me. I did what I thought right, just. Your lives since are your own faults. Sweet, dear Luce, why? WHY? I begged you––
“Forgive you?” yelled Williams from the floor. “Just as you forgave our father?”
Nooo! she shrieked, and it became deafening as it ascended, then transcended the scale of human perception. Glassware in the room exploded, and a jagged crack appeared in one wall, zigzagged its way up to the ceiling.
The entire house lurched as if a great fist had struck it.
Then, all was quiet, save for the tinkling of glass against glass.
And Lucy’s quiet, mad voice.
“I knew it… she came back… she loves me… knew it.”
* * *
Moonlight streamed through John’s open window, bright and blue and swirling through the room in great, glowing spirals. The moon was full in the sky, and its light seemed a thing alive as the thin clouds moved across its face.
John was restless that night, and he lay in bed next to his wife, wide-awake and anxious. Something was coming. He could feel it.
For many nights now, he had lain awake in his bed and remembered the words of the Witch, in what seemed like another life.
I’ll be back in seven years to see you. No refusals, for I will accept none.
Those seven years had passed in a blur. And in that time, the effect the Witch had made on his family had become quite clear. Not just the death of Jack Bell, that was the obvious change, a ripple in the surface of a deep, tumultuous lake.
His sister had left Adams and gone to Nashville with her husband, Richard Powell, now a state senator. They were seldom heard from.
Lucy, his mother, had slipped quietly into a benign insanity, living out a self-imposed sentence in the house, where she shuffled from room to room, spent long hours staring outside, and conducted long, intimate conversations with the silent ghosts of her guilt.
Williams, bitter and angry, wore his change like a raw wound at which he constantly picked.
Zach lived a life of fear, keeping mostly to himself.
Only Drew seemed relatively unaffected by the Witch’s presence.
And John? He suspected that the Witch had made him open his eyes and see the world in a less pragmatic sense. For was the world he lived in a pragmatic one if it could birth something like the Witch?
John now was not so quick to judge by what he saw on the surface, in events but also in people as well. He found himself more tolerant, more forgiving, more willing to accept the nuances and shades that had always existed around him, and that made his life seem more complete.
What sort of changes would the Witch bring if she lived up to her promise of revisiting them?
He found himself afraid, yet strangely anticipatory, of the fulfillment of that promise.
Liz stirred next to him in bed, mumbled something unintelligible, and kicked her legs.
John patted her shoulder, recovered her.
Just then, there was a change in the moonlight that filled the room––a bright, white flash that brought momentary day with it. It faded to irregular bursts, alternately rising above, then falling below the pitch of the moon glow.
John sat up in bed, looked out the window.
The light erupted from a source outside at ground level.
Quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping wife, John rose, slipped into his shirt and pants, and went barefoot downstairs.
On the lower level, the light pulsed into the house powerfully, flooding it with dazzling brilliance. Shielding his eyes against it, John padded to the front door, unbolted it, and drew it open.
A bolt of pure light struck him, so powerful and searing that it nearly knocked him over. Although it didn’t feel hot on his skin, he could feel its heat penetrate his body in one great, sensuous wave.
He paused on the porch, shivered as the heat fled him.
The light came from a clump of trees a stone’s throw from the house.
Dazed, he dashed down the steps toward it.
It seemed aware of his presence, for the pulsing quickened, and the light took on other shades, rotating through the entire spectrum of colors.
Pulling aside the branch of an evergreen, John found himself in a small clearing.
There, before him, was the source of the light. It flashed out from a point, no larger than the tip of his thumb, embedded in the trunk of a young maple tree, no more than twelve feet tall.
Cautiously, he approached.
The diamond!
The realization hit suddenly, an epiphany.
He had thrown the diamond given him by the Witch out here seven years ago.
And a tree had grown up around it.
John, came a nearby, familiar voice. I’m glad you came.
“I knew it was you,” he breathed, relieved in a way.
The gem has been subsumed by the tree. It has grown around it, taken the diamond into its being, just as the diamond took the earth into its. Do you understand this?
“I think so.”
That knowledge, not the gem, is my gift.
“I understand,” John whispered. “I understand now.”
How is it that you have found this wisdom where your mother and brothers have not?
“I don’t know. Ma’s… never recovered. But I don’t think it was just from the death of my father. It was more… something with Betsy. But I’m not sure I want to know exactly what it was, even though I have an idea.”
It’s not necessary to know. All has been forgiven. The soul has moved on, she answered.
“I’ve thought about it a lot over the last few years.”
Oh?
“I think… that it’s not my place to judge either my father or you. You both did things that you felt compelled to do. And they were wrong.”
Yes.
“If Betsy can forgive my father, and I think she has, I can, too.”
She has.
“I can forgive you as well.”
Thank you, she sighed after a moment. And in that moment, John felt something, some tautness, some stress uncoil, and dissipate into the air around him.
“You have released me.”
There was a change in the light, a moderation. It became a constant, steady illumination, deep blue in color.
Forgiving releases the forgiven soul to grow. And the one who forgives grows, too. It’s a lesson each soul must learn before it moves on. I pity your mother and brothers that they cannot share this understanding.
John nodded, only half aware that he was doing so. “And what of you now?” he asked. �
�Where will you go?”
I’m not afraid. I’m being drawn back into the whole, just as the earth was taken into the gem, the gem into the heart of the tree. I’m happy, for I’m part of a soul that will go on.
“Then, I’m happy, too, for you… and for Betsy, I think,” he responded.
What of you, dear John, before I leave? Are you happy?
“Yes. I have children now, you know; Joel and Charles.”
You do?
“Are you surprised?”
No, she answered sweetly, truthfully. In this, I’m glad to be wrong.
“As am I.”
Then love them, John. That’s all I will leave you with, for you need no further guidance from me. Raise them in love to go from you and love others. Thus is the true path of the soul carried forth on this plane.
“That, Witch, is guidance I have no problem following.”
Love, too, your mother and brothers, particularly Williams. It is no test to love those who merit it. The test is in loving those who do not. That is where I failed, where Betsy recovered.
Think on the events that have been played out before you. I know, now, that I have been as much for you as for Betsy or Jack or Lucy.
“Will you return?”
John, there is no death. Life and love are the universe’s only constants. All else is fleeting, temporary, an illusion, though it may seem the contrary to you here.
The light flickered, waned.
You all are loved so very much more than you’ll ever know here. Goodbye, now. I shall see you again in another time, another life.
“I will wait for that,” he answered thickly through the lump in his throat.
The light burst out once more, strong and effulgent, then subsided, swirling back into the gem like a whirlpool of glimmering water.
Within a few seconds, the light had disappeared, leaving the little grove once again bathed in the dappled moonlight falling from between the leaves.
With a sputter, the flame at the heart of the gem died away, too, faded to black.
John went to it, touched it.
The gem had turned to cool, impassive wood, transmuted into the very stuff of the tree.
He smiled, let his fingers rest on its new texture.
For the first time in eight years, he felt at peace—with the ghosts of his past, the reality of his present, and the promise of his future. They all seemed to him necessary, proper and, in some strange way, right.
And the banked fires of his slumbering, secret heart stirred, awakened.
Turning back to the house, he left the woods.
AFTERWORD
Seems strange to discuss the inception of a story here at the end of the story, but here goes…
I am a sucker for a good ghost story… or even a not-so-good one. There is little more satisfying in this world than sitting in a comfortable chair, a cup of tea and perhaps a cigar close at hand on a cold fall evening while reading a good ghost story.
The Bell Witch is a good ghost story… a great one.
I hope that my fictionalization of this quintessentially American story is at least a good one, too.
Oh yes, the Bell Witch is a true ghost story. True in the sense that something happened, was documented, passed into legend and history. At least, the story of the Bell Witch is true. The Bell family actually existed. The town of Adams, Tennessee, where the story occurred in the early 19th century, still exists today. Indeed, there is a monument in the town to the Bell family… and it wasn’t erected simply because the family lived and farmed there long ago.
Tennessee in 1820 was very much frontier territory, the western edge of the United States. And the United States was still very much a child of a country. When the events of the Bell Witch legend happened, not even 50 years had passed since the Revolution; not even a decade since the second war with Great Britain, the War of 1812.
I’ve always been interested in ghost stories. My mother was a big believer in reading, and she took my brother, sister and me to the library every week to get books. And get them we did, with wild abandon; taking as many books as the library would allow each of us to check out, leaving with stacks almost too heavy to carry. Each week, we swept down on the library, scouring the shelves for books about ghosts and spirits, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, vampires and werewolves and aliens and UFOs and creatures, spooks and mysteries of just about every kind.
To me, books on these subjects—mixed in with equal parts of Marvel comics—were like rocket fuel to my imagination. I don’t know precisely what it says about me, but they still are.
My interest in the Bell Witch took root back then, back in my 10-year-old mind. Why? Because it was the first truly American ghost story I’d ever read. Most ghost stories involved gothic mansions and foggy moors and Ye Olde Englande. Not the Bell Witch. Here was an American ghost story, a solidly Middle American take on the genre. What’s more, an American president—Old Hickory Andrew Jackson, no less—was reputed to have witnessed the Witch.
Growing up in St. Louis, I could definitely be spooked by proper British ghosts. But with the Bell Witch, I had a more familiar locale, a more relatable setting, even more relatable people, though separated by over a century. Because of this, it chilled me more deeply than other ghost stories… still does.
I decided long ago to fictionalize the story. What you have here is the culmination of that desire; my take on the legend of the Bell Witch. Let me say from the outset that it is not meant to be an historical account of what actually happened… if anything can be said to have actually happened in this case. Understand, that this is fiction; these characters, though they may bear familiar names, are mine. The settings, the plot, the very underpinnings of the story are mine. Characters do not act as their namesakes might have; they act and speak as I deemed necessary to move the plot along. I have moved places, altered geography, collapsed and expanded timeframes, substituted names, eliminated family members… all done ruthlessly to suit my needs.
If you seek historical accounts of the Bell Witch, I urge you to visit your local library as I did; or search Google or Amazon for books on the subject. There are many. The story in this book may agree with these histories in certain details, in broad strokes. But this book isn’t meant to be history; even the strange type of history that might be afforded to a ghost story.
So, if you’ve skipped here to the end to see what I’d say, go ahead and get a cup of tea, light up a good stogie if you fancy that. Stoke the fire and settle down in your easy chair. Hopefully it’s a cool, crisp fall evening—maybe the moon is even up in the sky—for that’s when ghosts seem closest.
Are you settled? Are you ready?
Fine. Then here’s a good ghost story for you…
St. Louis, Missouri
September 2012
THANK YOU
A book is a team effort, even if you don’t know you’re on the team. Thanks go to a wide range of people who make up my team. First, I’d like to thank the mayor and good people of Adams, Tennessee, for putting up with a lot of pestering and questions from me over the years.
I want to thank all the reviewers and supporters of my previous work, Little Deaths, for making the publication of this novel possible. Thanks go to Alicia Banks, Hal Bodner, Michael Collings, Rob Errera, Corey Graham, Ann Hale, Karen Heard, Julie Hutchings, Gabino Iglesias, Rhiannon Irons, Sean Kimmel, David McDonald and Rachel Watts, Gene O’Neill, Kenny Stills and my good friend Erik T. Johnson. Thanks also go to Sanitarium Magazine, Big Pulp, Erebus Horror, Grey Matter Press and Postscripts to Darkness.
Thanks to James Roy Daley and everyone at Books of the Dead Press for a terrific working relationship. And to Kealan Patrick Burke for a terrific cover!
Finally, for putting up with me and keeping me on the right path, I want to thank my fiancée, Deborah Deming.
As always, this goes with all love to my children, Harry, Sam and Molly.
Available from
Books of the Dead Press:
&nbs
p; Justin Robinson - Undead On Arrival
Glen Novak is a dead man. Unfortunately for the scumbag who killed him, Novak will keep on cracking skulls until he finds the piece of trash that set him up, or is turned into a walking sack of rotten meat. With Undead On Arrival, Justin Robinson gives us a hard boiled zombie tale, and one of the most brutally compellingly examinations of the living dead you’ll ever read.
Duncan McGeary - Led to the Slaughter
Trapped in the Sierra Nevada without food, The Donner Party are led to the slaughter. After being manipulated into a string of bad decisions, the travelers, frozen and abandoned, are preyed upon by werewolves in their midst––the very people they thought were friends.
TS Alan - The Romero Strain
A group of New Yorkers are chased underground by a zombie horde. They gather survivors while traveling to Grand Central Terminal, where they believe help will be found. Their hopes end when they discover the area overrun with the undead, and come face to face with an adversary born from a lab deep below the city.
John F.D. Taff – Kill/Off
When David Benning is blackmailed he’s thrust into a world of guns, payoffs and killing ordinary people. As he becomes more enmeshed, he begins to grasp the true motives, and secrets––secrets that must never be revealed. David can trust no one… not even the one person he has grown to love.
J.C. Michael - Discoredia
As the year draws to a close a mysterious stranger makes a proposition to club owner: a deal involving a drug called Pandemonium. The good news: the drug is free. The bad news: it comes at a heavy price, promising much but delivering far more. Euphoria and ecstasy. Death and depravity. All come together, at Discoredia.
James Roy Daley – Authors & Publishers Must Die!
From the mouth of author/publisher James Roy Daley comes Authors and Publishers Must Die! No punches are pulled in this non-fiction title, which is filled to the rim with straightforward, practical advice for writers, while exploring what it’s like to be on the other side of the desk. A must read for every author.
The Bell Witch Page 31
