by Vicki Lane
But I am on my feet too and making my way down the path to where Dorothy’s car is parked. I can see Belvy has already got herself in and her seat belt fixed ready to go.
Dorothy is hustling after me, fumbling in her pocket for that little phone. “I’ll call 911 and then we’ll go over to my house and wait. There ain’t no way you two—”
I know what she is thinking—what can two old women do? Me, eighty-five—and, law, how strange it seems to think that I’m that old, and Belvy older yet. But if I’m right about what we’re facing, youth and strength ain’t what will defeat this evil that’s after Calven—no, it’ll take the Gifts and the Powers that go with them.
Dorothy is still yammering and getting first on one side of me and then the other, like a dog herding a cow. She hasn’t stopped fussing long enough to mash the buttons for 911.
Just then Belvy reaches out the car window and points at her. Dorothy shuts her mouth and stands stock-still.
“Dorothy.” Belvy’s voice is the sternest sound I ever did hear, a voice that won’t never take a no. “You tell the police on the phone which way to go and then you take us to where the boy’s likely to be.”
I climb into the back and reach up and lay a hand on Belvy’s shoulder. It’s good to know that we’re fighting on the same side now. She don’t turn round but reaches up and pats my hand and I can feel the Power running and tingling between our fingers.
Dorothy is on the telephone now and she is explaining things to the 911.
“… it’s the same ones broke in at Wildcat Reach Saturday … and run down a feller.… Yes, up on Bear Tree Creek.… About three miles from the bridge … Laurel Branch Road … They went up the road that goes around to the top. But there’s two ways up to where they are, my road and the one right before it.… Yes, that’s Godwin Holler, always has been, though the new folks there has changed the name to Goldfinch Lane. You best have a car go up each one; that way you’ll have them in a trap.… No, there ain’t no houses up there … one old barn, that’s all, and some pasture, most grown up. Mainly what’s up there is the worst laurel hell you ever saw …”
Chapter 55
The Laurel Hell
Monday, May 7
(Calven)
Heatherrr!”
Hollering wasn’t easy with sides aching from the exertion of trying to run up a steep path. After one more shout that trailed off into a cough, Calven put his hands on his knees and leaned over to catch his breath.
He was following the almost invisible trail that he and Heather had used many times before—a narrow footpath snaking through the woods, sometimes bending deep into the trees, sometimes paralleling the gravel road that zig-zagged through overgrown fields and pastures to the mountaintop. The path was a harder climb than going by the road, but if Heather was taking pictures of flowers and such, it was likely that she had come this way.
To the right, the trees were tall, with little undergrowth, and through them he could catch a glimpse of the gravel road. To the left lay the laurel hell—a shadowy thicket of gnarled trunks and roots and dark glossy green leaves. He and Heather had argued—he called them laurel trees but she had insisted they were rhododendrons.
“And they’re bushes, not trees, even if they’re as tall as some trees. We have a book at home—I’ll show you.”
And she had—but in spite of the book, he still thought of the dark tangle of growth as a laurel hell. That’s what Mama’s old boyfriend Bib had called them and Bib had a world of stories about people who got lost in such places and never came out.
“You go deep enough into one of them hells,” Bib had said, “you’ll find the bones of all kinds of animals that wander in … or get chased in … and can’t find their way out nohow. You’ll see them old twisty trunks growing up through rib cages or out of eye sockets.… There’s some says the laurel traps things on purpose, so as to feed off of them.…”
Calven looked toward the dim shadows where the trees gave way to a jungle of contorted trunks and stems, spreading out … lurking … reaching …
Shitfire! he admonished himself. That was just old Bib funning with me—making hisself feel big by scaring a little kid.
He and Heather had explored the edge of this particular laurel hell but it hadn’t been all that interesting—just the maze of twisty trunks that made progress slow, the litter of brown curled-up leaves crackling underfoot, and the blue of the sky glimpsed through a lacy pattern of green above. Flowers didn’t grow there and the laurel wasn’t blooming yet. There wasn’t any reason to think Heather would waste her time in the laurel hell—particularly now, with the sun gone behind the mountain and the shadows closing in.
Calven shivered. Then he remembered the babysitter had said Heather was hoping to get a picture of the sunset. He smiled.
She’s likely at the top or near it. With that high range to the west, the sun’ll go down pretty early. I may as well go up the car road the rest of the way—be quicker.
His running shoes crunched on the gravel as he trudged past the fork in the road that led down to Dorothy’s place. He could see the faded green of the painted metal roof but the rest of the house and yard were hidden by the woods in between. Ol’ Dor’thy—won’t she be glad when I get back!
As he studied the little rectangle of roof far below, Calven realized that he was about to cry. Biting his lip, he turned away and resumed his climb up the last steep switchback before the summit. That place down there—it’s more like home than anywhere I ever lived. My own room … regular meals … even ol’ Dor’thy fussing at me makes it more homelike. At least she does it cause she cares.…
The lump in his throat was painful now. He dragged his hand across his eyes and sniffed. Cut that out, now. You want Heather to see you boo-hooing like a baby girl?
A movement on the ridge above caught his attention and he stopped. Clearing his throat, he made a megaphone with his hands and called.
“Heaaatherrr …”
The figure on the ridge turned. There was a moment’s hesitation and then she waved and started down the road to him, the camera around her neck bumping gently as she came.
“Heather … Heather … Heather …”
Like mocking echoes, the calls sounded below him.
Calven whirled around. Four switchbacks below, an anonymous-looking black SUV was creeping up the road. At one open window was his mother—her head halfway out, one hand cupped at her mouth, and calling.
“Heatherrr … where are you?… It’s Calven’s mom.… I need to talk to you about him …”
On the road above, Heather stopped.
“Calven? What’s going on? Where have you been, anyway? You missed—”
“We ain’t got time to talk.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the trees. “We got to get away from them!”
The car drew closer, tires grinding on the loose gravel. Now Calven could see Darrell at the wheel and Pook beside him, dark glasses swiveling from left to right, alert for any sign of his prey. And behind Pook, still leaning out the window, still calling, Calven saw his pretty, lying, hateful mother.
“Heather … don’t listen to Calven … he’s confused … sick in the head … we need to find him … get him help …”
“Calven?”
Heather was pulling back on his hand now as he tried to drag her with him deeper into the woods. “Wait a minute! Is that really your mother? Why are you running away from her? What does she mean—”
Down below, the SUV was momentarily out of sight but the sound of its relentless progress could be heard as the engine strained and the high, sweet, false voice went on calling.
“Heather honey, can you hear me? Be careful of him—”
The girl’s face was frightened now and she jerked her hand loose from Calven’s grip. “What’s going on?”
“You got to believe me, Heather.” Calven forced himself not to make a grab for her hand as she moved a few paces away from him—and back toward the road. “Listen, those g
uys with my mom, they’re real bad guys—criminals. The one with the sunglasses—”
Calven’s stomach heaved at the memory of Pook’s face as he talked about what he would do with Heather while waiting for the ransom. The pink, glistening tongue on the pale lips …
At any moment, the SUV would round the bend and Pook would spot them. “Heather, we got to run before they see us. It’s not me they’re after—they want to kidnap you and make your folks pay a big ransom. They … they could hurt you bad. Please, Heather, you got to believe me!”
“But … is that really your mother?”
“Yes, that’s my mother. And I reckon this whole thing is her doing. She’s …” His voice broke but he went on. “She’s no good, just like those guys she’s with.”
Tears were streaking down Heather’s sunburned face and her mouth was turned down, half-open in a silent cry. The grinding of heavy tires on gravel seemed almost deafening to Calven and he held out his hand once more.
“Please, Heather.”
The girl made a tiny whimpering sound, like a small trapped animal. Then, just as the SUV nosed around the curve, she took Calven’s hand and the two plunged into the woods, running for the gloom of the laurel hell.
Down on the road, the big car halted. Doors opened and slammed. There was one last call.
“Heather, honey, we’re coming to get you.”
And then the sound of feet, pounding through the woods after them.
From the second volume of Camping and Woodcraft (1906) by Horace Kephart
A canebrake is bad enough, but it is not so bad as those great tracts of rhododendron which … cover mile after mile of steep mountainside where few men have ever been. The natives call such wastes “laurel slicks,” “woolly heads,” “lettuce beds,” “yaller patches,” and “hells.” The rhododendron is worse than laurel, because it is more stunted and grows more densely, so that it is quite impossible to make a way through it without cutting, foot by foot; and the wood is very tough. Two powerful mountaineers starting from the Tennessee side to cross the Smokies were misdirected and proceeded up the slope of Devil’s Court House, just east of Thunderhead. They were two days in making the ascent, a matter of three or four miles, notwithstanding that they could see out all the time and pursued the shortest possible course. I asked one of them how they had managed to crawl through the thicket. “We couldn’t crawl,” he replied, “we swum,” meaning they had sprawled and floundered over the top. These men were not lost at all. In a “bad laurel” (heavily timbered), not far from this, an old hunter and trapper who was born and bred in these mountains, was lost for three days, although the maze was not more than a mile square. His account of it gave it the name that it bears today, “Huggins’s Hell.”
Chapter 56
The Old Magic
Monday, May 7
(Birdie)
Now the path is opening afore me. Now there will be no turning back. This one last time I will sing the Calling Song and use the Powers. This one last time, if nothing don’t happen, I will see the Little Things and ask their help.
As many years as it’s been since I lifted my hand to the Old Magic, I don’t know what’s ahead—magic is a tricksy thing and the Yunwi Tsunsdi may not be forgiving of me after the way I turned away from them. And it could be that, having left it so long, my old body is too weak a vessel to hold the Powers—that they will work against me instead of doing my will.
It don’t matter. Now that I have made my decision, with every breath I take the Power is pouring into me, filling my body.
Me and Belvy are both of us quiet as we gather our different strengths. Belvy’s eyes is closed and her mouth is moving in prayer. I don’t doubt she’ll do her best, but, like I told her, she don’t speak the Raven Mocker’s tongue.
Dorothy, all shut-mouthed and blank-eyed, is driving the car like she was doing it in her sleep. When we came to her house, she tried to stop there, but at a word from Belvy, she went on past and took the turning that leads up the mountain. I don’t know whether Belvy still has her in hand or if Dorothy has just pulled back into herself to get away from what she don’t understand.
Could be she is wondering if she did the right thing, asking me to use the Powers. Every once in a while, she swivels her head around from the road ahead, back to me, then to Belvy, and again to the road. We are in sight of the top of the ridge now, and when I look behind us to the west, I see that the sun has set. I remember one of the things Granny told me, how this dim in-between time is good for magic. Things shifts and changes and Evil don’t have the full power it will have once that it is black dark.
“Have you got a flashlight in this vehicle, Dorothy?” Belvy is squinting out the window at the sky. “Might be that—”
“We’ll not need a flashlight.” The words rise out of me without my bidding. “This matter’ll be settled, for good or bad, afore dark.”
It has been a long time since I spoke like that, speaking with the sure knowledge of all those people in me—John Goingsnake and Granny Beck and the girl we buried so long ago—the quare girl called Least.
The Power is flowing through me now with a great rush; from the tingling in my fingertips to the way the little fine hairs on my arms has lifted, I can feel it washing through me. And the joy of its coming blots out all the aches and pains of old age that are my familiar companions—the knee that all time wants to give way, the nagging ache of old arthritis in my hip, the stiffness of my finger joints—they’s every one of them gone or, no, not gone but covered over. I feel like I could race up the road, outpacing this car, like I could tear open the sky to bring down justice, like I could stand my ground and spit in the Raven Mocker’s face.
I think of a leaf fire in fall, flaring up in one last blaze of glory before blinking out into black ashes. It may be that in the doing of this thing, I will be destroyed, but if I can save Dorothy from the hurt of losing this child she loves so much, I’ll be content.
“They ain’t no one up here.”
The pain in Dorothy’s voice stabs at my heart. The car is topping the ridgeline now and we can see in every direction but there’s not the first sign of the young uns we’re seeking.
Dorothy stops the car and wrenches open her door. She leaps out and opens her mouth to holler but me and Belvy both raise our hands and she falls silent. She stands there turning about and seeking with her eyes but at last she gives it up and gets back in behind the driver’s wheel.
“They’re somewhere down the Godwin Holler,” says Belvy, “the boy, the girl, and the three evildoers. No need to let them know we’re coming.”
“You didn’t have to—” Dorothy starts to say, then catches herself. “No, you did right; I should of known better.” She points a ways along the ridge. “Want me to run the vehicle on over there?”
“That’s right, Dor’thy.” I lean up and pat her shoulder. “Their car is on down that other road, where the little girl’s people live. You park this vehicle right where the Godwin Holler road comes out on the top and they won’t be able to get by. And backing down these narrow roads ain’t easy.”
We creep on up the dirt track to the gravel road and Dorothy pulls her vehicle slantwise across it, blocking it good. It’s a narrow road that cuts across a steep slope, and was a car to slip off, it would likely tumble over and over till it fetched up against some of the trees below.
Dorothy pulls on her parking brake and sets there, shaking her head like trying to get loose of cobwebs.
“Now, what is it you’re of a mind to do up here, Birdie? Are we waiting for the police?”
I lay my hands on her shoulders, sending calm into her. This is one of the first things Granny taught me for we hoped to use it on Mama but the anger that she had carried so long was too much for such a simple spell. Oh, the calming spell gave her a night’s rest now and again, but mostly she just fought against it. She never did like to be touched nohow.
Dorothy ain’t so contrary and I can feel the stiffness draining
out of her shoulder muscles and hear her breathing slow and sense her spirit calming.
“Dor’thy honey,” I say, when she has quieted, “I’ll tell you what it is we’re going to do.”
Chapter 57
Root and Branch
Monday, May 7
(Birdie)
Root and branch,
Tree and stone.
Two stay behind,
One goes alone.
Dorothy and Belvy take the lead down the gravel road. Belvy has Dorothy’s arm to steady her and the two of them are clipping right along, their voices trailing after them.
“He is my rock and my salvation: He is my defense; I shall not be moved.”
Belvy is a white-topped pillar, a warrior mighty in the Lord, marching as to war and saying scripture as she goes. And Dorothy is at her side, coming in with the amen’s.
“The Lord is my strength and my shield.”
“Amen! Tell it.”
“My trust is in the Lord.”
“Hallelujah!”
They are a brave pair of Christian soldiers and I have no doubt that their faith will keep them safe. Prayers and scripture will be a help—but fight fire with fire, as the saying goes. Outsmarting this Raven Mocker witch will need all the Cherokee Magic that Granny taught me.
I take a moment to linger behind; to turn and raise my stick to each of the Four Directions and to call on all that is under heaven: fire, water, earth, air, and all living things to be with me.
The air is cooler up here and the breeze that brushes over my face seems to say I will and the long grass nods a promise as I start down the road after the other two. If the Little Things are willing, I think, if all the Gifts are still with me … and it seems that I hear the tapping of far-off drums.
I catch up with Dorothy and Belvy at the big black car parked there in the road where we knew it would be, and the scent of the Raven Mocker is strong—the smell of burnt wet wood and rotting dead things. Belvy is gazing off into the trees towards the gloom of the laurel hell and her nose is quivering like it used to do, all them years ago when we was playmates.
