Blood Creek Witch Read online

  For a moment, the girl’s image wavered, and then she shook her head. Like the others, her eyes seemed wrong. Not at all like Debbie’s.

  “What about Debra Arnot?”

  Again, the girl shook her head.

  Another figure appeared, a sandy-haired teenager in jeans, corduroy shirt, and a thick vest like a sleeveless coat. He spun around in a circle near one of Evelyn’s candles. “Hey, y’all, this is perfect!” he announced to an unseen audience. Evelyn glanced up and looked in his general direction, but unfocused, as if she struggled to see him.

  “Check this place out!” the young man continued. “Richie, help me push these pews out of the way. We can set up sleeping bags over there.” He paused to listen to something Sean couldn’t hear, then answered, “What are ya afraid of, Ellen? Ghosts? This here’s a church; why would there be ghosts here?”

  Sean stood to try and talk to the boy, when the girl caught his arm. Her touch lacked warmth, but it felt solid. “You’d better get going now, before he gets you!” she repeated, and then she was gone. Sean stared into the rotten wood, stripped of its varnish and protection by decades of neglect. Around him, the other figures darted away, becoming nothing but empty air at the sides of his vision. Only the kid in the jeans remained.

  Sean glanced back at Evelyn. “Hey, Evelyn? Something’s happening.”

  Evelyn released a loud breath, shaking her head. “It’s about time.”

  Sean waved to the teenager’s ghost. “Hey, do you know Annabelle Rose?”

  The young man shimmered and changed form. He now wore white long-johns. The boy looked confused, lost, peering into the darkness with his dull, violet-tinged eyes. “Hey, what’s going on? Who are you?” the teen asked.

  “It’s okay. I just want to know if you know Annabelle Rose.”

  The young man squinted, at neither Sean nor Evelyn. “What’s going on? Is this a joke? Guys?” He backed toward the wall. Sean followed the youth’s gaze, but saw only the empty ruins illuminated by the candles.

  “No, you’re not real!” the teen protested. “This must be a dream. Go away!” He stopped at the wall, and stared into nothingness in horror. Then he started screaming, staring down at his stomach as the long-john top split in the center and the white fabric blossomed with a dark, blackish red stain.

  The figure vanished, and the lack of even an echo of his scream was almost as disconcerting as the sound itself. Sean backed away. He turned toward the candles. It took him a moment to find his voice. “Evelyn, we’ve got to go. This is a bad place. Something really bad happened here.”

  “Of course it is. That’s why we’re here.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Several murders and disappearances took place near here. Some people blamed the preacher, but he was also murdered. The slayings continued for years after his death.”

  “I don’t think we’re safe here.”

  “I’m safe. You aren’t. Not until you find out what happened to Annabelle.”

  “What?”

  She didn’t answer. Sean’s eyes darted around the empty space, alert for movement. For the moment, all was quiet, and Sean desperately wanted it to stay that way. As much as he wanted to find Debbie again, he couldn’t see how this helped. He didn’t understand what Evelyn expected to get from this, either. She had something in mind other than helping him test his abilities. This felt like an agenda.

  “Welcome, brother,” a voice spoke behind him. Sean whirled around to face an unassuming, silver-haired man in a dark suit with a string tie. Except for his eyes, dull and dead-looking but for blazing violet sparks deep within the pupils, he seemed real and physical. Even Evelyn within her circle of candles took notice of this new presence.

  “Uh, hello?”

  “Folks ‘round here call me Preacher Thomas. You can call me that, or Brother Thomas, or just Avery. Call me anything but late for dinner.” He grinned wide. “I heard you had some questions you wanted answered.”

  “I’m looking for Debra Arnot and Annabelle Rose. Do you know what happened to them?”

  “Why seek you the living among the dead?”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, little Biblical joke there. Neither of them can be found among the dead, young man.”

  “But Debbie died many years ago.”

  “Did she? I never got the memo. I didn’t know her well. But Annabelle…” The preacher looked past him, off into space, and his lips twitched. “I would have known when that witch passed. She hasn’t.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “So you can tell that pretty lady hidden behind the circle of lights? I wish I did. I’d like to find her myself, and pay her back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She is responsible for my current condition. Oh, not directly. That’s what witches do, you know? They bewitch. Just as yours has bewitched you.”

  “Evelyn? No, she hasn’t…”

  “Hasn’t she? Are we here at your own bidding? Wake up, son. You are being used, as surely as that coal miner who shot me was being used by Annabelle. Funny thing is, both Annabelle and your friend there were being used as well, by the man in the white suit.”

  “God?”

  The man laughed. “Oh, that would be mighty funny. But no. He plays for the other side. Now your turn. Answer me this: What do you know of the other witches?”

  “What others?”

  “The ones descended from Annabelle. I smell them, even as far away as this.”

  Sean hesitated. His immediate reaction was to tell Avery their names, in the interest of fair play. But Avery was dangerous. He knew that at a subconscious level. “They are just friends. I met them yesterday.”

  “Do they know you are here?”

  “No. Why would they?”

  “That’s really too bad.”

  “Why?”

  “They won’t come looking for your body.” The preacher opened his hands, which blazed a dark violet to match his eyes. In his left hand, the glowing light coalesced into the form of a knife. “Death is what fertilizes this land, son. The man in the white suit knows that. That’s what you are. Fertilizer.”

  Sean backed away. Avery Thomas casually walked toward him. “Come on, son. Might as well claim your heavenly mansion now.”

  “Evelyn! Help!”

  She didn’t respond. Avery laughed. “She don’t care if you live or die, son. Don’t matter anyway. I got your scent. I can find you anywhere. Go ahead and run. Maybe you can make it to the car. Maybe I’ll even let you run a few days, start to hope. But I’m a bloodhound.”

  Sean bolted for the door. Avery already stood there, laughing. “Or maybe I won’t…” He took a couple of practice swings with the violet-tinged knife. “Fun thing about this place, boy. Every death leaves something behind for this place to feed on. You might say it’s my little piece of heaven.”

  Sean cast his eyes around for something to use as a weapon. An unbroken beer bottle lay near one pew. He picked it up and threw it at the apparition. Avery laughed as the bottle passed harmlessly through him. He stopped laughing when black fire encircled him, flickering and leaping. Avery looked around in confusion, and then stared balefully at Evelyn as the ring contracted about him. “She ain’t saving you, boy,” he said. “When the full moon rises again, so will I, and you’ll be mine forever!” The ring enclosed him, and then both Avery and the darkness winked out of existence.

  Evelyn licked her fingers and pinched out the flames of the candles one by one. “That was a waste of time.”

  “He was going to kill me,” Sean said, panting.

  She nodded. “Yeah, that’s what it looked like. I couldn’t hear him too well. Please tell me he said something useful.”

  Sean stared, incredulous, as she calmly packed the candles and returned them to her bag. Without the candles, he couldn’t make out her expression or body language. He could only imagine Avery appearing at any moment, violet knife in hand. “Is he gone?”

  �
�For a while, yes. Spirits aren’t hard to temporarily banish, but like a bad penny, they have a tendency to keep coming back. Now, what did Avery say to you?”

  “He said Annabelle isn’t dead.”

  Evelyn froze, and said nothing for a long moment. Finally, she spoke, her voice a forced monotone. “Where is she now?”

  “He didn’t know. He said if he did, he’d pay her back for convincing a coal miner to shoot him.”

  Evelyn handed him the bag and said, “Maybe this wasn’t a total waste, after all. Let’s go.”

  In the car, driving too fast in the dark around the tight mountain turns back to Maple Bend, Sean asked, “Did you bring me here to find Avery Thomas?”

  “The preacher? Yes. I suspected she’d been responsible for his death. I’d hoped he bore enough of a grudge into the afterlife to tell me where she’d been buried.”

  Sean began shaking, but not in fear. “He killed that kid. As a ghost.”

  “I thought so.”

  “He was going to kill me!”

  She laughed, shaking her dark hair. “No, I wouldn’t let that happen to you. You are still safe.”

  “He said when the full moon rises, he’s coming after me again. He said he had my scent.”

  “He brags. But don’t worry. I’ll protect you from him.”

  “What if you aren’t around?”

  Evelyn didn’t answer, eyes fixed on the road ahead as if in deep concentration. Then she began her high-pitched chuckle. Her wide grin sparkled in the dashboard lights. “Then if you don’t want him finding you and gutting you like a pig, you had best stay close to me and keep me happy, right?”

  In Maple Bend, people were divided into two camps—the saints and the sinners. Jack avoided taking sides in that particular division. He didn’t see any value in it. His father had firmly ensconced himself among the sinners. Jack didn’t see that it led to any long-term happiness. His mother often pretended to be with the other group. She’d dress up for church every few Sundays and drag Jack along with her to get a monthly dose of preaching. Jack couldn’t tell if that group was particularly happy, either. As far as he was concerned, the jury was still out, and he needed to get a better look at the rest of the world before making his decision.

  After the events of the last two days, Jack hedged his bets. The snallygaster killed Sam before either of them knew they were in danger. Jack should have been killed too, three times over in the last two days. Jack chalked it up to dumb luck rather than the Great Almighty that spared him, but he figured a bit of gratitude wouldn’t hurt. His mother wasn’t making any of the usual efforts to prepare for Sunday services, so Jack took the initiative and cleaned himself up and dressed in his Sunday best. That meant clean trousers instead of jeans, and a white button-up shirt. He had his father’s necktie, but he’d never learned how to tie it. As always, he wore his hat. When his mother saw him getting ready for church, she hastily did the same.

  Preacher Harris, a widower in his early fifties with tight, curly gray hair and a bulbous nose, greeted them as they arrived. He smiled, shook their hands, and addressed them by their names. They sat in their usual pew. They occupied it so rarely that Jack wondered who else considered it their ‘usual’ pew. Did they resent it when Jack and his mother showed up and forced them to relocate? Or was it normally vacant?

  People filed in. By the time the sermon started, more people filled the tiny chapel than at any time in Jack’s memory. The collection plate had to be emptied before it finished its rounds. People were scared. Maybe they thought God ran a protection racket and would save the biggest donors. Maybe their fear simply reminded them to be more generous. Maybe getting words of comfort from Preacher Harris was worth a bigger fee today. It didn’t matter.

  Jack was just relieved to be rid of the snallygaster, that Sam had been avenged, and that he and his companions had survived. The terror had come slowly to Jack, after he’d returned home and had the privacy of his own room to ponder just how close their brushes—plural—with death had been. He faced them anew in his nightmares through morning. A dose of religion to go with the dawn seemed like an appropriate antidote to the night’s dread.

  His attention returned to the preacher’s sermon, now firing up into its midpoint. Harris had started with words of comfort and escalated to real fire-and-brimstone stuff, with actual pulpit-thumping when he paced past the pulpit long enough to emphasize his points.

  “Now some of you may seek other means of protection from the terrible whims of nature. Now I agree, prudence is a gift of God to all of us which we should exercise. By all means, be careful, and be safe. But some of you might be deceived into seeking supernatural means for protection. I wanted to share some words from the good book about such efforts. In Leviticus it is written that the soul that turns after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, that God will set His face against that soul, and will cut him off! Regard them not who have these familiar spirits and these wizards, or you’ll be defiled by them! Saul was rejected as king, and died for the sin of consulting with soothsayers and witches!”

  It took Jack a few moments to parse the preacher’s words. Sure, wizards and witches and that sort of thing could be dangerous. But almost everyone in the congregation had to know that Harris was talking about Hattie. Hattie had nearly died last night trying to protect people. Wasn’t it witchcraft that had held off the snallygaster so Jack could get a killing shot?

  “For they are deceivers! If you have been led away by such deceptions, fear not! You must confess and repent, and sin no more. Even those who have engaged in such practices themselves are not without hope. They need to turn away, and turn to the Lord, and all can be forgiven.”

  Righteous or not, fury propelled Jack out of his seat. He wouldn’t tolerate the preacher, or anybody else, telling lies about his friends. Preacher Harris looked at him expectantly, as if he anticipated Jack’s public confession. For a moment, Jack debated yelling right back at the preacher, and telling the town what they’d fought in the forest, and how they’d fought it.

  That hadn’t gone so well the last time. Some people probably still thought of him as “Lyin’ Jack.” He decided it wouldn’t do any good this time, either.

  He and Preacher Harris stared at each other for a second that seemed to last for weeks. In that moment, Jack recognized the fear in the man’s eyes. It was the same fearful reverence that drove the congregation to fill the collection plate. This was the preacher’s offering, the best way he knew how. In that moment, Jack’s fury abated. He felt pity for the man.

  But that didn’t mean Jack had to go on listening to him. Jack stepped out from the pew. His mother stared at him in wide-eyed horror, suppressing cries for him to stop into a strangled series of shushing noises. Jack hoped God wouldn’t be too offended as he made his way to the exit at the back of the church. He didn’t notice the startled stares he received as he strode out.

  He had important things to do. He didn’t know what they were, exactly, but he knew they’d be the right things.

  Jack hadn’t climbed trees in years. He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped. Somewhere around puberty, he guessed. As a child, nobody could keep him out of the branches, the higher and more dangerous, the better. He grew older and his interests changed. Or maybe he just didn’t want the vantage point to see how far he had to go to get away from this place.

  After leaving the church, he found himself climbing a tree, out above everyone’s business and away from the people who lied and accused of lies. Somewhere over twenty feet in the air, he found a comfortable perch. To the nearly-adult Jack it didn’t seem very high, but a younger Jack would have thought he was near the clouds. From here, he could see the church and many of the homes in Maple Bend. The bell ending the service rang and people started to exit the church. He wondered what they thought of his performance. He told himself he didn’t care what they thought, just as he didn’t care that they still thought of him as a liar.

  The sound of someone approachi
ng startled him. Considering what he’d seen the last few days, he didn’t feel too embarrassed about it, but he reached out to stabilize himself as he looked down.

  Jessabelle cupped her hand over her eyes and looked up. “Got room for another up there?” she asked. Jack nodded, and she ascended with far more grace than he had. She found a branch opposite him, two feet lower.

  When she found her balance, Jessabelle said, “That’s a lot easier as a cat. At least climbing up.”

  “Cat? You mean like a house cat?”She nodded, and he caught the hint of a blush in her cheeks as she looked away, looking out toward the few rooftops visible through the trees. “I’m a cat almost as much as I’m a girl. It’s weird. Only Hattie knew about me until yesterday. It feels strange not to have to hide that all the time.”

  “Not in front of Jenny ‘n me, at least. Doesn’t your mama know?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “She knows about the witches in the Rose family, and says she’s so glad I didn’t turn out like them. I don’t know what she’d do if she found out.”

  Jack nodded. He knew. His mother still turned a little red whenever he mentioned the giant. When he was younger, she threatened to beat the lie out of him. She never carried out that threat. His father would have.

  Jessabelle looked at him again. “The snallygaster is gone. I went up there this morning. There was plenty of blood and busted-up plants, but nothing left of its body.”

  “Must have been the ogre. Or a giant. Don’t know what else could have taken it.”

  “I’m sorry, Jack. I wish we had proof. We should have taken pictures last night. I was scared and pushing for everyone to leave, and I should have thought.”

  Jack shrugged. “Pictures are easy to fake. It’s okay. After the giant, all I wanted was to prove to everyone that I told the truth. Now, I don’t know what things would be like if everyone believed me. People would get all worked up, so maybe it’s for the best.”

  She nodded. “People can be stupid, especially when they get scared. Sometimes I think about showing people what I can do. It might could amaze some people. But others wouldn’t handle it well. I reckon I’d be locked up in some government testing place before the day was done.”