The Witch of Tin Mountain(32)

Caro looks at Ebba sideways. “What’s she talkin’ about?”

I take Caro’s little hand. “Granny’s in something called a coma, and she can’t talk or move, or anything else. At least right now.”

“Why?” Caro’s eyes well up. “What happened?”

“I don’t rightly know why she’s sick, Caro.”

“Is she gonna die?”

“Not if we can help it.”

We finish up with dinner and then take Caro to see Granny. Her breath rises and falls in a threadbare whisper. Beneath her crepe-paper eyelids, her eyes roll and flutter like she’s seeing something in her heavy veil of sleep. The oil lamp’s wan light deepens the creases in her forehead and carves darkness into the hollows of her cheeks.

“Talk to her, Carolyn June.” Ebba’s voice is thick with emotion. “Her body is here, but her spirit is somewhere else. Dreaming. Seeing.” Ebba flitters her hands over Granny’s head.

Caro sits on the edge of the bed and takes Granny’s wrinkled hand. A tear trickles down her face, but she starts rattling on about her day just like she would if Granny was sitting with her out on the porch swing.

Ebba nudges me with her elbow and motions me back into the house. “Let her alone with Deirdre so she can say what she wants to say.”

We go back to the kitchen, and I pour myself a cup of black coffee. My hands are shaking. I could really use one of Val’s cigarettes right now. “Tell me what you know, Ebba. About this curse, what happened to Granny in the past, everything. I need to know the truth. Granny only gave me half answers before she got sick.” Everyone thinks Ebba’s off her rocker. But she’s got a feral kind of wisdom I’ve come to appreciate. She makes her living as a water witcher and knows her way around our conjure garden as well as I do. There’s some sort of wild magic running through her veins, too, and she knows Granny in a way few people do.

“Most of the story is in that h?xboken,” Ebba says. “Deirdre finally showed it to you, yes?”

“Anneliese’s grimoire?”

Ebba nods, her head haloed with silver in the candlelight. “The past will help you understand what is happening now, better than I can tell you. The women in your family have powers. Sometimes the powers help and heal. Sometimes they hurt.”

“And that preacher?”

Ebba turns away, worrying at her sleeve. “A preacher came through Tin Mountain fifty years ago. Ambrose Gentry. Got things all stirred up. There was a flood. Many people died. She has it in her head that it’s him, returned to do the same again.”

“He couldn’t be the same man. He’s too young.”

“Some men have the devil in them. A darker kind of magic that fools the eye.”

I remember what Granny told me about Anneliese and Nathaniel Walker and the origin of the curse that plagues Tin Mountain: Anneliese’s murder. Maybe Ebba’s right. “When did the trouble start, and when did it end?”

“I was just a girl, but as I remember, it started near Walpurgis Night—witch’s night—and ended with the harvest—freyrfaxi. Young folks think Walpurgis is just about bonfires and playing pranks. But we old ones, we remember. Walpurgis is a powerful holiday for our kind. It’s a woman’s time—Frigga’s time—a period of fertility and increase. At least, it should be.” Ebba sighs. “Fifty years ago, when Gentry came through, there was no fertility. No harvest.”

“There was a flood, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, what folks call a hundred-year flood. The rain never seemed to stop.”

“But it passed?”

“Yes. After a time. But crops failed. Animals and people died, and things took a good long while to settle. I lost my aunt Maja that winter, and two of my cousins died, too.” Ebba gazes out the open window, where the cicadas are starting their nightly cacophony. “So much lost that year.” Ebba rubs her arms, as if fighting off a chill. “Deirdre tried to set things right back then. She . . . gave up much. But still, it wasn’t enough.” Ebba’s eyes glint, her thin lips curl down at the corners. “Some say it’s Anneliese who brought the curse, but it was him who brought it. He angered the land with her murder, and now it reacts as if poison’s been spilled on it when it senses his return. The curse will only end for good once he’s driven out and Anneliese’s restless spirit is satisfied. Justified. She and the land want a reckoning for the wrong that was done.”



I go outside, into the night. The cabin feels too close. Too crowded. The air outside ain’t any cooler. It’s humid-hot and stifling. This heat is enough to drive a person crazy.

The last time the curse came through Tin Mountain, there was a flood. This time, if I had to wager, it’s looking to be a drought.

If what Ebba says is true, people are going to die. Lots of people.

Unless I can find a way to stop it.

But how? If Granny couldn’t, how do I stand a chance?

Ebba hadn’t offered anything real helpful—and some of the things she told me made no sense. I go past our sheltering wards and through the trees, along the foraging trail, with a mind to cross the creek and check for Morris up at his still. The moon hangs like a freshly sharpened scythe above my head, lending scant light to my steps.

Suddenly, alongside the spring’s warble, a low moan filters through the thicket. I stop short and listen. I hear heavy breathing, like the panting of some wild animal that’s been hurt. Up ahead, movement flashes through the cedar boughs.