The Witch of Tin Mountain(7)

“Does it hurt? When they put their thing inside you the first time?”

Ingrid gave a quick nod. “Ja. Just for a minute.”

“Robbie means to sneak me off tonight. To do it, I think.”

“In the woods?” Ingrid’s brow creased. “I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The witch. It’s her time. Walpurgis.”

“Mama says not to listen to superstition.”

Ingrid spat a line of brown tobacco juice between her feet and scraped dirt over it. “Her kin weren’t here when the curse first came over Tin Mountain fifty years ago, like my morfar was. She remembered that witch. What she did. How the settlers tore her limb from limb, then burned her.”

A log cracked on the fire, sending a cyclone of sparks heavenward. Deirdre flinched at the sound and drew her cloak tight around her shoulders. “Who was she? No one ever says her name.”

Ingrid shrugged. “I reckon no one will speak her name aloud, for fear they might call her spirit up, though Morfar always said she was Owen Sutter’s youngest daughter. People only sought her out for blood magic. Wicked things. The sacrifice of innocents. It all came back on her, I’d imagine.”

Innocents. Babies, likely. A sudden disturbing vision of a mewling, red-faced infant held down on a stone altar intruded upon Deirdre’s thoughts, unbidden. Her secret visions had become more frequent of late. More troubling and filled with ominous portents. She discreetly pulled out the flask beneath her skirts and took a swig of whiskey to chase the chill from her bones. Witch was a troublesome word. People sometimes cast their aspersions about Deirdre’s mama, and the word had been whispered more than once in her presence, even though no one feared God as much as Finola Werner. Mama was a midwife, who brought life into the world with her hands, not death and curses.

“Do you really believe in witches, Ing? Pacts with the devil and such?”

Ingrid nodded slowly. “There are those who turn down a dark path. For their own gain.”

“But if folks were asking her to work those sorts of spells, don’t that mean they were just as bad as she was?”

A pair of hands clapped onto Deirdre’s shoulders, sending her heart thudding into her throat. “Would you stop sneaking up on me, Robbie Cash?” she said, turning. “You make me jump clean out of my skin every time.”

Robbie smoothed her hair away from her ear, his breath hot and heady with liquor. “Preacher man’s gone. I reckon your mama wants you home soon.” There was a wolfish gleam in Robbie’s eyes as he pulled her to her feet. “I’ll walk you up the mountain.”

“Walk, he says.” Ing sniffed contemptuously, her mouth pulled tight. “Stay close to the road. No wandering deep into the woods, Robbie, lest the witch take your pretty virgin for her midnight feast.”

“Ain’t no such thing as witches, Ing.” Robbie’s voice hardened. His grasp tightened around Deirdre’s waist. “Those old stories change all the time, depending on who’s telling them. Come on, Deirdre. Let’s go.”

As Robbie led her from the warmth of the bonfire and into the inky-blue night, Deirdre sent a knowing smile over her shoulder. Ing lifted her chin, her eyes haughty, and spat an arc of tobacco at the ground.





THREE

GRACELYNN





1931




I lift my hem above the brambles and follow Granny through the pines, my head on a swivel. Even though it ain’t rained for three days, with any luck, more mushrooms will have sprouted. Every pound of spongy, dead-ugly morels I gather fetches as much money at market as a slab of red meat. Money that’ll get me that much closer to San Francisco and a better life.

Granny suddenly stops, her hair a silver torch in the early-morning murk. “Gracie, come here, child. I want to show you something.”

I amble over. “What is it?”

“Just look.” She points at the ground and shakes her finger. A wide slab of slate, broad as a tabletop stretches over the forest floor. Moss crawls over the smooth surface in the shape of a man’s hand, green fingers gripping the edges. The woods seem to go still around us; even the bright chirruping of the robins falls to a whisper.

I fight the chill crawling over my shoulders, and edge closer, squinting my eyes. “What’s it mean?”

“It’s a weather sign.” Granny clucks her tongue. “Summer’s likely to be hard this year and yield poorly at the harvest.”

“But it’s just now May.”

“Sure it is. Walpurgis. Witch’s night.” A faraway look flits over her face. “We’ll need to prepare. Build up the root cellar. Ration our wares. I ain’t seen this kind of portent for many a year.”

I shift my satchel onto my skinny shoulder. “Didn’t hard times and a string of bad weather come through this time of year when you were a girl? I remember you sayin’ something about that once. A flood?”

Granny presses her lips together. “That was different. We’re just in for a lean spell, honey, that’s all. Don’t you worry.” She plants her gnarled walking stick in the ground and turns toward home. “We’ve gathered enough greens for the week. Let’s head on back and see to our work.”

The sun crests the hill, lifting the dew from the grass and turning it into patchy fog draped like a threadbare quilt over the ground. Out over the tops of the trees, the lighthouse beam sweeps in an arc, burning a path through the morning dim. Our cabin emerges from the humid mist, squatted low on the hillside, its porch bedecked with bundles of herbs and wildflowers hung out to dry. A thin spiral of smoke curls from the stone chimney. Morris is up, then.