Prom Night in Purgatory(13)

“When she got down to the bank of the creek my grandma said it was dry, just like the folks said it would be….but she could still smell the water.” Maggie felt the hair on her neck prickle. She’d forgotten how she had been able to smell Johnny and the scent of cigars and cologne in Jackson Honeycutt’s car. Maggie forced her attention back to Gus, almost afraid to hear what he had to say next.

“Grandma said she closed her eyes, breathing the smell in….She said it smelled so fresh and cool…but then she smelled something else. She said it was a smell she didn’t immediately recognize. She sniffed the air, and suddenly she knew. She said it was a sharp, ripe scent…like someone who has worked long hours in the sun. But it was more than just the smell of sweat and labor...It was the smell of fear.” Gus’s hands began to shake a little bit and he clasped them around the armrests on the old chair. He rubbed the worn fabric with the tips of his long fingers and took several deep breaths. Gus looked up at Maggie then, and Maggie felt a frisson of alarm. Gus was frightened by what he was saying.

“When my grandma opened her eyes, she saw them. There were three women, two men, and a handful of children walking up the creek bed. My grandma said she cried out in surprise, but they didn’t seem to see her. She said they were maybe ten yards downstream when suddenly she noticed there was water in the creek. It came up to the knees of the men and women who were walking in it. The children were holding the hands of the adults and had to struggle a little to keep upright. A light breeze was blowing toward where my grandma stood, and she caught that scent again....the smell of raw terror. Their clothes didn’t match the time period, and my grandma realized she was seeing something that had happened long ago. They were moving quickly, as quickly as the water would allow, and my grandma watched them as they neared and then passed her and walked out of sight beyond the bend in the creek.

“She realized they was slaves…runaway slaves. My grandma says she felt a connection so strong that she was sure someone in that little group had to be kin. She said it was almost like she could hear another heartbeat, and it called to her own. She didn’t want to leave. She said she wanted to run after them, that she almost couldn’t bear to stay behind.

“Then she heard another sound, and it made her blood run cold. She heard dogs. She said the baying sounded like it was comin’ from everywhere at once. And then, just like with the water in the creek bed, one minute it wasn’t there and the next it was. She said there were men on horses with dogs, obviously trying to run down the runaways. But unlike the slaves, the dogs could see her. They veered off one side of the bank, across the water, and up onto the side of the creek where she stood, watchin’ all of it happening maybe seventy-five years after the fact. The men on horseback followed the dogs. My grandmother began to run. She turned back toward the house, screaming for my grandpa, and suddenly…”

Gus stopped and mopped his forehead, which glistened with a light sheen of sweat. “Suddenly she couldn’t see the house no more. It wasn’t there. She could feel the dogs closin’ in, and she heard one of the men cry out and knew that he had spotted her too.”

Irene was suddenly clasping Maggie’s hand tightly in her own, and her eyes were as wide as saucers.

“My grandma was wearing a long white nightgown with a shawl wrapped around her. She said the ends of the shawl must have been streaming out behind her because she felt when one of the dogs caught a piece of it, and it was yanked from her shoulders. She stumbled a bit and another dog was immediately at her heels. One dog sunk his teeth into the back of her leg, and she screamed for my grandpa again. She said she knew she was done for…and in that moment she saw my grandpa’s face in her mind and held on tight to his image, wishin’ for him like she’d never wished before.

“And then he was there, grabbin’ her up in his arms…” Maggie and Irene breathed out in unison, one gusty sound of relief. “The dogs were gone, the men on horses, nowhere to be seen. Grandma had awakened the whole house with her screams. Grandpa apologized to everyone and hustled Grandma back to their room with some excuse as to why she was outside screaming bloody murder.”

“So it was just….a vision?” Irene asked timidly.

“Of sorts…” Gus nodded. “But when they got back to the room, my grandma’s nightgown was soaked through in back from the knee down.”

“So there had actually been water. She actually saw the runaway slaves walking in a creek filled with water,” Maggie whispered.

“It wasn’t soaked through in water, Miss Margaret, it was soaked through in blood. Grandma had a huge bite mark on her left calf. She showed me the scar many years later when she told me this story. She hadn’t just seen a vision, she’d been there. For that moment in time, she wasn’t just an observer of the past, she was a full-fledged participant.

“My grandma always wore a St. Christopher medal that my grandpa gave her around her neck. She told me St. Christopher was the patron saint of travelers.” Gus paused and looked at Maggie. “She was a traveler of a different kind, I s’pose. She said there were places that pulled at her, as if the layers of time were very thin, and if she wasn’t careful she would fall right through and find herself in another time completely.”

“What did she mean by ‘layers of time?’” Maggie was spellbound by the direction the conversation had taken.