“That’s what one of your kind told me fifty years ago. I’ve been on the wrong side of lyin’ preachers like you for a long time, Gentry.”
“I told you my name’s Josiah Bellflower.”
Granny harrumphs. “You’ve always favored a mouthful of name.”
He shrugs. “Can’t help what my folks chose to call me.”
“Is that so?” Granny jabs at him with the shotgun. “You’re just a simple country preacher with the word of God on his tongue and healing in his touch. Well. I know better. I’ve seen what you are. Who you are.”
“Mama, please,” Aunt Val wails. She’s crying, the kohl she uses to blacken her eyes dripping down her cheeks. I’m wondering how in the hell Carolyn June can sleep through all this racket.
Dawn blooms pink on the horizon. Out back, Granny’s little bantam rooster starts his crowing. Bellflower picks up his hat, shakes the bird shot out, and puts it back on. The air stinks of gunpowder. “Ma’am, I figure we can talk about all this some other time. So long as you promise to be civil when I come to call.” Bellflower tips his hat and turns on his heel. “It’s been a real pleasure.”
“Go on now,” Granny says. “Slither away on your belly. You come ’round here again, I won’t miss the next time, I can promise you that. You’ll never claim what’s mine, devil. Not while I’m alive.”
Bellflower stops and turns. His eyes have gone dark and glinting, just like they did at his healing service. A hot, dry wind blows across the yard and hits me full in the face.is His “We’ll see about that, won’t we, Deirdre?”
Something smells awful.
I wipe the sleep from my eyes and head into the kitchen. Green grapevine and holly branches tangle across the table, and Granny stands in front of the stove. Ebba, Granny’s oldest friend and Abby’s great-aunt, breaks stalks of asafetida in two and throws them into the stockpot while Granny stirs.
“What’re y’all doing?”
Ebba turns to smile at me, her long gray braid swaying at her skinny hips. “Come see, Gracie.”
She makes room for me at the stove, and I peer into the murky water, wrinkling my nose at the strong, garlicky scent. There’s more than asafetida in there. I can see a silver cross, a pair of tin spoons, and a shed ram’s horn from one of Ebba’s goats at the bottom of the pot.
“Please tell me this ain’t soup.”
“No. Not soup. We’re making f?rtrollningar. Charms,” Ebba says, giggling like a little girl.
Granny frowns. She tosses a handful of dried cumin and cloves into the water. The spicy smell don’t help matters much. “We’re not making charms. We’re making wards, Gracie. Strong ones. Against him.”
“Bellflower? Care to tell me what this morning was all about? Seems like there’s some history between you and that preacher.”
Ebba glares at Granny. “You have not told her about your preacher, Deirdre?”
“I didn’t see no reason to. That was all supposed to stay in the past.” Granny angrily chops a bundle of mint leaves and adds them to the pot. “Besides, we fixed things.”
“Y’all ain’t makin’ one lick of sense.” I shake my head, fill the kettle, and put it on to boil. We’re down to our last few grounds of coffee, and I’ve already used them twice, so I cut them with crushed acorns and chicory. All of a sudden, my back starts itching something fierce between my shoulder blades. I reach around to claw at it. Chiggers, likely. That’s what I get for laying down on the ground next to the tracks. “I think I got ate up with chiggers last night.”
Ebba taps her ladle on the edge of the pot and shares a look with Granny. “Let me see. Turn around.” She swats my hair over my shoulder and fiddles with the zipper on the back of my dress. As it slides open, a rush of breath hits my skin. Ebba runs a finger down my spine. It might as well be a lit match for how it burns. I flinch away. “She’s marked, Deirdre. Just like you. Marked for a h?xa. Marked for a witch.”
I twist in front of the mirror over the chest of drawers, dressed only in my necessaries. To me, the rash just looks like a bad case of poison ivy. It’s all welted up in the middle, with fingers of red trailing out like the branches of a tree. Sometimes it itches, and sometimes it burns. The compress of mud, honey, and cow piss Ebba smacked on it earlier hadn’t helped matters. It’d just drawn flies and stung like nettles, so I’d washed it off.
Marked for a witch. I ain’t got no idea what that might mean, but after the way Granny acted after she saw the rash—all solemn and serious, I figure there’s something I don’t know.
I pull on my dress and go back to the kitchen. Every muscle in my body aches, and sweat rolls down my temples from the godforsaken heat. I should sleep, but it’s too damned hot and I ain’t seen Morris all day. He might have slept over at Seth’s place as he does sometimes, then gone on to Hosea’s to work, but there’s a raw worry around his absence I can’t shake.
I strain the coffee into a cup and add two spoonfuls of sugar, then go out to the front porch. Granny’s on the steps, looking out at her prizewinning peonies. A cigarette dangles between her fingers. I ain’t never seen her smoke before. The wards we made earlier sway back and forth in the trees. Some of them are shaped like men. Some are shaped like crosses or wreaths. I’d painted all of them with the rank tincture Granny and Ebba had brewed up earlier. A protective circle of asafetida still surrounds the house, but this time it’s mixed with brick dust, cemetery dirt, and salt blessed with prayer. If Bellflower shows up tonight, he’ll have to cross one hell of a spiritual barrier to get to us.
I shudder at the memory of his deep-set eyes and the way he’d watched me cross the yard like I was catnip on two legs. Why is he here? What does he want?
I hand the coffee to Granny and sit next to her with a tired groan.
“Thanks for the coffee, child. You always seem to know what I need before I ask for it, just like Ebba. I’m plumb tuckered out.”
“It’s been a mighty long day.” I lean my head against Granny’s shoulder. “You mind telling me what Ebba was talking about? Your preacher? What did she mean by that?”
She pulls in a deep breath, then takes a sip of her coffee. “I reckon it’s time. There’s things I never told you about Tin Mountain and what happened to me when I was a girl. My pa never told me about what happened to his own mama and why until it was almost too late.”
“His mother?”
She nods. “Anneliese Werner—my grandmother. My Opa Friedrich found her in the woods when she was little more than a babe. Rumor had it she was Owen Sutter’s youngest daughter. The only one that survived. You heard what happened to the Sutters?”
I nod. There’s a graveyard on the hill on the other side of the holler, its flank dotted with crumbling headstones. Story is Owen Sutter had gone mad in the winter of 1818. Heard voices that told him to kill his wife and two of his three daughters. They’re all buried there. All but one. Suddenly, I’ve got the all-overs. Even though the day’s as hot as a cast iron skillet on a stove, I’m chilled to the bone.