Chapter 6 #3
I sigh, heat spreading to the tips of my ears. Whatever is going on between those two, I don’t want any part of it. I’m done being treated like a pawn.
When Leo sits down, I turn back to the table and fuss with the curling painter’s tape on the top corner of my sheet.
“Humph,” cackles Barbara, her eyes following Rime, or rather Rime’s backside. “He’s trouble, that one.”
I mumble, “Tell me about it.” No doubt, both she and Linda have women’s wisdom they could share with me. And I’m half tempted to ask them how they’ve handled the men in their lives, particularly the ones who were possessive, liars, or overly-competitive. But I’m not here at Bingo to help myself.
And I need to get down to business.
I look back up at Barbara. “Remember before, when we were talking about ghosts? You said there was a crossroads. What does that mean?”
“You don’t know about crossroads?”
I shake my head. “Do you mean, like, literal roads?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. All sorts of strange happenings at the crossroads.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
Linda jumps in, “It’s where you can meet the devil.”
I gulp. “Really?”
“So they say.”
Wide-eyed, I ask, “Have you?”
“Oh Lord, no.” Linda presses a hand to her chest. “I’ve been washed clean. I’m just tellin’ you what I hear.”
“Where are they?” I ask. “The crossroads, I mean.”
“Anywhere two roads cross. But the haunted one was somewhere up at the college, I’m thinking.”
“They’re long gone,” Barbara says. “But back in the old days, when I was no more than a girl, there were stories. Folks saw ghosts there. Restless souls.”
“You mean the ghosts of the people who met the devil?”
“None other.” She addresses Linda, “What was the one about the preacher? The one who lost his boy?”
“Don’t recall his name, but I remember what they say—that his young’un died of mountain fever—”
Barbara interrupts, “Yellow fever, I heard.”
“Some sort of fever,” Linda says with a shrug. “Got sick and died, and his pa was so heartbroken he sold his soul to the devil to bring him back.”
Yikes. Until a few weeks ago, I would’ve never believed a story like that. But now? I whisper, “Did he come back?”
Linda’s brown eyes gleam. “Well, now, that depends. Some say he came back as the stray dog the preacher found. Others say he came back, but the preacher had to shoot him.”
“Good god. Why?”
“Because he had yellow demon eyes.”
I’m so absorbed in these tales that I startle when Rime sets my snacks down in front of me.
He lays a big hand on my shoulder. “What’s this about demon eyes?”
“They’re yellow,” I reply.
“Of course they are,” he says—so matter-of-factly, I’m not sure he’s acting.
If demons are real, I quit.
I tell him, “Linda and Barbara were telling me about the crossroads.”
He chuckles. “Are you planning to make a deal with the devil?”
“No.” Although, considering that grin he’s wearing, maybe I already have. Under the table, I nudge his thigh with my knee, reminding him to play along. “Because I don’t want to be a ghost after I die.”
“Oh, a ghost, eh?” He arches a brow. “Is that what happens when you sell your soul?”
Barbara shakes her daubers, prepping the ink for the next round. “That’s one thing that makes ghosts.”
“What else?” I ask.
“Dying before the Good Lord’s ready to take you.”
Linda adds, “Or when there’s something here you don’t wanna let go of.”
Ah, yes, the old ‘unfinished business’ story.
As we talk, I pull a pen from my purse and pretend to be doodling.
With Rime’s yellow dauber, I make dots in the margins of my card sheets and draw smiley faces and flowers on them.
But in between these masterworks, I jot down notes on the brochure: sidhe, crossroads on campus, preacher’s son, demons have yellow eyes.
Linda sighs, “Used to be the yarb doctor could help when you were troubled by a haint, but there ain’t so many of them nowadays.”
“Yarb doctor?” My head shoots up. “Is that something like a witch doctor?”
“Sure is. He could tell you how to get rid of haints in your house, and if one was following you around, he’d make you a bag with herbs and charms to carry with you in your pocket.”
Discreetly, I write yarb doctor on the brochure and underline it three times. “And there aren’t any of these yarb doctors anymore?”
“Oh, there’s a few left. Mostly granny women these days. Only one I know ‘round here is Jeannie West. Her papaw was a yarb, and he taught her everything he knew.”
Jeannie West goes into my notes.
The emcee booms into the microphone, “Next game begins in two minutes, folks. Twooo minutes.” When he instructs us to prepare our red sheets, I tear our blue ones off the table and use the scraps of tape to secure the new ones in place.
Meanwhile, Rime slides the brochure close enough to read my scribblings. “Impressive, little psychic,” he whispers. “You’re very good at this.”
Am I? I’m just responding naturally to Linda and Barbara’s energy.
Every wave of eagerness and gratification, every ripple of sincerity.
And while the old Betts would’ve ignorantly dismissed their stories as nonsense, the new Betts doesn’t have that luxury.
The only thing the new Betts knows for sure is that anything could be true.