Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fortunately, by the time we all reconvene at Leo’s, it seems we’ve mostly calmed down. Oddly, I find myself sympathizing with Topaz. Human men have no respect for boundaries. Actually, based on the two I know, fae men don’t either. But then again, maybe I just bring out the worst in them.
So I get why Topaz lost her shit. In fact, I envy her. There have been times when I would’ve loved to take a cocky guy down, I just never had the guts. Or the Black Widow fighting skills.
I can tell by her defensiveness that, on the ride back, Leo and Aaron dressed her down for showing her fangs. She’s still arguing as she tosses her jacket over a dining-room chair. “They’ll just think they were seeing things.”
Probably true. Take it from me, the queen of denial, you can dismiss a lot of red flags if you don’t want to see them.
“I’m not going out among humans anymore,” she grumbles, flopping onto the couch. No one argues, because right now, I don’t think any of us can blame her.
When Leo announces he has beer in the fridge, we all exhale in relief.
I’m grateful there was a no-alcohol policy at the fire hall, considering how much worse the frat boys’ behavior would’ve been if they’d been drunk, but wow, I need a drink.
I pull up a dining-room chair and sit beside Aaron, both of us simultaneously taking the bottles Leo offers us.
For a few minutes we decompress, punctuating the silence with our sighs. But halfway through our beers, we start sharing what we learned from the locals.
“Haints,” I say. “That’s what Barbara and Linda call ghosts.”
“Oh, yeah, haints!” Avery recalls, throwing up her hands. “Haven’t y’all ever heard of Haint Blue?”
The rest of us exchange blank looks.
“It’s more common further south,” she says, “but it’s like this light green-blue that people paint their porch ceilings with. It’s supposed to fool ghosts and spirits. They think it’s the sky and pass right by the house.”
“Is that a hoodoo practice?” Leo asks.
Avery shrugs. “I think it’s a mix of traditions.”
Well then, if she’s heard of Haint Blue, maybe she’s familiar with some of the other folklore we learned about tonight. “Linda—or was it Barbara? Whatever, it doesn’t matter.” I wave off my own question. “One of them was talking about yarb doctors—”
Sure enough, Avery gasps. “Oh my god, I completely forgot about that, too. What’s wrong with me?”
“You want a list?” Aaron teases, snickering until she threatens to throw her empty bottle at him.
“What’s a yarb doctor?” Topaz asks, surprising us all. Maybe tonight’s little trauma has spurred her into being more invested in this hunt, if only to get it over with and get the hell out of the Subworld.
“Yarb doctors were the main practitioners of Appalachian witchcraft,” Avery says.
“Same with granny women, except they were midwives too. You’d go to a yarb or a granny if you were sick, or having bad luck, or needed a love spell or something.
” She heaves a sigh. “Too bad they’re a thing of the past, because if anyone could tell us where Browne’s Hill is, it would be one of them. ”
“Well, uh, actually.” I get up and go over to my bag, pulling out my doodled-up brochure and waving it in front of me. “I think I have the name of a granny woman right here.”
“No shit?” Avery snatches the brochure out of my hand.
“I took notes,” I brag, smiling shyly.
She chuckles. “Cute smiley faces.”
While she admires my artwork, Rime and I share Linda’s story about the riverside fight between the Indigenous Americans and the settlers. Apparently, the talk at Topaz and Avery’s bingo table came around to the raid too, but the ghosts were of the Englishmen, not the Indigenous Americans.
Leo looks at me. “And that’s what you sensed, right?”
“It has to be. The emotions match the situation. And with the musket fire Aaron heard, it definitely adds up.”
He nods. “So it looks like we have some sort of proof that there was an early settlement here, but we still don’t know exactly where. Same thing with the natural oddities.”
I giggle. “Fuzzy snakes?” Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk that beer so fast.
Leo turns to me with a full-on smile, the first one since the morning I fled this living room in tears. “Yeah, the fuzzy snakes,” he says, a gentle playfulness in his eyes.
A chuisle mo chroí.
I look away and bring my beer to my lips, willing my heart rate to slow down. When I realize my bottle is empty, I carry on with the charade, hoping no one notices my shaky hands.
“…all sorts of weird stuff,” Aaron is saying. “But nobody seems to know when or where things happened. And no one said anything about Browne’s Hill.”
Avery leans forward in her chair, angling herself to see him better. “Okay, but you and Leo heard the same thing Topaz and I did, right? About the patch of land that was barren for decades?”
Aaron and Leo both nod.
“So then we’ve gotten the same story from two different sources,” she says. “That has to mean something.”
“Wait,” I cut in. “Linda and Barbara didn’t say anything about barren patches, but they talked about the crossroads. And they said they were where the college is now.”
Rime jumps in to tell the story of the Faustian preacher.
Aaron chuckles. “Good lord, you two got a lot of dirt out of those old ladies.”
“It was Betts,” Rime says. “They loved her.”
Actually, I think they wanted to mother me, probably because of the wounded puppy look I’ve been wearing for two weeks now. But hey, whatever works.
I laugh back at my eye-candy Irish boyfriend. “They loved you, too.”
He blows me a kiss. “A ghrá.”
Leo launches to his feet then seems bewildered to find himself standing. He turns to me and says in a rush, “Let me see what you wrote about that granny woman.”
I take the brochure from Avery and hand it to him, squirming self-consciously under his gaze. “All we have is her name. I have no idea who she is.”
“Jeannie West?” he reads.
I nod. “They said her grandfather was a yarb doctor and taught her the craft.”
“Get me your computer,” Aaron orders Leo. Leo hands him the brochure and disappears down the hall.
I tell Aaron, “I’m guessing at the spelling.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
When Leo returns with a laptop, I offer him my seat beside Aaron. While they search, the rest of us discuss the other rumors we heard.
Avery grins. “Just so you know, there’s a mermaid in the river.”
“Wouldn’t that be a naiad?” I ask. “I thought mermaids were only in the sea.”
Leo’s eyes snap up from the laptop to look straight at me. I guess he’s surprised I know the difference between a naiad and a mermaid, but come on, I’m an English major. I’ve read everything from the Odyssey to Beowulf to Dante’s Inferno. I’ve picked up a shit-ton of mythology without even trying.
Topaz shrugs. “The old woman said ‘mermaid.’”
“So some sort of undine,” Leo surmises before turning his attention back to the screen.
Avery’s grin turns sinister. “And she said she’s drowned at least four ex-lovers in there.” She trades a look with Topaz, then with me, and to my surprise, Topaz nearly smiles. I guess there’s a little of that vengeful spirit in every woman.
“Found her!” Aaron whoops.
We spring from our seats and crowd around him, elbowing one another to get a good view of the screen.
“It says Jean not Jeannie, but that’s gotta be her.” He points to a photo of a nicely dressed, smiling couple, perhaps in their seventies, standing in front of an arched stained-glass window.
I lean in closer. The caption reads, “Pastor Gerald and Jean West,” and the picture is on the homepage of Redemption Baptist Church. “She’s a preacher’s wife?”
“Looks like it,” Aaron says.
“That can’t be her.”
Avery interrupts, “Why not?”
“Well, because she’s a witch.”
She shrugs. “The Bible has always been a big part of Appalachian witchcraft.”
I suppose that’s true. To Linda and Barbara, the spirit world included Jesus, the devil, haints, and everything in between.
“So—” Avery sets her fists on her hips. “Who wants to go to church on Sunday?”
Every single one of us gapes at her. “What?!”
“To find out if Jean West is a granny woman.”
“And how would we do that?” Aaron demands. “Just go up to her and ask?”
“No, we chat with her after the service. Feel her out a little. If she’s a granny woman, it’ll be obvious. Trust me.”
I protest, “We can’t just all pile into Redemption Baptist Church on Sunday morning.
That would just be… really weird.” I doubt they’re used to students showing up, especially in large groups.
From what I can tell, most Brownhill kids aren’t religious, and the few that are worship with the college’s denominational organizations, not at the local churches.
“No, not all of us,” she agrees as she scans our faces. “But what about two of us? Any volunteers?”
If it weren’t winter, the ensuing silence would be broken only by crickets.
“Betts, you’re going,” she declares.
I recoil. “Me? Why me?”
“Cause you’re the sweetest.”
“Fuck,” I mutter, feeling decidedly sour.
“And Aaron,” she says.
He’s shaking his head, his eyes drifting all over the computer screen. “I would, but Ave, I’m looking at these Facebook pictures, and I can’t find a single person of color in any of them. Not a single one.”
The rest of us nod. Aaron’s not an option.
“Then it should be you, Leo,” Avery says, avoiding my eyes. “Out of everyone else, you clean up the prettiest.”
Selfishly, I want to argue, but she’s right. Leo can be scrubbed and combed and dressed up to look as clean cut as any well-bred southern boy.
With a decisive lift of his chin, Rime proclaims, “I’ll go.”
Avery and Topaz snort, and Leo and Aaron shake their heads. I keep my mouth shut and my face blank. Rime’s going to bat for me, and although I don’t think it’s going to work, I appreciate the gesture.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Dude,” Aaron chuckles. “No one’s gonna believe Batman ‘got religion.’”
Ah, good old Aaron, he has a way of putting the truth into words. A way that makes us all laugh.
Amidst the mirth, my eyes meet Leo’s. “It’s fine,” I say. “Leo and I will go. That is, Leo, if you want to?”
“Yeah.” His smile is gentle. “We’re the best ones to do this.”
“Then it’s settled. Sunday morning, Leo and I are going to church.”