Chapter 37
THREE DAYS LEFT
My burner phone blared from the side table, stirring me from a weighted slumber. I checked that the number wasn’t Micah’s and answered.
“Hello?” I said in a hoarse voice in case it might be the police.
“Rhea? Is that you?” came Clayton’s elegant rasp.
“Yes, sorry,” I said normally, pretending to clear my throat.
“I’m sorry for calling so early, but I had to phone you right away. I… I remembered the cave church you mentioned. A long time ago, when I was a boy, I heard talk of it around Amos.”
My heart pounded, and I sat up in bed. “Tell me everything.”
“I remember it was in this little town a ways away that people used to talk about—a real weird place where a lot of strange things happened. A friend of my mama’s came around gossiping about a church that was holding services in a cave like they were vampires.”
I held my breath. “Do you remember the name?”
“Yes. It was Craw Valley.”
That afternoon, Hess and I headed east in Belle’s Gran Torino. I kept the car at her house to use whenever I was in Nashville.
As we wound deeper into the mountains, it felt like a slow ascent into the unimaginable, haunted place of my origin, where all of my visions had come from. The place I’d been seeking for months. I didn’t know if the buzzing in my blood was elation or terror. I could no longer tell them apart.
Craw Valley.
Just a little town nestled in the backwoods and newly popular with tourists for its quaintness and autumn foliage. We still didn’t have Belle’s real name, but in such a small place, I figured it wouldn’t be hard to root out.
At a distance, the main drag of Craw Valley looked like it hadn’t changed since the day my mother left.
There was an old-fashioned burger joint, a general store with a giant pencil for a sign, and a vintage movie house.
Sprinkled amongst these were fast food places and abandoned storefronts, and as we got closer, I saw the true age of the place—it seemed to be slowly crumbling, returning to the nature that surrounded it.
We came upon a brick building with silver letters spelling CRAW VALLEY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT and parked in its small lot. Inside the tiny office, it smelled of burnt toast and dark urine. A young man in a uniform came out of the back and smiled when he saw us.
“Welcome!”
Hess returned the smile and introduced us. He shook both of our hands enthusiastically.
“Well, look at that. A real-life country star in Craw Valley. I can’t believe it.” He mimed wiping sweat from his brow.
Jesus.
“Is there someone we could talk to who would’ve been around in the sixties? I’m assuming that isn’t you.” Hess winked, and he put a meaty hand behind his head.
“You’d be right about that. But the sheriff could help you. He was a deputy ’round that time. He’s in the back.”
A few minutes later, an old wiry man in a tan uniform that hung from his frame shuffled into the room. “Johnson tells me y’all wanna talk about the old days.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My memory ain’t what it used to be, but I’ll do my darndest. What d’you wanna know?”
Hess pulled out a picture of Belle from when they first met. “Do you remember this woman? She would have been about eighteen in 1967.”
He grunted. “Well, of course. The Arwood girl. Ernestine, I believe. Lived with her daddy’s sister and husband over yonder.”
My heart jerked. Finally.
Ernestine Arwood.
The name conjured the hardy mountain girl I’d sometimes imagined Belle to be, and I knew this was right. “What do you remember about her?” I asked.
“She had a voice like an angel. But she was troubled. Wasn’t really her fault on account of her blood.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her mama’s blood was bad. All the women in that family died real young, real tragic-like. Made ’em act crazy sometimes.”
“Oh, really?” Hess asked, coaxing him along.
“Yes’m, I remember when she run off after almost killing her uncle. I tried to get ’im to make a statement, but he refused, so I left it alone. The family never recovered. They all either died or left—not one of ’em is still in the Valley.”
We were speechless for a moment. “So none of her relatives are around?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“Some of her mama’s people are still here. Hasil, and his son, um, Enoch.”
“Could you tell us where they live?” I asked, perhaps too eagerly.
He eyed me. “What you want with ’em?”
My mind whirred, calculating what would be safe to reveal. It felt like we’d entered that separate dimension I’d imagined, cut off from the rest of the world. I decided to take a chance. “Ernestine was my family.”
He eyed me. “I can believe it.” He clucked his tongue against his teeth. “All right. I’ll give you directions.”
We drove out to where he pointed us, burrowing deeper into the mountains.
There were no businesses in this part, just a two-lane road running through the forest with houses nestled here and there on either side.
We passed one property where a deer hung by its neck from an invisible string in the yard, as if it were suspended mid-escape.
Its belly was split open, and the camo-clad man attending to it stopped his work and watched our car, unblinking, until we rolled along.
“Ernestine,” I said in disbelief.
“I know,” Hess said, looking at me. “No wonder she changed it.”
Down the road, we saw the milky blue of the door the sheriff had described peeking through the trees, and we parked in front. It was a little scary approaching a house in this area; I had the feeling that I could be shot at any moment, and no one would care.
The moment we stepped onto the porch, the door swung open. Another old man, this one even older than the sheriff, stood in the doorway.
“What y’all want?” he barked. A middle-aged man with a similar face came around the side of him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Dad, don’t be rude.” He turned to us. “I’m sorry, y’all, he’s gone salty in his old age.” The old man grunted in response. “How can I help y’all?”
Hess went to speak, but I put my hand on her arm.
“My name is Rhea Miller. My mother was Ernestine Arwood. I think we might be family.”
“My God,” said the old man, his jaw going slack.
His son smiled wide. “Well, I’ll be damned. Why don’t y’all come inside?”
We followed them into the modest house and made our introductions.
The old man was my mother’s uncle Hasil, and the other man was his son, Enoch.
There was a bit of fussing around with iced tea and a plate of cookies, and the whole time I was biting my tongue, waiting for the moment I could start asking questions.
When we’d finally settled, I launched in. “What can you tell me about the curse?”
Hasil’s face went pale, and Enoch coughed.
“Your mama never told you?” Hasil asked.
“I think she did when I was little. But I didn’t get to ask her any questions.”
He nodded, unsurprised. “So she passed?”
“Yes. When she was 33. Plane crash.”
Hasil shook his head. “That’s a damn shame. Sorry to hear it.”
“She actually came to see us,” Enoch added.
“When?”
“About a week before she turned 33.”
Hess and I shared a look. This was where Belle had disappeared to after she left me at the cabin.
“So her birthday was July twenty-fifth?” I asked.
“Yes’m,” Hasil replied, looking a little confused. “Same as Aileen. I’ll never forget that day.”
“Aileen was his sister,” Enoch clarified. “Ernestine’s mother. Your grandmother.”
“Do you remember what time Ernestine was born?”
Hasil nodded. “Around 10:30 or so at night. I remember lookin’ at my watch when they come to tell me.”
It is true. She had, in fact, died on her birthday, just as she turned 33. “How long was she here? What did she say?”
“We only saw her for a few hours. She asked about the curse, the same as you. She wanted to know how to stop it,” Enoch said.
My blood cooled, and I felt our two timelines converging once again, becoming one track. “And what did you tell her?”
“Ain’t no stoppin’ it,” Hasil declared. “I took Aileen to the granny witch myself. She tried to get the demon out of her, but it didn’t work.”
“The granny witch is a local healer,” Enoch translated once again.
Hasil kept speaking as if he hadn’t heard him.
“After her birthday dinner, Aileen was crossin’ the street, and boom, a truck come out of nowhere and launched her into a tree.
When I pulled her down, I could still hear a heartbeat.
I ran her to the hospital, and the doctor said it was the baby’s heart I was hearin’. Aileen was already gone.”
“Black Gum Tree” played in my head, telling of the tragic death of the cursed woman’s mother. It wasn’t just a story—it was real.
“I wanted to raise Ernestine as my own, but the wife wouldn’t let me…” The old man trailed off, and his gaze went unfocused.
“Dad?” Enoch prompted.
“Hey, um, E, fetch me that box under the bed.”
Enoch heaved himself up and retrieved an old-fashioned blue hatbox from a back room.
Hasil opened it and pulled out a small yellow blanket and held it out to me.
I took it and studied the embroidery in one corner.
It spelled out “Lulabelle” in pink thread with simple blue flowers stitched around the letters.
“What is this?”
He smiled. “Aileen made it for her baby when she was pregnant. Wanted to name her Lulabelle.”
“Did Ernestine know?”
His smile faded. “I told the Arwoods when they took ’er, but they didn’t listen. I didn’t see ’er much ’cause the Arwoods weren’t real keen on me, but at church one time, I told her ’bout the name.” He pulled out a small photograph and gazed at it before handing it to me.
The image’s black and white had faded to gray and yellow tones, but I could make out a young girl with a feral expression posing in a dress a few sizes too big. Those same dark branching lines peeked out of the low neckline.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing at them.