Page 34 of Spellbound
“You’d probably say moonshine or corn liquor, I guess, but that was what the old people called it where we lived in the North Georgia mountains, close to Tennessee.
“One day he met the revenuers in the woods, and he told his son, who was my uncle and had been with him that day tending to their still in the woods, to run quick and hide and then go back home when it was safe, and so my uncle did, and he got away. My grandfather wasn’t as lucky, and he went to the chain gang for a little while.”
“Sounds like your grandfather may have had a little magic.”
“Oh, do you think so? He could talk a wart off your hand and take the fire out of a burn. Take away a baby’s thrush too. I’ve seen that with my own eyes. So maybe you’re right.”
“Tell him about the wife though,” Ash said, touching her arm.
“Well, my grandfather was married three times. In those days, with so much infant mortality and young women dying in childbirth, it was common for men to have several wives. And he didn’t have as many children as most men did. My mother had one older half-sister, and my mother was the youngest of three more children, all from his second wife and my grandmother. But you want a story…”
“Yes, please.”
“This one goes back a long time. To right around 1905 or so. His first wife died young in childbirth. Her name was Annie. She was around twenty-two years old at the time of her death, and she died having her baby, but her baby lived. He said she cried and cried the night she died, worried about leaving him and the baby. The night of her funeral, he couldn’t sleep. He was sitting up in bed, and he heard a noise by the crib, which was down at the foot. He looked up and saw her, standing over the baby in its bed, reaching down like she was fixing the covers. She was wearing the same dress she’d had on when they buried her. He wasn’t frightened of her, he said. He was glad and he called her name. She raised her head to look at him and then she just faded away.”
“That’s sad,” I said, and saw Asher nod.
“Poor girl. He must have been dreaming, don’t you think?”
“He always swore he wasn’t, but then I guess he would. I believed him though. When I was a young girl, we went to spend the night there one time where he was living up on the mountain. Him and his third wife, Bertha. They were old and poor and only had a small place. They gave my mama and daddy their bed and made us kids a pallet on the floor. They went up the stairs to sleep in the loft. I can still remember that old cabin way up on the mountain in the woods. There wasn’t anyelectricity, so it was dark with just the burning coals in the fire to light the room and the oil lamp turned down low. I think a place like that makes it easier for a ghost to appear in a place like that.”
I smiled indulgently at her, but she shook her head. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. That atmosphere just makes it easier to believe.”
“Tell us another one,” Ash said eagerly, and I laughed.
“Ash, I think your gran is tired. Let her rest a little.”
“No, it’s all right. I like to tell the old stories. People will forget them if I don’t.”
I glanced over at Roslyn to see how she was reacting to these ghost stories, and she sat with her mouth in a grim line, staring out at the woods. Though it was still early, I thought she might need to go lie down.
“All right, one more. In those days, when someone died in the wintertime, and the ground was hard, their people might not be able to dig a grave until the weather got a bit warmer. My mother said an old lady—they called her Old Aunt Jenny, and I don’t know why, so don’t ask me. She died during a cold snap with ice and snow on the ground. She was an odd woman who some said was a witch.”
“Was she?” I asked.
“I doubt it. She was probably just an old lady, living all alone. Poor old soul. She had long black hair and long fingernails, even as an old lady, though, in a time and a place where women didn’t have those. They couldn’t bury her right away, so they put her in a coffin upstairs in the loft of my grandfather’s shed. I think they must have been neighbors or some kin.
“But downstairs in that shed was where the family had the meat hanging up to cure. My mother said they sent her and one of her sisters out to the shed to cut off some to use for supper. The sister was older so she was going to cut off the meat and mymother was supposed to hold the lantern for her. As they were standing there, cutting the meat, they started hearing noises from upstairs. Somebody walking around and moaning. Once a voice called out and started to cry. There was a sound like somebody scratching on wood too. They stood it as long as they could and then my mother screamed and dropped the lantern, and they ran all the way back to the house. They got a whipping for it, but they both refused to go back. So, their papa went out to the shed to see. My mother was scared, and she told her papa that it must be Old Aunt Jenny scratching on her coffin lid. But papa said it was just their imagination. He said he’d be just a minute, but it was a long time before he came back. He didn’t want to talk about it when he came back. But they buried Jenny a few days later. My mother always claimed it had been her ghost they heard in that shed.”
Asher gave a shudder, and I saw his eyes widen as they roamed around the dark yard.
She laughed. “You asked for stories. Now don’t be so scared. There have always been ghosts in these mountains, honey. Like I said, they’re so old that people have forgotten how old they really are, and how many people have lived here before us and died here. Some went peaceful, but some didn’t. Some didn’t want to leave. They just weren’t ready. I read in school that Buddhist people call them hungry ghosts. I think that might be a good name for them because they have unquenched desires. Just think how many people like that must be buried here all around us. They must be in a place like this—a haunted place in the woods. People who died when they were young and just starting out. They wanted more life. Young mothers with new babies, like poor Annie, who grieved for her husband and never being able to see her child grow up. And young men with their whole lives in front of them in the wars too, and young lovers who just got started making a home together.
“Even older folks like me who just weren’t ready to go yet. Who wanted to hold on tight to their lives and never turn loose. I think maybe the sadness and frustration of that just lodges inside them. And day after day, year after year, as life goes on without them, they just pile up the loneliness and the longing and the memories until it becomes this monstrous, huge, hunger. And then they can’t stay peaceful in their graves any longer. They have to walk and roam and try to get back what they used to have, only they don’t know how.
“And then there are the ones whose lives were taken away from them deliberately… killed by soldiers or the first people who lived here and who didn’t want to move on. Or even by some animal or even a murderer... just think of how they must feel. They must be so vengeful and filled with hate for the ones who stole their lives from them. Those ghosts might be the really dangerous ones. The ones who call your name in the woods and whistle to see if you’ll whistle back. Then if you do, you might find them standing over your bed in the middle of the night.”
Roslyn got up abruptly and put her glass on the floor. “I think I’ll go to bed now before all this fool talk of ghosts gives me nightmares. I have better things to do then sit around telling stories. I’m too old for all that. Y’all stay and talk as long as you want to, but I think I’ll go lie down.” She left then, with nothing more than a little nod to her sister.
I stared after her before turning to Janet. “Has she been like this all day?”
“No.” She sighed. “Just as the evening started coming on. She’s tired, I think. Maybe sundowning and a little out of sorts because of it. And like all of us, she hates being ill.”
“I understand. I wish there was something I could do. Maybe I’ll schedule an appointment for her with her doctors to see if they can do something to adjust her medicine.”
We all just sat quietly for a moment, lost in our own thoughts. Trying to end the evening on a lighter note, and bring back Asher’s smiles again, I said, “Thanks for the stories about your grandfather, though. Nice to know some of that DNA continues on in your grandson.”
“Wait—what?” Asher said, pretending to be outraged.
