Page 3 of Spellbound
Chapter Two
"Never put your faith in a Prince. When you require a miracle, trust in a Witch.”
~Catherynne Valente,In the Night Garden
Garden
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I yelled, banging my hand down on the dash in front of me in frustration. My grandma had been trying to restart the motor, but it was no use.
I sat back in the seat and shook my head. “This is just fucking great!”
“Can you maybe get out and look at it, dear?”
“Well, I couldlook,but that’s about all I could do. I wouldn’t have a clue as to what I’d be lookingat, because I don’t know anything about cars.”
“What can we do then?”
I blew out a long sigh. “We must have passed a house not too far back. We just didn’t notice it in the fog. I’ll take the flashlight and go try to find one now. I’ll see about calling for a tow truck.”
“How can you do that? You can barely walk. And what if you fall? You don’t need to reinjure that leg.”
“Oh, I’m not that bad. Anyway, I have my cane. I’ll be fine. I’ll go slowly.”
“I thought you said before the car died that it had been a long time since we passed any houses.”
“Well, you know…time is relative. Besides, what choice do we have? I’ll have to try to find a phone to call a tow truck for us or we’ll be spending the night in this car.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, Gran, this weather is awful, and you don’t need to be out in it too. You stay here in the car and keep dry. Keep the doors locked, and you should be fine. I don’t think we’ve passed a single car since we’ve been on this road, but if somebody happens to come along, just do as I said, and stay inside with the doors locked, keep the windows rolled up and only talk to them through the glass. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Put the hazard lights on when I go.”
“I’ll be fine. You just be careful.”
The rain had stopped its steady downpour at least, and it was down now to a near-constant drizzle, but that fog was relentless. It seemed to roll up out of the ground and swirl around my legs, as I got out of the car, slipping around them like an oversized cat. My knee was already aching like hell from me sitting too long, and it was chilly out too. I could barely make out my surroundings, though I knew there were towering pines and other trees I didn’t know the names of and deep shadows all around me. And no sign at all of any houses. I just kept limping along, hoping to see some sign of life soon.
I wondered why the hell I’d agreed to even come to North Carolina in the first place. It was a state that held nothing but bad memories for me. My mother had been born here, and she’d died here too. So had my dad for that matter, and this was where my whole world had blown up once upon a time.
Of course, in reality, I knew why I’d had to come. One important reason—I no longer had a fucking job, and there was no money coming in. So, it wasn’t like I had a lot of choices. The University had been sympathetic about my accident but was not inclined to be philanthropic, and until I had a job or a good chance of getting one, I was dependent on my grandma’s good will, as she was the only close relative I had left in the world.
My only other choice would have been to move in and housesit for my grandmother while she was gone to NorthCarolina to help her sister. She had already made those plans and had to put them on hold when I’d had my accident. I couldn’t very well interfere with them again because of this latest disaster. Instead, she’d asked me to go along with her, and I said I would, because no job not only meant no money. Not only for rent, but for things like food, which I’d become rather accustomed to, not to mention things insurance and utility bills. I’d been sharing household expenses with Brent before the breakup—and that relationship no longer existed. Besides the money thing, I wasn’t mobile enough to stay in my grandma’s house on my own quite yet—I still couldn’t drive, and though groceries could be delivered, I’d go stir crazy cooped up in there all day. It was far better to go with her and do my rehab in North Carolina. So, my great aunt’s offer of the guest cottage behind her house had been a godsend.
Plus, I’d be in an area filled with some Civil War history I had a great interest in, which I thought might be appropriate as the subject of my thesis. For most of the last year, I’d been researching the subject of the Confederate Home Guard to work on for my master’s thesis, which, when it was finished, would be a typically lengthy piece of research of over 300 pages. I would submit that to fulfill the requirements of my master’s degree. That was the plan, anyway, though other than notes, planning and researching, I hadn’t made a great deal of progress on it.
Truthfully, all I had so far were some ideas written down, and even they needed refining. I hoped I’d be able to narrow those ideas down in North Carolina and focus on just one aspect of the subject I’d chosen. The Home Guard had been part of the southern home defense with over 300 of them involved during the “Battle of Asheville” in 1865. The Home Guard wasn’t always made up of noble defenders, of course. Anyone who read Charles Frazier’sCold Mountainor saw the movie remembers that. But then again, deserters weren’t all peacefully helping out at homeor out tending their fields. Some of them actually formed bands of armed gangs that roamed the countryside, robbing, raping, and murdering in some states. My own great-grandfather on my mother’s side had been a member of the Home Guard in Virginia. I’d heard a lot of stories about him, and they weren’t too flattering. Anyway, if I was looking for a subject that wasn’t overdone, I thought that might be it.
The thought of going back now to the ancient Blue Ridge Mountains and maybe getting a chance to spend time investigating and researching there was exciting. I’d been walking along, not paying much attention for about five or six minutes now as I went down the dark road, getting lost in my thoughts and trying to distract myself from where I was and how lonely and spooky it was on this dark dirt road. Suddenly I stumbled over the uneven ground beneath my feet and almost fell. Thank God, I caught myself before I hit the mud. If I’d fallen, I may not have been able to get back up again. I reminded myself I couldn’t afford to fall again and to pay closer attention to what I was doing.
As I stood there, looking around, making sure I didn’t see any nearby lights in the dense fog, from somewhere near me I heard a long, high-pitched whistle. A bird maybe? In this weather? It gave me a slight chill down my spine, because it didn’t sound like any bird I’d ever heard. I pulled my hoodie closer around me and started walking again, going a little faster this time.
This road wasn’t the best, and I dodged a few puddles and wondered if I should give up and turn back. How far could I reasonably go before I wouldn’t be able to make it back to the SUV again with this bad leg?
I tried to maneuver around a puddle, stumbled and wound up ankle deep in the thing instead. It was then, as I stood there cussing, wondering if I should just give up and try to makeit back to the SUV, that I could have sworn I heard a laugh, followed by someone calling my name. The voice came from far away and wasn’t loud at all, but had a sing-song quality to it, with elongated syllables, likeAaassh-er... Aaassh-er!It sounded like a woman’s voice.
Had I really heard that, or was it some kind of animal or bird and I was letting my imagination run away with me? If so, it was apparently an animal or bird that knew my damn name. No, that part had to be my imagination. I cocked my head to listen, thinking maybe it had been my grandma calling me, but it didn’t happen again, and I thought that surely, I must have imagined the whole thing. I opened my mouth to call back, just in case, but some strong, atavistic instinct told me not to do that. Listen, I had social media, and I’d seen all the stories on Instagram and TikTok and Reels about the Appalachians. These were ancient mountains and supposedly haunted. Right on cue, a shiver ran down my spine, and I told myself it must just be the cold wind that had slipped down the collar of my shirt.
I decided to keep going—mainly because all those sounds I’d heard had come frombehindme,like something was following me down the road. I kept going, only maybe a little faster now after that alarming thought, leaning hard on my cane with both hands. Maybe I could use the heavy stick as a weapon if I had to.
I knew we’d passed a few houses here and there on the way in, though they’d been few and far between, or else the fog had made it seem so. Now I didn’t see any of them at all. I was trying to keep my eyes open for any lights that might be shining through the darkness and fog that I might have missed before, but so far, everything around me had remained a stubborn sea of swirling gray. And it was quiet—too quiet, like in a horror movie just before one of the characters gets attacked and murdered.
