Here, all the buildings are full of rot. The lakes are full of corpses. Ghosts haunt the bridges. The cities echo with racist hate. There's evil in the churches. And demons in the sky.
The tale you are about to explore is not a friendly one, I'm afraid. Here on Rattlesnake Mountain, the gunshots of an angry battle still echo through the hills. Is that a bobcat crying, or the ghosts on the haunted bridge where a woman and her baby drowned? Beware the demons that come from the sky. Don't wander the pecan grove without a rifle. Steer clear the churches. Something ain't right with them. Hawk will watch out for you. Crow and Eagle will lead you to safety. And don't forget to leave an offering at the cemetery gate.
Go, now! And remember! The animals are friendly. The men are not.
Welcome to my fiction blog. This is a supplemental blog to a story I'm writing. I've been deep into the brainstorming phase. If anyone is interested in Southern Gothic novels, Oklahoma folklore, and witches, stay tuned.
I ripped a page out of my journal. I'm not sure where to put it, so I'll leave it here.
In Pagan practices, I've heard the term “The Veil” plenty of times. People will say “At Samhain, The Veil is at its thinnest.” I’ve also heard them say this about Beltane, too. There is a scene in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where an arch stands in the Ministry of Magic’s Chamber of Death. In the movie depiction, a stone archway holds a transparent, billowing curtain. It is a more literal image of what people are talking about. It is the “curtain” between the living and the dead.
Common sense states that this metaphorical portal is a one-way street. Once you die, you cannot go back. That is true in the physical sense. It has been exhaustively debated between the religious, scientists, and paranormal groups whether the Veil can be crossed in other forms—as spirits. In my personal experience, the Veil cannot be crossed. However, some people can see right through it. I believe it most certainly thins out for people. It does not exist as a hole up to Heaven or an archway, but rather as a sort of ethereal Saran Wrap. It’s all around us, and like in Rowling's stories, where a character had to witness death to see the usually invisible creatures known as Thestrals, the same goes for The Veil. Once you watch someone die, you have the vision.
When Nana was dying, and I sat in her room next to that hospital bed, the oxygen machine bubbling with condensation and the window unit air conditioner humming, it felt unusually quiet. No birds chirped. No wind blew. Yet, the sun made the curtains in her bedroom glow. It was strange sitting in the house I spent most of my childhood in. All the memories. All the music and laughter. It put a weight on my shoulders. I would be the only one who would remember any of it, and in the silence, I could not remember anything.
It would all eventually come back to me, of course, but not while the Veil was wide open. I only realized weeks after the funeral that that’s what it was. It was a strange sensation. Only that bedroom felt like reality. Stepping out of the house felt almost unsettling. I could not explain why. When she passed, the Earth could have stopped on its axis. That’s how shattered I felt. Time most certainly halted, yet my eyes were suddenly opened up to the past. Her life. Her childhood. What it felt like, looked like, smelled like, even. This was what it was like to look through The Veil. It wasn’t a melting pot of ghostly figures. It was the past. I’m sure it looks different for everyone, but it looked like the summer in the 1950s for me.
I moved into Nana’s house not long after she died. I made sure to keep the house as much of a time capsule as I could. Her record collection was split up, but I kept the majority of it. I had one of her dresses, a cardigan, and some jewelry. The rest either went to Mama, friends, or donations. What wasn’t already broken, like old ceramic Knick-knacks or furniture, I kept. Some things were repainted, like the old iron bed frame that I painted gold, but most of it remained the same. Was it healthy to keep it a time capsule? Was I further damaging my mental health by not moving on? I neither knew nor cared. If Graceland, her favorite place on earth, could remain a time capsule, so could the little house on the river.
It has been nine years since she passed. Not a day went by where I didn’t wish that old yellow Buick would come rolling up the driveway. She should still be here. She wasn’t even 80 yet. She should have lived longer. Much longer. Now I was here alone, with the only person who remembered my childhood, aside from my parents, was my grandpa. He was still doing his bullshit sermons on public television. Nana and I used to watch them and make fun of him. He was no better than Joel Osteen or Kenneth Copeland. He was in it for the money and he wasn’t subtle about it. I couldn’t make fun of that old man anymore. I was so filled with rage and hate these days.
I wholeheartedly believe if Jesus went to most of any American church, he would be disgusted. If he opened any English Bible and read it (if he could read English), he would ask what the fuck he’s reading.
It still thoroughly amuses me how much witchcraft in these parts is based in Christianity.
It may as well be a sub-category.
The Bible? Honey, that's a grimoire.
Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction, as is this blog. Any hateful comments will get you blocked.
Grandpa was as mean as a snake. The copperheads hidden in the rocks at the river had nothing on his venom. He was spiteful, pious, and our community’s beloved preacher. He seemed to only care about two things: that worn out Bible, and getting me in trouble.
I did not understand the point of church as a kid. Just a whole bunch of people sitting in a crowded room while Grandpa preached nonsense. I remember being eight years old and deciding I didn’t want to go to church anymore. It was eating at my playtime. My mama dragged me to church anyway. I squirmed and ran my mouth the entire sermon.
“Sister, come here,” Grandpa commanded as soon as church was over.
I was already pulling at my mama’s hand. It was time for lunch and I was overdue for a meeting with my stuffed animals in the tree house. Mama scolded me. Told me to go talk to my grandpa.
“You want Daddy to get the switch?” Mama hissed.
I groaned and let go of her hand. That’s the last thing I wanted, so I begrudgingly shuffled up to my grandpa. Daddy was talking to him and Grandma. Grandpa, with that raggedy old Bible tucked in the crook of his arm, leaned down to my eye level.
“Don’t you want to go to Heaven?” he asked.
I glared at him. At that age, I was never sure about this “Heaven” place. It all sounded like a fairy tale to me. As far as I was concerned, Heaven was a place on top of the clouds, but I had been in an airplane. The first time I saw the tops of the clouds, my suspicions had been confirmed. I knew that old man was a liar.
“Not if you’re gonna be there,” I popped off, the sass dripping from every word.
Grandpa was livid! His nostrils flared, beady hazel eyes narrowed, and he straightened up in his white button-up shirt, crocodile green trousers held up by suspenders. He wouldn’t look at me. Grandma looked like she was about to laugh. Daddy was embarrassed and forced me to apologize.
I did not get my butt busted after that, but I did get a lecture in the car on the way home. I got my wish, though. We never went to that church again. Except on Easter. However, despite not getting spanked, Grandpa had seemed to make it his personal mission to be a pain in my ass.
I had never understood why Grandma married that man. I really didn’t. It wasn’t as if there was any money. All of my Dad’s childhood and most of mine, they were dirt poor. Grandpa was never home. He was always off doing some kind of charity work. He wouldn’t even charge for officiating weddings. He had three children and a wife to feed and yet instead of bringing home money to keep the lights on, he was bring home jars of pickles and second-hand shoes. Daddy said Grandma never complained. I took it as an offense, and so did my Mama’s mother, my nana.
Nana was a different breed—not to mention my favorite out of the adults I knew. She owned a Bible, but she did not go to church. She never prayed at the table or recited Bible verses. There was no religious imagery in sight in her little farmhouse down by the river. Nana lived like it was still the 1940s. She had a wringer-washer on the porch, air-conditioning only in the living room, and her kitchen was like a witch’s cabinet. Her church was nature, and when I was sent to live with her in the summer to be “punished” for my rotten mouth, I was in heaven.
I think the proper term for how Nana operated was “folk magic practitioner.” She was exactly what Grandpa would call a witch. Whatever she was, nothing made more sense than the things she’d talk about while we snapped freshly picked green beans on the front porch.
“Keep a glass a water by your bed. It’ll catch the haints and drown them. Throw it down the stool in the morning,” she would say.
“Like demons?” I’d ask.
Nana would roll her eyes.
“Sounds like something your Grandpa Harmon would say. That’s just another word for a bad spirit. Listen to me, Tryphena. There are no such things as the creatures the church talks about. That’s just the made up baloney for good and bad spirits—energy. That’s all there is.”
That gave me so much freedom and peace of mind. Nana’s explanation for all of the fear-mongering made far more sense than what was spewed forth in that church. Unfortunately, things only got worse from then on.
One summer, not too many years after I told Grandpa I would rather be in Hell than go to Heaven with him, I was spending the night with them and my little brother. Grandma was taking us to the lake for a picnic. I was mostly excited about swimming. Grandma saw it as a chance to teach my little brother to swim.
“Too many children drown each year. I seen it on the news,” she had told my mother when she picked us up.
I could not imagine Grandma swimming. She was a tiny woman, her waist small enough I could nearly fit my hands around it. I could see every bone in her hands. I would later find out that this was partly due to malnutrition. As a ten year old, I did not think much about her weight. However, that day at the lake concerned me beyond her eating habits.
The night before, my brother and I shared a bed in the guest room. He was just four years old, and sleeping so hard he missed the argument that ensued when Grandpa came home. I could barely make out what was being said. Something about food. When Grandma raised her voice and was immediately silenced, a lump grew in my throat. I wasn’t sure what happened, but the alarms were going off.
The next day at the lake, Grandma was sitting beside me at a picnic table while my brother made a sand castle with rocks and leaves. It was in the bright sunlight I noticed huge red and blue bruises all over her arms. I felt my ears burn with anger.
“Did that old man do that?” I asked low enough so my brother wouldn’t hear.
My grandma stared at me. I locked my eyes with hers. I was being dead serious. If he hurt her, I would never be able to forgive him.
“Tryphena, go play,” was all she said.
And that’s all the confirmation I needed.
Nana and I saw Grandma one day while I was helping her shop for groceries. It may have been a month or so after that day at the lake.
“That ain’t your grandma, is it?” Nana asked.
I had been distracted by looking at CDs. Nana was browsing for any new Elvis CDs. My unfortunate taste at the time was Pop music. I didn’t know any better. I had one of the many volumes of Now: That’s What I Call Music in my hand when Nana spoke. I looked up to see a tiny woman with a cotton-ball of brown hair with silver peppered in looking forlorn at a sweater, then walking away.
“Yeah, that’s Grandma,” I replied.
Nana was shocked, to say the least.
“She looks like she only weighs ten pounds!” she hissed.
I nodded sadly in agreement.
“Grandpa beats her,” I admitted.
Nana’s jaw dropped in shock.
“I saw bruises on her arms after a fight,” I continued.
Nana exhaled sharply through her nose, eyes trained on the backside of my grandma, who was just turning a corner and heading to the front of the store.
“Did you tell your mom?” she asked.
I nodded.
“And Dad,” I said, “They told me to stay out of it.”
Nana nodded and said no more, but I could see the gears of thought turning.
I later found out that Nana learned Grandpa’s schedule, and would invite Grandma out to lunch or over for tea and pie or cake. She’d slip her money here and there, give her jewelry she never wore, or barely wore, and even bought her that sweater she had liked at the Kmart. Nana, being a widow since before I was born, did not have a lot of money to spare, but she did share what she could.
I think Nana’s help kept Grandma alive far longer than she would have without it. Grandma passed away three years later. Grandpa told us it was cancer. I knew damn well it was his emotional and physical negligence. Had he beaten her to death? Starved her? Ignored her need for medical care in the hope that “Jesus would heal her?” Had she been just too afraid to say anything? That day of the funeral set a fire within me. If this is how a man of God was, who was leading people to be like him, then I wanted nothing more to do with Christians. The older I got, it seemed that the more corruption I noticed. When Grandpa took his church on the air and became a televangelist not two months after Grandma’s death, the hate in me was there to stay.
A curse was set in place yesterday. Not by me. It was as if a heat from hell descended upon us. A heat index of nearly 100 degrees. Air conditioners breaking down in every building. Sparks catching the buildings on fire.
Earth brought relief with the rain, but there was no way that wasn’t a curse.
