#wsep3

[the-barlo-daily-journal]

"By the bones of the hills that birthed us, by the mother’s blood and newest moon, by the water that runs and the fire that burns, by that which loves above the earth not below - I bind you. I make you safe. I make you whole."

Old Gods of Appalachia / The Wolf Sisters, Part 3

[the-barlo-daily-journal]

Marcie Walker sat exhausted on the edge of the cart, looked out over the homestead on the Clutch. What to do with this place now? The dawn would cleanse a lot of what was still here. There wasn’t a witch or ghost for them to latch onto.

Maybe this place could know some peace. Might just be best to let the woods take it. Let the Green cleanse it.

Yeah, that feels right. Let there be Green.

Old Gods of Appalachia / The Wolf Sisters, Part 3

[the-barlo-daily-journal]

Building a prison is a tricky thing. When you seek to hold those too dangerous to be allowed amongst the rest of us, you do your very best to deny them contact with the sky, to deny them purchase within the soil, to deny them the blessed kiss of rain or river - the damnest of the damned must be shut away from all things good and green. But no builder’s hand is ever perfect. No structure is ever truly impregnable.

So when our beloved mountains were raised to the exalted stars and then lowered to seal in the darkness that sleeps beneath, such security was soft. And it’s comforting to think that that potential portal was pressed shut, that every lock turned click-closed for all eternity, and that every crack in each counted corner stone was filled and sealed tight.

Comforting, indeed, but it’s also a lie.

Old Gods of Appalachia / The Wolf Sisters, Part 3

[the-barlo-daily-journal]

Miss Darla bared her fangs like nightmares and prepared to charge Melvin, but found herself looking into a fine silver mirror. It, too, was carved of bone, and the reflection she saw there made her quivering lips drop.

Melvin’s hand in the mirror began to quake and emit a pale blue light. It grew terrible cold in his hand and he dropped it, and the big wolf looked down into the reflection, mesmerized, as a single human hand, black as night, reached up out of the mirror. And Melvin stood stunned as the opening of the mirror seemed to stretch wide as a whole-ass grown woman climbed from its inky depths.

Melvin could see that it had the same shape and silhouette as Miss Darla, but he could see no features, no three dimensions, if you will. It was like the woman’s shadow had stepped from the mirror. Miss Darla had already changed her shape and stood facing her shadow as if looking in a full-length mirror, tears streaming down her face as the shadow started to fill out, started to take her form - and if a shadow takes your full form... there can only be one of you, and, many times, there ain’t going to be none of you.

Before there were two identical women standing in the parking lot of Rising Creek Baptist, the shadow woman pulled Darla into an embrace. There was a dim pulse of blue light as the shadow woman passed through Miss Darla and vanished.

Darla uttered a surprised “​oh​” before her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed.

Old Gods of Appalachia / The Wolf Sisters, Part 3

[the-barlo-daily-journal]

Light burst from Marcie’s staff and slammed the wolf creature to its knees. It keened and cried, bound under the immense gift and will of Marcie Walker.

Ellie moved fast. She saw the creature’s feet - the black tangles and splatters of the fungus and shadow and waste that coated the garden - were being driven back by the light of the binding, so she drew Welling Wound back out and went to work cutting the ropes of black gore binding the creature to the tainted soil until nothing but clean earth remained.

Old Gods of Appalachia / The Wolf Sisters, Part 3