Harlan County Horrors (26 page)

“
And?”

Joe
swallowed hard. “There was nothing there, of course.”

“
Of course.”

There was more to tell.

“He also,” Joe started to say, then stopped.
This will sound crazy
,
he thought.
Like
I’m
crazy
.
But Peterson was looking at him, waiting, so he continued, “He also
seemed to be always talking to a crowd. Like there was others
around, even when there wasn’t.”

Peterson nodded. “Pretty classic symptoms,” he
said.

“
Of what, Doc?”

Peterson cleared his throat, studying Joe intently. “Paranoid
schizophrenia,” he said.

Joe
dropped his gaze.

Peterson continued, “His is an interesting case. I don’t think
I’ve ever seen a patient before who fantasized a
normal
existence, while
living in a fantasy. His inner story put him in the role of the
skeptic, with you–and apparently all of us–as the lunatic. Whatever
happened in that mine all those years ago, it certainly was
traumatic.”

Joe
had no idea of what to make of this. He swallowed hard. His voice
choked when he spoke.

“
Can I see him?”

Peterson considered. “Maybe for a minute.”

He
led Joe to the ward where Feral was under observation. Joe had
found him the previous week, collapsed at the mouth of the old
Grays Knob mine, weeping and babbling something about demons, about
the moon in the earth. He had quickly brought him here to Harlan
ARH. The doctor stepped aside as they reached the room, and Joe,
after a moment’s hesitation, peered in through the laminated glass
window.

Feral was sitting on the bed against the far wall. He seemed
calm. Joe breathed a sigh of relief; he wasn’t really sure what he
had expected to find. He stood there for some time, his heart
welling over for his friend, the broken man sitting there so
forlornly.

At
last he could bear no more. He started to turn from the door when a
movement caught his eye, and he stepped back up to the window. For
a moment—but only for a moment—he thought he saw two figures
standing next to Feral. They were roughly humanoid in shape, with
grey skin and bulbous heads. They had placed their long,
insect-like fingers on Feral’s forehead and seemed to be
communicating with him. One of them turned to look at Joe with red,
glaring eyes. It spread its lipless mouth into a grin, revealing
glowing white fangs.

As
Joe gasped in shock, Feral looked up and locked his gaze onto him.
What Joe saw in those eyes caused his blood to run cold. Feral,
sucking in Joe’s fear, opened his mouth and laughed.

“
The Witch of Black Mountain”

Alethea Kontis

New
York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a
goddess, a force of nature, and a mess. The sister of a famous
jewelry designer and granddaughter of an infamous pirate, Alethea
has profited from screwing up the alphabet, organizing Sherrilyn
Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter universe, sharing all her family’s deepest,
darkest secrets, and making little girls cry. She makes the best
baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named
Charlie. Alethea has lived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for over ten
years now, and is trying to adjust to her recent coronation as
Queen of New Tornado Alley. Her web site can be found at
aletheakontis.com.

L
etting Anthony Gentry get her pregnant was
the stupidest thing Ennica Jamison had ever done. Hiking to the
summit of Black Mountain to see a witch was the second. It had been
a warm November afternoon when she’d left her stolen horse on the
path at the base of the mountain; now it was cold and dusk. She
placed a foot on the first step of the abandoned lookout tower.
She’d been walking for hours, slow but determined, sprinkling what
sanity she had left behind her like breadcrumbs in the dirt. She
grasped the rusted orange railing firmly with a gloved hand. One
last thing left to climb. One last moment before she discovered
just how stupid she really was.

She
stomped her boots hard on the metal to make sure there was no ice;
each step brought one more inescapable thought along with it. Every
time she closed her eyes, she saw herself stabbing Anthony in the
heart—the heart he didn’t have—so she tried not to close her eyes,
but her mind still raced against her will. How he and that bitch
Tanya must have laughed at her; how they must be laughing at her
still. Her father would be mad that she’d taken the horse out
overnight, but he’d be furious when he found out he was going to be
a grandfather.

It
didn’t have to be a knife. Maybe a spear, like in the ancient days
of Spartans and honor. Anthony wouldn’t have survived long in that
world. The dream of his blood pooled in her hands, all his life and
all his lies drained away. No. Concentrate on something else. One
more step.

She
was high enough now to see where the elevation benchmark disc lay,
the official plaque set in stone by the Geodetic survey crew back
in the fifties. She had passed it fifty yards or so back and
wondered if she’d been kin to anyone on that team. Probably. Over
four thousand feet up...and two more steps.

Her
panting breath froze her tongue, the fog before her reminding her
of the surreally beautiful ice on the rock face a mile or so back.
If she was ever crazy enough to come back this way, she’d have to
bring a camera. If she survived. Three more steps. The tower
creaked and shivered. It might have been her shivering.

It
had been a girl in the schoolyard who had told Ennica about
the lookout tower. “But built to look out
for
what
?” she’d
asked rhe
torically, chewing on the end of
one of her ribboned chestnut plaits. “I’ll tell you what. My nanna
says if you climb to the top of that tower, it’ll show you where
the witch lives.” The Witch of Black Mountain, the dark fairy long
ago cast out of the magic circle. The one who grants wishes and
eats babies and who’ll come and suck your soul if you don’t put
your toys away before supper.

Supper. Ennica couldn’t remember if she had stopped for
supper. It didn’t matter. One final step, and she was at the top.
She looked out over the clearing, scanned the treetops.

A
lone crow drifted in and out of the mist on the early evening
currents. Other than that, she saw nothing.

Ennica took a deep breath, sucking in more cold than oxygen,
and blew out another cloud of fog. She wasn’t surprised; deep down
she’d known this was a one-way trip. Supplies would have just
slowed her down. Her whole body was tired. She just didn’t have the
strength to walk anymore. They’d find her huddled at the base of
the tower, peacefully frozen in her sleep. Or perhaps she’d just
stay right here up at the top, the closest she’d ever be to the
stars in this life. Spiritual, almost.

A
sob escaped her; her chest felt like a mason jar about to explode.
Her cry echoed over the quiescent landscape, unanswered by
nightingale or Chuck Will’s Widow or that ephemeral crow. Even the
cicadas didn’t dare infest this high. The night was a tomb.
Fitting, really. She felt tears eke out and freeze on her lashes.
She refused to be a wimp, especially if she was the only one around
to witness it, so she blinked them away.
Blink
.

Anthony. Stabbed. Blood. Relief.

Ennica gasped and opened her eyes again. She wished she was
brave enough to go through with something like that, brave enough
to save the world from one more lying, cheating, thieving bastard.
Hell, she couldn’t even save herself. If she’d have lived through
this, her kid would have been a bastard too. She didn’t
mind.

She
put a hand on her still-flat belly. Hopefully it was warmer in
there. Without closing her eyes, Ennica imagined she was sitting in
front of a nice, warm fire. It smelled of cedar and coal and
hand-me-down quilts. It blurred her vision and burned her eyes. She
rubbed them, looking out over the mountaintop.

She
wasn’t dreaming.

Ennica followed the smoke trail back to its origin, and could
just barely make out the silhouette of a rooftop among the trees.
She memorized its location in relation to the tower before
scrambling down, snatching her pack up, and hightailing it to the
front door. She pulled off her gloves; her skin was so dry when she
rapped on the door that her knuckles bled.

“
Yes?” the soft female voice was followed by the furious
flapping of wings and the cackle of a crow.

“
I’m looking for the w—” Ennica stopped herself. “Witch”
didn’t quite seem the polite term. “—the dark fairy,” she
finished.

“
Fairies. Bah,” said the woman. “Blanton Forest is about four
leagues west. If you want romance, you’re on the wrong
mountain.”

“
Romance got me into this,” Ennica called through the door.
“Now all I want’s revenge.” There was no reply. Ennica counted her
heartbeats: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. When she got to a hundred
she’d...she’d what, leave? She had nowhere to be. Here on this
porch seemed as good a place to freeze to death as any.

She
heard rattling, and then the door opened a crack. “Come
in.”

The
cabin was small—only one room—with no furniture to speak of apart
from a simple table and two chairs beside a squat black stove.
Ennica fell to her knees before it, suddenly aware of how cold she
was and exactly how close to death she’d come already. The fire
smelled of coal, wood smoke, apple pie, and lilacs. There. It was
official; she’d lost her mind. But she’d suspected that the minute
that low-down dirty rotten liar had kissed her.

Lord bless the genius who one day invented the soap that could
wash memories like that out of her mind.

“
Sit,” said the witch. She had taken one of the chairs at the
table, the crow perched on her shoulder. Before the other chair sat
a plain white teacup filled with water. Ennica pulled herself up
into the chair and cradled the cup in her icy fingers.

“
What’s this?” she asked.

“
Whatever you want it to be,” said the witch. The crow
agreed.

Ennica nodded and took a sip. What hit her tongue was not
water but hot chocolate—not the weak, powdery stuff she’d drunk as
a kid but honest-to-goodness cocoa, the thick, molten creaminess
that rich people had for breakfast in all those books she liked to
read.
See, baby?
she said to her womb.
This is what
you deserve in life.
Not too bitter; not
too sweet. It tasted elegant and beautiful, and as it coursed
through her veins it calmed her nerves and warmed her bones,
lulling her into a sense of comfort. She closed her
eyes...

...and saw Anthony and Tanya, naked, passionately devouring
one another. She mentally skewered them together with one thrust of
her spear and shoved the vision aside. Damn them both. They were
not going to ruin her chocolate.

Bravery reinforced, she opened her eyes. She’d doodled her
fair share of witches on her notes in class; old and wizened and
warty, sultry and buxom and irresistible. The woman stroking the
silky coal-black feathers of the crow didn’t look anything like
them. She wasn’t young or old. Her features and coloring were the
averagest of average. She could have been any woman on the street.
She could have been the clerk at the grocer’s. For that matter, she
could have been kin—she looked quite a bit like her cousin Jessica.
Ennica sipped her magical chocolate again. “I’m Ennica,” she said
finally.

The
witch raised her eyebrows. “Interesting.”

“I
was named after my grandmother, Eunice,” Ennica explained. “The
nurse who filled out the birth certificate had terrible
handwriting.” Her words sounded stupid even as she was saying
them.
Nice, Ennica. Now maybe we can chat
about the weather and our favorite music and try on each other’s
clothes.
“Are you really a witch?”
Oh, well done there, idiot.

The
witch smiled.

“
Sorry. I’m just...I mean, I meant...”

“
Don’t apologize,” said the witch. “So few people ask the
right question. For all your self-loathing, you’re really quite
perceptive.”

Right. If she was so perceptive, she would have known that
Anthony had never loved her.

“
That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” said the witch,
reading her mind. “Now cut it out and drink your
chocolate.”

She’d been raised to respect her elders...which she figured
might as well include anybody who might have the power to turn
water into chocolate. Ennica did as she was told.

“
This is Mr. Hue,” the witch introduced the crow, and it
lowered its head to Ennica.

“
Nice to meet you, Mr. Hue.”

“
To answer your question: No. We were here before witches were
witches and words were words and the world was the world. Not Mr.
Hue, of course, but the rest of us. We have been called the Wild
Things, the Wrong Ones, the Widdershins, the Damps. We were the
afterbirth; after Chaos came Order. We are the facilitators of that
utter perfection.”