The Curse of Crow Hollow (2 page)

But then Alvaretta Graves come and the demon come with her, and that's when life in Crow Holler turned. Bucky ain't constable no more. What happened to him is something I'll get to in time. Until then, I'll ask you the question he once asked himself: Would you know evil if you looked it in the eyes? Would you truly?

I don't know how far I should get into things, you being from Away. But listen here, I got to tell somebody. I'm alone now, maybe we all are here, and loneliness is a hell all its own. So you take some pity on me, friend. Sit with me a spell, there's time yet. Here in the mountains, time's all there is. I'll tell you of Alvaretta Graves and the manner of her death, and what she couldn't keep hidden in her little two-room shack up on Campbell's Mountain.

I don't know the whole story, but I know more'n most, and what I don't know I can guess with a good degree of accuracy. That don't mean to say I know where things went so wrong, but I can tell you it all began when Cordelia Vest stole her momma's bracelet. A little thing, you could say. Nothing so different from what any other teenager might get a mind to do. And yet somehow that little thing grew into something so big that it would come to ruin many, even me.

This holler's home to me for as long as I'll have it, and I mean to have it for a good long while. Let the rest scurry away if they want. I tell myself ain't nothing gonna run me off, nosir. I say it every morning when the sun rises over these ridges and I say it again when the cold wind rolls down from the mountains at night, clawing at the windows and wanting me.

I say I won't leave, but I'll tell you this: I'm scared. I ain't got pride enough left to be wounded in saying that. I'm scared, friend. Scared because it ain't over. I thought it was, but it ain't. People ain't never who they say they are, you ever noticed that? You think they're one way and they turn out to be another, and that's what's happened here. And I'll tell you something else that's happening here too:

Something's coming. Something soon.

I can feel it.

II

Stealing the bracelet. The party. John David arrives. Like wood over stone.

-1-

Like I told you, that bracelet's where it started.

It was a Saturday, one a those pretty ones in the spring when summer's calling but winter's still refusing to let go, and all Cordelia Vest wanted was to make that day a good one for her friend. Bucky was pulling some golden time at the dump. That suited his wife, Angela Vest, just fine, as she had the whole day off from Foster's Grocery and a week's worth of stories saved on the TV.

Having Bucky gone suited Cordy too. It meant there'd be one less set of eyes to catch her sinning.

Cordy'd spent all that morning and most of the afternoon taking care of the washing and straightening up so her momma could settle down in the La-Z-Boy and lose herself in a world of depravity and betrayal. Soon Angela had the volume up so loud Cordy could hear the cross on the living room wall vibrating against the Sheetrock. Once she got to talking to the people on the screen like they was real, Cordy decided now was the only time.

She stepped out of her bedroom and snuck down the hallway of their little double-wide just as calm as could be, even if I'm sure that girl shook something fierce on the inside. Hearing her mother say
Get outta there, Nikki, you just get your little fanny out of there right now
as she hung a left into her parents'
bedroom, feeling her belly as she did, wanting to know what was going on in there. Opening the wood jewelry box that sat by the mirror on the dresser, lifting the blue velvet divider that halved the dull earrings and necklaces that Angela wore most days from the fancier jewelry she liked to keep for special occasions. Angela saying
He's gonna kill her Cordy he's gonna kill Nikki oh Jesus and Mary get out
and Cordy not bothering to reply, because she knew her momma wouldn't hear her anyway. Lifting the diamond bracelet from its place in the box as Angela screamed
No
, slipping it into her pocket as Angela screamed
Stop.
Back down the hallway now, hugging the wall and running a finger along the plain wood molding that hung on by a few rusting nails.

The living room had gone quiet but for the sound of mournful music and the rattle of a Doritos bag. Cordy ducked into her bedroom and eased the door shut, leaned against it until she fell into a position almost like sitting. She brushed her black hair away from her eyes and held her belly like it was fluttering. Then she pushed herself up and walked over to where her phone lay atop the sleeping bag on her bed.

Cordy and her friends, they all had these smartphones with this thing called MeTime (and don't that sound like the perfect name for this younger generation? Sums them up nice, I think). What them kids do is record little movies of themselves on this MeTime, and then somehow it gets sent out in the air for all their friends to ogle over.

Cordy picked up the contraption and hit Record. She dug Angela's bracelet out her pocket and held it to the camera. The diamonds glinted off a shaft of light coming in the window.

“Hey, y'all,” she said. “Getting ready to leave. Bringing you a little party favor, Scarlett.” And then she smiled and added, “See everybody soon. Maybe.”

Outside came the sound of tires over gravel. Cordy scooped
the bracelet back into her pocket and grabbed her phone and sleeping bag. She made it to the living room just as a horn beeped twice from the driveway.

On the big-screen TV that had cost Bucky a whole two months' pay, the dead face of Nikki Whoever-it-was stared out in a look of frozen horror matched only by the one on Angela's face. The fresh bag of Doritos she'd bought special sat half eaten on her wide lap. Yellow crumbs formed a trail from her lips to the lock of black hair she twirled. Was a time there weren't a prettier girl in this whole holler than Angela Vest, but then life got hold of her. Her face had filled in over the years, her skin grown pale and flecked. Once-long fingernails had been reduced to gnawed nubs.

She looked up and said, “She's gone, Cordy. I knew it would happen, I pulled the
Digest
off the rack the other day and read it and I knew it was coming. I just didn't think it'd hurt this much.” She shook her head and sniffed. “Where you off to?”

“Scarlett's here,” Cordy said. “Her party, remember?”

“Scarlett?” Angela hit Pause on the remote and kicked the footrest down. She stood, showering the carpet with corn chips. “That tonight? I thought maybe you'd sit awhile with me and watch this.”

“I would, but it's her birthday and I don't want to be late. We have to be at Harper's Field before everyone else.”

“The field?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“For the whole night?”

“Yes, ma'am. Daddy said I could.”

Angela's eyebrows shot up the way I expect every momma's always do once their babies get grown, that expression of
Well your daddy's one thing, and I'm another
.

“Hays Foster be there?” she asked.

Outside, the horn beeped again.

“Yes'm, but it's not like we'll be alone. Lots of other people will be there. Everybody, really. Scarlett and Naomi, all the kids from school.”

“Won't you stay?” Angela asked. “We could have a girls' night. I don't like you with that boy, Cordelia. I know you don't want me harping on it, but it puts me in an awful situation.”

“I'm not with him,” Cordy said, even if she couldn't look Angela in the eyes as she said it. Stealing was one thing. Now Cordelia Vest had added another sin to an already lengthy list—bearing false witness to her momma. Which, I don't know, maybe could count as two. You'll trust me when I say the girl had other secrets, ones a whole lot bigger. She bit her lip, probably hoping the pain would stanch the tears that had begun pooling in her eyes. “Please, Momma?”

“Your daddy's gonna want you at church in the morning.”

“We'll be there. Promise.”

“No drinking?”

“I'm not old enough.” Answering, but not really.

Angela's thumb twitched over the Play button on the remote, no doubt torn between what she feared would happen should she let Cordelia go traipsing off with a boy like Hays Foster for the night and how to continue on with that Nikki-sized hole now in her own heart. I do believe Cordelia felt a pang worse than sadness, having to stand there and watch.

Couldn't be easy for a woman like her momma, working five and sometimes six days a week for the man she'd meant to marry, having to deal with the woman he'd married instead, and now knowing the boy the two of them had brought into the world was sweet on her own daughter. Running the register and stocking the shelves, filling in back at the meat department when Tully Wiseman was too drunk to come in. You think about all that, I guess it wasn't a wonder Angela pined so for her soaps.

“Okay,” she said. “Since it's Scarlett and her birthday, and since you're promising me there'll be no skin slapping.”

“That's gross.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” Cordelia told her. “Love you, Momma.”

“Love you back. You tell Scarlett me and your daddy wish her well.”

They kissed cheeks, Cordelia tilting her hips away as she did, not wanting her momma to feel what she had in her pocket. Angela took her place in the recliner and fumbled with the remote as Cordelia bounded out the door and off the front porch, skirting the beds of rosebushes Angela kept (prizewinners those roses were, blue ribbons eight straight years at the county fair down in Mattingly). She held the sleeping bag tight against her chest. Inside the shiny new Volkswagen revving in the drive, Scarlett Bickford leaned over and pushed the passenger door open. A pale set of hands belonging to Naomi Ramsay reached from the backseat through the window, waving.

And there, friend, is where it all started. Right there in the Vests' drive. I can see Cordy right now with that diamond bracelet in her pocket, those three girls so happy and full of life, blind to the hell just ahead. Even now, I can see them smiling.

-2-

Scarlett Bickford's eighteenth birthday had been at the front of every teenaged mind round here on account of who she was. Every kid whose folks'd let them stay out past nine planned to be at Harper's Field that Saturday night, if only to be able to show up for school Monday morning and say they'd been. I guess that's the sort of fame only possible in a little place
like this, where the fastest way to teenaged popularity is to come up with your daddy not only mayor, but pretty much the richest man in town. Had to be the reason everybody thought Scarlett been born of sweet dreams and magic, cause that girl was homely as a barn owl and twice as awkward. And there was that awful thing with Scarlett's arms, too.

She pulled her sleeves tight against the palms of her hands as Cordy flung herself into the brand-new Beetle the mayor had gifted her that same morning. Bright yellow with a black ragtop, looked like a giant bumblebee.

Scarlett threw the car into reverse and flashed a crooked smile as she raced for the road. “You get it?”

Cordy dug in her jeans. She pulled out her fist and opened it soft and careful like a secret, making Scarlett squeal.

“He's gonna love it, I know he is.”

“He better,” Cordy said. “I did so much sneaking around today, I'm afraid of my own shadow. Momma'll kill me if she decides to go looking.” She handed the bracelet to Scarlett, who tucked it into the pocket of her shirt. “Hope that brings you luck.”

“I need all the luck I can get. Ain't like I can fall back on my good looks.”

“Shut up. That's not so.”

Scarlett didn't bother arguing the point, knowing it was true. I believe some part of her suspected Cordy knew it as well. “How much you lie about tonight?”

“Didn't lie at all, if you got to know.”

From the backseat came, “Then why you come busting out that door like your trailer's on fire?”

That'd be Naomi Ramsay. Now you may recognize her last name as that of our fair preacher. One of two children by David and Belle Ramsay, the other of which I'll get to soon enough. Naomi was—is—a kind enough girl, nearly as popular
as Scarlett and just as pretty as Cordelia. Prettier, if you ask me. She kept her head down to her phone.

“Cordy's got forty-seven shout-outs on her MeTime post. Holy cow. Everybody's gonna be at the field tonight.”

Scarlett smiled—just the way she'd planned things.

“What'd you bring?” Cordy asked.

Scarlett pointed behind them to the mound of supplies next to Naomi. “Black skirt, that red sweater you like, so much makeup it'd make a TV preacher's wife break the tenth commandment, and a sleeping bag big enough for two.”

“Yeah, well, don't you—”

“Don't worry, got that covered too,” Scarlett said. “Hays was good enough to buy some for me a couple days ago. He'll be waiting up there.”

Cordy's eyes widened. “He didn't get them from the grocery, did he?”

“Yes, Cordelia, your teenaged boyfriend bought condoms from his daddy's store and got your momma to ring them up. Are you nuts?”

“Can we please stop talking about this?” Naomi said. She held her hands over her ears, feigning embarrassment. “You two realize who you're trying not to talk about and who's in the backseat, right?”

“Sorry,” Scarlett said. She chuckled anyway.

Naomi shook her head and rummaged through the clothes Scarlett had brought for the night. “You're gonna freeze in these things,” she said.

Scarlett chuckled again. “Doesn't matter. I won't be in them long.”

“Stop it!” Naomi was screaming it now, making Scarlett double over, forcing the little car to veer toward the middle of the lane-and-a-half road.