“Mama?” a voice called through the house. Footfalls tracked down the hall until Pink appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, his features pained and agitated.
“Pink?” Mrs. Souder said, getting up from her chair.
Mrs. Souder brushed snow from Pink’s shoulders, while Pink kept pushing her hands away. “Christ, Mama, it’ll melt on its own.” When Pink noticed Michelle, his expression went from irritation to concern.
“I thought you were in the hospital,” Pink said, looking at his mother, then back at Michelle. “What have we got going on here?”
“Nothing,” Mrs. Souder said.
Michelle got up to leave.
Mrs. Souder put herself between Michelle and the doorway. “You can’t go.”
Until that moment, Michelle had felt safe in the company of the old woman, but now Mrs. Souder appeared scornful, her brow tightened to thin ridges.
“I have to go,” Michelle said, dread flowering in her stomach. “I’m leaving in the morning. Early. Going back to Atlanta.”
Mrs. Souder came closer, her eyes watery, suddenly old, yellow. “You must stay,” she said, speaking the words with emphasis, as if Michelle was supposed to decode some secret message from her intonation.
When Michelle turned to leave the kitchen, the old woman snagged her wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. “Don’t go, child,” she whispered, “or you will never be free.”
“Christ, Mama, you’re scaring the poor woman to death,” Pink said. “I’ll drive her home in a few minutes.”
Michelle wrenched her wrist free from the old woman, unsettled by the red finger marks on her skin. What was this all about? Did the old woman feel she’d told Michelle too much and wasn’t about to let her blab to Sheriff Fisk? It wouldn’t matter anyway since Fisk would never believe the old woman’s story any more than he’d believed hers. But Pink’s mother was acting queer. Michelle felt safe with Pink there, but what if he left to go home?
“I’ll take that ride, Pink,” Michelle said. The old woman seemed to relax then, taking her seat at the kitchen table.
Pink talked about how strange his evening had gone and seemed to want to talk about Isabelle, bringing her up several times, saying how Isabelle had been calling him all night. Michelle felt like she was intruding. “She told me the damnedest thing tonight, Mama,” Pink said. “It scares me to even repeat it. I’m afraid the white coats’ll come haul her off yonder. Maybe the best thing for her is some time in a padded room though.” Pink tried to laugh, but Michelle could tell he was troubled.
Michelle excused herself to the bathroom and stood at the sink. She splashed water on her face. Where was Darcy? She wished her sister were here. Darcy was the only sanity left in Michelle’s life.
When Michelle returned, Pink’s expression had turned dark, the room charged with a metallic hush. Neither Pink nor his mother said a word when she came in and sat down. Mrs. Souder stood, grabbed her cloak off the chair, and went out the back door. Burrito had been sleeping in his bed in the corner. He got up and whimpered where Mrs. Souder had departed. Pink sat staring at the table, his eyes lost in shadow. After a few minutes, he stood up, scratching his wrist.
“Mama says she can help you,” Pink finally said.
“I don’t need help. Are you going to drive me up to the cabin? Or I can just . . .”
“She wants to have a little ceremony for you. Out back.”
No ceremonies. No nothing. Michelle was almost to the front door when Pink caught her from behind. “Let me go,” she said.
“I will, but my mama . . . I don’t know . . . she says she can help you. I don’t know how she does it, but she does help some folks, rids them of ailments doctors can’t even cure. She seems scary sometimes with all that talk of hers, the incantations and potions and such, but hell, she’s harmless. What I mean is, she does seem to have powers, but she’d never use them to hurt anyone.”
Michelle wasn’t so sure. Pink obviously had no idea what his mother, or Isabelle, was capable of.
Chapter 36
Burning embers swirled and darted up through the falling snowflakes as Michelle slogged down the hill, her eyes on the distant fire. Pink followed a few steps behind. Mrs. Souder, cloaked entirely in black, with a hood concealing her head and face, stood near the flames in the center of the stone circle, as if she were peering into a trapdoor to hell, her figure straight and fixed as a charred post. Fresh snow collected atop the rounded stones of the circle. Hot, orange light from the blaze illuminated the branches and trees encircling Pink’s mother. When Michelle glanced back at Pink for guidance as to where they were headed, he nodded forward, his eyes pointing her toward the ring.
Standing at the arbor, Michelle could hear Pink breathing hard from the trek down the slope. Mrs. Souder stood with her back to them, and Michelle wondered if she even knew they were there. Michelle analyzed the bizarre scene, the four small altars festooned with different colored cloths, each altar spaced ninety degrees apart from the other, within the rim of stones. The surface of each altar was adorned with various items: crystals, pinecones, candles. Some had little toy gnomes or mermaids, like something a child might create. Incense burned on one of the altars. There was also a bird’s nest and a wooden bowl with dried leaves, ordinary items that could be found in anyone’s home or yard.
Mrs. Souder turned to face Michelle and Pink, then stepped forward. She raised her head and Michelle could see her eyes, blank stones in the old woman’s featureless face.
Pink whispered to Michelle to step forward a few inches but not to pass under the arbor. Michelle considered what Pink had told her coming down the hill: “Just go with whatever happens.” Michelle had thought she could do it, convincing herself she wasn’t afraid. Now she wasn’t sure, with Pink’s mother staring into her eyes, unblinking, as if in a trance. A second later the old woman swept a knife out from under her cloak and held the point against Michelle’s chest. Michelle’s breath caught. She stumbled backward, her retreat halted by Pink’s chest and stomach. She couldn’t move. The point of the curved blade pushed against the material of her jacket. Pink pressed up behind her.
“Thee who approaches the veil between the worlds, the comfort earth of humankind, and the dread domains of the Lords of the Outer Realm, hast thou the courage to make the assay? For I say verily, thee would fare far better to rush onto my blade and perish than to put forth the effort with fear in thy heart,” the old woman intoned, vapor coming from her mouth, as if she had recently swallowed fire.
Michelle stood fixed, the point glinting at her chest. Pink whispered to Michelle to repeat his words: “I come in perfect love and perfect trust.” When Michelle recited the phrase, the old woman answered, “All blessed with perfection in love and trust shall be doubly welcome. I grant thee passage through this dread door.”