The Wicker Tome

It was a somber job to have, but Ernie King didn’t mind. He always preferred to be alone anyway. He always thought the nighttime was preferable anyhow to the daylight. These southern summers were brutal enough to melt steel. It felt that way anyway. So it was just fine with him to be doing his laboring when the moon and the crickets were out in full force. They were really the only company he needed. Well. Their company and the dead’s.

​Earlier in the day, he carried his shovel to a fresh plot of grass where a nice granite headstone had been laid down earlier today. He always admired how straight the Garret brothers were able to keep their chisels. This one made him sad when he looked at the dates. He already knew that the hole he had dug here today was of a small sort. It was for a child, but seeing that the poor little girl had barely made it into her fourth year made him silently curse at how unfair this old life can be sometimes. The service had been somber and full of sobs, but the Reverend laid her to rest well, the way he always does. Tonight he hoped to plant some blueberries by her headstone so that they were there for her parents to see the next time they visited. Blueberries had been her favorite, and he knew just the right spot to dig some up for her down by Swallow Creek. So he had done that and they were waiting for their new home in a chipped clay pot outside of his cabin. 

​He didn’t need reminders about how hard life here could be. Living in these hills had always held its challenges. They were right cut off from any of the rest of the world, and if you were like Ernie, the furthest you had ever traveled was to the counties that just happened to touch his own. He was born-and-bred-hill-folk as they liked to say. He preferred laying his head down in the hollers rather than some fancy house that he couldn’t afford anyway. But even if he could he doesn’t think he could sleep with so many people so close to him all of the time like there were in the big cities. He had neighbors now, but they didn’t make any fuss. 

​That was halfway the reason he took this job. The Garrett brothers had mentioned to him that his big strong back would be useful to Reverend Miller down at the church, as he needed somebody to take up the job of the “cemetery groundskeeper” as he called it when he first mentioned it. It sounded fancy to Ernie. They certainly never called him a groundskeeper when he was picking the future produce from the fields during the growing season, rather they called him all sorts of ugliness that he would rather not mention. Some who owned a piece of land sometimes felt like it gave them the right to talk down to those who didn’t. 

​He had learned after taking this job, that money didn’t matter much when you died. You couldn’t take it with you, and we all ended up in the same dark earth when we left this mortal realm, so he didn’t have much patience for anybody thinking they were better than anybody else. He didn’t have to worry about that here, Reverend Miller made sure that he was appreciated and told him almost every day what a good job he was doing. The cabin that he got to live in as a job perk was nice too. It wasn‘t really a cabin, it was more of a shed. But the floors had floorboards and not just dirt, and that was a first for him in his meagerly furnished life. For the 30 years before this, he could compare where he had been to his current palace, and it made him light on his feet at the prospect of work in appreciation.

​He had been here for about six months now, and he had buried nearly a hundred at this point, but he didn’t mind that part one bit. It felt dignified to put people in their final place of rest, and he was glad to be the man to do that for them. He kept the grass trimmed short and set the flower vases back upright when the wind kicked them over, and he made sure that the weeds didn’t grow over the headstones ruining the beauty of the Garrett brothers’ work. The families had told him how much they appreciated it when they came to visit, and that made him feel good.

​The Reverend knew that the cemetery was in a sorry state when he had hired Ernie and had told him as much. “That’s part of the job I need you to do while you’re here if you’ll have it,” Ernie told him he didn’t mind, and he immediately began working on that project the day after he had shook hands with the reverend in agreeing to take the job. He was down on his luck, the harvests being brought in for the year, and he was thankful for the opportunity. He worked hard, and the calluses on his hands turned even harder in response, but the grounds were downright pretty now if he did say so himself. The food from the reverend, and his 2 dollars a week PLUS a place to live? He had hit the jackpot.

​The first time he had to dig a grave and bury a person in it, it had been Mamaw Jenkins from up on Bald Rock. That had made him sad. She had treated many a wart and cut on him and everyone else in the valley for longer than he had been alive. She was the granny of the county and they would surely be at a loss without her there. He figured her daughter Maggie would take to the role just fine now that she had to, though. There was a big turnout at the funeral, and many of the people thanked him for helping her to rest well in her new home after he had taken such care to prepare her plot. She was buried near a patch of blackthorn brambles, and he had tied them into a sort of an archway over her plain rock headstone. He remembered the blackthorn she weaved into all manner of baskets and sundries over the years, and he thought it would be proper. The people who came to the funeral thought so as well and told him so. He just bowed his head meekly, not being appreciated for work normally, and it filled him up with enough pride to puff the already broad chest of the black dress jacket the reverend had given him for such occasions. 

​The months had gone by, and the dead came as they always did, but with the Fever going around, there had been so many more than what they were used to. It was killing the babies left and right and this made Ernie cry when he was by himself. He took it personally, and always tried to decorate their graves with flowers that the parents told them they liked, or river rocks where they used to play, or any number of personal little touches that he thought might make seeing them buried there not so bad as it could be. If he was being honest, as much as the families appreciated it, he was just really doing it for himself so that he didn’t break down every time he had to walk by them. There is a little bit of magic in the mundane, and they lived once, they weren’t just corpses in the cold hard ground, and he liked to remember that. 

​Today was another one. Little Allie Sue had taken ill over the last few weeks, and no matter what Maggie Jenkins tried, she just couldn’t get ahead of the death that was looming over her. Now he didn’t understand her ways, but he trusted them. So when she came to get him a few times to help her gather some mullein leaves to make a tea or got him to run the hand crank on her old wooden press to keep up with her ginger root squeezing, he was happy to help. They had grown up together in these hills. he was never smart enough to be able to stay in school like she had, but she never looked down on him for that. He had always had a soft spot for her and her kind eyes. Sometimes she had been the only one who had treated him with any dignity back when he was nothing but a wandering farm hand, and he would never forget that. He noticed that the creases around the corners of her eyes were starting to deepen just like Mamaw Jenkins had done. Ernie always figured that the stress of taking care of a whole mountain’s ailments was bad enough, but then when the youngins took ill, she worked even harder, and the stress increased in kind. 

​When she arrived by his side that evening, he wasn’t expecting her, but he was pleasantly surprised by her visit. He could see the redness in her eyes, and he knew without her saying so that she had been crying this evening too. He didn’t let on that he had been as well because he figured that he would be the strong one for her when she needed it. 

​“I couldn’t sleep Ernie and well… I figured you’d be out here doing what you do best, so I thought I’d join ya’…if that’s okay a’course. Besides none needs to be alone with the dead on Samhain (Sow-wen) Night. The veil is thin, and all manner of things can happen if you’re not careful.”

​Ernie creased his brow as if he were trying to solve a complex math problem in his head. 

​“What didja say it was? Sow’s Inn Night? I…I’m ‘fraid I don’t understand Miss Maggie.”

​The full moon was cresting over the horizon of the cemetery and cast everything in a strange pallor as it always did. Combined with the mist from the falling temperatures, it was downright ethereal. 

​

​“No silly man, Samhain. S-A-M-H-A-I-N, you know all soul’s night. The thing that Reverend Miller has been saying blessings against all over town all week!”

​Ernie’s eyes relaxed now that they could quit contemplating what arcane knowledge this woman that he adored was going on about that he wasn’t equipped to understand.

​“Oh you mean Samhain (Sam-Hane)! Yes, ma’am, there is a chill in the air. I think the dead know it, too. It feels different out here. It should be somber when I’m out here to tend Allie Sue’s grave, but it’s almost like…like the night is restless.”

​Ernie wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed as his Papaw had told him so many times before, but he could spell and read with his letters. He didn’t make it all of the way through school before the fields called him to tend them, but he had learned that much, and he loved to read when he had the chance. Reverend Miller had given him a bible that he read every night before he went to sleep, after all. To his credit, the way she was saying Samhain was definitely not how it was spelled. Not in any lesson that he had ever attended anyway. Maggie Jenkins was much smarter than he was, though so he didn’t protest. He just whispered “Sow-wen” under his breath feeling the strange pronunciation roll over his tongue.

​Maggie patted his arm and walked with him toward the place near the pine forest where the little girl had been buried. He carried his shovel and the potted blueberry bush that he had relocated earlier this afternoon. He walked with as much respect as he could every time he walked these hallowed grounds and tonight was no different.

​Maggie was looking at the items that he carried, and Ernie told her before she could ask, as he had a good idea what she was wondering. 

​“Allie Sue loved blueberries more’n anything accordin’ to her ma and paw, so I figgered it only right to plant some right by her so that she could enjoy them in the beyond. Really I reckon it’s more her parents who’ll appreciate it, but I like to think that she will too.

​Maggie smiled at him and replied sweetly. 

​“I can assure you she will Ernie. I think that’s the best gesture that I can think of,”

​Ernie could feel himself blush a little bit as Maggie patted his arm again approvingly.

​They finally reached the edge of the cemetery and could see the pines standing sentinel over all of the tombstones that spanned the church grounds. So many souls in one place. Ernie almost thought of it as a holy place that demanded respect and reverence, and he acted in accord. 

​He sat the blueberry bush down on the ground and began digging a hole right behind the headstone. He was adept with his weapon and made short work of the patch of hard ground. Maggie eyed the freshly placed dirt on the top of what remained of Allie Sue and realized how hard this man worked. She thought he was the perfect person for this job as she watched how careful he was to not disturb her new place of rest. 

​He grabbed the pot and she stayed his arm. He looked at her with a confused look on his face once again. 

​“Hold your horses, hang on, and let me grab something.”

​Maggie walked to the wood line and he could hear a rustling in the darkness. When she came back into the moonlit lawn of the cemetery she was carrying a freshly cut pine branch full of pine needles. She began trimming them off into individual needles with a deft hand and a small but effective pocket knife that Ernie had no idea where she kept it. She walked over to his newly dug hole for the bush’s root ball and sprinkled the needles into the bottom of the hole covering the bottom a couple of inches in the green pine straw. 

​“The berries like the acid in the soil. If’n you notice you’re like to see them growing near the pines and the cedars in the wild more likely than not. The pines are acidic so they and blueberries get along famously!”

​Ernie had never heard that before, but he knew deep down that she knew more about it than he did. Mamaw Jenkins had taught her well. He gently pulled the blueberry bush from the clay pot and placed it into the hole, then covered the root ball with fresh dirt and patted it firmly and carefully to hold the plant in its new home. He didn’t say a word as he walked back to his cabin and Maggie could hear the squeak of the well pump. It wasn’t long before he came back with a tin bucket full of water and poured it over the new plant. 

​Standing up, he brushed his hands off on the front of his overalls and then placed his hands on his hips surveying his work with a smile on his face. He was pleased to know that Allie Sue would’ve loved this and this is what bred the smile he was wearing. Maggie was smiling too and whispering something under her breath with her eyes closed. He felt good about his work, but he knew better than to ask her what she was praying. Wouldn’t be polite.

___________________________________

​They had both shared a long moment just being quiet and saying nothing about what was going through their heads when a shrill wail pierced the somber and quiet evening. Ernie’s hair stood up on the back of his neck as a reflex. Maggie tensed as the wind picked up. The clouds were settling over the now risen full moon shrouding the evening with more gloom than had been present over the last while that they had been in its presence. The sounds of the night started creeping in at the anthem of the screech in the darkness. What was beginning to become apparent was that they were not alone. Something was watching them.

​“Reckon we should go and get a fire going, I have a feeling it is going to be a long night,” Maggie said.

​Ernie didn’t argue, he wasn’t tired either since most of the time he stayed up during the night to tend to the cemetery. They slowly walked back toward his cabin where there was a fire pit outside, and he couldn’t help but feel that the once-lit ground was now dark and it made it feel like the walls of a room were closing in on him. The mist was still swirling making walking without disturbing the myriad of graves harder than it normally was, but he and Maggie still tried their best. Finally reaching his cabin’s edge, Ernie deftly lit a fire with a match and a little splash of kerosene. The should be warm glow instead lit with the eerie blue that the moon normally provided and it made his heart jump. Maggie looked stoic but weary. 

​“W-what’s amiss tonight Miss Maggie…I mean you feel that to dont’cha? Surely it’s not jes me…” He felt like somebody had just put a big heavy block of ice over his chest. It was heavy and freezing.

​“No, it isn’t just you Ernie. The veil is thin tonight. Thinner than I can ever remember feeling it. Something has been going on in this town. Between the fever and the things I can’t explain keeping me up to all hours of the night, something is askew. That’s why I’m here tonight. I had a feeling.”

​If Ernie wasn’t so scared by the moment you might see the disappointment on his face as he had let a part of him think that she was here because she wanted to be near him. He wasn’t in love with her, but he does love her. And he’s sure she loves him too, they’ve been near kin since birth. Luckily or unluckily the fear was pervasive and squashed all of those thoughts out of his simple but lovely mind.

​The mist in the cemetery started swirling and a cacophony of noises began creeping into their vicinity. It started slowly and gained volume and presence the longer they waited. The sickly blue light of the fire was reflecting off of the surface of the mist, and Ernie wiped his eyes several times as if it would help him see better what lay beyond its boundaries.

​

​​​​(Owls hooting, wolves howling)

​Maggie pulled her shawl up tighter around her shoulders, so the chill wasn’t just something that Ernie had imagined. She looked over to Ernie and saw him hyper-focused on something in the distance so she followed his gaze. The mist was swirling languidly in the air, mingling with the smoke from their meager fire and making shapes like smoke and mist is want to do. But this was different. There was something to the movements, Maggie could almost make out shapes. The shapes of…people.

​

The wind picked up but did not affect the myriad of vapors that were collecting around them. The firelight seemed to get dimmer and the mist seemed to have its own illumination. It was as if it were…solidifying into something. And then they both saw it.

​A slight frame and a short stature began walking out of the mist. Before long it was undeniably the shape of a little girl. Ernie immediately recognized her lace fringed Sunday’s best as it drooped off of her gaunt frame. The rings around her eyes made it undeniably Allie Sue.

​She approached them timidly, peering back and forth as if she were trying to determine exactly what was happening. She looked frightened. She was shuddering and her eyes were wide, with the blacks of her dead pupils dilated against the lack of light. None of that was as shocking as what Ernie and Maggie were seeing though. She was…transparent and…glowing a faint blue hue. It was as if all of the color had been bleached out of her like what happens if you accidentally leave your denim in with the linens to soak. They could see the mist and vapor swirling in her and through her. When she tried to speak, nothing came out but whispers.

(Ghost sounds). 

​A piercing shriek came from inside of the mist and a vapid batting of what sounded like wings. Emerging above the mist as Ernie looked up toward the sky, he saw a great white…Owl. More surprising is what it was clutching in its talons. It was another shape of a human. He watched in horror as it sunk its great beak into what would’ve been the flesh of the soul that it was carrying off into the darkness, and it just….consumed it as if it were water. He watched the entire shape of it, arms, legs, body, and head get sucked into the void of the beast’s beak. It retorted with a shrill cry as it dived back down into the camouflage of the mist. 

​

This happened several more times as they watched in horror. What Ernie had come to believe were the souls of the departed were nothing more than a midnight snack for the great winged creature, its feathers as white as snow. Its appetite seemed insatiable and time and time again, it plucked shapes that resembled little Allie Sue who was now on her knees and silently crying into her hands some 20 paces in front of them. Ernie felt like his own soul was being plucked from his body as he watched the horrible supper that the owl was feasting on right in front of his eyes.

​Maggie was less phased. She was kneeling, looking directly at the frightened ghost of a girl in front of them. She raised her head toward the heavens and began whispering under her breath. Simultaneously, he saw her fidgeting with her apron pocket as if she were digging for a lost piece of loose change. Finally, her hand emerged from the bowels of the pocket clutching a long and slender jar. 

“Miss Maggie…w-what are you a-doin’? I don’t feel quite right about any of this, but I’ll be glad to help ya if’n I can…”

​He let the last word draw off into a slur as he watched her in shock and immobility as she drew the same knife that she had used to trim the pine branches earlier across her palm. She clutched her fist tightly after the cut as she used the other hand to spread a circle of what looked like salt on the ground in front of her, between her and the little girl. Well, it was almost a circle, she left the edge of the ring facing Allie Sue open on one side. She squeezed her hand over the center of the circle and her blood welted from her closed fist and into the dirt inside of the ring. He watched as what looked like a black liquid in the dim light formed a constellation of droplets inside of the circle. The apparition of little Allie suddenly jerked her head upwards from where it was buried into her transparent palms and sniffed the air like a dog who had caught the scent of prey.

​He watched her as she moved faster than any human should be able to move as she nearly flickered forward into the circle of salt where she now stood. She was smiling and trying to form words but nothing but whispers emerged from her lips. 

​

Maggie was unfazed and she walked behind the specter and closed the ring of salt. And stood to her feet, raising one bloody palm skyward and chanting something that he didn’t understand. Ernie saw the shadow before Maggie was aware that it was there as it was behind her. He felt the presence of something massive looming over their impromptu campfire. He got to his feet and ran toward her with no other thought in his head but protecting Maggie. He was too late. 

​

From the mist directly behind Maggie, where little Allie Sue had walked out, the massive figure of wings appeared as if from nothing from the wall of fog and smoke. There was what looked like blood dripping off of them from between its feathers. His heart shuddered. It was as if it had simply materialized from nothing, and to this day he believes that it did. He was still several arm’s length from her when the owl reached Maggie. Ernie screamed “Noooooo”.

​The emotion was for naught as the owl flew…right through Maggie as if she were nothing but a shadow herself and toward Allie Sue who was still smiling and looking in the opposite direction of the owl’s approach. It was looking to make a meal of her. 

​

It couldn’t. As soon as the owl reached the boundaries of the ring of salt it was as if it had hit a brick wall. It fell to the ground and flopped there trying to right itself. It did and then began thrashing at the girl, but it was as if Maggie had put a sheet of steel between the monster and the little girl. The little girl was none the wiser as the owl thrashed and clawed, still facing away from the gargantuan white-winged creature. It screamed its anger and discontent. 

​Maggie still holding her bloodied hand toward the heavens was still chanting in monotone whispers before she mightily screamed 

“BE GONE!!”

She shouted at the top of her lungs, bloody hands still raised toward the heavens.

​As if by magic, which it certainly must be, The mist and the fog and the smoke rushed upwards in the form of a funnel. It reminded Ernie of the tornado that had ripped through Priceville a few years ago, but it was standing still. Startled, the owl was clawing at the dirt with no real effect as it was being sucked backward into the funnel that seemed to be originating from Maggie’s hand. Eventually, it was washed upwards into the sky along with all of the things that kept them from seeing further than about fifteen feet mere seconds ago. And just like that, a silence descended on the previous cacophony of terror that they had just experienced moments before. 

​Maggie slumped her shoulders and walked to the ring of salt, where the ghost of Allie Sue was still happily standing and silently giggling. When Maggie got to the edge of the salt, she kicked it and broke the circle. She simply said “Time to go little one.” And just like that, the little girl disappeared like snuffing out a lantern light. 

​Ernie was already making his way over toward Maggie when he could see how exhausted she seemed to be. It was the first time that evening that he had gotten there just in time, for as soon as he reached her side, she passed out from exhaustion into his waiting arms.

​Several days later Maggie finally awakened from the bed in Ernie’s small cabin where he had been tending her with cool washcloths and simply standing guard. She had been breathing, but that was about it. He just had to have faith that something like a giant old ghost owl was no match for a woman like Maggie. She looked up and saw him sitting there in a chair and sleeping. Looking as if he hadn’t moved in who knows how long. She pulled a still-cool washcloth from her forehead and smiled, knowing who had put it there. She got to her feet, feeling refreshed from her nap and not knowing that it took her two days to get to feeling so well. She patted Ernie on the shoulder.

“Ernie?… Have you been sitting there the whole time I’ve been sleeping?” She meekly said not wanting to startle him. 

​As soft as her voice was he jolted awake and on seeing Maggie standing beside him, he just smiled the biggest smile that he couldn’t help wearing on his face.

​The blueberries thrived over Allie Sue’s grave, and her parents thanked him profusely every time they saw him. The birds could be found having a meal of them and sometimes the deer would even come from the pine forest for a nibble. Allie’s parents thought that was fitting. All of god’s creatures come to pay their little girl respect. The last time that they thanked him this afternoon, the end of a list of many other times, he simply replied to them that they should thank Maggie Jenkins because if it wasn’t for her blood, sweat, salt, and pine straw, he didn’t think they’d be nearly as lovely as they were.