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  Allowing a page to settle, she pointed at a newspaper clipping. A group of well-dressed men stood together in what I recognized as Stafford’s original town square. Drawing her plump finger to the image of a short, mustachioed man wearing a bowler’s hat, she said, “Angus Derthblum was his name. Most likely an alias. No one knows fer sure. Where he’d come from was a mystery. Blew down from the north like some godawful pestilence. His influence on the elders was pervasive. To this day they practically worship the man! He purchased up some land, businesses, and what-not. His effects grew. Finally, he bought the bank and, with it, came the farmers. They was our livelihood, Owen. Men like yer father. That’s when Derthblum instituted the Harvest Festival.”

  She turned a page and again motioned to several photos of a large bonfire in the town square. Residents stood around it tossing corn, wreaths, and harvest dolls into the flames.

  “It started innocent enough, a time to commemorate the end of harvest and the long draw into winter. Twasn’t time for bloom, they said, but fer the sickle and scythe. But things ‘ventually changed. Just as the darkness of winter descended upon earth, so did darkness descend upon the hearts of those men. ‘Fore long, there was other customs conjoined, rituals involvin’ the old ways. Witchin’ ways. Whispers ‘bout gods and goddesses. And then—” She glanced about and lowered her voice even more. “—the Colby girl went missin’. She was the first. But others would follow. Reverend Trent. Hattie James. Always ‘round the harvest—untimely deaths, inexplicable accidents. Yer family has known its share, ta be sure.”

  She momentarily hung her head and then, with a heavy sigh, closed the book.

  “Owen, Stafford’s harvest is always the county’s biggest. Ya know that. Ever wonder why?” She leaned closer. “‘Cause it’s watered by blood.”

  I peered at her. My mind was weighted by the inferences of her speculations. I swallowed. “My Mum. You sayin’ that—”

  “Her and yer brother,” said a raspy voice behind us.

  Mrs. Cubbedge looked up and gasped. I spun around to see Walter Berry standing in the aisle, staring at us. His unkempt mop of hair trailed into his eyes. Indeed, in his rumpled attire and bristly cheeks, he looked like some lupine beast wandered in from the hinterland.

  “Walter!” the librarian exclaimed. “Can I help ya?”

  He brushed aside his hair to reveal that he was looking at me. Yet he said nothing, only stared.

  “Walter?” Mrs. Cubbedge stepped from behind the desk. “You feelin’ well, son?”

  “They graves ‘r empty,” he said, his smile like barbed wire. “My daddy said so!”

  “W-who…?” I practically whimpered the word. “Whose graves are empty?”

  “They payin’ ‘im!” Walter’s eyes flashed of anger and confusion. “They payin’ ‘im. That’s the only reason he doin’ it. ‘N he needs the money. Fer us. Fer his drink. So’s he held ‘em back. Took the bodies when no one saw. Gave ‘em up. Yer Mum and yer brother? They plots ‘r empty.”

  He stepped closer, his smile fading into a grim mask.

  “Tonight, there’ll be ‘nother one. Another sacrifice. For the harvest. For her.”

  #

  I pondered those troubling revelations throughout the day, barely attending to my schoolwork in the process. My conversations with the librarian and the gravedigger’s son had left me with an unusual determination. Jefferson had been correct. Something diabolical was at work. Something to which Pa acquiesced. Now, after the strange occurrences of last night, I felt a peculiar sense of fate, as if I was an actor in some unfolding pageant.

  The hazy grey had surrendered to crisp blue skies. The shadows were growing long and brought with them the chill of autumn. Excitement was in the air for tonight’s harvest festival. Someone propped a scarecrow in the playground and the children took turns throwing fruit and prodding it with sticks, until in one mad rush it was fallen upon and torn to shreds. I stood off and watched, as if it were the premonition of some foreordained event.

  I took the long way home, through the town square. Preparations were in order for tonight’s festivities—barrels of strong drink, harvest dolls stacked in tilting spires, and a teepee of dried branches in keeping for the bonfire. Knowing what I now did, this sight evoked unease. What godawful forces had we awakened? Who was I to stand against such ancient customs? Surely, those like myself had come and gone, challenging the old gods to our own demise. Nevertheless, Mum’s faith appeared a lone beacon, summoning me from cowardice and inaction.

  I passed the courthouse and the pond, until I came upon the cemetery. Underneath the old oaks the shadows settled like a fog, broken only by glimpses of mossy tombstones and mottled grave markers.

  They graves ‘r empty.

  As audacious as Walter’s pronouncement had seemed at the time, it comported with the events of this awful season. While I knew not what form my actions would take, I was convinced I needed to do something and put an end to our part in this madness.

  I arrived at home near dusk. I was later than usual, which would surely initiate an inquiry. The porch light was on, as was the kitchen. Pa stood at the sink. I spied him out without betraying my presence. The smell of pastry and warm meat wafted my way. He turned and disappeared from view. I entered. A full bowl of broth sat before Ivy, who slumped nearly lifeless in the chair. Pa was in the other room. I could hear him moving about.

  I removed my book bag and set it on a chair. Ivy did not acknowledge me as I approached. Indeed, the specter of death hovered near to her. I placed my hand on her shoulder and breathed a silent prayer. As I did, I noticed several black berries floating in her broth.

  “Where ya been?” Pa growled from behind me.

  Without turning, I stiffened. “Took the way through town.”

  “Why that way?”

  “Just lookin’ in on the festival.”

  He grunted. Then he approached and rested his hand on my shoulder. “I’m afraid she ain’t gonna make it through the night. Doc Hollis is comin’ later, after the festival. Likely prepare her fer dyin’.”

  Indeed, my stepmum’s breathing was barely noticeable.

  However, you’d have thought that the passing of one’s spouse would evoke a sense of sorrow or regret, yet little such sympathy could be detected in my father’s words. It stirred indignation in me.

  Perhaps I should have contemplated my next move more fully. But too much thought would likely prevent me from any action whatsoever.

  I shrugged off his touch and stepped aside. Plucking a single black berry from her soup, I held it up.

  “Pa, what is this?”

  My action momentarily startled him. But his anger quickly rose, and he backhanded the fruit from my grip, sending it skidding across the kitchen floor.

  “Don’t touch that!” he demanded.

  “Why?”

  “Ya need to wash yer hands, Owen.”

  “Why are you givin’ that to her?”

  “Go wash yer hands!”

  “Why?” I turned and looked square in his face. “Why? What’s goin’ on, Pa?” My voice cracked slightly, and a trembling started in my loins.

  His eyes became slits. “It was you, wa’nt it? You been sneakin’ round, haven’t you? Lookin’ in on what ya oughtn’t.”

  I stepped back, thinking about the shotgun behind the hutch and what bearing the acquisition of that piece might have upon the outcome of this exchange.

  “Don’t do anything foolish, Owen.” He closed the separation between us. “‘Twas somethin’ that had to be done.”

  “Why? What’s bein’ done, Pa?”

  “They won’t touch us. So long as we make one more benefaction.”

  I glanced at Ivy, who’d begun mumbling. I rushed around the table to distance myself from his grip. He didn’t follow, just stood with a hard scowl on his face.

  I motioned to her. “The Crone. What—? Why is she called that?”

  He shook his head and smiled slightly. “She ain’t the Crone.
She’s for the Crone.”

  He pointed towards the east orchard.

  Good Lord! I leaned over and swiped my hand across the table, sending the broth spraying across the kitchen. The bowl shattered, with splinters ricocheting about the room. Pa bolted toward me, but as he did, he slipped on the liquid and fell on his hindquarters. I turned and ran out of the house, the screen door banging behind me.

  I knew not where I would go, only that I must flee that place. Night had almost completely fallen. The harvest moon rose like a ghostly orb over the east horizon, beckoning me that way. A loud crash sounded before Pa’s footsteps thundered inside, and he yelled for me to stop. Instead, I ran toward the orchard.

  It was less fear than defiance which drove me. The truth had been revealed and now all that was left was its judgment.

  The screen door slammed.

  “Come ‘ere, boy! Don’t make me shoot ya! ‘Cause I will, I sware ta ya!” His boots thumped down the porch steps.

  Past the corn crib and the barn, I ran. Skidding into the garden path, I stopped.

  Lanterns burned there, encircling a freshly tilled plot of earth, casting a warm halo about the place. Upon the mound lay the eyeless harvest doll of yester-night, along with herbal satchels and strange ornaments. I scanned the area to see who had placed them there just as Pa entered the garden with the shotgun aimed at me.

  “Ya can’t stop ‘em,” he panted. “Ya can’t stop it, Owen.”

  “Did ya even try?”

  “I tried!” he choked. He lowered the rifle. “God, I tried. There was n-no other way, son.”

  For the first time I sensed remorse in the man. Yet I also feared that he had spoken the truth—whoever was behind this devilry could not be stopped.

  “What’d you do with them?” I said, shivering.

  “The same thing I’m gonna do with Ivy.” He motioned to the garden. “Lay ‘er with yer mum and brother.”

  “After ya kill her?!”

  “It’s fer a greater good!” He nodded, as if trying to convince himself of the statement. Then he motioned to the orchard and the surrounding countryside. “A greater good. It’s fer Stafford. Fer us. It’s… f-fer the Grayson’s and they pigs. A-and ol’ Norm Hatchens’ corn fields. It’s fer everyone! A sacrifice was needed. That’s what they said. And I-I done volunteered. I done offered up my best crops.” Again, he motioned to the garden and the plot of earth.

  “They were our family!”

  He nodded and I glimpsed tears in his eyes.

  The air was unusually still. The crickets and toads had grown silent, their evening choruses halted so as to observe the unfolding.

  Pa looked off, over the grove, toward the harvest moon. He wandered past me, the rifle hanging at his side, and into the edge of the orchard. As he spoke, his words seemed to lull him into his own trance.

  “No one knows where she come from. Only that she came with… a promise. It’s an old thing. Older ‘n Stafford. Older ‘n them burial mounds down ‘n Grace County. Some say it goes back ta Bible times. Cain ‘n Abel. Adam and Eve. Just as the first Man come from the earth and went back ta it, she come from the rock and soil. Hell, she always been there. She ain’t never left it. And she’s always waitin’ ta consume what we return.”

  He stood with his back to me, staring off across the moonlit grove.

  “She goes by all kinda names. The Dark Mother. Winter-maker. The Crone. But they all just dif’fernt designations fer the same thing. They just puttin’ a name ta somethin’ what can’t be named. Far as I can tell, it’s all about patterns, seasons. Like a science. ‘Cept this one started way before there was ‘lectricity and engines. We’re just carryin’ on a long tradition.”

  He turned around. Moisture glistened on his cheeks.

  “She’s the dyin’ of the season, Owen. When the winter comes, she’ll nourish ‘erself on ‘em.” He motioned to the plot in the garden. “And in return, reward us with her harvest.”

  Like the colliding of storms, anger and wonder warred inside me. I could not conceive the process by which a man such as my father had come to articulate such madness. Or was it madness? Had some form of living being, some creature or god, truly been conjured from the sacred soil?

  We stood looking upon each other, neither knowing what turn to take. That’s when yellow eyes appeared in the shadows of the grove behind him. I gasped. As they fanned toward us, the moonlight revealed their matted coats and mottled fur. Open jaws rimmed with foam, revealing teeth and hunger. First there was three, then four. I could smell them as they neared, the stink of wet fur and disease. The closer they got, the more rose their guttural growl.

  “Pa!” I shouted.

  But he’d heard them. Raising his shotgun, he turned around and aimed it at the pack of rabid dogs approaching us.

  “Run, Owen. Y’hear?”

  “Pa, I—”

  “Go on! Ain’t all of us need ta die! Now git, boy!”

  But I did not run.

  It was providential that this should unfold upon the very spot that I’d found Jefferson dead. For it was his memory that reinforced my decision to act.

  I ran into the garden, stomping a trellis of winterberries on the way, and snatched up one of the lanterns burning round the plot. Their hot glow sent shadows dancing wildly across the ground. Before I wound up to cast my lantern at the beasts, I glimpsed the eyeless harvest doll. And stopped.

  It was moving.

  No, it was the earth around me moving.

  I nearly fell as clods of earth burst at my feet. The soil churned as roots and tendrils slithered forward, fanning out around me, racing from the garden toward the orchard.

  Directly towards Pa.

  I was too busy struggling for footing to warn him. I dropped the lantern and it burst into flame, igniting the harvest doll in the process. As I tumbled free of the upheaval, I turned to see that the dogs had fled into the night. But not for fear of my father, for he had fallen to his knees. The earth around him seethed like water in a boiling kettle.

  I ran that way, knowing that judgment most surely had reached its verdict.

  Pa was already lifted from the earth when I got there, hanging like a scarecrow on its post. I can’t say it was limbs or branches that twined him, more like hands and arms stitched of bark and moss and roots. They grappled his body something terrible. Horrid gurgling sounds left his twisted lips. And his eyes bulged, as if to burst from their sockets.

  “Pa! No! Pa!” But I could do nothing. My cries descended into sobbing.

  The shotgun had fallen from his hands. Before the earth could consume it, I retrieved it and stood off, watching as the Crone appeared.

  She was nothing more than a stump, really. No more human than a bluegill or the fat earthworm you would catch it with. Yet she swelled up from the earth bringing grubs and larvae with her. Her malignant tangles embraced my father, infusing themselves into his cords and sinews. A gory fissure opened in her trunk and she looked upon him with many eyes. They swelled as she sluiced life from his sustenance.

  Had this sight been less wondrous, I would have turned away in terror. Yet even more pitiful than the sight of her, was that one would sacrifice their riches for her service.

  Pa had nearly stopped writhing when I approached the creature. The harvest moon bathed us in its light. I checked to ensure that both barrels were loaded, and then pressed the shotgun into the Crone’s diseased trunk.

  Its eyes followed me. All of them. It was then that I saw her face. The pitiful bowed nose. Blisters of disease oozing forth. Shriveled pods and mold. Perhaps once she was a god. But not now.

  I wanted to say something as I pulled the trigger, pronounce some final benediction upon this wraith. Yet I do not recall making such a pronouncement. For her shrieks filled the air. The earth belched and she writhed like some giant serpent. My father fell limply as her hideous cries echoed through the orchard. And the wreckage of her frame grew still. Nothing more than dead stump.

  I stood m
omentarily numb in the quiet night.

  “Owen,” my father croaked. “Ow…ugnnn…”

  I dropped the shotgun and knelt over him

  “Pa!”

  He was terribly torn. Blood streaked his cheeks and his limbs contorted at unnatural angles. Still, he managed to roll over onto his back.

  “I killed her, Pa! I think I killed her!”

  He choked out something illegible. Then he raised his arm and pointed toward the garden.

  “What is it? Pa!”

  “Owen.”

  “I’m here!” I touched his bloodstained cheeks. “Pa, what is it?”

  “Owen… b-bury…” He inhaled deeply and then forced out his last words. “Bury me… in th’ garden.”

  With that his body folded over.

  I remained before him for a long while, weeping, wishing it had not come to this. The moon was directly overhead when I rose, took the shotgun, and looked out across the orchard. ‘Ol Gander cried out in the distance, which seemed to signal the crickets and toads to rejoin their choruses. I looked long at the plot in the garden. The harvest doll had burnt out. Only the lanterns remained lit. So, I extinguished them.

  #

  Aunt Jean came down when she heard we were alone. She seemed none too saddened by Pa’s passing. We held his funeral at the Chapel. Many nice things were said about him. Still, some whispered and cast evil eyes in my direction. When they buried him, I remained at the cemetery until the last turn of earth. Walter’s daddy seemed to mind me watching him and unfurled a host of imprecations throughout the digging. No matter, Pa was buried next to Mum and Jefferson. At least, the spots where they were supposed to be.

  When I returned home, I was greeted by Ivy. She was sitting on the porch in her wheelchair. Her speech had not quite returned, but the light in her eyes told me it would. She looked out upon the east orchard. It was already turning brown.

  MIKE DURAN is a novelist, blogger, and speaker, whose short stories, essays, and commentary have appeared in Relief Journal, Relevant Online, Bewildering Stories, Rue Morgue, Zombies magazine, Breakpoint, and other print and digital outlets. He is the author of THE GHOST BOX (Blue Crescent Press, 2014), which was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best indie novels of 2015 and first in a paranoir series that continues with SAINT DEATH (2016), a Southern Gothic Horror short WICKERS BOG (2016), a short story anthology SUBTERRANEA (Blue Crescent Press, 2013), the supernatural thrillers THE TELLING (Realms May 2012) and THE RESURRECTION (Realms, 2011), an e-book fantasy novella entitled WINTERLAND (Amazon digital, Oct. 2011), and a non-fiction exploration on the intersection between the horror genre and evangelical fiction entitled CHRISTIAN HORROR (Blue Crescent Press May 2015). You can learn more about Mike Duran, his writing projects, cultural commentary, philosophical musings, and arcane interests, at www.mikeduran.com.