Cades Cove 01 - Cades Cove: A Novel of Terror (44 page)

“
Hand me her bag.”

David carefully lifted the bag and gave it to her. She loosened the leather strap, and a foul odor rose into the air. It seemed whatever caused the previous scents died, and decomposition had set in. They all grimaced from the pungent smell as Evelyn placed the deerskin and feather inside. She closed the bag and handed it back to him, and he returned it to its original spot on the table.

“
We’re done with the first part.”

She turned to another page and read the next series of incantations, her finger showing she repeated some phrases over and over before moving onto the next marked page. From what he could tell, she had between thirty to forty more pages marked in the book. He flipped back to the first page of the notepad and studied the words she told him to look for.

“
It’ll be awhile before she gets to those phrases,” said John. “Right now she’s undoing Allie Mae’s web, removing it strand by strand.” He looked up and his eyes moved from one end of the ceiling to the other.

“
You can see it?” David glanced up at the ceiling but saw nothing.

“
Yes, I can,” he confirmed. “For several days I’ve noticed it around you. It’d been there before, when you first arrived this week, but only faintly. Now it’s much more pronounced, and I can tell you it’s a terrible feeling to see something and be unable to do anything about it.”

David thought of the spirit’s visitations, wondering how terrible they would’ve been if he had John or Evelyn’s ability to see beyond physical reality. The ceremony continued, and the next time he looked over to see her progress, less than half of the bookmarks remained. She suddenly stopped talking and leaned her head back. He moved to keep her from falling, but John stopped him.

“
Evelyn’s guides are in full control now. Trust me…let her be.”

She leaned back at what appeared to be a painful angle, but her body stayed relaxed and the chair stable. Slowly she sat up. As she did, her eyes rolled up into her head.

Despite how impossible it seemed, she looked down at the book and turned the page to the next bookmark. The voice emanating from her now was much deeper and gruff in timbre.

“
One of her guides has chosen to take over,” whispered John. “Don’t be alarmed, since it usually means the guide feels they can provide additional help to vanquish the asgina.”

The word ‘
dunuwa
’ resounded three times from Evelyn’s open throat, signaling they’d reached the ceremony’s midpoint. Three loud thuds shook the roof in response. John and David glanced above them, nervous. Evelyn’s visitor paid no atten-tion to the disturbance, moving onto the next bookmark a few pages over.

“
The guide has broken through her web,” said John. “And like a spider busy perfecting the rest of its snare, Allie Mae has returned to try and mend the break. But she won’t be able to do it. Be prepared for her anger to escalate.”

Evelyn’s guide continued to move through the next few passages from the book, speaking the incantations with ever increasing force and determination. As John predicted, the ghost fought hard to keep her ground, sending forth scratching noises and knocks across the ceiling in a desperate attempt to repair her trap for David.

Undeterred, the guide continued reciting passages with crisp enunciations of the ancient Cherokee spells. The confrontation between the guide and Allie Mae’s angry responses grew more intense, until all at once what sounded like a chorus of voices shouted a long litany that ended with
“Dayuha hinehi-hinida’we utsina
wa!”
The chorus resounded fiercely from Evelyn’s throat while her body convulsed in her chair. Even so, she still clung to David’s hand. He almost let go, but John urged him to hang on, warning it provided the only means for her guides to fight for him.

“
Here’s what they just told the entity,” explained John. “They said, ‘now your soul fades away—your spirit shall grow less and dwindle away, never to reappear. Let her be completely veiled in loneliness—O Black Spider. May you hold her soul outside the web, so that it never returns to thrive in the meshes. Forever she shall dwell in the depths of hell, oh evil one!’”

David found the incantation confusing. It sounded to him like they called on some other menace, as what else could it mean to summon the aid of something like ‘O Black Spider’ or ‘oh evil one’?

“
There’s good and there’s bad, and both forces exist throughout the universe,” said John, sensitive to David’s confusion and seeking to quickly explain the seeming inconsistency. “There’s a higher power different from what you or I might call upon, and it governs the realm where Allie Mae’s spirit resides. It’s part of the great mystery in our world.”

Evelyn lurched forward and another chorus erupted from her, as if a stream of invisible vomit launched into the air above. Her convulsions increased until the chorus ended. Afterward her body went limp, her grip on David’s hand tenuous. She slumped with her head buried in her arms next to the book, her eyes shut. She stayed like this for several minutes. Finally, she stirred.

“
Where are we?” she asked, her voice hoarse from the recent abuse her throat endured. Her eyes now restored to their normal position, the irises were aglow from energy beyond her own.

“
You’re near the end.” John’s smile loving, his expression revealed his relief. “There’s only a few passages left, since your guides took care of the hardest part.”

“
So, Allie Mae hasn’t forced her way inside the cabin yet?” She sounded hopeful.

“
Not that we can tell,” said David, looking to John for confirmation.

“
Go ahead and finish the incantations, so we can get ready to visit the cove,” said John. He pointed to his watch, which read 10:38 p.m.

She sat up straight and took a sip from her coffee, now cold. After a few deep breaths, she rubbed her hands together and returned her left one to David’s grasp. She found her place in the book, noticing only a few bookmarks left. Before she finished reciting the first line of the incantation, three more loud thumps shook the front door.

David turned to look behind him, his anxious eyes scanning the front of the cabin for what might occur next. Evelyn paused long enough to draw his attention back to the ceremony, and then resumed. The pounding resounded again, louder this time. She picked up her pace, moving swiftly through the passage but speaking the mysterious words clear and with passion.

A similar assault visited the back door. When it failed to dissuade her from her task, both doors shook simultaneous. John cast an uneasy glance toward the fireplace. The fire still burned strong, but for good measure he went over to the stacked hickory logs, throwing another large log onto the hearth. By the time he returned, Evelyn had reached the final incantation. She shouted the phrase containing the word ‘
aduniga
’ with enthusiasm, and followed this with ‘
Yuhahi! Yuhahi!
Yuhahi!
’

One last slam pushed the back door inward enough to creak painful on its hinges, and then a low, sad sigh followed. Everything grew eerily quiet outside. Even the wind disappeared, leaving the steady pops from the fire the most noticeable sounds.

“
It’s finished!” John announced, triumphant. He started to rise from his seat.

“
Not yet, Grandpa,” advised Evelyn, her weary voice revealing her exhaustion. “We…still must apply the pastes to David’s face and hands.”

John sat back down, glancing at the clock. 10:56 p.m.

“
Turn and face me,” she told David.

He turned his chair directly in line with her. She took the brush resting on the edge of the water bowl in front of the one containing the rust colored paste. She dipped the brush in the water, and after she pressed the bristles against the side of the bowl to remove the excess, she pushed the dampened end of the brush slowly through the slender candle’s flame. A tendril of smoke arose from the bristles, and once it disappeared into the air, Evelyn dipped the brush into the paste. She passed it around the candle and over toward his face.

“
Close your eyes and picture your success…your triumph over the entity.”

He did as instructed, and felt the warmth of the paste as she streaked it from the bridge of his nose onto the right side of his face.

“
Without opening your eyes, hold out your hands with your palms faced downward.”

David felt the same warmth from the paste as she drew a cross on the back of his right hand. He heard the brush being returned to the bowl and another picked up.

“
It’s time for the end of things to come, the conclusion of Allie Mae’s reign in the world of the living. May she return to darkness from whence she came. Think about this, David.”

He pictured the black paste being administered to his face and left hand, the smoke rising from the brush’s bristles as it passed through the next candle’s flame near the cloth bag. Surprised the paste felt cooler than the other one streaked onto his face, a similar cross soon followed on the back of his left hand.

“
We’re almost done. May you find peace and be granted happiness. It’s our sincere prayer that Allie Mae’s soul also finds peace.”

The stir of water and the soft crackle of another brush’s bristles moving through the flame of the last slender candle confirmed the third step in the ritual he couldn’t see. Soon, the warmest of the pastes touched his forehead, crossing from one temple to the other. He envisioned the white line, and how it contrasted with the other two streaks on his face.

“
Go ahead and open your eyes.”

Evelyn and John smiled. She held out a small mirror so he could see his reflection. The pastes brushed on thicker than he envisioned, the white one the most dominant on his face. Somewhat like an Indian warrior, the other two streaks met up perfectly on the bridge of his nose and extended to his eyes’ outer edges.

“
I probably should’ve waited for you to put on your coat first, but I’ll help you slip it on to avoid smudging anything,” said Evelyn. “We need to get going since it’s already ten after eleven.”

Evelyn blew out the candles one by one and John retrieved their coats from the guestroom. He helped her place the arms of David’s coat over his hands to protect the ritual’s artwork. She then placed Allie Mae’s bag inside the coat’s lower right pocket. Ready to leave, it took each of them giving Shawn an obligatory belly scratch as he lay sprawled out on the living room floor to keep him from following them outside.

The temperature had steadily grown colder since dusk, now in the low thirties, leaving a thin layer of frost on the windows of all three vehicles. The night clear and tranquil, a yellow-tinted moon just four days past its fullness illuminated the front of John’s property.

“
Let’s take my car,” he suggested.

David and Evelyn followed him to his cruiser and climbed in, she in front and he in the back. John started the engine, but it shut off after he let it idle. He tried again. The engine sputtered and died once more. Irritated, since the engine was recently tuned up for the coming winter, he prepared to try one more time. The dashboard lights flickered and died.

“
I don’t think this has anything to do with the maintenance on your car, Grandpa,” said Evelyn. “We’ll take my car.”

She climbed out of the cruiser and walked over to her car, less than twenty feet away. With her keys pointed to disable the alarm, she reached for the door with John and David behind her. Someone sat up in the front seat, glaring at her through the frosted tinted glass.

David only caught a glimpse of the intruder’s shadowed face peering out through the driver’s side window, but Evelyn and John saw it clearly. She screamed in surprise and fell back into her grandfather. They stumbled to where David stood, while the Nissan’s horn blared loudly.

The car shook violently, the small dream catcher hanging from the rearview mirror slapping against the windshield while fast-food napkins and other paper items floated in the air inside the vehicle. Evelyn and John froze where they stood, likely never expecting an outright invasion of Evelyn’s personal property and space.

David’s shoulders slumped in defeat, and he wondered what else could go wrong. But then a strange sensation overwhelmed him, a surge of power and malice unlike anything he’d ever known. Along with the feeling came new thoughts...and a determination, to take charge of the situation.

“
Come with me!” he told them, and ran over to his rented LeSabre.

David unlocked the driver’s side door and threw it open. He climbed inside and started the car, prepared for it to stall like John’s cruiser, but believing for some reason it wouldn’t. The engine revved to life and held steady while it idled. Evelyn and John ran over and joined him in his car. She sat in the front passenger seat while John sat behind her in the back. The assault on the Nissan ceased.

“
We’ve still got time to do this,” said David, the tires screeching as he raced down the road toward the park’s main thoroughfare. He looked in his rearview mirror expecting the Nissan or some vestige of the spirit’s presence in pursuit, but saw only the empty moonlit road behind him.

“
You’ll need my directions, since it can be tricky to navigate in the dark,” said John.

“
No…’don’t think I will,” said David. “I can get us there just fine.”