Scrapped

Vera’s sweaty hands felt the cool steering wheel sliding beneath them. What a day. She glanced in her rearview mirror to see if Cookie was still behind them. She had insisted on following them to the nearest tire shop. Then they would have to turn around and head back to Cumberland Creek. “That doughnut of a tire is not going to take you up these mountain roads. It’s closer to the nearest shop than it is to go back,” she’d said.

And she’d left the man to walk the rest of his journey along the dusty mountain roads—which was fine with Vera and the rest of the women in the car, all of them thinking how incongruous that he was dressed like an Old Order Mennonite and yet was wearing earrings. But Annie was the only one who had seen the rune earring.

Damn. Annie, of all people. She’d been seriously spooked by the whole hollow. And who could blame her, really? It didn’t take long for any of them to make the leap from the rune in his ear to the possibility of him being the killer of those two young women—as irrational as it was. Now that Annie knew more about runes, his weird earring was hard for them to shake. So, Vera wouldn’t be seeing her aunt Rose today. Her mom was in the backseat on the cell phone, now explaining the tire situation. At least they were back in cell phone range.

“After we get the tire on, I’m heading over to the police station,” Vera told them. “I think we need to tell Detective Bryant about that man.” She looked at Annie for some response, but she was staring out the window, deep in thought and pale. “Did you hear me, Annie?”

“Yes, yes, I heard you,” she said and went back to staring.

“Well, that’s that. We’ll have to go up next Sunday,” Beatrice said, clicking her cell phone shut.

“Busy weekend with Halloween coming up,” Vera told her. “But I guess we could squeeze a trip in on Sunday.”

“If we are not sacrifices to the gods of Halloween,” Beatrice said, grinning.

Cookie had invited them to a Halloween ritual. She called it samhain and pronounced it “sow-hane.” After trick-or-treating and once Elizabeth was asleep, the women were going to gather in Vera’s living room for a real “witch” ritual.

“It’s my favorite ritual. It’s our new year and the time we remember our loved ones who’ve died. I want each of you to bring a photo or an object that belonged to someone you loved that has died. It will be wonderful to share this with you,” Cookie had said.

“Sounds silly to me,” DeeAnn had remarked. “But if there’s a feast after, I’m in!”

The vegetarian potluck feast had hooked Vera, too. Besides, what was the difference between this ritual and any number of rituals she’d participated in at the local Baptist church? She trusted Cookie wouldn’t be conjuring evil spirits or sacrificing chickens. But she wasn’t sure what to expect.

She pulled into the Jiffy Lube.

“Finally,” Beatrice said. “Could you drive any slower?”

Vera ignored her. Driving with the doughnut of a wheel was not easy—no matter what her mother thought. Besides that, Vera was a little shaken. A flat tire was one thing, but that Luther guy was an oddball. Oh, sure, he helped them out and was nice about it. Dressed in the simple clothes of an Old Order Mennonite man and not being Mennonite? What was going on in that hollow?

The women made themselves at home with the free coffee in the waiting area while the car was in the shop. Vera took a sip and loved the way the coffee’s warmth traveled down to her stomach. It seemed to be getting colder, instead of warmer, throughout the day. The skies were tinged with murky gray. Was it going to rain? Snow?

Annie sat down next to Cookie and pulled out her notebook. Cookie elbowed her as she turned to speak to Beatrice, who was sitting on the other side of her. All of Annie’s things went flying. All the women bent to help her pick them up.

“What’s that?” Cookie gasped, picking up a loose page from the floor.

“Let’s see.” Annie looked it over. “Ah, those are the symbols that were carved into the bodies of those young women. The runes. I think this is the one that was painted on Bea’s house.”

Cookie’s face whitened. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

“What is it?” Beatrice said.

“It was the same symbol on both of the women?” Cookie asked.

“Yes. On their arms and backs. I thought you said you didn’t know much about them,” Annie said, still gathering her papers.

“I don’t know many of them,” Cookie said. “But I think I know those symbols.”

“Well, for God’s sake, Cookie. If you know something, spit it out,” Vera said.

“What I know about runes is the simple divination patterns. That in itself is kind of controversial. I’m sorry I didn’t see the combination before. Anyway, some scholars think it was more of a language than a divination tool,” Cookie said. “But this looks like the Three Lifetimes Spread, which is what a rune reader would use to portray character.”

“And?” Vera said.

Cookie placed the paper on the floor. “You see, it’s five symbols.” She pointed to each of them and counted. “The center rune is your present character, the top rune is your future lives, the bottom rune is your past lives—”

“Lives?” Annie said. “Reincarnation?”

Cookie nodded. “The left rune is your future in this life, and the right rune is your birth or childhood.” She paused, running her long, skinny fingers across the page. “If a rune is reversed, it has the opposite meaning from the upright rune. We have a reversed rune here at the bottom. Nauthiz reversed, which would mean ‘bringer of pain, suffering.’ Here’s another reversed one. Um, I think it’s called Fehu, which would mean something like ‘mindless joyousness that should be avoided at all costs.’”

“That’s the one they painted on your house, isn’t it?” Vera said, squinting her eyes.

Beatrice nodded. “What about this one? I like this one,” she said, pointing at the center of the page.

“That is called Uruz, which means ‘strong woman,’ ‘wild ox,’ ‘darkness,’” Cookie replied.

“How could it mean all three of those things?” Vera said.

“They weren’t meant to be read in English or even taken literally, Vera. Stay with me here,” Cookie said and paused. “This rune is Wunjo reversed. That means ‘a crisis, difficult passage, or an absence of joy.’ The top rune is Isa, or ice, ‘something that impedes or a kind of spiritual winter.’”

“What does it all mean?” Annie said.

“It’s obvious,” Beatrice said. “It means a strong, stubborn woman who needs to be tamed. You came about from much darkness and tragedy, and you offer joys of the flesh that only cause trouble. You have left pain in your path wherever you’ve been, and ahead of you is only coldness and loneliness.”

“Beatrice, you are a woman of many talents,” Cookie said and smiled.

“Humph,” Beatrice said. “It’s not brain surgery, my dear.”