“I’ll make it brief,” Iris said, seeming to float rather than rise from her seat. She looked at Ruby. “I know some of you are very pressed for time tonight.”
Iris was a regal, handsome woman, but not in a conventional way. Her attractiveness was expressed in the comfort she had with herself, in her long, gray hair that fell past shoulders in a single braid, in the expression lines of her middle-aged face, tanned from countless hours spent in her herb garden.
She began by passing around a wooden amulet, about the size of a silver dollar, depicting a tree overarched by a crescent moon.
“As you know,” she said in her calm, soothing voice, “it’s now late October, a month after the Autumnal Equinox, a time known as Samhain to the ancient Celts. Herdsmen gathered in their cattle and farmers harvested their fruits and vegetables, hopeful the sun’s nourishing light wouldn’t abandon them during the dark winter months ahead. And it was Hallowmas, a time when spirits were believed to enter the earthly realm through the between places, where water meets land, where mountain meets sky, where spirits rise from ancient waters to walk freely about the earth until dawn.”
Harley and Patrick were entranced by Iris’s presentation, but it seemed to hold no interest for the remaining historical society members: Ruby Montgomery released a yawn, Pearl Johnson excused herself to the restroom, Arthur Johnson slept, Savannah Swanson played on her cell phone, and Hazel Moses stared at her folded hands, still nursing her wounds.
Iris continued: “And when our Scots-Irish ancestors settled these mountains in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they brought those beliefs with them, appropriating them to our Appalachian landscape. You see, they believed that during Samhain, spirits came down from the Smoky Mountains at dusk and, carried by the evening mist, they haunted the Tennessee Valley until dawn. People flocked to the rivers and creeks and streams, hoping they might reunite with those they’d lost, those they’d loved, if only for one night. It was an opportunity to say all of the things they’d wanted to say in this life, but had never been given the chance. Then, when the night was over, and the sun began to rise, those spirits left just as they’d come, the mist ushering them back to the mountains once more.”
Patrick interrupted, “And when they reached the top of those mountains, would they be welcomed in heaven?”
Iris shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. It was considered like being in limbo for them, you see. The mountains were like a stairway, of sorts, but one that only led to nothingness. No wings. Not for them. Not yet. Just more climbing.”
Harley hadn’t heard the last of Iris’s statement. Her attentions were focused elsewhere. Nested alongside the dining room table, a series of large windows looked out onto Notchey Creek. The evening drizzle had settled for a moment, and a veil of mist clung to the forest and hills surrounding Patrick’s mansion.
The valley, as it sloped into a hollow beneath the mountains, was, she had to admit, the perfect place for a ghost to dwell. A whole village of spirits, floating about the muted landscape, unseen, unhindered until the sun would rise and the mist would usher them back to the Smoky Mountains once more.
Harley imagined the mist rising over Notchey Creek, and with it, the sun peering into the line of trees beyond the pasture, to the dark places where the spirits hide, among the roots, the craggy excesses, afraid of light, of discovery. Up through the Appalachian foothills they fled, chasing after that mist, that ghostly promise. They dashed through canopies of brilliant maples, touching leaves of amber, gold, and rust, until they reached the abiding silence of the mountains. The thinning air was like a drink of cool mountain water for tired spirits about to make their annual ascent, stack by stack, up those blue-gray mountains to where the mountains meet the sky. This time they would reach paradise, this time they would lay their weary souls to rest.
But as the mist reached the tip of that mountain, it dissipated, like its promise, into nothingness, forming a lavender ribbon at the crest of the heavens. And from that mountaintop, those spirits looked down into the valley, as Sisyphus had peered down the mountain knowing his fate—one of toil and false hope—and then they prepared themselves for yet another journey.
“But aren’t we all like that?” Harley asked, speaking her thoughts before she realized it. “Aren’t we all like those spirits in the legend? Trapped in a limbo of sorts, reliving our memories, our pasts, day after day. And so we craft wings, we build golden staircases, whatever it takes to find peace, to find freedom.”
Patrick turned and gazed at her intently. “So, you’re saying we’re all haunted, in a sense?”
“I guess haunted’s a good word for it.” She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “I do believe in ghosts, Dr. Middleton, but not the kind the ancient Celts believed in.”
“Yes,” Iris said, returning to her seat. “Yes, I think I understand very well what you mean, Harley. You’re referring to the ghosts we create in our minds.”
Harley rested her elbows on the table and gazed at Iris and Patrick inquisitively. “Do you think conscious awareness is a gift or a curse?”
“Well,” Iris said, “I suppose it’s what separates us from the animals. Makes us human. But on closer thought, it sounds like it could be a curse … at least in some ways. Our memories can be a curse.”
“Some memories,” Harley said, “but others may be all we have left of our past, of our loved ones. And those memories, good or bad, can come to us either bidden or unbidden. All we have to do is experience a particular sound, an aroma, a sight, and they come back to us as if they’d only occurred yesterday.”
Harley breathed in deeply and closed her eyes. A memory was forming, a brief return to a sunny afternoon from her childhood. She was seated on her mother’s lap in one of her grandfather’s chairs. Her mother’s voice was soft and gentle as she read a book to her, and she smelled of warmth and safety and lilacs. Always lilacs.
She thought of the ghosts of Notchey Creek, and as she imagined the creek coursing through the region’s land and its history, she realized it did not matter to her whether the creek was haunted or not, because she knew she would never find her mother there.
“Well, for me,” Patrick said, pulling Harley from her reverie, “memories are a curse. They’ll always be a curse.”
Then he rose from his seat and slapped his folder down on the table, bringing the others to attention. “Now, if there isn’t anything else, I’ll call this meeting adjourned.” He motioned toward the kitchen. “Tina’s prepared bourbon beef stew and buttermilk biscuits for dinner—or supper, rather—and a pumpkin pie for dessert. Help yourselves.”
A sound interrupted them, a noise so jarring Harley flinched in her seat. Hazel Moses looked up for the first time, and Arthur Johnson nearly fell out of his chair.
“What was that?” Savannah asked.
“It sounded like glass shattering,” Hazel said, pointing. “In the living room.”
“It’s probably just trick-or-treaters,” Ruby said. “Didn’t you leave any candy out for them, Patrick?”
Patrick ignored Ruby and stood, the members forming a single file line behind him as he exited the dining room.
A cold draft whistled in from the living room. Upon closer inspection, they could see where the window had been shattered. On the floor, lying in a bed of broken glass, was a rock, a note attached to it.
Patrick removed a handkerchief from his pocket and lifted the rock, all of the meeting attendees looking over his shoulder.
STOP NOW OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES, it read.