Benethea Mattox was not raised to be a fool. Yet here she was, fishing a skinny, barely breathing white lady out of a river. She hauled the waterlogged woman up the steep banks of the backwater creek, taking her time on the muddy incline under the bridge. It was probably the stupidest thing she had done in the whole four years since she had moved out to Kiron, and that was saying something.
The thing was Kiron lay along the western Virginia border, nestled deep in Appalachia—there was nobody else coming down this road, and Bennie would be damned if she called the cops before trying to help someone herself. Besides, the woman didn’t seem to be in danger of dying. Her heartbeat was steady, if slow, and her lips weren’t blue, so she heaved the half-drowned woman on her back and slowly, carefully carried her up the bank. The lady was thin as a reed and weighed nearly the same. Bennie had once carried her two little nephews up a mountain when her brother-in-law said Bennie couldn’t do it. One limp, non-braid-pulling woman was nothing she couldn’t handle.
At the bridge where she had pulled over, Bennie arranged the strange-looking woman as best she could in the bed of her ten-year-old truck. She might be a bleeding heart, but she didn’t want to put a stranger next to her in the small front cabin, just in case the lady woke up and immediately freaked. There was still a leftover moving blanket in the truck bed, and she nestled the lady in as best she could.
There was something off-putting about her—beyond the weird dress she wore or her messily cropped coal-black hair or even the fact that Bennie had pulled her out of the goddamn river. She seemed . . . faded. Drained, or something. Her features seemed smudged, as if her cheekbones should be sharp and ended up rounded out. Bennie stared at her, trying to figure if she had seen her around, if she looked like any of the maybe two dozen families that had lived in Kiron for centuries.
Her nose was a little crooked—maybe it broke when she was a kid and healed bad. She was pretty, if you were into thin ex-cult ladies who needed a good shower. Bennie noticed a nick in her ear, like a dog’s after it had been caught in a bad bind.
She rubbed at her own nose, pulled her cap over her braids, and jogged around to the front seat. Before Bennie touched her keys, she took a deep breath and leaned forward, putting her forehead on the steering wheel. Her heart was beating fit to burst, loud and insistent.
What in the hell was wrong with her? As soon as she had seen the shape washed up on the rocks, she had been hoping to find a dead body, or a body part, or something damning. She had been disappointed when she had scrambled down and found the woman still breathing on the edge of the slough creek, downriver from one of the White Rock Mining Company’s boreholes, and looking nothing like a miner.
Because a miner’s body could be pinned on White Rock. Or at least garner enough suspicion to get an injunction to stop work in Kire Mountain for a minute. She was desperate enough to go after dead bodies in Appalachian rivers to prove what she knew: White Rock was letting their miners die in the dark.
Instead, she had a real, live, breathing lady in the bed of her truck, dirt all on her boots, and none on the mining company.
Bennie took another deep breath, pushing down her panic. She needed to get the strange lady to a hospital, and that was that. She could wonder about corpses later. She fumbled with her keys, annoyed that her hands were shaking as she put the car key in the ignition. The truck turned over, groaning.
“All right, I know,” Bennie murmured, pulling onto the barely paved country road. “Oil change this week.”
She glanced at the rearview mirror, adjusting it so that she could see the woman’s arm where Bennie had placed it over her chest. As long as she drove slowly, the woman should be fine.
Bennie took a deep breath and looked forward again. It was nearly twenty minutes into town, and she could only hope that urgent care was open. She couldn’t even call to check—service in the mountains was spotty even on good days.
As Bennie drove over a bump in the road, she winced, glancing at her mirror. The lady’s arm had moved, but that was probably because of the pockmarked drive. The trees lining the road seemed to arch over them, growing denser as she drove.
Bennie swallowed and glanced back at the woman again, her palms sweaty against the steering wheel. There was a regret like cigarette smoke curling through her heart, thick and choking. She had an unconscious woman in her truck. What the fuck had she been thinking?
Honestly, what was she even doing mudlarking in the White Rock Creek, anyway? The river was full polluted after years of being used as a slough by the company, so she was much more likely to get an infection than she was to find anything that might hint at the mining company’s negligence. And the odds of her finding anything in that damn waste was next to nothing. But failure had made her fearless. She had been trying to find out what happened in the mines after Kelly-Anne died for near on six months. Beyond that, it had been over a year since she and her best friend had first started to suspect that White Rock was covering something up in the mines. She needed something, and at this point, she was willing to do some extremely stupid shit to find it.
But this? This was bad. This was so, so bad. It didn’t matter that pulling the woman out of the creek was the right thing to do; there was no way that this was going to end well. The woman didn’t even have shoes.
Bennie slowed through a turn, and a flash of movement crossed her mirror. She glanced up and saw the woman rising, standing up on the truck bed. Bennie’s eyes widened. She slowed, and as she turned to tell the crazy white lady to sit down, the woman jumped out and ran into the woods.
Bennie cursed, slammed the brakes, left the keys angrily beeping at her, and ran after the woman.
“Hey!”
God, she was fast—hadn’t she just been unconscious ten minutes ago? Bennie could barely keep up with her, even though she was tearing through the underbrush in a sturdy boilersuit and work boots, and this woman was in rags and bare feet. Around her, the Appalachian forest was thick grown with massive oaks and hickory, the spring ferns and weeds running bramble on the ground. Bennie turned around, trying to find any hint of the woman. She spotted movement and, decidedly ignoring the fact that this was hungry-bears-outta-sleep season, ran forward.
“I’m trying to help you!” Bennie yelled, darting around a tree and then under a fallen branch. The wind in the low valley picked up, shaking the spring-green branches, knocking the birches together like hollow chimes. Bennie ran around a large rock and saw the woman fall down, tripping over a piece of the mountain that had been thrust up from the earth.
“Hey, hey, hey, wait now,” Bennie said, walking up slowly, as if talking to a frightened animal. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. You gotta be real scared, right? All I wanna do is help.”
The woman scrambled to get away from Bennie, lips pulled back in a feral sneer. Bennie hesitated. This woman didn’t seem like she had been near death ten minutes ago.
“I’m Bennie,” she said, crouching down. She held up her hands as the woman backed up against an outcropping of rock, the moss yielding to her shoulders. “I want to take you to the ER.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. They were coal dark, nearly black.
“Please, I know we just met, but please trust me.”
The woman whispered something that Bennie couldn’t hear. Under Bennie’s foot, something moved. She jumped, worried for a second that she’d crouched on a covered-up rabbit warren or snake. As she backed up, the loam under her feet slipped under the treads of her boots. She began to sink.
Shocked, Bennie looked up at the woman, who was standing now, her hands spread slightly. She was murmuring, and the leaves that had pulled Bennie down to her calves in the soft dirt were now crawling up her legs. The paper-thin, silvery shreds of winter climbed up her body, dragging her to the ground, compressing her. Bennie was dragged down to her knees, the leaves sliding toward her like a great slouching wave, traveling up her arms, threatening her mouth. She was being eaten by the undergrowth.
Bennie screamed, panicking, pushing the leaves away. She grabbed onto a branch, heaving herself out of the trap. The litter fell to the ground in tatters. She hiccupped, scrambling back away from the pit that had pulled itself down around her. As she kicked at the ground, the leaves broke into cracking flakes under her feet.
The air smelled sharp and flinty, like a stone breaking. It left as soon as it came, and the leaves were clumped around Bennie’s hands and legs. They were just leaves: some brown, some silver, all dead.
When Bennie looked up, the woman was gone. Breathing hard, Bennie rubbed the back of her wrist against her mouth, her terror receding as she saw the forest calm around her. What in the hell was that?
As she glanced around, her heart in her throat, she saw an indent in the stone where the woman had pressed her shoulders against the lichen-covered surface. It looked like the stone had molded itself around her, as if she had been made a part of the rock. Bennie crawled over and laid her hands against the smooth, concave shape there. It was warm. She looked over the hole that had almost swallowed her. Oak leaves clung to her chest as she stood up on shaking legs.
“What in the holy fuck,” Bennie said, staring at the hollow in the ground. She did not sign up for this.
She covered her eyes for a few seconds before she turned and picked her way back to the road. There was no sign of the madwoman. Fine. Bennie wasn’t about to go wandering on strange property just for the sake of being a good person. She had enough to deal with, and getting run off by dogs or the business end of a shotgun wasn’t part of her ideal morning routine.
Moving around a large oak, Bennie started as a small chipmunk scampered across the toes of her shoes. Jumpy, she pressed her hand to her chest, but not a second later, the strange woman ran right in front of her, chasing the chipmunk. Bennie clapped both hands over her mouth as the woman dove and grabbed the small rodent, tumbling over the shrubs, her back slamming against a tree with a shuddering force Bennie did not expect.
“Seriously?” Bennie gasped. The woman shifted on her knees, holding onto the chipmunk with both hands. She grinned, opening her mouth wide.
“Whoa!” Bennie scrambled after her, holding her hands up, alarm making the blood in her ears ring. She almost tripped as she went onto one knee in front of the lady. “Don’t eat that. Please don’t. I have a weak stomach. I really just . . . I’ve been traumatized enough today. Don’t eat that baby chipmunk in front of me, please.”
The woman, hands still clutching the skittering rodent, looked skeptical, but at least she had shut her mouth. The noise the critter was making was enough to drive Bennie off the edge.
“I’ll get you food, okay? A meal?” Bennie pleaded. She mimed eating, in case the crazy lady was part of some strange sex cult and had only just escaped the bunker. “Food?”
The woman tilted her head slightly. She considered the chipmunk and then Bennie, as if judging whether or not the promise of food was better than the creature she had in her hands. Finally, she nodded and let the chipmunk go.
“Oh, thank God.” Bennie shook her head, stood up, and thought better of offering the woman a hand. “C’mon, there’s a burger joint down the road.”
The woman blinked at her. Then, slowly, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time, as if her throat had calcified, as if her teeth held spiderwebs she was afraid to dislodge, the strange woman spoke.
“What’s a burger?”
x
Sitting in the truck in the parking lot of Happy’s Burgers, Bennie couldn’t stop staring at the odd woman. She seemed blurry, the paleness of her skin running into the gray of her clothing, her features not completely in focus. She had spread the wax paper across her lap and had proceeded to carefully pick apart her burger, examining each individual piece, taking a small bite of everything, and then carefully arranging it back together. Despite the fact that she, not fifteen minutes ago, had been ready to literally eat a chipmunk alive, she seemed reluctant to bite into one of Happy’s famous hamburgers.
Famous for Kiron, anyway. It weren’t like this part of the world got famous for anything other than coal mining, oxy, and rockslides.
“Dig in,” Bennie said, done waiting for the woman to get the bravery to eat. She peeled back the greasy wrapper and tucked into her own meal. That seemed to convince the woman, who shifted in the front seat, made a face, and then followed Bennie’s lead.
It took two bites for the hesitation to disappear. The woman made quick work of the burger and then dug into the fries, putting a whole handful into her mouth. Bennie winced, grateful they stayed in the truck. She hadn’t wanted to sit inside the restaurant with the woman wearing a dress that could generously be called a rag, still waterlogged and slightly gross besides. Sitting the damp lady in her truck was not ideal either, but Bennie could clean her car seats.
“Where you from?” Bennie asked cautiously. Bennie hadn’t managed to get any kind of conversation out of her yet, but maybe food would change that.
“Not sure,” the woman said in between bites. “Here, I suppose. Here, a long time ago.”
Her voice was just as strange as the rest of her. It was hick as any other voice in Kiron, but slower even, a dark, melting beeswax that dripped off her words. A rougher, lower cadence.
“What’s your name?”
“They called me Motheater,” she said, making a motion that looked like she was trying to push back bangs that were no longer there. Bennie took a longer look at her.
Her dress was a dark blue, or a gray, with some kind of embroidery on the half sleeves. There was a suggestion of lace at the ends and around the collar, but it looked like it had been torn away. It wasn’t quite modest enough to be Amish, but it wasn’t fancy enough to be something that the Ren Faire nerds would conjure up.
“Motheater,” Bennie repeated, frowning. She looked up at the young woman, but she had already returned to her fries, eating them one by one, savoring them now that she was near the end of her meal. “Why they call you that?”
“Well, I were a witch and refused to marry. And ’fore that, my father was called a preacher by nigh on the town and a snake charmer by the louts moving in.”
“You’re a witch?” Bennie asked quietly.
Motheater nodded, looking back to her fries. “How else you think I got dead leaves to listen to me, five seasons robbed?”
“I thought that was just the wind? A sinkhole?” Bennie said mildly, trying to offer the woman an out. There was no way in God’s green earth that this half-drowned lady calling herself Motheater was actually a witch.
“Surely you heard of witches?” Motheater chuckled, finishing the last crusty fry. “The world cannot have changed so much.”
“Of course I’ve heard of witches,” Bennie hissed. “But they’re not real. There’s nobody really hovering over a cauldron trying to make a love potion—”
Motheater snorted, smiling down at the greasy paper on her lap.
“Oh, excuse me?” Bennie asked, eyebrows up. “Have I offended you?”
“I half dragged you down into your first grave, and you doubt what I am?” Motheater said, teasing. Bennie saw something in her mouth, a flash, a shine, and it both terrified her and drew her in. “Fine. Take me to a Neighbor, and I’ll prove it.”
“Nope.” Bennie wiped her hands on a napkin, stuffing it into the empty bag. She didn’t know what Motheater meant by “Neighbor,” but it probably wasn’t someone she’d find in the ER. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” Motheater said, voice rising. “I need a Neighbor.”
“Too damn bad,” Bennie muttered. She turned over the truck, and the engine made a rattle that she did not like.
“Please.” Motheater clutched at Bennie’s arm. Bennie shifted toward her and found it hard to look away from Motheater’s onyx eyes. Her face was an odd mix of plaintive and demanding. “I need help no doctor knows how to deliver.”
Bennie stayed quiet, staring at her. Motheater’s hand clutched at her jacket a little harder.
“Take me to a Neighbor, and I will work a miracle,” Motheater said, her voice dark and low. “One made just for you.”
“Why are you so desperate for this, huh?” Bennie asked, her palms starting to sweat. “I don’t even know what a Neighbor is, and I dunno why I should take you to one, even if I knew what you’re after.”
For a second, Motheater looked stricken. “I don’t remember any part of who I am. I only know what I was. I need someone like me, someone who knows how to use magic, who can divine what happened to me. If I am made whole, mind and magic, I can move the whole earth.”
Bennie chewed on the inside of her cheek. Motheater was staring at her, unblinking, her eyes so wide that it was hard not to feel bad for her. She didn’t know if she believed Motheater, but . . . it wouldn’t hurt to play along for a bit. “What kind of miracle?”
“Name it,” Motheater said quickly. “I can feel my power; I know it’s there. I just have to be able to tap into it.”
Nervous, Bennie suddenly felt claustrophobic in her truck. She couldn’t look away from Motheater, from the frayed hem of her dress, her pale skin, her hair sticking up at odd angles. “I want White Rock Mining outta Kiron.” Bennie’s voice seemed to stick to the sides of her throat. “They’re killing people. Have been for years. I want them stopped.”
Motheater nodded, leaning in, assured in a way that was unnatural. The woman might not have known what White Rock was—Bennie wasn’t even sure Motheater knew what year it was—but Motheater seemed to understand the gist of what Bennie wanted. “Get me to a witch, and I will turn them over.”
God. Bennie believed her. Motheater’s conviction was a real thing, nestling in like a seed in her chest. Her heart wouldn’t stop beating fast, and she couldn’t look away from Motheater. She swallowed her hesitation, mouth dry with it.
“There’s a palm reader down the road.” Some of the Baptist women liked going to get a thrill when their husbands were watching football. Bennie pulled out of the parking lot, and Motheater’s hand fell off her arm. “I dunno about a witch, but she’s the best we got.”
Next to her, Motheater curled in her seat. Bennie took a deep breath, her hands tight around the wheel. Miss Delancey would have to be good enough.