The Cabin on Souder Hill Read online

  “The night Pink and I were to pass through, I asked Lulu if she was coming.” Mrs. Souder rinsed her cup in the sink. “I didn’t want to go without her. She told me not to worry, that she would be there when we arrived. I didn’t understand. She explained that reality is fluid, that the existence we believe is the one and only, is merely a single possibility, one choice in our life. She explained that she existed in every reality that I did, as long as we had met in that reality. She said that past and present were merely perceptions, they did not exist in the way we think of them. ‘But what about me?’ I had asked Lulu. ‘What about Pink? Will we run into ourselves in this new reality? Will there be two of each of us in Ardenwood?’ Lulu shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘By traversing the gateway, you are leaving this existence behind and entering a new one, a new choice, as if you had been there all along. Neither of you will remain behind in this reality. It will be as though you instantly vanished from the face of the earth.’ ”

  Michelle recalled Sheriff Fisk saying how Mattie and Pink disappeared, never heard from again. Mrs. Souder came back to the table and sat, wiping her hands on the towel she’d brought with her.

  “Lulu said there was one thing I had to understand though. She told me I would have to carry a talisman to take Pink through. No one could cross the gateway without it, unless they had a guide or helper.”

  “But I did,” Michelle was quick to state. “I came through without a guide. So did Cliff.”

  “I can’t speak for your husband,” Mrs. Souder said, “but you did have a charm. That pentagram in your pocket.”

  Michelle reached into her jeans and brought it out again, remembering how it had been behind the toilet the night she’d gone to look for Cliff. “This?” she said to the old woman. “I found this in the cabin. No one gave it to me.”

  “Someone did,” Mrs. Souder said. “Someone wanted you to have it.”

  “Someone? I don’t . . .”

  Mrs. Souder took the pendant from Michelle and held it in her palm. “This pentagram belonged to Isabelle years ago. She wanted to learn witchcraft, the way of Wicca, and I had given it to her. Unlike Pink, Isabelle was dedicated to the study, probably because her own mother was so opposed to it—Ida thought it was the work of the devil. Isabelle pursued anything, including Pink, that might upset Ida. Lulu and I worked with her. Isabelle read and listened and practiced the whole time she and Pink were falling in love. I should have done something much sooner, but by the time I allowed myself to accept what was happening, it was too late. Lulu had urged me to tell Pink the truth from the beginning, but I couldn’t. Pink would never have understood what Ida and I had done. Lulu said I should at least tell Isabelle, that even though Isabelle would be devastated, she would be strong enough to handle it, and end the affair with Pink. The day I finally told Isabelle, she ripped the pentagram from her neck and threw it in my face. She never spoke to me after that. From that day forth, Isabelle tried to take everything from me, punish Ida and me for what we’d done. I couldn’t blame her. Our deception was a travesty against nature, the very nature I live my life by.”

  Under the avalanche of information, Michelle was barely able to sort through her own questions, working to clarify the ones most pressing in her mind. What did any of this have to do with her? Or Cliff? And how had Cliff passed through this “gateway” if it was impossible without some special charm? Had he found an amulet and absentmindedly shoved it in his pocket the way she had? And now what? Was there a way back? And where was “back,” and what would it be? Would Cassie be there? Alive?

  Mrs. Souder picked up Isabelle’s pentagram. The old woman’s features were taut. “The thing I don’t understand is, why your husband was so different from the way you remembered him? And why he didn’t remember coming through the gateway.”

  “Does Pink remember?” Michelle asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Lulu gave him nothing to carry. She asked if I thought Pink could handle knowing. I knew he couldn’t—it would drive him insane remembering that he’d killed Isabelle then finding her alive. Besides, if he remembered, then it would defeat the purpose of going through to begin with. He would still hate me for my deception, he would still know what Ida and I had done.”

  Mrs. Souder looked up at Michelle, sadness dulling her eyes. “It must be driving you insane as well,” she said to Michelle. “I’m truly sorry.”

  “Then how did Pink come through? I don’t understand.”

  Mrs. Souder reached across the table and took Michelle’s hands, explaining how she and Lulu had tricked Pink into going with her through the woods. They’d waited until Pink was drunk, which he was every night at the cabin, and Mattie begged him to help her find Scout, her golden retriever, that he’d run off and she was afraid he’d tangle with a wild boar and get killed. Pink had initially refused to go, but she knew how much he loved Scout. Eventually he put on his jacket, grabbed his bottle of Jack Daniels, and followed her out the door.

  “It was terrible,” Mrs. Souder told Michelle. “Lulu tried to prepare me for what would happen to Pink when we journeyed through the opening between worlds, but nothing she said came close. Pink was just sick at first, vomiting. Then his legs went weak. He was barely able to walk.”

  Michelle recalled how the chopper pilot had taken sick when he hovered above the dusk-to-dawn light, but Sheriff Fisk and his deputy had seemed fine. But they had never seen the light when they drove down the road.

  “I could handle the illness, but it got so I felt like I was pulling Pink through a meat grinder. He was refusing to get up off the ground, screaming he couldn’t go on,” Mrs. Souder said. “I was sure I was killing him, and was ready to turn back, but I realized I had no idea where we were, couldn’t recognize anything. And that’s when they came.”

  “They?” Michelle said.

  Before Mrs. Souder could explain further, there was a noise from the front of the house. They both turned, the front door opening then slamming shut a moment later, followed by stomping, like someone trying to remove snow from their shoes.

  “Mama?” a voice called through the house. Footfalls tracked down the hall until Pink appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, his features pained and agitated.

  “Pink?” Mrs. Souder said, getting up from her chair.

  Mrs. Souder brushed snow from Pink’s shoulders, while Pink kept pushing her hands away. “Christ, Mama, it’ll melt on its own.” When Pink noticed Michelle, his expression went from irritation to concern.

  “I thought you were in the hospital,” Pink said, looking at his mother, then back at Michelle. “What have we got going on here?”

  “Nothing,” Mrs. Souder said.

  Michelle got up to leave.

  Mrs. Souder put herself between Michelle and the doorway. “You can’t go.”

  Until that moment, Michelle had felt safe in the company of the old woman, but now Mrs. Souder appeared scornful, her brow tightened to thin ridges.

  “I have to go,” Michelle said, dread flowering in her stomach. “I’m leaving in the morning. Early. Going back to Atlanta.”

  Mrs. Souder came closer, her eyes watery, suddenly old, yellow. “You must stay,” she said, speaking the words with emphasis, as if Michelle was supposed to decode some secret message from her intonation.

  When Michelle turned to leave the kitchen, the old woman snagged her wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. “Don’t go, child,” she whispered, “or you will never be free.”

  “Christ, Mama, you’re scaring the poor woman to death,” Pink said. “I’ll drive her home in a few minutes.”

  Michelle wrenched her wrist free from the old woman, unsettled by the red finger marks on her skin. What was this all about? Did the old woman feel she’d told Michelle too much and wasn’t about to let her blab to Sheriff Fisk? It wouldn’t matter anyway since Fisk would never believe the old woman’s story any more than h
e’d believed hers. But Pink’s mother was acting queer. Michelle felt safe with Pink there, but what if he left to go home?

  “I’ll take that ride, Pink,” Michelle said. The old woman seemed to relax then, taking her seat at the kitchen table.

  Pink talked about how strange his evening had gone and seemed to want to talk about Isabelle, bringing her up several times, saying how Isabelle had been calling him all night. Michelle felt like she was intruding. “She told me the damnedest thing tonight, Mama,” Pink said. “It scares me to even repeat it. I’m afraid the white coats’ll come haul her off yonder. Maybe the best thing for her is some time in a padded room though.” Pink tried to laugh, but Michelle could tell he was troubled.

  Michelle excused herself to the bathroom and stood at the sink. She splashed water on her face. Where was Darcy? She wished her sister were here. Darcy was the only sanity left in Michelle’s life.

  When Michelle returned, Pink’s expression had turned dark, the room charged with a metallic hush. Neither Pink nor his mother said a word when she came in and sat down. Mrs. Souder stood, grabbed her cloak off the chair, and went out the back door. Burrito had been sleeping in his bed in the corner. He got up and whimpered where Mrs. Souder had departed. Pink sat staring at the table, his eyes lost in shadow. After a few minutes, he stood up, scratching his wrist.

  “Mama says she can help you,” Pink finally said.

  “I don’t need help. Are you going to drive me up to the cabin? Or I can just . . .”

  “She wants to have a little ceremony for you. Out back.”

  No ceremonies. No nothing. Michelle was almost to the front door when Pink caught her from behind. “Let me go,” she said.

  “I will, but my mama . . . I don’t know . . . she says she can help you. I don’t know how she does it, but she does help some folks, rids them of ailments doctors can’t even cure. She seems scary sometimes with all that talk of hers, the incantations and potions and such, but hell, she’s harmless. What I mean is, she does seem to have powers, but she’d never use them to hurt anyone.”

  Michelle wasn’t so sure. Pink obviously had no idea what his mother, or Isabelle, was capable of.

  Chapter 36

  Burning embers swirled and darted up through the falling snowflakes as Michelle slogged down the hill, her eyes on the distant fire. Pink followed a few steps behind. Mrs. Souder, cloaked entirely in black, with a hood concealing her head and face, stood near the flames in the center of the stone circle, as if she were peering into a trapdoor to hell, her figure straight and fixed as a charred post. Fresh snow collected atop the rounded stones of the circle. Hot, orange light from the blaze illuminated the branches and trees encircling Pink’s mother. When Michelle glanced back at Pink for guidance as to where they were headed, he nodded forward, his eyes pointing her toward the ring.

  Standing at the arbor, Michelle could hear Pink breathing hard from the trek down the slope. Mrs. Souder stood with her back to them, and Michelle wondered if she even knew they were there. Michelle analyzed the bizarre scene, the four small altars festooned with different colored cloths, each altar spaced ninety degrees apart from the other, within the rim of stones. The surface of each altar was adorned with various items: crystals, pinecones, candles. Some had little toy gnomes or mermaids, like something a child might create. Incense burned on one of the altars. There was also a bird’s nest and a wooden bowl with dried leaves, ordinary items that could be found in anyone’s home or yard.

  Mrs. Souder turned to face Michelle and Pink, then stepped forward. She raised her head and Michelle could see her eyes, blank stones in the old woman’s featureless face.

  Pink whispered to Michelle to step forward a few inches but not to pass under the arbor. Michelle considered what Pink had told her coming down the hill: “Just go with whatever happens.” Michelle had thought she could do it, convincing herself she wasn’t afraid. Now she wasn’t sure, with Pink’s mother staring into her eyes, unblinking, as if in a trance. A second later the old woman swept a knife out from under her cloak and held the point against Michelle’s chest. Michelle’s breath caught. She stumbled backward, her retreat halted by Pink’s chest and stomach. She couldn’t move. The point of the curved blade pushed against the material of her jacket. Pink pressed up behind her.

  “Thee who approaches the veil between the worlds, the comfort earth of humankind, and the dread domains of the Lords of the Outer Realm, hast thou the courage to make the assay? For I say verily, thee would fare far better to rush onto my blade and perish than to put forth the effort with fear in thy heart,” the old woman intoned, vapor coming from her mouth, as if she had recently swallowed fire.

  Michelle stood fixed, the point glinting at her chest. Pink whispered to Michelle to repeat his words: “I come in perfect love and perfect trust.” When Michelle recited the phrase, the old woman answered, “All blessed with perfection in love and trust shall be doubly welcome. I grant thee passage through this dread door.”

  Michelle couldn’t move. “I can’t do this. Please, just let me go.”

  Mrs. Souder gazed hard upon her, then leaned forward and whispered to her. “Don’t you want to reunite with Cassie?”

  Michelle drew a deep breath, trying to stiffen her resolve when Mrs. Souder withdrew the knife and stepped back from the arbor. Just then, Pink shoved Michelle from behind with his shoulder, knocking her into the circle. Michelle lost her footing, nearly falling, a dull pain between her shoulder blades where Pink had pushed her. Before Michelle could gain her equilibrium, the old woman rushed forward and kissed her on the lips, hugged her, then spun her three times where she stood. “And thus is everyone first brought into the circle,” the old woman said.

  Pink leaned in close and asked Michelle her sign. “What?” she said.

  “Your sign,” Pink said softly. “You know, Scorpio, Sagittarius . . .”

  “Virgo,” she said.

  Pink seemed to think a moment, until his mother said, “North, Pink.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he mumbled to himself, guiding Michelle toward the altar with the green cloth covered in pinecones and acorns. “I’m a Leo,” he told her, placing her next to the small altar. “So I have to stand . . . let’s see . . .”

  “South,” his mother said. Pink shuffled across the circle, opposite Michelle, wiping the residue of melted snowflakes from his cheeks.

  Once Pink was in place, an interlude of silence followed where Michelle wasn’t sure what to do with her hands. She watched Pink, who was stepping from foot to foot as if his toes were frozen.

  Mrs. Souder raised her palms over the yellow altar to Michelle’s left and spoke, her words rising against the cold air. “Ye Protectors of the Watchtower of the East, ye keepers of the Sky, of all creatures of wing and air, the Star-seeker, the Golden Hawk, the Soaring Sun. We summon you now to stir and rise, witness our rites, breathe safety into our circle. Join us this night, ye wind of life, and be with us now.”

  When the old woman fell silent, the branches above them clicked and rustled under a slight breeze. The old woman gestured with her hands, then turned toward the altar where Pink stood and raised her arms, reciting, “Ye Protectors of the Watchtower of the South, ye keepers of the Fire, the Fiery Dragon of Summer, the Scorching Disc of Noon, the ceaseless Flames of Earth’s own Furnace. We summon you now . . .” Pink’s mother continued, speaking to each direction, turning at last to face the altar where Michelle stood. “Ye Protectors of the Watchtower of the North, ye keepers of the Earth . . .”

  When Michelle closed her eyes, the words entered her like a low current, thrumming beneath her skin. The drone of the old woman’s voice bled through Michelle, into her chest, her stomach, floating her up, detached, as if suddenly unmoored from bone and muscle. Michelle felt a bristle of dread over opening her eyes, fearing that everything would be gone—the circle, Pink, his mother, the woods, her own body—nothing lef
t of the world but a fine, pale mist. Everything fell silent. With her eyes shut tight, even the crackling of wood in the fire had fallen mute. It was then Michelle heard the anomalous timbre of the old woman’s voice, her words seemingly without origin in the world.

  “I call upon Thee, O Mighty Mother of all creatures, purveyor of all abundance—by vein and blood, water and air, through loving breath and beating heart do I invoke your presence, join the flesh of this, Thy loyal servant and priestess. Hail, Aradia! As I lowly bend before Thee with loving sacrifice and adoration, O Powerful One, that I too may rise like a wisp of smoke, who, without Thy very breath, like fire without air, I am forlorn.”

  Sounds rushed back to Michelle’s ears as if a wave long held at sea had suddenly crashed to the shore. Michelle opened her eyes.

  Mrs. Souder faced Michelle. The old woman’s eyes were closed, vapor escaping her parted lips like the final breaths of a dying creature. Michelle glanced past her to Pink, who was blowing heat into his cupped hands, dancing his feet in place as if to conjure warmth from his own impatience.

  “O darksome Mother, true and divine, to Thee I charge you in this sign, my blight of fear, five-pointed star, pure love and bliss.”

  Mrs. Souder withdrew her knife and pointed it toward the night sky, cutting a sign into the air in front of Michelle. Before Michelle could tell what the symbol was, Mrs. Souder spoke again, invoking the Great God Karnayna, asking Him to return to earth. Michelle shut her eyes and let the old woman’s words sweep into her, overtake her. At once the air grew rarified and golden. Great pillows of clouds poured across a vast and vacant ocean. Mountains like pyramids rose slowly from the sea, exploding with green trees and velvety shrubs, cracking open with scorching yellow light. Michelle felt her breath strain, her heart winging from her chest and beating free in the exotic landscape.

  The old woman’s words took form, great herds of bleating goats, birds by the thousands wheeling above her, suspended structures swaying hundreds of feet above the ground, water cascading from shelves of clouds, steel-banded wooden doors with enormous bronze hinges.