Epilogue
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE
I was born in the woods in the hour of crows, when the day is no longer but the night is not yet. Grandmama Agnes brought me into this world with her bare hands. Just as her mother had taught her to do. Just as the mother before her taught. Just as she would teach me. Midwife, herbalist, superstitionist—all the practices of her Appalachian roots passed down for generations.
And a few new tricks picked up along the way.
Before Papaw died, he warned me Grandmama Agnes was wicked. He was wrong. It wasn’t just Grandmama who was wicked; so was I.
I knew it was true the night those twin babies died.
“Weatherly.” Grandmama’s sleep-weary voice woke me that night long ago. “Get your clothes on. Don’t forget your drawers.”
My Winnie-the-Pooh nightgown, ragged and thin, was something pillaged from the free-clothes bin at church. Laundry was hard to do often when water came from a well and washing powders cost money. So we saved our underwear for the daytime.
My ten-year-old bones ached from the death I talked out of the Bodine sisters earlier that day, the mucus still lodged in my throat. I barked a wet cough to bring it up.
“Here.” Grandmama handed me a blue perfume bottle with a stopper that did not match. I spat the death inside the bottle like always. The thick ooze slipped down the curved lip and blobbed at the bottom. A black dollop ready for someone else to swallow.
It smelled of rotting flesh and tasted like fear.
Sin Eater Oil, Grandmama called it, was like a truth serum for the soul. A few drops baked into a pie, you could find out if your neighbor stole your garden vegetables. Mixed with certain herbs, it enhanced their potency and enlivened the superstitious charms from Grandmama’s magic recipe box.
On a few occasions—no more than a handful of times—when consumed in full, its power was lethal.
Out in front of our cabin sat a shiny new Corvette with hubcaps that shimmered in the moonlight. Pacing on the porch, a shadow of a man. It wasn’t until he stepped into the light did I catch his face. Stone Rutledge. He was taller and thinner and snakier back then.
Bone Layer, a large, hardened man who got his name from digging graves for the cemetery, dropped a pine box no longer than me into the back of our truck. He drove us everywhere we needed to be—seeing how Grandmama couldn’t see too good and I was only ten. The three of us followed Stone as his low-slung car dragged and scrapped the dirt road to a farmhouse deep in the woods.
An oil-lit lamp flickered inside. Cries of a woman in labor pushed out into the humid night. Georgia’s summer air was always thick. Suffocating, unbearable nights teeming with insects hell-bent on fighting porch lights.
A woman at the edge of panic for being left in charge greeted us at the door. Pearls draped her neck. Polish shined her perfect nails as she pulled and worked the strand. Her heels click-clacked as she paced the linoleum floor.
Grandmama didn’t bother with pleasantries. She shoved on past with her asphidity bag full of her herbs and midwife supplies and my Sin Eater Oil and went straight for the woman who was screaming. Bone Layer grabbed his shovel and disappeared into the woods.
In the house, I gathered the sheets and the clean towels and boiled the water. I’d never seen this kitchen before, but most things can be found in just about the same place as any other home.
“Why is that child here?” the rich woman, not too good at whispering, asked Stone. Her frightened eyes watched as I tasked out my duties.
“Doing her job. Drink this.” Stone shoved a glass of whiskey at her. She knocked it back with a swift tilt of her head, like tossing medicine down her throat, and handed back the glass for another.
Tiptoeing into the bedroom, I quietly poured the steaming water into the washbasin. The drugged moans of the lady spilled to the floor like a sad melody. A breeze snuck in through the inch of open window and licked the gauzy curtain that draped the bed.
When I turned to hand Grandmama the towels, I eyed the slick black blood that dripped down the sheets.
We weren’t here for a birthing.
We were called to assist with a misbirth.
Fear iced over me when I looked upon the mother.
Then, I saw on the dresser next to where Grandmama stood, two tiny swaddles, unmoving. A potato box sat on the floor. Grandmama slowly turned around at the sound of my sobbing—I hadn’t realized I’d started to cry. Her milky white eyes found mine like always, despite her part-blindness.
Swift and sharp, she snatched me by my elbow. Her fingers dug into my flesh as she ushered me over to the dresser to see what I had caused.
“You’ve soured their souls,” she said in a low growl. I looked away, not wanting to see their underdeveloped bodies. Her bony hand grabbed my face, her grip crushing my jaw as she forced me to look upon them. Black veins of my Sin Eater Oil streaked across their gnarled lifeless bodies. “This is your doing, child. There’ll be a price to pay for y’all going behind my back.” For me, and Aunt Violet.
Aunt Violet took some of my Sin Eater Oil weeks ago. I assumed it was for an ailing grandparent who was ready for Jesus; she never said who. She said not to tell. She said Grandmama wouldn’t even notice it was missing.
So I kept quiet. Told the thing in my gut that knew it was wrong to shut up. But she gave my Sin Eater Oil to the woman writhing in pain in front of me, so she could kill her babies. Shame welled up inside me.
Desperately, I looked up to Grandmama. “Don’t let the Devil take me.”
Grandmama beamed, pleased with my fear. “There’s only one way to protect you, child.” The glint in her eyes sent a chill up my spine.
No. I shook my head. Not that—her promise of punishment, if ever I misused my gift. Tears slivered down my cheeks.
“It wasn’t me!” I choked out, but she only shook her head.
“We must cleanse your soul from this sin and free you from the Devil’s grasp. You must atone.” Grandmama rummaged through her bag and drew out two items: the match hissed to life as she set fire to a single crow claw. I closed my eyes and turned away, unable to watch. But that didn’t stop me from knowing.
The mother’s head lolled over at the sound of my crying. Her red-rimmed eyes gazed my way. “You!” she snarled sloppily at me. Her hair, wild, stuck to the sweat on her face. The black veins of my Sin Eater Oil spiderwebbed across her belly, a permanent tattoo that matched that of her babies. “The Devil’s Seed Child,” the lady slurred from her vicious mouth. The breeze whipped the curtains in anger. Oh, that hate in her eyes. Hate for me.
Grandmama shoved me into the hall, where I was to stay put. The rich woman pushed in. The door opened once more, and that wooden potato box slid out.
The mother wailed as the rich lady cooed promises that things would be better someday. The door closed tight behind us, cries echoing off the walls.
