I shared the dark with the slit of the light and wondered if she’d ever get her someday.
Quick as lightning, my eyes flitted to the box, then back to the ugly wallpaper dating the hallway. My curiosity poked me. It gnawed until I peeked inside.
There on their tiny bodies, the mark of a sinner. A crow’s claw burned on their chest. Same as the Death Talker birthmark over my heart. Grandmama branded them so Jesus would know I was to blame.
That woman was right—I was the Devil’s Seed Child.
So I ran.
I ran out the door and down the road.
I ran until my feet grew sore and then ran some more.
I ran until the salt dried on my face and the tears stopped coming.
I was rotten, always rotten. As long as my body made the Sin Eater Oil, I’d always be rotten. Exhausted, I fell to my knees. From my pocket, I pulled out the raggedy crow feather I now kept with me. I curled up on the side of the road between a tree and a stump, praying my wishes onto that feather.
Devil’s Seed Child, I whispered, and repeated in my mind. It was comforting to own it, what I was. The rightful name for someone who could kill the most innocent among us.
I blew my wish on the feather and set it free in the wind.
A tiny object tumbled in front of my face. Shiny as the hubcaps on Stone’s car. A small gold ring with something scrolled on the flat front. I quirked my head sideways to straighten my view. A fancy script initial R.
“Don’t cry,” a young voice spoke. Perched on the rotting stump above, a boy, just a pinch older than I. Shorn dark hair and clothes of all black.
I smiled up at him, a thank-you for the gift.
“Weatherly!” A loud bark that could scare the night caused me to jump. Bone Layer had a voice that did that to people, though he didn’t use it often.
Over my head, a black wisp flew toward the star-filled sky, and the boy was gone. I snatched up the ring and buried it in my pocket as Bone Layer came to retrieve me. He scooped me up as easy as a doll. His shirt smelled of sweat and earth and bad things to come.
Grandmama’s punishment was meant to save me; I leaned into that comfort. Through the Lord’s work, she’d keep me safe. Protect me. If I strayed from her, I might lose my soul.
Grandmama was right; I must atone.
The truck headlights pierced the woods as Bone Layer walked deeper within them. Grandmama waited at the hole in the ground with the Bible in her hand and the potato box at her feet.
Stone and the rich woman watched curiously from the front porch. The wind howled through the trees. They exchanged horrid looks and hurried words, then fled back into the house, quick as thieves.
Bone Layer gently laid me in the pine box already lowered into the shallow hole he done dug. Deep enough to cover, not enough for forever.
“Will they go to Heaven?” I asked from the coffin, as Grandmama handed me one bundle, then the other. I nestled them into my chest. I had never seen something so little. Light as air in my arms. Tiny things. Things that never had a chance in this world. They smelled sickly sweet; a scent that made me want to retch.
Grandmama tucked my little Bible between my hands. I loved that Bible. Pale blue with crinkles in the spine from so much discovery. On the front, a picture of Jesus, telling a story to two little kids.
“Will they go to Heaven?” I asked again, panicked when she didn’t answer. Fear rose up in my throat, and I choked on my tears. Fear I would be held responsible if their souls were not saved.
Grandmama’s face was flat as she spoke the heartless truth. “They are born from sin, just like you. They were not wanted. They are not loved.” Her words stung like always.
“What if I love them? Will they go to Heaven if I love them?”
Her wrinkled lips tightened across her yellow and cracked teeth, insidious. “You must atone,” she answered instead. Then smiled, not with empathy but with pleasure; she was happy to deliver this punishment, glad of the chance to remind me of her power.
“I love them, Grandmama. I love them,” I professed with fierceness. I hoped it would be enough. To save their souls. To save my own. “I love them, Grandmama,” I proclaimed with all my earnest heart. To prove it, I smothered the tops of their heads with kisses. “I love them, Grandmama.” I kept repeating this. Kept kissing them as Bone Layer grabbed the lid to my pine box. He held it in his large hands, waiting for Grandmama to move out of his way.
“You believe me, don’t you?” I asked her. Fear and prayer filled every ounce of my body. If I loved them enough, they’d go to Heaven. If I atoned, maybe I would, too. I squeezed my eyes tight and swore my love over and over and over.
She frowned down on me. “I believe you, child. For sin always enjoys its own company.”
She promptly stood. Her black dress swished across the ground as she moved out of the way. Then Bone Layer shut out the light, fastening the lid to my box.
Muffled sounds of dirt scattered across the top as he buried me alive.
ONE
Dog Finger
Fourteen Years Later
Omens come in all manner of ways. Warnings to let you know death is coming. Pretty much everything portends death when Appalachia is deep in your family roots. If a bird flies into your house, somebody in your family is going to die. Same for a broken clock that starts ticking again, or cows you hear mooing after midnight.
Or black ferns that grow where there were none the day before.
Grandmama calls them Devil’s Weed, says they’re black because they feed off the Devil’s soul. Papaw said they were black because of the coal-rich earth they grew on higher in the mountains.
Mrs. Penny Hammer, my eighth-grade biology teacher, said it wasn’t nothing to do with coal or evil. It was the anthocyanins pigment that colored them black, a purple-black like blackberries. Except...Mrs. Hammer didn’t account for the fact that folklore is stronger than science around here. No amount of biology will convince local folks black ferns are harmless. They eat up the forests, you see. So much so, they gave us our town name.
Black Fern, Georgia, isn’t just a town named after its foliage. It’s where death shrouds with a heavy hand. Furtive ground for a Death Talker to reside.
