Moonshineland by Ryan Michael Hines

Author:Ryan Michael Hines
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Castle Publishing, LLC
Published: 2023-10-04T15:36:44+00:00

CHAPTER 6 - The Granny Woman

I woke with a start and blinked to clear my blurred vision. As the sleep fell from my eyes, I could see I was in a small cabin. Well, more a lean-to or shack than a true cabin. It was dark and cramped, but thank the Lord, it was warm. A fire crackled in a primitive hearth, and a diminutive figure was crouched over a pot that bubbled and boiled.

She, for I could just tell it was a woman under that dirty, ragged calico, was stirring whatever was in the old black pot slowly and mumbling to herself.

I could not make out what she was saying, but the rhythm and meter of the sound suggested, to my ears anyway, a prayer. Or a spell. I tried to lift my head and speak, but she must have heard me because before I opened my mouth, she raised her hand, without looking away from her cook pot, and spoke.

“Don’t move ye none,” she rasped, “Hit’s a bad break have you in yon leg. And black pison in yer blood.”

She spoke with the strongest affectations of Mountain Speech that I had yet come across in my time in the Appalachians. And her gravely voice struck fear into my heart, so harsh was its timbre.

She turned to face me, an earthenware bowl of that bubbling brew in her hand. Her hair was white, and her face was a sunbaked brown even this late in the year, a testament to the time an isolated mountain woman spends outdoors in her quest to survive.

She stood up and moved toward me.

Her spine was crooked from years of backbreaking labor, and her gait uneven, but her eyes shone bright blue. They were the only part of her that seemed younger than the mountain on which she made her home.

I had been told stories about women like this, the one in whose home I now was a guest. There is a term for these aged mountain women who live even more isolated lives than the rest of their Appalachian kin. Wise and experienced, these “Granny Women,” as they are called, know all the secrets a mountaineer needs to survive. They can cure sick livestock, assist a woman in a difficult birth, and concoct all manner of healing potions.

They also generally have a deep knowledge of the black arts, so it is wise to keep them a friend and never make one an enemy.

And so this Granny Woman kneeled before me and wordlessly offered a drink of that potion she had been stirring when I first awoke. I could not help myself. I hesitated. My stalling was met with a stern glare.

“Drink, you,” she commanded. So I did.

You may wonder what the drink tasted of, but in truth, I cannot tell you. I have no memory of the taste, only that it was warm.

“How did I come to be in your home, ma’am?” I asked after swallowing her brew.

She said nothing, only stood up, limped back to her chair by the fire, and sat.

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