LITMIR.BIZ

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hair. “Well, what’ll it be, honey? Rattlesnake stew?”

      Ivy swallowed. She’d thought the dish a legend, but apparently the cook, Boone, an old-timer who’d lived in the mountains for decades, had inherited the recipe from his grandmother. “A bowl of your vegetable soup. And sweet iced tea, please.”

      Daisy nodded, then waddled away, and Ivy twisted her hands together as she studied the handmade arts and crafts along one wall. Local artisans’ paintings, photographs and jewelry decorated the café in an artful arrangement, with price tags attached. Photographs and sketches of local scenery included valleys and gorges in the mountain, a little white chapel at the top of a cliff, the creek behind her cabin, a water wheel, then one of the junkyard. A charcoal sketch of Rattlesnake Mountain hung in the center, the etchings of the natural indentations that resembled a nest of rattlesnakes along the stone surface, sent a chill up her spine.

      According to her research, the originators of the folklore and black magic in the area had been birthed by a small group of witches who believed that the rocks, mountains, trees and rivers were all inhabited by spirits—spirits that never knew human form. Rattlesnake Mountain once held pits of rattlesnakes that the practitioners of hoodoo and voodoo used for their evil spells. The sorcerers were given a Christian name, then a secret name, that was used only for black magic purposes.

      Daisy delivered the soup. “Here you go, sweetie.”

      “Thanks. This looks delicious.”

      “You still working on the scrapbook on the town?” Daisy asked.

      Ivy nodded and sipped her iced tea. “Yes.”

      “My daughter and I are making a scrapbook of my grandbaby. We’re even thinking of starting a scrapbooking club.”

      “Really?” Ivy smiled. “My mother used to belong to one of those.” At least her adopted mother, Miss Nellie, had. That club and the popularity of scrapbooking had actually triggered her idea for the magazine.

      “You see that chapel?” Daisy pointed to the photograph on the wall. “The locals call it the Chapel of Forever. It’s where Hughie and I got married. Legend says that if you marry in that chapel, your marriage will last through eternity.”

      Ivy made a mental note to add that bit of folklore to her magazine feature article. “Do you know when or how the legend got started?”

      “No, but I’ll check around and see if someone else does. Maybe Miss Gussy. She’s been around longer than me.”

      The bell on the door tinkled, and they both glanced up as an odd, elderly woman stepped inside. Dressed in all black, in a long skirt that nearly touched the floor, a hat and veil that half covered her wrinkled face, and army boots with thick socks rolled over the edges, she was almost spooky. Two other ladies whispered and gave her a wide berth as they left. Two teenagers got up and hurried toward the door. Another woman followed the eccentric lady in, the polar opposite in appearance. Platinum-blond hair formed a pile of curls on top of her head, gaudy costume jewelry adorned every finger and a skintight, bloodred dress dipped low enough to reveal massive cleavage that a man could get lost in. Shiny white, knee-high boots hugged her killer legs and completed the outfit.

      “I cannot believe the two of them have the nerve to show up here,” Daisy said.

      Ivy frowned. “Who are they?”

      “The one in the red, that’s Talulah. She’s the head mistress down on Red Row.”

      “Red Row?”

      Daisy leaned closer. “The row of trailers where all her prostitutes live. A seedy place that no decent citizen would ever visit.”

      But the men probably kept them in business, Ivy thought, as the two women moved to the rear and grabbed a booth, ignoring the stares and blatant whispers.

      “And the other woman?”

      “Lady Bella Rue. She calls herself a root doctor. Folks say she’s a lady of darkness, that she’s connected to the moon, the spirits and the devil himself. Even killed her own boy, though no one could prove it.”

      Ivy sipped her tea, her curiosity spiked.

      “I think folks around here were just too scared of her to pursue it,” Daisy continued. “They say she’s a seer to boot.”

      “You mean she can see the future?”

      Daisy nodded. “Some people think she cast a spell on the town—that’s what brings all the evil when it rains. The kudzu sparkles yellow sometimes, then other times has this metallic blue-green mist rising from it. Folks say Lady Bella Rue’s tears of guilt turn the kudzu those odd colors, or maybe it’s devil’s breath.” Daisy hesitated long enough to inhale a breath. “Better stay away from her. If you anger her, she might put a hex on you. Once she does, bad luck and death will follow you the rest of your life.”

      Ivy’s hand trembled as she placed her glass on the table. Bad luck and death had already been a part of her life, and had brought her here now.

      A strained silence fell across the room, the rain pounding the roof accentuating the tension. It was almost as if the townspeople sensed winter and death were imminent. That these two women’s presence in town represented a bad omen.

      A middle-aged lady at the next table waved Daisy over to her side. Ivy ate her soup while she listened. “I heard that Mahoney boy has been released.”

      Daisy refilled their tea, ice clinking. “Some fancy lawyer got him out. I just hope he doesn’t come back to town and stir up trouble.”

      “Land sakes alive. We breathed a lot easier when he was in jail. We’ll have to go back to locking our doors at night.”

      “You’re right. We don’t need his kind around,” another woman said. “Although I thought he did us a service when he killed those Stantons. The woman was a slut. I heard she worked for Talulah on Red Row.”

      Ivy clenched her hands in her lap, anger knifing through her. Her mother had not been a slut! She’d loved Ivy. Had brushed her hair and played dolls with her and collected Santa Clauses. She’d strung glittery Christmas lights all around the trailer and tried to make it pretty. They’d even baked homemade sugar cookies and strung popcorn for the tree they’d cut down in the woods.

      She had not deserved to die.

      And what about Matt Mahoney? Had he deserved to go to jail for murder?

      Not according to Abram Willis and the judge who’d released him…

      ARTHUR BOLES BURIED his face behind the local newspaper and sipped his coffee, unable to focus on the words on the printed page for studying the young woman talking to Daisy. Ivy Stanton.

      He would have recognized her anywhere. After all, he’d kept tabs on her all these years that she’d lived with Nellie. Years during which he had worried that she would remember something, that she’d return to Kudzu Hollow, see his face and spill her guts about that night. Years where he wished he’d silenced her already.

      Years where he’d thought of her mother’s lush wanton body, the way Lily Stanton had taken him into her nest and given him pleasure without asking for anything but money. God, he’d missed her over the years. Missed her lips touching his, her mouth closing around his cock, the sight of her spreading herself for him to bury his length in. Missed the way her tits had swayed when she rode him, and the way she’d use her tongue to make him come. And the way her eyes had gone all melting and soft when he’d returned the pleasure.

      Not that there hadn’t been replacements. Red Row still stood to serve its customers. The anonymity was an important part of the business. And if one of the whores did decide to talk, well, hell, he’d shut her up like he had the others.

      And how ironic. Talulah, that old root doctor and Ivy Stanton all in one room together. All held the secrets to his past. Maybe the key to his future.

      All expendable…

      But

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