In anticipation of the boys’ arrival, Granny Mose had twisted the head off a chicken and plucked it clean. She’d gutted it in preparation for cooking and dropped the entrails from a height of exactly two feet onto an old Melmac dinner plate on the table, letting them land where they might. The hump below her right shoulder had complained at her stretching that far, but she’d silenced it. “Two feet is what’s required if you want to do it right, and I always do things right.” She dropped the rest of the chicken into a cauldron and hung it in the fireplace.
She was out back selecting a couple of small logs when someone yelled, “Granny Mose, you home? We come to see’ya.”
Slightly bent, carrying a log in each hand, she balanced on the stoop on one foot and pried the back screendoor open with the other. Her voice loud enough to carry through the house, she said, “Be there in a minute.”
She swung the screendoor open, turned a bit and caught it with her shoulder, then nudged it farther open and passed into her bedroom. She stopped just inside the door and turned to look at the shelves to her right. They held her few clothes, an old jewelry box, and a few cigar boxes filled with various ingredients for potions. She’d thought to select a few ingredients, but realized she couldn’t carry anything else until she had divested herself of the logs. “Might not need ‘em anyway,” she said.
As she turned away, her gaze fell over the small table that served as her altar. It had one gimpy leg, so she’d set it against the wall to provide stability. The centerpiece was formed of three skulls: one from a wolf, one from a bobcat, and one from a cottonmouth snake, all facing away from a large candle in the center like spokes on a wagon wheel.
A large doily that had been white at one time spread over the table beneath them. Like Granny Mose, it carried the stains of several decades in the swamp. She’d found a skunk skull only a few weeks earlier. A night over an antbed had stripped it of the remaining tissue and she’d considered adding it to the centerpiece, but when she’d brought it to the altar, something about it didn’t seem quite right.
Always trusting her instincts, she had relegated that skull to the corner of the table, off the doily and facing the wall. The bobcat would keep an eye on it for her.
A floorboard in the living room creaked lightly, pulling her from her thoughts. Granny Mose mumbled, “Ain’t no patience left in this world... respect either.” She shook her head as she stepped around her bed—a straw mattress she’d stuffed herself and positioned atop an old store-bought mattress someone had discarded several years ago—and entered the front room of the house.
The two boys were standing on the stoop. Hebert had been there all along, but Gillam had made the floorboard squeak a moment earlier and had retreated to his position on the porch as if Granny Mose wouldn’t know.
She eyed them. “Ya’ll come in. Have a seat at the table. It’s all ready.”
As the boys came into the room, the taller of them, Hebert, took off his hat and held it centered on his torso. “Granny Mose, we come fer—”
“No need for any of that.” She squatted before the fireplace and shifted one log into place. “I know why you come. Have a seat like I said.”
“Yes’M.” Hebert glanced at his brother and shrugged. He started to look away, then turned back to him and gestured, indicating Gillam should remove his hat. They were inside, after all.
Gillam rolled his eyes and begrudgingly removed his hat. He walked to the head of the table, pulled out the only chair with arms and sat.
Hebert followed and sat to his brother’s right. The plate of chicken innards was in front of him, but closer to the opposite side of the table. Granny Mose would sit in the remaining chair—the one nearest the innards—her back to the wall.
As she fed the second small log to the fire beneath the cauldron, the light in the room increased to a dim glow. The flames sparked and hissed, and an ember a half-inch across popped out into the room. It lay smoldering on the floor. Moving slowly in deference to a tired back, Granny Mose straightened and peered into the cauldron for a moment. She picked up a long-handled wooden spoon and stirred it, then turned and came across the room, passing nearby the ember but paying it no mind.
At the table, Hebert looked to his right at the ember and his eyes grew wide. He glanced back at his brother, then across the table where Granny Mose had just settled into her chair. “Want me t’slop a little water on that ember?”
“It’s fine,” she said. She gestured around. “Walls and floor are so soaked with humidity ain’t no way a fire’d ever catch.” She resettled in her chair, then leaned forward over the Melmac plate, studying the pattern created by the chicken guts. She saw a venerable wolf, the guardian, with a question mark in his eyes; a bobcat, the gatekeeper; a cottonmouth, the jailer and several deep shadows, the gator cousins. A stream of gold flowed among them all, balanced fingertip to fingertip, respected, a thing of lasting value. Something was missing. She thought of her altar. Only the skunk was not represented. A long moment later, without looking up, she said, “I know why you come today. I know who you are.”
Gillam looked at her, then grinned. “Of course you know who we are. You’ve known us all our lives. Ain’t that what you always say?”
She leaned back in her chair, then leaned forward again and looked at the plate as if to be certain of what she’d seen. Then she straightened in her chair. “You need to be sure what you come for. You need to be sure it’s what you really want.”
Gillam looked at her, the precursor to a smirk tugging at the right corner of his mouth. “Well? You gonna tell us what you seen in them chicken guts?”
She shook her head, never taking her gaze from him. “I tol’ you, I seen you. I know you. Are you sure, Gillam?” Then she turned to look at Hebert. “How about you, Hebert? Like he said, I been knowin’ you boys a long time, an’ I been knowin’ your mama a lot longer’n that. You sure you really want what you come for?”
Hebert paled and turned his head. “Gill?”
“We know what we come for, Granny Mose,” Gillam said, “an’ you say you know, so you gonna tell us what you seen or ain’t’ya?”
Granny Mose put both palms on the edge of the table and leaned slightly forward as if to stand, then suddenly slapped one hand over her eye socket—too late—her glass eye plopped to the table, racing toward the edge.
Gillam grabbed it and glanced up, grinning, a small streak of dried tobacco juice leading from the left corner of his mouth to his chin.
Hebert’s face went ashen and his eyes grew wide. His dark, greasy, bowl-cut hair shifted forward, then back and his jaw dropped open. “Like snatchin’ a fly right outta mid-air! You was just’at quick, Gill!”
Gillam opened his palm slowly, uncurling his grimy fingers one at a time as if his prize might bolt. The eye was looking at him. He flashed another slack-jawed grin, his remaining crooked teeth glowing in the dim, flickering light. He worked his left molars over his plug of tobacco, his lips making a smacking noise as another thin stream of tobacco juice traced the route of the first. A tiny bit of spittle glistened on his lip. The flames from the fireplace were reflected in it. “Lots easier’n any ol’ fly.” He tore his gaze from the eye, then closed his fist loosely over it and offered it tentatively to the haggard old woman. “Here y’go, Granny Mose. Here’s y’ol’ eyeball... good’s new.”
Granny lurched forward in her chair, grunting. She leaned farther forward than required by the hump, thrust out one gnarled hand and snatched the orb from his palm, plopping it into her mouth before withdrawing it and seating it in its socket. She looked at Gillam, then at Hebert. He still looked scared. “You’re sure, Hebert?”
He dipped his head slightly as he raised his left shoulder a bit.
She sighed. “Let’s get on about it then, long as you’re sure you want what you come for.” She paused for a moment, then looked at Gillam again. “Y’mama must’a been sippin’ bad swamp water when she was heavy with you, Gillam.”
Gillam just looked at her, the foolish grin still on his face. “Yes’m, ‘at’s prob’ly it exac’ly. Hasn’t stood me to much good either.”
Hebert found his voice. “What was it you seen, Granny Mose?”
Again she placed her palms against the edge of the table and pushed slightly, the chair complaining against the wood floor. She turned sideways in the chair and put one hand on the back of it to steady herself. With her other hand on the table, she pushed herself up from the chair. “C’mon... I’ll let you see for yourself. I know who you could be, an’ I know who you prob’ly gonna be, but it’s all up to you.”
Gillam remained where he was until the old woman was out the door.
Hebert twisted in his chair and glanced over his shoulder. He whispered, “Gill, come on! We don’t wanna piss her off!”
“I ain’t fixin’ to piss off nobody, an’ you know it.” An evil grin spread across his face. ‘Sides, it ain’t like th’ol’ bat’s gonna outrun us, an’ she don’t know nothin’ anyhow. If she did, she’d know our visit didn’t have nothin’ to do with her readin’ some ol’ chicken guts.”
As Hebert got up he said, “Well she knowed we was comin’, that’s for sure.”
“I guess it’s easy enough to say you know somebody was comin’ after they’re already got there. I’m tellin’ you, she don’t know nothin’. That’s why she kept askin’ us if we was sure we wanted what we come for. She wanted us to say we come for a readin’ or a healin’ or somethin’ so she could act like she really knew. I’m tellin’ you, all that stuff about her magic an’ all that’s just a bunch’a hoodoo nonsense. She don’t know nothin’.
“‘Sides, wasn’t she readin’ chicken guts? She can’t know we’re here to get them gold coins she’s been hoardin’ all these years. Ain’t no chicken guts gonna tell us how to take candy from a baby, an’ she ain’t gonna read no chicken guts just to tell us how to take somethin’ away from her.”
“Well... let’s just go get this over with, a’ight? Sooner it’s done the better I’ll like it.”
Gillam pushed his chair back from the table. “You’re gonna make somebody a fine wife someday, the way you nag. I can’t believe you’re my older brother.”
About the time the boys stepped onto the porch, Granny Mose’s voice came from around the side of the house. “You boys comin’ or no?”
Gillam got to the edge of the porch. Granny was standing some thirty yards away near the door to an old shed. “Yes’M,” he said. “We’ll be right there. Hebert had to move that ol’ ember for you after all. You know Hebert... always takin’ care of stuff don’t need lookin’ after.” He looked over his shoulder and whispered, “I always thought she kept the gold out in that ol’ shed. Looks like she’s leadin’ us right to it.”
Hebert shook his head. “I don’t like it, Gill. We need to go, just leave her al—”
As Gillam turned away, he whispered, “Just come on!” He took long strides across the dirt and weeds. Hebert followed him, almost running to keep up.
Granny Mose was waiting in front of the shed, her arms crossed. Just before the boys reached her, she said, “Okay, what you want... and what I’ve decided I really want you to have... it’s in this shed. Understand? But things ain’t always what they seem. What seems in youth to be a dream can turn into a never-endin’ nightmare. That’s why I kept askin’ if you’re sure of what you want.”
Gillam glanced past her, eyeing the door hungrily. He licked his lips. “We know what we want, Granny. Thing is, we want it now. Understand? Right now.” He shoved her aside and grasped the door knob.
Hebert blanched and caught Granny Mose, then stepped between her and his brother. “Gillam! Ain’t no call for that!”
Gillam sneered. “Yeah? Well why don’t you hire on as a nursemaid?” He turned the knob and jerked the door open. “Oh! Oh!”
Feeling behind him for Granny Mose, Hebert said, “What is it, Gill?”
“Gold! Jesus, it’s the gold! More gold than I imagined! And it’s laying right there on the shelf!” He glared at Granny Mose over his shoulder. “Crazy old bat! We don’t even have to kill her, Hebert! It’s right there!”
Hebert looked back at Granny Mose. Quietly he said, “You okay?”
She nodded. “Better than you know. You’re okay too.”
He took a step toward the shed, but Granny Mose squeezed his arm. “No.” When he looked back at her, she was shaking her head. “That’s not what you want. You’re a wolf.”
Hebert looked closely at her eyes. He saw in them what she had seen at the table. His eyes grew wide and he turned, yelling, “Gillam! Don’t—!“
A scream shattered the moment as Gillam stepped over the threshold, reached with both hands for the gold and plummeted some eighty feet into a limestone cavern. There was a splash, silence, then more screams interrupted as he was repeatedly turned underwater.
Granny Mose squeezed Hebert’s arm again. “Come.” She led him to the door and pointed at the shelf on the back wall. “It ain’t no gold. It’s a mirror.” She reached inside the door to the right and picked up a stack of coins. “Open your hand.” He did, and she dropped the coins one at a time into his palm. “The gold’s here.” She paused, then touched his chest. “And here.”
He turned to look at her. Where there had been a tired old granny stood a beautiful raven-haired woman with dark skin. She offered her hand. “I’m Marie Tigresse. I been waitin’ a long time for you to come back to me, Hebert.”
On their way back to the house, he lay his head back and howled.
* * * * * * *
I like a happy ending.