I was very late for a meeting and I zig-zagged through the crowds on the sidewalk. I am a tall man and I was in a city of people with significantly less melanin, so I was trying my best to be polite and to avoid running into anyone, but I was in a hurry and people complained as I shoved through the slow moving tourists who flock to downtown to experience the color change of the foliage in the fall and to drink locally brewed beers and ciders. Under normal circumstances, I would have sauntered lazily down the streets and avenues, ducking into bars and restaurants, but there I was, moving quickly and praying that the woman I was rushing to meet wouldn’t be gone by the time I arrived.
When I arrived at the park, I found her sitting on the brick wall in front of one of the permanent chess tables. I sat across from her, catching my breath.
“Don’t waste your breath apologizing,” she said before I could say anything. “I don’t mind that you’re late. I asked you to meet me here for a reason. I really enjoy being in this place.”
“Did you assume that I’d be late as well?” I asked.
“No, I honestly assumed you’d be waiting for me here. I worried for a moment that I had told you Charleston instead, but then I remembered that Charleston is for the spring and Asheville is for the fall; I would never mix that up.”
I smiled at her. Many people have said vile things about this woman; that she sacrifices babies to Satan under the full moon, that she sucks the life from strong men in their sleep, that she communes with dark beasts of the woods; but she has always made me smile. I enjoy her presence. If she is capable of those fiendish things that people accuse her of, then I am a gullible sheep in her thrawl, waiting to be executed.
“Where are you living these days?”
“Out in Ellerbe,” she said. “Your people send their love.”
She’d mentioned “my people” before, on other occasions when we talked. My grandmother’s maiden name was Ellerby and she grew up in the town where most of her family was born and made their lives. My mother has told me about visiting her relatives in the area when she was younger, but as she got older, her ties were seemingly severed, especially when her mother passed away in 2012. Whoever it was that she referred to as “my people” were strangers to me, but she made me curious to know them.
“Thank you for relaying the message. I should travel out there some time. Do you think they would receive me as their people?”
“The few in the know would. They would be glad to welcome you back to the land. You are your mother’s son, she is strong in you, and she is not likely to be returning anytime soon, right?”
“About that,” I said and pulled my phone from my pocket. I opened up the web browser I had been reading. “I can’t seem to find anything about my family on the internet. I know the names of my mother’s parents, but I can’t find census records or anything.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said with a laugh. “A family like yours thrives on anonymity, growing ever more prosperous in the liminal spaces of towns and society. I would wager that there are no known addresses for them either, no records of birth.”
“Both my grandmother and grandfather?”
“Yes, they were both from very powerful families that did not acknowledge the laws imposed on their ancestral and adopted lands respectively. Your mother is the child of true freedom in North Carolina, freedom carved out by those denied it by invaders and conquerors. Your mother’s father was a child of the Great Dismal Swamp, and your mother’s mother is said to be descended from the Piedmont Witch.”
I had heard her speak about the Piedmont Witch at an event held in Shelby, NC a year before where we met. The Piedmont Witch was a slave woman who escaped her captivity and lived in the woods for a hundred years in the Richmond County area. She was hunted by her former owner, but when the slave catchers would track her down in the wild woods, she would use the power of her rage to stir nature to defend her. One slave catcher and his horse were found dead, covered in cottonmouth snakes. A group of catchers were swarmed by wasps and wandered into quicksand that killed all but one of them. The owner of the plantation that the woman escaped died from the bite of a brown recluse spider and his large home was infested with them, killing a number of his children. The woman was feared by the white, slave owning population, and their stories made her fearsome to everyone who heard them, though the Piedmont Witch wasn’t interested in killing black people, or even white people who recognized the humanity of black people. Despite her intentions, she became a monster haunting the woods of Richmond County and any other place where those who knew her story traveled to tell about the angry woman who used nature to kill.
I was honored to be descended from such a powerful woman, though there was no way to prove that she even existed.
“I want to visit you there, in Ellerbe,” I said. “Maybe you can introduce me to my family.”
She smiled down, her light brown dreadlocks falling over her shoulder.
“I’m not stupid, Wesley,” she said with a chuckle, then she stared out at the avenue as a family argued. The children seemed to be upset with their parents about how they would spend their time in the city.
“Why do you say that?” I asked as I looked back at the family and then back at the woman.
“Because, I don’t think you’d make a very good witch. And your inheritance is strong enough that if you step foot on your ancestral lands, it will all come rushing into you.”
I laughed. I have been to Richmond County before, though admittedly I was just driving through and have never spent significant time there. When I think about it now, I had never stepped foot in Richmond County, but when she said all of that, part of me was still very skeptical about all of it, but curious to track down the source of such an interesting story that involved my own family.
“I don’t want to be a witch,” I said.
“You wouldn’t have a choice in the matter, I’m afraid. It’s why your mother left, one of her distant relatives clung desperately to life when he died and his power will seek an heir, your mother was always his favorite. Her son would be much more desirable.”
It was flabbergasting to hear. It sounded like a spooky story for the season, but she looked me in the eyes and I could see the sincerity there.
“Please, tell me more,” I said, not able to hide my interest.
PRL Serials 