2010 Wyoming Writers Contest Winner - ADULT FICTION

Oleana

by India Hayford

Isolated by the final tumble of the Appalachian Mountains into Alabama, the crossroads of Kingdom Come sternly turned its back on the wicked world and concentrated grimly on its own salvation. Oleana clutched her satchel and wished herself back in the garden swing at Memaw’s house, surrounded by the smell of cape jessamine and the sound of birds calling to each other from the top of the big pecan tree.  Reality rose before her in the shape of a weathered house slung together from gray wood and stone, unsoftened by a single rose, unhallowed by a lone sparrow.  The yard was hard packed dirt, swept as clean as a merciless corn broom allowed.  Only the kudzu draped in smothering folds over the pines beyond the barbed wire fence defied the relentless hand of the faithful.

          The Right Reverend Burgess Love Darnell clutched her shoulder, hurried her up the unpainted plank steps and across the surface of something that had no business calling itself a porch.  Oleana stumbled over a high threshold into a hall with doors at each end that bisected the house.  Other doors opened off the hall.  The Right Reverend Darnell hustled her through the nearest off-plumb rectangle.  A tall thin old woman enthroned in a straight-backed chair peered critically at Oleana over the top of rimless bifocals.  Her dark long sleeved dress stretched uncompromisingly over her knees, revealing ankles clad in heavy cotton hose just above stout lace-up shoes.

          “This her, Burgess?”

          “Yes’m, this here’s Cousin Jeff’s girl.  Oleana, Aunt Netta’s waitin’ to see your manners.”   Without loosening his bruising grip on her shoulder, the Right Reverend Darnell gave her a hard shake.  Oleana gulped and murmured some words she hoped sounded mannerly, but she was so scared even the long braid down her back quivered.  Forty-eight hours earlier, she stood within the sound of the breakers on the beach and numbly watched clods bounce off the plain pine coffin in Memaw’s grave.  Now, still numb, she stood in a silent splintered house, caught in the grip of the Holiness family to whom her father entrusted her care, trying to understand what it meant to be the ward of this ugly man with graying hair protruding from his ears.

          Her father merely snorted when she begged him to let her stay home.  “Memaw’s gone and I ain’t got time to watch out for you and drive the truck both.  The Right Reverend Darnell and his mama are willin’ to have the load of you till your old enough to marry.  No, I don’t want to hear no more, Oleana.  You go get your bits and pieces together and be ready to head on out when he gets here.”

          So she’d gone with her few clothes, a ragged fabric dog, and the conch shell from Memaw’s dresser hidden deep in her satchel.  She clutched the bag like it was her last grip on sanity and listened while The Right Reverend Darnell and Aunt Netta wrangled over her future.

          “You didn’t tell me she was pretty, Burgess.”  Aunt Netta scowled at the girl.  “Didn’t tell me that.”

          “Now, Mama, you know the devil’s in this girl just by lookin’ at her, but I reckon you and me can drive him out and leave behind just a good gentle woman.  Don’t hurt none for her to have a shine on her then.  Give her a year of the Lord’s way and she’ll do us proud; ain’t that so, girl?”  He shook her hard by the shoulder again and accepted the whiplash of her neck as a yes.  The space his left incisor once filled barely showed beneath his upper lip as he grinned at her.  “She’ll do just fine.”

          That night, Oleana cried herself to sleep between sheets that stank of bleach and scratched with starch.  Her dreams twisted through dark, demon-filled lands with horror at every turn.  She cried out and tried to run, but sleep held her down and allowed a monster to come closer, let it lay its scaly hands on her breasts, let it scratch the tender skin of her thighs.  Her hands clinched into fists and pounded at the monster until it swore a human oath and extinguished her dreams with a single blow..

          She awoke in a tangle of sheets, scared and sweating in the warm spring night.  Light from the setting moon slid through the open window, illuminating Memaw’s conch shell on the bedside table.   At first, Oleana only heard the gentle sounds of the Gulf waves when she pressed the pink cleft of the shell to her ear, but she waited patiently for the voices to come.  They swam to her through the surf, ebbing and flowing beneath the sounds of the sea until the chorus sang loud enough to be understood, sang a single word over and over: run.

          The woman waited beneath the crepe myrtle, her flame-colored hair clashing with the deep pink blossoms. When she gestured with a single finger, Oleana looked over her shoulder to see which child the woman wanted, but the crowd of youngsters flowing out the doors of the junior high school moved on without recognition.

          “Oleana.”  Oleana read her name on the woman’s lips; the laughter of children drowned out all other sounds.  Once more the woman mouthed, “Oleana.”

          She slid one foot after the other until she stood in the shade of the crepe myrtle an arm’s length away from the woman.  A young, woman, Oleana realized, only a few years older than herself, but with a pair of deep lines between her eyebrows that didn’t belong with her beautiful face and flowing hair.

          “Hail thou that art highly favored; the Lord is with thee,” the woman whispered.  “Once he was with me.”

          “Oleana blinked.

          “I was called Anna, but now shall I be called Marah, for my lot is bitter.”  He hand darted out and closed hard around Oleana’s wrist. “Does he do the laying on of hands with you?”

          Oleana looked into the wide, mad eyes and began to struggle against the woman’s grip.

          “His name is Love!”  The woman cried.  “His name is Love and he loved me until you came.  Loved me…”

          Oleana twisted free from the bruising fingers and ran into the sunlight, away from the woman named Bitter, away from the nightmare of hands laid on her, away, away from Kingdom Come.  She ran down the dirt road into the forest, wishing she could run clear to the Gulf of Mexico where maybe she could find enough water to wash herself clean.  She ran and ran, but in the end the distance defeated her.  Gasping for breath, she fell to her knees in the sandy loam, knowing there was nowhere to go but back.

          Alabama dervishes spun around the sanctuary, arms out-flung, heads thrown back, shouting, singing, praising the name of the Lord in tongues known and unknown.  Sister Macelyn Dillard clattered her heels across the worn wooden floor, hands uplifted, face twisted into ecstasy that bordered on agony.  Skirt swinging in her holy tap dance for the Lord, she traced a slow circle around a pair of woven bushel baskets topped with wooden lids.  A grimace snarled her lips back, making way for the harsh syllables forcing their way through her clinched teeth.

          “Ah galana la laga hosama nah!”

          The congregation groaned, swaying in rhythm to her dance around the baskets.

          “Praise the Lord!”

          “Galana ha laga hosama nah!”

          The Right Reverend Burgess Love Darnell shuffled toward sister Dillard, sweat glistening on his red face, his white suit showing signs of collapse along the sternly pressed folds. He squatted down in front of the baskets and beat on their wooden lids with clinched fists, screaming his defiance of Satan and the illusions of sin.  Sister Dillard never missed a step.  Her unearthly warbling rose and fell over the cries of the congregation.

          “Gahana galana ah ah neganah hah!”

          “They shall take up serpents!” Howled the Right Reverend Darnell.  The congregation howled back its approval, hope and true belief.  He ripped the lid off the nearest basket and sank both arms deep into the basket’s contents.  Lips sneering back from his prominent teeth, he lifted a snarl of twisted bodies and thrust them toward heaven.  A water moccasin poked its triangular head over the diamond back of a rattler to fix the congregation with a cold stare.

          “They shall take up serpents- and they shall not be harmed!”

          Bedlam.  The Right Reverend Darnell stomped across the floor, screaming the name of the Lord.  Other bodies shoved past him to dip into the baskets, pulling out timber rattlers, rusty black moccasins and the golden red of a thick-bodied copperhead.

          “Galana  ha laga hosama nah!”

          Oleana gripped the pew in front of her, beyond caring whether anyone in the congregation noticed the ward of the Right Reverend Burgess Love Darnell had both feet off the floor and tucked firmly under her bottom.  A rope divided the snake handlers from the less faithful among the congregation, but Oleana had no illusions about the snakes’ respect for the barrier.  Frantically she tried to count the snakes pulled from the basket in the grip of the believers, tried to count any that crawled out on their own, tried to keep track of the number of snakes passed from person to person.  Every few seconds, her eyes swept the floor beneath her and the seat beside her, looking for escaped serpents.

          Ten feet away, Brother Bingham Harkner held his timber rattler within striking distance of his nose.  Possessed man and lidless serpent stared at each other with identical unblinking glares.

          “Praise the Lord!  Stare Satan down, brother.”

          “Galana  ha laga hosama nah!”

          “Ah, Jesus!”

          Deciding the contest was at an end, Brother Harkner bayed like a hound moving in for the kill and shook the snake high above his head to proclaim his triumph over Satan.  On the other side of the room, the Right Reverend Darnell joined Sister Dillard in her jittering dance around the baskets, he with his double fistful of conquered Satan, she with her twisted mouth and guttural gift of unknown tongues.  Cacophony resounded off the whitewashed walls as worshipers on Oleana’s side of the rope fell into their own frenzies.

          “Crima dinahem horganasah dina bah bah BAH!” Screamed the white haired woman on Oleana’s left.  Behind her, a thump proclaimed the collapse of another believer beneath her own tongue of flame.  Oleana turned to see who’d fallen and caught a glimpse of flaming hair as the woman who called herself Marah leapt over the fallen worshiper and ducked under the rope barrier.

          “Love me,” she cried.  Clenching both hands around the Right Reverend Darnell’s arm, she hung on with all her weight, forcing him to lower his deadly burden.  She tore the snakes from him.  A water moccasin tumbled to the ground, followed by a copperhead.  She clutched the remaining snake, a rattler as long as she was tall, and ran her open lips over its head and down its diamond back.  The Right Reverend Darnell made a snatch for his snake; Marah swung away from him, pressing the snake to her cheek, crooning and moaning to it.  The snake flashed once, twice, three times, gashing the white skin of her face, the delicate curve of her throat.  She embraced the enraged serpent, raining kisses of passion on its body as it rained kisses of death on hers.

          “Love me,” she begged and collapsed on the floor amidst the Right Reverend Darnell’s escaped serpents.

          The steps stopped next to her bed as they did every night.  Oleana hugged her arms across her breasts, clinched her eyes shut and tried not to breath as hands traced her hips beneath the thin sheet.  A hoarse whisper rasped her ears, growing louder as the hands grew rougher.

          “…death is the sting of sin…death is the sting of sin…”

          Satan stung deep and death flowed out of her in a stream of blood.

          She slid off the bed and curled her toes into the braided rug.  The Enemy stirred on the mattress, toppled from his side to his back and snored, one arm flung back over her deserted pillow.  With a hand that seemed detached from her body, she picked up the shell from the bedside table and held it to her ear.  She listened for a moment, lay the shell down and glided her feet over the threshold of her room and out into the long hall.  A faint glow from the moon lit the parlor door, guiding her steps past the hall tree, past the table with its load of cheap ceramic knickknacks, past the sentimental picture of an angel hovering protectively over a pair of children crossing a bridge at night.  At the doorway of the parlor, she hesitated.  A wicker basket with a black wooden lid sat on the floor, waiting for the next service.

          “Don’t stop now,” a voice whispered in her ear.

          Oleana slid on reluctant feet into the room.  A cold breath of air stirred the damp curls at the nape of her neck and she shivered in the humid August night.  Dog days, Memaw called them, these hot still weeks when the air hung like thick netting over the fields and snakes were blind and more aggressive, more dangerous than usual.  Dog days.

          Something stirred in the basket.

          “I’m afraid,” Oleana whispered to the dark.

          “I will help you.  Go open the lid.”

          “I can’t.”

          “Oleana, have I ever hurt you?”

          “No,” she answered and knelt beside the basket.  She grasped the lid, but it wouldn’t budge.

          “The latch.”

          She undid the hasp and raised the lid.  A heavy rope of silk and diamonds flowed over the rim of the basket and pooled on the rug in a gleaming coil.  The snake turned its great head toward her.  She stared into the black pyramids of its eyes, fascinated despite her fear,

          “Lead her down the hall.  Do not, for your life, look back until you reach the bedroom door.”

          Gathering all her courage, Oleana turned her back on the serpent.  Behind her the heavy body slid across the floorboards with a sound like the rustling of taffeta petticoats.  The girl took a deep breath and glided up the hall, fighting the urge to flee, the urge to turn and see how close the snake was to her bare heels.

          “I am so afraid.”  She stopped at the bedroom door.

          “It is not your day to die, Oleana.  Turn and welcome her into the room.”

          Oleana turned.  Five and a half feet of serpent slid toward her, stopping within easy striking distance of her ankles.  There the snake waited, tasting the air with her forked tongue.

          “My grandmother bids you welcome,” Oleana whispered to death as it lay waiting.  “I welcome you on my own account.”

          The serpent rippled forward, swinging into the doorway.  Her body flowed across the tops of Oleana’s feet, cool as satin.  She watched the snake gravely, reverently.  No longer frightened, she stood until the rattle tipped tail brushed her ankles in a final caress, then followed it into the room.

          Body echoing the circular pattern of the braided rug, the snake raised her great head and sought a way onto the mattress.  Oleana knelt beside her and slipped her hands beneath the smooth coils.  With an effort, she lifted the snake.  The coils slid back onto her arms and the tail fell to one side, but as she rose beneath the snake’s weight, the creature poured onto the bed.  She twined herself in the blood stained sheets and around the arms and across the neck of the sleeping enemy.