The Curse of Crow Hollow by Billy Coffey

your kids. She knew you . How is that?”
    Friend, if you could’ve seen the way the Reverend and the mayor looked at each other just then, you’d have understood there was plenty they knew on how that was. But now wasn’t the time to be getting into the past, not then and not after the two of them had taken such care to keep it all buried. I guess even then, they all thought there was still a way to keep their sins hidden. Fear sure can make you think some crazy things, can’t it?
    â€œShe’s a witch,” Briar said. “That’s how Alvaretta knew.”
    Medric shook his head. “Alvaretta ain’t no witch. Just a lonely old woman is all. Only power she holds sits in her own broken mind.”
    â€œYou say that, Medric?” Chessie asked. “That what you really think? You the one put Stu Graves in the ground all those years ago. You buried that man’s body and you heard Alvaretta herself say a reckoning would come. You remember Wally Cork? How he hooked up Stu’s old truck to his wrecker and took it back to Alvaretta? You remember what he said after?”
    â€œSaid he tried going in her house,” Briar reminded them. “Said something come over him.”
    Chessie nodded. “Was Alvaretta’s grief come over ’im. Alvaretta’s rage . A woman’s heartache can overcome a man. And when Wally tried to force hisself on Alvaretta and she beat him back, what happened? Found Wally dead a week after, that’s what happened. Spread-eagled out in his backyard with the maggots eatin’ what was left of his flesh. Or should we talk on the drought after? Huh? You remember that, Medric? Landis? You remember the fire at the grocery a day after your daddy said he’d give Alvaretta no credit on her supplies cause she didn’t have no money?”
    Landis couldn’t help but shudder at that. He held that memory just as well as he did every other occurrence of the witch. That fire had nearly cost his daddy all he had in the world, and he made sure Alvaretta Graves had all the credit she needed after that, which turned out to be none at all. Alvaretta was seen in town no more, much to the relief of those in the Holler. She remained alone on the mountain, left to fend for herself. There was nothing the grocery could provide that the woods couldn’t provide better, whether food or medicine or clothing. And what the mountain couldn’t give her, the devil certainly could. Everything got quiet again.
    After a while the Reverend said, “This world ain’t all there is, Medric. You need to keep that in mind. There’s a war we can’t see being fought around us every day. There’s light and there’s the dark, and in that dark are things no man could bear knowing.”
    Briar snorted. “That’s good, David. You gonna ask to pass a plate next? Bucky’s right. We can stand here jawing or we can figure out what we gotta do. Ain’t just that Alvaretta knows y’all’s names, ain’t even that the girls are sick. Them kids are being truthful, there’s something loose from the mountain. Scarlett told us a demon’s what leveled the curse, not Alvaretta. And Alvaretta’s got it keeping her comp’ny.”
    Wilson fiddled with his mustache. He’d managed to keep things together in hisself so far—the Reverend too—which was a feat considering all that must’ve been going through his mind. I’m betting Stu Graves was hanging over both their heads like that big old cross hung up on the wall.
    â€œWhat Alvaretta is or isn’t giving shelter to ain’t important right now,” Wilson said. “We all been lied to, every single one of us. I don’t even know what those kids say is truth and what’s false. But I know if word gets out Alvaretta did this, we’re gonna have a storm on our hands. We gotta keep this quiet. Let Crow Holler think it’s a