Smoke-Mouth is a dystopian supernatural novella, serialized in twelve projected parts. This is Episode Three.
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Previously, a shift in the town caused Jenny to face impending change.
In this episode, Jenny and Lula arrive in the old logging town of Vail.
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“Must be Sunday.”
Lula looked over her patchwork shoulder, gaze following her words to Yelm as it lay behind her. The sound of the church folks singing in their compound hovered faintly over the prairie like a mist.
They always do that. Those church folks always do that, Sunday or not.
Jenny-Dog didn’t turn, and she didn’t reply. She had set her thoughts on the possibility of Vail and closed the door to the spent husk of Yelm. Her only important things—a few supplies, clothes, her beloved ratty paperback book—were now safely in a bag on her back and the angel-haunted highway was somewhere behind.
She had not gotten so far and lived so long in this wild world by grieving the things she no longer had.
Lula let Jenny lead the way, striking off through the fields and keeping to the tall grass and patches of trees. They were starting too late in the afternoon for Jenny’s liking, and she knew that Vail would be a flat three-hour walk only if they kept their wits about them and didn’t chitchat.
You’ve got no wits to keep, Jenny. They tumbled out so long ago!
“How long did you live there?” Lula asked. “In Yelm?”
“Six years. Maybe seven.”
Lula whistled low. “That’s quite a while.”
Jenny-Dog grunted. Bastard chitchat.
“Not a little bit sad to leave it?” Lula asked.
A quick vision of her cozy treehouse in the Garry oak flashed through her mind, but Jenny shook her head hard enough to let that marble fly out through her ear. “I don’t get too used to anything, and I don’t get sad. Better that way.”
“Then what’s in Vail?”
“Nothing,” Jenny replied. “That’s why it’s good.”
She had knowledge of Vail, but it was sparse. The area had once been an old logging town over a hundred years ago, a big tree company artificial town, now just a scattered community of rural homes. No shops, no cops. She was sure there would be abandoned farms, plenty of pantries and overgrown gardens and very little chance that anyone was still living there. Why would they? If they were smart, they moved away. Far away. To the other Vail, maybe, to the fancy one in Colorado where the people ski and sip wine in the snow, if they still do that, if snow and wine and skis still exist...
Jenny laughed loud and the report of it was like shooting clays—blam! and smash!—abrupt in the summer stillness.
Good good good
Lula let Jenny’s sharp laughter die on the wind and didn’t ask the question she clearly wanted to ask. Instead, she said, “You never did tell me your name.”
Jenny swept her hand through nodding heads of dried-out grass-grains, gold and crisp as they scattered under her fingers, and said, “Jenny.”
“It’s a privilege to meet you for the first time again, Jenny,” Lula said, just a little too pleased with herself. But she didn’t wait for Jenny to retort before she asked, “Doesn’t living on your lonesome get tiring after a while?”
Jenny-Dog shook her head, rattle-roll thoughts. “Alone is good,” she said, and smiled a little bit because she was a ghoul. Yes, just a grisly ghoul and better off alone. “You think you’re going to find good people at Smoke-Mouth. If that’s it, you’re wrong about it. All the smart people are gone.”
Lula was walking behind her and Jenny couldn’t see her face, but the fool girl’s voice took on a defensive tone. “I’m not looking for people, exactly, but I’ll gladly take ‘em if they’re friendly. Smoke-Mouth’ll show me whatever she wants to show me, that’s all I know. You got any family?”
The abrupt question made Jenny’s ear pop, squeal. Jenny didn’t like the questions. She was tired of them. She stopped, turned, and said, “Had a husband once.”
“Oh?” Lula stopped, too. “What happened to him?”
“He talked too much. I put rat poison in his sausage gravy.”
Lula stared. Jenny laughed behind her hand. Blam! Smash!
It was blessed quiet for a while after that.
*******
The hours passed. Jenny-Dog made the path, as she always did. She led them safely in the shadows, listened always for the passage of angels, kept a keen eye open for military. They crossed old scarred roads and dirt tracks, passed through patches of scrubby trees and over little rills disappearing through the weakened arteries of cracked culverts. Whatever was happening in Yelm didn’t seem to be happening here; the lowland hills were empty of people, dotted instead with milling twitch-tailed deer and the empty shells of gutted houses and outbuildings, some burned to skeletons.
Jenny tried to imagine this place the way it used to be, full of cars and kids and dogs and planes in the sky, but she couldn’t. The quakes had rattled the right-side-up out of everything, had opened a mouth in the earth and swallowed the familiar.
Soon enough, as the sun leaned down to kiss the tops of the trees, the smell of the river north of Vail—not Nisqually; something else…where are we?—filled the air with mountain chill and Jenny-Dog followed it, Lula just behind.
“Are we close?” Lula asked, removing her wide-brimmed hat and wiping her brow with her sleeve.
Jenny nodded. “Just across the river and in there.”
She pointed to the dark smudge of trees ahead of them, the old lumber woods stretching on and on, unchecked and unharvested. A few houses were visible on the forest’s edge, but no movement. No people. No lights. No cars.
Yes, yes, yes
They found the river soon enough. Jenny couldn’t remember its name; there were so many around here. It was a wide-hipped and tumbling thing, cheery and conversational and full of good boulders and rocks to mumble and chew on.
A bit too wild for a cold-box, Jenny, she thought, and laughed and laughed.
She found a shallow enough place where the water was loud but the rocks were sturdy, all warm from the height of the sun, and the two women crossed over the river to the other side with only a dip or two of boot-toe in the water by accident.
As soon as they were both safe on the opposite bank, Jenny said, “I’m staying here. Your road is east a bit, then south to your fool old mountain and good riddance too I reckon.”
“It’s getting dark,” Lula said.
Jenny shrugged. “So?”
“I ain’t walking in the dark by myself.”
“Who asked? I’m staying here and you’re heading on. That’s what we decided.”
Lula glanced southeast and her big sunflower-center eyes did something complicated. “I know you want rid of me. I ain’t walking in the dark. I’ll camp here with you tonight, then head on in the morning and give you your precious lonesome you love so much. I swear.”
Jenny grunted again, turned her face away, walked on. Disappointing—fool girl! stupid and cowardly! this is the world now, and you’re in it, and darkness and angels and all!—but she decided she could wait one more night for perfect solitude.
You’re patient, Jenny-girl. If you weren’t you wouldn’t have made it this far.
Here at the northern end of Vail the low hills were covered in sparse young Douglas fir trees, vestiges of the old logging operation planted by the busy burying of squirrels. Beyond them, forest thicker still. Jenny-Dog and Lula pushed through the spindly new growth and then plunged into the forest like jumping into a lake, the chill of the shade soothing the heat from their long walk.
It was not far into the trees when Jenny knew that something had changed, like they had stepped over an invisible threshold.
It started with a wistful thought, a thin splinter lodged in her brain. Of her years spent in Yelm, and of her little treehouse in the Garry oak, and of pleasant afternoons beside the creek where she kept her cold-box. Of eating ripe apples by the handful and popping open jars of jams, pickles, smoked fish, savory soups. Of nights lying under the stars, reading her book over and over again, tasting the familiar words on her tongue. The thought came with a pain just below her collarbone, a pang of sorrow that was slight, but sharp. Grief, ignored.
Before she could shake her head to dislodge it, it disappeared.
Mostly invisible behind the trees, the sun was hanging heavy on the horizon like a ripe peach. Jenny-Dog knew they needed to find a good place to sleep somewhere safe. There was plenty to do the next day when she was finally rid of the girl. She would explore this new place in the good light of morning, find all the secrets, unearth all the stashes, and create new routines.
Home, Jenny-girl. This is home now. You’ve done it.
Suddenly, another wave of sorrow hit her along with a memory of a meal from long ago, something she had not thought of in years. The flavor of it filled her mouth before she could think of what she was tasting: roasted ham, butter, scalloped potatoes thick with heavy cream, homemade rolls, fresh green beans…and sitting at a long table in a sweet-smelling rosebush breeze, rich with the tidal savor of the nearby sea…
Jenny shook her head once, twice, like a wet dog throwing the damp from its back. The memory dissipated, but left Jenny feeling hollow and afraid.
She turned. Lula’s eyes were wide and haunted behind her, like she knew. Or like her own ghosts had come to call.
This is home now, Jenny. You’re just tired. Find a place to sleep.
But no sooner had she thought this when another wave of sorrow struck her. This one came with a phantom sensation of someone’s gentle hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. She ducked and turned to look at who it was behind her, but there was no one except Lula, and the girl was shaking like a branch in the wind, eyes distant.
Shake, shake, shake it away…but the sorrow didn’t fully leave, this time. Kept one thin cat-claw hanging on. Jenny-Dog was still soaked and dripping with it, this tide of sorrow.
The air was close. Thick, almost porous.
Jenny looks for a good place to sleep and always finds it. Anywhere.
There’s no one around. This is a perfect place, Jenny. Just keep going.
Another wave of sorrow struck higher, like the tide was coming in, and pummeled her to her knees. She felt the sensation of singing in her throat, but she wasn’t making a sound, and the live-wire buzz of a guitar’s strings under her fingertips.
“Do you feel that?” Lula asked, finally, choke-tight like she was going to cry.
Jenny was on her knees, and she couldn’t answer. The sensation of guitar strings had left a metallic taste in her mouth, like she’d bitten her tongue. The buzz of the strings, the buzz of her own voice in her throat, singing…
No no NO! Get up, Jenny!
“Whole place is full,” Lula whispered, falling beside Jenny, quivering and quaking, hands and knees. “It’s full of blood, warm like blood. Whole place is full of sorrow. Can you feel it?”
Behind the trees the sun snuffed out, and the arms of Vail closed around them.
*******
Jenny dreamed, but her dreams were terrible nonsense. They weren’t hers. They belonged to someone else, to whole scores of people, bits and pieces of tragedy woven together and draped over her. Suffocating. The feeling of curious hands on her arms and legs, of a weight on her chest. Jenny couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
Get up, Jenny! You’re drowning!
Not even her own thoughts could slice through the tumult of voices to reach her. She lay still as a stone, breathing lightly, squeezed as by the hold of mud.
It won’t let go! Golly-gawd, Jenny!
There was a soft hand on her forehead. This alone was hers, and she wished she could shuffle away from it, away from the feeling of his skin on her skin.
Jenny! Jenny!
“Jenny. We have to move.”
Jenny heard Lula’s voice. She didn’t want to care about it; everything was black and unfamiliar, all the smells were wrong and her limbs were sinking into the earth.
“Jenny, please. We have to leave this place.”
She opened her eyes, but everything was dark. Nighttime dark. She was lying on her side in the moss and fir duff; she could smell it underneath her, and that fool girl was leaning over her.
“What’s wrong with me,” Jenny said.
“It’s this place.” Lula’s voice was harsh like she’d been crying. “It’s a bad place. We can’t stay.”
Jenny tried to push herself upright, but it was like moving through sand. Lula helped her get to her feet. She wasn’t used to feeling this feeble. Quick Jenny, clever Jenny! Always so lithe and agile! But not now. Her cells longed to sink into the earth and stay.
“Let’s go,” Lula said. “Let’s move. We have to move.”
So they did. They pushed onward through the woods, wandering without direction and without light. It was impossible to tell how long they stumbled forward. An hour, maybe? Another? Suddenly the little town of Vail seemed to stretch on forever, a vast landscape of melancholy so thick it might as well have been underwater.
The longer they wandered, the more numb Jenny started to feel. The fragrance of old dinners and the touch of old hands and the feel of her voice in her throat had pinned her to her despair like an insect on display. She felt nothing, longed for nothing except to give in to the sorrow and let the woods take her. Her grief, a needful child, reached out small hands to trip her up, refusing to be ignored.
Lula—though quivering and quaking with her own unspoken gravity—would not let Jenny stop.
“No,” she said. “We can’t. We can’t stay here. We have to get out.”
But they couldn’t. It stretched on and on, this place. No houses, no buildings, no lights. Old lumber regrowth solemn with resentment, lanky young trees stretching for the light, and no animal sounds to soften it, to make it feel real. It could have been outer space. It could have been a sound-stage, an artificial world.
They finally stopped to rest on an old stump wide enough to hold them both and they sat back to back, breathing heavy in the water-thick air. Jenny felt the sorrow pool around her ankles, travel up to her knees, rise to her shoulders and over her tingling scalp.
You’re going to die here, clever Jenny. At long last, you’ve met your match.
“I’m sorry,” Lula whispered, though it was unclear to whom. “I’m real sorry. I tried.”
They sat, ready to become part of it all. The woods stood silent around them.
But then…
A soft sound. Rhythmic. It barely penetrated Jenny’s despairing thoughts, a low thunder.
It continued. It approached.
“Hear that?” Lula said.
Jenny nodded, even though it was dark and Lula couldn’t see her.
The sound continued closer, and closer, until something entered the clearing. In the deep dark Jenny couldn’t really see what it was, but it was pale and large and moved with purpose and heavy feet. It passed through the clearing and did not pause. The faint scent of hay filled the air.
“Let’s follow it,” Lula whispered. She pulled at Jenny’s arm and the two stood up again on shaking legs, limping after the pale shape, following at a safe distance.
They followed it for what seemed like a long time until they stumbled out of the suffocating tree canopy onto a rutted dirt road, overgrown with weeds and drenched in moonlight, the first light they had seen since sunset.
Walking at a steady pace away from them on the road was a horse, a thick-limbed working breed with a heavy head and drumbeat hooves. It seemed completely unaware of their presence, walking an oft-used track, following an ancient pattern that it alone understood.
They drew up next to it, afraid to spook it, but it gave neither a blink nor a twitch.
Up close, Jenny could see that its pale coat rippled translucent as a cloud. A phantom, and not a living horse at all.
Lula reached out to touch the creature’s flank and her hand sank through it like white jelly. She pulled her hand back. The horse continued walking.
“Where do you think it’s going?” Lula asked.
Jenny couldn’t say. Her feet were sore and her grief lingered on the edge of the moonlight, threatening to drag her down again. She reached out to grab the horse’s halter and to her dim surprise, her fingers closed around it. The halter was solid, though the animal’s cheek yielded under her fingers, immaterial.
The ghost-horse stood still, adjusting its weight, ears flicking.
“Oh.” Jenny surprised herself. She looked close at the halter. There was a tarnished brass plate on the cheekband; the word ELLEN was etched into it.
“Suppose that’s her name? Or maybe Ellen was who owned her?” Lula said.
Jenny shrugged. She looked out at the ribbon of the moonlit road and said, “Roads find other roads. Let’s let her walk us a little longer.”
So she let go of the harness and the horse started off again, and they followed the spirit as it led them down the old logging road past the skeletons of the company town, the signage split and moss-eaten. Past the ghostly outlines of buildings that no longer existed, exhumed into tenuous existence by the despair of the place. They followed until the trees began to thin, grow younger, grow soft.
Finally, they reached the limits of the old woods and the lowlands stretched out before them once more, moon bathing the rolling hills in spilled cream.
Gradually, like the receding of a tide, the weight of Vail’s sorrow lifted, ebbed, slipped back into its dark shadows to wait for new victims.
Jenny and Lula collapsed into a thicket beside a stream—too exhausted to speak or think—and they slept where they fell, hidden by the tall grass and tule-weed.
The horse called Ellen stood for a while staring down at the two women, thinking about all the long years of circles she had traveled in—the eternal task of skidding and twitching, bringing the line back from the steam donkey over and over again—but with no men to feed her sugar cubes as reward. Not anymore. They were long gone, and she had been alone for a long time, and she had never noticed until now.
The all-consuming sorrow had lifted from her great pale shoulders. She looked back at the woods of Vail and gave a soft hay-sweet snort, adjusting her great weight again and pawing once at the road to freedom.
Then she found a place to rest near the two women sleeping by the stream and stayed there, gazing up at stars she had not seen in a long century.
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I was not expecting a ghost horse (obviously), or ghosts of any kind, so now I'm even more intrigued. This has had such a nice flow so far, really drawing us in.
How all consuming grief is! It takes a miracle to pull through, and perhaps Ellen is that miracle.