Later that day Esther found AnnMarie on the porch, her legs dangling loosely over the steps. Beside her was a bowl of fresh cut sugarcane. She had been uptown earlier in the day, but Esther still wondered where she'd gotten it from.
She hadn't seen fresh cut sugarcane in a very long time.
"Hey." She said very quietly.
AnnMarie turned and offered a quiet greeting in response. Esther watched closely as she put a piece of sugarcane in her mouth and began to chew.
"You know, I think time moves slower here." AnnMarie said.
"Yeah?" Esther said.
"Yeah." AnnMarie said, "I always hear everybody talking about how they want to move up north, or to the city, so they can finally do something with their lives. Like life here just isn't real— at least not all the way real. Real life is the city. The lights. The modern lifestyle. The sick air.
It's like out here is purgatory. At least, its like purgatory for me. I'm stuck."
It was quiet for a moment, and Esther didn't know what to say. AnnMarie shook her head, a sad sort of smile on her pink lips.
"Sorry. I'm being weird." She said, "Do you want some sugarcane?"
She scooted the bowl closer to her, but Esther gently pushed it back.
"I can't eat food, remember?" She said softly.
"Oh yeah, sorry. I forget sometimes that you're not a regular person. I'm glad you're here anyway."
"You deserve someone better. I'm not good."
AnnMarie didn't seem phased by her declaration of being bad at this point.
"I'm not so good myself."
Esther frowned.
"I— What did you mean by that?"
AnnMarie leaned back, and looked up out at the sky.
"There was this lady up in Hilton— I think she was a Braisend, or maybe a Brisco— who went to jail a few years back. Killed her baby they say. It's not that she strangled it or anything like that. Just didn't feed it.
They say she let it cry, and cry and cry, all day and all night, and she just watched Soap Operas the whole time. Eventually it stopped crying.
When the police asked why she did it, why she never fed the baby, they said she seemed indifferent, and only said to them 'I never got around to it.'
I think about that baby sometimes."
"Annie—"
"I guess what I'm saying is, sometimes you're not a bad person because you did something you weren't supposed to, but because you didn't do something you should have. I think that is the way I'm a bad person."
"Annie, you're not a bad person—"
"Maybe you killed someone, Esther, and maybe from the way you talk it was someone you cared about. But I've let three people die becuase of my selfishness. I killed them with my indifference. I'm not any better than you."
AnnMarie started going back to work, and Esther started to poke around town. While the girl was away, Esther spent her time at bars in the surrounding towns. She was looking to hear some gossip, and feed on whoever she could get her hands on.
She felt bad coming home to AnnMarie every night, slightly tipsy from feeding on alcoholics. AnnMarie tried to offer her blood a few more times, but Esther kept declining. She wanted the girl to have a chance to recover.
Eventually, she found what she was looking for.
A man in a shady bar out on the highway told her about a woman who sat at a diner out by the farmer's market on weekends. He said she knew a lot of local history.
Esther had went up there that very Staurday, and sure enough, the woman was there.
She rocked slowly back and forth in the rocking chair, the tip of a lit cigarette slowly turning into a long line of ash as she held it tight between her withered lips. She looked up at Esther with a measure of suspicion that quickly turned into a sort of recognition. Esther pretended not to notice.
"Are you the woman who tells stories?" She asked.
"Oh, you came to hear a story?" She said.
One of her hands, knarled and shaking, finally went to pull the cigarette from her lips.
"Yes, if you don't mind." Esther said.
She sat in the chair beside her and dropped the backpack to her feet.
"Do you want a smoke?" The woman said. She extended a red and white, crumpled pack of cigarettes toward her with a shaking hand.
Esther pulled one out.
"Thanks. You have a light too?"
"Yes."
The woman handed her a box of matches. Esther thanked her once again, and lit the cigarette.
Smoking was always strange.
She didn't need to breath, but inhaling brought smells, and smells were one thing that she could still enjoy. She could feel the smoke on her lungs, just barely taste it on her tongue, like the ghost of something she once knew, fading in and out.
It was hard to tell, but she thought there might have been a hint of menthol.
"What did you want to know?" The woman asked.
Esther exhaled.
"About the witch's cabin, out on Billy's Island."
"Are you headed up that way?" She asked.
"Maybe later this week." Esther said.
"Well, then you should be careful. That land is cursed."
"I've heard that." Esther said.
The woman's mouth curled slowly into a smile.
"But then again, you're cursed as well, aren't you?"
"Yes, I think some people would say that." Esther said. "Others might call it something else."
"Hm." She said, "What do you call it?"
Esther took a drag off of the cigarette, and blew the smoke out. It swirled in the light before it began to dissipate.
"I just call it the way things are."
"Of course. So you want to know about the witch who lived in the cabin?" She asked.
Esther nodded.
"Let's see now—"
The woman's rocking picked up pace as she squinted at the sun.
"Her name was Lena, and she lived in the cabin back in 1890's. She was an outcast, and none of the folks in the town liked her much, said she was in league with the devil. When you live in a place where church is three times a week, that's not a way you want to be known. But she did have a friend who lived out in Hallowed Ground, a young woman by the name of Louise Keller."
Esther looked up, and pulled the cigarette from her lips
"Keller?" She asked.
"You know any Kellers? I think whatever's left of em' still live here."
"I think I know one, yes." She said.
"Well, like I was saying, Louise was the one friend in the world Lena had. Spent all their free time together, best of friends. The only thing that ever came between them was a man, and his name was Jedediah Cooper.
They were both in love with him, but Louise was sure he would choose her. He came from a respectable family, and she was sure he would never marry a witch, even if he did love her."
"But he did marry her?" Esther guessed.
"He was going to, but he never got the chance. When she heard they planned to marry, Louise was so angry she rowed out to the island in the middle of the night, and got into it with Lena. Things went bad, and Louise killed her best friend. They say with her dying breath Lena cursed Louise and all the generations of her family to come."
"What was the curse?" Esther asked.
"That no one in her family would ever truly love or be loved, because everyone they grew close to would die."
"Vengeance." Esther said.
The woman nodded.
"I suppose so— but of course, it's just a story people tell, and people can come up with some tall tales."
"I've heard some strange ones myself." Esther said.
"You know just the other day there was a hunter at the post office who said he shot a vampire in the woods." The woman said.
"But of course, that's just a story as well." Esther said.
The woman puffed on her cigarette.
"Yes. Of course."
"Do you know where Lena was buried?" Esther said. "I'd like to visit her grave."
"Oh. No one knows for sure." The woman said. "They say Louise cut her body into pieces and buried it all around the island."
"That's… certainly something." Esther said.
"Mhm." The woman said.
Esther stood up, and slung her backpack back over her shoulder. She tossed the cigarette butt to the side and took a step away from the woman.
"Thanks for giving me some of your time. I appreciate it."
"Careful poking around in the swamp now." The woman said. "You might find something scary out there— something besides yourself."
A/N: I can't find the chapter header image for this story anywhere and I'm super bummed about it. Apologies. I'll try to make a new one from scratch soon.