Moonshiners' Hollow

Chapter Four

Papaw's house wasn't large, but it took Courtney and him two whole days to evaluate everything in it. Tyler felt exhaustion beyond reason, plagued in his dreams by the darkness of the river; of the gnarled tree and sinister forest. When he was awake, they would all sit in the kitchen around the table sorting through stacks of ancient boxes and crumbling pictures. Papaw was devoid of his smile until he would be reminded of a good memory in the pile of antique things. He'd point at a picture or object and ask if Courtney or Tyler had a memory of it. They never did. Papaw was eager to tell them.

He had a golden baseball from the top of one of his long-dead friend's trophies; metal wedding bands he crafted for Mamaw and him; pictures of old friends in the forest—he couldn't recall who took those. Golden silverware that was a sort-of family heirloom. Tyler said Courtney could keep the silverware when Papaw brought it up. They play-fought about how gaudy the silverware was and why they couldn't imagine wanting it. The performance pulled another smile from Papaw's blueish lips and sagging, gray wrinkles.

They all continued well past midnight, pulling new boxes as they sorted through their guts and talking about nothings. The butter-yellow light was wearing on Tyler's eyes and headache. Courtney had already needed to shake him awake a couple of times.

"I'm goin' to bed after this one," he said, gesturing for someone to push a box to him. Papaw and Courtney muttered their acknowledgement. A small box was chosen and slid across the table to Tyler. It was an old, beaten box wrapped in packing tape. Not many of the boxes had been taped shut. Papaw was carefully sorting pictures flaking from decay in neat little piles next to the box he had to look through.

Tyler cut into the box with an X-acto knife. Unlike the larger boxes full of old clothes or mail, the taped box was just a shell for another taped box. Cutting past that, Tyler gingerly pulled the final box out of its tape prison. The picture on the box showed a kitschy glass from a drag strip, but it was not sealed. It wasn't heavy enough to have a glass in it. His exhaustion had leaked into his movements—robotic after a time—and he opened the box with the picture without asking.

As he expected, there was no glass found, so he turned it upside-down. Plastic settled noisily to the table, and Tyler carefully picked up the box, hoping that nothing spilled onto the floor.

The first picture, sepia-toned, was of a little girl smiling, holding a bouquet of weeds. Many of the older pictures were of an idyllic plot of land: a flat spot, a creek, trees. Simple. As Tyler thumbed through the pictures, they became mostly a saga of photos of a girl growing up. A sinking realization hit his stomach when she was recognizable to him.

"Are these... Mom?" he asked.

Courtney leaned over for a better look at the pictures. Papaw meticulously placed the last pictures he was sorting into their piles. The scattered pictures and instant film covered Tyler's work area.

"Lemme see," he said. Tyler passed him a well-preserved picture of Mom in the forest.

"Oh." Papaw traced along the girl's hair in the photo with his thumb. His lips moved, but Tyler couldn't make out what he said.

"Yes," he said, looking up to Tyler. "Sure is." Papaw's voice began to strain. "I ain't... I ain't, and e'ryone else too; ain't nobody supposed to look at her. T'was the pact."

He rubbed his forehead and shook his head. He traced the edges of his daughter's face, then tore the picture in half. And then in half again. And again. His hands were agile. The ripped pieces of the picture scattered across the floor, green, like the canopy of trees in summer. Tyler looked to the carnage around the table.