The Hybrid Cycle: Volume 1

2: The Candy Mansion

Sherbert's Mill was stone-cold dead and had been for 100 years.

The closest town was Linell, Kentucky. Population 529. The flinty, lonesome heart of Appalachia, where the young fled when they could and the old remained out of stubbornness. A place where no one went unless they were visiting kin or possessed by a strange sense of adventure.

Beatrice Butler belonged to the latter group.

She circled the bright, Victorian-style house, her index-finger perched on the shutter button of a Nikon D430. The house's spires and turrets were showy for a town where most homes were low ranches and simple bungalows.

The gardens were as impressive as the house. Shrubs were trimmed into ornate shapes. Birds. Lions. Shimmering green pyramids. Beatrice devoured it all with the hunger of a famished wolf.

The dwelling-place of a candy witch, Beatrice thought. Orange slices powdered in strychnine. Cauldrons boiling with poisonous vapors. Her mind had a way of defaulting to the morbid when confronting new stimuli. It was a curse and a blessing.

Aside from a Holiday Inn forty-seven miles away, the Linell Bed and Breakfast was the only option for someone wanting to get close to Sherbert's Mill. It had a single Google review – four stars - left by a fellow ghosty from the Skeleton Towns forum. Skeleton Towns was one of her usual digital stomping grounds – a place where ghost-town hunting cred could be built one captioned photograph at a time.

Beatrice had let herself in the night before. The owner left a key under a flowerbed rock out back. After a ten-hour drive from Boston, she had collapsed into the canopy bed with her day-clothes on and her suitcases unpacked. Sleep had taken her with the relentless pull of a black hole consuming a star.

"I see someone rose early to admire the property."

Beatrice half-jumped at the voice. She had not heard footsteps, nor had she expected anyone to be up at 6:30 AM.

The lady behind her was no witch. She wore an ankle-length denim skirt, a paisley blouse, and the sort of ruffle-edged apron Beatrice thought no longer existed outside of TV-Land reruns. A quaint senior, for sure, but no henbane ointments and midnight flights.

"Yes, ma'am...it's a nice home. And the hedges are really something else."

Apron Lady reached out to touch her arm, smiling. The gesture seemed like a natural expression of almost maternal warmth.

"It's not historical even though it looks it. My late husband liked that sort of thing. The hedges ...now those are my son's doing. I'll be the first to admit he's not the sharpest one in the family, but once you get those pruning shears in his hands, you'll see the artist come right out of him."

She spoke in a drawl that danced lazily in the air like cigar smoke. Beatrice noticed that one of her eyes remained stationary.

Glass, she thought. My hostess has a glass eye. Does she use it to divine the future? Maybe this sweet old lady is a witch after all.

"I'm Gadilla Osbourne, by the way. We spoke via email. As for you, Sugar, do you prefer Beatrice or Betty?".

"I'm Beatrice, but my friends call me Bea." She took the older woman's hand and gave it something that approximated a handshake. Despite her strangeness, or rather because of it, Beatrice felt relaxed in the quaint woman's presence.

"How did you know it was me? I saw a few cars parked up front this morning."

Gadilla looked at her as if she were a child who had asked a particularly naïve question.

"Well, honey...it weren't no difficult feat. You're the first guest of the year."

It was late July.

"Those cars belong to old birds like myself. Drop by early some mornings for coffee and breakfast. If they're lucky, scraps of gossip too. I may let my house out to guests, but I'll admit that Linell isn't the biggest tourist spot."

She hesitated for a moment, one eye gazing at an invisible point in space while the artificial one remained fixed on Beatrice.

"Well, except for the occasional soul who wants to bang around in that deserted town up in the hills. Sherbert's Mill. We get those types every few years. Nice enough, but a strange group."

"I would be one of those occasional souls, Miss Osbourne." She wasn't offended by Gadilla's comment. Beatrice was all too aware that her passion didn't exactly fit anyone's idea of normal. Men and women who got their jollies scouring through the wreckage of civilization.

The innkeeper's smile grew more faint. She looked Beatrice up and down.

"And you're goin' by yourself, Sweetheart?"

Beatrice winced. Shades of her mother's thinking. Frail women in need of male chaperonage.

"That's the goal. Hike up there. Take some award-winning pictures of empty buildings. Is there anything I should be worried about?"

"Well, black bears, for one. But they're not bad unless you get near a den or they smell something tasty on your person."

"I'll be sure not to bring any salmon".

The old lady continued as if she hadn't heard the joke.

"Speaking of tasty, I was wondering if you cared to join the rest of the Early Riser's Club in the dining room. You don't have to pay anything, sugar. Already included in your board."

She accompanied Gadilla inside.