Fantastic Women

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Two days later, Beth was feeling more rough and sharp around the edges, just like those chunks of greenish glass, than she wanted to admit. The singing had only gotten louder, and now she heard people talking low and soft in between the songs. The sensation that she’d be able to make out the words if she only tried a little bit harder felt like grit inside her brain.

Walking into the archives room at the town hall made it worse. Handling the slides was almost deafening, but at least the music changed depending on what she was looking at. Sprightly, joyful fiddles, funeral dirges and hymns, schoolhouse learning chants, and even a bit of early bluegrass. Beth could change the tunes with different slides almost like a radio.

None of the other archived materials, whether postcards, printed photos, or newer plastic negatives, had an effect. Only the pieces of glass. The constant undercurrent was as maddening as her own music had been comforting.

Rather than go across the street for lunch, Beth got a fresh notebook and closed the door. No matter how stuffy it got, the last thing she needed was Tina or anyone else wandering in while she was talking to herself. She pulled out the funeral picture, the one that started all this strangeness. Murmuring voices replaced the singing, but she couldn’t quite make out any words. A few more songs went by with no more success.

“Can you hear me?” she whispered, her cheeks turning red. She tried again, a bit louder. “Hello? I hear you talking. Is anyone there?”

The song continued without even a pause. Beth scrubbed her fingers through her hair, then got as close to shouting as she dared in the closed space with people right outside the door.

“Either tell me what you want or leave me alone!”

The voices stopped.

Beth tried to hold perfectly still, not sure if she wanted an answer or for the whole thing to be over. She could probably adjust to not having music anymore, but not to the constant noise.

The low, empty circuit hum in her ears intensified, and a voice floated up like a distant station on her great-uncle’s old tube radio.

“Been wonderin’ if anyone was thar.” The woman spoke with a thick dialect that was hard to understand, but Beth thought it had to be from close by. “Been tryin’ to get through for a powerful long time.”

Beth opened her mouth twice before any words made it out.

“Trying to get through from where?”

“Well, from right here,” the woman said. It sounded like rii-chyer. “Bountyfield. Ain’t that where you are?”

“This is Hartstown, but I’m in Boun County,” Beth said, leaning over to grab the computer mouse. She followed a hunch and scrolled through the manuscript file to the section about county origins. “This used to be called Bountyfield a long time ago, so I guess that’s where I am.”

“Well then, you aready know what I want.”

Beth let out a short laugh, shaking her head. The list of what she knew sat pretty much at zero.

“No, ma’am. I’m afraid I don’t know anything. Maybe we can start with why on earth I can hear you at all?”

“That question only you can answer. I been called a wise woman, a seer, sometimes even a witch, among my people. You anything like that?”

Beth shook herself and sat forward, scribbling as much as she remembered about the conversation so far. If nothing else, she wanted a record of such a vivid break from reality. Assuming she recovered, this would make a great story someday.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever called me wise,” she said, smiling. “Not even close.”

“It don’t have to be you, now. If you hear me at all, some of your folks had an ear for such.”

Beth tapped the pen on the nearly full page, trying to imagine what this mystery woman meant. Her concerns about having some kind of breakdown led her to the answer.

“I had, well, not exactly a wise woman,” she said. “One of my great-grandmothers was supposed to have a little trouble with reality. I don’t remember her very well.”

Beth stopped, chills running down her arms and legs. Granny Johnson hadn’t just had trouble. She’d heard voices. Voices no one else could hear. When the woman spoke again, Beth jumped hard enough to leave a mark on the page.

“Reality depends a lot on who’s seein’ it and who’s callin’ it, you ask me. What’s your name? If we’re gonna talk like this and get anything done, I need to know who I’m talkin’ with.”

“I’m Beth. Beth Azen. I guess I should have asked sooner, but what’s your name? And what do you mean, get anything done?”

“I’m Clina Jane. What I mean is fix this pizen down deep in our mountains. I reckon more than enough lives been lost to it, certainly from where you’re sittin’.”