PodCastle

* Author : Eden Royce
* Narrator : Laurice White
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh
*
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First published in Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror.


Rated PG-13, for the donning of gory suits.
An old man sat behind the dilapidated counter of the country store humming Negro spirituals as Grace walked in, sweaty from standing in the sun. Her new black dress clung to her like a frightened child and she plucked at its neckline with irritation.
“Sun hot for all that there, enny?” He put down his newspaper, folded to the obituary page and nodded at her ensemble. She smiled at his words, the singsong of her native Gullah reaching her ears for the first time in almost a decade. English peppered with African dialects made a steamy fusion of language rich with chewy rhythms.
“Too hot to be wearing black, that’s for sure.” Funny how her drawl had returned, each vowel emerging pregnant, full and round. “But I just came from a funeral,” Grace said. She shook her head, surprised at her revelation. Half a day here and she was already oversharing with strangers.
She wove her way through the tight aisles of the old store. Dusty tin cans lined the shelves, some bearing labels promoting brand names long out of production.
Grace pulled her braids away from where they lay heavy against her damp neck. In the few hours she’d been at the cemetery, the sun had turned her skin the color of burnished teak. Sticky heat formed a staunch wall around the island, blocking all but the most steadfast of breezes. What wind managed to penetrate was off the salt marsh and dank with sulfur, smelling like a match just blown out. Afternoon slipped toward dusk and the island’s night creatures would soon come alive.
But her father wouldn’t. No amount of prayer or hoodoo could do that. She wiped perspiration from her face.
The store owner took in her designer handbag and shades. Then his gaze traveled to the window, smoky with age and inattention, where her car waited outside in the dried grass. He asked with a healthy serving of doubt, “You a binyuh?”
“Yessir. Grew up in the last house on Marsh Road.” She looked at the date on the bottom of a can and put it back on the shelf. “Though the last time I was here, that road didn’t even have a name.”
A smile warmed the old man’s face, softening the deep ebony lines. “Then you been gone a long time.”
Wadmalaw Island had escaped time’s notice; its residents caught fish and shrimp exactly as they had when they’d been brought to this land as slaves. Shopping consisted of makeshift roadside stands manned by heat-softened proprietors of intricate sweetgrass baskets and hand-harvested produce.
“Pretty gal like you aine wed?”
She smiled, lips tight. “Nope.” There’d been enough discussion of marriage lately and she needed a break from her boyfriend’s persistence. She wasn’t ready. Not yet. Grace placed her items on the counter for purchase: quarter bushel of peaches, Mason jar of clear moonshine, spearmint gum.
“You said you was here for services. Who you lost?”
“My pop. Joseph Moultrie. Did you know him?”
He gathered her purchases in a line before he meticulously pressed buttons on an ancient wooden cash register. “Once, way back. Kept to hisself the last few years, though.”
Grace pursed her lips. “I’m not surprised. We had a bit of a falling out over a . . .