Emerald Nightfall

You can tell when it's coming.  Sunset brings on a strange vibration even that the sylvan creatures feel.  The birds change the mood of their twilight songs to a more somber melody.  We hillfolk know all the signs of this rare phenomenon that is coming at night fall when the clouds float like ancient spirits and a wave of rich emerald bathes the rocky landscape.  

It is the night of their return and woe to those who do not heed the coming of the Emerald Nightfall.  Some of the creatures start to howl or screech at the sagging full moon.  Smaller creatures, often prey, scurry into the brush for safety as the sky is engulfed in the swirling emerald kaleidoscope.  The wind begins to blow rocking the higher branches and boughs of the pines sounding like an oncoming train.  

Let me warn you of what may come and take heed, take shelter, but, pray, do not let the garish green misty light fall upon your being, because the stain, like Cain's blood will never wash off.

I have lived here in this cabin for nearly thirty years after my wife died in labor giving birth to a son I would never get to know.   It was on an Emerald Nightfall.  Back then I did not fully understand the impact of the transcendental power that came with this occurrence, but seeing Sarah slip away wrapped in a bloody sheet with my son Isaac in her arms, I came to fear and respect the powers of the unknown.  

There are those among us who are in communication with those powers and they warn us to be on guard lest our souls be taken as ransom.  Their stories of the horrible magic that comes with an Emerald Nightfall is enough to make a believer of a hardened man like myself. 

My name is Moses Stearns and I have lived long enough to witness two Emerald Nightfalls, this will be my third.  I felt the wind pick up earlier this afternoon while I was fishing in the stream near my cabin for dinner.  The clouds started forming and I knew it was coming.  Shadows start deepening and pulling free from the things they are shadowing for. 

"We'd bes' be gettin' on, Brigadier." I utter to my black Labrador as I pack my tackle box. Even the gurgling water seems to be casting strange reflections as it cascades by. 

As I stated before, I came up to these hills in North Carolina after burying my wife and son in some forgotten cemetery in Raleigh.  I never saw no reason to go back.  The past has always brought me nothing but pain and grief.  Up here in the Great Smoky Mountains, I have found a temporary place in this world with my homemade squeezins and doing odd jobs here and there.  I need very little as it is and I keep my cash buried in mason jars out back. I've lost track of just how much I got stashed there, but it don't really matter to me anyway.   

"Emerald Nightfall comin'" I waved to Chester as I continued on to my cabin. He just nods and closes the door.  

Chester has lived his whole life up here.  He knows.  He told me the green mist came from some evil cult that used to have human sacrifices in the deep woods.  Chester said they used to put chemicals in the flames to make it burn green.  I'm not much on superstitions, but all I know is the Emerald Nightfall reached where I was living with Sarah and I saw what it did.  After that, I didn't want to tangle with the evil that went with it.

I heard what all them professors and doctors of astrology had to say about it and it all sounds like gibberish to me.  I heard one of them spouting off about it.  The television station we were watching put his name followed by PhD at the bottom of the screen.

"Hey Mo, come look at this." Sarah pointed to the screen as she rubbed her round belly, "He's talking about some phenomenon that is supposed to happen tonight." 

"Sounds like hooey to me." I shook my head as I walked out of the room.

How was supposed to know she would have trouble sleeping and her leg cramps made her get out of bed.  How was I supposed to know she'd go outside for her walk?  How was I supposed to know that the emerald light would cover her and the baby?  How was I supposed to know what that would do to her until she woke up a few hours later screaming out for me?  And when I found her on the sofa, she reached out for me, but it was too late.

Hemorrhage is a terrible word or so I learned that night.     

Dr. van Dyke told me, "Moses, there was nothing you could have done to save the baby or her."

He put his hand on my shoulder as I sobbed over Sarah and the baby.

Franita D'Aramatang stopped by a day after their funerals.  She was dressed in black and wore a black turban with a gold star in the center.  She started speaking in this strange language as she burned this incense as she waved the smoke all around the room where Sarah died, "Spirits release the soul of Sarah and Isaac Stearns."

I stood there awestruck, unable to move as Franita continued her ceremonial ritual.  When I looked at her dark face, all I could see were just the whites of her eyes.  She began to shake convulsively that made me wonder just whose side she was on.  

I didn't wonder for long as her head turned completely around on her neck.  The devil had walked into my home, but then she told me that they were safe.  Her words of assurement sounded like a child's prayer filled with hope and faith; two things I have been short most of my life.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Why do you ask?  You called me." Her eyes burned into mine.

"I did not call you." I shook my head.

"Your inner voice told me to come." She tilted her head as if I was mistaken.

When she left, I made up my mind that I had to leave.  Franita D'Aramatang had waken the spirits that would never sleep again.

The second time the Emerald Nightfall came, I locked the doors and windows.  There wasn't enough protection to keep any probing spirits out, but while they rattled my windows, none dared to intrude my cabin. I guess I dud not have anything they wanted.  I did hear some stories from my neighbor Chester, that some people were sucked into the emerald mist, never to be seen again.  Listening to him ramble on made me very uneasy as I helped him repair his fence.

"The Quigley's had some of them cult folk in their family, but the cult disbanded before you moved up here." He rubbed the back of his neck with his kerchief, "I suspect if there are any of 'em, they are pretty aged by now or dying off for sure."   

"We'd better get this fence repaired before the Emerald Nightfall sets in." I searched the sky, but it was still blue and innocent.

As I peered up at the sky, I saw green lines streaking across the sky.  The crickets were silent.  The birds sang a somber tune like something they would play at a funeral, my Sarah's funeral.  I remember the sad melody played on a bugle and bagpipe as they lowered her casket into the open grave. 

I would sit on my porch as the sun began to set peacefully between the gnarled old pines.  Shadows began to dance free just like they had the other two times.

My neighbor on the south side, Elmer Quigley sauntered over wearing a smile with a couple of gaps.  He tipped his straw hat and nodded,"Moses, ready for the Emerald Nightfall?" 

"As ready as I'll ever be." I answered without relinquishing my chair, "Care to join me for a spell." 

"I might til the twilight." He sat without the grace of an older man.  Most folks guess his age was just a might over seventy, but when I looked into his gray lifeless eyes, I knew he is well past eighty.  My mama said the eyes don't lie and I do believe this is a hard truth. Searching his overall pockets for his pack of Lucky Strikes, he managed to Pull out a cigarette and light his stick match on a rough patch in his clothing.  His gray focused on the tree lined horizon. "Been some time since our last one."

"What, the Emerald Nightfall?"

"Yeah, that's what most folks around here call it." He sat back and blew a thick cloud of smoke.

"Yeah, and what do You call it?"

"Hunter's Moon." He smiled a crooked smile and winked.

"What's a Hunter's moon, Elmer?"

"Used to be a signal that the members was supposed to find a victim for the sacrificial rite." His smug expression made me leery as I sat there watching the sky covered with this eerie blanket.  He shrugged, "We always managed to find someone until Judge Orcutt put a stop to, as he called it, 'our barbaric ritualistic rites.' But we found other ways to keep our practice from being swept away by this bureaucratic nonsense." 

  "How did you manage that?" I asked as he began moving like a serpent.

"We went underground." His shrug was so nonchalant it made my blood run cold. "We wrote in an invented language.  Can you imagine people inventing a language just so those in authority wouldn't have a clue about what you are saying. You must understand that language can be used as a weapon.  How sublime.  What we speak, the words we use, can be as lethal as a bullet fired from a gun."

His laugh echoed in the empty woods surrounding my cabin.  Suddenly, I felt trapped.  All the years I lived here, I felt the freedom of being my own man.  Final judgment would not come until my name was called, but here I was trapped like a critter in one of my snares.  His smile, his mild, self assuming manner was casting a spell on me.    

Elmer rose to his naked feet, tossed his Cigarette butt into the tall grass and said, "I reckon I bes' be headed on. Glad we talked."

His eyes raked over me and I swallowed and said, "Yup, I see the sky startin' to turn."

"It always amazes me when the transition is taking place. It's as if the world starts rotating the other way.  Counterclockwise.  Time begins to regress.  The creatures of the woods are silenced in reverence and for just a moment you regain what has been lost.  When Death is knocking on our door, we refuse to answer.  We refuse to answer." His dark eyes raked me over again before he tipped his hat and went on his merry way.

He was gone, no longer a threat or nuisance. I would go inside and let this Emerald Nightfall pass. I got myself into bed and dreams came quickly.

We were holding hands in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  We were so much in love, just like all the rest.  We were so much in love we could not wait so we dropped out of college and moved in together.  Time did not fit into our plans.  We were both compulsive and sure that we could live on love. We ended up getting married when Sarah found she was pregnant.  Our life would begin in a domestic paradise.  But reality plays a harsh game and soon we realized we were in for a rough road ahead, still we felt young and strong enough to overcome whatever came our way.  

I wrapped myself in this dream like a warm blanket and did not want to wake from it.

"Moses!" The wind shrieked, waking me from my dream. My head became an echo chamber as the wind rattled the recesses of my mind.  I did not answer, because I knew this was a trap.

"Moses, come here quickly, I need you!" The disembodied voice continued to shriek outside my door.  Suddenly I felt transported back to that horrible night when I first encountered the Emerald Nightfall.  Had I passed through some vortex of which I could not escape, I could not free myself from?  The memory.  That wretched memory was with me again. 

It was her voice.  I reached over to her side of the bed, but she was gone. Where was she?

"Moses. something is wrong.  Help me..."   

  Her voice began to fade and weaken.

I called out for her, the dream still vivid in my mind. I could not help her.  It was too late.

But what if I could?  What if this Emerald Nightfall would let me transcend time and do what I could not do back then?  I would do anything.  Anything to have her back.  

"I am here." Her voice was pleading in pain.  

I remember how I had promised her that I would protect her, but all of my promises became like sand slipping through my hands.  No matter how quickly I moved my feet, it felt like I was running in quicksand. When I held her, I could feel her slipping away.

What can I do Sarah?

"Open the door and you will find me."

Colors flashed through the windows.  

I could feel the walls vibrate. Any second I would be on my way to Oz with Brigadier in tow instead of Toto. 

It felt as though I was climbing a steep mountain pass as I struggled to reach the door.  Brigadier let out a warning bark, but I tugged on the door handle with all my strength. Once the door was open there was the green mist staring at me like a specter.

“Sarah!” I called out in the howling wind, but there was no answer.

Once again I was a fool to my desire and earnest prayers.  She was not there.  The green mist covered me as Brigadier stood in the doorway barking furiously as I was sucked into the Emerald Nightfall.  

“Moses, is that you?” The voice was as soft as any I had ever heard.  When the emerald mist cleared there was Sarah standing there as beautiful as I could remember.

“It is I.” I puffed out my chest in my false bravado.

She embraced me.  I could feel her hands and arms wrapped around me.

“I missed you so much.” I whispered in her ear.

“I missed you, too.” She kissed me on the cheek.  I felt the warmth of her lips pressed against my skin. I had waited a long time, a very long time.  

I doubt few of us will remember our autopsy, but I remember it clearly as the coroner poked around my inners with his scalpel before writing down “Death by Affixation” and signing the document.   

“It was a terrible fire.” Elmer put his hands in his pockets when the coroner walked into the waiting area.  

“Damn shame.” The coroner sighed. “I have heard some strange stories about the Emerald Nightfall, but I never heard it starting a fire like it did.”

“No sir, it was a log that rolled out of the fireplace.” Elmer confirmed. 

“Still, sorry for the loss.” The coroner reached out to pat Elmer on the back. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t be grieving too much. I got this feeling that all is well with Moses.” Elmer nodded as he turned to leave. He couldn’t have been more right about that.