Daughter of the Pines

It started with a whispered name two weeks ago.

Then more whispers.

When I was getting some replacement school supplies for Cary, a book flew out of the shelf in front of me.

It was eerie and disturbing, and I wanted to walk away… but the cover caught my eye.

The Phantom of the Pines: Jersey’s Very Own Devil

What a silly notion. I couldn’t believe anyone had time to write such fluff… let alone read it!

The budget was tight as it was.

Bill had been in a mood last night. He had worked a few odd jobs to get a couple of bottles for the week, but had binged and drained them in a night… which meant he would need more money.

He had had trouble holding down jobs since anyone could remember, always saying they were being unfair to him… he just needed a chance.

I had believed him once upon a time.

We had gotten married, and I got pregnant with Sophie, then Cary, and then little Quentin.

Bill’s moods had taken a nasty turn while I was pregnant.

He had said he wanted to be the breadwinner and didn’t want me to work. When I did stay home, it was fine until he decided I was lazy.

He kept being passive-aggressive, then one night it all went wrong.

He had been out drinking with his friends and came home. Called me horrible names, broke things… my face had been so swollen I could barely see.

When he sobered up, he apologized and swore it wouldn’t happen again. And then he told me that I was lucky to have him anyway… and what would I do? It wasn’t like I could work anyhow.

Months went by. Sophie was born.

It started in earnest when Bill lost his job, around the time Sophie turned one.

He would always say how sorry he was and remind me how good I had it… and when that started to fail , he would toss out that Sophie shouldn’t grow up without her father.

So I stayed.

Fast forward to two more babies and Bill staying mostly drunk.

We almost lost the house, and I had to go back to work.

Bill said it wasn’t his job, and if I couldn’t take the kids to work and keep up with the house , then what good was I? He said it made me a terrible mother and wife.

I got a job at a local truck stop.

The manager and waitresses were amazing and let me keep the kids there.

Bill decided that the kids, cooking, and the upkeep of the house and lawn were beneath him, and so should be my job.

He would work just enough to get his bottles, telling everybody that he couldn’t find work because of the economy.

My manager Ted had offered him a job bussing tables and mopping up.

That night Bill made sure to only leave marks on me where no one would see. He accused me of sleeping with Ted and that we were trying to humiliate him.

I was just thankful to go to work and that he couldn’t access my checks.

Ted sent the money to the bills for me as I got paid. Judy, one of the elderly waitresses, would take the rest to get groceries for me. She said that it was no trouble, as she had to get her own anyway.

There was barely a penny left.

They never said anything… but they knew.

I had been terrified that Bill would start in on the kids.

He was terrible to them… but hadn’t hit them yet.

As Sophie got older, Bill got rougher with her.

Thank God our new busboy Miguel had started two months ago. His wife Imelda, would take the kids when Bill got scary.

No questions. Just quesadillas and carnitas.

I was at the checkout when an older woman asked why I was buying the supplies so late. I said Cary lost her things.

She knew I was lying, but didn’t push.

I went to work, stashing all of the purchases in my locker and got on with my shift.

Miguel was picking up the kids tonight.

I hoped Bill was passed out when I got home.

I worked an extra shift and then a little more, hoping he was out cold.

When I finally dragged myself home, I opened the door to a strange perfume.

Ahhh… Bill’s new habit.

Well, for the last year or so.

He would pick up different women and bring them home.

He told me I wasn’t attractive to him anymore, and besides, if I left him he would take the kids from me.

Bill had a way of convincing people… even if he didn’t get custody, he would make sure that I lost them out of spite.

It didn’t matter to him anyway.

What he didn’t realize was that I was happy.

It meant that he stayed away from me, and I didn’t get pregnant again.

I loved my kids, but I was afraid all the time.

I went to the fridge.

I needed water.

In the dark in the sitting room across from the kitchen counter, I saw her.

Gorgeous. Tall, slim, long red hair, straight and sleek enough to cut something.

She wore a black bodycon strappy dress and red heels… and an anklet that tinkled as she moved.

Odd for how cold and snowy it was outside.

She was way out of Bill's league.

But he was charming.

"You want some water?"

She looked at me with disgust and then surprise.

“Odd thing to ask the woman that your husband brought home… isn’t it?”

I shrugged and poured myself a glass, drinking it all in one go. Ah, that was good. I checked to make sure Sophie’s medicine wasn’t running too low. She kept having upper respiratory infections and we couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t have the money to get her to a good doctor, just going to the free clinic. She was getting worse and I was worried. It didn’t help that we barely had money for the heat. I sighed tiredly.

The woman motioned with her chin toward my gargantuan purse.

“Urban legends… not something I would have thought a suburbanite such as yourself would pursue an interest in.”

She lit a cigarette, long and slim and white, and blew the smoke in the air, casually flicking the ashes on the carpet that I tried to keep clean.

I sighed again and decided that she and Bill were perfect for each other.

“It jumped off a shelf at me, so I decided to give it a look.”

She gave me an odd look, then sniffed in my direction and gave me an even odder look.

“So what DO you think of the Jersey Devil legend… the Phantom of the Pines?”

She said it with such a sneer in her voice.

“I don’t know. Haven’t got that far into it.”

She nodded.

“Hmm. There’s more to that story, you know.”

Flick. More ash on my carpet.

“How so?”

Now she looked interested in my existence. It was unsettling.

“Um hmm. Everyone knows the story of Mary Leeds who had twelve kiddos and got pregnant with a thirteenth, cursing the child. Months later, as the babe was born, it turned into a devil and killed its family, mother, and a few of the midwives, running into the pines once it was done to come back once in a while to terrorize on a whim. But there is a bit more to the story.”

She blew a plume of smoke.

In spite of myself and my exhaustion, I was morbidly fascinated.

“Do tell.”

She nodded and flicked ash.

“The legend only has grains of the real story. It doesn’t tell of how ‘Mother’ Leeds was married to a drunkard that refused to help her with the children he begat upon her over and over again… at times against her will. He refused to work or do anything really other than drink.

It leaves out that the town shut down her voice when she asked for help or even for comfort. She was mocked, jeered at, and told that she chose this and to bear it with grace and dignity.

The legend doesn’t tell how many women in the town had slept with Mary Leeds’ husband, even some of her very own midwives who treated her with open scorn.”

She paused to take a drag.

I felt myself frown and a cold pit started in my stomach.

“Did he hit her…?”

The redhead shook her head.

“No. He was always too drunk to do much. But she did try to take her life when she could bear it no more. That’s something that the legend couldn’t know.

Lying there on the forest floor was when Mary Leeds’ fate was sealed. She had failed in her suicide attempt, and more the better for it. She hadn’t wanted to leave her children but could find no way out of her situation, and she knew that she would very well lose her children—starvation, illness, you get the idea—with no way to support them.

It wasn’t the children’s fault, but they would pay the consequences.

She was at the end of her rope… when HE appeared to her and made her an offer.

The best offer Mary had had in a very long time.

But more than that, he offered her comfort, understanding, and help without shaming her… he offered empathy. Something Mary yearned for and had been denied entirely.”

She took another drag and blew the smoke upward.

I wondered where she got her information or if she made it up as she told it.

She continued.

“The offer was simple: she and her children would not know illness, injury, harm, scorn, hardship, and in exchange Mary would bear Him a child in his likeness.

Mary would raise her babies and live well through this deal.

Mary deliberated for a fortnight and then met him in the forest to agree and seal the deal… but she added a point—non-negotiable.

All who had harmed her or her children would die horribly, save for two to tell the tale, and they would be maimed so as to draw the same type of scorn and shame that they had heaped upon Mary.

He agreed warmly.”

She flicked her ash again and took another drag.

“So Mother Leeds knew her child would be different?”

The redhead nodded.

“Oh yes, she did indeed. That is another thing the myth got wrong. The baby that was born was a little girl, not a boy… and it was Mary herself that would carry out her vengeance upon her husband and the townspeople… and the adulterous midwives.

She hadn’t expected it but found it healing all the same.”

She turned then, as if listening to something only she could hear, and nodded knowingly.

“But that would mean Mary Leeds murdered her own family, including her children, herself!”

I was aghast.

The redhead shook her head and laughed.

“She bargained for the children’s safety and health. Do you really think she would harm them? No. She magicked a few chickens to look like the kids. People were simpler back then, and it wasn’t like they were going to actually check…”

I nodded.

What a choice to make… but I could empathize. Deeply.

“And how do you know all of this?”

My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. I was just so damned tired.

A chuckle came out of the redhead that was completely at odds with her. It was deep and full of malice, and there in the dark I saw a pair of glowing red eyes.

When she moved I saw hooves where her high heels had been and a set of leather wings wrapped around her form.

Horns raised from either side of her head and curved down behind her.

The thing took a drag and ashed on the carpet again.

In a voice too gravelly to be human, she said:

“I never introduced myself. Name’s Angelina Leeds. And my mother was Mary Leeds… I took after my father though.”

She chuckled again, then went silent as once again she listened to something only she could hear.

I should have been terrified, but I was somehow… fascinated.

Her shape shifted back to the sultry redhead like it had always been there.

She stared straight at me.

“Look, Annabeth, I don’t have a lot of time. Your husband is waking as we speak.

I will offer you a deal much like my father offered my mother.

You and your children can live a life of ease, comfort, safety, and joy.

Their health and yours will never waver. Sophie isn’t doing well—you are correct in your suspicions that there is more to her persistent illnesses—and Quentin isn’t far behind her.

If you are lucky Cary will reach adulthood… and you know it.”

She stated it all plain as talking about the weather. Her tone said it didn’t matter to her either way.

She took another drag.

“What… sell my soul to you? Can you actually do what you claim?”

She laughed.

“No. I have no use for your soul. I have these for that.”

She lifted her ankle with the strange tinkling anklet that seemed to shimmer with inner light… a strange red glow.

“Passed souls that made deals with you?”

I sounded snotty even to myself.

I hated that tone in myself but it came out when I was stressed, which was a good chunk of the time nowadays.

She shook her head.

“Souls who made the decision to be lost. Drink, gambling, drugs… abuse… fill in the blank. I just help them along their way toward the void slowly, and where they can hurt no one but themselves.”

I cocked my head at her.

What a notion.

“So you just go from abusive alcoholic husband to abusive junkie husband and repeat?”

Again I sounded abrasive.

I sighed internally.

She looked at me.

“No. Husband, wife, girlfriend, fiancé, boyfriend, father, mother… it really doesn’t matter. There is no one form that a soul who makes these choices comes in. They are what they are.”

I blinked at her, taking in what she said.

“And offer deals to all of their… partners?”

“No.”

“Why me?”

She cast her eyes downward and when she spoke it was barely above a whisper.

“Because you remind me of my mother.”

She took another drag and blew the smoke out.

Then I saw that it was drifting toward the bedroom.

It was drifting against the air currents.

I blinked.

“I can’t leave Bill.”

She gave a nasty laugh. It was cruel and disappointed.

“Of course. Let me guess. You love him. He was never like this. He can change… oh, even better, you can change him?”

She mocked me, sneering at what she perceived as sentimental stupidity.

“I’ve heard it all, Annabeth. On and on and on.

While their children die slowly, when they are headed toward becoming a corpse or worse—and yes, Annabeth, there is far worse than death for both children and adults. Death is the best outcome to hope for in these situations—always the same.”

I looked away.

I knew what she talked about.

“He will take my kids away from me.”

My voice sounded small and broken even to myself.

I felt tears sting my eyes.

No.

I refused to cry.

Not in front of Bill and not in front of her.

That stopped her.

She frowned and pity showed through her eyes as they started to glow scarlet.

“He won’t be your problem in a short time.

Annabeth… death is cheaper than divorce. And often much cleaner.”

I looked at her and swallowed.

“It’s no accident that you have that book. I’m guessing you have been hearing the whispers as well.”

“How did you know?”

She nodded.

“Someone on the other side knows you're in real trouble. I wondered how I ran into your husband.

You have a choice, Annabeth.

Will you choose your children or stay where you are?”

I considered her words.

“Won’t Bill be gone either way?”

She nodded.

“But that won’t change Sophie and Quentin’s fate.”

She took another drag and blew out a large plume of smoke.

Fear must have shown in my eyes as she just shook her head, got up brushing imaginary wrinkles out of her dress, and tossed something to me.

I caught it.

A silver coin with two heads.

I gave her a questioning look.

“When you decide… call me.”

She started toward the bedroom where I could hear Bill groaning.

He sounded terrible.

Good.

I took a deep breath.

“Deal.”

She turned, clearly surprised.

“Seriously?”

I nodded.

“Yes. What are your terms?”

She blinked. “You will sell me your form in exchange for you and your children’s good health and good fortune. Your form will change… you will look much more like me, as will your children, and you will know long life.”

I gave her side-eye. “1. Do I have to look like you? And 2. why the hell would you want my form?”

She smiled. “Your likeness. You will still look like yourself in human form. Any changes that you make to your form will stick. And yes, the only way to reverse the damage is to alter your children’s structure. It makes them more… resilient.”

I nodded. “How do we proceed?”

She shrugged. “It’s already done. The moment you said yes with that coin in your hand… try it out if you don’t believe me.”

…

At midnight a loud shriek could be heard for miles from Bill and Annabeth Werner’s little two-story blue house.

They say that the house caught fire from an electrical spark… but some locals say that they saw a dark shape rise from the flames.

It had leathery bat wings and hooves and flew off to the edge of town where many Spanish immigrants lived.

Also where a handful of chupacabra sightings had been reported starting roughly two months ago.

It is suspected that both Mr. and Mrs. Werner were inside when the place went up.

A redhead on the scene said that she saw the whole family inside and subsequently called the police.

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