Now my mother is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and that’s the truth. Everybody says so. All the neighbors and the family and the church folks, too. You can hear them whisper when she passes by that they’ve never seen a prettier woman in this town or any other.
Mama is modest and don’t seem to much care if she’s beautiful or not. She don’t wear a face full of makeup or get her hair dyed and that’s Daddy’s preference, too. He says it would be a sin to paint a flower, but I think he just don’t want to pay for such things. Daddy is very frugal. Mama has the reddest hair you’ve ever seen, a cascade of honey and cinnamon that hangs in waves nearly to her waist, and eyes bluer than the Virginia sky. Her frame is thin—not too thin, she has swells of flesh where a woman ought to—but she stands just half a head below Daddy, who is over six feet.
I figure pretty women have it the hardest in life, no matter what people say. The pretty girls are the ones all the men are after, and good Lord, men are hungry creatures. Always after something to eat or to get their fill of a pretty woman. Any woman, really, but it’s the pretty ones they prefer. I learned this early on, and it didn’t take a lot of listening and watching to figure, neither. I pay attention to these things. Always have.
I don’t have much to worry about in that regard. I could be pretty if I wanted to, but it don’t appear to be much fun. Pretty just keeps a girl in trouble, like Mama has been. I’m as tough as any boy on the ridge, and I’ve dealt a few of them a shiner or a pump knot for picking on my brothers or saying bad things about my family, things that are none of their business anyway. Mama didn’t much like that and I got grounded for a month and couldn’t go outdoors except to school. I didn’t care. I’ve got plenty to think about to occupy me these days.
I inherited Mama’s red hair, but Daddy insists I have his eyes. Nicewander blue, he calls it, akin to what a storm brewing over Clinch Mountain looks like at twilight. I never disagreed out loud, but I always figured I look more like Mama’s people, whoever they are. I don’t know them from Adam. My Nicewander blues were more of a cat’s eye green, not really blue at all. I’m just a red headed kid. Not pretty like Mama. Not yet. No swells on me nowhere, except my big head, or so I’ve been told.
You got the big head, Angie, Mama has told me, and then she proceeds to remind me how a young lady is supposed to act. I heard it a blue million times. You’re wilder than ginseng, she’d say, just like your daddy. And I’d cut a shine and run to my room and cry about it loud enough for her to hear. How could she say something like that? Something so mean and cruel? And to her own daughter? But she was right. I knew it all along.
There is something strange about me, I suppose. I sense it. I know something big is coming, maybe not today, but one day for certain. I can’t tell you how I know, but I do. I know it as well as I know my awful name.
I was born with a sense of destiny. Somewhere out there beyond these mountains, beyond these cat eyes that belong to nobody but me, beyond my family name that cursed me before I was even born, there’s something coming, and it knows me already.
Sometimes I’ll go out into the grassy flat above Black Ridge, beyond the woods, through the laurels and ferns and briers, and I’ll listen to that wind up there at the precipice, that wind that never stops, and I’ll hear them. There are voices tangled up in that wind. Old voices, perhaps of people who are dead and gone, or maybe of some dreadful specter, you never know. Maybe they’re the whispers of God Himself. Or maybe they’re just in my head, but I don’t think so. I believe those prophet winds bode things that have not come to pass, things not spoken yet in this world. Today they ain’t got a good thing to say.
Oh Lord yes, something’s coming.
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I’ve been busy working and doing my dangdest to finish up my first novel, of which the above is a short fragment. Thank you all for sticking with me through this long process. I appreciate you all!
~ Anna
Your writings have spirit! ❤
Looking forward to more wild words from you.
Just had surgery on my eye first time I’ve actually been able to read anything for a long time and I’ve enjoyed every word thank you so much looking forward to your book ❤
I love to read your stories and can’t wait for your book! You are a very gifted writer that I’m hopping to see much much more of.
I cannot wait until the finished product!!!
I feel so blessed to have stumbled onto this. I cannot wait for your novel. Please do write me a line when it is published so that i do not miss it. your writing is a wonder and a joy and my heart is touched by what you have shared with us. you have a wonderful gift and a many songs to sing.
Don’t fret–it will come when it comes like the holy spirit, unasked for, always a surprise and then is gone! We are all a part of every character we create and disappointment at not being exactly like each one is ego and not good for any artist!
This is your first published writing other than your blog? Hmm… Is it possible for one to feel disappointment and exhilaration at the same time? It must be. If you say that this is fiction and you are not Angie, then, yes, I am a bit disappointed.
But the prospect of reading more about Angie and her mommy and daddy, sheer exhilaration! Your writing does not just put me back home–I AM home when reading your words.
Please finish soon. And, above all, DO NOT fail to let us know when, where, and how we may purchase.
Other than a handful of short stories (and online fodder strewn here and yonder), yes, the blog is it thus far. But I am steadily trying to change that. 🙂 Angie and I thank you!
I’m in agreement, I can’t wait for your book! Your style of writing quickly puts me back home where I grew up with my own view of Clinch Mountain.
I’m from the Appalachia, but have lived away from it these past years. When I read your work, I feel a sort of tug, a thread of connection you might say. Your words read true, like the story of an aunt or uncle or long past grandparent. Keep up the good work and don’t lose faith. Its a hard road that a writer travels. Spinning the story is only half the journey.
I can’t wait for your book! I love all things Appalachian.
You have me hooked….