A Time For Traditions

Traditions aren’t made from brick and mortar; in Riviere d'Erbane, they were made by bone and ire—rites from old tomes from a grandmother’s mother. When reason had no rhyme, there was tradition to fall back on.

The Last Supper wasn’t only for the lord; it was for those who observed his name. It was a holy event followed on the day of death. Prayer and caution made for a peaceful dinner. All the immediate living family must be in attendance, or the soul pangs of hunger…

The duo made a point of moving away from the swamp. Where the past could not haunt them. There was nothing there for them, and everything held them back. Abigail was the oldest of the Abernathy sisters. She made it a point to forget their roots altogether, but her little sister found it somewhat more challenging to let go of the past. She still observed Mardi Gras despite moving to a state where the idea of Carnivale was a foreign concept altogether.

“Come on, Abby, don’t you miss the sound of the marching bands. The fever of the drum majors? The Dances? I miss the trumpets.” Emma quipped as the pair walked down the sidewalk.

“Nothing. You don’t remember being forced to walk block after block just to get to the parade. She never liked parking next to the crowds, so she made us all walk the miles and complained the whole time. She didn’t bring chairs or food. Hell, she refused even to trust our cousins who stayed downtown to watch us or keep us company. It was a hassle.” Abigail sneered, reaching for the restaurant door handle and opening it for her sister. “Mother made my Mardi Gras miserable.”

“ She made every day miserable. Remember Joshua?” Emma nodded in thanks, entering the foyer of the Crossing Arms.

“ Let’s just have a nice lunch without dipping into the past, yeah? I know we just left counseling, but let’s give the memory lane a rest.” She sighed.

It had been years since they set foot in Alabama, let alone Riviere d'Erbane. Abigail wished to keep it a long-forgotten memory, while Emma wanted to recall the fonder times.

They were forced out of school at their mother’s request. At first, the school district saw it as normal. Many parents took their children out of public school to homeschool them. However, there is the expectation of maintaining education. That was not what the teacher’s assistant, Ms. Hope, found. It was something much worse than a lack of education or the excitement of a child prodigy. What she found was something off.

Despite exceptional articulation for the ages of 15 and 13, they had poor literacy skills. Or it first appeared. Abigail's reading and comprehension skills were several grades above her projected current 9th-grade level. But she failed the written portion of the test. It was simple. Write the sentence as it is seen. This was the only written portion of the test, and so far, Abigail had been failing until the teacher’s assistant noticed that she had rewritten the statements as questions. Instead of The Cat in the Hat, she wrote Next to a Rat was A Hat, but no Cat?

Instead of the door being shut and the windows open, Abigail wrote Why has the door shut and the windows gone? All 30 written statements were now questions, and at the very bottom of this rewrite was a simple phrase.

Check my sister’s back.

It was written in fine, thin red ink. The children were given only pencils for their test. The assistant stared at the page, anxiously holding her position in her seat. She knew the younger sister was still taking her test while the older sister waited outside, presumably playing with the other home-schooled students.

She was wrong. Ms. Hope removed her reading glasses and placed them on the desk before slowly turning to the single-paned classroom door. Abigail was staring into the classroom with a red hand pressed against the glass. A small gasp escaped her lips as their eyes met.

That is how they left the swamps and were placed in proper housing.

Emma’s back was filled with scars in patterns that confirmed the suspicion of abuse. Both children cited their mother’s beliefs as the reason there were puppets of a forever-questioning lord. And it was because of documented tradition that Klein and Patricia Abernathy did not go to jail. The family's attorney cited religious beliefs, noting that Patricia had the same markings and that there was photographic evidence of those markings before her. The couple was thankful to the Bayou judge who allowed the family Bible to be used as a record. Out of caution, the State of Alabama got involved and removed Abigail and Emma from the household, leaving behind their last sibling, Kevin, who was no more than 11 years old. He was not homeschooled. He attended Alma Bryant High School, the nearby public school.

Fifteen years have passed since that moment, and they were just seeking therapy.

“Okay, Okay. I’m just saying that it’s nice to remember some things.” Emma rolled her eyes before they sat at their table.

“I would give a lot to forget.” Abigail sighed, reaching for a menu,

“ Speaking of wanting to forget. Kevin keeps calling me. I thought I told you not to give him my number. It’s weird as fuck, he found my OnlyFans, and now he’s calling me.”

“Fam, I gave him nothing. I just changed my number because he found out about Jill, remember? I think the cousins gave it to him.”

“See, this is why I do-” her phone ringing cut off Abigail. After a moment of searching her purse, she removed the phone. “ It’s him. I’m not answering, we're having lunch.”

“A nice lunch at that.”

The phone calls persist for nearly 30 minutes, alternating between Emma’s and Abigail’s phones. Each time, each ring they silenced, until finally Kevin left a single voicemail on their phones before calling again.

Emma stared at her phone nervously, eating a roll, “I should at least listen to it. The voicemail. I mean, this is excessive, and it could be an emergency.”

Abigail reached for her sister’s hand. “ Don’t. Do not listen to whatever shit he has to say. He probably needs money for drugs again. Remember, last time he said they just needed hurricane supplies and ended up just buying crack?”

“We don’t know that for sure.” Emma finally answered the phone, “What the fuck do you want, Kevin?!” Emma hissed into the phone.

“That sounds like you didn’t get my voicemail about Jill. Come home. Mama’s dead, come home for the Last Supper now.”

Ice ran down her spine. She swallowed deeply before continuing, “Do you want money? We can definitely send you money for the funeral and the wake, but we can’t- we can’t.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Abigail sneered, hearing only that Emma was volunteering them to send money when she didn’t have any or didn't want to send them one dime. Abigail was growing more and more irritated until the expression on her sister’s face began to sink in. Concern. Fear? “What is he saying, Em?” She was stern in her question, fearing that whatever Kevin was saying, she would rightly give in—not waiting for a response, Abigail snatched the phone and ended the call.

“What the shit, girl?”

Emma was still, the chill still lingering, leaving ice in her veins. “It’s time… She’s finally dead- we gotta go back.”

“We’re not going back to do anything. We’ve talked about this. That weird ritual can stay down there with them.” She hissed in a whisper, looking around to see if they were drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. “Fu-”

“He knows about Jill’s parents.” Emma interrupted with a terrible lip. “ He knows where they are, and he knows that Jill isn’t out. He knows that you have an OnlyFans and knows where you work…”

“Bastard!”

48:00:00

After the deceased has been found, the spirit lingers for 72 hours. That is all the goodwill the soul can spare before venturing off to meet the lord or before getting dragged to the Bellows, where the devils sleep between the earth and the second seas. The departing soul must be nourished before embarking on its last journey upon the plain. The departing soul must be honored with memories as reminders of their humanity. The journey to the lord and through the Bellows is filled with traps, trials, trickery, family, truth, and tradition that strengthen the departed soul so that they do not get lost and do not return to the earthly plain. The Last Supper is merely one part of the offering. Speaking memories into the dead was the other half. This could be done if the spirit was present.

Penance must be paid. The departed soul feels angry and disrespected; it has demands that have gone unanswered. It now demands the treasured object and its memory as the meal. The memory will be no more, and terror shall not bear root in the family. Rage must beget rage.

38:37:34

“Sorry, Ma’ams.” The sheriff began. “The road is closed down. The flood waters finally rose through this part of Grand Bay.

The Southern states were now in Hurricane Season, and torrential rains had begun washing away several homesteads deep in the marshes of Riviere d'Erbane. The rains were nonstop, and the winds were picking up by the hour. Despite the weather and the season, there was no hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic. The locals chopped it up to seasonal thunderstorms, while a small sect knew otherwise. They could smell death in the rain, they claimed to see the Devil beating his wife in the day-rains. Tradition was calling some unfortunate family home. They had the pleasure of not knowing who.

“Yes, ma’am,” The sheriff started again. “The roads were blocked and flooded out. It’s been happening for the past 2 days. The tide will be out again in the morning, and the waters won’t rise again till afternoon. I suggest coming back through this way then.

Abigail merely stared at the sheriff for a moment. She didn’t want to be in Alabama, in the bayou, or rather, the outskirts of the bayou, and she especially didn’t want to perform this last right for her mother’s journey. If she kept to the old beliefs, she would assume that her mother was traveling through the Bellows. And firmly think that she deserves to be there. Abigail didn’t keep the old faith, however. This was a stunt, blackmailed by their estranged younger brother. She often wondered if he hated them for leaving him behind to suffer in that house. There was no telling what he had to go through. It wasn’t their choice —Emma or Abigail; it wasn’t their parents’… it was the state’s.

“Alright…” Abigail rolled up her window and began a U-turn to go back to the hotel in Theodore, 15 miles away.

“We made all this food. We have to deliver it before the time’s up.” Emma spoke softly in a frightened whisper, afraid something might hear her. “We only have a couple of hours left. She-”

“She can’t do anything.” She snarled. Abigail was losing all of her patience. They were getting blackmailed into suffering one last time, or even worse, they were getting set up to pay for the funeral. “Those were just spooky hillbilly stories and backwoods abuse. That’s it. Nothing is special here. Nothing is weird. We have crockpots with us. We can just heat the damn food, don’t worry.”

“But Abby… What -if-”

“No more what-ifs. If we needed to bring a damn sacrifice.”

“Treasured memory,” Emma interjected, holding on top the mac and cheese dish that she made.

“Whatever- We have them in that shit hole. The light-up jump rope is for me. The one that Aunt Tracy gave me, remember her?”

“She got away too… She gave me that cool Easy-Bake oven. Will we remember her, do you think, if we don’t meet the time?”

“Nothing is gonna happen, Em. You gotta believe that. They were just cruel stories and cruel rituals that they inflicted on all of us. The Church, the Council Board, and our parents. They were just bad people doing bad things using a made-up religion to justify it. Let’s get back to the hotel.”

28:00:20

It was 7 am, when the tide was out, and the flood waters were at bay, when the sisters arrived. The house was worn to the shade of rotten wicker. The porch creaked with the wind, and the wood that held it to its foundation was a nesting ground for maggots.

The door was open, and the smell of wet floorboards was pervasive. Emma’s nostrils flared as she covered her mouth, staring into the foyer where the coffin was.

“Well, aren’t you going to help?” Klein demanded of Abigail.

“Fuck off- We’re not touching that thing!” She raised her voice. “Be lucky we even showed up for this farce! You know you’re really a piece of work-”

Emma was staring and listening. She watched her mother. Ever so still, ever so lifeless, and somehow even crueler. “She’s breathing, I can hear it.” She whispered to no one. Kevin stood in the corner, watching with a smile.

“Glad you came, Emma-Mae.” The words seeped from his mouth through his teeth from a motionless grin.

“She’s alive. She’s breathing,” She shouted hysterically, “What time is it?!”

“Emma, stop!”Abigail reached for her sister, only to touch Kevin's flaccid arm. “Gods, take a bath, you clammy creature!” Abigail snatched her hand away from Kevin’s arm. Her brother felt balmy and slick as if he hadn’t bathed after swimming in a pool.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take a dip.” His grin was still present, merely dampened, but their father chuckled. “Even bet-”

Abigail stepped away from her brother without listening to the rest of his ramblings. She grabbed her younger sister and attempted to get her to focus on what was in front of her. Her sister, not the corpse. “Em, it’s not moving. It’s-”

“She is our mother, not a ‘it’,” Kevin sneered, moving towards the lying corpse. “Set the table.”

26:10:00

Thunder rolled in, and the flooding waters were the only thing on Abigail’s mind. Until she actually saw Patricia sitting at the head of the table. Naturally, the pair of men had trouble fumbling with the corpse, even dropping it entirely at one point. The odor was pungent and churned her stomach. Abigail could feel the morning’s breakfast coming back to greet her. They stared as they strapped her in the seat. Slumped in the rotting chair was a decaying corpse that they had to dine with.

The table was set, the candles lit, and Klein began speaking the old words to invite the departed soul to start its journey. The speech was older than cultivated land; it was born from blood and ire. This was the Ire. The sisters watched dreadfully as if they were expecting the body to move on its own accord.

Abigail didn’t believe in the rites, but she believed in shenanigans. This was no different until she saw the mouth fall agape. She excused it as natural until the muscles in Patricia’s face started to shift.

Cold washed over the eldest child, staring at the corner of her mouth. Was that a twitch? Was that the crack of a smile? Dear gods, the smell. Bodies don’t decompose this fast, no, no no, that was a grin-

Her racing thoughts came to a halt as the flood sirens blared, alerting those to get out while they could. There was no better reason than now to leave and start over tomorrow or later in the day. The tide was coming back, or the flooding was from the constant rain —either one. Abigail didn’t care.

She quickly stood. Klein stopped their ritual; he stopped blessing the feast before them, which was piping hot and made by country hands to feed the living and the dead.

“Sit your ungrateful rear in that chair!” He howled like a dog against the rain outside. “We’ve waited long enough for y’all!”

“Daddy, STOP!” Emma screamed all the while Kevin just grinned.

Before Emma could continue her protest, the light flickered for a moment, but within that moment, their reality had been changed from what was just before them. The smell became more potent, causing Emma to vomit at the sight of its origin. The table was filled with decomposing food that had turned to waste. The Ham that was sitting out looked as if it was cut fresh from the hind of a sow, but left bloody with ichor. Flies swarmed the table, and the fruits that were freshly bought moments ago were now in a stew of themselves with mush and grime. Worms rolled and writhed, nearly pulsating on the table, and not a soul outside of the Abernathy sisters was present.

19:15:16

“We need to talk about what happened,” Emma whispered in the hotel room. She was shaking even after a hot shower. Her muscles couldn’t relax, fright still ran in her veins, and churned her stomach. “That wa-”

“We don’t need to talk about it right now, we need to just get out of Alabama, our flight is in the morning. We need to get some rest.”

“It’s 1 pm.” Emma quipped.

“Take a nap. I don’t care. We just need to focus on going back home, not this hellhole. What happened, we can talk about once we’re safe.” Abigail thumbed through her purse looking for her panic attack medication.

“You think we’re in danger?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m saying-”

The phone interrupted her explanation. For several rings, she attempted to ignore it. But it kept ringing—the ID read Mobile County Health Department. With a quivering voice, she answered. “Hello.”

“This is the Health Department calling for the next of kin for Klien and Kevin Abernathy,” the voice spoke clearly.

“This is Abigail Abernathy, daughter of Klien, yes.”

“Please come down to identify the deceased.”

The drive was relatively short and silent. The same thick silence filled the room with the coroner. The coroner pulled back the sheet to reveal the waterlogged corpses of their father and brother.

Their bodies were discovered 2 days ago. They were part of the construction crew that went missing after the first flood. Klein was found in the shower with a jump rope around his neck. It must have wrapped around him while he was trying to escape. For the devil of us can understand why jump rope was on the docks.

Kevin was found in the kitchen after the flood. As you see along his arms, there were signs of fire. The cause of death was electrocution via the electric oven. They had to pry the body off the side of the stove.

“That’s impossible,” Emma whispered.

“Oh, your mother must be recovering then.” The coroner interrupted. “We tried reaching you from the hospital once we found her and the bodies. She had us contact you.”

“Excuse me?” Abigail stammered, shaking her head, wanting to run and scream. She tried to argue; she wanted to rant and rave. Abigail could only turn to Emma. The clock had run out. “ How long ago did they die, again?”

“About two days ago.” The coroner signed, pushing up their glasses.

00:00:00