Tag: Sugar Holler

They built the fire in a rough circle, not tidy and not planned, just how people do when nobody’s in charge and everybody’s paying attention. Logs pulled from where they’d fallen. Stones dragged in with scraped knuckles and laughter when one rolled downhill like it had someplace better to be.Enna Mae watched from her rocker,…

They didn’t speak at first.That was the first thing Poppy noticed — how the silence didn’t feel awkward or heavy, just… held. Pocahontas Hale moved about the clearing like she’d already measured the space between them and found it right. She set a kettle near the coals, adjusted a log with her boot, brushed her…

The trail narrowed as they climbed, not because it got steeper, but because the woods started decidin’ who was welcome. Poppy felt it first — that tightening in the chest that wasn’t fear exactly, more like recognition. Like walkin’ into a room you’d dreamed about before you ever saw it.Enna Mae slowed her steps without…

Now here’s where the story thins out, like footprints after a hard rain.One day, Pocahontas Hale simply stopped bein’ where folks expected her to be. No grave. No scandal. No obituary worth speakin’ of. Just… gone.But women who’d been under her care will tell you she didn’t disappear. She shifted.They say she moved back into…

Now, people love to talk about the Black Shawl like it was sin wrapped in silk and sold by the hour. But people who talk the loudest usually ain’t the ones who’ve needed shelter at midnight with no place left to turn.That place on State Street? The one history books whisper about like they’re ashamed…

Now this ain’t written in no courthouse ledger, so don’t go lookin’ for it there. This is the way old women tell it when the menfolk have wandered off and the kettle’s been on long enough to steep truth instead of tea.They say Pocahontas Hale came to Bristol in the years when war had men…

The child curled up beside the wolf like she’d known him through a thousand lifetimes, tiny hand still grippin’ the corner of Poppy’s sleeve. The fire flickered slow, throwin’ shadows up the trees like old ghosts climbin’ their own memories. Poppy stared at the girl, heart thrashin’ like a wild bird inside her ribs. Ash…

The night they camped halfway up Ironbone Ridge, the air smelled like woodsmoke, pine pitch, and a memory that wasn’t done speakin’. Cypress flopped beside Poppy, tail thumpin’ dust into the firelight while Ash adjusted his pack and settled across from her with that easy grin he saved for the people he loved most. Enna…

When the sky cracked open with that soft pink dawn, Sugar Holler was already awake. Not with roosters or early risers, but with somethin’ older — somethin’ that stirred the creatures long before folks even kicked off their quilts. Poppy stepped out of Enna Mae’s cabin, Cypress glued to her leg, the fox brooch warm…

Now listen close, babies, ’cause the night this all happened, Sugar Holler felt different.Storm different.Omen different.The kind of different where even the trees stand up straighter like they’re waitin’ on news.Poppy knelt in the dirt, hands shakin’ around that silver fox brooch, the one the stranger left behind like a stone dropped in a still…