The Curse Of The Moloch (4) "Lemmuel, Lemmuel, d'ye see me!" baited the words of Miz' Jezebel, "Abrasax, Yah, Yah, Yahu!" Then she approached the shadowy figure and, in anger, cursed him with angry phrases that spewed the spleen of the misery of the past. She lowered her arms to the hem of her long black dress. With fury she lifted the cloth high, "Take a look, thet's all ye can do now, jest look. Ye drove in powerful' like wit no word frum me an' frum thet sin ah am a' cursed by th' Moloch." Quickly she lowered her garment and stared at the angry ghost. Then Miz' Jezebel cackled hideous bursts of laughter, the pitch rising with the rage of inner anger that burned deeply in her soul. The ghostly form of Lemmuel shook violently at her words; its temper flared and it lurched out as if to strike his woman but it suceeded in going through her body. Again and again it tried with the same results as Miz' Jezebel continued in the cursing of his soul. She called him vile names that told of his sinning habits that led to the beating of her body. Each damning sentence followed by bitter cackling laughter. The damnation pained the ghostly figure and it cried out in a moaning voice for her to stop. But Miz' Jezebel continued in her damnation above the plaintive cries. "Now ye kin know of th' misery ye caused me!" she exclaimed. Then she raised her arms again and called out the secret incantation: Ah call in th' name of Abrasax." Her body weaved and wavered in the deep ecstatic trance as she cried out again: Ah call in th' name of Abrasax, Lemmuel git back t' yer misery, Return yer bones t' yer soiled grave, May yer rest be fouled. Ah call in th' name of Abrasax, Abrasax, Yah Yah, Yahu!" As the words of the incantation finished the winds howled and blew in their fury. Her trance-like eyes stared at the sealed grave that opened to her words. From the depth of the open tomb spectral hands of the souls of the dead rose and grasped the shadowy spirit and dragged it within. The ground closed with a burst of thunderclap and the earth, once again, covered the corrupt remains of Lemmuel. Then stillness hovered over the grave; only the whispering sounds of the shadow spirits of the night could be heard as they flew about. Slowly the deep trance that engulfed Miz' Jezebel's faded from her mind and her consciousness returned; slowly, slowly she lowered her arms. She stared at the packed earth of her late husband's grave and silently inhaled a breath of relief. Her breathing turned to sobbing as she cried bitter tears over her foul sin of revenge; as the tears flowed she turned her head heavenwards as if to ask the pardon of the good Lordy. Miz' Jezebel did have one witness to her act. Jeremiah, her son born in sin, had followed her stealthily one night on the full moon. He had heard her movements as she left the house and, through curiosity, decided to go after her. His bare feet trod steathily at some distance behind her, being careful not to be seen. He had hidden behind a tall tombstone and heard her calling out to her man coupled with foul curses. He saw the swirling of the dust above the grave upon the call of the magic words. Then, as he looked, the violence of the winds increased in its tempo and roared about him, deafening the harsh and damning words of Miz' Jezebel and he was unable to follow his mother's vengeful phrases. The dust joined in the fury and rose up and blinded his eyes to the sight of his mother's acts of the deep pent-up rage of her soul. The boy, young in years, had been deeply puzzled by her action of calling up the spirit of his father but the needed answers never came, as he was afraid to ask. The only witnesses to what he had seen were the imaginary creatures of his mind that hovered about him and they too were puzzled. Still the secret of Miz’ Jezebel, Jeremiah's vengeful mother, was never revealed by him. His mother carried the mystery of the cursed sin, committed under the full of the moon, to her fiery grave. Chapter Seven Miz' Jezebel, her neighbors and kin folk lived in their hard and miserable existence under the protection and wisdom of the 'Lordy', guided by the good preacher of their parish church. Every word they uttered was coupled with the blessings and wishes of the "Lordy' - "Th' 'Lordy' bless y'" or "thank th' 'Lordy' fer his goodness an' kindness." They were also highly superstitious regarding every unatural action or the presence of strange omens as symbols of poten-tial doom, which they they remedied with Biblical quotations such as "May th' 'Lordy' look upon ye and bless yer soul and keep y' fit." They had a deep belief in the powers of amulets such as fox tooth, which they held as a death and rebirth symbol. They had a deep faith in the 'preservin' stone', a small polished stone found in the creek in the mystery of the night: The good women considered it to be effective against still birth and for protection of their 'young-uns'. They called out as they reverently touched the stone, "I-am-who-I-am. Amen, Amen Selah - In the the name of the holy ones, heal and guard the unborn and the little ones." Their miserable hovels were adourned with the needed symbols of good luck. The crescent-shaped horseshoe turned upwards represented the horns of power and protection; never inverted as it would be emptied of power and luck. Other forms of luck symbols were displayed, that ran from the coon' tail, a dried hoof of a wild pig to a furry white foot of a jackrabbit. Every time they passed these omens, they would reverently touch them in their hope for good fortune. Many of the good folk of the settlement feared the workings of the grinning wicked devil with his horde of avenging angels, the spiteful acts of the demons and the mysterious ways of the shadow spirits. They had the continual dread of the evil eye, evil thoughts, pure spirits, of the creatures of the lower world and from all other imaginative evil tormentors. All their troubles, sickness and other miseries were blamed on these creatures in the fancy of their realm of thought. When they were ridden with one trouble or another they would try to remedy the problem with secret incantatations remembered from the past or through rituals surrounding mysterious amulets. Those, who had the deep belief of the creatures of the spectral world, only saw them in their secret lairs, namely the hidden shadows of the nearby woods and along the flowing water within. They warned the good folk of the presence of damning spirits, vile demons and other forms of cursed ghosts in the shadowy forest, especially during the fullness of the moon. The good folk took heart to the warning words of the believers and took caution if they needed to tred through the woods in the darkness of the night. Of course there were the sinners of the community who would go to that place near the junction and enjoy a bit of loving from Miz' Sadie's gals, "Mighty purty lasses - costs only a buck for a bit of jig-jig." Miz' Sadie's girls took the coin and offered the pleasure of its worth. The righteous ones of the community damned these sinners for their wicked acts in sleeping with fallen women; at the Sunday chapel services they would pray to the heavens above that the sinner's hearts will open and they will see the wickedness of their ways and repent. Otherwise the virtuous ones feared that the fornicators would go, like the all sinners, to the fiery sacrificial pit of the Moloch, and their souls will rot in the foulness of hell. But the main sinners, in the eyes of the righteous, were those who guzzled at every chance they could muster. Those sinning folk liked the taste from the jar of white-lightning, even on the night before the Sunday-go-to-meeting service. They gathered outside the general store; there, under the branches of a nearby age-old willow, they would pass around the glass admist a few words of small talk centered on the current gossip or minor scandal whispered through their neighborhood. Their brand, properly aged over a period of a few days, was 'mighty powerful', and after a few belts of the devil's potion the drinkers activity turned into a minor debauchery of high-jinks and raucous bellowing. The goings-on was carried to the late hours until the wife of the proprietor of the emporium was disturbed in her nightly rest in her small apartment above. She would rush angrily from her bed to the gathering, looking like the devil incarnate with her face covered in a white flour beauty mask and her hair in curlers. With an angry shrill, like the call of an angry spirit, she stopped the merriment with a few harsh words calling it for the night. And woe to a reveller who lingered as she was mighty handy with a broom which she, on many occasions, put to use. "Hit' weren't th' broom we r' afered ov. T'aint so.. T'was facing a scarey fierce demon by th' looks ov hit," the revelers tried to explain in their foggy misery at the following morning. Chapter Eight The routine of life for the folk in the settlement was one of scrappy toil. It repeated its boring and tedious ritual, day after day, week after week, year after year, disturbed only by the news of a tragic event committed by folly of man or by the avenging sword of nature. Only at the Saturday night ritual gathering at the Grange Hall at the center of the settlement, and at other odd times would their tedious mode of life be changed by joyful occurences. Monday till Saturday were workdays offering hard labour in at the colliery in the earning of their bread. The men on the day shift rose at dusk of the early morning hours. They gathered at their usual meeting point and from there trudged together the odd mile through the dust or mud of the wide dirt road to their labours. All were more or less dressed and booted similarly in the soiled attire of their work and equally topped with a lamp bearing safety helmet. Along the way one or two would ask a friend to hold their lunch pail as there was a need to roll and light a hand-made. Talk was limited to the usual drift of words that was spoken in its the somewhat routine sameness every morning, primarily of the welfare of the individual families. And at odd moments the trend of their talk would be be focused on a happening in the workings of the mine, or general tidbits of gossip circulating the community. Rarely would there be a bit of light bantering or even a flash of a smile on their grim faces. Their women, after seeing that their men had their breakfast, scam-pered about their houses doing a bit of tidying up and getting the mound of washing ready. They only stopped for moment to hand the lunch pail to their men, and rarely gave a quick peck on the rough cheeks as they saw their mates leave their hearths for their jobs at the pits. The women folk, who had the misery of their men on the night shift at rest in their beds, had to tred carefully in order to avoid the wakening of her man; thunderous words were heaped upon a poor woman if sleep was disturbed. All the 'female critters' followed the tiring and repetitive rhythm of their daily existence. They woke their offsprings at the appointed hour to get them, fed, dressed and ready for their 'learnin' under the capable and stern tutelage of Miz' Lizzy, the school marm'. After ridding themselves of their children, the women folk carried on their chores. She had the routine jobs of tiding the shack a bit, readying the kerosene lamps, slopping the pigs, scattering seed to the scratching chickens, washing a heap of dirty clothing on scrub boards in deep tubs and doing the rest of the woman's work. When the men-folk returned from their toils at the colliery it would be an equally routine event. The good woman of each individual shotgun shack was alert as she waited to hear the calls of the fellow workers bidding a good night to her man. Upon their sounds of their voices, she rushed from her shack to ready a filled bucket of clear water and sliver of laundry soap along with his clean clothes near the entrance to the shed alongside their shotgun shack. There the tired man stripped to his waist and cursorily washed the coal dust from his chest and face; then bending his body he splashed the remainder of the water over his head. He straighted his somewhat cleaned frame and rubbed the wetness and some of the unwashed coal marks with strips of rags. After changing into his clean clothes, he returned to his shack and joined his family for the evening meal. The mealtime was a feared time for both the wife and her brood, as they did not know the prevalent mood of her man. The good woman trembled as she set the deal table. Cutlery, cracked plates and chipped tin cups were laid out, together with a pitcher of cool water, a cut of crusty wheaten bread on the cutting board, and the banal offering of plates of fat back, taters, and greens and at rare times a deep dish of custard pudding. The hard-bitten man would stare into the familiar foodstuffs heaped on shallow platters and bitterly complained to his woman for not giving him better food, without realizing that a good portion of his earned wages went to the jar of liquid spirits. Before the family partook of the meal, the old man called attention to the Good Lord. The good woman and her children bowed their heads and clasped their hands to their chests as their bread earner would intone the blessing on the food, "Dear Lordy we thank thee fer th' food we r' about t' eat which we give r' blessin'...." As he finished he turned to the members of his family and exclaimed, "Dig in!" Not a word from the old man was uttered at the table that showed pleasure or displeasure. Nor was their any sound from his good wife and his blessed children who carefully ate their meal in silence so as not to disturb the old man. The only sound that was loudly heard was was from the householder himself, as he scraped the food from the shallow platters onto his plate, smacked his lips on each bite of food, and when he slurped noisely the water from a chipped cup. After the meal was finished, the surly man then gave a hearty belch that showed his satisfaction of a filled stomach. The routine of the evening life continued with the man of the house plunging into his favourite armchair. A hush would follow and the children remained silent as the father tuned up the battery radio to hear the news. Afterwards he turned the nobs till the sound of country music could be heard. There would be leniency shown by the father to his children as he allowed them to sing or clodhop to the rhythm; more for his enjoyment when he watched them sing or dance. The good woman, too, enjoyed the pleasure of her children's moment of happiness. She joined in by lifting her skirt a bit and letting her feet slide to the beat of the music; her nasal pitched voice joined in the singing. A moment of harmony that was shared by the whole family till the call of bedtime. The man of the house usually accepted his lot with only a great deal of grumbling much to the relief of his good woman and her children. But, when his mood would be filled with foulness or meaness, it would end with a thrown plate, coupled with angry words and with a stinging slap either to his woman or to one of his children. The sound of the slamming of the door followed; his footsteps were then heard trudging the dusty path to his fellows and the passing of the jar. When all was quiet the good woman would sit terrified on a hard chair in the kitchen of the shack; her heart filled with bitterness. She sat on its hardness in fear, dreading the return of her husband, who, in all probabilities, was soaked in the vile of the liquid spirits. Her body shuddered in the expectation of his return. She knew he would be filled with a drunken fury that usually led to a terrible beating mixed with the temper of his tongue. With eyes filled with tears of helplessness, mixed with the futile rage on the miseries of her existence, she called out to the Lordy for deliverance. But no reply came... Chapter Nine Throughout the daily life in the parish, set in the hollow, there were times of hoarded bits of joy. It was a joy approved or overlooked by the censoring eyes of righteous minority who were the moral watch-dogs of the community. The laws, they believed, were set down by the good 'Lordy' and were written in the pages of the 'Good Book'; laws that His children should strictly obey as they will lead the good folk to walk in the path of righteousness. This edict was drummed ritually in the hell-for-fire sermons at every Sunday chapel service. The 'righteous ones' had their joy in their weekly Bible study classes or in the choral practice at their chapel; the blessed words gave them pious rapture and they reveled in their meaning. They expected the young men and women of the settlement to join them in their pleasure, but those that were there came only through the pressure of their folks.
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