For some reason, every time Connie walked past the grandfather clock it was open. The little glass door that the pendulum swung behind was always open. So she’d close it again. And when she walked back by it it’d be open for some reason. The clock was in the hallway, just in front of the archway to the living room. If she had to use the bathroom or go to her bedroom, she had to walk past the stupid clock. Connie checked the latch on it; she pushed the door hard enough to leave visible fingerprints, but it always, magically, popped right back open. It was almost as annoying as the short in the bathroom light switch. It would turn off at random; while she was in the shower or fixing up her hair.
“It’s just Molly,” Grandpa said.
“Who?”
“The ghost. We see her ‘round sometimes. She just likes to mess with folks, that’s all. She’s friendly. Just likes to fool around some.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Connie said.
“She’s gonna getchou for that one, Curly Fries,” he said, cackling. Grandpa called her that because she had thick curly hair like his, but it was a burnt blonde color rather than black (now white). Like curly fries.
“I’d like to see her try. ‘Cause there’s no such thing as ghosts. I don’t believe in nothin’ I can’t see.”
“So then you don’t believe in God no more?”
“Obviously. I don’t believe in some omnipotent being in the sky controlling my life or yours. Besides, there’s too much violence in the world. I can’t imagine he’s okay with that. If he’s real, he’s real lazy,” she said. This didn’t stop him or Grandma from taking her to church the next day so that the Preacher could scream at her about hell and all the scientists and artists and gays that were going there. Connie leaned in close to Grandma and said, “if all the scientists are down there, I bet they figured out how to make air conditioners by now.” She stole that one from a meme she saw, but it was funny enough to repeat to Grandma.
“Connie, shush.”
“I’d rather party in hell with Freddie Mercury than sit around with all the boring old people in Heaven.”
Grandma sighed. “I’ll pray for you.”
“Thanks.” I think.
When Connie had lived with her parents they didn’t go to church. Connie remembered her mom trying to for a while, when she was still around. But after she left, Connie and her dad never bothered to go. She decided that she hadn’t missed out on anything special. She had more fun sitting by the river and watching butterflies dance at her feet while her dad scarfed down half a box of mini banana moonpies. Her dad had said being outside made him feel closer to God than being yelled at by some beer-gutted, balding white dude. Connie could now see where he was coming from.
When they got home they did what happens every autumnal Sunday. Football on the tv, Grandma in the kitchen cooking an early supper and Connie in her room pretending to do homework, with 70s pop music softly flowing down the hall.
By the second verse of “Come and Get Your Love”, Grandpa had his head stuck in the doorway asking, “you know this is an all Indian band?”
“Do you mean Native American? Because yeah, dad told me,” Connie said.
“Chuck Berry was Indian too. And Jimi Hendrix.”
“No they wasn’t.”
“Yeah they was. So was Elvis.”
“Now you’re screwing with me, I know it,” Connie said. “Ain’t no way Elvis was Indigenous.”
“He wasn’t no yunig neither,” he said.
“A what?”
“Yunig!”
“That’s not a word,” Connie said.
“Your dad taught you nothin’?”
“He taught me Redbone’s Indigenous, so.”
He scoffed and stormed away huffing words that didn’t sound like words but lilted like a poem. Connie could hear Grandma down the hall shout, “I don’t know what yer sayin’, but I know it’s a cursin’ so shame on you!”
He replied with a loud, “duck-shun-ah-gi!” but he couldn’t actually be mad ‘cause Connie could hear him cackling before the screen door rattled shut.
It’s 3:33am when Connie was woken up by someone whistling Redbone down the hall. She threw off the blanket, preparing to go tell Grandpa to shut it. She threw open her bedroom door the same time the door down the hall opened.
“Curly Fries! Why the hell you whistlin’ at night!? At the witching hour!? You tryin’ to bring evil haints in here!?” Grandpa shout-whispered. Moonlight filtered in through the windows onto the hardwood floor giving both the hallway and Grandpa’s short white hair a suspicious blue color.
“What? I ain’t whistling! I thought that was you,” Connie said.
“I ain’t dumb enough to whistle at night.” They both turned at the sound of a very wonky “Heartbreak Hotel” now being whistled in the living room. Connie stared down the long hallway, shadows slinking down the walls and slipping on the floor. The door of the grandfather clock was still shut, as Connie had left it before she went to bed. This satisfied her a little because the whistling had to have passed the clock to get to the living room. If Grandpa really did believe in ghosts who could open doors, this clearly wasn’t it. Not this time at least. “That can’t be yer Grandma. She can’t whistle in tune fer shit.”
“Maybe it’s Molly,” Connie whispered.
Before Grandpa could answer her snarky comment, the grandfather clock tipped over. Slow at first, then real fast. It sounded, and felt like watching, a car wreck.
“Oh shit!” Grandpa yelled. “Call the preacher! We got haints!”
“What about the medicine man?” Connie mocked.
“Shit, call him too!”
Grandma rushed in from the bedroom demanding to know, “what on God’s Earth is happening out here!?”
Grandpa and Connie just stared at each other. Well you see, we heard haints whistling and then Molly knocked over the old grandfather clock. As if trying to answer her for them, a barn owl hooted from the open window, its yellow eyes glowing demonically in what little light there was.
“Fuck! Tie your shirts in a knot! Grab the sage! Save yerselves!” Grandpa shouted, running frantically back into his room.
“It ain’t no screech owl, leave your shirt alone,” Connie said after him.
“You know that, but not yunig?” he asked, getting the lights.
“Quit that cursing.” Grandma huffed. “There’s no haints, calm down. You and your silly Indian superstitions.”
Grandpa and Connie were too scared to sleep, too scared to watch television because that meant going back into the living room. They sat in the hall, between their two rooms and away from the ever-ticking clock which Connie found nerve-wracking. She’d heard glass shatter, wood splinter. It shouldn’t still be ticking.
Through near-silence Connie couldn’t help but ask, “how come dad didn’t ever speak any Cherokee?”
“‘Cause he never learnt it.”
“How come?”
He sighed. “‘Cause I never taught him.”
“Why not?”
“He never asked,” Grandpa said.
“Oh.” There was another thick silence hovering between them until Connie asked, “what’s yunig?”
“A white person. Cherkee for honkey.”
“Like from The Jeffersons?”
“Yeah, but Indian,” he said.
“How come you still say Indian?”
“‘Cause it’s funny that dumbass got it so wrong,” he answered.
“No it’s not.”
Grandpa was quiet again. Connie’s glad she couldn’t hear nobody whistling no more. Except for the soft sounds of Grandma’s snoring, the house was still. Connie debated on asking her question again, but Grandpa answered her at last, “‘cause it’s better than all the other things folks called us.”
“Oh.” Is all she could say again. Part of her wanted to ask, like what? But she was starting to feel like the annoying kindergartner who has to add why? to the end of every answer. That being said, she still had questions. “How come dad had to ask before you taught him anything?”
Grandpa stared at the blank wall in front of them.
“Didn’t you want to teach him?”
He continued to stare at the wall.
“Did you ever speak it around him?” Connie tried again.
“Only when I was angry.”
“Why?”
“What’s with all the questions all a sudden?” Grandpa asked, but he didn’t seem annoyed.
“I dunno. Dad never talked about it much,” Connie said. To be fair, dad didn’t really talk about anything much.
“I just don’t like to speak it much is all.”
How come? hung in the air between them, so clear and thick that he still, eventually, had to answer:
“I used to get in all sorts o’ trouble if I spoke it at school as a kid. We were only allowed to speak English. So I just don’t speak it no more,” he said. “Now it’s my turn.”
“What?”
“Are you ashamed o’ me like yer dad was?”
“Wait, what? Ashamed how? What’d you do?”
Grandpa’s face broke and he cackled long and loud, throwing his head back and all.
“Stop joking around, that ain’t a funny joke.”
“I wasn’t jokin’ but you still cracked me up, I didn’t do nothing.” Wiping the jovial tears from his eyes, he added, “I meant about being Indian–Indigenous. Yer friends were shocked to find out when they came over for the funeral.”
Connie’s stomach sank. She’d never realized that was the conclusion he’d come to. “No, I ain’t ashamed. I just don’t tell no one ‘cause I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t feel Indian enough to tell people ‘bout it. Grandma’s white, mom’s white therefore I’m like ultra white compared to you. Plus, I don’t know any of the language enough,” Connie said. “You might be Indian, but I’m not.”
Grandpa and Connie both jumped at the sound of a barn owl somewhere outside the window. They spent the next few hours listening to phantom sounds of whistling haints.
It wasn’t until dawn encroached on them that they retreated back into their separate rooms for some sleep.
When Connie finally did emerge again, she sneezed as she entered the living room. Grandpa was smudging; the sage was in one of grandma’s white soup bowls and an eagle feather was pushing the smoke onto everything in sight.
“Ain’t it illegal to have a eagle feather?”
“Not if yer enrolled.”
“You ain’t enrolled,” Connie said.
He just snickered and kept smudging.
“He’s gone nuts,” Grandma said. “Done called the Preacher. He’ll be here soon, so getcher good clothes on.”
“I’m too tired for this,” Connie said.
“We let you skip school today since you were up so late, but you still gotta be good for the Preacher,” Grandma huffed.
“Ugh, fine.”
Connie hid in the backyard as the Preacher and the Grandparents sat by the broken grandfather clock and prayed. Well, she was partly asked to go outside because she made a joke about using a ouija board that Grandma didn’t like very much. But she was glad to have an excuse to go somewhere else. Even just out here she could sometimes hear the Preacher hollering about the Lord and Satan. She knows she wouldn’t have been able to suppress any giggles or sarcastic remarks. That was something she apparently got from her dad. She didn’t really remember him as a smartass. Just kinda grumpy, huffy and quiet. That and his love of Kit Kat bars and moonpies. Sometimes when he’d drive to the corner store for beer he’d get a big candy bar and split it with her. If he was in a good mood.
From Connie’s spot underneath the blood red dogwood tree she could sorta make out the silhouette of Grandma peering back at her through the kitchen window. Connie guessed they must be through with their praying already and Grandma’s making the Preacher some food. But if that’s the case they didn’t pray very long. Maybe the Preacher don’t think the haints are very powerful so it don’t take much praying to make them go away. Grandma’s pale face drew closer to the window, like she was trying to see Connie better, but retreated suddenly when Grandpa yelled, “Curly Fries! Get in here!”
Connie rushed to the screen door, but Grandma was just coming in from the living room. “You weren’t here in the kitchen just now?” Connie asked.
“No. We just finished praying in the livin’ room. Preacher Thom says that should do it. No more evil spirits wakin’ us up tonight,” Grandma said.
Grandpa smiled like he knew something Connie didn’t, but she chose not to ask.
On their way out, Connie peered back into the empty kitchen and wondered if Grandpa had smudged in there too. Or maybe she was just seeing things.
Grandpa said they weren’t allowed to watch any scary movies because that was basically asking spirits to come back and mess with them. Connie and Grandpa sat in the living room working on a box of banana moon pies and a case of RC cola. The living room and hall reeked of sage and was littered with moonpie wrappers. Connie was working on her second RC, but the coffee table by Grandpa’s recliner was covered with the light blue and red aluminum cans. (To be fair, some were from the day before). RC stood for royal crown, but Grandpa kept calling it rez cola. “Curly Fries. Go get me another one o’ them rez colas will ya?” She knew he wasn’t supposed to be drinking so much sugar, and that he wasn’t getting up himself because his knees were bothering him. But she got up anyways, every time he asked.
Connie stood in the open refrigerator door, thinking about telling Grandpa that there was no more RC when the light flickered off. She slammed the door so hard the fridge wobbled. She started to turn and flee, but the light popped back on. Small spots filled her eyes as they tried to adjust.
“Who’s flickerin’ them lights on and off?” Grandma asked.
“Nosferatu?” Connie asked.
Grandma popped her head in, an eyebrow raised.
“Get it?”
Grandma just mumbled under her breath and started back down the hall, but Connie was right on her heels, the RC long forgotten.
Connie couldn’t sleep. There was an owl somewhere outside her window keeping her up. Before everyone went to sleep she’d gone into Grandpa’s room and taken his sage and a lighter with the intent on smudging the kitchen. She’d thought about asking him to help or doing it in the morning, but knew she’d get teased for thinking that maybe ghosts really were real and then they’d keep making her go to church too. But now that the time had come to actually having to smudge, she’d lost the nerve. She didn’t want to creep into the kitchen, in the dark and come face to face with whatever ghost — or haint — was waiting there for her. If there’s one at all. Maybe there wasn’t. Flickering lights could be from many things, not just ghosts.
As she stared up at the ceiling, washed blue by the moon, a familiar melody floated down the hall. It wasn’t Redbone, or Elvis this time. She strained her ears to listen, and when it didn’t come to her she got up to press her ear to the closed wooden door of her room.
“All Along the Watchtower” was being whistled from somewhere in the house. It could be the living room, but Connie was scared that it wasn’t.
Her door creaked off key with the melody as she slowly opened it. She slipped out, worried that if the ghost heard she’d stop the whistling.
Connie lit the sage as she stepped into the living room. The whistling was definitely coming from the kitchen. She gathered up what few nerves she had and stepped into the kitchen, holding up the sage in front of her like it was a crucifix, she was Catholic, and the ghost was a vampire.
In the light of the open fridge she could see someone’s silhouette. Maybe it was just Grandpa, whistling to try and scare her. As the figure sat up she could make out a little more of his features through the smoke from the sage. A round face, short cropped hair, a beard grown to try and hide the round cheeks, to distinguish himself as different from his folks.
“Dad?” she asked. He turned fast to stare at her. He looked just as she’d remembered him. As she forced herself to remember him. Tall and strong and round.
Connie lowered the sage for a moment, but as she did, the figure morphed into what she’d hated the most. His cheeks were bonier through his scruffy beard. His clothes hung off him like aged, sagging skin. But instead of his sunken brown eyes, dim red ones stared back at her.
A yelp hitched in her throat, and with shaking hands she waved the smoldering sage in the direction of the strange apparition. “You ain’t my dad,” she said. She wanted it to sound strong and fierce, like a hero from a movie, but it came out hoarse and shaky instead.
The haint coughed on the sage smoke, to Connie’s relief. He staggered back into the fridge which rattled with the impact. Connie stepped closer, blowing gently on the sage to keep it burning. The tips of it glowed red and the smoke continued to sweep towards the sputtering spector. Flecks of ash flew from the charred tops of the sage that were no longer burning. Connie’s own head was starting to ache from the sage as her own sinuses betrayed her. She wanted to yell something cool at the haint as she expelled it from the kitchen, but in her flurry of panic she couldn’t think of a single cliche other than maybe “be gone!” but even that died on her lips.
The spector moved around the kitchen, away from the smoke. Like herding cattle, she egged it toward the back door. Whenever she caught a glimpse of it through the haze it looked like her dad again. The dad that would say “you know Redbone’s all American Indian?”
“Like us?”
“Like your Grandpa,” he’d say.
“So then what are we?”
“Just regular American,” and he’d break the Kit Kat in half, losing everything to the sweetness of chocolate. She never knew why exactly he had an aversion to Grandpa and where he came from. She never thought to ask until it was too late and the only other person she could talk to about it with was Grandpa himself.
Connie lowered the sage, her vision blurry with tears. The creature hissed uglier than a tabby cat, but it finally fell out the already open back door. She watched in terror as it crumpled into a pile of feathers. She started towards it, curiosity overpowering her fear. But before she could get any closer to the doorway the screen door slammed shut so instead she just pressed her face up to the dirty window. Her nose was smushed against the glass so aggressively it was starting to hurt a little, but she couldn’t look away from the ruffling pile of feathers out yonder. They fluttered and moved sickeningly, until Connie was staring down a small brown owl. She thought it was just a normal barn owl until it screamed at her. In a panic she tied the end of her shirt in a knot, secretly wondering if this was a real superstition or if her dad had been fucking with her when he told her this one because she felt ridiculous doing it. But she also felt a little safer.
A huge breath she hadn’t realized she was holding escaped. The demon was gone (more or less). Let the Grandparents tell Preacher Thom about that next Sunday. This, of course, was assuming she could get up the gall to tell either of them in the morning. She turned to go to her room, only to run into the smokey remnants of a young woman. Connie squeaked, dropping her sage. Ash and embers scattered along the floor like falling stars. Connie quickly reached for the light.
Grandpa sauntered in, squinting at the sudden assault on his adjusting eyes. “Why are you up?”
“I heard whistling again.”
“Oh. They gone now?”
“Yeah. I think I saw Molly though.”
Grandpa just nodded. “Makes sense. She’s a good un. Smudgin’ and prayin’ only get rid of the evil haints.”
“Yeah. I think the evil ones are gone.”
Grandpa looked down at Connie’s knotted shirt, but said nothing. “Goodnight, Connie. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“Night.”
Connie didn’t think she would be able to sleep that night, but it felt like the moment her head hit the pillow she was out. Luckily she didn’t dream of haints and owls. She dreamt of butterflies, banana moonpies, and her Dad.
Autumn Bryant grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. She now lives in New York with her cat, Sadie and is currently working as a Kindergarten teacher for some reason. She’s an aspiring writer who loves horror, Greek mythology and Marvel movies.