Old Gods of Appalachia - A Once-Told Tale: The Wolf Sisters Part One

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

To be a wolf is a thing of spring loaded joy, of black gummed panting death. Of pack and ground. Torn tendon and blood and broken bones in feasting abandon beneath a split and howling sky. But to be a wolf with the mind of mortal man or woman? No-we can’t be trusted with that kind of power without being broken by it. Not even wise women of The Clutch. Not even them.CW: Frank discussion of historical racism and treatment of migrant workers, depictions of period racism, cult activity, shapeshifting, supernatural animal violence, gore, dismemberment of a dead body, references to the KKK (pejorative), spiritual/demonic possession themed elements, references to historical sex work, references to the death of an adult child.Written by Steve ShellSound design by Steve ShellNarrated by Steve ShellThe voice of Miss Darla: Stephanie Hickling BeckmanIntro music: "The Land Unknown," written and performed by Landon BloodOutro music: "I Cannot Escape the Darkness," written and performed by Those Poor BastardsLEARN MORE ABOUT OLD GODS OF APPALACHIA: www.oldgodsofappalachia.comCOMPLETE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA RITUAL:FacebookInstagramTwitterBlueskySUPPORT THE SHOW:Join us over at THE HOLLER to enjoy ad-free episodes, access exclusive storylines and more.Find t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and other Old Gods merch at www.teepublic.com/stores/oldgodsofappalachia.Transcripts available on our website at www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/episodesOld Gods of Appalachia is a production of DeepNerd Media. All rights reserved.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/old-gods-of-appalachia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, hey there, family, if you love old gods of Appalachia, I want to help us keep the home fires burning, but maybe aren't comfortable with the monthly commitment. Well, you can still support us via the ACAS supporter feature. No gift too large, no gift too small. Just click on the link in the show description, and you too can toss your tithe in the collection plate. Feel free to go ahead and do that.

Right about now. The following is a special presentation. of old gods of Appalachia, which is a horror anthology podcast and therefore may contain material not suitable for all audiences. So listener discretion is advised. The birth of a healthy living child

is a cause for celebration in most places. The birth of a healthy living child to a living and loving mother, even more so. But when it's a child that should have never been born, the narrative shifts when a child's very existence threatens the wealth and social standing

of a rich and well-known father because maybe the mother is poor and not the right shade of white well that it becomes a very different story entirely it is important to note however before we move into this tale that both the babe and mother in this scenario lived

They were never in any real imminent danger And both went on to live long and prosperous and frankly quite boring lives Knowing and loving each other for all their days So don't y'all worry about that now The man they left behind though Well Let's talk about him Jubil Tucker

Owned a good stretch of land with a right nice house on it Out in the country near a thriving little town in eastern Tennessee It wasn't a rich place yet, but the railroad had been carving up the foothills for a better part of the decade down that way, and buddy, Jubal Tucker, had already cashed in. A bachelor well into his 30s, Jubal had never married. He come close once, but his lady love had passed in a flu epidemic, and Jubal never fully recovered from her passing. And while not exactly a recluse, Jubal Tucker kept to himself. lived in a fine house outside of Baker's Gap, Tennessee. And from time to time, he would employ women from the town or thereabouts

to clean and care for his property. It would be one of these women that sets our story into motion. Jubil Tucker would come to hire a beautiful young thing named Dolores to clean his house, tend to his linens and his washing. Now Dolores, his skin and tongue carried nose. notes of distant Mexico, and she was a unique and strange beauty in this deeply white little town. Now, the greater Baker's Gap area is carved up equal by a river and railroad, and there are

a thousand little hollers and nooks that wind back into the hills and by the river, but the one everybody knows about, but the one they seldom talk about, was called the clutch. The clutch was a deep-dipping holler that had been hollered. for more than a little while to a group of women of varying ages and ethnicities. Young, old, white, black, brown, native, and all the mixing in between, there tended to be nine or ten women at a time living in the clutch, never any men. Sometimes women came to the area and settled there a while

before finding a more permanent living arrangement or job. It was through her cousin Nesmi that Dolores had come to Tennessee. to Tennessee. And she had shared the older woman's small house and had been welcomed into that community on a whole and accepting level that she would never know in the town proper. The clutch was also a place where women who didn't have no kin or nobody left could go if things went sideways. Now, nobody from Baker's Gap would go live there for a fan, no. The respectable and Lily White of that five Tennessee community kept to their own, thank you very much. but it didn't stop folks from seeking a remedy out that way sometimes

maybe a throwing of the bones or a bit of a charm a potion to empty a womb private things things they don't talk about especially not with us menfolk around but the women of the clutch were a peculiar mix of settled outsider and widowed matriarchs of folks from elsewhere But it was also common thought that they were all witches and would eat your children if you looked at them wrong in the mercantile. So best keep moving, sister.

Dolores worked for Jubil Tucker for four months before he kissed her. Now, I want to be clear here, family, Jubal Tucker, damaged and eventually doomed man that he was, was also kind and gentle. He minded his boundaries, neither forced nor coerced Doloress, Doloress into sharing his home. or his bed. He had money and security, and he offered it. More than that, he had a lonely heart, and she made him happy. So he kept her there. Kept her secreted away from the rest of Baker's Gap

and from his family, who still held their property in Georgia. Jubal was happier than he'd been in years. And when Dolores told him she was with child, he was over the moon. He had decided he would marry this woman. He would raise this child, hopefully a son, as his own, and damned the world. He would claim his own way, and if it cost him the family money, then, well, so be it. This was all well and good and set in the stone of a good man,

until Jubal Tucker's mother came to call from far and distant Blairsville, Georgia, enraged and scandalized that her son would co-mingle the family bloodline with something other than good Christian white girl. Mavis Tucker raged and threatened and pointed fingers, and if Dolores knew what was good for, she'd get her horacelle back to wherever she'd come from before she cut that whelp out of her belly herself. And she'd even gone so far as to brandish a kitchen knife

at Dolores's pregnant belly. And jubel stood mute and petrified as the woman he loved, fled his house and back toward the clutch. He would never see her again. It took two days from Mavis Tucker to get Jubel's uncles to town and to pack Jubil off to the family estate back in Blairsville just until things cooled off. She assured Jubil, she wouldn't hurt the girl none.

She'd just been upset. She'd talked to her, give her some money, but Jubal would not marry her. And he would not claim whatever crawled out of her wound. And just like that, Jubil went back to Georgia. But then his mama called on a handyman who had done work for their family for years. I trusted old army buddy of her late husband, a man who knew how to take care of things. A man who could clean this up and who knew how to be discreet and how not to be seen when he was about his business.

Now, by the time Mavis Tucker's man, Jr. McCaff, was able to find where it was, the pregnant girl that worked for Mr. Tucker had lived. Well, she'd already had the baby. Beautiful, healthy little boy that she named Joaquin after her father. Within days of delivery, the women of the clutch who had overseen and blessed the child's birthing had smuggled the mother and child from the town, then the county, then the state all the way west to Arkansas, where, as we said, they lived out happy and natural lives. By the time Junior Metcalf did creep into the clutch that night

with his big army knife and his big army surplus bag full of all kinds of nasty things. Dolores and her baby had been gone for two days. The women of the clutch, however, were all at home. Junior had been crouching at the perimeter of the shared yard. The main buildings of the clutch, you see, were built in a three-quarter circle with a common yard with a fire pit, closed lines, and other common things of rustic life readily available for all.

When he saw the old woman, she looked about 60 or 160. Hell, he couldn't tell. She was clearly Cherokee and stood staring blankly at him from about 30 feet away. You are too late, she said, and began to laugh. Too late. And her laughter grew.

Too late, silly man, called a younger voice from somewhere else. Higher-pitched laughter joined the older woman's croaking cackles. A third voice called something in a language junior didn't recognize, and its voice began to laugh too. Junior stumbled back. The voices seemed to be all around him now, at least a half dozen of them, and he felt strange, disoriented. His feet seemed heavy and his breathing was slow,

and he stared down at his feet, willing them to move, and when he looked up, there was a snarl and jaws closed on his throat. The next morning, Mavis Tucker was locking up her son's house. She had stepped on to the porch and was turning the key in the lock when she heard someone behind her laugh softly. She turned with a start to find a stout middle-aged woman. black woman, dressed as if to clean the house, holding a canvas bag at the foot of the steps. Oh, I'm sorry, Mavis began. You frightened me.

Mr. Jubil has gone back to Georgia for a while. He won't need you to clean for at least two weeks. The woman stared at Mavis, her eyes glinting playfully, knowingly. She began to smile widely, and she offered Mavis the satchel. No, honey, I'm sorry. I can't let you in to clean. Mr. Jubal is not here. Do you understand me? The woman offered her the satchel again. Mavis was a little bit scared of this woman. She was bigger than her for one, so if she wanted to rob her, well, what could Mavis do?

but mostly it was her eyes. They didn't look quite right to Mavis. What's this? Mavis reached hesitantly for the bag. The woman was clearly fighting back giggles at this point, and Mavis began to suspect she was being mocked. You lost this? And her accent alone was enough to shiver, Mavis.

Mavis looked at the bag, recognized the U.S. Army market, that would designate 90% of the possessions a man like Junior Metcalf would have to his name. Where'd you get this? Did you steal this? You lost this. We found. And she giggled and started walking away.

Her laughter growing. Mavis watched the woman go and then looked down at what was clearly Junior's bag. Mavis opened it and... looked inside. The bag contained Junior's big army knife. Oh, and his army ring, too, which was still on the finger of his severed right hand that was also in the bag, along with Junior's teeth and tongue that rested in the pale desert of that bloodless palm. Mavis Tucker would see those artifacts of her own failed cruelty in her dreams for years to come. But she'd never returned to Baker's Gap and would

die on her own terms the following year. The magic of vengeance is never a clean thing, though. When Jubal's uncles returned to the gap on their mother's instructions to see what had happened to their father's oldest friend, they made it all of three days wandering the woods around the clutch. They had been loud and cloudish fools and white shirts and stupid-looking hats. They had prayed loudly in the road about casting out witches and suffered them not to live.

And they'd even attempted to reach out to the local Grand Dragon to get some white-huded help. But even those bloated old bags of coleslaw knew better than to come down to the clutch. Either way, the two men were found tied to a tree on their nephew's property. Throats torn out. Hands chewed off. Stinking of animal piss and rot. Jubile Tucker himself returned to Baker.

gap later that year. His heart broken and his soul shamed by his doings. If he just stood up to his mama, if he married Dolores from the outset, I mean sure they'd have less money because mama would have disowned him for sure, but his uncle Sammy and Tripp would still be alive. Dolores would be with him and he'd know his child. He slept in his house for two nights and had dreamed of his love and their son. dreamed of the life they could have had, but the dream he had on the last night there was different.

It started like all the others. Him and Dolores and a beautiful boy of about four or five years old walking in a golden lit yard, laughing, tossing a ball for the little man, watching him chase it, scooping up his boy and swinging him around. Bliss.

In this version of the little man, The dream, however, the skies darkened as he swung his son through the air. The intense musk of animals filled his nose as the growls and howls of wolves broke through the peace of his dream like a clumsy child through spider webs. Jubil nearly sprung from his bed. He sat up so quickly, but family, you know how dreams work in this place, don't you? They never seem to stay all the way on the other side, do they? So Jubil made his way to the front door, his sense of smell still rife with the stench of marked territory and lupine breath.

And so there, Jubal Tucker found himself, standing on his front porch and the edge of dawn mist, staring down six women of six different ages of four different races. Nicked is the day they were born And their bodies were of diverse shapes and colors Their hair longed to their waists or chopped below the ear And they were not a uniform body of risen dead They were not the unheard whispers of the women in church

They were not an auxiliary or a henhouse or a gaggle It was clear from the tilt of their heads The scent in the air the way their bodies seemed attuned to the morning breeze and the fluid indolence in their slightly swaying forms Jubil knew a pack when he saw one one by one they turned their eyes on him their change was quick

Jubil's death was not the magic of vengeance is never a clean thing the number of animal attacks that spring set a new record. Men vanished from railroad jobs, from outside late-night saloons on their way to and from work.

Their mauled and half-eaten bodies always delivered to their family's doorstep within a few days. And there were never any witnesses. Just dead bodies and wolf tracks. Now, people who would know about these sort of things within the town that would rather other people not know that they know about said things

started looking into things. Every small town has people, sometimes elders, sometimes not, who know about the things that happen in the black spaces between these mountains. And these people went to the clutch to see what the women there knew.

They found it empty, abandoned. Clothes left on lines, food left rotting in stores, beds unslept, in. So this clandestine council of unnamed folk took the steps required of them, and a letter was hand delivered to a tall log building about 12 miles outside of Baker's Gap.

A structure that looked part respectable vacation lodge and part mountain fortress, with a well-kept plank walkway that spanned up the side of the high hill to the front door. The front porch itself was supported by 12-foot sturdy collars. each ornately carved with local flora and fauna. The floor of said porch was a constellation of elaborate whirling lines in geometrical shapes and traps. The light from the front room was warm and a soft bronze.

If you were welcome here, this might feel more like home than you'd ever know. If you were unwelcome, well, there's that. The deed to this property was registered to Pleasant Eveningham's Enterprises of Terniquet, West Virginia. But the sign over the door simply read, the Walker House. Marcy Walker was the first of her sisters to be sent out into the world by her late Mama Sheila. To use the considerable nest egg mama had gathered for them at first to build her own parlor house. Staffing six girls and three boys and doing quite well for her son.

and until that business with the local magistrate and the railroad man. And, well, after that, things had to change. But that's a story for another time, just not right now. So pleasant evenings, as the first house had been called, shifted purpose and became the Walker House for Wayward Women in Need. And it was exactly what its name said it was. It was a place for a child to be born away from pride. church eyes. It was a place for a woman with a dangerous husband or wife to stay while a new life

was found for her. It had been the place that young Dolores Jimenez and eventually her infant son Joaquin had passed through on their way back west, never to be seen in these parts again. And if that were the only part the Walker House had to play in this story, that would be a blessing. But sadly it is not. You see, Marcy Walker took keen interest in the activities of all women with the true gift in these parts of the mountains. Bad attention for a few could and usually would mean bad attention for all. So when the women of the clutch had begun their blood song on the men of Baker's Gap, it would only be a matter of time before that song was turned back upon every practice and holler witch in these parts.

She understood the women down in the clutch, though. I mean, hell, you go without having any kind of power at all, having to hide what you have for so long that when you do get to let a little bit out to set something right, well, it could be right painful to go back into hiding. The problem was not that they had become so enamored with becoming wolves that they had decided to forsake their given forms. That had happened in the past, would happen again,

Sometimes folks is just born into the wrong shape and need to be able to shift to find home. Being a wolf is a beautiful and deadly thing. All that speed and power, all the jaws alone are worth the loss of humanity. To be a wolf is a thing of spring-loaded joy, a black-gummed panting death, of pack and ground, torn tendon blood and broken bones and feasting abandoned beneath a split and howling sky. to be a wolf with the mind of a mortal man or woman. No. No, we can't be trusted with that kind of power without being broken by it.

Not even the wise women of the clutch. No, not even them. So something was going to have to be done. To get that something done, she'd need help. She couldn't do it by herself. She could sit Melvin to fetch her. Ellie and she could be here by midweek, she figured. She hated it when this happened. Good, strong gifts gone bad. But something had been moving lately. That was for sure. She could smell it in the air.

Almost tasted. 1917 was shaping up to be a hell of a year. Things were already this wild in the spring. What in her mama's name would the summer bring? There is a curse upon my... Hey family. How y'all doing? I hope you all enjoyed this full production version of the Wolf Sisters part one. Now, this is not the launch of season two. Let me say that again.

This is not the launch of season two. Nor is Bill Bama a coffin season two. We've had some people be confused about that and want to talk about us jumping behind a paywall for season two, and we are doing no such thing. Be clear, build mama a coffin, as we've told you from the get-go if you listen and paid attention is an exclusive storyline for Patreon patrons, not to be mistaken for a season two, which will come,

and will be free just like season one was. Now, the Wolf Sisters was originally performed on Discord for an audience of a few hundred people, crammed into a Discord voice channel just last weekend in late March here in the year of the plague. I hope everybody is, keep insane and safe in your isolation and you're not going out and doing something stupid trying to go to a red lobster that's not open or something nobody wants that the sizzler can wait y'all

okay bonanza will still be there but we are going to return to the live arena on discord which that was fun and we can't really have the sound effects on the ambiance that i would like to have but it's a cool and easy way for everybody to access and it was kind of cool there were some challenges but we think we've got a better handle on it cramming a few hundred people into a discord voice channel. But Saturday, April 4th, 2020, the year of the plague, we will gather again in congregation to finish this story. The Walker sisters, y'all, they're here. And if you did the math on those dates, you know what we're right before. You know what comes in the summer of 1917 in our world. And you know where you meet the Walker sisters. So there's some interesting things to examine. And I'm

to go ahead and announce this now in a recorded format. I announced it on the Discord server in Season 2 when it happens, and it will. We're getting closer and closer to making an announcement about season 2. There will be a Walker Sisters story arc in season 2. Y'all kind of asked for it, you got it. In fact, if you've not been by the Threadless store lately, the same night of the Discord reading, we unveiled a Walker Sisters t-shirt, which is over at Old Gods of Appalachia.threadless.com, along with our new collection of old socks of Appalachia. Go check those out as well. This is a hard time.

Y'all, we're in an unprecedented territory, and things are hard. Two out of the three of the members of this team that produced this show have lost their jobs. I'm still blessed enough to be teaching. And how have y'all responded to this news on social media? You've upped your Patreon pledges. You've bought merch.

You've asked us for our PayPal for the love of God. Thank you, family. Thank you from the bottoms of our cold blood. slowly pulsating hearts that are actually voids, but don't ask questions about that. Thank you. Look, this is beyond anything we ever imagined. This is not a fandom. This is the family.

And we love y'all very, very much. And if you do want to help, patreon.com slash old gods of Appalachia, it's where you can become a patron. Build Mama a coffin is still going. There's a lot of cool stuff to come. So we'll see you all on April 4th over on Discord. Talk to you soon, family. Thank you.