Even in this Valley

by Anthony Everett

One thing Mama never tired of saying was, “The good Lord will hear you just as clear from a valley as He would atop a mountain peak. He ain’t never too far.” She’d pat my head and caress my curls. I’d get a sweet for remembering a scripture, too.

“Mama, you said He ain’t far, but how come we ain’t ever see Him?” Elitha or Leanna would sometimes say back. They weren’t Mama’s daughters, not in the natural sense—Mama hadn’t birthed them—so they’d ‘buck up from time to time’ as Mama used to put it. But they were still my sisters.

Hearing these outbursts, me and my other four siblings would roll our eyes, or snicker, or do whatever action our parents took to mean disrespect. Mama would rap our knuckles with—if we were lucky—the flat of her hand. “The Good Book tells children to respect their mothers, too,” she’d add.

Well, and I mean no discourtesies to Mama, but I don’t know if He’s hearing us over this winter storm, anyway.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” Me and my siblings recite the Lord’s prayer. We can’t forget it; Pa drilled it into us. Mama would remind us of the Lord’s good character, and Pa would mark our hide with the good Lord’s wrath if we failed to keep Mama’s lessons.

A chill shoots through my body and my teeth threaten to bite down on my tongue as I interrupt the prayer. “If Hell is frozen over, then we’re living in it.”

It’s cold. This fire we’re standing over ain’t offering up any warmth. I’m willing to bet it’s using all its strength to cook the stew in the pot.

“The tips of my fingers burn,” Clara whines.

Elitha breaks the prayer circle, letting go of me and Georgia to make for Clara. Elitha tucks our little sister’s tiny, uncovered hands into the seams of her dress. “You keep these wrapped up best you can, hear?” She walks back to her place in the prayer circle, eyes still on Clara but her mind focused on my interruption.

With all this chill, I don’t feel Elitha rap my knuckles, but I try to keep up appearances. “Ow!” I pour pain into the word, but my voice comes out like an old cat’s yowl. I suppose that fits.

“We don’t speak about Hell unless Pa’s telling a demon to go there,” Elitha says.

How’s Pa gonna tell a demon anything when he’s with ‘em?

There’s a hint of fire in Elitha’s eyes. My body shakes and I don’t know whether it’s from the chill in the air, or from my big sister’s look. “Let’s keep our eyes on the Lord, as Mama has commanded,” Elitha says, squeezing my hand. Don’t she know I can’t feel it?

Georgia starts, “Elitha, you mean it’s as Mama would have—”

“Hush, Georgia. I said what I did.” Elitha tugs her arm then motions toward the pot. “Now, let’s finish the prayer so we can eat.”

How Elitha is able to corral the four of us girls to finish anything is a miracle. She’s like Mama, if not in birth, then age and wisdom. She’s like Mama in the way she sets her jaw after discipline. That sturdy jaw, still connected to those full, rosy cheeks. Cheeks with meat still on the bone.

“Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us of our debts, even as we forgive our debtors.”

“Stop frowning while we pray,” Elitha squeezes my shoulder, shooting me a knowing look. “Bow your head and say the next part a bit more louder.”

Whatever reason she thinks I’m frowning over, it’s not that. It’s this prayer. Forgive us? As we forgive?

I’m not forgiving, and I sure as Hell won’t forget.

Pa said we needed to go out West. Head to California. “Wouldn’t it be good to get away from the cold of Illinois?” I’d overheard him tell Mama one night. From her response, it didn’t sound like Mama was too sure, but she’d follow him to Hell.

She followed him here. To this hollow, godless cabin, left in this vacant, ice-crusted, godforsaken valley.

“—hastings…bridger…keyes…halloren…breen…” Leanna mumbles from her corner of the cabin. She’s the only one of us not in the prayer circle. Leanna’s like me. She isn’t one for clemency, either.

“Leanna Charity, you stop that muttering!” Elitha’s voice is much stronger than my small yowl. “Revenge is the Lord’s, that what Mama—”

“MAMA’S NOT HERE!”

Leanna’s on her feet and flying toward Elitha, quick as a whip. Probably got the energy from whatever she was chewing on over there. Leanna moves Clara and Georgia, standing nose to mouth with Elitha. Spittle dribbles down Leanna’s lip and onto the floor. Clara, God bless her, drops to the cabin floor, trying to scoop up what she can.

“Mama’s. Not. Here.” Leanna draws out each word, quivering and shaking real fierce. Her face is twisted into a rage. I’d known to mind Leanna’s temper in time before we arrived here, but after everything…This version of her scares me. “It’s just us,” she says.

I don’t let my mind wonder if that’s a threat or a fact.

“I say those names to keep from saying yours,” Leanna says.

The storm’s bitterness is nothing compared to the rawness in Leanna’s eyes. She stalks back to her corner, the same one she’s been in for days, and sits back down. She’s muttering those names again, not breaking sight with Elitha.

I can’t blame Leanna. I recognize those names, particularly Hastings. It was his damned book that put the idea in Pa’s head to come out here. The Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon and California. Pa swore as sure as a winter snow in Illinois that the book would save us time on the journey. Wasn’t on the trail more than two weeks before Pa started saying he couldn’t make sense of the words. I still remember Mr. Reed yelling at Pa for trusting that crook and his twisted words.

After we’d eaten all the cattle, those alive and dead, and after we’d eaten the soles of our shoes, and devoured what vermin we could find, after we picked the bones clean and sucked the marrow dry—we ate that accursed book, too.

Then Pa died, and we…

Maybe that’s why the Lord don’t hear us. We’re too marked with the sin sitting inside us.

Elitha nudges all of us back into prayer. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Clara and Georgia break the prayer, jaws open and slack with hunger. They descend upon the contents of the pot. Elitha cries out, trying to pull them back. “Mama said pray, first! We’ve got to pray!”

“MAMA’S NOT HERE!” Leanna screams again, like a banshee haunting the night’s air. She’s covering her ears, eyes shut tight. Her tears fall and get stuck in the gaunt gaps of her face.

The pot goes sprawling across the floor as Clara and Georgia fight. Elitha tries to pull the girls apart, but they’re like wolves. Spark and stew alike spread across the floor, and even Elitha gives up keeping the peace and begins to fight over the scraps. Some of the meat stops just shy of my feet. My sisters haven’t noticed yet, too consumed with making their bellies hurt just a little less.

I stoop down and pick up what’s left of Mama.

I want to finish the prayer before I take a bite, but this icy hell can’t be the Lord’s kingdom, nor His glory. But, Mama’s last ask of us, before we lit the fire for stew, was that we pray, and I was always her good one. The one that would always respect her. Even in this valley.

She’d told me so.

“Amen,” I whisper.

Just as Mama used to do.

About the Author

Anthony Everett is a walking contradiction. He spends his days as an electrical engineer and his nights as a creative world builder; his west coast upbringing came from southern roots; his work explores forgotten magic, fractured empires, and the quiet resilience of those caught between myth and machinery. You can find him in Los Angeles playing board games with his family and arguing with strangers about whether hot dogs are sandwiches. You can check out his website at www.everettsnotepad.com.