Episode 11: Season Two Prologue

Well, hey there, family.

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Old Gods of Appalachia is a horror anthology podcast and therefore may contain material not suitable for all audiences.

So listener discretion is advised.

O Appalachia.

Mother and maw that births and devours us, roots sunk deep and winding as gnarled hands clasped in prayer.

Hold us fast and give us foundation, O knotted cage and vine-wrought chains, O feast of hills and green, that which feeds our hearts,

but often starves our blood.

Hear us now.

We stand atop your crown this day and we see you, O mother.

We see your bent joints and busted sinew, hips shifted from birth, forever changed in the giving of life.

We mark these new shapes, born from blasted pine and the churned earth of an open grave, a temple reconstructed in burnt nettles, an altar

formed by willen bones.

We inhale the grease and death of the mines,

the hot steel and empty promise of the railroad, And we listen to the lies that they tell.

These agents of the inner dark.

These outsiders.

These night heart shapes that would reach into the breached and ruined gate of us and plant their vile seed, teach our babies from birth that they are only as good as the blood and sweat that can be wrung from them.

That their dreams are not more than brittle branches before the furnace of industry and work.

Oh, mother, we beg your mercy.

Keeper, pray, and find a way to heal the broken heart of our land.

Oh, grove and barrens, close around them and mislead them.

Make them understand the true meaning of lost.

Sunless, hungry soil.

Oh, sleeping chasm.

Oh, empty, empty belly.

Be still.

Be filled.

Oh,

Appalachia.

Can't you see?

We've come home.

Her cold wind calls,

and so I'll follow her.

No time to rest these weary bones.

I hear her

song

And my heart goes hollow

Best not to walk these words alone

Best stick to the roads and out of the shadow

Best get on home

Best to leave them ghosts alone

If the coal mines of Appalachia are the gullet and belly of the beast,

then the iron ribbons of the Clinchfield Railway are its rust-encrusted tongue, stretching out long from holler to hill to valley, rolling forth like Elijah's chariot, hauling the bituminous bounty car from the gut of the mountain into a world to be turned into heat, light, and soot.

Clouds of our swallowed and crushed dead and compressed time burn to keep the darkness away.

All while sealing in the sky and just drawing it closer.

But as as much as they carry coal and the bones of the earth, these rattling cars often ferry forth those who seek bigger dreams outside the cradle of the green and the shadow of shortened days.

Those who are loved and prayed for and sent on their way with a sack lunch and a steamer trunk, boarding a train that might carry them to live out their dreams

or just to pass into the next life or death.

And as all roads run both ways,

those iron rails bring forth things and men bring them to these hills from elsewhere as well.

Some are just good-hearted souls looking for work and a place to carve out their own, and others are

not.

Others who are just that.

Others.

Now not in the way of skin, tongue, or self, but others in the way of being made apart from the world of sun and light and the green.

Others called by those who sleep beneath as acolytes or allies,

or in some cases,

even kin.

So mind who you meet out by the tracks, family.

Mind well.

Somewhere on this mountain tonight, there is a child clenching his teeth against tears like a bear trap.

There is a boy who is terrified of being a man because in his time and place, it is a man's job to die.

For that child, there will be no sleep.

He will rise knowing he was not meant to, and that boy will go home late to his mama and a supper he cannot eat.

He'll watch his daddy ache and groan his way to his chair on the front porch to smoke.

Watch him look longingly at the main road for death to ride up and take away the hurt.

See, that's his job.

To work

and then die.

This child will know he has failed his daddy somehow, as he failed to die like a man in the mines or on the tracks or even in some fool's war somewhere else, because

He has died already.

Fell down on a carpet of pine needles in the kaleidoscope shadows of the grove, the water of the reservoir and the gray green overhead mixing the tinny smell of fish and turpentine.

The setting sun painting everything in almost indigo.

And the sound of the rest of them running away.

Any words they might have left him dissolved into the panting breath of boys who knew there'd be trouble.

His body cooling as the lakeside earth leached his bones cold.

he should have stayed right there till they found him pale and empty.

Took him home for his mommy and daddy to bury.

Let the church not talk about how many children are in the ground out back.

It had been a whole year since the last one, anyway, but they should have found him and put him with the rest.

But he didn't die on their land or in the woods behind the house or in any dangerous place a boy might fearlessly play.

He died in the pines,

and they never found him.

She did.

For sisters, loneliness is a different bird and tire.

It nests under the breastbone, a hard but brittle place where the ache for family is born.

An ache that runs like rusty barbed wire into the blackness, trying to connect to the next fencepost of blood and shared stories, but it always feels too far.

In the valley,

there sleeps a woman who dreads the night, but does not fear it.

For her, a quiet house is its own kind of hell.

A prison built for ghosts that haven't learned to stop dying yet.

As grateful as she is to have it,

She'd almost burn it down if it can make her sleeping skin feel seen.

Paint her bare, sweat-smeared chest chest with the ashes and mark her for the coming harvest.

Beg the sky to crack and the earth to yield forth a bounty of unbloomed death, pine-bound flower bulbs that reach for the cold kiss of the moon for fear that the sun might wither them.

She knows the name of ever hating these woods and fears in every one of them.

But without kin to stand beside her,

she might as well be one herself.

The quiet, though.

Well, that's something else.

The quiet has a whole bunch of names.

None of them it'll spell for you, so you can't tell it to go home or to hell or anywhere else.

It just sits there,

drinking up your sleep like a skeeter, sucking blood,

leaving itchy spots you'd scratch into open wounds if you could reach them.

The nights and the quiet are harder for her than most.

Don't worry, family.

Ain't nobody going to be sleeping for too long.

As I've told you before, there are places in this world that humanity was never meant to see.

But y'all came anyway.

Y'all and the people before you, pushing into the darkness and through the green.

carving up the land and parceling it out to outsiders.

And we cry out in lamentation and calamity and beg the unheeding heavens for mercy, So shocked to find what we have so clearly sought.

The lands that were meant to remain unseen and unknown shrink by the day.

And that's where we find ourselves this time,

down in the valley where the shadow is the bluest.

And we are in the pines, in the pines,

where the sun don't eat,

and we'll shiver

the whole night through

Let's go, family

Let's go

Hake girl,

he girl

Don't lie

to me

Tell me where

did you sleep

last night

in the nights, in the pies,

where the sun

never shines?

I shiver

all

night through

welcome home, family.

Welcome to season two of Old Gods of Appalachia in the Pines.

It has been a long time coming, and it is so good to be in the presence of family once again, is it not?

Raise a hand and say amen, church.

Yes, indeed.

We've missed y'all.

Now, this season, we've promised you a close and intimate walk with death.

And we know what you're saying.

Steve, Cam, last season, y'all killed a whole lot of people.

And that's true.

But this time around, it's going to be a smaller, more personal story.

You'll see how it goes.

I think you're going to enjoy yourself.

And family, so as it was, so let it be again.

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Today's story was written and performed by Steve Schell.

Our intro music, that brand spanking new theme song, is by our brother Landon Blood.

And our outro music is by Keena Graham of Blood on the Harp.

See you soon, family.

Stay safe.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Hey, I'm Paige DeSorbo, and I'm always thinking about underwear.

I'm Hannah Berner, and I'm also thinking about underwear, but I prefer full coverage.

I like to call them my granny panties.

Actually, I never think about underwear.

That's the magic of Tommy John.

Same, they're so light and so comfy, and if it's not comfortable, I'm not wearing it.

And the bras, soft, supportive, and actually breathable.

Yes, Lord knows the girls need need to breathe.

Also, I need my PJs to breathe and be buttery soft and stretchy enough for my dramatic tossing and turning at night.

That's why I live in my Tommy John pajamas.

Plus, they're so cute because they fit perfectly.

Put yourself on to Tommy John.

Upgrade your drawer with Tommy John.

Save 25% for a limited time at tommyjohn.com/slash comfort.

See site for details.

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