Often I feel I’ve channeled the Black Mountain Stories from several of my eccentric relatives from long ago. I was born in Georgia and raised everywhere but Georgia until I was ten years old. That’s when my mother brought my brother and me back to live with my grandmother. It was then I began to absorb both wonderful and eerie tales told by my extended family. One of the first stories I heard upon arrival at my grandmother’s home was about a fighter pilot—an air force base was nearby—had crashed into the house down the street. The eighty-year old home was owned by two old maid sisters: one who had spent her life in a wheelchair and the other looking after her. The whole street ran to watch the fire. Some claim to have seen the pilot in the front seat of the jet trying to get out. Others claim to have heard one of the sisters screaming. The only survivor was the sister in the wheelchair. It was in this atmosphere of tall tales, spells, and spirits that Black Mountain was born. I didn’t have a name for the community back then, but I spent many hours writing and forcing my little brother to listen to my stories of spells and ghosts. Ah, but children do grow up. Or do they?

The fictional community of Black Mountain finally got its name while I was flipping hamburgers in my kitchen one night in the spring of 2004.

Mama warned me against marrying Hobbs Pritchard. She saw the future in her tealeaves, death.

This sentence shot through my mind in a strong southern voice that was not my own. Nellie Pritchard was alive and well. She wanted to tell her story, Ghost On Black Mountain. And so it was to be. Not only did she appear with much to say, but several different characters lined up to tell their tales and inherently tell more about Nellie in the process. In the story, Who’s Afraid Of The Dark, Mary Carol tells a chilling tale of ‘haints’ and a Halloween party thrown on The Pritchard Place, where some of Nellie’s secrets are revealed.

The characters on Black Mountain are many: Oshie Connor the boy who leaves the mountain for a summer and comes back forever changed (Doctor Bag). Maude Tuggle, the granny woman in Circle of Light, has the skeletons in her closet exposed. Shelly Parker, my personal favorite, travels to the coast of Georgia where she embraces her gift for seeing the dead in the story, Sight.

Many of the stories, such as, Quell The Voices and An Unwanted Spell Discarded Into The Air, will send shivers across the readers scalp, while others, A Stake Through The Heart, Conjure A Spell, and Even Old Women Get Second Chances, are just plain out side-splitting.

The Last Stopping Off Place is the final story in Nellie’s life and is told from quirky Bea Weehunt’s—the readers will remember her from Mr. Snake Gets Religion—point of view. When I wrote this story I thought it was over. I thought, okay that’s the end of Black Mountain. Now I move on somehow.

The last story, Wiggle Room, proved me wrong. A whole new Black Mountain clan has appeared in this tale of three sisters, Barbara Jean, Carley, and Ida Tee. Lord, these girls are a hoot, and they prove that Black Mountain is a character all its own. As some of the old folks on Black Mountain would say: ‘The mountain is alive as me or you. If you listen, you can hear her breath. You can feel her moan. Once you get her in your blood, they’re ain’t no leaving. No matter how far you go it’s the only home you’ll ever know.’

Good reading.

Ann