The Moon-eyed People

Granny was part Cherokee and the other part Irish. She may not have kissed the Blarney Stone in Ireland, as she never got there to visit.  I reckoned she kissed Judaculla Rock up on the reservation; she had such a gift for storytelling. She had some crazy old folk tales she told us young’nes. I didn’t rightly believe most of ‘em. The Moon-eyed People, she claimed, used to live in the mountains even before the Cherokee, and was one of her more unbelievable tall tales. She was sure convinced that she spoke the truth about ‘em, though.

     I went my whole life without paying that particular bedtime story any mind at all till one night seven years ago. I was putting away some of her old arts and crafts. She crocheted, quilted, and embroidered. In a big box of her stash fabric remnants I found an embroidery hoop with a very detailed portrait of one of them moon-eyed people. It set my nerves on fire just looking at it.

     It looked like a sickly little girl, but the huge, solid white eyes were the most haunting part. I thought they were haunting on the embroidery until the photo she went by fell outta the back of the hoop. It was a black and white old Polaroid photo. It showed that same face but in flesh and blood instead of my grandmother’s careful embroidery stitches.  Those eyes! Shivers ran down my spine, and I dropped the hoop and the photograph.  I swear I heard my dearly departed grandmother snicker and tell me the fairies had smacked me for my foolishness in looking at the photo. She always said that your fairies touched you when you felt a shiver out of nowhere.

     I swear I actually looked around me in the attic there. I cain’t say for sure if I was looking for her or the fairies. I damned sure was not looking for any creepy moon-eyed people.

     However, looking round, I found myself eye to eye with a big white cat. I wasn’t sure if it was a living cat or the haint of one, ‘cause it seemed to disappear as soon as I hollered in fright. I was sure I’d disturbed some spirit by looking at that old photograph. I hoped it was just a cat’s ghost and not Granny’s or any worse haint. Granny had always said the moon-eyed people had gone away and didn’t lurk in the mountains no more. She swore up and down though that the land was still full of all sorts of haints.

     I carefully replaced the embroidery hoop and photo back in the box of quilting scraps. Pretending not to be shaking in my boots. I headed back down the stairs to the kitchen.  The white cat was sitting pretty atop the kitchen cabinet beside the sugar bowl. It was all living I could see now in the clear red sunset glow pouring in the back screen door.

     “You ‘bout scared me to death, cat,” I told the critter..

     It meowed.

     “Shoo, get on outta here!” I opened the screen door and motioned for the cat to exit. It looked at me like I was a bothersome skeeter instead of a full-grown man. Nevertheless, it jumped down and sauntered out the screen door onto the back porch.

     I was telling myself it was just any other evening as I set a pot of tea a-boiling on the stove. I sat down in front of it and stoked the firebox bringing the antique cast iron tea kettle to bubbling. It whistled, and I poured myself a cup, added sugar, and a lemon wedge. I sat down on the back porch steps to watch the sunset and enjoy my tea. The white cat was still on the porch, but it wasn’t watching the sunset; it was eyeing the woods line behind the chicken coop. It made me as nervous as a turkey on the day before Thanksgiving, but I tried to ignore it.

     I burnt my lower lip trying to sip the tea too darn fast. My yelp of pain startled the cat. It meowed at me again. I meowed back. It just stared at me, somehow looking worried.

     The sun had slipped below the horizon, and the red sky was fading to shades of purple and indigo. The stars weren’t yet lighting up, but there was a bright full moon climbing up the eastern sky. An old hoot owl hollered in the trees, making me and the cat both jump a foot off the porch.

     “Ya a silly thing, ain’t ya?” I asked the cat, pretending I hadn’t been frightened as much as it had. “Where you from? You don’t live here. You belong to Old Man Norris?”

     The cat meowed and went back to staring into the dark woods alongside the lot of land that my family had owned and lived upon for four generations.

     I finished my tea with one eye on the cat and one eye on what he was looking at in those woods. I didn’t see nothing out there though ‘till I stood up to go back inside. That is when I saw … I don’t know what I saw. There is an old twisted redbud tree there in a bunch of dogwoods. They were all blooming as it was early April. Maybe I’d just seen some flowers quivering in the wind, I told myself, though I sure fire knew there wasn’t a bit of a breeze.

     I shooed the cat, but it followed me in on my heels back into the house. We’d just got through the screen door when the knock on the door made us both jump two feet this time. I whirled around instinctively, grabbing for my pocket knife, wishing I’d been hunting and had my rifle instead in hand.

     Outside that screen door stood three children. They looked like children at least ’til I looked at ‘em a bit closer. I said howdy do through the screen door, trying to sound at ease.

     “You see us.” One of the things said in a sickeningly sweet little voice.

     “Yes, boy, I see ya on my porch, what do y’all want?”

     “You were not supposed to see us.” The smallest one said in an even higher-pitched little voice.

     “Then get on off my porch!” I snapped at the things that clearly were not human children.

     “Open the door. Invite us in. We would have water for our thirst.” The smallest one said again.

     “Naw, you lot run on back home. Your parents be missing y’all.”

     The threesome laughed a blood-curdling giggle, pulling at the screen door.

     “Now, I told you’ens. Get on up outta here.” I went to shut the sturdy wooden door in front of the flimsy screen door.

     The cat hissed as one then two little gray hands reached in and stopped me from shutting the door. They pulled the screen door open, and one of them creatures stepped into the threshold.

     “Invite us in.” He said calmly but firmly.

     The cat kept hissing.

    I was about to say something smart or funny or maybe just shout things one wouldn’t shout at normal children, but I made eye contact with that thing’s eyes. If I thought the eyes of my Granny’s embroidery were scary, and the photo she went by was worse…I still had no idea how horrifying looking into that thing’s eyes right in front of me in flesh and blood was.

     I froze with the wood door half closed. The thing held the screen door half open.  I tried to speak, but only a whimper came out, making my beard quiver. The thing asked to be invited in again, and the other two repeated the demand. Now, I was shaking in fear, but I knew better than to invite them in. Granny had taught me about haints, boogers, fae, and all sorts of supernatural beings. She had told me about the moon-eyed people, which I reckoned I was actually looking at from the white glow of their big, blank eyes. I wasn’t about to invite ‘em in any more than I’d invite the devil himself inside.

     “You’ens get!” I finally choked out and tried to slam the wooden door.

     The cat came flying like a dang bird across the kitchen and threw his full weight into the door, which helped me get it closed. I locked the deadbolt and stepped back. The cat paced between me and the door with his tail twitching. I could see the three of them staring at me still through the diamond-shaped window in the door. Then they smiled, exposing toothless pink mouths. Another chill ran down my spine. I hoped Granny was right and it was fairies touching me. I was glad to not be all alone against the moon-eyed people on my dang porch.

     They just stood there smiling for well over a minute before they turned around and walked down the porch steps and back towards the woods. I looked up in the sky to see if a UFO had brought them. I didn’t see one, but I hoped one had brought them and was taking them back because I couldn’t stand the thought of them living out there in those woods.

     “Damn it, Granny!” I barked out toward the ceiling.

     “I sent you the cat to help ya, boy.” Her voice vibrated the walls of the one hundred and fifty-year-old log cabin.

     I fell to the floor, and the cat fell with me. We both looked around but didn’t see Granny, any UFOs, or any moon-eyed people in the kitchen. We sat there on the floor all night, waiting for something to get us. We luckily made it through the night till morning. It took me digging up a bunch of courage to go back outside. I kept the cat close and didn’t step one step into those woods or the attic ever again.