Art by Nadia Uddin
Be Not Afraid
by Tif Robinette
Before I got the wind knocked outta me and an angel appeared, I mixed cement to anchor my wobbling swing set. I never wanted an angel anyhow, but Mama’s headaches were getting so bad she had to lie down in the dark most days. The doctors gave her black and white pictures of her brain and gave me lollipops and sad smiles. Her insurance wouldn’t cover the medicine. Something had to be done.
The cement powder poofed in my face like a stomping mushroom when I sliced the seam of the quick set bag too deep. I swiped my lips and yanked the hose with my string-bean-arms. It ran out of length, even though I attached a couple of hoses together, twisting stripped parts to jammed bits. I dragged a wheelbarrow up from the edge of the burn pile and carried a post digger over. I sunk four fat holes up to my scabby knees through the yellow clay, soft pine roots, and flaking limestone. That was the easy part.
The wheelbarrow had a bad flat, and I knew I’d have to mix my cement and move it down the steep hillside real careful. At least I knew I could get the mix right. I’d seen road men filling potholes the week before.
I’d squatted on the ledge of our property and studied them. One guy dumped splashes from a wobbling orange cooler of water, arms like beef jerky, cigarette loose in his lips. The other guy, pork belly drifting over his belt, shook the concrete bag, spitting strands of thick brown chaw on his boots. The boy, buzzed head and sunburn peeling in bubbles of white skin, worked the mix in sharp, focused turns of shovel in the wheelbarrow. I watched them pour it, thick and smooth. They weren’t witches like me or old Uncle Johnnie who lives down the way, but they did a fine job.
Uncle Johnnie wasn’t my uncle, he was everyone’s uncle, and became a witch the old way, he told me. He had to take his fingernail and toenail clippings, a piece of skin cut off his leg, a clump of his hair, the only photograph of his dead sweetheart, and roast it all on a coal shovel over a barrel fire at midnight. He cursed the Lord til everything ashed and a devil popped up out of the ground, carrying on something fierce, all pissed off he was dragged up outta hell where he was cozy.
Old Uncle Johnnie kept him locked up in an old trunk and would make the devil do whatever he told him. That’s how we got a new roof when the hemlock fell on the house, and how Mrs. Tickle up the mountain got her back taxes paid off.
“Can you get your devil to fix Mama’s headaches?” I asked him.
“What are you, nine years old now?”
“Nine and seven months.”
“You’re old enough to do your own deals.”
I told him I wanted a devil to do them.
“It’s an angel you gotta get,” he said. “A youngun with lots of spark.”
He explained how it was done, how to sink parts of myself in the ground, then fly as high as I could and let go.
“What if it doesn’t work and all I get is a broken bone?” We didn’t have money for all that, not with Mama’s doctor bills.
He kicked the trunk and his devil rattled his chains inside and cussed real loud. “If you break something, I’ll make sure you get it fixed. That’s something my cash devil can do.”
“I’d still rather get a devil, like you,” I said.
“No, it’s an angel you want. A devil is too much trouble, and besides, an angel eats less.”
Once all four holes were plenty deep, I picked the scabs off my bunged knees and dropped them in the first hole. For the second, I scratched the stripe of sunburn where my pigtails were parted and dropped it in. I clipped all my toenails and dropped them in the third. I had a hard time picking my most treasured thing for the fourth hole.
Uncle Johnnie said it had to be irreplaceable. I had lots of things I loved, but they were just doo-dads from the Dollar General, so I pulled my shoebox from under my bed and took out something I could never get back.
I tugged my pet rabbit’s tail out of my pocket and rubbed it on my cheek for the last time, the softest feeling I’d ever felt. Miss Priss died last year when the daffodillies bloomed. I cried so bad I threw up and wouldn't let Mama bury her. I took her stiff body under my bed and screamed when Mama tried to poke me out with the business-end of a broom.
Uncle Johnnie came over and got me to come out. He snipped off her tail and put it in my hand. “It ain’t lucky like a foot, but it’ll be something to remember her by.”
I dropped Miss Priss’ tail into the last hole. I sniffled a little, but I needed an angel now. Mama didn’t have a tail that I could snip off and rub on my cheek when I felt sad. If Mama died from her headaches, they’d take her whole body away.
I jangled the rusty old swing set over and strained each metal leg into its hole. I poured the gray gloop. The cement came up level to the ground and each leg of the swing set poked out of the center.
I waited til the concrete was colder than the earth and gathered drops of water on top. I ate a sun hot tomato and waited longer.
By late afternoon, I put my palm on the cement, and it was hard. I planted my butt in the rubber seat. I ran my fingers up the dry rot plastic on the chains.
I swang, slow at first, testing the hold of my quick-set cement. Firm enough.
I pumped one leg, dragging the tips of my toes through the tangle of poison oak and pine needles, keeping contact with earth til I let go and gave a heave of thrust. Hips working the seat, legs pulling air, arms pushing chain. I went higher, so high. Tall as the top post, tall as the oak limb I could never reach. So high I could see the tar paper on our roof where it still leaks when the snow melts. I threw my legs up, toes touching sky.
I didn’t feel myself let go. I was in the air. Then I wasn’t.
I came to, flat on my belly, lungs hollow, scraping air like the gravel on my knees.
I heaved four big gasps. The last, I pushed deep and filled my belly with air. I looked around. No angel. I pressed my hands onto the ground and pushed myself up on my tender knees. Nothing broken. What a bust. Old Uncle Johnnie must’ve been fooling me.
Something scratched inside my throat. I doubled over like a cat hacking a hairball. I coughed til it came loose, shredding my tongue, and plopped onto the ground in a pool of blood and spit.
No bigger than my thumb, it was pink like chewed bubblegum, with a couple scraggly white feathers sprouting from its wrinkled head. It shook my drool off its fleshy wings and looked up at me with all its mean little eyes.
“Can you make my Mama better?” I asked it, my tongue swelling, blood filling my cheeks.
Its mouth opened. A piercing shriek nearly split my ears. “Be not afraid!”
“Are you gonna fix my Mama?” I yelled.
“Be not afraid!” it screeched again.
I screamed and stomped on it.
I’d rather get a cash devil.
About the author:
Tif Robinette was raised in a fundamentalist sect in Appalachia, homeschooled along with her eight younger siblings. She now lives with her partner and critters in an off-grid tiny home she built in the mountains of northern California. She writes American folk horror and rural noir.
Her work has been published in various places, including The Southeast Review, Phile Magazine, Gingerzine, Black Hare Press, Blood + Honey, and Feign. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Bram Stoker Award (2025). She has forthcoming short stories in Bitter Magazine and Divinations Magazine, 2026. She holds an MFA in Screenwriting and is represented by Sam Edenborough at Greyhound Literary.
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