Granny Wine and the Visitors: Episode 1 — “The Fire on the Hill”
An Appalachian tale of wit, whiskey, and otherworldly visitors
If the devil kept a list of folks he had to watch close, Granny Wine’s name would’ve been underlined twice.
Most evenings she rocked on her porch, pipe glowing like a coal, snapping peas into a tin bowl and minding her own kind of business — which generally meant everybody else’s when it needed minding. The sunset spilled honey-gold over the hills, smoke drifting lazy in the warm air. A whip-poor-will started up. Far off, the creek talked to itself.
Then the sky tore open.
A streak of white fire ripped across the ridge, trailing smoke like a comet too drunk to steer. The light lit every jar on her kitchen shelf and threw long, startled shadows across the yard.
Granny squinted through the haze, pipe stem clamped between her teeth.
“Well,” she said to nobody in particular, “this’ll be one hell of an interestin’ day.”
The sound came a beat later — a low whump that thumped her chest and rattled the blue-glass bottles hanging from the porch. Leaves shook, birds burst up, and the mountain held its breath.
She sighed, set the bowl of peas aside, and hauled herself up with the help of her cane — the one crowned with a black crow whose glass eyes caught the light just so. She wasn’t fast, but she didn’t have to be. Every step down the hill was measured and sure, like the earth moved a little to meet her boot.
The air smelled scorched and sweet. A ribbon of smoke led her to the edge of her patch — green leaves flattened, ground bitten deep like something heavy had crashed wrong.
She planted her hands on her hips and muttered around her pipe,
“Well, damn. There goes my sweetleaf an’ ’bacca.”
Smoke thinned. Out of it resolved three shapes — tall, slim, quiet as moonlight. Skin like wet riverstone, not pale so much as shifting, catching a dozen colors and thinking about each one. Their garments shimmered like heat over blacktop, as if cloth had learned a few tricks from weather.
The first held herself like command — spine straight, eyes steady, hands folded neat.
The second took everything in, gaze moving careful, precise.
The third flickered at the edges, more nervous than a rabbit facin’ down a wolf.
Granny chewed the pipe stem and looked them over.
“Don’t just stand there gawkin’,” she said. “Broke my field — least you can do is walk polite.”
They hesitated, trading glances. She tipped her cane toward the narrow path cut down through the trees.
“Well? Come on then. Ain’t standin’ in the smoke doin’ either of us any good.”
They followed — light on their feet, barely rustlin’ the leaves. The woods hushed as they passed, like it was listening with them. Moths bobbed in the new dusk. Now and then the ground underfoot felt softer than it should, as if the mountain was smoothing a wrinkle for Granny Wine and nobody else.
At the ravine, the creek sang its low, secret tune. The bridge that spanned it was old timber bound with iron nails gone gray with age. Granny tapped the rail once with her cane.
“The bridge don’t care who crosses it,” she said, “but it won’t hold fools for long.”
The visitors traded another look, then stepped after her. The planks creaked but held; the creek went on talking like it knew the ending and wasn’t telling.
On the far side waited her cottage — a patchwork of fieldstone and weathered board, chimney leaning a little, blue-glass bottles clinking softly in the breeze. Herbs hung from the porch rafters like watchful eyes. A small, neat stack of firewood leaned under the eaves, proud of its corners.
Inside, warmth swallowed them whole — woodsmoke, green things drying, the faint spice of last night’s stew. Shelves lined the walls, jars catching the firelight, and a big round oak table held court in the middle, ringed by chairs that didn’t match but belonged together anyhow.
On the hearth sat a large, irregular, grapefruit-sized stone — deep forest green with thin white veins, shaped like it had been chipped from a mountain’s ribs and polished by old, knowing hands. If you watched long enough, it pulsed faint as a heartbeat.
Granny settled into her chair and reached under the table, coming up with a jug the color of trouble. She poured two jars full of clear, sharp-smelling liquor and slid one across the table toward the woman who held herself like command.
“Here,” Granny said, lifting her own jar.
“It’ll only kill you if you’re lyin’.”
Then she took a long, steady pull — didn’t blink, didn’t flinch.
The woman watched her for one measured breath.
Then — because leaders always go first — she mirrored the motion and took a generous swallow.
The shine hit her like a freight train dipped in lightning.
Her eyes flew wide. Her body jolted forward. Then she bent double as a violent coughing fit ripped out of her — harsh, deep, and merciless.
The calm, serious male stiffened at once — shoulders rising like a shield, gaze slicing between Granny and his leader with sharp, protective calculation.
The jittery one gasped, hands twitching upward as if to help or flee, panic flooding his face.
The woman choked again — one brutal cough, then another. She waved a hand sharply, trying to signal I’m fine, I’m fine, which only set off yet another round before she finally forced the fit down.
Slowly, she straightened.
Her eyes watered, her throat burned, her breath trembled — but she lifted her chin and met Granny’s gaze with a small, dignified smile.
Granny grinned around her pipe stem.
“Mmm. Strong, ain’t it?”
A hush settled — not empty, but listening. The hearthstone gave the faintest pulse of mossy light. Outside, a crow called once, then twice — the second call softer, stranger.
The visitors stood or perched or hovered — each in their own way — but a little less like strangers now.
Granny puffed her pipe, smoke curling around her head like fog with opinions.
“Well,” she said at last, content, “reckon we’re off to a start.”
Outside, the mountain exhaled. Far up the ridge, a crow cried again — then something else answered, not quite bird, not quite echo. Far away, heat lightning stitched a thin seam under the horizon and then thought better of it.
Granny smiled around her pipe.
“Oh, they’ll be talkin’ about this one,” she murmured.
The fire popped like it agreed.
End of Episode 1 — “The Fire on the Hill.”
It ain’t done yet, episode two
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Author’s Note
“The Fire on the Hill” is the beginning of something I’ve wanted to write for a very long time.
Granny Wine is stitched together from the great women who raised me and shaped me — my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my mother, and the fierce, funny, sharp-eyed Appalachian women I met on my grandparents’ farm growing up. She carries their wit, their kindness, their stubbornness, and that quiet mountain knowing you can feel long before you understand it.
This first story is a doorway — a little crack in the world where humor, magic, and memory slip through. It’s the start of a long, strange, warm-hearted journey, and I hope it makes you smile the way the old stories in my family always made me smile.
Welcome to Whiskey Ridge.
Granny Wine’s been waiting.
— Barbara Rios
Offer whatever name you wish to be known by at the hearth today — real or imagined — we look forward to welcoming your words into the circle.
