Now some people are natural portals. They cross between the physical realm and the spiritual realm seamlessly. There’s no process to go through, no spell to cast, no work or sacrifice that needs to be done. Nolan was one of those people, he was a natural portal. He moved in and out of the spiritual world, he heard things, saw things, flew out of his eyes, dreamed, saw the future and much more. He did it all without effort or even knowing what was happening. It was just how Nolan was wired. One of the two witches was wired the same way, she became a medium but she was built to be a prophet.
Other’s who got into the dark arts had different natural giftings and were attracted to the lifestyle by what they could get. It wasn’t as much of an outlet for the side of them that didn’t work in polite society as it was a means of gain. This is also how many who claimed to be Christians ended up connected to the covens and the ritual world. The witch who said hello to Nolan on the bench, she was a born soldier who had joined up with the first army to offer her a way to be who she was made to be. But she was always being called back and convicted by the Holy Spirit in people like Nolan. She felt a strange love for Nolan, that was a bit frightening. She couldn’t tell any of her fellow satanists or she could end up quite literally on the chopping block.
The two witches followed the school buses over to the hubcap hamburger place. The building was an old wooden shack that looked small from the outside. It had a country style front porch with a few rocking chairs which were always taken by a few local farmers. It was the kind of place where people drove their tractors up into the front grass to take a lunch break every day and meet up with their fellow businessmen. There was a big empty field to park in across the dirt road. There was another road that ran from the cotton gin museum, behind the parking field and across to the old tractors and implements. It made a perfect dirt crossroads just off to the left hand side if you were sitting on that front porch.
The building was much bigger than it looked. It was built onto the side of the riverbank. You couldn’t even see the river from the parking area but about the time you got to the porch you could see clear across. The building was long, with a huge seating capacity in the top floor. They were always serving bus loads of people because of the Indian Mound tours, it was a part of the experience. They also served politicians from the state capital and the wealthiest people in the central part of the state. It may have looked like a hole in the wall but they had great food and a lot of clout. It was well known that the governor would meet with people there in order to speak privately and candidly without anything ending up in the papers.
The kitchen was all downstairs. The wait staff would send the orders down a hand cranked dumbwaiter and the cooks would send the food back up the same way. Almost everyone ordered a burger, they were famous for the burgers; but everything on the menu was delicious. There weren’t many jobs for top level food service employees in the area, so they had a stack of applicants at all times and got to pick the best people for miles around. The wood slats didn’t even fit together well because of the age of the building but it was an absolute cash cow operation. Then there was the third story down. The old stills were down there and they were always producing. The market for moonshine wasn’t completely dried up in the many dry counties of the south. There was a boat dock off the back where the delivery boats used to come pick up product to bring upriver during prohibition. If the walls could talk in that old shack, they would have some unbelievable stories to tell.
Practice Outlaw 