Danielle Branley

Tuckaleechee

As soon as Lynnette got the call she began researching where her grandparents had been buried in the Tuckaleechee Primitive Baptist Church cemetery. She looked up Tuckaleechee, it meant "Happy Valley" in Cherokee. The stories of those hollows didn't seem very happy to her. She had a dim memory of her grandmother's funeral. It was the only time she had ever set foot in Tennessee in her life. She was eleven at the time. Her cousin Rollie was there too. They became instant best friends. However, when he dared her to touch their grandmother's corpse, she reached up and opened one of her dead blue eyes, proving she had no fear of anything, poor Rollie took off running. He kept a wary eye on her after that. Still, he took her fishing and showed her how to string corn on her hook instead of a worm. He was two weeks older than her and felt responsible as the older cousin. He also warned her about snakes.