Some call it The Haunted River. It winds like a ribbon through the valley. Placid and shiny on the surface, but lurking deep below the surface are secrets. Secrets that most of us will never know and will never dare to ask. Things we shouldn't know. Some things are best left buried.

She is calm tonight. There have been violent times. Times when her rage has almost brought her out of her banks. Times when I as a child could stand near the edge of the long winding road in front of the house I grew up in and dangle my hands into her muddy depths. Times when she brought down huge trees, outbuildings and boulders...and humans.

She was raging the day she took one of the neighborhood children. Rescue teams in their screaming white vans came. Their red eyes flashing like demons. They attacked her but she spit them out onto the banks. Three days later after she had sucked the life from the child, she spat him out as well. Onto the sand near the gnarled trees that had survived her wrath.

Sometimes you hate her. You try to leave but the silence sends you back in a panic. For nineteen years or more you sleep by her side, listening to her breathing over the rocks and when you no longer hear the sound you feel the pull to come back. A strong tie that can't be explained. She whispers to you in your dreams. You return for a visit and never leave.

And yet she can be beautiful as some evil things can be. Many have tried to tame her. Many have died.

Ghostly images can be seen wandering her banks on moonlit nights. Images of the unfortunates who were dragged beneath her shiny surface, never to be heard from again.

The woman they call Flora who drowned during the Great Depression. Some say the river lured her, promised her peace from the day to day images of her starving children. Now she walks the banks at night, searching for them.

The ghosts of the Cherokee keep her company. They can be heard screaming into the night. Along her banks there is a huge rock wall that rises from her depths, standing hundreds of feet high. The place is called "The devil's Looking Glass". the name was given to this place by the Cherokee. They tell of a cave midway up the face of the cliff that was home to a terrible demon. He lay in wait to devour their brothers as their canoes passed by the dark slate image of the face of satan.

The base of the cliff is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young Indian Maiden who after having lost her betrothed in battle flung herself from the cliff to join the Indian Brave in death. She now walks the rocky walls, calling for him. Strange cries of agony sometimes have been heard coming from the rock and on real dark nights the glowing wisps of spirits could be seen among the cracks.

And if you listen very closely, you can hear the river laughing as it flows by 'The Devil's Looking Glass'. Like the cackle of an old hag, driven insane by her own evil magic.

The Cherokee named it "The Nolichucky" but some call it the "Haunted River".