by Terri Garey
“I’m just suggesting that there’s a reason behind all this, Nicki. Maybe this happened to you because you needed to learn something you wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Or maybe it happened to you because you’re open-minded enough to handle it.”
Despite the back-handed compliment, I wasn’t satisfied.
“Just what I am supposed to learn from all this?”
Ivy shrugged a pin-striped shoulder. “Only you know the answer to that, my dear.”
CHAPTER 15
As close as Evan and I were, and as close as Joe and I were becoming, I still couldn’t bring myself to tell them everything.
So I didn’t bother to mention to either of them that I’d seen another ghost the evening before I went to a voodoo ceremony to get rid of a duppy.
I’d tell ’em both later, anyway. The three of us?no, four, with Butchie?would have a great dinner over a bottle of champagne, celebrating the fact that Caprice had finally been put to rest. That’s what I kept telling myself as I drove to Granny Julep’s little shotgun house in the middle of the afternoon.
After all, if Granny’s plan worked, Evan would be safe, and so would I. It would be over. Life could go back to normal again. I was only going to draw the veve?there was no reason to be scared…no reason at all. And no reason to worry anyone else.
Albert was rocking on the front porch, slow and steady, as I parked my car and went up the steps.
“Hello, Albert.”
He got up and let me in without a word, and there was Granny in the living room, looking better than the last time I’d seen her.
“’Bout time you got here, girl.”
Now I knew she was better.
“You been practicin’ like I told you?” Her dark eyes were still sunken, and she seemed tinier than ever, but her crown of coiled braids was held high.
“Yes, Granny.” I had the feeling this might be a hard day and night for the old woman, and I didn’t wanna add to it by letting her provoke me. “I think I can make the veve just fine.”
“No thinking about it,” she grumbled, “show me.”
And damned if she didn’t make me prove it, right there in the middle of the coffee table. Albert was at my elbow with the cornmeal before I could blink. I took my time, concentrating, and managed to keep from spilling any. When I was done, Granny Julep gave a grunt that could’ve been taken either way.
“Have to do,” she muttered. “Start up the car, Albert.” She gestured for me to help her from the couch. Her fingers clutched my arm like the bony claws of a bird. A hoot owl, maybe, too old and frail to fly.
“You got to ride in the car with us, girl. This ain’t a place where you’d normally be welcome.”
Lovely.
Big Daddy’s Bar-B-Q.
It would’ve read “Bar-B-Que,” but the u and the e were missing. The end of the sign had been smashed, shards of glass still dangling from the metal framework. Two battered pickups and an old RV were parked out front.
Smelled great, though. Smoke rose from a dirty chimney on one end of the building, the tangy scent of hickory and roasted meat filling the air. Despite the squalid setting, my mouth watered.
I was in the backseat of Albert’s car, feeling like an unwilling child on a road trip. We’d driven the dusty and bumpy Georgia back roads mostly in silence. Granny’s mood had been dark since we left the house, while Albert had done his usual “Lurch” routine.
Albert’s car rocked to a stop in a cloud of red dust, and a black man in a torn shirt stepped out the door of the barbecue joint. He took a look at Granny and Albert in the front seat, then eyed me impassively. After a second or two he went back inside.
Albert opened the car door and got out, then went around to open the door for Granny Julep.
“Umm…I’m not hungry,” I said. Only my stomach knew what a liar I was.
“We’re not here to eat.”
That was all Granny said before Albert reached her and helped her out of the front seat.
I slid out and joined the old couple, sticking close.
Granny Julep had been right. I didn’t feel very welcome.
She and Albert made their way around one corner of the porch, and I followed, glad we weren’t going inside the place. I reconsidered, though, when I saw the alley that ran alongside the building. A rickety tin overhang was held up by a slatted fence, shading the alley from the sun and creating a dim tunnel that led to who knew where.
I’d never cared for horror movies, but I suddenly saw the scene as a director might see it: the gateway to a deliciously gory splatter film.
“C’mon, girl. Stay close.” I was so shocked to hear Albert speak that I nearly missed the significance of what he said. Apparently even the unflappable old man was a bit nervous.
We walked through the alley, dappled sunlight breaking through rusted tin and broken boards here and there, and made our way to the back of the building. We came out beside a huge fire pit, surrounded by bare, packed earth. Scattered among the scrawny trees on three sides were picnic tables. The fire pit was cold and the tables were empty.
“Here,” Granny Julep said to me. “Here’s where you draw the veve.” We’d reached a wooden post on the far side of the fire pit. I looked down at the dirt, eager to get it over with, and didn’t bother examining the crude carvings on the wooden post; I didn’t wanna know what they meant.
“Take a sip of this before you start.” Granny had a miniature bottle of rum in her hand, the kind you see next to the cash register in a liquor store. “You callin’ down a loa, and Papa Legba likes his rum.”
I wrinkled my nose. “No, thanks.”
It appeared Granny wasn’t asking. She glared at me, offering the bottle without another word. I took it.
What the hell. A little artificial courage couldn’t hurt.
“One sip,” Granny repeated.
When I gave the bottle back, the sip of rum was burning its way from my throat to my belly.
The back door of the barbecue joint opened and two older guys came out, each with a small drum tucked under an arm. They didn’t look at me at all, merely giving Granny Julep a respectful nod and taking seats in the dirt on opposite sides of the fire pit. Without speaking, they started thumping out a steady rhythm that immediately raised the hair on my arms.
Drums had once nearly been my undoing. Caprice had used them to lure me from my sleep, to make me let her in…
“Never you mind them,” Granny murmured. “They’s here to help. Get to it.” She took a bag from Albert and handed it to me. “Make it big. At least two feet wide.”
I knelt down and put the cornmeal to one side, untying the twine that kept the bag closed. The drums were distracting me already, and I didn’t like it.
Concentrate. The outer circle of the veve began to take shape as I sprinkled it into being, pinch by grainy pinch. It wasn’t that hard, but it would take time.
Granny Julep moved away, but I hardly noticed in my effort to ignore the drums, to get this weirdness over with. I wanted to go home.
The pale yellow curves of cornmeal looked nice against the reddish-orange dirt. The ground was perfectly flat here in front of the carved post, as though it’d been swept clean many times.
The drums seemed different now, faster, but I didn’t care ’cause I was almost done. I kept working until the veve was finished, every sprinkle laid with care, every swoop as precise as I could make it.
“Guardian of the crossroads.” Granny Julep walked to the other side of the carved post, directly in front of me. She carried a small bowl before her with both hands. “Legba, guardian of the way. Ago, Ago, si Ago la.”
Granny Julep hadn’t mentioned there’d be anything more to this veve thing, but that was okay. I was finished.
“Papa Legba, come.” Granny held the bowl up toward the sky, her thin arms shaking as though they could hardly bear the weight of it. She’d changed her clothes while I worked on the veve, and now wore all white, including an elaborately tied cott
on headdress.
I sat back on my heels and brushed the cornmeal off my hands.
Then I got hit with a wave of exhaustion unlike anything I’d ever felt in my life.
I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t speak. I could barely keep from falling over. In shock, I looked at Granny, and saw that she watched me, her expression somber. She seemed to grow taller before my eyes as she raised the bowl higher. Her arms were no longer shaking.
Granny Julep began to talk to Papa Legba again, but this time I understood none of it. The drums weighed me down, chaining me to the earth. I didn’t have the strength to get off my knees, much less run like the gullible fool I was. I could only gasp in disbelief, pinned like a deer in the headlights as Granny lowered her arms and started walking toward me, still carrying the bowl.
The sweetish-sour scent of rum flooded my nose as she held it out to me.
You’ve gotta be kidding me, was my first thought, and, How could you do this to me? was my second. This wasn’t the Granny I knew. This Granny Julep was younger, harder, the raisin-brown eyes no longer sunken and the cheeks less lined.
And then I knew what she’d done.
She’d tricked me, used me to get what she wanted. The rum wasn’t for me, it was for Papa Legba, who’d taken my strength and given it to her.
“No.” I managed one word, and tried to say more with my eyes. I was furious, hurt. The drums were louder now, and I knew without looking that a third drummer had joined the other two.
Granny Julep turned away and poured the rum around the base of the wooden post, where the thirsty ground soaked it up. She raised both arms high in a vee symbol, empty bowl clutched in one hand, standing as straight and tall as a young woman.
The drumming changed abruptly, the rhythm more demanding. My legs were numb now. I tried to drag them but couldn’t, arms shaking in an effort just to hold myself off the ground.
The drums echoed in my ears, pulsed in my blood.
“Eleguya go, eleguya go, ah la ya ma go…”
My head was so heavy. So heavy. The earth itself throbbed against my palms, in rhythm with the drums.
I’d trusted her…
So heavy…I had no choice, really. The ground came slowly up to meet me, and I surrendered and lay my cheek in the dirt.
And that’s when things really got weird.
People. Lots of people, most dressed in white. Some of the women wore white kerchiefs over their hair. They spilled from the back door of the barbecue to form a circle around me, Granny Julep, and the pole, all them shuffling along with the drums.
No one spoke. That alone was terrifying.
Twenty, twenty-five, thirty maybe. Men and women, not one of them looking at me. They must’ve gathered—or been waiting all along—inside the barbecue joint while I drew the veve.
I lay helpless in the middle of the courtyard while they moved and shuffled in the shadows beneath the trees, caring only where they put their feet. I couldn’t speak or scream, and for a moment I wondered if I’d become my own ghost—but the ground was hard and there was an ant crawling on my hand. I was still alive.
“Eleguya go. Santi ah la oh,” Granny chanted.
The crowd took up the chant, raising the hair on the back of my neck. It was broad daylight—this kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in broad daylight. It was always dark when the girl in the horror movies gets whacked.
The chanting got louder, the circle of strangers going round and round, shuffling and stomping in time with the drums. A cloud passed overhead, and the sky seemed to darken. Either that or I was about to pass out. The reek of spilled rum was in my nose, the carvings on the post in front of me wet from Granny’s splashing.
She was still standing in the center of the courtyard, arms held high. Her eyes were closed, face turned toward the sun.
I couldn’t move. I could only watch and wait and try to stay calm. Squeezing my eyes shut didn’t help—not watching was worse—and when I opened them again, the nightmare was still there.
There were more drummers, at least six men now, dark faces shiny with sweat. Granny Julep lowered her bowl to the ground, and a woman swooped from the crowd and took it away. Then Granny bent and picked up something else, moving with surprising ease. It was a rattle, an old gourd hung with feathers and beads. She lifted it above her head and began to dance, the rattle’s dry hiss a whispery counterpoint to the thump of drums.
The old lady who’d been barely able to leave her sickbed was gone. In her place was a wiry black woman who moved as if she were in the prime of life. Granny Julep jumped and swayed and shook her rattle, a steady stream of patois coming from her lips.
“Le bon ton roulette, ye ye ye.”
The chanting became a song, led by several women in the crowd, whose voices rose and fell in rhythm with the drums. Shuffling became dancing, and someone lit the fire pit. The flames leapt high, their crackle buried beneath the sound of drums and chanting as the group got louder and louder.
We were in the middle of nowhere for a reason. No one would hear them—I doubted the cops even knew this place existed.
It was the perfect place to hide the body of a stupid white girl who’d gotten herself into deep voodoo.
Women in white kerchiefs moved through the crowd, offering sips from bowls of rum, paying particular attention to the drummers. I blinked back tears, trying as hard as I could to believe that Granny wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, that there was a reason for this I didn’t yet understand. I’d almost convinced myself until I saw the knife.
A man stepped from the group, weak sunlight glinting off the edge of the blade he held in his hand. My only consolation was that he wasn’t looking at me, but at Granny Julep. My heart should’ve been pounding, but whatever was in the rum had slowed everything down?including, it seemed?time itself.
Then I saw the chicken. It was alive, dangled by its feet, wings flapping weakly. The woman who carried it was fat and wore a white kerchief. As horrified as I was for the bird, I felt a secret sense of relief.
Better it than me.
I lay on the ground like a rag doll and watched what happened next, knowing it wasn’t gonna be good.
Granny passed her rattle over and around the bird, making the poor thing flap its wings in terror. The fat woman had a hard time holding onto it, and I saw smiles and approving nods from the crowd, as though this were a good sign. Then Granny moved to a spot closer to the fire, putting down the rattle and scooping up another bowl. She knelt, sprinkling cornmeal on the ground in graceful arcs that put my clumsy efforts to draw a veve to shame.
She was summoning something?someone, another loa like Damballah, the snake that came alive in Indigo’s secret room. Only this time I couldn’t run away, and if there was animal sacrifice involved, it was gonna be ten times worse.
And it was. As soon as Granny brushed the last of the cornmeal from her fingers, the fat woman swung the chicken, caught it by the head, and snapped its neck.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to vomit. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, the man with the knife was holding the chicken high in the air. Its head was missing.
The ground seemed like a good place to be right now. I clung to the gritty feel of dirt beneath my cheek as the only proof of sanity in a world gone insane.
Blood dripped as the man took the dead chicken, limp-winged and dangling, over to where Granny Julep still knelt over the new veve. She took the headless bird by the legs and let it drip over the pattern, muttering something I couldn’t hear over the pounding of drums and chants. Finally, she held it out to the man, giving it back. He melted into the crowd while Granny Julep rose from her knees, picking up her rattle once again.
When she turned to face me, I was afraid. Her expression was hard, dark eyes glittering amid the sharp planes of her face.
The rhythm of the drums changed; two high, quick thumps followed by a deep one, over and over and over again. A ripple of excitement seemed to course through the crowd as the dancing b
ecame more frenzied. The slow and steady tempo that marked the gathering before now was gone as self-expression took over, each man and woman following their own creative urgings. The crowd became a living, breathing mass of black faces and white clothes, bare feet thumping and bare arms waving, everything dappled by the shade of the scrawny oaks.
Shrieks of laughter rose into the air, coming from a corner of the courtyard. The crowd parted, and a man whirled into view, women scattering and giggling as they avoided his halfhearted attempts to grab them. Dressed in black, the man wore a top hat and a pair of sunglasses. His tuxedo shirt was untucked, his bow tie was crooked, and he was smoking two cigarettes, one on each side of his mouth. Most shocking of all, he wore white powder on his black skin, giving him the look of a corpse. He grinned and thrust his hips at the women, inciting howls of laughter.
I didn’t find his obscene antics funny. Not that I could’ve laughed anyway…my body continued to betray me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move. It was like being dipped in cement and remaining fully conscious while you slowly turned to stone.
The man in the top hat made an exaggerated turn, pretending to notice me for the first time. He straightened, giving me a leer as he tipped his hat, and my heart sank. As he blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke, it suddenly dawned on me who the man was supposed to resemble?Baron Samedi, the demented skeleton who’d grinned at me from the poster in Caprice’s voodoo room?the loa of the dead.
Granny’s words from a few days earlier came back to me. Maybe she offer you to the Baron instead.
Oh, shit. Maybe Granny was saving Caprice’s soul by making her own deal with the devil. Sure enough, as the man in the top hat flicked away his cigarettes and took a step toward me, still leering, Granny Julep reached out and caught him by the sleeve of his black coat. She whispered something in his ear. He grinned and laughed and slapped his knee, grabbing Granny and twirling her around like she was a young girl again, and she let him do it.
Then he put his mouth to her ear and whispered something of his own before spinning off again, pelvis thrust forward, chasing lewdly after another woman who’d stepped too close in her dancing.