by Gary Jonas
She pulled up, looked at me. “I know you’d rather have Tara do this, but someone has to suck out the poison.”
And she went back to work on my shoulder.
“Watch the tongue,” I said.
Kelly glared at me.
“And the gums,” I added.
Madame Rousseau clamped her mouth shut, hard. Even without teeth, it hurt.
“Ow!”
“Serves you right,” Esther said.
Madame Rousseau came up to spit in the empty bowl. Then she went back to sucking my shoulder.
She was right. If it had been Tara, I would have enjoyed it more.
But it was Madame Rousseau, an old woman of indeterminate age, and as she leaned on me, the pressure made me need to piss even more. I focused on holding it in.
Kelly and Esther watched without comment.
Tara sat on the chair, head in her hands. I couldn’t tell if she was crying.
After a time, Madame Rousseau stopped sucking on my wound, and she dipped her fingers into the sludge she’d mixed in the second bowl. She slopped some of it on my injury and held it there, letting it seep into my skin.
With her other hand, she grabbed the other bowl and spit into it.
“Kelly, can you bring me a glass of water?”
“Of course,” Kelly said, and moved away.
She came back a minute later with a glass, and Madame Rousseau let go of me. She used the water to rinse out her mouth. She spit it into the bowl. Another rinsing. Then she squirted some honey into her mouth.
“I got as much of the poison out as I could, and the poultice has some magical properties that should pull the rest out as it dries.” As she spoke, she looked around the table, couch, and floor.
“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked.
“Where are my teeth?” she asked, looking at the table. “I know I put them right there.”
She glanced down the hallway where Jack sat with her teeth in his mouth.
“Jack!” she yelled.
Jack stood, and his tail wagged.
“Bring those back.”
But Jack turned and raced away down the hall.
“You bring those back!”
Madame Rousseau trudged down the hall after the dog.
Kelly laughed.
I wondered what she was laughing at, as the world spun around. I felt something warm at my midsection as I passed out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
On the positive side, I didn’t piss my pants. On the negative side, the warmth in my midsection spread throughout my body, and I burst into a nasty sweat.
When I finally woke at three o’clock the next afternoon, Kelly told me she thought I was going to die.
All I knew was that I needed to get to the restroom before my bladder exploded.
Unfortunately, when I tried to sit up, I found I didn’t have the strength.
“Little help here?” I asked.
Kelly pulled me to my feet, but my knees buckled.
Kelly held me up. Her arm, pressed against the skin of my back, felt cool and strong. Someone had removed my shoes and socks, so all I wore were my pants.
“What do you need?” Kelly asked.
“Restroom.”
She nodded. “I’ll help you.”
She walked me down the hall to the restroom, and stood behind me to hold me up.
“This is embarrassing,” I said.
“I won’t peek,” she said.
So I stood there with Kelly keeping me in position. I took care of business and flushed the toilet.
“Wash your hands,” she said, and helped me to the sink. When I saw my reflection, my eyes widened.
“Who is this corpse I see before me?” I asked, trying to sound like a stage actor, but my voice didn’t have the strength to do it justice.
“Just wash your hands.”
I obeyed, and she walked me back to the couch. She helped me sit down, and I noticed that we were all alone.
“Where is everyone?”
“Mama took Tara to perform some ritual. Esther went with them.”
“You’re calling her Mama now?”
“She asked me to.”
“Am I supposed to call her Mama?”
“Did she ask you to?”
“No.”
“Well, there you go.”
“One question is burning up my brain, and I’m not going to be able to live with myself if I don’t get an answer.”
Kelly stared at me.
I knew the look. She suspected I was setting her up for a joke, but knew there was still potential for something serious, so she wasn’t sure if she should prepare to roll her eyes, or if she’d actually have a real question to answer.
I waited.
She sighed. “What’s the question? And it had better not be a stupid question, Jonathan.”
“It’s an important question,” I said.
“It better be, because I spent all night putting cool washcloths on your forehead, and wiping sweat from your face, arms, chest, and hands. You almost died.”
“I promise,” I said. “It’s an important question.”
Now she glared at me because she clearly suspected it was going to be a stupid question.
“Ask your damn question,” she finally said.
“Did Mama get her teeth back?”
She rolled her eyes. “I knew you were going to ask a stupid question.”
“It’s a legitimate question. Did she?”
“Yes, she got her teeth back.”
“May I ask another important question?”
Kelly glared at me some more, then said, “I don’t know whether or not she washed the teeth before putting them back into her mouth.”
“You’re like, psychic,” I said.
“You’re an idiot.”
I raised a finger to make a point. “But I’m a living idiot.”
“Not if you keep asking questions like that.”
“So you’d save me so you could kill me?”
“If anyone’s going to kill you, it’s going to be me,” she said.
“I can live with that.”
“Not if I kill you.”
“I love you, too,” I said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Kelly studied me for a moment, revealing nothing in her expression. Then she asked, “Are you thirsty?”
“I could drink the Mississippi River.”
“Please don’t,” she said, getting up. “I’d be back to watching you die.”
Kelly went to the kitchen and returned with a large glass of water. When she handed it to me, she said, “Drink it slowly.”
I accepted the glass, and promptly dropped it because my hand couldn’t hold it up.
Kelly caught the glass, and nothing spilled.
She held the glass up to my lips and tilted it so I could get a sip.
It was the best drink of water I’d ever tasted.
She allowed me a few more sips, then set the glass on the table.
“Do you think you could eat and keep something down?” she asked.
I considered her question. “I don’t know. My stomach feels weird.”
“Food will have to wait then. You need more rest,” she said. “But you also need a shower. No offense, but you stink.”
I tried to sniff myself. “It’s the toxins, right?”
She nodded. “And possibly the corpse residue.”
“There’s no way I can get to the shower,” I said.
“I know.”
“I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“I know that, too.”
“The shower has to wait.”
“Then you’re not going to like this,” she said, and walked away.
She came back with a bottle of perfume. Before I could even try to raise my hands, she blasted me with it.
She grinned. “Now you smell like fresh cut flowers in a pile of manure.”
“Thanks.”
She set the bottle of perfume next to the glass of water on the table. Then she sat down beside me, and pulled me over, so my head rested on her lap. She brushed my hair with her fingers.
“Go back to sleep,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness, and each time I woke, she was there, holding me.
Then we had one more conversation.
It began with her asking how I felt, and me saying I felt a lot better, but still weak. Then she went silent for a time, just looking at me. Finally, with the room darkening as night fell, she told me she wanted to ask me something important, and that it wasn’t a joke question.
“Why are we here?” Kelly asked.
I gazed up at her, and saw she really was serious.
“I’m not sure I follow?”
“Why did you take this particular case? You didn’t like Doris Tanner, and her son is dead, or undead, or whatever. You don’t need the money. Why are we here?”
“It’s my job.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You’ve passed on a number of cases, but you took this one. Why?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“So you do have a reason.”
I nodded.
“Tell me.”
“The reason doesn’t matter anymore. It was a pipe dream.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
“I—” I tried to sit up, but Kelly wouldn’t let me. “Is Esther back?”
Kelly shook her head. “They could get back any minute, but no, they’re still out. We’re all alone here.”
“You saw Paul Tanner’s wife, Sarah.”
“Kinda hard to miss.”
“She’s the reason we’re here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She died five years ago, and her body was cremated.”
“And he brought back some kind of demon thing instead of his wife.”
I shook my head. “Her spirit was there, but something was attached to it.”
“You wouldn’t have known that when you took the case.”
“You’re right. I didn’t. All I knew was that Madame Rousseau had raised Emmanuel after he died, and gave him a new body. And Paul Tanner took the ghost of his wife to Madame Rousseau to get her a new body, too.”
“So you felt Madame Rousseau was an existential threat?”
“You’re thinking like a warrior.”
“I am a warrior.”
“I was thinking like a friend.”
Kelly tilted her head, and gave me a confused look. “You lost me.”
“Taking a ghost to Madame Rousseau for a new body,” I said.
And the lights went on in her eyes. “You wanted her to give Esther a new body.”
“Bingo.”
“I love you, Jonathan Shade,” Kelly said, and leaned forward to kiss my forehead.
“You love me? Or you’re in love with me?”
“The first one, you dork. You’re trying to help Esther.”
“But it won’t work,” I said. “Emmanuel is all jacked up, and Sarah is all jacked up, too.”
“I know that. And if you’re honest with yourself, you knew it from the start, too.”
“Because I’ve read too many Stephen King books?”
“Because you know the price of reanimation. You died and came back.”
“I didn’t pay a price.”
“Oh yes you did. You’re like that kid in that Bruce Willis movie you made me watch. You see dead people.”
“That’s not much of a price.”
“You see Esther.”
“Obviously.”
“And even though she’s been dead for nearly ninety years, you have empathy for her. You sometimes forget that she loves you. And in her case, she’s in love with you.”
“She’s in love with someone I’m not.”
“Whatever. You’re a good man, Jonathan. You care about your friends, and you took a case on the off-chance you could help Esther. And you didn’t tell her because you didn’t want her to get her hopes up. Right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Which shows you knew it was unlikely to work. But you made the attempt just in case. When people ask me why I work with you, and why I’d be willing to die fighting at your side, I can tell them it’s because in spite of all your bad jokes, and bad decisions, your heart is in the right place.”
I started to say something, but she shook her head. “Don’t you dare say something about how if your heart was in the wrong place you wouldn’t be alive.”
“Saw that coming, did you?”
“I’m making you uncomfortable with this.”
“A little.”
“I’m paying you a compliment, Jonathan. I know you don’t take those well. But I’m going to say more, and you’re going to listen because it matters. You’re my conscience. You’re my guiding star. And goddammit, I almost lost you last night from something as mundane as poisoning.”
“We all die,” I said.
“But now, if you die, at least I’ve told you what you mean to me.”
“So, am I supposed to say something profound now?”
“No, you dork. You’re supposed to go to sleep now with the knowledge that I’m here to protect you. Always.”
But sleep wasn’t going to happen because the front door opened, and Madame Rousseau walked in with her hands tied at the wrists by a glowing yellow rope.
Tara walked in behind her, also bound.
And finally, a man I’d never seen before stepped inside holding an open hex bag in one hand. Yellow light sparkled and danced from the top of the bag.
With my head on Kelly’s lap, she wasn’t able to get up fast enough.
A magical rope shot from the hex bag, and wrapped around Kelly’s throat. When she reached up to try and pry it loose, the rope slid around her wrists.
She gulped in a breath, and tried to break free of her bonds. The ropes were made of light, but they were stronger than six-inch-thick steel.
“Greetings and salutations,” the man said. The light inside the hex bag reflected off his dark skin, and when he smiled, he revealed a mouthful of gold teeth. He wore a navy blue business suit and a red power tie. “Please allow me to introduce myself.”
I was too weak to get up, but my mouth didn’t care if it got my ass killed. “If you quote the Rolling Stones…”
“Oh, I have wealth and taste, too,” the man said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me. My name is John, but folks call me Papa Simon, and folks always do what Simon says. And right now, Simon says everyone be quiet and don’t move.”
Papa Simon shot another golden rope of light at me. It wrapped around my chest, and around Kelly’s legs, and then down the sofa to embed itself into the floor, keeping Kelly pinned.
It wouldn’t hold me, but I was too weak to fight the guy, so I pretended to be bound, too. A more important thought flashed neon bright in my head. Where the hell was Esther?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Papa Simon stood there holding his hex bag. The light dimmed a bit, so he pulled a small knife from his pocket, pressed a switch to release the blade, then cut himself on the thumb.
He whipped the blade back into the handle with a practiced flick of the wrist, then pinched a drop of blood out of his thumb. When the crimson droplet landed in the bag, the light flared bright again. He stuck his thumb in his mouth, sucked on it a moment, then lowered his hand, and smiled.
“Oh, Landy, what have we here?” he said.
It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t trying to say Lordy, and simply had a nickname for Madame Rousseau. Islande became Landy, and from the look on her face, they had history beyond being simple lovers. But if they were lovers, why was he doing this?
Papa Simon approached me and Kelly. He waved a hand in front of Kelly. “Ooh-wee!” he said. “You have some serious magic flowing through your veins, pretty lady.”
Kelly’s jaw worked, but she couldn’t open her mouth to reply.<
br />
“Simon says you can speak,” Papa Simon said.
“Turn me loose and I’ll show you some magic,” Kelly said.
“Feisty. I like that. But Simon says be quiet.” He glanced at me, but I didn’t say anything. I wanted to hit him, but I didn’t have the strength to get up, and he was too far away for me to land a good throat punch.
“You don’t look so good,” he said to me.
I didn’t feel so well, but I didn’t tell him that.
He sniffed the air. “That perfume ain’t a good choice for you, either.”
I wanted to tell him off, but controlled myself.
He turned to Madame Rousseau. “Landy and Tara, Simon says sit down.”
Tara immediately sat on the floor.
Madame Rousseau forced her legs to move toward a chair. Simon watched her turn and finally sit.
“Oh, baby, you still have the power. Gets me all worked up in my nether regions to see you play it like that.”
She glared at him.
“What we’ve got here,” Simon said, “is a domestic dispute, and I say we need to work it out right here, right now. What do you have to say about that?”
Madame Rousseau worked her lips a bit, but couldn’t speak.
“Sorry about that, Landy. Simon says you can answer.”
She answered with a stream of profanity that would have impressed George Carlin and would guarantee her a five second delay in any live television she might do in the future.
Simon laughed. “I love it when you talk dirty, baby. I never should have left you.”
“I kicked your sorry ass out,” Madame Rousseau said.
“And yet, you keep coming back for more, though not lately.”
“You caught me off guard, John. Don’t you go thinking you’re going to get away with this.”
“Now, now, Landy,” Simon said. “You’ve been up to no good. You brought our children back from the dead.”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, don’t make me ‘Simon says’ you again,” Simon said. “You said you were going to stop, but when I came back to town some years back, I heard about Emmanuel being back.”
“My grandson,” she said.
He laughed. “Is that the story you’ve been spreading?”
“Ain’t a story,” she said. “Grady was their father, not you.”
“Simon says shut up.”
She grimaced, but stopped talking. I was confused. I’d met Grady’s ghost in the cemetery, and he’d claimed to be Madame Rousseau’s son, and father to Tara and Emmanuel. What the hell was Papa Simon talking about?