by Catie Rhodes
“I think this might have been Priscilla Herrera.” Rainey’s voice lost its courtroom force, and I raised my head to look at her. A wistful sadness replaced the determination and near anger from a few minutes earlier. “She was a woman just like us, maybe more like you than me, but she knew all the fears and pressures we face.”
I returned my gaze to the picture, staring into the tattooed woman’s determined eyes. Something about her drew me in. I felt a pull every time I looked at her. The black opal zinged to life on my chest, the way it often did when ghosts were near, and I felt a little breeze from nowhere pass over my skin. Time seemed to grind to a halt as I lost myself in the picture. One of her tattoos caught my attention. I glanced up at Rainey.
“Do you own a magnifying glass?”
She went into the kitchen, came back with a cheap plastic one, and gave it to me. I held the glass over the picture and squinted at the tattoo. I couldn’t see all of it, but it looked like a bird, not dissimilar to the one tattooed on my bicep, which I got under decidedly weird circumstances. I set the magnifying glass aside and stared at the picture again. For some reason, it seemed different than it had the first time I’d viewed it as a whole. From outside, the caw of a large bird reached my ears, and it hit me. There was a big, black bird in the background of the picture. It was perched on some sort of stand. While I watched, it flared out its wings and slowly moved them. Then it flew away. I jerked in my seat.
“What happened?” Rainey’s voice, for all her trying to convince me I should get more in touch with my supernatural side, sounded panicked. “Did you see something?
“Probably not.” The pulse of energy coming out of the black opal and soaking into my skin said different. Rainey’s narrowed eyes suggested she heard my lie. I waited for her to call me on it, but she didn’t. Instead she reached for the picture.
“Do you mind if I take a picture with my phone?” I couldn’t explain why I wanted to so badly, but I did.
“If you’ll promise to keep thinking about contacting the spirit on the video and if you’ll think about what I’ve said here today.”
“If I figure out where Joey stored the stuff Hannah saw, I’m breaking in to see if the journals are there.”
Rainey made a face. “But you’ll also consider contacting the ghost?”
Agreeing to think about contacting the ghost felt like a commitment I didn’t want to make, but I nodded anyway. I wanted my copy of the picture of Priscilla Herrera enough to do it. She set the photo back on the coffee table, and I snapped my picture.
Rainey saw me to the door and followed me onto the stoop.
“See you in a couple of hours at Dean’s barbecue.” She took one look at my face and assumed the expression she seemed to reserve especially for me—half-lowered eyelids, lips pressed flat with one corner quirked under. “You forgot didn’t you?”
I ran for my car, not bothering to answer.
I hurried out to my car and drove away from Rainey’s house, through her upscale subdivision, and past the guard shack. How could I forget Dean’s campaign barbecue? He told me at least once a day that voters needed to see us together in social settings.
My mind raced with all the getting ready I needed to do. Dean would want me wearing tasteful makeup and the delicate jewelry he bought for my birthday. My dress needed a last minute touch up with the iron.
My cellphone buzzed with the tone I selected for text messages. I took my eyes off the road to steal a glance at it, fully expecting a message from Hannah about what she planned to wear tonight. Instead, I saw a picture, sent from a blocked number. I drove a few more seconds, but curiosity got the best of me. I pulled my car onto the shoulder and opened the message.
“Weird,” I muttered. The text consisted of nothing more than the picture of Priscilla Herrera I snapped at Rainey’s. I could even see the edges of the coffee table around the picture. Why would a picture I took come to me as a blocked text message? I hoped my smartphone wasn’t malfunctioning.
I tried switching to the smartphone’s main menu. Nothing happened. The picture stayed there on the screen, Priscilla Herrera’s dark eyes boring into me. I sensed, rather than saw, a movement in the picture. The raven perched behind Priscilla moved its head ever so slightly. Underneath the hum of my car’s engine, I heard other sounds. Muffled voices talking. Horse’s hoofs clopping on a hard surface. I smelled something frying. Priscilla Herrera’s image blinked, and she tilted her head in my direction. The car faded away as I slipped fully into the vision.
“Come with me, Peri Jean Mace.” She stepped toward me. I cringed because there was no way to get away from her. I saw the tattoo on her shoulder without the filter of a hundred-year-old photograph. It was a black bird—a raven or a crow—same as mine. A light, dizzy feeling spread through me, and black spots appeared in my vision. Why did we have the same tattoo? Before I could ask, the tattooed lady grabbed my hand, and the room we were in faded, leaving us to float in darkness so black and complete and soundless, I wondered if I had died.
Fear closed my throat, choking me. Coughing, gasping, and gagging, I twisted in the darkness, hoping to break free of it but found I couldn’t move. This wasn’t so bad, even if I was dying. It was sort of soothing.
Whispers of a million voices saying no words arose around me. I forgot about returning to where I came from focused on where I was. This place felt wrong, heavy and suffocating, as though if I spent too much time here I could get lost. I needed to hurry. I searched my senses, trying to find something I could focus on, something I could use to ground myself. I smelled the faintest scent of spearmint and clung to it. The sound of wind whispering through pine trees filled my ears, and the blackness faded.
The woman who’d shanghaied me was no longer young. She’d thickened with age and wore a frumpy calico dress which covered all her wonderful tattoos. Her hair had grayed and was pulled into a plain bun. The image before me faded in and out like a radio station does on a long drive. Black holes where her eyes should have been made me want to scream and recoil. Teeth clenched, I held in my emotions and focused instead on my hostess. “What do you want?” The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. It was as though I’d lost the ability to speak, but I could hear my thoughts clearly.
A rush of arctic wind blew back my hair and cooled my face. My heart couldn’t beat fast enough to keep up with the adrenaline coursing through my veins. The black opal sent painful shocks into my skin, maybe magnifying my power so I could see more of this vision, maybe protecting me. I regretted my shamefully limited knowledge of it.
“Why am I here?” Again the words formed perfectly in my head, but my hostess said nothing.
Anger and hurt rolled off her with violence, whipping at me, throbbing in the deepest parts of my soul. In addition to the spirit’s emotions, I picked up her intent. She wanted something from me.
My body experienced the same weightless feeling going downhill on a roller coaster gave me. Doing favors for ghosts never ended well. I had to get out of here. I concentrated on my moving my hand. It was like lifting an anvil, but I managed to pull the black opal from my shirt and squeeze it in one fist. Back in Louisiana, when I first became acquainted with the black opal, it enabled me to hear snatches of words from the ghosts. Maybe it would open my senses further this time as well.
Instead of speaking, the ghost floated toward me. I became aware of a clacking sound in the room and realized it was my teeth chattering. She closed one hand over mine, the cold burning my skin. The room came into stark, painful focus.
“You can’t leave yet.” Her voice, soft and clear as the song of angels, was not what I expected. Her grip on me tightened. “Pay careful attention. I did a great evil in cursing the treasure. For my sins, I’ve been unable to find rest in the spirit realm. The one who stole my book will unleash destruction on Gaslight City. Watch and learn because only you can help me stop this evil and find peace.”
Time jumped again, and it was late afternoon, heading toward dusk.
I was in a cabin surrounded by pine trees. The whisper of wind caressing the pine needles came through the windows along with the croak of ravens. One of the huge, dark birds lighted on the windowsill, cocking its head at me and staring at me with one black eye. It let out another deep call. Sharp smoke from the open fireplace burned my eyes and dried out my throat, but the chilly wind coming through the open windows made me want to move closer.
Priscilla Herrera knelt before a long bench, her hands working at something. She hummed words to a song I didn’t recognize in a language unfamiliar to my ears. Her purpose came to me, almost as if it had been implanted in my mind. Someone was coming, and when they got here, they’d kill her. She couldn’t keep from dying, but she could keep her killers from winning in the end. She’d make them hurt.
Priscilla took out a worn book, hand bound in some sort of leather, opened it, and read, her finger moving along with her progress. She set the book aside and leaned back her head, her eyes drifting closed, and took slow deep breaths. The air in the room charged with some sort of power I couldn’t see. The fillings in my teeth ached, and my earrings thrummed with it.
She turned to make sure I saw her place flat stones, polished and carved into geometric shapes, in a circle on the bench before her. She rummaged around on the plank floor at her knees and raised a small object concealed in one trembling hand. She fumbled and it fell to the floor, rolling away from her, and landing ass end up. Best I could tell, it was a tiny chest, no bigger across than my smartphone. On the bottom was a bird like the one I had tattooed on my arm. Just like the one she had tattooed on her body. The hairs on the back of my neck, already standing at attention, stiffened. Priscilla retrieved the box and set it on the table. She gave me a sly smile. A glowing nimbus appeared around the box, its edges vibrating and dancing. Priscilla spoke, still in the sing-song language I could only identify as not Spanish, but I understood every word and felt the power she wielded as though it belonged to me.
“Entity trapped within these stones, go to live in this box and in the thing it represents, keeping it from the eyes of he who does not see and does not hear and does not have the Blood. Find your new home in this box and seek revenge on he who comes to steal that which is not his. Recognize my Blood and remember it from now until the end of time, for you belong to me and do my bidding.”
She picked up a knife and slashed her thumb pad. I flinched, imagining the pain, and reached out to stop her, but it was like grabbing for something underwater. Some force weighed me down and held me away from my hostess. Priscilla squeezed the wound, dribbling blood onto the toy-sized chest. Then she opened it. She pulled her hair out of the bun and used her knife to cut off a lock. She placed the hair inside the chest and closed it. She lifted a glass vial and held it to the spare light filtering into the windows. Though clear, I could see particles swimming sluggishly in the liquid. She swirled the vial and upended its contents onto the chest.
She took several deep breaths and began to speak, her words guttural, her voice shaking with the force of them.
“One of mine, one with power, will return some day to reward you for a job well done and allow you to return to the dark outposts from which you came. You will know it is me from the Blood and from these stones in which you have lived and to which you must return to receive your reward. If one who separates you from this box does not have these stones, you will be forced to wander this plane for eternity. Level this town and destroy all who live within for your revenge.”
Finished speaking, she struck a match and set it on the tiny chest. Blue flame engulfed it, burning so bright my eyes stung and watered. The odor was one of sulfur and spice. As quickly as it started, the fire burned out. The box survived the fire undamaged. Priscilla Herrera palmed the tiny box and made it disappear into the folds of her dress. Then she picked up the stones one by one and performed the same trick with them.
She leaned over the open book and traced a pattern on the open page, whispering words in the same odd language, but this time I did not understand the words. As I watched, the words wiggled and shifted, changing into other words. She closed the book, performing the same ritual, and the book lengthened and flattened, resembling a store-bought ledger like the ones I’d seen in the video of the museum board’s meeting.
Realization slammed into me, squeezing my already abused muscles into even more painful contortions. The book Hannah and the others thought to be a book of folk medicine was actually Priscilla’s spell book, disguised by magic.
The door opened and an adolescent boy with black hair and dark skin rushed inside. He communicated with the woman in gestures. I began to shake as I caught the gist. Whoever was coming was close. The woman yelled, in English, “Samantha!” and a teenage girl appeared.
“Take this book and go hide in the woods. Mr. Bruce will be along shortly, and he’ll want to take you to his home. You go and give this book to Mrs. Bruce and tell her it’s full of remedies to help with her children’s maladies, and it’s my gift to her for her friendship.”
“But, Mama,” the girl whined.
“Shush and listen. Thank both Mr. and Mrs. Bruce the way I taught you. Tonight, once it gets dark, you slip away from the Bruce place and walk south all night, never stopping. Sleep through the days and walk at night. Keep walking until you reach Nacogdoches. If someone asks your family name, say it’s Goyo, not Herrera. Bad people may be looking for you. In Nacogdoches, find a man named Bob Skanes. Ask him to help you get work.”
The boy shook his head, ran to the corner, and grabbed an axe.
“No,” Priscilla said. “It’s too late. I trusted the wrong people, overstayed my welcome.”
“It’s not too late,” Samantha yelled.
“It is.” Priscilla rushed to her, grabbed her hand, traced something on the palm and said a few words. She repeated the same ritual on the boy. Then she gathered both children close and hugged them tight, all of them rocking and crying. She pushed them away, ignoring their protests, and shooed them out the door. She followed them outside.
“Remember what you see here on this day. Never forget it. Never come back to this Godforsaken gathering of ignorant, greedy, fools.” She hugged both children again. “Now go. Forget who you are. Never come back.” She stood outside her house, tears running down her face, until she could see her children no more. Then she went back inside.
In the distance, I heard hoof beats, and the first horse came into view within seconds. The man astride it swung off its back and came to the door and knocked. Priscilla sighed deeply. Ignoring the knock, she returned to the bench and sat to wait.
“Open this door, witch,” an ugly, harsh voice shouted. Many birds returned the man’s shout, the sound of their flapping wings filling the small cabin, the noise of them so loud my eardrums rattled.
I woke from the vision gagging and gasping, trying to scream at Priscilla to run, and found myself still sitting in the front seat of my car. My muscles ached as though I’d taken a beating. The smell of smoke from Priscilla Herrera’s hearth fire lingered on my clothes. Had she somehow taken my physical form there? The thought of so much power scared me worse than any ghost ever had.
The words from her incantations replayed in my mind, especially the part about her ordering whatever spiritual baddie she’d assigned to protect the treasure to level Gaslight City and kill all the residents.
What if Eddie was right, and the person who stole the Bruce Journals and the book of folk medicine intended to try to remove the curse? Then I remembered seeing Priscilla turn her spell book into the book of folk medicine and what she told me about stopping her evil from being made worse. The thief already had the spell book used to create the curse. One step closer to destruction.
Priscilla’s words returned to me, as clear as if she sat in the car with me, whispering them in my ear. I almost felt her breath tickling my skin. Only you can help me stop this evil.
I did a slow burn. Why did this whole thing have to come along and dump garbage al
l over the life I was working so hard to normalize? I picked up my phone again and took in Priscilla Herrera’s picture.
A wild hope occurred to me. Priscilla may not have possessed the power or skill to unleash Hell to destroy Gaslight City and its inhabitants. I shook my head. I didn’t even believe it myself. Of course she had power, more than I could imagine. Whatever she intended would happen. Scratch the idea.
I rummaged through my brain for another way out and found one. All the people who hurt Priscilla died years and years ago. Surely she wouldn’t annihilate a bunch of innocents, no matter how much wrong their ancestors did to her. Or not. Facing death, Priscilla Herrera may not have cared who she stomped and squished.
I needed to talk this whole thing over with somebody, and I knew one person who would selflessly help me without considering his own agenda. Eddie had spent his entire life researching the Mace Treasure and all the people connected to it, and I trusted him with my life. I did a U-turn and drove toward his house, using my free hand to call him on my cellphone.
Maybe I could get back to pretending to be just an everyday gal after this whole mess blew over.
5
Pictures of me growing up nearly hid the cheap, yellowed paneling in Eddie’s living room. He committed to helping raise me because he’d been my daddy’s best friend. His judgment wasn’t always the greatest, he did the best he knew how to do. The contrast between his loyalty to me and my foot-dragging over using my natural ability to help find the stolen items burned at my conscience.