The Black Cross

by Bill Thompson

  "It surprised me how calm and collected with her you were. I've seen her in action before and she spooked me again today. How'd you do it?"

  "I knew I had to maintain my composure so she wouldn't get the upper hand. As I said, I think she's involved in voodoo. Fear is one tool they use against their enemies and I was determined not to let her think I was afraid."

  "Were you aware there was a hidden compartment?"

  "I wasn't. The desk has sat in this office since Grandfather bought it in 1967. Neither he nor Father ever mentioned it."

  "What about the bottle? What do you think was in it?"

  "The question you asked her was perfect. You saw the people drink something in that cave in Guatemala. I think she was getting more elixir in a bottle that had been hidden there for years."

  Oliver was relieved that Brian hadn't asked how the cross fit into all of this. "You know firsthand how dangerous Eve is. As crazy as it sounds in the world today, she really is a voodoo priestess. So is Eve's mother. Did you watch her reaction when we mentioned the Duplanchiers? She's a descendant, but she wants to hide it. Her mother wasn't proud of it either. She was born Justine Duplanchier, but she took her mother's maiden name instead. She became Justine Quantin and she married Henri Frere in 1927. I've searched his records. He was born in 1907, he sold the desk to Grandfather in 1967, and he died in 1971 at age sixty-four. That confirms that Eve is much older than she appears.

  "Let's run the numbers. She could be as young as forty-six if she were born in the year her father died. You heard her say Marcel was eighty-seven and she was eighty-three. If we accept that, they were born in 1929 and 1933, respectively. Those dates make sense given her father's age. He would have been in his twenties when he fathered both children."

  "So how about her mother?" Brian asked. "Do you think she's the old woman who roams the Quarter?"

  "Yes. I found her in the cemetery at the Duplanchier tomb. I told you and Nicole that I had found the birth record for a Justine Duplanchier. None of it made sense then. All the dates were so far in the past that my attempt to build their family tree seemed to skip several generations between Pierre's days and the present. Now I'm putting things together. You didn't grow up with voodoo as a real concept. But in New Orleans everyone accepted it as true. It wasn't like witches going around casting spells, but over the years we residents heard the stories."

  It was time to pull back a little more of the curtain, to give Brian another tidbit of the mystery. "Bear in mind that Eve says she's eighty-three years old, and remember that you've known me for years. Have I ever appeared to be mentally unstable or not in command of my faculties? Have you ever thought me insane?"

  Brian laughed. "Why would you ask that? You're as sane as anyone I know."

  "Hold that thought while you hear me out. After what we know now, I'd bet a thousand dollars that the Justine Quantin who is Eve Frere's mother is one and the same as the Justine Duplanchier whose birth record I found. I think Eve's mother was born in 1766."

  Brian couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You’re saying the old woman in the Quarter is ... what, two hundred and something years old? That's crazy!"

  Now Oliver laughed. "Stop! You just told me I'm as sane as anyone you know. And it was you who gave me the clue I needed to put this together. That tourist at the hotel - Stanley - told you Eve was eighty-three and the old man was her brother. Marcel looks eighty-seven because ... do you remember what Eve said in that cavern?"

  "She said Marcel never took the elixir, so he aged normally."

  "Right. The ones who take it age very, very slowly. I believe that's true and I've just decided that it explains the Duplanchier family tree. I think the old woman I saw in the cemetery last week is ancient. Two hundred and fifty years old, if I'm right." Brian stared in disbelief as Oliver continued. "My theory is she's aging quickly now because she took the elixir for maybe two centuries, but for some reason she hasn't had any in years. Marcel's in his eighties and he looks it because he never took the stuff. Only Eve gets it, and her body is that of a child although she's an octogenarian. Am I making sense?"

  "Are you making sense? No way. I can barely conceive of what you're saying. It's crazy talk - impossible stuff. I heard her say it, but the girl's not eighty-three. Look at her, Oliver. She's a child. Everything she said was part of the bullshit sales hype she was giving those people who paid her a lot of money in a desperate attempt to stay young. Does that make sense?"

  Oliver let it go. In a world of technology and science it was hard to grasp that ancient practices are as real today as they were then. There would be time to open Brian's mind to the concepts Oliver knew were true. There were so many secrets that it was better that Brian didn't have the entire picture anyway.

  He smiled and nudged Brian on the arm. "Let's lighten things up. What does make sense right now is a toddy. Let's pop around the corner and have some lunch and a glass of wine. After all this I could use one and I want to let you in on a secret that's good fortune for us!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  They settled into a booth at Muriel's on Jackson Square, a cozy place the locals frequented. Neither was a big lunchtime drinker, but the events of the morning made this a perfect time for an exception. A bottle of fine wine seemed an excellent idea and Oliver ordered, declaring lunch his treat.

  "I'm afraid Eve is in for a big disappointment," Oliver said once they had toasted each other's health.

  "Why? She got exactly what she wanted."

  Oliver merely smiled.

  "But she did get what she came for, right? We saw her take out a bottle -"

  "Whatever she was expecting, she didn't get it. Instead she got a bottle filled with good old Mississippi River tap water."

  "How in hell did you pull that off?"

  Oliver explained that after the pair came to the gallery yesterday and he had his second fainting spell courtesy of the Duplanchiers, he decided to examine the desk closely. Knowing her involvement with voodoo, he was concerned she could force him to sell it. Before that happened, he had to know what it was that was so important about it. His father and grandfather might not have ever searched it thoroughly, but yesterday Oliver did.

  "I measured the drawers inside and out and I saw that the left center drawer was two inches higher on the outside than the inside. There was a false bottom. It took some time - it was very cleverly done, especially in a desk so old - but inside I found that old bottle caked in dust and grime. I was flabbergasted. I've sat at this desk for over twenty years with something hidden inches from my hands and I've never known about it. It was bizarre!"

  "What did you do?"

  "I carefully removed its stopper and replaced the liquid with water. I used a cloth and handled it gingerly so as not to remove the dust. I put it back and then I was ready to part with the desk if I was forced to do so."

  "What did you do with the stuff inside the bottle?"

  "I poured it out."

  "Well, you're right about one thing. She's not going to be happy when she finds out you've duped her. Tell me you're worried about that; you seemed so calm earlier that you had me wondering."

  "Worried doesn't begin to describe how I feel about her."

  Oliver had lied once again to his good friend. Despite the fact they couldn't be helped, the falsehoods sometimes made him regretful.

  _____

  Eve and Marcel sat by the fire in their living room. The dusty bottle and a medicine dropper waited on a tray next to her. Preparing her mind for the exhilarating experience of taking another dose, she reminisced about the times when she'd made the elixir herself. How long had it been - ten years, maybe? One batch tended to last a long time, especially since only one person was taking it. Preparing the life-giving serum was a ritual that had been passed down through the family. Their grandfather Pierre Duplanchier was the first of their line to make it, sometime in the 1600s. How had he learned the secret? No one knew.

  The recipe was encoded on the back of the
Black Cross, etched there by some voodoo priest in Africa centuries before the relic ended up in the hands of the queen of Spain. Making the potion required a dozen ingredients. All but one of them were natural - herbs, spices and leaves that flourished in the warm climate. Beginning with Pierre, the Duplanchier family had painstakingly planted and nurtured them to ensure they remained available. In the forties and fifties her mother Justine had been the keeper of the recipe. She would pick some of the exotic plants from a small garden in the back of the house on St. Ann Street - a garden that had been there since Pierre built the house in 1722. Although Justine had moved from the house years ago, she left the garden in the backyard because she was afraid relocating the fragile plants might kill them. For years Justine tended the garden every week on her way back from the Saturday visits to the cemetery.

  In the sixties Marcel stole the elixir from his mother and told her she'd never have it again. To retaliate, she went to the garden to destroy the plants, but they were gone. Marcel had dug them up and replanted them in a secluded corner of St. Louis Cemetery behind toppling gravestones that hadn’t been tended in decades. It was a perfect place and contrary to Justine’s concern about relocating them, the herbs flourished with only a bit of care now and then.

  Eve talked with Marcel about the times she'd gotten everything ready and it was finally time for the last ingredient, the jewel in the crown. That metaphor made her laugh, since the last item in the recipe literally came from a jeweled relic. Her next step was to take out an old-fashioned cheese grater, hold the crucifix by its crossbar and offer a brief prayer to the tiny black devilish figure hanging there. Then she would hold the bottom of the cross to the grater and slice off a few tiny pieces. Without that, the potion was useless. That old crucifix was made from a root that furnished the key to life.

  Although she was sure her mother had stolen the cross, Eve also believed she'd find it. There was no way the old hag had left the house in the middle of the night, so it was here somewhere. It would simply take time. At least now she had one small vial of elixir left and she would ration it until she could make more.

  She removed the cork, put the dropper inside and withdrew a fourth of the liquid. She opened her mouth, put the end to her tongue and prepared for the bitter camphor-like taste. She squeezed the dropper, slowly releasing the drops onto her tongue. She couldn't taste it. She held the bottle to her nose and inhaled deeply, but there was no familiar aroma. She emptied the rest of the dropper into her mouth, but there was nothing.

  Eve panicked, emitting a feral scream and throwing the vial into the fireplace, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. A dozen frantic thoughts ran through her mind. There was no elixir left and without the cross there would be no more. Soon she would start growing old quickly, aging perhaps twenty years in a matter of weeks. She chastised herself for giving the potion she had left to the tourists in Guatemala, but she had justified it because there had to be a successor. And after all, she had had the cross - until Mother stole it.

  Damn Oliver Toussaint and damn Brian Sadler! They'd tricked her! But what if it wasn't them at all? What if the elixir had gone bad after decades in the drawer? Or what if her mother had filled the vial with water, hoping to trick Marcel when he needed it someday?

  She went to the living room, took a decanter from the bar and poured herself a brandy. Marcel sat quietly, having observed the entire situation.

  "Was the elixir not as tasty this time?" he commented as she tossed her drink back in one gulp.

  "That wasn't the elixir."

  "Then the man at the gallery switched it. He and the other man knew we took the bottle out of the desk. They had hidden cameras. They knew what we were after. They got to it before you did, my dear sister. And that spells bad news for you, I'm afraid."

  She hated his condescending words because he could be right. But she still wasn't sure. "It might have been Mother. She was furious when you stole it fifty years ago. What if she did it, thinking in her warped mind she was getting back at you?"

  "I think you're on the wrong track. My bet is on that man Toussaint and his friend. Why don't you hex him?"

  "I'm not sure I can," she admitted, a tear running down her cheek. He was surprised - he didn't recall ever seeing her cry. "My powers are diminishing. Just since we returned from Guatemala I can see a difference. I can do the little things like making Mr. Toussaint faint, but I wonder if I can do what I must without more elixir."

  "Ah, an enigma," he commented. "You gave away the very thing you need most. To find the cross now, you must hex the man. In order to hex the man, you must find the cross. What to do? What to do?" He cackled at his humor.

  "You're making light of this!" she screamed. "This is my life, you old fool!"

  "Growing old isn't so bad," he commented. "Unlike you, I've been doing it all my life. Maybe it'll do you good."

  That’s why you’ll never understand what I must do, she said to herself, already formulating a plan. She didn't need his help. Toussaint and his friend knew who she really was. There was no need to pretend any more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  For the past fifty years Justine Quantin had detested her children, Marcel and Yvette. They had stolen her rightful place as a priestess. Marcel had taken away her elixir and doomed her to become a wizened old hag. Once her body had deteriorated sufficiently, she was forced to rely on her children for the simplest tasks, but the three of them had a spiteful, hate-filled relationship with not an iota of care, concern or compassion. They coexisted in the old Frere house on Chartres Street, but she kept to her quarters except when she required help. Meals consisted of her children eating in the kitchen but leaving her food on a plate on the counter for her to pick up. She ate alone; she wasn't invited nor wanted at their table. Days often passed without a word between them.

  No one felt Justine's abject hatred more than her daughter, Yvette. When the girl was born, Justine had loved the name that she had given her only daughter, but once her children betrayed her, she would never utter it again. Yvette became Eve, an acknowledgement that her real daughter was gone and a stranger had taken her place.

  Eve knew her mother would have happily stolen the cross and hidden it for spite, but she wondered how the old woman had the wherewithal to go through her backpack in the middle of the night. That was unlike her even though she did occasionally roam the halls when she couldn't sleep. Regardless, that was the most likely scenario and Eve had to find the cross. She thought she'd had a momentary reprieve - the elixir from Oliver's desk - but now she needed more, and quickly.

  Today Eve methodically went through each of the three rooms that were her mother's private quarters. She had placed a mask over her nose and mouth to lessen what she called "old-person" smell. She combed through drawers, boxes, closets stuffed with outdated, moth-eaten dresses, and the bathroom crammed with perfume jars and vessels that held cold cream and other things that hadn't been touched in ages. She found bottles with strange markings that contained dried herbs. Those she set aside to investigate later. Everything else went into a pile in the middle of the floor. She looked under the mattress and the bed, she pulled out every drawer to see if something was hidden behind it, and she used a ladder to get to the tops of armoires and closets.

  She found dozens of amulets, fancy rings and other paraphernalia related to the practice of voodoo, all of which she'd seen before, long ago. But there was nothing of any use to her. Most importantly, there was no Black Cross. She had been certain that her mother had taken it, but now she had to consider what else might have happened.

  Around five she went back to the living room, poured a drink and joined her brother in front of the fire.

  "No luck, I presume," he said gently. He had no desire to stoke her any further. Her fury was tiresome.

  "If Mother didn't take it, then Brian Sadler did," she replied resignedly. "I really don’t see how unless It could have happened on the plane. I'll go to the gallery tomorrow."

  "We
'll go, don't you mean?"

  "No, not this time. I'm going to do this alone."

  _____

  The next morning Oliver stepped off the streetcar at Canal Street and walked into the Quarter. It was a gorgeous morning and he found himself lingering longer than usual, enjoying the sunshine burning off an early-morning chill. There were tourists out and about and he waved to several of the locals he knew. He window-shopped at some of his competitors' galleries, pausing to admire this unique piece or that and playing a game he enjoyed - estimating the age, provenance and value of the rarities on display.

  By the time he realized someone was nearby she had reached his side and taken his hand.

  "Good morning, Mr. Toussaint," Eve said brightly. He tried to pull his hand back, but she gripped it tightly and hissed, "Don't make a scene. Just walk with me." She swung their hands back and forth as if they were simply a young girl in a white pinafore and her doting uncle out for a morning walk.

  "What do you want? You got what you came for."

  "Is that so? You and Mr. Sadler are so clever, aren't you? I want the cross."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Until now I have been very patient with you," she said with a smile so genuine passersby would never believe anything was amiss. "Your family is old New Orleans. Of all people, you're aware of the vast powers I possess. You are going to give it to me."

  He said nothing until they reached his store. He stopped on the sidewalk out front and said, "You're mistaken, young lady. I don't have the cross. I've never had it. What more do you want from me?"

  She dropped his hand roughly. "I'm not a young lady, goddammit, and you know it. I want to talk to Brian Sadler. Unlock the door and we'll continue this conversation inside."

  "No," he answered firmly. "You're not coming in. I obeyed you. You asked for time alone in my office and you took the elixir from my desk. If you want to put a spell on me, then do it right here on the sidewalk in front of all these people. Let everyone see what this pretty little girl actually is."