Crossroads

by Nikita Lynnette Nichols

  Amaryllis sat next to her. “Me too, but we’re here now. We’ve come too far to turn around.”

  Charles opened the door and came into the suite. “I got directions from the front desk. They should take us directly to your grandmother’s front door.”

  Michelle placed her hand over her mouth, got up, and ran to the bathroom. Charles stood looking at Amaryllis. “Was it something I said?”

  An hour later, after showering and changing clothes, Amaryllis called across the hall. “James, are you and Michelle ready?”

  “I’m ready, but I can’t get Mickey up from the bathroom floor.”

  “What happened? Did she fall?”

  “Nah, she’s nervous. She’s kneeling over the toilet puking her guts out.”

  “Open the door for me.” Amaryllis hung up from James and walked across the hall. James let her in, and Amaryllis went to the bathroom door and opened it. Michelle was standing at the sink, brushing her teeth. Amaryllis stood next to Michelle and looked at her. “What’s wrong with you, Michelle?”

  “Girl, I don’t know. I can’t go through with this. I don’t do well under pressure.”

  “You’re an attorney.”

  “Yeah, but that’s a different kind of pressure.”

  “How about you don’t do well under pregnant?”

  Michelle dropped her toothbrush into the sink. “Pregnant?”

  “Yes, honey. You’re pregnant.”

  Michelle looked toward the bathroom door. “Shh, lower your voice. And how do you know?”

  “Because, I can feel it. For the past month and a half, my ankles have been swollen, certain scents make me sick to my stomach, and sometimes I’m moody as heck for no reason. I know I ain’t pregnant, because I ain’t doing nothing, so it must be you.”

  Michelle walked to the bathroom door and closed it. “I can’t be pregnant because I don’t have any symptoms.”

  Amaryllis looked at her sister. “Duh. You’re throwing up. And I got all the other symptoms. When was your last period?”

  Michelle lowered the toilet lid and sat down. “I don’t know. I don’t keep up with that stuff.’”

  “What do you mean you ‘don’t keep up with that stuff’?”

  “Just what I said. I know my period is coming when I start to cramp.”

  Amaryllis glanced at the ceiling. “Help us, Lord. Michelle, when was the last time you cramped?”

  “Maybe around four months ago.”

  Amaryllis got excited and raised her voice. “You haven’t had a period in that long?”

  “Would you shut your big mouth before James hears you? I don’t know when my last period was, okay? Maybe it was three months ago. I can’t recall. I got a big case that I’ve been preparing for that’s been eating up fourteen hours a day, every day, for months. I can’t worry about anything else. If my period comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.”

  “Let me see your girls,” Amaryllis demanded.

  Michelle frowned at her. “For what?”

  “I wanna see something. We’re both in a double D cup. If your girls are bigger and fuller than mine, you’re pregnant.”

  Michelle stood and unbuttoned her blouse. Amaryllis raised her own blouse. They stood next to each other facing the mirror and compared sizes.

  “Michelle, do you see how you are fuller and rounder than I am?” Amaryllis asked. She pinched Michelle’s left breast and showed Michelle her milky wet finger and thumb. “You know what that is, don’t you? And if you’re able to extract milk, you’re probably in your second trimester. You better make an appointment to see your gynecologist when you get back to Vegas.”

  Michelle ran over to the toilet, vomited, and brushed her teeth again.

  Chapter 24

  The chauffer pulled up to the curb at 743 Woodland Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

  Amaryllis looked at Michelle. “You ready?”

  Michelle’s stomach was doing somersaults. She’d rather not face the unknown. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t wanna find out what happened to us. Let’s just go back to the hotel.”

  Amaryllis moved next to her sister and hugged her. “You know we need answers. This is what we came all the way to Louisiana for.”

  Michelle looked at her husband with pity in her eyes. “Honey, please say a prayer before we go in.”

  After James’s prayer, the two couples found themselves standing on the front porch. Charles had a tight grip on Amaryllis’s hand. Because Michelle appeared to need much more moral support than Amaryllis, James held her tightly by the waist.

  Amaryllis exhaled, rang the doorbell, and looked at her sister. “This is it, Michelle. There’s no turning back now.”

  “I gotta throw up,” Michelle said.

  An overweight, gray-haired woman opened the door. She looked at the two couples in their faces, but she concentrated on the girls.

  Amaryllis was the first to speak. “Hi, Nana.”

  Nana’s left hand flew to her heart. “Oh my God. Oh, Jesus.” She looked from Amaryllis to Michelle, then from Michelle to Amaryllis. “Oh, sweet Jesus. I can’t believe you’re here. Come in, come in.”

  Amaryllis stepped into the living room, and Charles followed. Michelle’s feet were still firmly planted on the front porch. She didn’t have the nerve to place one foot ahead of the other. James nudged her back to get her moving.

  Amaryllis walked to her grandmother and embraced her. “It’s good to see you, Nana.”

  Nana returned the hug. “You too, baby.”

  Amaryllis held her hand out for Michelle to grab. “Nana, this is my sister, Michelle.”

  Seeing Michelle for the first time caused tears to fall onto Nana’s cheeks. She held her arms open for Michelle.

  Michelle released Amaryllis’s hand and slowly walked to Nana and hugged her. “It’s nice to meet you, Nana.”

  Amaryllis motioned for James and Charles to come closer to where she, Michelle, and their grandmother stood. “Nana, I want you to meet James, Michelle’s husband, and my guy, Charles.”

  James and Charles greeted Nana and kissed her on opposite cheeks.

  Nana looked at them all as she sat in a rocker. “Sit down, please. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would’ve prepared a feast.”

  Amaryllis and Charles, along with Michelle and James, squeezed themselves on a sofa opposite of Nana. The four of them couldn’t help but notice the décor of the living room. The dark brown wood paneling on the walls made the room dim and chilly. The drapes were drawn closed, and a crystal ball the size of a bowling ball sat in the middle of the cocktail table. It was surrounded by chickens’ feet and rabbits’ feet that were scattered across the table. There weren’t any family portraits in Nana’s living room; however, shelves were filled with books coated with dust. Charles noticed some of the titles of the books.

  Feed ’Em And Keep ’Em, Make Her Love You, Five Sure Ways To Guarantee Yourself A Spouse, The Perfect Trick To Become A Perfect Treat, and The Witches’ Guide To Eternal Happiness, were just a few titles that Charles was able to read through the thick dust.

  James saw the door leading to Nana’s dining room was made of iron prison bars. The door was ajar with a skeleton key dangling from the keyhole. He got Charles’s attention and nodded toward the dining room door. Charles’s eyes grew wide and looked at James with an expression that read, “What the heck?”

  Amaryllis spoke. “Because this was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing, Nana. Michelle and I came here for answers.”

  Nana eyed Amaryllis confused. “Answers?”

  “When I asked you to send me my birth certificate, I received Michelle’s instead.”

  Nana’s face turned crimson red. “Oh, my goodness. I don’t know how I could’ve made that mistake. I’ve always been so careful.”

  “What is there to be careful about?” Michelle asked, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer to her own question.

  “About keeping your parents’ secret,”
Nana confessed. “But I guess the secret is out now, since you’re here.”

  Amaryllis scooted to the edge of her seat. “That’s right, Nana. And we want you to tell us why we were raised to believe that Michelle was two years older, had a different mother, and a separate birthday.”

  “Have either of you asked your parents?”

  “Amaryllis doesn’t talk to her mother and our father is away, unreachable, on vacation. He told me that my mother had died in the hospital shortly after giving birth to me,” Michelle informed her.

  “Nana, we came here for answers, that, at the moment, only you can give. Don’t turn us away,” Amaryllis pleaded.

  Nana looked at her granddaughters’ faces. How could she deny them their right to know their history, their roots? “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “At the beginning,” Amaryllis replied.

  So that she wouldn’t miss one word out of Nana’s mouth, Michelle scooted to the edge of the sofa like Amaryllis. “My birth certificate states that I was born in April, nineteen eighty-two. You can go back nine months prior and begin there.”

  Nana leaned back in her rocker, crossed her ankles, and exhaled. “Your father, Nicholas, came to Baton Rouge to attend a weeklong realtors’ convention. One evening, he, along with a colleague, visited a bar. My daughter, Veronica, tended the bar. She fell for Nicholas the moment she saw him. According to Veronica, she and Nicholas became friendly with one another. The more drinks she served him, the friendlier he became. He invited her out for dinner the next evening, and she graciously accepted.

  “Over dinner, Nicholas told Veronica that he lived in Chicago and made a lot of money selling houses. Money had always been Veronica’s god.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Amaryllis stated. She remembered the times when her own mother sent her out with men for money and pocketed half of the price. Amaryllis distinctly remembered Veronica’s words. ‘It’s my genes that’s got you looking as pretty as you are. Now go on and make that money because closed legs don’t get fed.’

  “After dinner with Nicholas, Veronica was smitten,” Nana continued. “She wanted to make him fall in love with her. But Nicholas would only be in town for two more days, so we had to work fast.”

  “We”? Michelle asked.

  Nana nodded her head. “Veronica asked me to help her, and I did.”

  “How did you help her, Nana?” Amaryllis asked.

  “I put a root on Nicholas.”

  Michelle’s jaw dropped. James and Charles looked at each other and frowned at what Nana had just said.

  “A root?” Michelle asked.

  “What’s a root?” Charles asked Nana. Even though he was there as a silent partner, to only support Amaryllis, he was drawn into the conversation. He blurted out the question without thinking.

  Nana shifted in her recliner. “A root is a spell, black magic, voodoo, black art, hocus-pocus, sorcery; it’s all the same.”

  “But that’s witchcraft,” James volunteered.

  Nana looked at him. “It’s what I do, honey. Creole women have been practicing witchcraft for generations. My great-grandmother was a witch, my grandmother was a witch, and my mother was a witch. I’m a witch. My daughter, Veronica, is a witch.” Nana looked at both Amaryllis and Michelle. “You two are witches too. We’re all witches. Any offspring from this bloodline will be warlocks and witches as well.”

  Michelle vomited on the floor directly in front of her grandmother. She hadn’t yet shared with James that she may be pregnant.

  Chapter 25

  After James cleaned up the mess Michelle had made, he brought her a glass of water and sat beside her again. Michelle’s stomach was having a tumultuous affair. She felt the dark walls of the living room closing in on her. She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.

  Amaryllis, on the other hand, wasn’t as surprised by Nana’s revelation. Veronica had taught her long ago how to get a man under her spell. Amaryllis’s ex-boyfriends, Randall Loomis and Tyrone Caridine, were so in love with her and did anything she asked of them.

  It wasn’t only Amaryllis’s beauty that had captured their hearts. It was also the specially prepared home cooked meals she fed them. Unbeknownst to Michelle, Nana had been sending Amaryllis secret recipes for years.

  Michelle was in shock. Amaryllis’s mother, Veronica, was also her mother. The same woman who had used her daughter’s body as a way to earn money was also her mother. The woman, whom Michelle had never met, whom she had heard horror stories about, was her mother. The woman who had raised Amaryllis to be promiscuous, devious, a husband stealer, and a professional gold digger, was her mother as well.

  Michelle couldn’t comprehend or understand or even accept the fact that she too had been born from Veronica’s womb. Why had their father lied? What was the big deal? Nicholas had always told Michelle that she and Amaryllis had two different mothers, and that she was two years older than Amaryllis.

  Michelle chugged down the entire glass of water, then composed herself on the sofa between James and Amaryllis. “Um, Nana, please help us to understand this. I mean, why were we separated? Why weren’t we told the truth? Why all the lies?”

  “Because it was what your parents wanted. They thought it was the best thing to do under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances, Nana?” Amaryllis asked.

  Nana uncrossed her ankles, then crossed them again. “I really wish you’d both ask your parents about this. It’s not my place to tell you. If they had wanted you to know, you would have been told long ago.”

  Michelle massaged her throbbing temples. “It’s not your place to tell us, Nana? Was it your place to help your daughter trap our father?”

  “We didn’t trap Nicholas.”

  “That’s exactly what you did, Nana,” Amaryllis stated. “You put something in his food. I know how it’s done. You and Veronica taught me well.”

  Michelle stopped massaging her temples and looked at her sister. “What?”

  Amaryllis didn’t respond to Michelle’s question. She looked down at the floor. She felt ashamed. She was ashamed at how she reluctantly allowed her mother and grandmother to convince her that the only way to get a man to fall in love was to put a root on him.

  Amaryllis was only sixteen years old when she cast her first Venus love spell. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Timothy Mason, a senior and the captain of the football team. Often, Amaryllis would stay after school to watch Timothy practice with his teammates. One evening after practice, she got the nerve to approach him. She waited outside of the locker room for him to make his exit. As soon as she saw him, she walked up to him. “Hi.”

  Timothy was engrossed in a conversation with a teammate and didn’t notice her or even hear her speak to him. He walked right past her.

  She walked behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi, Tim.”

  He stopped walking and looked at her. “Do I know you?”

  Amaryllis smiled and cocked her head to the side in a seductive way, just like her mother had taught her to do. “Do you want to know me?”

  Timothy chuckled and looked at his teammate standing to the right of him. The teammate shrugged his shoulders. Timothy looked at her and said, “I don’t think so.” The two boys walked away and left her standing outside of the locker room by herself.

  When Amaryllis arrived home from school, she told Veronica about Timothy and how he had left her standing without a second look. Veronica instructed Amaryllis to take a bath.

  “Why?” Amaryllis couldn’t understand why she needed to bathe when she had just gotten home from school.

  “Do you want the boy to like you or not? Just do what I say and don’t ask me any questions!” Veronica scolded.

  After her bath, Amaryllis walked into her bedroom and saw the curtains drawn and her mother waiting on her. “Take that towel off.”

  Amaryllis dropped the towel to the floor and stood nude in front of her mother.

  Veronica, dressed in a lo
ng black robe with a hood pulled over her hair, grabbed Amaryllis by her hand and led her to stand in front of the full-length mirror.

  From the pocket of her robe, Veronica pulled out a clear bottle containing a yellowish liquid. She opened the bottle and poured the liquid in her hand then proceeded to massage the liquid into Amaryllis’s skin.

  To Amaryllis, it looked like Crisco Oil. “What’s this stuff you’re putting on me?”

  “Ylang Ylang oil. It’s perfume.”

  After applying the perfumed oil over her daughter’s entire body, Veronica spread a white sheet on the floor in front of the mirror and told Amaryllis to sit on it and fold her legs into a pretzel.

  Once seated, Amaryllis saw Veronica place a red cloth in the shape of a heart, a red candle, and one Venus incense stick, all in the shape of a half circle, in front of her. Veronica lit the red candle and incense stick, then gave Amaryllis seven stick pins.

  “Now, pick up the red heart and kiss it seven times,” Veronica instructed.

  Amaryllis picked up the red cloth and kissed it seven times. “Now what?”

  Veronica laid a piece of paper with words on it on top of Amaryllis left thigh, near the candle. “Lay all but one pin on the floor.”

  Amaryllis did as she was told.

  “Read the words on the paper.”

  Amaryllis proceeded to read. “I call thee, beloved one, to love me more than anyone. Seven times I pierce thy heart; today, the magic of Venus starts. I bind thy heart and soul to me; as I do will, so let it be. Timothy Mason, come to me. Timothy Mason come to me.”

  Veronica removed the hood from her head. “Now burn the end of the pin in the flame for five seconds and stab the red heart.”

  Amaryllis followed the instructions, then looked at her mother. “Now what?”

  “Pick up another pin, say the chant, and stab the heart six more times.”

  At midnight, unbeknownst to Amaryllis, Timothy Mason stood outside of her bedroom window glaring up at the full moon.

  The next morning at school, Timothy saw Amaryllis walking to her first-period class. He hurried over to her and met her just as she was entering the classroom. When she saw him, she smiled. Timothy was drawn to her scent. He sniffed her neck like he was a bloodhound on the trail of a serial killer. “I wanna know you.”