by D. M. Pratt
Dr. Brussard took the file and left the room. Eve scrunched down in the bed and pulled the sheets over her head. She looked down at her breast. Cora closed the door then walked over to her friend and lifted the sheets. There was no question the bruise was there, a tiny bite. She had been left a remembrance and it was as clear as her own name this was not a fantasy. Eve looked up at Cora and said, “Vampires.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The drive back to New Orleans was beautiful. It was just what Eve needed. She happily returned to Cora her jewelry, grateful to not have to be responsible for such valuable baubles. They rode in silence, looking out the window of Cora’s Mercedes AMG thinking about the odd occurrences that had transpired. They watched quietly as the lush southern countryside unfolded around them, fields of saw grass and bromeliad flowers. She saw a flock of quail take to the sky and noticed the squirrels in the trees and the wild turkey pecking at the ground. They seemed to look at her as the Mercedes passed, judging or perhaps jealous of her outrageous behavior. The day drew on as they drove and the sweltering sun crawled across the sky. The countryside was a patchwork of wide open fields undulating between lush green and golden tan saw grasses that ran alongside the back roads. Occasionally rows of huge, elegant, old oak trees and blossoming magnolias, draped in shawls of Spanish moss, lined the road and anchored the lazy scenery. And now and again, fingers of the Louisiana bayou reached in lapping at the asphalt with warm, dirty water thick with brown and red algae and then running away back inside a ripple, fleeing into the cool shadows of the swamp. Cora had opted for the scenic route, and the glorious colors of the flora and wild white snowy egrets and blue herons were a good escape. Occasionally they could hear the call of a nutria or two and the clicking song of cicadas wafted from bushes. The morning passed into afternoon and the moist, humid country sky became thick with bilious, rain-laden clouds eager to give up their watery treasures.
Another hour passed and afternoon thunderstorms unleashed a torrential downpour of warm, fat droplets. They pulled over, stopped under a giant banyan tree and brought up the convertible top to wait out the storm.
Eve breathed in the moist, thick southern air. She always liked the rolling thunder that echoed across the sky during the Louisiana summers. She loved how every day, promptly at four o’clock, it would rain like some internal natural alarm went off and whoosh, rain drenched the sweltering earth. As a child visiting her grandmother she remembered imagining the claps of thunder to be enormous dinosaurs lumbering inside the clouds, stomping their huge feet louder as they got closer and closer until the rain fell in a deluge of warm spatters on her skin. And, like a great classical performance, the orchestra of lightning and rain finished inside the storm taking the imaginary dinosaurs and their thundering feet away to echo back a remembering that they had been here today and would be back tomorrow.
“Am I losing my mind?” Eve asked Cora quietly.
“Whatever do you mean?” Cora asked.
“I’m infatuated by a man who doesn’t exist,” she said.
“Of course he exists. He bit you and left a bruise on your nipple didn’t he?” Cora insisted.
“I don’t know. Maybe when I fell I pinched myself. I don’t know, and not knowing is making me feel crazy,” Eve said.
“I don’t know what to say, suga,” Cora replied.
There was a genuine kindness in her tone. Cora wanted to understand. She wanted to believe, but it was just as confusing for Cora as it was for Eve.
“If only he wasn’t so wonderful. So deliciously amazing,” Eve said.
The rain stopped, and they got back into the car leaving the canopy of the banyan tree and the safety it had given them from the storm and drove away. They headed inland toward the highway that would get them home hours earlier - so much for the scenic route. It would be getting dark soon and being in the countryside in Louisiana was not a place anyone from the city wanted to be after dark.
They drove in silence for a long time. Eve studied her friend and from Cora’s expression Eve could tell she was worried.
“Look, maybe it’s over,” Eve said. “I’ll just… let it go. Like a weird dream. Forget that it ever happened.”
Cora said nothing for a long while, bit her lip and then turned to Eve.
“Do you trust me?” Cora said.
“Of course. You’re my best friend. You may be the bestest friend I ever had in my whole life. Hell, I told you I was having an affair with a vampire. And you didn’t think I was crazy,” Eve said.
Cora laughed out loud. It was a wonderful, freeing laugh that seemed to lighten any dark mood that anybody could ever be in.
“Maybe not a vampire,” Cora said. “But something’s happening and after all this is Louisiana.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Eve replied.
“I mean, this is Louisiana and there ain’t no other place in the world like it. Things go on here that don’t go on anywhere else,” Cora said.
“Okay, now you are scaring me,” Eve told her.
“Just trust me, sugar. I am about to take you into Old Algiers to see Evine Toussaint,” Cora said.
“Who?”
“Evine Toussaint – oldest Voodoo queen in all of Louisiana,” Cora said.
Eve could tell by the expression of determination on Cora’s face that this wasn’t a joke.
Cora shifted nervously in her seat and turned off the exit marked Old Algiers. Eve looked out the front windshield. Wherever she was headed, Cora thought it had answers and answers were what Eve needed.
CHAPTER NINE
Eve knew a little about Algiers from books she’d seen at her grandmother’s house. She’d spent almost every summer visiting her from Chicago from the time she could walk until her grandmother’s death last year. Eve loved her grandmother and still missed their conversations under the magnolia tree in her backyard while they ate fresh figs and played Go Fish.
Eve would never forget as they drove past Old Algiers on their weekend trips to visit Avery Island’s Botanical Gardens when her grandmother would point over the Mississippi River to strange buildings saying never, ever go there…ever.
Algiers had a dark and wicked history dating back to the 1600’s when Louisiana was a wild French territory that tracked along the Mississippi. The township of Algiers was far older than New Orleans and the surviving architecture reflected it.
From the tattered pages of one of the oldest history books in her grandmother’s collection, there were stories about the settlers from France and Spain and England who came and developed the land and fought the Indians and the pirates for the rich soil. They built farms that blossomed into grand plantations, traded in animal skins, cotton and even in slaves. Louisiana’s earliest residents, she remembered reading, were daring men and women with wild stories of hope. It was a new beginning in a new world that somehow turned dark and corrupt, decaying into greed and cruelty at the hands of the rich, the powerfully wicked and the rogue pirates that settled inside the gulf. The early settlers were made up of fleeing nobility, peasants and criminals, but they found they had one thing in common; a love of the land and the adventure it brought. There were free Blacks and coloreds who came from across the sea and intermingled their bloodlines, melding the races that settled the vast lands with the indigenous: White, Native American, French, Spanish, noble Moors and Africans, free and slave. Nowhere else in the United States did terms like Cajun and Creole, Mulatto, Quadroon and Octoroon appear in the history books like Louisiana. But it was the slaves stolen from darkest Africa who brought with them strange and deadly religious practices that became known as Voodoo that made this region different from the rest of the United States and that is a fact to this very day. Those slaves wielded the healings, curses and magic that made Louisiana the most unique of all the Southern states. And it was those masters of that magic who became known as the Kings and Queens of Voodoo.
Eve’s books said little about the Voodoo royalty who’d gathered together with their dark r
ituals, chants, charms, powders, jujus, grigris and spells brought in from the ancient world of the African continent at first as a defense from those who had enslaved them, then to frighten and sometimes prey upon the new settlers who came to seek their fortunes in these wild untamed territories. People learned quickly not to anger the wrong person, pirate, politician or fallen nobleman hiding in the new lands of America or especially the Voodoo priestesses and priests born into the Louisiana territories. The mysterious Voodoo culture was the only one to survive the centuries of change for they always left their bloody mark on the streets of Algiers. The old city kept their secrets and the few who still practiced kept their powers hidden deep in the heart of the swamps and marshes of the Bayou, save the grand masters who kept a place in Algiers and New Orleans for those in need. These days Eve thought, much of their magic had become novelty for the curious tourists flocking to clever museums and curio shops filled with powders, books, incense and candles.
The turn from the freeway took them into Algiers. It lay directly across the mud-choked Mississippi River, its waters thick with silt and cottonseeds, moving timelessly from north to south and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The pale grey wooded buildings with their plain porticos had little of the ornate, wrought iron balconies that accented the second stories of the French Quarter in New Orleans. These buildings were ragged and poorly kept, lit by ancient gas lanterns that left eerie shadows along the dimly lit street. The dimmest street of all was the one that Cora turned down.
“I wish I had the jeep,” she said.
“How did you find this place?” Eve asked.
“GPS system,” Cora said pointing.
“What? You dialed in 1-800-Voodoo Queen?” Eve asked.
“Just Evine Toussaint. She’s infamous,” Cora replied.
“I’m thinking this is not such a good idea,” Eve said. “Let’s come back when it’s light. Better still, let’s not come back at all.”
“Don’t be a nilly. We’ll just ask her a few questions,” Cora said just as nervous as Eve.
Cora pulled the car over and parked in front of a wide, double arched doorway. A hand painted, wooden sign hung to the left of the frame that read QUEEN EVINE TOUSSAINT’S VOODOO MUSEUM, POTIONS, JUJUS, CHARMS, CURIOS AND READINGS.
“She’s gone commercial,” Eve said.
“Hey, we all have to survive, even the Voodoo Queen.”
“Get real, Cora, survival to you is three pairs of Manolo Blahniks instead of six,” Eve said.
“It could happen,” Cora said far too seriously.
They got out of the car, locked the doors and headed across the wood planks of the street.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Eve said.
“I think that’s the intention,” Cora whispered. “You know, awe and respect for a great and ancient culture.”
“What the hell is a juju,” Eve asked reading the details of the sign.
Cora shrugged. She was definitely out of her element.
As they opened the door three black cats ran out. The last one stopped and stared at Eve almost daring her to pass.
“This cannot be a good sign,” Eve said.
“Come on. It’s a cat. What’s it gonna do, eat you?” Cora replied pulling her inside.
As they entered, the cat followed Eve, jumped on the counter and perched on a pillow made from dry, green, alligator hide. The cat never took its icy yellow eyes off Eve.
“Why is it looking at me like that?” Eve asked.
“It likes you. Now come on,” Cora said.
They moved through the narrow opening and into the cluttered, dusty shop. Every available space was filled with books, candles, crystals and rocks, powders and pamphlets. There were rows of jars, some filled with deformed rats, snakes, unborn goats and other creatures. On another shelf sat ornate boxes filled with all hues of strange smelling powders and odd shaped bottles filled with peculiar looking liquids and marked with handwritten labels.
“There’s no one here. Let’s go,” Eve said.
Cora pulled her towards the back and as Eve turned a corner, she came face to face with a dozen rubber shrunken heads hanging on strings from the ceiling. Next to them were dried lizards, spiders and a two-headed snake fermenting in a pickle jar. But it was what came from the blackest shadow in the place that made her open her mouth to a scream that wouldn’t come out. Try as she did only a hiss of air made it past her vocal chords.
“You stay silent,” the woman said to Eve. “What cha want girl?” she asked Cora.
The woman emerged from the shadows into the soft flickering glow of the candles that dripped carelessly near her door. The amber light fell across her face. It was weathered and yet at the same time youthful. As she stepped closer to look at her intruders, the light revealed the color of her skin the way coffee catches light and reflects it back. Wild, shoulder length stark white hair and the most disturbing thing Eve had ever seen, one blue and one brown eye.
“Are you Evine Toussaint? The Evine Toussaint?” Cora asked.
“Who else you tink I be. I asked you what cha want?” Evine asked again in a thick, melodic, Cajun accent.
“I…we…need your advice,” Cora said.
“Two hundred dollars,” Evine said and held out her hand. Cora turned to Eve, reached into her purse and pulled out two crisp one hundred dollar bills.
“Cora…” Eve said feeling like someone took their fingers from around her throat.
Eve rubbed her neck. This woman was the real deal and not anyone to be messed with.
“Shhhh,” Cora said.
Evine took the money and shoved it deep in between her deflated breasts. They hung flat as two slices of moldy cheese against her chest. Her dress was made of tattered black lace and she wore silver earrings and a dozen silver bracelets.
“Now what cha want?”
“It’s not me it’s my friend, she has a …uh… situation.”
Evine turned and looked at Eve. “Don’t tink I can help ya,” Evine said. “Ya already gone too far down dat path.”
“What path?” Eve said
“Love,” Evine said. “Ya already in love with him.”
“I didn’t say I was in…”
“Don have ta. Ya a stupid girl and ya know nothing bout what you let inta ya. Do ya?” Evine said and stared at her.
“I paid you two hundred dollars and for that I think you should help her,” Cora said.
“Do ya,” Evine said. “Well den, come on, I’ll teach ya what I can bout what ya got ya self into. Den ya on ya own.”
Evine turned, opening the thick crystal beaded curtain that led into a back room.
“Can this place get any darker?” Eve whispered to Cora.
If the front was cluttered, the back was like something out of a nightmare. There was barely room to walk. It was dark and the air was thick and filled with the musky scent of strange herbs. Candles burned and smoke danced up from the offering bowls filled with the incense that choked the air.
Evine found her way around a small table. On it sat a crystal ball, a cup with stones and a cup with bones. Fresh bunches of herbs and flowers hung pinned to the walls tied together by pieces of fabric. At the center of the table sat a stack of tarot cards like none Eve had ever seen.
“Gimme sometin’. Sometin’ dat means a lot to you and don worry, she paid me so I won’t steal it from ya,” Evine said.
Cora let Eve sit in the chair across from Evine. Eve pulled a tiny gold cross she always wore from around her neck. She’d received it from her grandmother when she was six and never took it off. After a moment of hesitation, she handed it over to Evine.
The wind that hadn’t been blowing when they walked in howled through the cracks in the wooden wall and made the place feel suddenly cold even though Eve knew she’d felt the heat from the day still hanging on everything else outside when they walked in. The strange chill crept up through the floor as if a door to Dante’s ninth circle of hell had swung open. Eve felt an eerie
shiver rush through her. Though she couldn’t feel the touch of the icy wind she could hear just outside her bones, she sensed its warning in the deathly cold that permeated the room. She could hear the wind moan as it passed between the ancient walls of the old shop and whatever lay next door surrounding the strange place and all who stood inside.
Evine fingered the necklace and then took Eve’s hand and looked at her palm.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Dat too bad,” Evine said.
“What?” Eve asked.
“You grandmother just died. She was a good woman. She loved you and she’s trying to get back to help you. She knows you got yourself in a bad situation,” Evine said.
She put down the necklace and released Eve’s hand, picking up and then throwing the cup of stones. She read their meaning and made several faces that reminded Eve of someone with bad indigestion. She said nothing then did the same small ritual with the cup of bones.
Eve studied the tiny bones. There were the bones of birds or small rodents but one or two looked like the joints from a human finger or toe. God, she thought. She wanted to get out but not as much as she wanted to understand what was happening.
“Keep ya mind still and stay present. Don’t ya be sendin your spirit outta here. Not now,” Evine said.
Eve and Cora exchanged a look. Evine was right. Eve had mentally left the building. She imagined herself running out through the front shop door, jumping into the car, driving across the bridge to her apartment in New Orleans, diving into her bed and burying herself deep under the covers. The warning from Evine was so spot on it brought her thoughts right back to the present moment and her mind, along with her body, sat planted in the chair and listened.