I’d never seen Jolie so upset. “Calm down,” I told her. “The thing in the house isn’t going to hurt me.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Jolie said. “Just stay away from it, Lia. I have this awful feeling that I may never see you again!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Jolie and I set to work at the library’s computers, amazed at the number of people who had written about ghosts.
“This one looks good,” Jolie said, and wrote down a title. “It’s ghost stories to tell around a campfire.”
“That’s not what we want,” I said. “We want something like … well, sort of like a specialist would write about how to protect yourself against ghosts.”
“You mean like The Exorcist?”
“That’s not what I mean at all. We don’t want fiction. We want nonfiction.”
“You mean like those books about UFOs landing in New Mexico?”
“No! I mean—” I put my chin in my hands and said, “I don’t know what I mean. What I want is a sort of recipe for what to do about ghosts.”
“Okay,” Jolie said. “We’ll keep looking.”
I found a couple of titles and wrote down their call numbers. Jodi found two more, so we went to the stacks to find them. We sat cross-legged on the floor and skimmed through the books.
Of the four books, only three were on hand. Two were simply chapters about visits to haunted houses, with nothing really helpful listed. The third book, however, did tell about the power of evil. The author claimed to be able to withstand ghosts throwing china and knocking over tables through strong mind control.
“Mind control, oh, sure,” I said. “Like anybody can have it.”
“What is it?” Jolie asked.
“The author doesn’t say. Only that she’s got it.” I sighed. “What am I going to do?”
“Tell your parents you don’t want to go with them to Graymoss on Saturday. Stay here with me.”
“That’s not the kind of advice I need. I need someone who knows how to deal with evil.”
Jolie suddenly blinked and sat up straight. “I know who,” she said. “One of Mom’s friends was telling her all about a voodoo shop in New Orleans. Voodoo. You know. There are all kinds of voodoo spells. They probably have one to get rid of ghosts.”
I began to get excited. “Do you know where the voodoo shop is?”
“In the French Quarter,” Jolie said. “Mom’s friend told her that there are a lot of voodoo shops there. They sell stuff to tourists and to people who still practice voodoo.”
I jumped up and shoved the books back where we’d got them. “Let’s go home and get some money and ride the commuter into New Orleans.”
When we got home Jolie called her mother and told her she’d be with me. I told Mom I was going to be with Jolie. We were telling the truth. Both mothers were so used to our being together, they automatically said okay without asking where we’d be.
“Let’s take Charlotte’s diary with us,” I said. “It will give the people who sell voodoo a better idea of why I need it.”
The diary wasn’t in sight, so I leaned over the stair railing and yelled downstairs to Mom to ask what had happened to it.
Mom came to the foot of the stairs and quietly said, “I shouldn’t have allowed you to read it again. I shouldn’t have let you read it the first time. Charlotte suffered delusions and wrote about them. I don’t want your own thinking to be influenced by those delusions.”
Don’t try arguing with a psychologist. It’s impossible.
I took my wallet, which had thirty dollars left from the birthday money Grandma had sent me, and shoved it into the pocket of my cutoffs. Jolie and I hiked two blocks to the bus stop.
We’d been to the Quarter often enough to know how to get there. Every time visitors come to New Orleans they have to see the French Quarter, so people who live in a suburb, like Metairie, are always taking relatives and friends to the Quarter. Sometimes, too, on special occasions Mom, Dad, and I visit the Quarter just to enjoy one of the really great restaurants.
Jolie and I left Canal Street and walked into the Quarter’s nearest cross street. Sure enough, just four blocks in was a small, tacky-looking shop with a dusty window displaying all sorts of candles and jars of dark powder, and even a bone.
Jolie looked at the faded nameplate over the door and translated from the French. “It’s named Good Luck,” she said. “It doesn’t say anything about voodoo.”
“Just look in the window,” I told her. “They’ve got to sell charms and stuff.”
We walked up a flight of three steps, opened a door, and entered the most cluttered room I’d ever seen in my life. The walls were covered with shelves, and on the shelves was an array of boxes, jars, and bottles. A woman, twice as wide as the door we’d just come through, sat behind a chipped and stained wooden counter.
“Whatcha want?” she asked in a high, singsong voice. She shoved a strand of greasy brown hair out of her puffy eyes and looked us up and down.
I wished I could turn and run. But I couldn’t. I had to get the help I needed before I visited Graymoss. I cleared my throat a couple of times, wishing that Jolie would stop cringing behind me, and managed to speak. “I’m going to visit a house that has something evil in it,” I said. “I need protection from the evil.”
The woman nodded. “That’s okay then. I’d get in trouble with the law if I sold you bad voodoo. Good voodoo is okay. Protection is okay.”
“You mean you can do it?” Eagerly I took a step closer to the counter.
Jolie stepped out from behind me. “You can really protect her so she won’t get hurt?”
“Sure. I’ll mix up a bag of gris-gris. You wear it on a string around your neck. Tuck it inside your blouse. It’ll keep the ghosts away from you.”
“And get rid of them?” Jolie asked.
Shaking her head, the woman said, “No, no, no. I didn’t say that. Getting rid of ghosts is something else altogether. Some people burn brimstone, but that doesn’t work for me. First you gotta know why the ghost is there and second you gotta understand the ghost’s problem so you can help it to free itself. And then you say, ‘Go away to whatever awaits you,’ to the ghost. Gris-gris can’t do that. But it can keep ghosts from bothering you.”
Jolie tugged on my arm. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Protection while you’re there. Your parents won’t want to stay, so you’ll come home, and that will be the end of it.”
“Yes,” I said. “That is what I want.”
The woman mixed up all kinds of powders and tied them up in a very small cloth bag, about the size of a Ping-Pong ball, only flatter. She tied it tightly with a string and made a loop with the string so that I could wear it around my neck.
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“You don’t need to know,” she said. “You just have to believe that it will protect you. And you can believe because I said that it will. Five dollars. You want to wear it now?”
“No,” I said, giving her the money. “I don’t need it yet. Could you put it in a paper bag?”
She reached under the counter and brought forth a small paper bag, used and wrinkled. She dropped the gris-gris charm into it.
I took it and thanked her, and Jolie and I left the store.
“Whew!” Jolie said when we were on the street with the door closed behind us. “I’m glad to be out of there.”
I held the bag gingerly. “I’m the one who’s got to wear the gris-gris,” I said. “It looks weird. It even smells a little funny. What if it’s got dead stuff in it or ground-up bones?”
Jolie stopped and faced me. “Don’t back off now, Lia,” she said. “Promise me that you’ll wear it. Promise, or I won’t be able to sleep or eat or do anything except worry until you come home. Promise!”
“All right,” I said reluctantly. “I promise.”
In Louisiana in the summertime the sun rises early and hot, so even though my alarm clock was on roll-over-and-go-back-to-sleep time, Dad knocked at my door and calle
d, “Wake up, Lia. We want to get an early start.”
I staggered out of bed, groaning, but as my mind began to wake up I remembered we were going to Graymoss. I hurried to dress and gulp down my breakfast. Not knowing what else to do with my gris-gris bag, I wore it, hidden inside the neck of my blue chambray shirt.
We drove Highway 61 to 190, a little north of Baton Rouge, where we turned east until we reached Highway 1. Then we drove north, following the Mississippi River.
Mom used the cell phone to make a couple of calls to the engineers. Finally I heard her say, “Not until Friday morning? That’s the earliest you can make it?… Yes. Fine. Nine o’clock. We’ll be there when you arrive.”
Dad laughed. “You didn’t expect them to drop everything and come today, did you?”
“I guess I’m impatient,” Mom said. “I just can’t wait to find out the results of their inspection.”
“Take it easy,” Dad said. “We haven’t even seen Graymoss yet.”
The drive didn’t take long, even though we stopped to ask directions in a small town called Bogue City, which Mom said was close to Graymoss.
“Bogue City? Someone had dreams of grandeur,” Dad said. He glanced down the main street and chuckled.
“Derek! Hush!” Mom said. She had already rolled down the window to talk to a portly, balding man who was strolling down the sidewalk.
“Sir,” she called, “we’re looking for a plantation house called Graymoss. Do you know of it? Can you tell us how to find it?”
The man stepped over to the car and bent down, peering through the open window at the three of us. He seemed satisfied at what he saw and stuck his arm through the window to shake hands. “The name’s Walter Mudd,” he said.
“Glad to meet you,” Dad told him, and introduced himself, Mom, and me.
“So you’re looking for Graymoss,” Mr. Mudd said. “Well, you came to the right place. Everybody around here knows of Graymoss. But nobody’s asked about the place for a long time. You don’t look like the kind of folks that used to come.”
Dad enjoyed interesting situations, and he liked to strike up conversations with people. His philosophy was that each person was different. Each one had something new to talk about. I didn’t always agree with Dad. He was nice to everyone and he was usually upbeat. People liked him.
“What kind of folks were they?” Dad asked Mr. Mudd.
“Couple of ghost hunters came—at least that’s what they called themselves,” Mr. Mudd said. “Then a few years later somebody wrote about Graymoss for one of the state magazines. And five years ago Hannah Lord—she’s president of the Bogue City Historical Society, has been for years—anyhow, Hannah wrote to some TV producer about Graymoss being haunted and how it would make a good TV show.”
“So the producer came?”
“No. Nobody came. He didn’t even answer Hannah’s letter.”
Mom smiled. “How do we get to Graymoss from here?”
Mr. Mudd studied Mom. “Are you just curious about the place, or do you have business there?”
“I’m the new owner,” Mom said.
Mr. Mudd’s eyes widened with excitement. He gave a little hop and glanced across the street where an old-fashioned red-and-white barber pole stood in front of a barber shop. It was easy to see that he could hardly wait to hurry to the barber shop and begin spreading the news.
“You take this road about one mile to a cutoff,” he told us, “and turn to the right. About another mile further you’ll see a gate—it won’t be locked—and a drive. The house is at the end of the drive.”
“I understand there’s a caretaker. Will he be there?”
“Old Charlie Boudreau? Oh, sure. Charlie takes his job seriously. He’ll be on hand.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mudd,” Mom said. “I guess we’ll soon be neighbors.”
Mr. Mudd started. “Neighbors? You don’t mean you’re thinking of living there?”
“That’s exactly what I do mean,” Mom answered.
“But … you must have heard about the haunts and the murders.”
I eagerly leaned forward. “Murders? What murders?”
“I don’t have all the details,” Mr. Mudd said. “But over the years I’ve heard plenty of stories about folks seeking shelter in the dead of night and found the next morning dead of fright.”
“They’re stories. That’s all they are—stories,” Mom said. “We have great plans for Graymoss.”
“Like what?” Mr. Mudd actually licked his lips in his eagerness to be first with the news.
Dad spoke up. “Before we make any definite plans, we’ll have the house thoroughly checked by engineers for structural defects.”
“They won’t find much wrong, if anything,” Mr. Mudd replied. “Those old plantation houses were built to last, if they were properly cared for. Cedar and brick. The columns are brick plastered over. Good hardwood floors on the insides. No problems with termites. Needs paint here and there, but …” He stopped and then added, “But there’s no way you can live there. Not with the goings-on in the house.”
Mom opened her mouth as if she were going to argue, but she apparently thought better of it because she said, “We’ll see, Mr. Mudd. Thank you for your help.”
Mr. Mudd stepped back, Mom rolled up the window, and Dad drove on down the road. I twisted around to look back, and there was Mr. Mudd trotting as fast as he could go across the street toward the barber shop.
Dad followed the directions Mr. Mudd had given us, and in just a few minutes we turned into the drive that led to Graymoss. Beyond an ornate wrought iron gate the drive was lined with huge oak trees, their branches dripping with long fingers of the gray moss that seems to feed on the trees. There weren’t as many oaks as at the famous plantation Oak Alley, and the rows weren’t as long, but the house that stood at the end of the drive was stately and gleaming white in the sunlight.
“Oh, Derek!” Mom cried. “It’s wonderful! It’s picture-perfect!”
The house was a tall two stories. Verandas, supported by rows of tall columns, wrapped around both the lower and the upper story. Steps from the curving drive led to the center of the lower veranda. Beyond, deep in shadow, was a massive wooden front door. On either side and on the second story, sheer curtains hung at windows that were also shaded by the wide verandas. There were patches here and there where brick showed through worn spots on the columns.
“A little plaster, a new coat of paint,” Dad said. He sounded excited.
“Oh, Derek!” Mom cried again. “I’ll open the gate. I can’t wait to see all of the house!”
I patted the spot where the bag of gris-gris lay under my shirt. Under my trembling fingers I could feel the pounding of my heart. Whatever made me think that I could face the evil that haunted Graymoss?
CHAPTER SIX
From around a corner of the house came a tall, lean man in overalls. Wisps of white hair stuck out from under his broad-brimmed straw hat. I guess he had heard our car. As he stood next to his pickup, he looked at us with curiosity.
“Are y’all lost?” he called.
Mom hopped from the car. “No,” she said, and walked toward him. Dad and I joined her, and she introduced us. “You must be Mr. Charles Boudreau,” she added.
He nodded. “Folks around here just call me Charlie. You can call me Charlie, too. That’s what I’m used to answerin’ to. I’m the caretaker here.”
Mom smiled like a little kid at Christmas. “I’m the new owner of Graymoss, Charlie.”
“What happened to Mrs. Langley?”
“Mrs. Langley was my grandmother. She died and left Graymoss to me,” Mom explained.
Charlie removed his hat, leaving a damp halo where his hair stuck tightly to his sweaty scalp. “I’m mighty sorry to hear she passed on,” he said. “I only met Mrs. Langley once, but she sent checks regular, right on the dot.”
“I’ll keep the checks coming,” Mom said. “Even after we move into Graymoss, we’ll still need your help.”
/> “Move in?” Charlie stared in surprise. “You surely ain’t planin’ to live in the house, are you?”
Dad spoke up. “Why not? It seems to be in fair condition. It shouldn’t be too hard to make it livable.”
He turned to get a closer look at the house. The deep veranda, dim and cool in the morning’s heat, beckoned invitingly. I suppose Dad felt it, too. All the veranda needed was a porch swing and a table that would hold lemonade glasses and a stack of good books.
Turning back to Charlie, Dad asked, “Are you concerned about repairs that might be needed on the house?”
Charlie clapped his hat back on his head. “Some repairs are probable, but I’m not talkin’ about repairs alone. The inside kitchen’s impossible. You wouldn’t want to try cookin’ in it. There’s no gas in the house, and no electricity, and no indoor plumbin’. There’s a four-hole privy out back—at least what remains of it. I wouldn’t try to use it, if I was you.”
“Yuck!” I blurted out. “No real bathrooms? We can’t stay here tonight!”
Mom looked surprised. “We have no plans to spend the night. We’ll be driving back to Metairie.”
“If the structure’s sound, indoor plumbing can be added,” Dad said to Charlie. “Also electricity.”
Charlie slowly shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I don’t think y’all are gonna want to do that on account of nobody can set foot in the house after it starts turnin’ dark.”
Mom sighed. “I suppose you’re referring to those silly stories about haunts roaming through the rooms.”
“You’re the first person I’ve met who called the haunts silly,” he answered. “Most people don’t see anythin’ funny about gettin’ scared out of their wits, especially those folks who got themselves frightened to death.”
“Tell us about the murders,” Dad said. “You’ve been working here a long time, so you must have been the one who found the bodies.”
“Not me,” Charlie said. “None of that stuff happened since I started working here back in sixty-nine. If I’d come across a dead body, I wouldn’t be here now.”
The Haunting Page 5