Residue

by Laury Falter

  “I take it you didn’t know?” he asked, earnestly, his interest keenly on me now, something that made the flame in my stomach grow.

  Considering what he’d said briefly, I realized that had I thought of it I might have figured it out. Over the course of my years at the academy, my mother had mailed me books at intervals, typically just prior to an upcoming holiday. It had always annoyed me because it interfered with studying for final quarter exams, compounding my workload. Then she would quiz me on the plane flights to our destination. I now understood why she’d done it. The books had all been studies of gems, stones, herbs, the Latin language, and cultural ideologies of mystical elements, and they had been preparing me for this point in my life without my knowing it.

  “Let’s just say I didn’t know much.” I shook my head, angry, finally verbalizing the words that had rung through my head several times over the last eighteen hours.

  “Hmm,” he mumbled. “Then how did you end up here?”

  That is a long story, I thought, but I knew what he was really asking was how I’d found this indiscernible store. Still struggling to contain the irritation that had risen up, I pulled the shopping list from my hip pocket and showed it to him.

  He gave it a quick glance before doing a double take. Then, his eyebrows furrowed inquisitively over those exquisite eyes before he dug out a similarly-sized piece of paper from his hip pocket and held it up next to mine.

  The messages were exactly the same. His instructions to stop at this shop first, and then move on to several other shops were listed in the same order as my shopping list. Only the handwriting and the names at the top of the lists differed. Where mine said Jocelyn, his said Jameson.

  “The housekeeper where I stay…where I live,” I corrected myself, “gave me the list.”

  He paused before answering guardedly, “So did mine.”

  “Maybe the school sent everyone the same instructions?” I offered, though I wasn’t convinced myself.

  “Maybe…” he said skeptically. “I guess we’ll have to ask them when we get home.” Then his demeanor changed to something more lighthearted. “Good thing we learned of this or I would have thought you were following me around, Jocelyn.” He emphasized my name making certain I knew he’d noted it. His mention of it was both charming and stimulating.

  Nonetheless, my mouth fell open in offense. “And I would have thought the same thing about you, Jameson,” I retorted.

  His eyes turned playful when he responded. “And you’d have been right.”

  Completely unprepared for his comment, my subconscious kicked in again. “Good,” I stated before even realizing the word had passed my lips.

  I paused then, considering what had just transpired between us. Had we just acknowledged, to a complete stranger, that we were intrigued by each other? While that seemed odd, he appeared to take it in stride. This, I was learning, appeared to be his typical approach to everything.

  “Mrs. De Ville, at the next store, isn’t as friendly as Olivia,” he made a nod toward the store we had just been in. “Don’t take it personally. She is the same way with everyone. Just giving you fair warning.”

  “Thanks,” I said and began following him down the street.

  Without needing to openly discuss it, it seemed we’d just agreed to shop together. This was fine with me. Clearly, he had a better idea of where to go in this city than I did and as we walked he offered further insight, this time in regards to the school I’d be attending. “Mr. LaBarre is tough on grading. Ms. Boudreaux will attempt to intimidate you on the first day by pairing you with another student for an exploratory sparring lesson. You’ll learn quickly that she likes to test the boundaries of propriety. And be careful of Ms. Roquette. She’s just gotten off probation by The Sevens and is more wicked than usual. Can’t say I blame her. Being bound from speaking for six months has to be hard on anyone. Not that it wasn’t a relief for the rest of us.”

  “How can someone be bound from speaking for six months?” I asked, a bit skeptical.

  He held back a smile while asking, “You’re completely new to this, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I replied, unabashedly. Besides there was no hiding it.

  Jameson’s silence caught my attention and when I looked up I found him staring at me. He was reserved but fascinated.

  We had just turned right onto a street named Chartres. It was just as quiet as the previous one so his silence made me feel like I was standing in a spotlight.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked almost tenderly.

  The softness of his tone made my heart skip a beat, something I’d never experienced before. Thrown a bit, I drew in a breath before answering. “Upstate New York.”

  “I take it you weren’t going to this type of school there,” he said, motioning to the bag of mystical items I was carrying.

  Chuckling under my breath, I shook my head. “No. But I would love to have seen my professors faces if I carried these into class.” Then I thought about it and added under my breath, “And if I’d known about them, I would have.”

  He released a hearty laugh. “I take it you tested the boundaries of conduct there?”

  I smiled, unable to contain it. “Oh…I think the headmistress would consider that an understatement.”

  He nodded, convinced of something. “Then my assessment of you was right on.”

  His declaration made me ask, “Which was…?”

  He stopped in front of an unmarked gate, and one that I would have missed entirely if I’d been walking by myself. Beyond it was a courtyard covered in overgrown vines and tall, potted plants. But he paused there, choosing to answer me before entering.

  “At the other store back there…before things started flying off the shelves…Olivia was warning you to take it easy with your supplies because they could be dangerous. But I already knew you could handle it.”

  “Ah…” I replied, holding back a laugh because I was sure it would sound mocking.

  “That’s what I was about to tell you when something hit me in the back.”

  I recalled that moment when he’d opened his mouth to speak but didn’t get the chance. I blinked, taken aback that he, being a stranger, had come to this conclusion about me.

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  When he replied it was as if his explanation would bode no further questions, as if his response was common, a given understanding. He brushed aside a draping vine and pressed a corroding doorbell. “That’s what I do. I channel people.”

  I opened my mouth to question him but deep inside the store a chime echoed back to us and a door groaned open at the end of the courtyard. An elderly, hunched woman wearing thick glasses and a distrustful frown appeared. She moved so slowly that I wondered how she’d reached the door so quickly, considering briefly that she may have been standing there waiting for us.

  “Mrs. DeVille,” he called out.

  She had been looking to her left but at the sound of his voice she swung her head toward the gate where we stood.

  “Well come in,” she spat. “Come in!”

  He pushed open the gate and allowed me to enter first so that I followed Mrs. DeVille inside the rather dusky, grungy room that housed her storefront.

  While the other shop had some semblance of organization, this one had absolutely none. Mrs. DeVille wiggled her fingers around the room by way of a brief tour. “Voodoo dolls, gris gris bags, beads, floor washes, oils, candles…” As she went on, I noticed propped in one corner a frightening wooden statue of a crouched man screaming. Directly above him was a beautifully decorated cross. Interspersed around the room and settled next to cabinets and rugged wooden tables were striking displays of elaborately decorated altars. While all of that seemed odd, they weren’t what stood out to me the most. Candles, spotted around the room, flickered despite the lack of a draft and chimes mounted to the walls and hanging from the ceiling jingled even though nothing visible was touching them.

  When Mrs. DeV
ille was finished, she headed for the back room summing up her tour with one final and unexpected warning. “Don’t play with anything! I know how you children are. Always wanting to touch and play. Not in this store. Not with my things. I have eyes out here and they’ll tell me if…” Her voice faded to a mutter as she left the room and we were alone again.

  Jameson caught my eye and we stifled a chuckle at the woman’s expense. Then we withdrew our lists and headed for the first item on it.

  A small sign denoted gris gris bags. Even though they were distributed around on various tables, the one beneath the sign had the largest abundance of them.

  Still, they didn’t intrigue me as much as Jameson’s comment outside the gate. “What exactly do you mean - you channel people?” I inquired, sliding up beside him.

  He shrugged. “Their abilities mostly.”

  “I’m still confused,” I admitted.

  “Right, I forgot you’re unfamiliar with all this…” He waved his hand across wall, motioning to the mystical items collected on it. “Everyone has a talent. My mother calls it their gift. Some people never cultivate it, some don’t even know they have it. But everyone’s born with it, that unique ability that sets you apart from the rest of the world. Mine isn’t so rare,” he admitted with a slight frown, “but it is powerful. I sense other’s abilities from the first time I meet them and, if I’m touching them, I can channel that ability to use as my own.”

  “I see,” I replied, holding back my laughter by picking up one of the bags on the table. “What are these used for?” I asked.

  “You don’t have to believe me, Jocelyn,” he stated, noticing my effort to hold back my disbelief. “Whether you do or not, you’ll start to witness it around you.”

  His lack of insistence made me second-guess my judgment of what he’d said. Typically, when someone is lying they are pushy, unrelenting. The fact that he didn’t care if I believed him told me that, even if I didn’t accept what he told me as truth, he firmly believed it himself. I figured he could believe whatever he wanted as long as it didn’t affect me.

  Nonetheless, it seemed he was finished with that revelation because he went on to enlighten me about something far less dramatic, the bold red gris gris bag I held in my hand. “They’re used for various purposes. Some are meant to beckon money, others peace, others success. Some are used for fertility.”

  I shot a look at him and he chuckled. “Not that one.” Then he cleared his throat to hold back a smile before adding, “That one is for love.”

  “Oh,” I muttered, uncomfortable under his gaze.

  Although I didn’t look in his direction, I knew his eyes lingered on me as I awkwardly returned the bag to the table. Then he burst into deep bellows of laughter.

  “Quiet out there,” barked Mrs. DeVille from the back room, coaxing another, softer, bout of laughter from him.

  “Are you teasing me?” I demanded in a lowered voice even as I broke into a smile.

  “Yes,” he said without the least bit of guilt. “You take it well.”

  A thought popped into my mind then, one I gave fleeting attention. Could he have been teasing me about the channeling? He seemed to pull off his joking with such grace that I could have missed his playful undertones. Something, intuition maybe, told me no. He had been sincere when describing his gift.

  Regardless, I didn’t know what to think and sighed in agitation at his playfulness.

  “Come on.” He grinned, turning toward the next item on our list. Along the way he grabbed two gris gris bags, keeping one for himself and handing me the other one.

  A bold red one.

  Stifling a grin and enjoying his unspoken flirtation, I met him at the table where he stopped next.

  “Voodoo dolls,” he stated.

  “They seem so innocent and safe,” I noted, evaluating them.

  “Until you know what they can do.”

  “Which is…?” They looked like a normal doll to me.

  His chest expanded with a deep inhale as if preparing for a lengthy explanation, but he summed it up a simple, candid remark. “Just about anything you want.”

  He shook then, as if a chill had run through him, swept up the nearest doll from the table, and moved on.

  “Last item on our list,” he announced, examining the display of candles on the shelves in front of him.

  Recalling having seen one elaborately designed somewhere toward the back wall, I spun around and sought it out. There, between an elk horn and a skull, sat a white candle sparkling despite the dim store light. Encrusted with jewels and intricate carvings deep in its wax cylinder, it took my breath away.

  Jameson came closer then. “It’s perfect for you.”

  I reached down and picked it up, lifting it overhead to better examine its radiance, paying no attention whatsoever to the bracelets that had slid down my arm to expose the metal one that my mother had given me.

  “It’s stunning, isn’t it?” I breathed.

  But he didn’t answer and that was when I felt the tension grow around us.

  Rotating my head toward him, I noted that his eyes weren’t on the candle. They were lower, settled directly on my wrist.

  For a moment, I faltered, wondering if he’d caught sight of my scar and how I was going to explain it to him.

  But it was my other wrist he’d locked his focus on, the one with my white metal bracelet.

  From his position, he could clearly see the stone embedded in it.

  Casually, I dropped my arms and placed the candle on the table, noticing that he didn’t blink or take his eyes off my bracelet once. It was as if he’d found danger lurking in the darkness and refused to turn from it.

  “It’s a gift from my mother,” I said, twisting my arm so that he could see it clearly, using my right arm to keep the bangles from sliding down over it again. “The stone is a-”

  “Crystal quartz,” he finished.

  “That’s right,” I replied as steady as I could, a little unnerved that he still hadn’t blinked or taken his focus off the stone. “Do you know it?”

  His eyes, which now focused on me like a laser, were filled with questions, and most of all apprehension. “What’s your last name, Jocelyn?” he asked stiffly, his relaxed manner completely erased now.

  “Weatherford.”

  His stare did not break for several seconds as he remained motionless, his breathing undetectable. He was working something out in his mind. I could see it in his eyes.

  “All right,” he said slowly, as if the words were a struggle to release. It seemed he was still in the midst of evaluating whatever it was that had caught him off guard.

  “Is everything-”

  “Yes, everything’s fine,” he said, gradually relaxing by the time he reached the front desk register.

  “That really is the right candle for you, Jocelyn.” He gave me a wavering smile before adding, “It’s beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, still on edge. Whatever it was about my bracelet had clearly unnerved him and I wasn’t about to let it go. “Is there something wrong with my bracelet?” I stepped up beside him, close enough that he stiffened back up again.

  “No,” he replied quietly. Then, as if it were an afterthought, he added, “Not with your bracelet.” Before I could ask exactly what the problem was – which I was certain he knew would come next – he ended the opportunity by calling toward the backroom door, “Mrs. DeVille? We’re ready.”

  She wobbled out to the front desk, once again as if she’d been propped directly on the opposite side of the door the entire time. I snuck a peek at Jameson and found he was smiling warmly at her, despite the sneer in her expression.

  “Thank you, Mrs. DeVille,” he said cordially after his transaction was complete and stepped aside for me. I noted the warmth had returned to his eyes and his lips were curled up in a soft smile, both directed at me. His welcoming attitude had returned, thankfully.

  Mrs. DeVille, on the other hand, addressed me entirely differ
ent.

  Her gaze darted to my head and then she grimaced. “Nice hat. Sixty-three dollars.”

  I ignored her and counted the money in my hand. Then I heard Jameson’s voice whisper near my ear. “It is a nice hat.”

  Jameson was back to his flattery, something that, despite having just met, I actually enjoyed. My time to bask in it, however, was short lived.

  “I was being facetious,” Mrs. DeVille muttered under her breath.

  “Mrs. DeVille,” Jameson retorted firmly. “I’ve known you for several years and I have no doubt that flattery is only found by accident in your irony.”

  She blinked at him, having found herself twisted by his use of words. In the quiet pause that followed, I took a moment to respond.

  “Thank you,” I said to him.

  “You’re welcome.” He grinned back. “Ready?”

  “Absolutely.” I slapped the cash on the counter and slid it toward her before turning, my head held high, and strolling out the door with Jameson directly behind me.

  Together we left the courtyard, sharing an exchange of expressions that meant we’d been slightly offended by Mrs. DeVille’s attitude but still managed to find the humor in it.

  “Mr. Thibodeaux is next. He’s nicer,” Jameson said understatedly, bringing on another bout of laughter.

  That was when I realized that I was actually enjoying myself, something I couldn’t possibly have expected having just arrived in a new city without any truly solid acquaintances.

  As if reading my thoughts, Jameson asked, after a brief glance at my metal bracelet, “So, Jocelyn Weatherford, when did you arrive in New Orleans?”

  “This morning,” I said expecting a reaction from him.

  I didn’t get one. He continued his slow stroll, nodding casually in thought.

  “Well, I knew it was recent,” he admitted.

  “Really? How?” Now I was more surprised than him.

  “We would have crossed paths earlier.”

  “It’s one of the largest port cities in the United States,” I chuckled. “How could you be so sure?”