Residue

by Laury Falter

  “Yes, that’s right,” he said, impressed. “It’s the only way to cast from one source to another, the only way to displace something.” He grinned and pointed out, “You’re getting to know us.”

  I scoffed, not having nearly as much confidence in that statement as he did and wishing once again that I’d given this world its due credence earlier.

  We reached the door and Jameson knocked lightly, then he did something completely unexpected. He slipped his hand into mine and squeezed. It was comforting and thrilling at the same time.

  The door opened to a woman well in to her nineties. She was frail and hunched with wiry arms and a pile of gray hair wound into a bun. Stones of all kinds hung around her neck and in bracelets on both arms. Her skin, which fit loosely around her bones, was tawny, indicating that she was Creole. But it was her eyes that struck me. Although they were framed with creases demonstrating her age, they were, above everything else, gentle.

  She didn’t appear to be a convict and definitely not one that posed a threat.

  “Isadora,” said Jameson kindly.

  She smiled at him, her eyes lighting up, and she moved aside to allow us in.

  The room, I found, was sparse. In the far corner stood a metal-framed bed with a bumpy mattress and thin blanket. In the center was a wooden table with four chairs around it. A wood-burning stove stood in the corner to our left alongside a built-in hutch where food was stored.

  Jameson set the bag on the table and immediately began putting the items away, knowing where each item was supposed to be stored without having to be told. He’d done this before, and often.

  “This is Jocelyn,” he said while stooping down to place canned food in the bottom drawer, but Isadora was already greeting me, in her own unique way.

  She’d shifted to stand directly in front of me, her back arched enough so that her eyes could meet mine. I stared down at her, a smile hovering lightly.

  “Jocelyn,” I said, extending my hand.

  She didn’t move, no breathes, no blinks, and I let my hand fall. Her steady focus remained on me, speculating, wondering, gazing into me.

  “She’s the healer,” Jameson said over his shoulder while unloading more supplies onto the table, having already determined that she was attempting to distinguish my ability. Clearly, Isadora had channeled at one point because she was applying those same techniques to me now. While her ability had been removed, she still remained observant, critical.

  But she shook her head, apparently disagreeing. Then, almost imperceptibly, her eyebrows rose as if she’d seen something that stood out to her.

  “Residue…” she breathed and then exhaled in a rush. Whatever that meant, it was shocking to her.

  Then she dropped her gaze to my left arm, where my mother’s bracelet lay. Her fingers, rough to the touch but gentle, came around my wrist and lifted it for a better view of the stone embedded in the metal.

  I hadn’t noticed that Jameson was now beside us, motionless, concentrating on our exchange, and then he spoke tenuously. “Yes…She’s a Weatherford.”

  Isadora remained quietly staring at my family stone for the next several seconds and then she released my arm.

  “We will need to hide that fact,” said Isadora evenly as she turned from me to hobble toward the hutch. It was the first time she’d spoken at length and I picked up the hint of an accent, one of French origins.

  “You’re right,” Jameson concluded. Then he saw my confusion and he explained, “Weatherford’s aren’t welcome here. They know your mother had a hand in…” he stopped himself. “They know she works for the ministry.”

  I nodded. “So we don’t have the best reputation?” I joked sarcastically.

  He smiled, and then reinforced the significance of our subject. “That would be putting it lightly.”

  Conceding, I said, “All right. How do we do it?” While I wasn’t concerned about the backlash, I didn’t want to make my patients feel worse than they already did.

  Isadora approached holding out a red bandana, which she wrapped around my wrist, effectively concealing my bracelet. In spite of her age and weakened condition, she did it deftly as if she were a surgeon at the operating table, and I wondered if she really was as feeble as she made herself appear.

  “That works,” I muttered, twisting my arm to ensure it was entirely covered.

  “Perfect,” said Jameson. Then his following statements made me realize that he and Isadora had already discussed my involvement prior to my arrival here, probably before Jameson even asked me. “Isadora will bring us to the homes of those who are sick. She’ll introduce you by first name only and then we can work on healing them.”

  “Good plan,” I replied realizing that he’d done everything he could to make sure this night would go smoothly.

  So, with this in the back of my mind, as we headed for Jameson’s boat, I reminded myself to take extra special care not to mention my last name or members of my family.

  Isadora directed us to a shack across the waterway from hers and Jameson glided us there. It appeared dark from a distance but as we grew closer there were faint shadows moving inside.

  We tied the boat and Jameson and I helped Isadora to the dock and then we headed for the door. It opened before we reached it.

  A man, balding but with a bit of facial hair, popped his head outside, looking for those he knew had stopped at his dock. When he recognized Jameson and Isadora, a smile stretched across his tanned, seasoned skin.

  “Come in,” he said affably.

  “These are the Duparts,” Jameson whispered quickly.

  “An entire family?” I replied hastily, keeping my voice low. “The ministry penalizes children, too?”

  Jameson gave me a silent response, the look of someone conveying they, too, entirely disapproved.

  When I’d first heard of the village I had wondered if the people I was going to help were victims or criminals.

  Now I knew they were both.

  The Duparts lived in a shack just as meager as Isadora but there was an additional bed, where a little girl lay. She was pale and curled into a ball but her eyes were open and consciously watching everything around her.

  Someone, who I assumed to be Mrs. Dupart, rushed to Isadora as we entered. “The healer? Did you bring him?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “Her,” Jameson corrected gently. “Jocelyn?”

  I stepped forward, getting the impression that the Duparts had been forewarned of our arrival but certain details had been excluded.

  I introduced myself and then they brought me to their daughter’s bedside. It turned out that she wasn’t just pale but a faint shade of greenish-gray.

  “It’s La Terreur,” said Mrs. Dupart, gently brushing strands of hair from her daughter’s damp forehead.

  I knew that word. It meant terror in French. But the illness, I’d never heard before.

  “What is La Terreur?” I asked.

  “That’s what they’re calling whatever it is working its way through the swamp,” explained Jameson. “It started a few weeks ago, just before you moved to Louisiana. Symptoms include weakness, labored breathing, and a change in your skin color. But the first sign of it comes as a scream that wakes you from your sleep.”

  A scream of terror, I thought, which is where it got its name.

  My eyes turned toward the little girl. She looked so frail, so vulnerable, undeserving of this thing that had infiltrated her body. I knelt down so that we were eye-level. “What’s your name?”

  “Marie,” she said and then a shudder hit her. Lips pinched, eyes clamped shut. It was evident that she was in pain.

  Unable to let it pass without doing something, I took hold of her hand and stated in a rush, “Incantatio sana.” I spoke the words before even feeling the force rise. For good measure, I said it again. “Incantatio sana.”

  Marie’s shudder did lessen but it didn’t end. Jameson had been right. It was harder to heal here.

  Instinctually, I reached
my free hand back and found his. Clutching it, I repeated my incantation. When it didn’t work, I repeated it again, my teeth grinding against each other, my breathing strained, my own forehead beginning to perspire as the force overwhelmed me.

  I was on the verge of insisting they call a doctor when Marie opened her eyes. And they were lucid, alert, alive.

  “Momma.” She chocked back a sob, pushing herself to a sitting position.

  Then the Duparts rushed forward to embrace their little girl.

  Between tears, darting glances at me and hurried thanks, we said our goodbyes to the Duparts and started for the next home in which my healing was needed.

  We visited fifteen more shacks and each of them had at least one person stricken with La Terreur. In some lived only a single person, too weak or unaware to answer their door. We entered anyway. By the time we left, they were revived, weak still but healed of the condition La Terreur left them in.

  Then we visited the last shack…

  Similar to the other ones, it had a dock, fishing equipment piled against the shack’s wall, and a chair propped against the wall with a fishing pole set across the arms. There were no lights and no music in this particular residence making it seem lonely, forgotten.

  Isadora, already sensing something was amiss, didn’t bother to knock. Even in the other dwellings where only one person lived there was some sign of life. There was none here.

  We entered a darkened room, only a light from across the waterway and through the trees left a shadow on the wall. It was just enough to see the body curled beneath the covers. A candle set on the ground below the person’s head had extinguished. In Isadora’s haste to light it, she rushed through an incantation and blew on the wick only to be reminded that her abilities didn’t work here. Releasing a quick sigh, she dug in her pocket for matches, lighting the candle quickly.

  Jameson and I were at the bed throughout her efforts to illuminate the room, but we were having difficulty wakening my next patient.

  “What’s his name, Isadora?” Jameson asked anxiously.

  The room flickered and then illuminated the man. Only his head could be seen, the covers having been pulled to his chin. His head was shaved and glistening with perspiration. Beads of sweat ran across his face as he lay on his side, leaving trails from his cheek and across the bridge of his nose. His color was the same as the others. Even through his swarthy skin, he appeared green.

  “His name, Isadora,” Jameson demanded.

  When she spoke, it was to the man. “Gustave…” she urged.

  He didn’t flinch, didn’t open his eyes. But he did draw a breath, albeit a shallow one.

  I didn’t see the point in delaying any longer so I took hold of his hand and Jameson’s simultaneously to conjure the force I was now intimately familiar with inside me.

  Suddenly Gustave’s body jolted.

  Taken aback, I almost released him but kept my grasp.

  “Incantatio sana,” I breathed, repeating it again and again, working my way through the barrier that the ministry, my mother had created. “Come on, Gustave!”

  Then he exhaled, raspy, extended, and I knew it would be his last one. And he then went still.

  Vaguely, I registered that I fell back, sitting on my folded legs, but I wouldn’t…I couldn’t release Gustave’s hand. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, apologize to him for failing, for not having gotten here sooner, for waiting too long before accepting my ability. But I couldn’t. All I could do was hold him.

  “It’s not your fault…” Jameson’s voice was in my ear, tender, coaxing. “This isn’t your fault, Jocelyn.”

  His arms came around me, pulling me from behind up against the shelter of his chest, his cheek coming over my shoulder to press against mine, the warmth of him surrounding me from the cold reality of what had just happened.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” he whispered. “You tried. We both tried…”

  It didn’t matter. The tears fell anyway.

  Jameson held me throughout it, pacifying me until my body stopped shaking and the sobs quieted. Only then did I open my eyes and what I saw wasn’t what I expected.

  Items around his home had risen a foot or more off the ground. A coffee can tilted slightly as it hovered over the table. Two pieces of firewood were suspended near the stove, knocking against each other in midair. The single chair he owned had lifted all four legs off the ground. The candle Isadora had lit hung over our heads, its flame disturbed by the breeze while it hovered unsteadily above.

  “Who here can levitate?” I asked under my breath, still keeping Jameson close. Something wasn’t quite right…

  Watching our reactions closely, Isadora replied, “Gustave.”

  I inhaled sharply and rotated back toward him, hoping desperately that he’d revived. But he laid as I’d left him, quiet, peaceful, lifeless.

  “Could he…Could it…I don’t understand,” I muttered, aggravated.

  “Me neither…” said Jameson examining Gustave from afar.

  It was Isadora who enlightened us. She hobbled closer and placed a hand on my shoulder, her French accent coming through as she spoke.

  “Jocelyn, Gustave is gone - and you have picked up his residue.”

  12 RESIDUE

  Residue.

  I’d heard this word used in commercials and by the cleaning staff at the academy. It had been in connection to soap scum and tire tread, so I didn’t particularly like the fact it was being applied to me now. Then I looked back at Gustave, who had died in front of me just moments earlier, and I realized how little a word describing me really meant.

  There was something far more important I needed to understand.

  If Isadora was correct, I now had the ability to levitate, which didn’t make sense. Vinnia had mentioned that there were only two capabilities in the witch world that could not be learned or acquired: healing and levitation. But I suddenly had both.

  Throughout the time I was considering all this, Gustave’s possessions that I’d unwittingly lifted had collapsed to the floor, the coffee can spilling ground beans across the wooden planks and wood chips shedding from the logs near the stove on impact.

  At that point, Jameson had jumped up and I’d thought at first that he was preparing to defend us. But I was wrong. He wasn’t concerned as much as excited.

  “She’s the one, isn’t she?” he asked, facing Isadora. When she didn’t answer, he prompted, “Isadora?”

  “The one?” I asked, pushing myself to a standing position. Jameson noticed and helped me up, reluctant to release my hand after I was on my feet again. That was just fine with me.

  He looked at me, eyes wide and bright, while explaining, “The earliest channelers recorded their writings, what they foresaw, in journals.” He paused to make a comparison to something I could relate to. “Much like Homer’s “Iliad and Odyssey,” except for the channelers’ passages were dedicated to the future. They were designed to give us an understanding of what to expect. One forethought mentioned a person born with the capability to possess all of our powers - healing, levitation, channeling, and control of the elements.”

  “Wait,” I muttered, waving my free hand in front of me, trying to slow down the information coming at me. “Can’t The Sevens already do all of those things? Levitate, heal…”

  He scoffed, shaking his head. “They’d like you to believe that…and have done a good job convincing a lot of people of it. But the truth is they’ve only learned to distribute their energy between each other. None of them was actually born with the capability to acquire residue. That’s why they’ve tried to destroy the belief in this one mythical person.”

  Still trying to piece it all together, I stopped him again to ask, “And what exactly is residue?”

  “It’s the energy left behind when someone passes on. Gustave, for example…” he waved his hand toward the man in the bed, noticed he was still uncovered and pulled the sheet over his head before continuing. “Gustave had the ability to le
vitate, something you weren’t able to do just a few minutes ago. When he died, when his soul left his body, you were holding his hand and his power passed on to you.”

  “So if I’m holding the hand of someone when they die, I acquire a bit of their power?” I asked, unsure whether to laugh in denial or grimace and accept the truth.

  “Yes, that’s how it’s done. The power is sent through touch in the same way that you heal through touch. At least that’s how the channelers wrote it would be done. I remember that because when Charlotte was little she’d try to visit funeral homes to hold the hands of the deceased and see if she could acquire their abilities.”

  That made Charlotte far more odd than I ever imagined.

  “And you think this person, the one able to acquire the residue, is me?” I asked dubiously.

  “Yes,” he replied, emphatically.

  I glanced at Isadora, who had been watching this exchange the entire time. More precisely, she’d been evaluating my reaction. When she witnessed my wavering, she shuffled forward, stopping directly in front of me.

  “When your father died, what were you doing?” she asked pointedly without any allusion toward compassion.

  I felt my body go numb, as it always did when his death was brought up. The story I’d heard only once from my mother on a flight from New York to Tahiti. She’d kept the details sparse and I didn’t push her after seeing her distress over the memory of it. What I did know was that my father had died while trying to protect me during an abduction.

  I swallowed once to clear my throat and then replied, “I was in his arms. He died holding me to his chest.”

  Whether in reaction or as a show of support, I felt Jameson’s hand squeeze mine.

  “And when Gustave died, what were you doing?” she persisted.

  This answer I spoke much quieter. “Holding his hand.”

  She waited for me to piece this together.

  “You’re saying that I picked up my ability to heal others from my father and I picked up the ability to levitate from Gustave?”

  Very slowly, she nodded confirmation.

  A silence fell over us then, Jameson breaking it a few long seconds later.