Conjure

by Lea Nolan

  He nods. “Yes, ma’am. It’s blistered and pretty painful.”

  She sighs and waves us up to the rickety porch. “Well, come on up here and show it to me. And be quick about it. I’m ninety-seven years old. I can’t stand here all day.”

  I’m shocked. I mean, it’s obvious she’s old, but I’d never guess that old. She seems way too full of spunk to have lived for almost a century. But then again, maybe it takes a lot of spunk to get that old.

  We follow the path to the house and bound onto the porch, which is probably a dumb move, seeing as the floorboards are likely to crumble under our feet. The woman settles into one of the old wooden rocking chairs and points her crooked finger toward the one next to her, directing Jack to sit.

  “Thanks so much for your help, ma’am.” He sits on the cracked seat and holds out his hand. Grateful that Jack knows how to be polite and drop his attitude when it’s important, I place my messenger bag on the porch and sit in the third chipped chair, while Cooper sits on the splintered floor next to me.

  She takes his hand in hers and slowly unwraps the bandage with her gnarled fingers. “So you’re Jack?” She squints up at him through a cloudy blue cataract in her right eye. Her veiny hand shakes as she unwinds the gauze, but it’s clear she’s done this a million times.

  “Yes, ma’am. Jack Guthrie. And this is my twin sister, Emma.”

  “Twins, eh? You don’t look alike. My name’s Cordelia Whittaker, but you can call me Miss Delia.”

  Cooper leans toward her, extending his hand. “And I’m Cooper Beaumont.”

  Ignoring Cooper’s gesture, she tenses and grips Jack’s hand instead. “Beaumont?” she asks, staring at Cooper. Jack whimpers, but she doesn’t seem to notice, focusing only on Cooper. “Beau is your farruh, your pa?”

  Cooper’s lips turn down. “Yes, ma’am. But we’re not very close.”

  She shakes her head and sucks her yellow front teeth. “No, I expect you’re not. At least not now. How old are you, son?”

  Cooper shoots me a quick sideways look, and I know he’s just as perplexed as I am about why the locals seem so interested in his age. “Fifteen. But only until the end of July.”

  Her mouth pulls down in a sorrowful frown, and she shakes her head. “So soon.”

  Cooper and I shrug in confusion.

  Miss Delia unfurls the last of the bandage. Maybe my eyes are playing a trick, but I swear the blisters are bigger than they were a half hour ago. “You say this is a burn?” She holds his fingers in the palm of her hand and gently spreads them apart.

  Jack winces. “Yes, ma’am. And it hurts a lot.”

  She traces a blister with the tip of her crooked index finger. “This isn’t like any burn I’ve ever seen.” She purses her lips. “This will need powerful medicine. You sure you don’t want to see a doctor in town? Most buckruh don’t like to mess with hoodoo medicine.”

  Cooper’s eyes expand. “You’re a root doctor?”

  She cackles. “Of course, boy, what did you think I was? You came to see a Grannie, didn’t you?”

  Cooper scratches his temple. “Ugh, I guess I didn’t give it much thought.”

  Jack snaps his head around to us. “What the heck is hoodoo medicine? Is it like voodoo?”

  Miss Delia drops his hand in her lap, making him yelp. “They are not the same. Hoodoo is for healing. It’s not my religion.”

  “But do you use spells and stuff?” He pulls his hand back and cradles it to his chest.

  She laughs and rocks in her chair. “When I need to. But that burn of yours doesn’t need any more magic than a few roots and plants. It’s up to you. Take what I’ve got, or get on out of here and find yourselves a doctor.”

  “No doctors.” Jack’s voice is firm. Miss Delia raises her brow at his insistence, but he smiles and turns on the charm. “Because then, you know, our dads will find out about the burn, and they’ll worry about me.”

  She smirks. “And you’ll have to tell them what you were doing when you got hurt in the first place.”

  Jack actually blushes and nods. “Plus my friend Maggie said you were the best, so I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

  She throws her head back and laughs. “Be careful, Jack. Sweetmouth me like that, and you don’t know where it could end up. I haven’t had a gentleman suitor in a long time.” She winks her milky eye at me and tries to push herself up out of the seat, but the strain is too much. “Give me a hand now, boys, and we’ll go inside and see what I can fix up for that hand of yours.”

  Cooper and Jack gently pull her out of the chair while I push open the front door. We follow her inside to the front room, a neat but sparsely furnished combination dining and living area. An old television with a big, fat dial runs in the background next to a slipcovered couch. The walls are tilted and cracked, but they seem sound.

  I drop my messenger bag next to the door and am hit by one of the most heavenly scents on earth—fatback and collard greens must be simmering somewhere on a stove. My mouth waters as I take a deep breath. I can almost taste that salty, vinegary goodness. I love southern food. It’s one of the best perks of visiting my dad in the summer. Aside from seeing Cooper, of course.

  Miss Delia reaches for a cane tucked next to the front door and slowly crosses the spring-green area rug on the way to a swinging door that leads to the kitchen at the back of the house. “Emma, could you give me a hand?”

  “Sure.” I follow her toward the collard greens while Cooper and Jack make themselves comfortable on the couch.

  My eyes pop. It’s a kitchen, all right. There’s an antique white porcelain stove, refrigerator, and sink, but there’s so much more. It’s got a wraparound butcher-block countertop, marred with at least a century’s worth of stains, gashes, and cuts, and a huge prep island in the middle that is just as worn. The walls are lined with shelves filled with earthen apothecary jars that look ancient, their glazes aged and cracked, each etched and painted with the name of an herb or spice. There are hundreds of them, some as common as salt and cinnamon, and others with weird labels like boneset, galax, kidney weed, and sassafras. But my favorite has to be sticklewort. What could you possibly do with something like that?

  “Normally I’d treat a burn with cow dung and spittle, but I doubt your brother would like that.” Miss Delia cackles as she washes her hands at the sink.

  “Too bad, because I’d love to see his face when you put those on him.” Although considering his recent behavior, maybe that’s exactly what she should use. But she seems too nice to go through with it.

  She dries her hand on a dishcloth. “Not to worry, I’ve got plenty of other remedies. We’re going to make us a poultice for those ugly blisters. Fetch me that pot from under the counter and put it on the stove.” She points her warped finger at a cast iron saucepan.

  I reach for the long, textured handle, but it’s so heavy, it takes two hands to lift, and crashes against the gas burner with a thud. She squints up at the jars with her good eye. “I’ll need the American senna, elderberry, and sweet gum bark. And don’t forget the balm of Gilead buds, either.” On tiptoe, I search the labels, then reach for each of the items she asked for and carefully place them on the center island. Meanwhile, she drags a small marble mortar and pestle across the counter.

  “I’ll need your help crushing these since I don’t have the strength.” She pulls a thick wad of wound cloth from a drawer. Humming to herself, she draws some water from the tap, pours it into the pot, and turns on the flame. Then she opens each jar and places some of their contents on the counter. Pursing her lips, she stares into the elderberry jar.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She sucks her front teeth. “It’s empty.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “It’s not good.” She shakes her head. “It’s the best medicine for boils.”

  “Do you want us to run to the store for some?”

  She laughs and replaces the lid. “Child, you can’t go to the store to pick up el
derberry leaves. You got to pick them in the wild. I suppose I could do without them, but he said that burn was getting worse. I wanted to brew the strongest medicine I could.”

  “What do they look like? I’m sure I can find some.”

  She pats my arm. “Bless your heart, but you’d probably get confused by the wild cherry. Their leaves are pretty similar.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Wild cherry’s a tree, and the other’s a shrub, right?”

  She cocks her head. “How do you know that?”

  I stare at the counter and mentally trace the shape of a deep brown scorch mark. “Um, well. I don’t have a ton of friends back home, so I spend a lot of time in the woods sketching.”

  I’m not sure why I feel so comfortable telling her the pathetic truth about my life, but I can’t hold back. At home, I’m generally recognized as the art freak with a bag of art supplies. With Jack busy playing soccer or baseball or working on the school paper, and Mom at work or with one of her boyfriends, most of my free time is spent at the Arboretum or the National Zoo, reconstructing their gardens in my sketchpad.

  Summer is my saving grace. When I’m with Cooper and Jack, I feel like I belong, like I’m part of a team. And even though we usually spend our time sailing Beau’s boat or fishing and swimming in the Sound, there’s plenty of time for drawing or painting—that is, when we’re not obsessing over an exploding treasure.

  But all that time in nature has its upside, too. Like being able to recognize the difference between a wild cherry tree and a shrub. I meet Miss Delia’s cloudy eye. “It’s amazing how much you notice if you take the time to look around.”

  A small smile bends her lips. “That’s true, child, that’s true. Well, go hunt down some elderberry leaves. They’ll be shaped like feathers with jagged edges, like a bread knife. It’s done flowering by now, so you might see the beginnings of some small, dark berries.”

  I’m pretty sure I know exactly what she’s talking about. “Hang on a sec.” I bolt from the kitchen and run to the door to grab my bag.

  Cooper and Jack turn from the grainy TV screen. “Everything okay?” Cooper asks, his brow furrowed. His eyes are so sweet and full of concern that I stare for a second and get lost in their bright blue beauty.

  Jack’s voice breaks through my Cooper-induced fog. “Aren’t you supposed to be in there helping?”

  Ignoring the impulse to smack him, I reach into the bag for a small sketchpad. “Everything’s fine.” I try not to blush and turn to Jack. “You can thank me later after I help fix your stupid hand.”

  I jog back to the kitchen and place the book on the counter. Flipping through the pages, I search for one of the sketches I did on Hunting Island. “Here, this is what you’re talking about, right?” I turn the book around for Miss Delia to see.

  She bends down and peers over the sketch with her good eye. “That’s it.” She grins. “Find one and tote back some leaves.”

  I bolt out of the kitchen, passing Cooper and Jack again, and out the front door into the thick woods that surround her house. A few hundred yards in, past some scattered tupelo, mimosa, and wisteria trees, I find the bush. Miss Delia’s right, the berries are a dead giveaway. I strip a handful of serrated leaves from the branches.

  My scalp tingles. Someone’s watching me.

  I whip around, but no one’s there.

  Silence, deep and penetrating, fills the woods. Even the birds have stopped chirping. I don’t see anyone, but I swear, someone’s eyes are on me.

  My eyes skitter from tree to bush, making sure no one has slipped behind one of them. An eternal minute passes. Still nothing.

  I sigh, sure I’m losing my mind. First I freaked out about a deer last night, and now, for all I know, I’m doing it again over a chipmunk. Feeling dumb, I turn back to the elderberry and strip another branch of its leaves.

  A foul odor wafts through the air. Chemical and squalid, it’s like rotten eggs and burnt plastic mixed with decay.

  I’ve smelled this before—at the ruins after Jack opened the box and got burned.

  My spine stiffens. Maybe it’s not a chipmunk, after all. Gulping hard, I try not to inhale while shifting my gaze from side to side, peering for its source.

  A loud crack, like the snap of a dead tree limb, booms behind me. That was definitely not a chipmunk. Adrenaline surges. Without bothering to look back, I spin on my heels and race through the woods, careening around shrubs and trees and leaping over roots, shooting toward Miss Delia’s.

  My chest heaves as I charge up her porch steps. Nothing followed me back. I’m safe.

  Then, as I’m congratulating myself for evading the unseen evil, it suddenly dawns on me that a much more likely explanation exists: I was in the forest, where lots of wildlife lives and dies, and that smell probably emanated off the rotting corpse of some unfortunate beast. And the thing that sounded like a dead tree limb was probably just that—a branch that broke off a tree and crashed to the ground.

  I’ve got to stop doing this to myself. I’m going to have a stroke.

  Shaking off my wacky paranoia, I calm my breath and head back in. Miss Delia’s bark chips have boiled down to a soft, mushy lump, and the kitchen smells way more earthy than it did before. She’s got the rest of the ingredients lined up, ready for me to crush in the mortar before she tosses them into the gently boiling water. While the buds and leaves cook down, she asks me to grab a crock of lard from the old refrigerator and place it on the counter.

  I gag a little as she digs a butter knife deep into the congealed white substance and plops a thick glob onto the cotton strip.

  Her hand quivers as she drags the knife across the grease, trying to smooth it out. But her hand and the knife refuse to cooperate. Shaking her head, she slips the smooth metal handle into my fingers and steps aside so I can spread the lard across the cloth.

  A chill hangs in the air as we wait for the mush to cook down and cool, which is weird because Miss Delia doesn’t have air conditioning. But maybe it’s a natural consequence of the huge live oak that dwarfs her house. Miss Delia doesn’t seem to notice the change in temperature as she busies herself flipping through my sketchbook. She practically knows everything about each of the plants I’ve drawn—their names, where they grow, when they bloom, what parts are poisonous, and what can be used for medicine.

  “I can’t believe you know all this stuff.” I jot notes next to each plant.

  She laughs. “Child, I’ve had ninety-seven years to learn.”

  “Yeah, but who taught you? You couldn’t have learned it on your own.”

  “My maamy taught me. And she learned from my gran, who learned from my great-gran. This is old medicine passed on from mother to daughter.” She looks off, out the kitchen window onto the enormous herb garden.

  “Did you teach it to anyone?”

  She turns back to me and smiles, but it seems sad and empty. “Oh, I taught my daughter and even my own granddaughter, but they moved off Sa’leenuh a long time ago to work in the north. They don’t use hoodoo anymore, ever since my granddaughter became a doctor in Chicago and decided it’s bad medicine.” She shakes her head and eases herself off the stool.

  I frown as I watch her check the temperature of the mush. Her regret is almost another scent in the room.

  When the mixture is cool enough, we spoon it on the lard. I help her spread it over the cloth, and she calls Jack into the kitchen. “Lay your hand here.”

  Jack gulps. “What is that stuff?” He grimaces at the mushy brown layer of cooked bark, leaves, and balm of Gilead buds.

  She raises one eyebrow. “It’s what you came for, boy. Now put your hand on the poultice.” For once, Jack does as he’s told. She wraps the strip snug around his hand.

  His shoulders release, and the creases in his forehead smooth. “Wow, that feels good.”

  She laughs. “Of course it does.”

  He stares at his re-wrapped hand. “No, really, this stuff is so cool and mushy, the burning’s completely g
one. I guess I didn’t realize how hot my hand has been.”

  She shrugs her thin shoulders. “It’s the strangest burn I’ve ever seen, but I gave you an extra strong mixture just in case.” She puts some lard and what’s left of the mush in a small glass jar and hands it to me, along with another cotton strip. “Change his dressing tonight. It should be a whole mess better in the morning.”

  We walk her to the front door, where Jack and Cooper each slip her a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Thanks, Miss Delia.” Jack’s happier than I’ve seen him in days. Now maybe his attitude will improve, too. He stares at his hand with amazement. “Maggie was right. You’re a lifesaver.”

  She pats his shoulder with a liver-spotted hand. “I wouldn’t go that far, but you’re welcome.” She watches as we make our way down the porch and through her herb garden. “Take care of yourselves, and don’t get into any more trouble!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Emma, wake up!” Jack looms over my bed and shakes my arm.

  “Huh?” My eyes are fuzzy, and my brain is clouded from sleep.

  “Emma, I need your help. You’ve got to get up.” Jack’s face comes into sharper focus. His skin is drawn, and his brow is etched with deep lines.

  I rub the sleep from the corners of my eyes, relieved to see that at least the sun is up, and he didn’t wake me in the middle of the night. “What’s going on? Is it Dad?”

  “No, he’s fine. He already left for Charleston looking for Missy’s stupid weather vane part. My hand. It’s gotten worse.”

  I yawn. “How’s that possible? Miss Delia said it would be better.”

  “I don’t know what that quack did to me, but see for yourself.” He thrusts his palm into my face.

  “Ah!” I wince and scramble to sit up, totally awake now. His fingers are red and swollen like uncooked Italian sausages, too engorged to bend. And the blisters have grown, stretched into huge, pus-filled boils that literally throb with his pulse. But the rest of his hand is normal—toned and muscular—and strangely unaffected by his engorged fingers.

  “That’s totally gross. Does it hurt?” I gingerly tap his index finger. Suddenly I get a whiff of something I can’t quite place, but it reminds me of vinegar, or maybe something I’ve smelled in Dad’s workshop.