by Eli Easton
Something scaly slithered along my leg in a caress.
I screamed and thrashed my limbs, trying to scare off the creature, and then I swam for shore again, huffing with fear. Adrenaline coursed through me, giving me a burst of power. And still, no matter how frantically I swam, the shore receded.
I was going to die.
The thing touched my foot and then curled around my leg. Tentacle? Snake? It felt rough as sand, pulling at the hairs on my leg as it slid upward. By now I was too exhausted to fight it. I could only tread the water and wait in terror for whatever it would do to me. I was in its environment, and I’d never felt so helpless.
The thing coiled up my leg. It seemed to grow in diameter, getting rounder and fatter, as if preparing itself for attack. It reached my groin and slid between my legs, causing chills that were equal parts erotic response, horror, and dread. It took a turn at my lower back and curved around my waist.
And still, the thing trailed off my foot. Dear Lord, how huge it was—how monstrous! My arms tread fitfully as I peered down into the water, trying to see it, my fear all-consuming and my heart crashing in my chest.
And then I did see it—a snake’s head, large as a grapefruit, eyes red, skin so bright green it shone like emeralds in the water. It reared back, opening its mouth to expose a pure white interior and razor-sharp teeth and—
I screamed! The snake struck me on my left breast. Its long incisors buried themselves deep in my flesh, and I could swear I felt them pierce my heart. It drew in, sucking the blood from the chambers of that organ, sucking out my soul!
“MISSAH COLIN!”
Philip woke me in my bed, where I had been thrashing and screaming. The sheets were soaked with water, clammy against me as I sat up, trying to reconnect to the bedroom, to the real world.
“You have beaucoup nightmare, Missah Colin,” Philip said worriedly. “Is you all right?”
Was I? My chest burned. I opened my nightshirt, ripping it in my haste, and stared at the bare skin of my chest. It was unmarked. “I—” I blinked up at Philip, striving to calm my breath. “I need a drink.”
Philip shook his head in that “these people are crazy” way of his, but he said, “I go fetch it.” And he left.
I sat all the way up and swung my feet from the bed. The planks of the floor felt solid and good under my feet. I pushed aside the mosquito netting and walked to the veranda. It was still dark, the middle of the night, but I had no interest in going back to bed or, indeed, of ever sleeping again.
What a horrible dream!
Philip brought me a glass of scotch, and I thanked him and sent him to bed. Then I put on my robe and went to the study. I would write to Richard, tell him about my nightmare, about Tiyah’s warning that I would see Erzulie in my dreams, and about my confounded imagination. I was more gullible than I’d thought, and I was not pleased about it. But even the idea of writing to Richard steadied my nerves. It would put things in their proper perspective and remind me of who I was.
I was Colin Hastings, third son of the Earl of Huntington, graduate of Eton and Cambridge, engaged to Miss Elizabeth Simons.
I rubbed my hand over my chest and tried to hold on to that.
~4~
TIYAH CAME to me the next day after I dismissed the laborers from their work. It was late afternoon, and the sun was like a fat egg yolk sitting on top of the tall, sickeningly green palm trees. We’d cleared another field that Tuttle had allowed to go fallow, and I was staring over the land, thinking about how best to measure out for the young banana tree saplings I’d purchased. I felt a chill, then realized Tiyah was standing by my side.
I only just managed not to startle. Her attitude was subservient, with her eyes lowered, but nevertheless I felt a twinge of the fear I’d had in the nightmare. I pushed it away with determination. I absolutely refused to fear Tiyah.
“What can I do for you?” I asked coolly.
“Tis what I can do for you.” She raised her eyes. Her face had an expression somewhere between smugness and satisfaction, as if she knew something I did not.
“Yes?”
“Missah Hastings, Erzulie tell me de gift she offer you for saving Lily. Tis a very special ting, a great honor.”
“Yes?” I asked, as if it meant nothing to me, but I could not help swallowing convulsively.
“She offer you a life of passion, Missah. De desire of your heart, dis she give to you.”
“What?” A stupid little laugh escaped me. I could feel my face burning.
Tiyah spoke with disgust. “I see de English marrieds. Man and wife like two cold fish. He spark quick only to make baby. And she not at all. Dis no life, Missah.”
My face had no idea what to do with itself. I had no doubt it was frozen in some ghastly rictus. I could not believe this woman stood there and spoke to me of such private matters. “Er, I-I don’t think—”
“No! Do not insult her, Missah. You tink well on it. Your heart’s desire. Love. Great passion! Dis what Erzulie offer you. I know many who would kill for de same, but Erzulie, she offer it to you.”
I shut my mouth and thought about it.
The nightmare had been so real, the feeling of the snake between my legs, the way it had bit into my chest, as if sucking out my heart’s blood.
I stared at Tiyah. “My heart’s desire?”
“Yes.”
“H-how does Erzulie know what my heart desires?”
“She taste it. Do you not remember?” Tiyah tapped my chest.
There was something sly in her face, like she knew damn well about the nightmare. Had Philip mentioned it? I wouldn’t put it past the servants to gossip over my night terrors. But then it occurred to me that I’d never mentioned the snake biting my heart to Philip or to anyone else. And when Tiyah had put the idea in my mind, that Erzulie might come to my dreams, she’d never said anything about my heart either. So how had she planted that particular suggestion in my mind? How could she possibly know?
“Tink on it, Missah. Tomorrow you answer. We must make de ritual dis Saturday when Erzulie’s power is full with de moon. Den or not at all.”
With that solemn warning, Tiyah strode away.
GOOD GOD. I thought about it.
This is the power of suggestion. Some part of my internal compass had spun off True North and down into the darkness. I didn’t believe Erzulie had come into my dreams and tasted the secrets of my heart. But I didn’t not believe it either.
I wished Richard were here so I could talk to him. I knew him so well that I often could hear his voice in my head even when he wasn’t there. But on this, my Richard was uncharacteristically silent.
Would he say, “What a lark! You must do this, old man, if only in the name of science! Think of the experience, seeing one of their rituals firsthand!” Or would he say, “Oh, Colin—stay far, far away! You’re too easily led, my friend. This is dangerous.” I could equally imagine Richard saying either, which was no help at all. As for my neighbors, the Pivots, I knew saintly Lester would advise me most strongly to steer clear of such “devil worship.” And Major Pivot, poor fellow, lived in a world of his own and would be of no use at all.
What if Tiyah could really do what she said? What fool, when offered one chance to rub the genie’s lamp, refused? I was not that man. No, I was a different grade of fool altogether.
Tiyah was not wrong in her assessment of the English. I’d never seen my parents touch, not in my twenty years of life. There was no affectionate kiss on the cheek, as I’d seen the post master give his plump wife. There was no brush of a hand across the shoulders while passing, no warm look with promises for later.
I thought about Elizabeth, my darling girl. She was everything a man could want in a wife—cheerful, kind, beautiful, graceful, accomplished on the piano, and with a lovely singing voice. I was lucky to have found such an agreeable bride who also came with a dowry. Her family’s home, Robin’s End, was not palatial, but it was quite a tidy little estate, comfortable enough, and it
would pass to me as Elizabeth’s husband. As an Earl’s third son, I’d inherit no property or title of my own, only a modest allowance. Elizabeth was my salvation in more ways than one.
I loved the girl. I did. I was thrilled when she accepted my proposal and admitted she loved me too. But passion? “Passionate” had never been a word I would use to describe our union.
I’d kissed Elizabeth three times, and I could recall each distinctly. There’d been novelty in the act, and fealty, and a desire to bind her to me. But it had not particularly stirred my blood. Then again, she was young, only seventeen, a sweet, innocent girl. It wouldn’t have been right to force myself on her, to play gross with her goodness.
But what if it was never there? What if Elizabeth and I ended up exactly like my mother and father? What if Elizabeth merely tolerated my attentions in bed? Lifted up the hem of a voluminous nightdress and turned her head away? Could I bear such an act?
I’d only been with one woman, at a house of prostitution the Cambridge fellows frequented. Richard and I had gone together for our first time, and afterward we’d agreed the experience had been over too quickly and was horribly underwhelming. We’d both decided we would rather wait for wives of our own. It was yet one more way in which Richard and I were in complete sympathy. But what if, after waiting for a wife, my bed with Elizabeth was cold?
And what if Tiyah could change that?
I drank scotch and paced in the sitting room. It was still so bloody hot, and the open windows and doors scared up but a ghost of a breeze. In the distance the drums had started again, damn agitating things. They made me feel restless in my own skin.
I’d been in Jamaica long enough to see things. I’d seen men and women pair up and walk off at the end of a work day, their shoulders touching, their eyes full of sin. I’d seen husbands grab their wives for a deep kiss, hands groping on the globes of the woman’s behind. One night, when I couldn’t sleep, I went to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk. I’d heard loud moans and the slam of a bed on the wall from the direction of Sally’s room. Philip, I knew, courted her, though they were not married. I’d said nothing, too embarrassed to bring it up with him.
My blood stirred thinking these thoughts, my groin tightening. Passion. It was like a miasma here in Jamaica. They were bloody shameless about it.
What if Tiyah’s gift could give me that? Make Elizabeth full of passion for me, and me for her? Could we be proper Englishfolk in the day and wild savages at night? Would I even want such a thing?
Yes, by God. I wanted it very bloody much. I wanted love, and lust, and passion, tangled bodies and sweaty sheets, at least once in my lifetime. Sometimes my very clothes seemed to choke me, as if the binding threads of civilization strangled the man in me, the flesh-and-blood man. I’d denied my urges for so long, pushing carnal thoughts down or stroking myself guiltily when I could no longer bear it.
I wanted to let myself feel it all, to touch and be touched. I wanted to breathe. I had to be insane for thinking Tiyah could give me that. Then again, this was a strange land, and strange things were possible, were they not?
My mind made up, I wrote a quick letter to Richard, telling him what I was going to do. He would sweat blood waiting for my next missive, telling him what had transpired.
I could hardly wait myself.
~5~
I PREPARED myself for the ritual as best I could. I’d asked Philip what he knew about such things, and he denied adamantly that he’d ever been to an Obeah ceremony—and then proceeded to tell me in detail what he’d “heard” happened there.
I could expect blood sacrifices, apparently. Chickens and maybe a goat. I could expect dancing and drums. If we were “blessed,” one or more of the Obeah men or women would be ridden by a loa, an Obeah spirit. This is apparently akin to having one’s body possessed by another’s will. No matter how frightened I might be, I must take care not to offend such deities, Philip insisted.
I remembered what Tiyah had said about Erzulie “riding” her when Lily was conceived. It was all so… sordid and yet unbearably interesting. I decided I was going to attend the ritual being “ridden” by Dr. Hodgets. How Richard would smile at that notion! But I was going to try to see thing through my old professor’s eyes, wearing my “little scientist” hat, and observe to the best of my ability so I could later write it all down for posterity, perhaps eventually publish it with one of the learned societies.
In any case, it was a good excuse to attend the ritual without feeling like a gullible fool. I did not fear for my safety. Although I was white, and therefore held with an impenetrable disdain and aloofness by the natives, I had not been a bad overseer, I thought, and I had saved Lily. These people had no reason to do me harm.
Then again, once in a wild frenzy, who could say what might happen? I considered hiding a gun on my person, but the smallest I had was still too large to tuck into one’s pocket, and I didn’t want to insult Tiyah by coming armed.
I took hold of my courage. I’d go as a man of science, not a soldier.
TIYAH CAME for me herself, dressed all in white—a full long skirt, a loose blouse, and a white cloth twisted and tied around her head. She said nothing and put her hands to her lips to urge me to do the same. She led me from the house and into the woods on a path I’d never noticed before.
I tried to remember the way so that I could retrace my steps later, in the daylight, but we walked for a long time, with sudden turns that had no discernible markers that I could see. I had the feeling I was being led in circles purposefully to confuse me. And it was dark. The night was lit only by a full moon, and we carried no light with us. The sound of drums grew louder and softer in turn until my head was spinning. There was also a cloying smell, like the smoke of some herb, that wafted through the night. It made my throat burn when I got a strong scent of it. It started to make me feel dizzy.
By the time we reached a clearing, I was no longer scared or even anxious. I felt as though I was in a dream. I was there, but I was detached from it too, a sensation I welcomed wholeheartedly.
There was quite a crowd gathered—at least fifty in the clearing itself and more in the shadows beyond the firelight. The clearing was brightly lit after the dark of the woods, and warm from the heat of a large bonfire. In the center was a pole, about ten feet tall, with carvings and paint covering it in a primitive design. The drums were loud enough here to reverberate in my bones, and it was strange to see the drummers when for so many months I’d only heard the sound from a distance. There were three of them, young native men pounding on African-style drums. They were so lost in the rhythm they were like extensions of the drums themselves.
The crowd parted for us, and I stumbled after Tiyah, blinking rapidly at the brightness of the fire and the stare of dozens of eyes. I felt I should speak, but I had nothing to say. I wished for escape, but I could not very well back out now.
We reached the center pole, and Tiyah turned to face me. She reached out her hands, staring at me all the while, and on either side of me, a man stepped forward. One of them had a goat, bound and struggling weakly in his arms, the other a small pig. Both men slashed the throats of their prey. The dying animals cried in terror and tried to get free—too late. Their blood splashed on Tiyah, on her bronze arms and white clothes and even on her face. She stared at me with a strange toothy grin. I tried to take a step back, disgusted by the sight, but there were people right behind me and they grabbed my arms and held me firm.
Tiyah began chanting to Erzulie, her patois thick and beyond my ability to comprehend. I felt a moment’s panic at having my arms held down, like the pig and goat had been held down, but I forced myself not to fight it. It’s not like I could leave anyway, not without pushing my way through the crowd like a gutless fool. And once again the sound of the drums and the cloying scent worked to relax me.
I’d seen the sacrifice, I told myself. And really, it was nothing I could not have seen at any butcher shop in England. If that was the worst of it, I would
be fine.
That was when Tiyah’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her chin came down and her head cocked coyly, regarding me the way a crow might regard a crumb. The very features of her face grew sharper, her nostrils flaring harshly, her lip curling in a caricature of a smile. With only the whites of her eyes showing and her face splattered with fresh blood, it was a dreadful effect.
“Please—” I had no idea what to say.
Tiyah—or possibly Erzulie or some other spirit—stepped toward me. She ran her hands over my body, from the crown of my head to my shoulders and down my arms, then up the underside and down past my ribs, waist, and hips, muttering to herself all the while. She continued down each leg to my ankles and then moved up the inside. The touch was firm and impersonal, like that of a tailor. I blinked but didn’t move, well-trained little Englishman that I was. It was only when she went farther than any tailor ever dared and squeezed my privates in her hand, as if testing the weight of them, that I came to my senses and stepped back with a gasp.
Tiyah laughed. She spoke in French, which I’d become modestly competent at in school.
“You do not like when I touch this part of you? But all men like it. Such a pretty face, but you deny your own manhood.”
Even as fuzzy as my head was, I was aware that I did not want to have such things discussed in front of a crowd of people who worked for me. I could only hope most of them did not speak French. The concern forced me to try to get my head together.
I stiffened my spine and spoke firmly. “You asked me to come here to offer me something for saving Lily’s life. You owe me nothing for that. I was happy to help her. But if you would give me something, I will accept it with thanks.”
I thus hoped to hurry things along and forestall any long discussion of passion, or lack thereof. I was beginning to wish I had never agreed to this, as interesting as the ceremony was. I had to get through it with my dignity—and authority—intact.