Red house, p.7
Red House, page 7
We lay tangled together, his arms tight around me. He rolled me on my back, his hands caressing in all the right places.
“I love your skin.” The pads of his fingers coasted across my abdomen, inching upward. “The feel of it.” His lips followed the path of his fingers. “The dreams were good but nothing compares to this.”
All the languid warmth of afterglow snuffed out in a wave of cold suspicion. Pushing him away, I sat up and pulled a sheet to cover my nakedness. “What did that mean?”
Hesitation gave him away. “Just …I dreamed about you.”
I drew in a ragged breath. “You’ve mentioned dreams before.”
“Sweetness, don’t be like this.” He reached for me.
I slapped his hand away. “What? What is it? You damn well better tell me the truth!”
A flash of anger crossed his face. He flung himself from the bed, stalking into the bathroom and coming back wearing his pants.
“Blake, you need to talk to me.” A nauseous panic made my voice sound strangled and small.
“Okay.” Standing at the foot of the bed, staring down at me. The domineering presence that had turned me on just moments before now made me feel intimidated and I hated that. I didn’t want to let myself be intimidated by any man, but especially not this one.
“What do you know about astral projection?”
My stomach heaved. “You’ve been forcing your way into my dreams?” I couldn’t keep the tremble out of my voice, and that made me almost as angry at myself as I was at him.
“No, it doesn’t work like that. I would never be able to enter your dreams if you didn’t want me there.”
“So, when did you ask me if I wanted you wandering around in my dreams? I think I’d remember telling you no.”
“Okay, no. I never actually asked, but I never hurt you.”
“You’re not getting off the hook with semantics, you son of a bitch!” Unable to stand the sight of him anymore right now, I needed to leave. I had to get out of the room before I started crying. “You know what you did was wrong.” I scrambled past him into the bathroom, throwing on my clothes as fast as I could.
He did know he was wrong. The realization he had well and truly fucked up was written all over his face. “I just wanted to be with you, Roxie. I missed you so much. I never meant for it to keep happening but it was so good to be with you.”
Tears obscuring my vision, I bolted for the door with my boots dangling from one hand.
“Don't do this. Let’s talk about this.” Grabbing my arm where it had been cut by glass the day before, he tried to pull me away from the door.
Searing pain made me gasp in shock. “You’re hurting me.”
Blake released my arm, jumping as if scalded. “Baby, please!”
I fled, not caring I was barefoot, ignoring the hard stares from a couple walking down the hall. The elevator dinged. Jogging to reach it, I dodged an older man exiting and hit the button for the parking garage. I took my glasses off long enough to wipe my eyes. Crying didn’t bother me. I had cried over the loss of my house. Every year on Rozella’s birthday I raised a toast in her honor, told stories about her, and had a good cry over missing her. I had even been known to cry over fictional characters. I would be damned if I cried over Blake Harvill.
Chapter 7
I parked at the curb in front of Lorraine’s apartment. A blast of crunk greeted me as I stepped out of the vehicle. Lorraine’s grandson left a group of teenage boys playing ball in the street and jogged over.
“Hey, Roxie.” He gave me a fist bump and a half hug.
“Hey, Marcus, how’s it going?” He’d had his hair worked into short braids since my last visit.
He let me know Lorraine was still with a client so we chatted for a few minutes. The housing project where they lived wasn’t the worst but it wasn’t the best either. If I’d been going anywhere else in this neighborhood, Daniel would not have been happy with me leaving his SUV parked and unattended. As a visitor to Lorraine Thibodaux, that vehicle was safe as Fort Knox. People gave her a respectful and sometimes fearful berth. Some residents may have used her services but there were others, like the old woman across the street, who gave Lorraine and anyone who had anything to do with her a baleful eye. It couldn’t be easy for Marcus but he loved his grandmother. The two of them were on their own.
“There’s a CD for you on the kitchen table,” he said.
“Whatcha got for me this time?”
He composed his features as if preparing to read off a wine list. “A pleasing mix of Lil’ Jon, Triple Six Mafia, and Waka Flocka.”
“Waka Flocka?” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t know, I think that’s a little hard for me. Got any Lupe Fiasco you haven’t shared yet?”
“Ah, you and the pretty boys. I bet you’d put his poster on your bedroom wall.”
“If you give me a poster of Lupe Fiasco, I will put it on my bedroom wall. I need something to replace those album covers.”
Marcus laughed without humor. “All right, all right.” He knew all about losing everything you owned to the fury of water. “You bring me some more blues?”
I nodded, indicating my backpack. “Buddy Guy and T-Model Ford.”
“As long as that cousin of yours didn’t slip in some of that cornpone he likes.”
“What, you didn’t like the Kenny Rogers?” I started singing The Gambler, much to his amusement.
“Please stop,” he said, laughing. “Don’t sing, Roxie, please don’t sing.”
The screen door of Lorraine’s apartment flew open, an angry woman stalking out. “He better stay this time,” she yelled over her shoulder. “You just better do your thing right this time!”
Our laughter died as she passed us, giving Marcus a hard eye and me an outright sneer. Rozella had to deal with people like that too. People didn’t understand magic was far more complicated than snapping fingers and wishing for something. Spellcasting for clientele could get complicated, which was one reason I preferred evicting ghosts. There wasn’t enough money in the world to get me to do love spells anymore.
“Think it’s safe to go on in?”
Marcus snorted. “That woman’s all talk, Granny can handle her easy.” Adjusting his wife beater, he pretended to check me out. “You know, I’ll be legal next year.”
Raising an eyebrow and pretending to check him out in turn, I said, “I’ll be sure and get you a card.”
He shook a finger. “If you weren’t my granny’s friend I’d tell you what you could give me for my birthday.”
Feigning shock, I winked as I started for the door.
The apartment smelled of candles and apple pie. TV trays were set up in various locations, serving as altars for ongoing spells. Lorraine stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen, a remote control in one hand, shaking her head. “I missed the last few minutes of Days because of that fool.”
“She seemed like a handful.”
She clicked off the TV and tossed the remote into the recliner. Indicating for me to follow, she entered the kitchen and opened the oven. I’d guessed right about the apple pie smell, she had one baking. Taking a seat at the table, I opened my backpack and fished out the CDs for Marcus.
“Some people just don’t understand. Just because you want to be with someone, just because you do everything you think you’re supposed to do, it doesn’t mean they have to want to be with you.” She brought glasses of iced tea to the table and sat.
“Rozella used to tell me there was only so much magic could do up against free will.”
“She was right. But you can’t tell that to someone like that girl.” She waved dismissively. “She don’t want to understand, my spells may be strong but his need to put his dick in anything that’ll have it is stronger.”
I grimaced, silently reaffirming my vow to never perform love spells. Drawing a plastic container from my backpack, I held it up so she could see it. “Why don’t you let me make you some coffee, Miss Lorraine.”
“Mmm.” She eyed the container. “Is that some of that chi-chi free trade organic stuff your cousin likes?”
“Sure is.”
I made coffee and we talked shop. We went into a back room for a few minutes to retrieve some supplies I needed to buy from her. The small space was full of little altars set up for workings, several candles burning for spells. Restocked with some necessary herbs and roots and fortified with a robust Kona blend, we sat at her kitchen table and got down to business.
“Have you noticed spirits doing strange things since the flood? Showing up in places other than their usual, ah, haunts? The Carnton general showed up at another house.”
Lorraine slapped her hand on the table, rings clanging on the surface. “That flood stirred up everything out there. I’ve never seen it this bad before but I’ve heard tell of it.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I got Marcus and myself on a bus out of New Orleans as fast I could. No way was I going to take that child and hole up in the Superdome or some place just as bad. We got out. It was weeks before we were settled enough I could start looking for people, trying to find out how bad the house was.”
“Was there any of it left?”
Lorraine shook her head, a tightness around her eyes I could identify with. “The foundation, that’s about all.” She paused for a moment. I wished I hadn’t asked about the house, thinking of my own home that would have to be demolished soon. She continued. “I didn’t see any of this with my own eyes, you understand. But I do trust the people I talked to. It can do enough damage when a person conjures up a great deal of energy, not that a single person can do as much as a storm like that. When that much natural energy is unleashed–” She shook her head. “We’re talking about something mighty powerful, chere. Look what chaos it created in our lives.”
“So just like Katrina and the flood here created chaos in our lives, the storms created chaos on the spiritual plane too? That’s what you’re saying?” It was a theory I’d been working my way toward for a while now but I’d wanted to talk to someone with more experience.
“Spirits get lost, ghosts haunting the wrong place. When that happens it can make even a benevolent ghost crazy. They don’t understand. They don’t know how to get home. New Orleans was bad for months. Neighborhoods with no people still living there. At night they say you could walk down the street and hear the spirits moan. Things that make snakes and alligators coming up out of the swamp look like child’s play. Something like that happens, it’s a hell of a lot of energy unleashed all at once. Creating havoc, putting people out of their homes, causing all kinds of damage. Not just to us, Roxie.” She fixed me with a deliberate stare. “We’re not the only ones that exist here.”
I nodded. “My house is gone. I had to go live with my cousin.”
Lorraine spared me any pity. I had a place to go to, after all. “There’s people uprooted all over where the flood waters ran. Uprooted just like trees.”
“And there’s ghosts uprooted too.” Suddenly I felt helpless, so hopelessly inadequate to the task of ridding Maple Hill of ghosts, I just wanted to pack it in. That wasn’t an option, but I for damn sure didn’t know what to do.
“What do you do?” I asked, not really expecting a definite answer because I knew there wasn’t one.
“Every situation is different. Sometimes you just have to ride out the bad, until it runs its course. After some time people will get back in their homes, or find new ones. It can be the same with them.”
I gave her a brief sketch of the Maple Hill situation. “I can’t go back there and tell her she has to keep her house on lockdown until the ghosts decide to leave. I have to figure something out. What if they don’t leave on their own? At least one of them in there is malevolent.”
“You need more about the home’s history. Think there’s any way of finding out more about what the two women did to bind that dead soldier?”
I shrugged, doubtful. “I can talk to the homeowner again, but it sounded like no one had any details. Just family legend, and real vague at that.”
“Things might calm down on their own after some time. Nature corrects herself. But people can’t always wait, right? There were some folks in New Orleans with access to information. Knowledge of how it was corrected after the last flood that was that bad.” “The one in 1927, when the Mississippi flooded?” I first learned of that flood through music. Charley Patton wrote the original version of High Water Everywhere about the 1927 flood.
“That very one and again in ’37 too. We’re talking about very complicated rituals, over many nights with a number of people. It’s not something you or I could do alone. It takes a lot of power to calm that much natural fury.”
“You think anything like that would help this area?”
“Oh sure. There’s a little talk of doing something too. Some of the Pagans are starting to think about it. You should talk to Maura. I did. I told her I’d help if they decide to do it.”
Maura, who owned the former Broom Closet and the space I used to rent for my office. Before the flood, that is. Both our businesses were wiped out by water. I had her number, though, and I’d definitely call. If there was going to be a mass ritual to bring as much peace as possible to the local spirits I wanted to be a part of it.
I pulled two books from my backpack, Rozella’s grimoire and my own spell book. “I’ve been trying to come up with a ritual to sort of cleanse the house, set it to right.” I showed her the ritual in the old grimoire that I’d used as my guide, then the one in my spell book I wanted to try.
Lorraine studied the rituals carefully, going back and forth between them. “That’s good work, chere. Real good.”
A surge of pride flared in me, something I didn’t feel very often anymore. It had been a long time since I’d felt the approval of a teacher. “Think it’ll work? I mean, it’s not exactly revolutionary.”
Amusement lighting her eyes, Lorraine said, “Tried and true usually works best. But you never know. There’s never any guarantees. I only see one problem with it.”
“What’s that?”
Lorraine fixed me with a hard stare. “We hadn’t ever talked about this. It’s not my business how you practice and I won’t tell you what’s best for you. But the thing of it is, you work with nature but you don’t work with spirits. You’re tying one arm behind your back with that.”
A small personal altar was in my direct line of sight. Work for clients wasn’t done there. It was dedicated to Saint Cyprian of Antioch, the patron of root workers and conjurers and himself a Pagan sorcerer before converting to Christianity. A large framed image of the saint served as the centerpiece, flanked by purple candles and incense. Rozella had had something similar in her home. She lit the candles and burned the incense every day to commune with the saint and maintain a relationship with him. Lorraine probably did the same.
I believed in things like ghosts and vampires and even demonic spirits because I had proof of their existence. I’d witnessed the truth of those things with my own eyes. Religion, though, was something I’d always had trouble with. It was hard for me to reconcile the saints and Bible passages conjurers used with the judgment and the fear and disgust I’d received from the religious people I grew up around. I quit even trying a long time ago. It wasn’t something I talked about but I knew it was why I did more ghost evictions than traditional conjure work. I didn’t have a relationship with Saint Cyprian or any other disincarnate spirit.
“I just don’t know if I can work that way.” Staring into my empty coffee cup was easier than meeting her eyes.
Tapping the table she said, “You might have to find out one day, little miss. Come up against something bigger than you and you just might need some help.”
I packed up my books and newly bought supplies. Lorraine hugged me as I left, telling me to let her know how things turned out. Hopefully I’d be able to call her tomorrow and tell her it worked. Tonight Daniel and I were going to Maple Hill.
* * * *
With plenty of daylight to kill, I went to the library. I didn’t need what little they had on occult subjects but a history lesson seemed in order. Lorraine had piqued my curiosity when she mentioned the flood of 1927 so I found a book on it and tucked into a plush chair.
The Grunt by the JBs exploded from my backpack, earning me a dirty look from a passing circulation clerk. Embarrassed I’d forgotten to turn off my cellphone when I entered the library, I scrambled to dig it out.
It was Daniel. “Hey, are you okay? That sumbitch called me asking if I’d heard from you. Do I need to rip his throat out? ’Cause I will.”
It always worried me when Daniel sounded that country. It meant he was feeling maudlin and probably drinking pretty heavy. He’d been doing that a lot lately and I didn’t know what to make of it. “I’m fine, Bubba. What about you? You sound a little out of it.”
“No, I’m not out of it.” He paused and I heard the click of a lighter and a deep indrawn breath. Damn vampires. So unfair they could smoke without worrying about that pesky lung cancer. “I am right in it, Roxie. You’re the one who needs to be careful.”
“What do I need to be careful of?” What the hell did he and Blake have to say to each other?
“Look.” He paused, the sound of the icemaker painfully loud in my ear. “I know you’re a big girl, you don’t need me to be your daddy.” Since when, I wanted to say but didn’t. “You wanna bone that guy, bone him all you want.” He laughed. “Hell, I don’t like him and even I think he’s pretty boneable.”
Nearly dropping the phone, I cringed the biggest cringe that has ever been cringed. My bisexual vampire ancestor did not just say he thought my maybe-boyfriend was boneable. No, that did not happen.
“But that’s all it can be, Roxie. He might be Mr. Right Now but don’t confuse him for Mr. Right. For God’s sake, don’t fall in love with that man. Love makes you crazy. Makes you stupid. Makes you think nothing else matters and that’s just a lie. Love don’t build no bridges and it don’t work miracles.”
