I waited in the living room of Sajida's treehouse. Sasi One had directed me to a chair once I had come up the ladder; Sajida wasn't present.
"Mere will be down shortly," she said to me, her skin even more sickly looking than before and her teeth seemingly moments away from falling out due to rot and decay. "Would you like a beverage? Perhaps a cup of tea? Water?"
I nodded, "Water would be nice."
Sasi One smiled even wider. "Be right back!" she said, pivoting and sashaying down a hallway to the kitchen. I sat alone with my backpack on my lap, looking around at my surroundings. The treehouse wasn't as frightening to me as it was before, and neither was the bayou. The journey here felt like a normality. Maybe it was because th
** When the day was over, I sat on my bed in my room, staring at the blank walls and listening to the insects make music outside in the night. I couldn't help but smile, and I was eager for the next day I would spend with Sajida. The entire day consisted of working on my meditative skills and reading spell books, but it made me want more. I needed more. When I was around Sajida, I saw a future for myself that I could never see when I was around the Coterie. And despite Sajida's claim that her cooking wouldn't be a daily occurrence, we ended up having gumbo for dinner; she admitted that she had begun prepping for it that morning before I woke up. I looked down at my hands as I sat on the bed. There was nothing interesting about them; they were normal hands. They were not Sajida's
June 15th, 1881It has come to my attention that I am face to face with death itself. And not the faceless, quiet,passivecreature whose enigma encompassedmostof my rituals. No—death, this time, has a face. Several faces, rather. The faces of those I have damned long ago, vengeance ripe in their rotten minds.I amhaving this letter written on my behalf by a confidant of mine,only to be passed down after the event of my soon and inevitable death.I wish to confess to my crimes, both inflicted upon the living and the dead. Many here in New Orleans have come to me seekinghealing,guidance, spells, incantations, herbs to heal and herbs to harm, in addition to many othe
** Mama's shop was nestled in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans, right on the corner of Tulane street and Spelman avenue. "Dumont House of Voodoo." It was popular—more popular than when I was a kid running around the counters on a slow day. I mentioned this to Mama, how suddenly the newer generation was garnering an appreciation for voodoo. "It's hoodoo they think they're coming to get," she answered over the phone; I heard her cutting something, but I didn't want to know what it was. "They think I'm a root doctor or a witch. That ain't true; it's always the white folks and the tourists who don't know what they're getting into." That same phone conversation, I told Mama I'd be coming down for the summer, and she was so happy she couldn't stop screaming about it. I didn't tell her that I had thoughts of dropping out of college or that I had exhausted much of my college fund paying for classes that catered to m
I woke up the next morning with sweat sticking and dripping in places I wish it hadn't. Mama's laughter—her loud, cackling, deflating balloon laughter—could be heard across the hallway in our kitchen. I assumed it was Mambo Nene she was laughing with, since Mambo Nene had the best sense of humor out of the entire Coterie and always made Mama laugh. I got out of bed and walked out into the dark hallway until I made it into the sunlit kitchen. My suspicions were right about Mambo Nene being in there. Priestess Qadira was there, too, but she was preoccupied with a transcript she was reading. "I told that ole white cat that he'd have to find a root doctor to get rid of an itch likethat," I heard Mambo Nene say right when I walked in. "And guess what this fool
** It was a horrible time to think of it, but I thought of it anyway: I thought of how normal my day was supposed to be. Going to the mall, buying some clothes, getting something to eat, then returning home to spend time with Mama and work on one of my many manuscripts before falling asleep. That's what my day was supposed to be. It turned into delving deep into the dark, damp forests with my mama's novitiate to save Tia Valeria's ass; we didn't know who or what we were saving her from. We didn't even know if we could save her. But I had too much courage and too much confidence. It was dark, to say the least. Very dark. The "hold my hand so I don't fall" type of dark. I envied the bugs and the lizards for their eyes; I envied the crickets and the owls, singing and talking freely
** I ran faster when I realized what they were, pumping my arms and lunging my legs with a speed I had never achieved before. The trees were blurs; Imani's figure was merely a blur of blue and black running by my side. I sprinted until I could feel my lungs and limbs burning. "This way!" Imani shouted at me. I followed her without losing momentum; I dropped my bat halfway through. When we saw the road and the small spec of gray that was my car, we ran faster until we collapsed on the goddamn vehicle. Then we were inside; the memories are patchy and blacked out from that night. Fear made me act sometimes unconsciously and out of instinct and the need to survive. It was like I was out of my body and inside it again, the cycle repeating. The world was spinning and I was sinking
** I thought the sounds of Tia's House screaming before their death was the most heart-shattering noise I had ever heard, but I was proven wrong once the sound of my mama's scream echoed in my head. I got up, surrounded by darkness with the occasional twinkle of the charms on the walls. My heart was thumping faster than Thumper's foot, and there was no if's, and's or but's about it. I slipped on some sneakers, put on my spectacles and ran my black ass out into the pitch-black hallway until I was stumbling down the staircases. And down in the shop, I saw one of the novitiates sleeping on the couch, completely unnerved. I was praying that it was just my mind playing tricks on me; trauma messing with my head and such. But conveniently, the screaming started up again, and the novitiate on the couch jolted awake immediately. That's whe
** The last thing anyone would want is to wake up in a place they don't recognize. Especially when that said place is certainly the home of bloodthirsty monsters. My eyes were heavier that weights when I tried to open them. Little by little, my lids revealed a dark room covered wall-to-wall with French provincial décor that was shadowed by the candles hanging upon the corners. Immediately I sat up, the world spinning around me. My glasses were on the bedside table by a lantern. Quickly, I put them back on and all of my senses started to click at once—I smelled what I thought was cocoa and raspberry. I saw the scenery out the window of deep-rooted trees with a marsh about a mile away, haunting in the night. I felt my skin chilled in the cold air but damp with sweat, and tasted a hint of blood in my mouth. But what scared me most wa