A Grimoire Dark

by D. S. Quinton

  Mom and Dad didn’t help much by claiming the incident to be the ‘Embarrassment of a lifetime!’ and could only see fit to pay for her to go to a school out of the city, like she was a leper or something.

  She didn’t hold quite as much animosity for them as she once had. Maybe she could have done a few things differently. Maybe.

  She touched the small crow’s feet that were forming at the corner of her eyes and thought of how disappointed her mother had been.

  What a waste, she thought. Two more years of school was all you needed. What would your life be if you had just tried a little harder?

  She didn’t have the answer, but also didn’t like the feeling that was settling over her. She smacked her cheeks for color, adjusted her boobs and blew herself a kiss in the mirror. “You’re a star,” she said.

  Throwing her séance smock over her shoulders, she felt a hot itchy rash on the back of her neck. As soon as she touched it, it seemed to inflame across her right shoulder and up onto her neck.

  Great, now what?

  She started for the lotion when she heard a knock at the door. Her appointment had arrived.

  “Dammit!” she said as she grabbed her black Cleopatra wig from the stand and stuffed her hair underneath it.

  I hope she’s far-sighted, she thought as she went to the door.

  Chapter 7

  Frank and Del left the house and followed the walking path that started on the other side of the drive.

  Although early afternoon, this part of the swamp was dark enough to use the flashlight Frank kept in his car. Walking slowly down the path, Del tried to count the number of mirrors she saw in the woods, but quickly lost track.

  “Can you believe all these mirrors?” she said. “That’s a crazy superstition. The Devil’s so vain he’ll stop to look at his reflection?”

  “Lotsa folks believe dat stuff, Del,” Frank said. “It’s the belief in da thing that gives it power.”

  “But believing in something doesn’t make the Devil real, Frank.”

  “Hush up now. Doan be talkin’ about those things out here.”

  Del rolled her eyes again.

  A short way up the path, Frank pointed out a sinking, rotted chicken coop to the left of the path, toward the water’s edge.

  A few steps further and Frank stopped. He shone the beam of the flashlight on a disturbed area at the water’s edge, several paces off the path. Now in full detective mode, Frank scoured the area around them before taking a step. He progressed carefully, one step after another, ensuring that he did not disturb any evidence.

  It was now clear that something terrible had happened here. A large, dark lump lay at the water’s edge, and in the middle of a ten-foot square area that had been churned and flattened. Small piles of apparent flesh littered the area, and dark mottled spots glistened across the surrounding mud. It looked to Frank as if two animals had wrestled for their lives here, clawing and thrashing the ground to gain a hold over the other.

  The body—if that’s what it was—was an opaque lump of meat. Frank was certain it was meat, considering the way the ants and beetles were swarming over it. The subtle sounds of swarming insects added to the voice of the swamp. Frank thought he could hear faint tearing sounds as the body was torn apart by thousands of tiny mandibles.

  Squatting close, Frank’s nostrils were assaulted with the hot, putrid smell of rotting flesh as it floated on the air. He turned away and swallowed hard.

  “Why doesn’t it look like a body?” Del asked.

  “Doan know. It kinda has the shape, but it’s… too flat. It could be a body if it was… deboned.”

  “Come on Frank, really?”

  “I’m not sayin’ das what it is, jus what it looks like. Coulda been that it got so mashed up by the gator, it just doan look right.”

  Frank poked at the mass with a stick. The beetles scurried, but the ants were steadfast.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Frank exclaimed. “Look at dis.”

  Frank knocked more beetles away and uncovered the remnants of a belt with a metal buckle. The belt was ragged on both ends.

  He shone the light around the body and settled on a gouged area of mud. “Could be gator tracks. Pretty messy, but could be. I just don’t understand why there’s still a body here. Gator should’ve pulled it all down.”

  “Frank, what’s that?” Del pointed several feet past the roiling mass.

  Frank’s flashlight swung toward the path as he stood up and took two steps closer.

  “Some type of print or track, I think,” he said. “I’ll be damned if it don’t have the stride of a footprint, but… the print don’t look right. It’s kinda… draggy, you know? Drug itself out da mud toward da path, but… where’s the tail drag? Now how the hell…”

  “Frank, what are those?”

  He swung the flashlight beam back toward the body and noticed the small white objects Del was pointing at.

  “What the hell...”

  “Are those teeth?”

  Carefully picking one up with his handkerchief, Frank held the three-inch long object up in the air and bathed it with light.

  “It’s a damn gator tooth,” he said.

  “Did it break off?”

  “No. Well ain’t dat da damndest thing. It looks like it just… fell out. See here, if you look close, you see dis ring line around da tooth? Dat’s da gum line. This part of the tooth is the bitin’ part. See how it’s kinda smooth? From all da wear and tear. And then da line, then all the rest of da tooth—not as smooth, and look, it’s hollow inside. This is da root. It should have a nerve here. Or at least what’s left of da nerve. Can’t imagine da bugs et it clean this quick.”

  Shining the light around the flattened area, they now saw a disturbing sight. The ground was littered with gator teeth that appeared to have simply fallen out.

  Chapter 8

  Frank watched the rearview mirror until they reached Barataria boulevard and were back on real pavement. After they found the gator teeth, he had quickly shuttled Del back down the swamp path and to the car. He hadn’t said a word.

  “OK Frank, what gives?” Del said finally. “What do you think happened back there? And what about old Mr. Slim? Crazy huh?”

  Frank drove on for a while.

  “Del-bell, I don’t know what to make a dat scene. But don’t go off assumin’ he’s crazy jus’ because he’s in da swamp. Lotsa legends and myths about da swamps around here, especially dat one!”

  Wrinkling her forehead, she said, “But Frank, YOU don’t believe them, do you? It’s 1963 for heaven’s sake. They’re talking about us going to the moon!”

  “I spect there’s a good reason for what we saw. Gator most likely, maybe a killin’, maybe even a ritual killin’ of some kind. But I didn’t like da look of it. And I have more faith that we’ll learn da truth of that killin’ then I do some bureaucrat is going to fly a can to the moon!”

  They drove on for a while until finally crossing the swollen Mississippi. Foghorns and steam whistles called to each other up and down the river, lending a surreal, far-off feel to the Crescent City.

  “Where you stayin’ at Del-Bell? No sense you walkin’ home. ‘Specially with dis damn rain eatin’ on people’s nerves.”

  “That’s OK Frank, I’m in 6th Ward, but way up Ursuline. I can just—”

  “Where at in 6th Ward? I know it.”

  “Oh, I won’t be staying there long,” she said, voice trailing, “if I can help it.”

  “Watchoo mean honey? If you can help it?”

  “Well, I just mean… I need to get out on my own, that’s all.”

  Eyeing her sideways, Frank said, “You jus’ got out da orphanage. What’s da rush?”

  She looked out her window at the gray, darkening day and wondered if the sun would ever come back out. “I just need to.”

  Frank’s instincts told him to stop this line of inquiry. “OK, so where on Ursuline?”

  “The old Prudhomme House. It’s Mam
a Dedé’s halfway house now. But like I said, I’m saving up for my own—”

  “Mama Dedé you say?”

  “Yeah, why? You know her?”

  Frank considered this as he crept through the choked city streets. Another tree had fallen in a local city park and took down a bird’s nest of power lines that had accumulated on the corner of two streets. The city was quickly fading to black as night encroached.

  “Not sure… prolly lotsa Mama Dedé’s in dis town, posen’ n’such. Just like there’s lots of Marie’s claimin’ dey a Laveau.”

  Del inspected Frank’s face from the passenger’s seat, but the dark streets hid his features. “You know I don’t believe in that stuff. How is this city ever going to move forward if they don’t let go of their voodoo rituals and spook stories?”

  “Yeah, I remember you tellin’ the Sister that you didn’t believe you’d go to hell for sneakin’ out also, but I bet it was hell after I left, wasn’t it?”

  “Sister Eulalie could be overzealous in her punishment, but that is of human making. There’s nothing supernatural about it.”

  “Overzealous…” Frank whistled at the word choice. “Look at you. So, I guess the Church teachins didn’t stick with you, huh?”

  “I don’t know… I guess some did,” she said. “Be kind to others. You know, ‘Do Unto,’ and that sort of thing. I just don’t know if it’s all so… black and white, you know?”

  “Yeah, I do know. Der’s lotsa gray in da world.”

  They drove on in silence the rest of the trip. Frank didn’t ask why she chewed her nails.

  He eventually stopped in front of the Prudhomme House.

  “Thanks a ton, Frank!” Del said, hopping out. “I’m going to write up everything I remember. Can I come by tomorrow? What’s the next step? Oh, tomorrow’s Saturday isn’t it? I guess—”

  Realizing that she wouldn’t be letting this drop, Frank said, “Yeah, tomorrow’s Saturday, but I’ll be gettin’ to da office around ten, so if you—”

  “Ten o’clock. I’ll be there.”

  “OK, den. Ten it is.”

  Frank drove off after watching Del go through the front door of the Prudhomme House, now a halfway house for girls, and let the events of the day play through his head.

  Damn gator teeth jus’ don’t fall out, Frank. You know dat. What else could be da cause?

  Frank could think of nothing from his days as a cop or detective to explain what he saw today, but a nightcap and a cigar might help him remember.

  Later that evening, Loo’siana Slim stoked the fire in his stove as a cold chill settled over the shack. “Del-phine / Del-phine / doan liiiiie to me / tell me wheerrre’d you sleep las’ night? /

  “In da pines / in da pines / where da suuunn doa’never shine /

  “I shiverrrr da ho’ night through...”

  He sang low and slow as his alligator boots rocked a rhythmic creak into the floorboards of the old shack.

  Outside, the droning rain knocked at his roof, windows and door. Large drops, accumulating in the branches of the vast cypress trees that overhung the house, knocked harder or softer, depending on where the wind blew them.

  He stopped his lonesome melody as a far-off sound caught his attention. The swamp had a voice all its own, and spoke in unison with the night creatures that lived within it, but this new sound was not natural to the swamp.

  He quietly sat his guitar against the wall next to the pot-bellied stove and fingered the shotgun next to it. After several seconds he nearly withdrew his hand, until a gust of wind buffeted the tiny house and he felt the floor shift beneath him. He heard glass shatter far off in the swamp. Someone was breaking the mirrors that his grandson had hung for protection. A cold sweat broke over Slim’s brow.

  Donning a long leather slicker from the wall, Slim grabbed an old hat and stepped into the heavy drizzle.

  Listening carefully, he first turned left out of the front door and walked slowly toward the rail. He felt the break in the railing where the steps would lead him down to the drive path—the same steps that Frank and Del had used just hours earlier—but turned left again and followed the narrow gangplank along the side of the house to the back. He faced the swamp in the direction of the old chicken coop, leveled his shotgun on the railing and waited.

  Far off in the swamp, barely reflected in the blue mirrored lenses of his tortoise-shell glasses, a fifolet appeared and seemed to float above the water.

  The shape, not more than a wispy cloud of mist, rolled and twisted in the air as if struggling into existence. The outer edge of its shape flickered in and out, like a bad T.V. reception. It took form as a man-sized mass, badly deformed, and moved as if stretching the rubbery skin of an egg sac.

  It made no sound, but Slim somehow stayed fixed on its location, sensing a static-electric wave in the air. It hovered for a brief time, as if summoning the old man with the promise of treasure, but Slim did not move. He could not see the inviting light. He could only sense the impending danger as he stood listening.

  The fifolet seemed to sense the obstinance in the old man and quivered rapidly in annoyance. When it did, a second fifolet appeared near it. The fifolet spirits, appearing as strangely lighted, dense clouds, emanated slow pulses of blue and green as they floated.

  Slim heard the voice of the swamp fall silent. Not a toad nor cricket could be heard; even the raindrops seemed to hold silent as the ghostly lights approached.

  Silence thundered in his ears and dread filled him. His skin prickled. There was something in the air.

  He heard breaking glass again, only this time closer. He didn’t know who or what broke the glass, but understood that by doing so, a path was being cleared for something else. He feared what it may be.

  His mirrored-blue lenses tracked the floating shapes as they drifted soundlessly closer. A third fifolet, smaller than the others, fluttered down from high in the trees, perceptible only as the absence of color—a black void—and alighted on the low branch of a tree.

  The unholy rain had swollen the swamp, which now lapped against the pine stilts of the shack. A slight gurgling of the water drew his attention down, and the lenses reflected the deformed, man-sized shape in the mist. When reflected, the shape stopped and shuddered as if going out of existence with the world, or trying to hide from direct observation. When the large, peculiar shape shuddered, so did the other two lights, as if all were bound by an unnatural union.

  The black fifolet-spirit stayed perched on the low branch. The green spirit descended to the water’s surface, sank below, then silently slithered up out of the mud. The larger blue spirit suddenly split in two, causing a smaller shape to cast off from it. The two blue fifolets were connected by long wisps of blue mist. The smaller thing quivered rapidly, excitedly, to its own existence. The larger shape reached out to pet the quivering thing in comfort.

  The entire scene was reflected, silently, in the mirrored-blue lenses.

  For several seconds, the ghostly spirit shapes held silent as if observing the blind man with curiosity. Finally, the two blue fifolets quivered again in unison, making the slightest warbling sound when they did.

  Slim recognized the warble but detected something different in it. From the day his little cousin was nearly coaxed into the swamp by the magical sound of the fifolet, he was tuned to its vibration. To him it was a high-pitched, tinkling static; a vibration that set the fine hairs of his neck on end. He felt the voice of the fifolet before most people could see the shimmering apparition. Over the years, as he dealt with the many lost souls that wandered the swamps—some fifolets, some not—he learned how to ignore their siren call.

  He sang softly under his breath.

  “You come a callin’… / Knockin’ round my door…

  “You come a callin’, wwooo… / Knockin’ round my door…

  “Good-bye you Devil, nooo… / Don’t hear you call no more…”

  Slim thought back to his traveling musician days, when he wrote this tune. Every
honky-tonk and juke joint from Louisiana to Mississippi knew when Loo’siana Slim was in town—before he was blinded by a jealous lover and a handful of lye.

  He remembered meeting another young guitarist, down on his luck and haunted by demons, who surely would have died on the road or in the back of a whore-house, had Slim not crossed his path that night in 1935. Slim, a veteran of the road, met a twenty-four-year-old Robert Johnson and gave him this tune to focus his mind away from the dark things that haunted him. The younger Johnson would go on to record a slightly modified version of the song as ‘Me and The Devil Blues’, only to die three years later.

  Slim now sang a verse he had modified during his years dealing with fifolets.

  “I’m wit’ da livin’… / Six feet above da ground…

  “I’m wit’ da livin’, ohhh… / Six feet above da ground…

  “Don’t hear you callin’, nooo… / My soul doan want you aroun’…”

  The blue fifolets warbled again as if accepting Slims invitation to pass him by, then a deep, throaty gurgle belched from the swamp. Slim heard a choked, mocking laugh bubble from the black water as the smell of rotten flesh filled the air.

  The thing that rose from the swamp had masked itself and its offspring as fifolets to Slims demise.

  Slim pulled the trigger on both barrels, blasting a hole in the silent swamp water and shattering several mirrors hanging in the distance. At this, the second blue spirit went into a wild, quivering convulsion and a deformed voice screamed ear-splitting gibberish. Slim threw his hands over his ears to scream, but not before he heard the large shape laugh a bellowing roar and smelled the stinking breath of death descend upon his face. A second later, a gaping maw tore out his throat as he called the name of his killer.

  “L—!”

  Chapter 9

  Saturday

  The next morning Del rode her bike through the drizzle.