Hoodoo

by Ronald L. Smith

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Stranger

  Jelly

  Fate Revealed

  Dead Man Walking

  A Message on Wings

  Crossroads

  The Cliff

  A Bad Man’s Song

  Pow-Wows

  Mrs. Snuff

  A Broke-Down Shack

  From Darkness to Light

  Rat Bone

  Jump Back, Evil

  It Lies Hidden

  Conjure

  The Man with Two Faces

  Stranglehold

  A Storm Is Coming

  This Too Shall Pass

  From the Other Side

  Smoke and Fog

  Knights of the Wise Men

  The Sator Square

  Death Rides a Black Horse

  Heart

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Clarion Books

  215 Park Avenue South

  New York, New York 10003

  Copyright © 2015 by Ronald L. Smith

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhco.com

  Book and jacket design by Lisa Vega

  Illustrations by Sebastien Skrobol and stock images from Shutterstock.

  Jacket illustration © 2015 by Sebastien Skrobol

  Author photo by Erik Kvalsvik

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-544-44525-3

  eISBN 978-0-544-44527-7

  v1.0915

  For my parents, Henry and Rose Smith,

  who prepared me for the future by showing me the past.

  The Stranger

  When I got born, Mama Frances took one look at me and said, “That child is marked. He got hoodoo in him.”

  And that’s how I got my name.

  Hoodoo.

  Hoodoo Hatcher.

  She was talking about the red smudge under my left eye, shaped just like a heart. Not like a real heart I saw in a book one time, with blood pumping through it and all kinds of other stuff, but a heart somebody would carve in a tree with two names inside it.

  Everybody said my birthmark was some kind of sign, but what it meant, nobody knew. I’ll tell you one thing, though. People knew I was different as soon as they looked at me.

  Mama Frances was my grandmama and she was the one who raised me. My real mama died when I was born. My daddy died when I was five years old. I didn’t know what happened to him, but Mama Frances said he ran off and came to a bad end. Supposedly he went and put a curse on a man in Tuscaloosa County, but I didn’t believe that. I didn’t think I’d ever know the real truth.

  The sun was just starting to set and I needed to get back home. I’d been collecting stuff in the woods all day and my stomach was rumbling. I headed down the path, kicking up dirt clods along the way. Some bottle flies buzzed around my head, and I had to run a little bit to get them off. I called them greenies because I saw a dead one on the porch one time and its body was all green and shiny, like a piece of colored glass.

  Something good-smelling came drifting through the woods. Mama Frances must’ve been cooking up some Hoppin’ John. Hoppin’ John is black-eyed peas and rice, if you didn’t know. She made it all the time and I loved it.

  Back home, I pulled the door shut and put my pillowcase bag on the kitchen table. It was full of rocks, pecans, some old bottle caps, a broken piece of chain, flattened pennies from the railroad tracks, and the skull of a baby bird I’d found under a tree.

  Mama Frances eyed the bag on the table. “You know that don’t belong there, child.” She stood over the old stove, her smooth forehead dotted with beads of sweat. It was hot out, the middle of June, and even hotter in our house. I picked up the bag and set it on a chair.

  “Not there either, Hoodoo. Upstairs. In your room.”

  Not everybody had an upstairs in their house. Most folks had one big room with a coal stove and an outhouse in the back. An outhouse is where people go to do their business, if you didn’t know.

  The reason we had an upstairs was because my granddaddy used to live here with Mama Frances, and she’d wanted a whole bunch of children. His name was Emanuel Hatcher. People had to call him by his first and last name or he wouldn’t answer. He’d just sit there and pretend like he didn’t hear you. I called him Pa Manuel, though, and he seemed okay with that. He didn’t live with Mama Frances anymore because she said he was ornery as a yellow dog, so he moved out. I didn’t see how somebody could have enough money to buy two houses but I guessed he did.

  Mama Frances never did get all those children. The only child they’d had was my daddy, Curtis Hatcher. That made them my grandparents on my dead daddy’s side. I was an only child too. Mama Frances said my real mama died because she didn’t eat enough white clay when I was in her belly. I asked her why somebody would eat white clay, and she said it helped ladies have babies. That just sounded plain crazy to me.

  I grabbed my bag and headed up the steps, keeping my eyes right in front of me. I didn’t want to look at the picture of my family on the wall because it gave me the shivers. The reason it gave me the shivers was because when I looked at it, my great-aunt Eve stared at me with eyes that blazed like fire. Sometimes I thought I saw her lips move, like she was trying to talk to me. The picture was old and wrinkly and the wooden frame around it was falling apart. There was some fancy handwriting on the bottom, and this was what it said:

  Hatcher Family

  Sardis, Alabama, 1919

  Mama Frances said a white man came out to the country one time to take a picture of the whole family. It looked like a right nice day, because the sunshine was coming down through the leaves, making shadows on the ground. Everybody had put on their best church clothes and stood real still. My daddy was in that picture, standing between Mama Frances and Pa Manuel. This was before he married my mama. A tall hat sat on top of his head. Sometimes I’d stare at his face and ask him what he did that got him killed. He never answered, though. He just looked at me with those dark eyes of his until I had to turn away.

  Most of the folks in that picture were dead now, buried over at Shiloh Baptist Church. Mama Frances called them “our people,” and they all used hoodoo, or folk magick, as most people called it. They used foot-track powder that could go up through your foot and make you sick, a black hen’s egg for getting rid of evil spirits, nutmeg seeds for good luck at gambling, and all kinds of other things.

  But even though Mama Frances named me Hoodoo, I couldn’t cast a simple spell. I said the words over and over like she told me to, but nothing ever happened. “You got to believe, boy,” she’d say. “That’s the first step. Believing.”

  I thought I did believe, but I guess I wasn’t trying hard enough.

  Everybody else in my family could conjure, though. Conjuring is using words to cast a spell, if you didn’t know. One way to do it was by using a mojo bag. A mojo bag is a little cloth sack stuffed with roots and herbs and oils and sometimes a picture of somebody’s face or words written on paper. Mama Frances gave me one that was supposed to be for good luck, but that didn’t stop people from picking on me. Jessie McGuire, Otis Ross, and J.D. Barnes called me Hoodoo Doo-doo every time they saw me. They said I must’ve been cursed because of my birthmark. “Somebody put their mark on you,” they’d said. “You got the evil eye.”

  But it was summertime, and the schoolhouse was closed, so I
didn’t have to worry about being picked on for a while.

  Upstairs, I took all the stuff I found and put it in an old steamer trunk that used to be my daddy’s. There was some writing on the side that said 20th Century Limited. I figured that had to be some kind of train. Each corner of the trunk had a brass cap, and if you wanted to open it, you had to unfasten some wide belts and click a bunch of locks. I liked the sound it made when it opened. It’d give a big old groan, and the smell would rise up and greet me. I didn’t know what that smell was, but it always made me think of my dead daddy.

  I picked up the bird skull and turned it over in my hand. It was a tiny little thing, bone-white and clean. What could’ve happened to it? Did it fall out of its nest? Did its mama try to save it? I tucked it in a corner of the trunk on top of some old papers and then headed downstairs for some of Mama Frances’s Hoppin’ John.

  I dragged the broom across the floor, tidying up in the back room of Miss Carter’s store. Big bags of rice, flour, and sugar were heaped on stacks of wood, and boxes of candy lined the shelves. I didn’t know who Miss Carter was and didn’t think anyone else did either. Most of the time there was a blind man who ran the counter out front. He knew right where everything was, and if you tried to cheat him he’d know it. Somebody said he could tell the difference between a five-dollar bill and a one just by feeling it. I didn’t know about that. I’d never even seen a five-dollar bill before, anyway. To tell you the truth, he gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  My cousin Zeke worked at Miss Carter’s once in a while and let me sweep up to earn some pocket change and candy. People came to buy groceries, tobacco, liquor, and medicine, but in the back—if you knew how to ask for it—you could get stuff for conjuring. I was more interested in the Mary Janes and hard candy under the glass counter out front.

  Hot air blew in from the open window and sent dust balls floating around the room. I was playing make-believe that they were big twisters when the cowbell on the front door clang-a-langed. I stopped sweeping and peeked my head around the open door.

  “Mornin’, sir,” I heard Zeke say. “How can I help you this fine day?”

  I crept a little closer and saw a man standing at the counter. He was dressed all in black, like some kind of holy-roller preacher. His wide-brimmed hat shaded his eyes, and his long cloak trailed on the floor. I knew it was called a cloak because I saw one in a book at the schoolhouse. People used to wear them all the time in the olden days. I wondered why somebody would wear a cloak in this hot-ass weather. I wasn’t supposed to say “hot-ass,” but that’s what popped in my head because I heard Mama Frances say it one time when she was fanning herself.

  The man leaned forward, and I could’ve sworn I heard a creaking sound, like he was made of something besides flesh and bone. A cold chill crept across the back of my neck. I didn’t like him, whoever he was.

  “Mandragore,” he said. His voice was so deep it boomed inside my chest.

  Zeke cocked an ear in the stranger’s direction. “What’s that, now?”

  The stranger looked up and sniffed, just like an old coon dog. “The One That Did the Deed,” he muttered. “Main de Gloire.”

  Zeke backed up a step, like the man had stank breath. That was a sign that something wasn’t right. Zeke shook his head. “Afraid I can’t help you with that, good man. Never heard of it.”

  The man took one look around, sniffed again, and shuffled out the store. He had to duck his head so his hat wouldn’t get knocked off on the way out. The door banged shut, and the cowbell rang for what seemed like minutes.

  Cousin Zeke laid his hands palm down on the counter and stood real still. Finally, he let out a big breath and took a hankie from his pocket. He wiped his face.

  “Who was that?” I asked, coming around the corner.

  Zeke jumped like he had ants in his pants. “Hoodoo! Don’t be sneaking up on people like that!”

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” I shot back. “I was here the whole time.”

  He balled up the hankie and put it back in his pocket. “Ain’t nothing for you to worry about.” He let out another breath and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “You better get yourself home for supper.”

  I’d never seen Cousin Zeke have a conniption before, but that’s what it looked like. Having a conniption is when someone gets all jumpy, if you didn’t know. He gave me a little half smile and reached in a jar for some Squirrel Nut Zippers.

  “Here,” he said. “Take some of these and have them after supper.”

  I held out my hand.

  “And don’t eat them on the way home. You hear?”

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  I took the candy and stuffed it in my pocket.

  On the way home, I wondered about the strange man and what he was looking for. I couldn’t even remember the words he’d said. He walked funny too, like a big old bug. I’d seen a hat like the one he was wearing on a preacher man one time. But this stranger sure didn’t look like no preacher. We knew everybody in town, and he wasn’t one of them. I put him out of my mind and made my way on home. By the time I got there, I’d eaten all the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

  “You been eating Zeke’s candy, boy? What’d I say about eating all that sugar before supper?” Mama Frances scolded me with a shake of her head.

  I stared at the food on my plate: big fat butter beans, a piece of bread, and a pork chop fried up in bacon fat. My stomach twisted.

  “I only had a couple,” I said.

  “Mm, hmm,” she said, smirking. “Boy, you better eat that food. Every bite.”

  She then proceeded to sit down and watch me clean my plate. It was good, but I felt my stomach getting bigger with every bite. By the time I was done, the sun was going down and I heard some night birds whistling.

  Upstairs, I flopped down on the bed. My stomach hurt, like someone was churning up my insides with a big old spoon. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but when I did, I had a dream. It was about that man from Miss Carter’s store. Little dust devils swirled behind him as he shuffled down the street. He stood in front of me and opened up his cloak. I looked inside and saw the dried foot of a squirrel, a heart in a glass box, a bundle of twigs tied together with string, and a little bottle of hot pepper juice with a cork stopper. The man’s eyes blazed with two red flames. “Mandragore,” he said. A few long hairs poked out of his wide nostrils and his breath was bad. “The One That Did the Deed.”

  And that’s when everything went black.

  Jelly

  I woke up the next day thinking about that dream. It gave me the willies. Why would I dream about that man at Miss Carter’s store? It had to be him. He wore that same long cloak and smelled like he’d been in the fields all day, working up a stink.

  How come I could smell him in a dream?

  Mama Frances had to go into town to clean a white lady’s house, so I was supposed to go to my Aunt Jelly’s to do some chores. She was Mama Frances’s little sister. I hated doing chores, but Aunt Jelly always made catfish, so I guessed it was worth it.

  I sat down at the kitchen table. Mama Frances had left me a piece of corn bread and some salt bacon. I poured molasses all over the corn bread. Molasses is like syrup but thicker, if you didn’t know. If you were a lazybones, and took forever to do something, people would say you were as slow as molasses.

  Outside, the sun was high and bright and I had to squint right away. You can’t look right into the sun or your eyes will burn out. I lifted the handle on the water pump, ducked my head under it, and took a long drink. Then I ran some water over my face. Mama Frances would’ve told me to use some soap. I didn’t like soap, because for something that was supposed to make you clean, it smelled awful funny.

  I crossed the railroad tracks and followed the path through the woods that led to Aunt Jelly’s. I didn’t know why we called her Jelly. People also called her Honey. I guess they did that because she was sweet.

  I picked up a stick and whacked at an old rotten tree stump. A bunch of b
lack beetles and spiders skittered out and I took off running. I didn’t want no spiders getting on me. Aunt Jelly said a spider could go inside your ear and lay eggs. I poked inside my ear to make sure none had gotten in there.

  I kept walking and saw some deer tracks leading off into the deeper part of the woods. Cousin Zeke taught me how to read tracks when I was little. I think he showed me how to do it because I didn’t have a daddy.

  It’d rained the night before, and slugs and snails slithered along the ground. I stepped over some big old mushrooms, all wet and soggy. The woods got real thin, and the next thing I knew, I was walking up the little white steps that led to Aunt Jelly’s door. I knocked, and a minute later, it creaked open on rusty hinges.

  “Hoodoo! How you doing, child?”

  “I’m okay, Auntie.”

  Aunt Jelly was a pretty woman with dark curly hair and a gold tooth that sparkled in the sun. She always wore nice dresses, with bright colors and pictures of flowers.

  “Come give your auntie some sugar,” she said, leaning down.

  I felt foolish but went ahead and kissed her on the cheek. She had on a whole bunch of perfume and it got all over me. Now I was gonna smell like a lady all day.

  Inside, I got a big whiff of fried catfish up my nostrils. Aunt Jelly made the best catfish in the world. But don’t tell Mama Frances I said that.

  Aunt Jelly told me to sit down and then walked into the little kitchen. I could hear the hot grease popping and sizzling. “Got a whole mess of fish comin’ right up, Hoodoo,” she called. A mess means a bunch of fried fish, if you didn’t know. You couldn’t say “a mess of chicken.” That just wouldn’t be right.

  My mouth started watering. Her catfish was crispy on the outside and soft and flaky on the inside. And even though I’d just had breakfast, I was still hungry.

  I sat down at the dining room table. Aunt Jelly always had her table set for guests, with napkins sewn from bed sheets, vases stuffed with red roses, and what she called her fine silver lying next to big white china plates. She also had a chifforobe in the living room with nice coats hung up in it. There was a bottle of moonshine back there, too. Moonshine is homemade liquor, if you didn’t know. I wondered why they called it moonshine. How could somebody get light from the moon and put it in a bottle? One time I snuck a drink and had to spit it out because my throat felt like it was on fire. When Aunt Jelly found out, she made me wait ten minutes before giving me a glass of buttermilk to cool down. It was the longest ten minutes ever. I promised myself I’d never drink liquor again after that.