by Sara Clancy
“Calm down, sweetie, everything will be okay,” Ma said. She then spoke to the officer, loud enough to ensure that they could all still hear her as they huddled around the phone.
“Louis says that she was in another room when she got hurt so they’re not sure how long she’s been unconscious. There was no reception, so they had to wrap her up to move her. They’re worried that it only made the problem worse.”
Louis glanced at the others. “She fell,” he parroted back the words again but they tasted like bile in his throat.
“Is anyone going to believe that?” Rene asked.
“We have to make sure that they do,” Louis said in a hushed voice. “Or they’ll never let us near her. We have to get the demon out of her.”
Cordelia jerked back just as a figure emerged from the fog. The dubby drifted closer, its feet hovering over the mush. It only had eyes for Marigold as it lurched closer, teeth bared and eyes glowing. Rene pulled Cordelia behind him as the fog flashed in bursts of red and blue. The police car’s breaks squealed. The gravel crunched under the tires and the dubby rushed forward unconcerned. Louis pushed himself between it and Marigold, his skin turning to ice as the dubby loomed over him.
Still unseen, the car doors slammed. The air became thick with energy, sparking and sizzling in the shifting light, creating a static charge that washed out like a shock wave. The dubby halted an inch from Louis’ face and looked back over its shoulder. The electric sensation increased until the fog seemed to hum with it.
Ma emerged from the shadows. Louis had always heard of the power that the voodoo priestesses wielded but he had never actually felt it. She now unleashed the hurricane that she had kept within her skin and they all cowered back from it. The dubby widened its jaws as the energy surrounding Ma grew into a ferocious wind. The gale stole the dubby’s scream as it tore open its flesh. Louis shielded his face as his mother focused her attention on the ghost. It roared and lunged towards Ma. Her power swirled around the ghost before it could get near. It only took a few seconds for the dubby to be ripped apart and scattered in an eruption of sparks.
The police officer turned on the floodlight mounted on the side of the car, the brilliant white glare competed against the rotating lights for dominance. But there was nothing left of the dubby for him to see as he neared. Only a few embers that drifted like golden snow around Ma. Louis could only stare, his chest heaving as his lungs remembered how to function. He was vaguely aware of the police officer’s presence. Of the questioning glances and suspicions that he couldn’t bring himself to actually voice. Still, his large hand lingered over the hilt of his firearm as Ma rushed forward and dropped down next to Louis. The hand she pressed against his cheek felt the same as it ever had, but now he was painfully aware of the strength that lingered within her skin. It comforted and terrified him at the same time.
“What the hell was that noise?” the officer asked. He rested one hand against the hilt of his holstered weapon as he scanned the scene.
Louis’ eyes never left his mother as he fumbled for an excuse, “Skunk ape.”
“Skunk ape?” the officer challenged. “The Louisiana bigfoot?”
“Stop talking,” Ma commanded on a whisper before she turned back to the officer. “Sir, your flashlight.”
The man approached quickly, his eyes still skirting over the shadows as if waiting for an attack. When the beam of light focused on Marigold his attention snapped to the singular point.
“What the hell happened here?” He knelt down next to her, fingers seeking out a pulse. His eyes studied each of them in turn, suspicions clear even within the shadows.
“The ambulance is on their way,” Ma interrupted the officer’s thoughts.
Seemingly by will alone, Ma kept the officer’s focus on Marigold as sirens broke the silence of the night.
Chapter 18
While the police officer might have had his suspicions, he didn’t stop Louis from traveling with Marigold in the ambulance. Marigold remained unconscious for the whole journey, her skin sunken and pale in the harsh overhead light. They bombarded him with questions, a lot of which he couldn’t begin to answer. For all the time they had spent together, Louis hadn’t even thought to learn her blood type or if she had any allergies. He berated himself for that the entire journey.
The second the ambulance had stopped the flurry of activity began anew. They had let him follow alongside the stretcher until they had reached the large electronic doors of the emergency room entrance. The hospital was small, only consisting of two stories and situated within the center of a garden that had thrived under loving care. At the door, he was stopped by a nurse and asked to go through the main entrance only a few feet away. The doctors needed the room to work. Louis had nodded even as he had barely heard the words, his eyes trained on the few people that surrounded Marigold as she disappeared down the hallway.
It was still before dawn but the whole world looked brighter. The fog didn’t stretch this far beyond the bayou and, without it to compete with, even the light of the street lamps were enough to burn his eyes. Louis paced back and forth, raking his hands over the back of his head as he struggled to think of what he should do next. It was only a few moments before the police cruiser pulled up but each one strummed through until his skin felt as tight as a bow string. The tires were still rolling when Ma jumped out of the front seat.
“She’s still unconscious,” Louis blurted.
Officer Brown got out of the car and quickly eyed the conversation that the two of them were having. Given the situation, the police officer hadn’t been able to separate all the people involved, so questioning each of them individually hadn’t been an option. Louis could see that it didn’t sit right with the stocky man. Brown’s shoulders looked even wider as he put his hands on his hips and looked at the mother and son.
“We still have a few things to go over,” he said.
“Of course,” Ma said smoothly. “We’re not going anywhere, officer. We couldn’t possibly leave Marigold alone.”
Brown opened the back door of the police car, letting Cordelia and Rene shuffle out.
“How is she?” Cordelia asked instantly.
“They don’t think there’s any internal bleeding but the ER staff are still checking on her.” Louis turned to Brown, “Can we go see her now?”
“Of course,” Brown said crisply. He waved his hand out before him, indicating that they take the lead.
He wanted to keep them all in eyesight. Ma grabbed Louis’ hand and hurriedly pulled him faster than the rest of the group. It created just enough distance for her to whisper unheard.
“Do you have the demon’s name?”
“No.”
“That makes this harder.”
Louis glanced to her, “But possible. Right?”
They rushed through the doorway into the hospital, the slow moving doors hitting their shoulders as they squeezed through the emerging gap. Ma’s jaw twitched as she kept her eyes straight head.
“I’m going to need you to get me a few things.”
***
The hospital’s ER was efficient but still a longer process than Louis had expected. From what he could gather, the doctors were far more concerned about Marigold’s inability to regain consciousness than they were about her legs. They were organizing a CT scan. Given the hour and the limited facilities of the hospital, the process wasn’t instantaneous. Louis had been grateful. It had given him some extra time to gather up the items his mother needed.
While Cordelia was the master at distracting people, Rene had proven to be pretty amazing at gathering information. He had found out that there was going to be a shift change shortly. It would leave a window of opportunity of about fifteen to twenty minutes when only the skeleton staff would be actively moving about the area.
Marigold, now considered to be in a stable condition, had been moved into one of the back rooms to await further tests. Louis had always heard of the rituals taking hours and had no idea if
they could compress it into a shorter form. Perhaps Ma’s strength would be enough to make it successful. If they didn’t get this done now, they might have to wait days for another chance.
Rene served as a lookout, helping Louis cross the open area of the waiting room and get through the swinging double doors unseen. The hallway was already deserted and he ran down it as fast as he could, the items almost slipping from his hands with each step. Ma opened the door as he approached and he hurried through.
He dumped the items on the end of Marigold’s bed and spared her a quick glance. His stomach twisted in knots at the sight. She was clean and dry, the gash on her forehead now wrapped in a pristine bandage. But it hadn’t brought any color back to her face. Her lips were now pale, almost white, and dark circles surrounded each eye.
“I got everything but I had to make some substitutions.”
“Substitutions?”
“It’s early morning in rural Louisiana. My options were the garden outside and a self-serve gift shop. Neither had a good voodoo section.”
“This isn’t voodoo,” Ma corrected with a sharp edge. “To counter what you’ve done, I’ll have to do a variation on an ancient Babylonian ritual. I’ll need each item exactly.”
Louis blinked at her. “They didn’t even have name-brand candy.”
Letting her frustration out on a heavy sigh, Ma pulled over a small rolling table that had been stripped of all surgical tools.
“Let’s just get started. Do you have the bowl?”
He quickly handed over the metal bowl he had snagged from the café’s kitchen. She placed it on the rolling table. When she dumped in the flour he had brought, it created a little white cloud. It drifted lazily down to coat the pristine metal as Ma closed her eyes and lifted her hands. The room began to fill with static charge. Small currents of energy sparking against each hair on his body. The sensation added to the chill in Louis’ stomach as Ma held out one hand to him.
“Iron,” she commended.
He placed his now dead mobile in her palm. Instantly, her eyes opened and she glared at the device.
“Phones don’t have iron in them.”
“The batteries do,” Louis argued. “Don’t they?”
“You couldn’t find anything else?”
“What else has iron in it?”
“Door handles.”
“This is a new building,” he argued. “All the handles are stainless steel or plastic.”
Ma clenched her mouth and slapped the phone down into the flour, releasing another puffed cloud. Once her anger simmered down, she focused on the task again. Tiny dents began to litter the flour, as if it were being struck with a thousand needles at once. She whispered the words of the ritual to herself, concentrating on pronouncing instead of volume. Louis had never heard Ancient Babylonian before and had no idea how successful she was in producing the foreign sounds.
“Roots.”
That one had actually be easy to find, given the amount of mulch that had clung to all of them after they had pulled Rene and Marigold free from the bayou. Ma seemed satisfied enough as she wound the grass around the phone.
“The feather.”
Louis cringed as he offered up the only thing he had been able to find. It was a bright pink novelty pen shaped to look like a flamingo. Its body was covered in a thick tuff of tiny feathers that he was pretty sure were real. Ma narrowed her eyes on the item, hovering between astonished and enraged.
“The gardeners here are really dedicated to keeping the yard clean,” he mumbled by way of an apology.
Ma snatched the pen out of his hand and yanked out a few of the feathers before tossing the rest of it aside.
Her eyes were cool as she asked. “How about the animal fur?”
Louis cringed and held up the only thing he had been able to find.
“Wool socks?”
“Wool is the sheep’s fur,” he defended.
“Louis, we need to get this done now. It’s only going to get harder if the demon wakes up within her.”
“I know,” he hissed. “But it was all I could find. It’s not the best, but with your strength behind it, it should still work. Right?”
“I have limitations, Louis,” she snapped even as she took the socks.
She threaded the feathers into the folds of the knitted wool and wrapped them both around the phone before she placed them back into the bowl. The flour once against stirred as an unseen force slithered like snakes under the surface. Ma’s lips never stopped moving but Louis couldn’t hear a word. The silence was disturbed only by the soft, rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. Louis didn’t move a muscle until Ma opened her eyes and looked over to him.
“I take it that you couldn’t find a wax or clay vessel for demons.”
Louis sheepishly lifted up a lime green plush giraffe. Ma didn’t hesitate to reach out to take it, resigned to the uphill struggle. She moved closer to Marigold’s bedside, giraffe in hand, leaving the small table behind. Louis remained at the end of the bed, watching, unsure what he was supposed to do. He had never witnessed this ritual before, but could already feel the heat it created. Steam rose up in the bowl as if it were filled with dry ice. It trickled over the rim and pooled against the table.
Ma spoke again, a gentle murmur of words before she abruptly spat on Marigold’s head. Using her thumb, she spread the liquid out across Marigold’s brow before repeating the process with the giraffe. The steam from the bowl grew thicker as it released a sweltering heat into the room. Louis watched as it thickened and grew, becoming long twisted tentacles that unfurled from the edges of the bowl and stretched out to coil around Ma’s legs.
Speaking in a continuous whisper, Ma spat on Marigold’s hands and sternum, once again mirroring the actions with the plush toy. The smoke tendrils coiled over Ma’s hips and wrapped around her waist as she worked. They never hindered her as she moved. Louis backed away for Ma to take his place at the foot of the bed. She pulled the sheets back, exposing Marigold’s engorged and discolored feet. Louis had to look away, his throat swelling closed at the sight of what he had done.
Ma spat on both of Marigold’s feet and then turned to complete the process with the toy. The second her spit hit the giraffe’s left foot, Marigold jerked. Her left foot spun until it released a sickening crack, a sound Louis knew all too well. The bone had broken again, her foot twisting until her foot pointed backwards. He ran to Marigold’s side. She was still asleep.
He grabbed her right leg, holding it tightly as Ma completed the spit ritual with the giraffe’s foot. It didn’t matter. The limb moved within his grasp, his fingers uselessly sliding over the flesh. With a crack that matched the first, her foot turned until her toes pressed into the mattress. Louis reeled back, turning his eyes to his mother. The tendrils now rose above her, expanding out in all directions, filling the space until they brushed against the ceiling and the walls.
Louis backed away, his heart hammering in his chest. Each breath brought the static charge of the air deep into his lungs until he trembled from the force. Ma ignored them, continuing undisturbed in her mumble of words. With both hands, she raised the plush toy high over her head and brought it down like a driving stake onto the bed. The second it made contact, the tentacles struck. They burrowed deep into her stomach and pulled, yanking her up until her spine almost folded in half.
“Hold her down,” Ma commanded.
Louis leapt on top of Marigold, attempting to use his weight to drive her back down against the mattress. His presence barely made a difference. Her bones creaked with the effort and she began to thrash. Ma continued unhindered as he fought to keep Marigold from injuring herself. The struggle bucked and threw Louis, leaving him scrambling to keep his hold. He never felt any of the tentacles that remained probing and tugging inside of her. He only felt the power they exerted.
With his forearm across her chest, he bore down with the entirety of his weight until her shoulders were flush with the mattress again. Draped over her
still thrashing form, Louis couldn’t catch his breath. His lungs cracked as his mother’s power increased. It felt like sucking in electricity itself. The lights overhead buzzed, the heart monitor flicking on and off in a way that was sure to draw attention. He glanced back at his mother, searching for guidance, and found the woman now suspended in the air, drawn up by the squirming tendrils that now covered every inch of space.
Marigold screamed and Louis clamped his hand over her mouth, trying to force her jaw shut. The sound continued, muffled but still strong. He turned to her and felt his heart stop. She was watching him. He felt her gaze sink into him, slithering around something deep in his core and reeled him in. It felt like he was falling, tumbling through an endless nothingness, as her eyes grew before him. The tiny veins within the whites of her eyes became a towering forest before him. Blood swelled within each one until they burst and flooded the surrounding area.
The air rushed from his lungs as something else took hold of him. It wrapped around him and hurled Louis back from the bloody forest. He felt himself fall into his skin before he was sent flying across the room. His back slammed against the wall, his brain rattling within his skull as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.
Ma rose higher into the air, her attention focused on Marigold as everything within the room began to rattle. The heat increased until it burnt Louis’ skin. Marigold sat upright, no longer glaring at the woman with eyes, but with circular pools of blood. The demon was trying to draw Ma in, just as it had done so easily to Louis. But Ma only stared back as the tentacles drove into Marigold like a thousand daggers.
Louis bolted for the door and pressed his back against it, attempting to keep anyone out as the energy grew. The floor continued to heat until the wheels of the rolling table and bed began to melt. Sweat drenched his clothes. It felt like his very marrow was boiling. Marigold continued to stare but her eyes had no effect on Ma. The pure liquid orbs of her eyes began to leak, dripping down over her face until there were only gaping holes where her eyes had once been. Ma continued her chanting. The walls rattled until they threatened to burst. The contents of the bowl exploded into a thousand fireworks.
