by JB Duvane
“The house is mine. If I can't get the girl to leave him then she will die. If she has his child that means another generation of Valices live. We cannot allow that to happen. But she must be brought to me first. Do you understand?”
“Yes, your majesty.” The old man turned and limped away from me. “And for your information I don't have that much confidence in your damned bones.”
“How would you know, old man. You don’t have the power of the Blood Mother.”
“I think this mumbo jumbo is all in your head.” He made a circle with his finger next to his head as he turned the corner and disappeared into the tunnel.
I pulled a cord to my right and called my servant.
“Yes, Manbo.”
“I want the old man followed at all times. His movements are to be reported directly to me, and the next time he passes out drunk inform me immediately. I’ve had enough of him.”
“Yes, Manbo.” He slithered out.
I pulled out the purse that held the sacred bones and pressed it between my hands. “Open the door, Papa Legba. Let me see through your eyes.” I threw the bones out onto the ground and passed my hands over them while I waited for a tingling sensation to hit my fingers. When my hands reached the end of the pile, I pulled up a tiny sliver of bone. It was a septum.
The Loa never spoke to anyone directly. The messages in the bones were mine to interpret and were often contradictory. The septum meant knowledge and understanding. It represented the ability to sense something and my focus was on the girl, Charlotte. But the bones didn't tell me what she would sense. She could either sense our influence within the house, or perhaps Raymond’s secrets.
Another pass over the bones brought me to one of the bones of the pinky finger. Last night it was the thumb. The pinky finger represented little action. The thumb represented strong action and success. Stalemates like this could go on for months before the Loa would give anything close to a definitive answer. I didn’t have time, though. The girl was a danger to the Beauchamp survival. She had to be taken care of.
The future was an ever evolving set of possibilities, based on our actions and the things around us. I’d witnessed prophecies come true, and I’d seen them fail, but right now I needed to know what course of action she was going to take.
I placed the bones back in the bag, and silently thanked the Loa of the crossroads for granting me the power of understanding. Behind my throne was a small passageway dug into the cave. It was barely big enough for me to fit my skinny frame inside it, but the only way to approach a Mano was with the respect they were due, so I sucked in my stomach and began the slow passage through the dirt towards the antechamber, where the rock walls formed a natural path towards the Temple.
Long ago, I came into my power and I knew that I had to make right the injustices that had been done against my family. But back then the situation in the house was very tense and there were too many Valices. We would have lost everything if we would have tried to overpower them.
So I commanded the Beauchamps to multiply, like Jews ready to leave Egypt, and they did. Now there are many that live in these caverns and serve the Valice family. It’s unfortunate the condition that we have been placed in. The Beauchamps will do whatever it takes to regain their former dignity that was so brutally taken from them.
I didn't know much about the lives of the generations of Blood Mothers before me, just things I'd managed to glean from the bones and the journals. Most of it was patchy, but there were a few moments that had brought on powerful visions, so real that I could almost physically see the scenes play out in my mind.
The one vision that struck me the strongest, aside from my great-grandmother's death, of course, was the sound of the ritual drums playing while Angeline Beauchamp cast the curse in front of the Valices in the foyer. She danced all night, her feet stamping against the marble with the drums pounding out the rhythm of the spirit world. The Loa came slowly, as they often did in times of great necessity, but she knew that if she kept dancing they would come, so she kept it up, chanting, shrieking, drinking the blood of the pig.
Her goal was to invoke Marinette—the Loa of revenge for the slaves—but her hellfire wrath wasn't seen fit for the situation. Instead she felt the cold flow of the jealous goddess of love. She fell on Angeline like a basin of water. After that, she forgot much of what happened. All I could see in my vision from that point onward was my great-grandmother laughing.
The contract was a lie. The curse was meant to placate the members of the Valice family until one of Angeline’s blood daughters were able to take over the house and find the family fortune. It was rumored to be within the walls of the house. The fortune that the Valices stole from my ancestors. They took it away when they took our freedom. It had to be somewhere on the property, but no matter where my people searched, or how many old sections they tore up and rebuilt, they never found a thing. We have been waiting for centuries to get it back, but the spirits have not seen fit to guide me and my people to what is rightfully ours.
So now I must take control. I will defeat the Valice family and win back what rightfully belongs to the Beauchamps. They will all thank me when I recover the legacy and give their dignity back to them. They will see what I am capable of and my power will be undeniable.
The hall opened up to a dimly lit chamber where my favorite foods—biscuits and bacon—had been placed in front of an oil painting made in my honor. I bowed. “Holy Mother, born of magic and darkness, bring to fruition my greatest ambition.” I kissed the ground and crawled around towards the other side of the chamber, where a tiny cork stopped vial was sitting on an altar covered in candle wax and ashes from the centuries of offerings that had been made to the holy relic.
I reached down and let my lips touch the earth, this time tensing my body so I could send as much energy as I could muster to allow me to reach my goal. I felt empty. I'd been feeling that way for a long time, because no matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of Raymond Valice.
He was the only Valice left. The last one of his line. I’d tried everything I could to subdue him. I had servants sent up to his chambers to find a weakness, but he had everything in the house watched, and there was always somebody manning the cameras. Those hired guards of his would have killed my servants before they got to the top of the stairs.
I sat my head back up and began crawling back towards the tunnel leading above ground. Charlotte was dangerous. He was right about her. I'd never seen that kind of determination and resourcefulness before. She had to go if I was going to gain control of the house. If the two bred, the lives of my people might as well be over.
17
Raymond - Fifteen Years Ago
I felt my limp body yanked out of the dark cave, then out into the forest where I fell onto the ground.
“Are you okay, Raymond?”
I coughed and gasped in the fresh air, then looked up at a young man I had never seen before.
“Who are you?” I squinted into the morning light, trying to bring the man’s face into focus.
“I’m Gerald. I work for your mother.”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My head was splitting and I was still having a hard time getting my bearings. I didn’t know what had happened in those caverns but I felt like I had been poisoned. “Are you one of the Beauchamps?”
“The who?”
“The Beauchamps. The servants. What are you doing here?”
“Your mother hired me to keep an eye on things. On you.”
“So you're … a guard?”
“Yeah. I’m your personal guard. She told me that my presence was supposed to be kept secret, but I guess that doesn't matter now. What the hell happened in there?”
“I have to get back in there.” I tried to stand but he held me down. “My mother … she’s not well.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“What do you mean you noticed? Were you in the caverns with us?”
“Not the whole time. I caught up with you
after you’d been gone a while. It’s my job to make sure you’re okay and I was worried. I caught up with you just in time to hear what she told you to do.”
I stared up at him, hoping to finally get an outside opinion for once in my life. “Do you think what she asked me to do was wrong?”
“Of course. I think your mother has gone off her rocker.” It was obvious as soon as the words came out of his mouth that he felt bad. “Sorry, Raymond. I know I don’t know you or your mother that well, but from what I’ve see and heard so far … well, it doesn’t sound to me like she’s treated you very well.”
“Don’t say that!” I stood up and tried to keep my balance, but had to lean on Gerald for support. “Don’t say that about her. She did her best.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she did. But some people’s best is never going to be good enough. Does she ever let you leave those rooms of yours?”
“No.” I couldn’t look at Gerald’s face. A part of me had known for a long time things weren’t right.
“Do you ever talk to anyone else besides her?”
“No.” I suddenly felt ashamed. I knew things had been bad for a while but saying it out loud made it too real.
“Well, now you do. Now you’ve got a friend.”
I looked up at Gerald and was relieved to see his smile. He didn’t seem to be laughing at me or judging me, and he certainly wasn’t telling me to kill anyone, which was a relief in an of itself. “Thank you.” I smiled back.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Gerald’s smile faded and a serious look took its place. “Let’s sit down and you can take your time.”
I took a deep breath and told Gerald about the other times my mama had acted strangely. But that this time was much different. First of all, I had never been allowed to leave my wing of the house. I didn’t understand at first why she had taken me down there. Then I told him about the smell of the rotting corpses and people who had been tortured and left in the cells to rot. I felt sick all over again thinking about it.
But the look on Mama's face when she asked me to kill that man, that was the thing that haunted me the most. I kept coming back to her wide-eyed grin and the way she called that poor man a doll, like she had no idea what she was doing.
Every time I looked up into Gerald’s eyes I expected to see shock or disgust, but he just listened without any judgement. It was an incredible relief. I’d never really been able to open up before. My mother wasn't somebody I could speak to easily, and she always wanted to think of me as her Little Raymond. So in her eyes I could never experience any of the problems a growing teenage boy encounters. I knew it was too much for her, so I just kept things in. After I started to tell Gerald what happened, the words kept pouring out of me. By the time I was done, I was balling.
As I calmed down and continued to talk to Gerald, I really started to wonder if she had any idea what she was doing down there in the caverns. If she did, I didn't know what I was going to do. My entire life, I'd promised myself that I'd never let her go. She was my mother, but after what I'd seen, I couldn't live with her. And I couldn’t stay in this horrible place.
If she didn't know what she was doing, which was a real possibility, I'd have to accept that her mind was going quicker than I thought it was. That would mean a regimen of doctors and nurses—constant care. Eventually, I’d have to look into her empty eyes where there would be no recognition, no love.
But either way the world that I had know for eighteen years would be gone.
After a long silence Gerald spoke. “Listen man, she's your mom. From what you're telling me, she needs help. Why don’t we go back to the house and sort things through with her?”
I looked at him like he was the one that was crazy now. “I’ve never confronted her about anything before. I don’t know if I can.”
“I’ll be with you. I saw some of what went down in that cavern, Raymond. I know that she’s not all there anymore. I’m on your side.”
“Okay,” I said as I stood up. “But I need to make sure she’s all right. Do you know your way back through the tunnels?”
“Sure. I’ve been checking them out here and there. I’d never gone this far though, that must be why all that bad air was trapped in there. I think your mother is the only one that’s been going into this part of the caverns for a long time. That might be what has made her so funny in the head. Some kind of gas poisoning.”
“I thought the servants might live down there. At least that’s what my mother told me. Have you ever seen anyone else while you were down there?”
“Nope. Not a soul.”
Gerald walked ahead of me back into the dark cave. “This entrance here was blocked off. I think that’s why the gas built up to such dangerous levels. I just happened to see a line of beetles crawling through a crack and kicked it to see if it would give. A bunch of rocks and dirt fell out and the whole thing opened up. Now that some air can get in it shouldn’t be quite as bad in there.”
He pulled a gun out of his jacket and moved ahead of me into the darkness.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Just in case.”
The sounds of the tunnel were louder than I remembered from before. Probably because I was half out of my mind from the poison gas. As I looked around at the walls I started to notice the slabs of rock in some sections of the cavern walls. “When I was in here earlier I thought this was some sort of man-made tunnel. But it looks like most of it is a series of caves and caverns.”
“Yeah, there's caves all through these mountains. I knew some guys that used to come down here all the time. That gas problem is actually pretty common in these old undisturbed caves. People die in them all the time.” We rounded the curve and started descending down towards the torture chamber. The smell stopped Gerald. “Oh, Jesus Christ, that smell. I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“I have to go in there. If Mama’s still in there she could die!”
“Then let’s make it quick!”
Gerald pulled his shirt up over his face and ran in front of me to the open room that was lined with cells. He ran right to the place where Mama had been but she wasn’t there. He turned and motioned to me that he was leaving. I followed him back through the tunnel, past all of the torches that lined the walls, when a body appeared up ahead.
It was Mama and she was passed out on the ground.
Gerald picked her up and threw her over his shoulder and continued down the dimly lit tunnel until the horrible smell started to fade. Then he set her up against a wall to catch his breath.
I held her face in my hands and tried to wake her up. “Mama! Can you hear me?” I looked at Gerald in a panic. “Is she alive?”
“Yeah, but just barely. We need to get her out of here.”
I put my arm around one side of her body and Gerald took the other and together we carried her up into the house. It took time but we got her up to her room and into bed.
She was feverish and spoke nothing but gibberish for the rest of that day and night, but I stayed with her and took care of her. I had abandoned her in that horrible place and she almost died. It was my fault that she was so sick now and I didn’t know if I would ever be able to forgive myself.
The next day she opened her eyes. She recognized me and didn’t seem to remember what had happened in that cell. She was kind and gentle and I was optimistic that her condition would improve.
“Raymond, dear,” she said while I sat next to her and kept a cold cloth on her head. “I need to tell you about our family history and this house.”
“Why now? You need your rest, Mama.”
“Raymond, it’s important that I tell you now. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer.”
“No, Mama. You can’t leave me. Please—“
“Raymond. You have to be strong. You’re a man now.” I could see that it was hard for her to admit, but she finally did. “You have to take over for our family. You’re the last living Valice. You have to protect the fa
mily honor.”
She pulled a cord that hung with her bed curtains and the door to her bedroom opened. I turned around to see a man with a slight limp walk into the room and stand at the foot of the bed.
“You rang?”
Mama introduced me to the man, not by name, but as the head of the servants. She told the man that I was the head of the house now and that all of my wishes were to be obeyed.
“Very well, Felicia.” The man looked at me once more then turned and left.
I was shocked. I had never heard my mother’s name before that day. And it surprised me that he had used her first name when addressing her. I started to speak, but my mother held up her hand. She told me about the servants, and the contract. It was hard to follow her because my mind was still on what she has said about not lasting much longer, but I did take in what she said.
I had many questions but she was so tired I didn’t want to bother her with them. I thought to myself that there would be plenty of time to ask them, though. I would ask her tomorrow, or in a week when she was feeling better.
I let her sleep but stayed by her side. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up to find her watching me.
“Please don’t blame me, Raymond. I did everything for you. It was all for you.”
“Of course I don’t blame you. I love you, Mama.”
I watched as the light faded from her eyes and a vacant stare filled them.
“Mama?” I shook her body and her head fell limply to one side. “Mama! Oh God, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone!”
I cried for hours while I sat next to her bed. I kept hoping that she would turn her head to me and laugh like it was all a joke. She couldn’t be gone. I didn’t know what I was going to do without her.
I didn’t leave her room for days. Gerald came to me and told me he would order a casket and she could be placed in the caverns since the ground was too hard for burial. But I wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t bear the thought of putting her away in a closed place. What if she woke up and I wasn’t there. She would be so scared. I thought for a long time and came up with a better idea.
