“Where you at, Cher? What’s botherin’ you here?”
I took another shuddering breath, and felt the coldness leeching back into the ground. I exhaled, and felt my shoulders relax, the sudden tension leaving me as I regained control.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
He arched an eyebrow at me, and I looked down at my feet, suddenly embarrassed.
“In some places, there is so much negative emotion over the years… that it sticks around in the soil, in the rocks and trees… Like grooves cut into a record.”
I looked up again, and my heart ached at the tenderness in his look. Without me reaching into him, some of his thoughts trickled into my mind through his touch.
Please don’t be sad. Oh, no, please don’t be hurtin’, Angel.
Merde! I ain’t nevah should have brought her here, being sensitive like she is.
Quentin, you is a fool, an no mistake…
I reached up and touched his face, feeling the morning stubble there—feeling his warmth as I looked deeply into those sexy, deep eyes of his.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, so don’t worry one more minute,” I said. “Ya hear?”
Quentin looked startled, then relaxed and grinned, leaning into my touch.
“I’m just feelin’ some of the residual this-an-that hangin’ around here. I’m fine, though, honest. I can block it out…”
He took my hand in his and kissed it, making me let out a soft moan at the feel of his warm, soft lips against my skin.
“You really are somethin’, Trix,” he said, winking at me. “I can’ even imagine doin’ what you do.”
I laughed, suddenly as shy as a schoolgirl, but he didn’t release my hand. Instead, he wrapped it in his, guiding me further into the cemetery.
“I wanted to show this, you,” he said, leading me to a dark corner where the underbrush grew a little wilder, and the trees leaned in just a little further. “Do you feel any’ting from dis crypt, Cher?”
I leaned down and squinted, tryin’ to make out the carvings.
“Jonah Mitchell,” I read. “1798 to 1811…”
I touched the stone and gasped as a wave of emotion crashed over me. A woman’s voice echoed in my mind, her pained voice strained and shrieking.
My boy! My sweet, sweet boy!
Damn you, you fuckin’ monsters! You took him! You took him, an’ he wasn’ even a man yet, you fuckin’ snakes, you fuckin’ wolves in sheep’s clothin’!
You say you do the work ah the Lord, but you is evil!
EVIL!
She wept and cursed, but now, a chanting rose above, several male voices intoning together to drown her out… Latin… The sound reminding me of the Easter mass I attended once as a child, the words older than this parish, older and full of sweeping power.
Now, other voices encroached, talking over one another, loud and soft, as if a crowd was gathered around me, gathered around the crypt, murmuring as the woman screamed and cried.
Doesn’t know what she’s saying, poor thing.
Stricken with grief. It’s understandable. Terrible thing to happen.
Please, will someone take the mother home? Miss Jeannette, maybe. Pl-
No, my baby! No! NO! He did this!
Bless you, all. Bless you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Sp-
They all did it! They know! They KNOW! God DAMN you all, you-
Come on, now, Anna May, maybe we could-
To Hell! To Hell where you gon’ BURN!
Now, now-
Someone stop her. It ain’t right. Place of God-
No!!
AMEN.
I pulled my hand back, a sudden feeling of nausea roll through me like thunder over the mountains. Quentin was right there, his hands steadying me as I swayed on my feet.
“Something hideous happened to this child,” I said, my voice flat and hollow.
I wondered for a moment if I was about to be sick, right there, on Quentin Boucher’s dusty leather boots. I breathed deeply, willing the darkness away from me with each exhale, taking sunlight and fresh air into me with each new breath, cleansing my spirit.
“It did,” Quentin said.
His voice was hushed, and I sensed a great sorrow in him, just beneath the surface.
“Who was the woman? The one who wept here?”
“Anna May Mitchell worked as a seamstress in town, back then. She an’ her husband were both slaves b’fore in Mississippi, but he die b’fore their master pass on, leavin’ instructions to free ‘em and they boy. He had no heirs, and wanted to do right by them after he was gone.”
I nodded, letting Quentin lead me to a low stone bench, a stone’s throw away from Jonah’s crypt.
“Even though she was free, there was many folk didn’t respect a colored woman, even one so hard-workin’ and kind as ol’ Anna May. Thought they could take advantage. Though no one would care if they did… and fo’ the mos’ part, they was right.”
“What happened? Did someone take her little boy?”
My mouth was dry, despite the dampness of the air. I swallowed hard.
“He… he work in the church some days as an altar boy. Helpin’ light candles an all dat.”
Quentin looked toward the grave, and I noticed his body tense, felt the heat from him, as if a fire burned in his heart as he spoke.
“One Sunday, he never come home. When his Mama come lookin’ for him, the clergy don’ let her in, sayin’ her boy ain’t never show up that day. She knew better. When they found his body, the gaters had chew’d ‘im up some, but Daddy say he never forget the way dat boy looked. He was white as a sheet, Cher. He weren’t bloated or blue or nothin’, like you’d see on someone who drown’d.”
Quentin’s jaw clenched, and he shook his head, his eyes blazing.
“When they were preparin’ for the service, my Daddy saw ‘im, Cher. His neck… here,” he pointed to the hollow of his throat. “There was two li’l holes, the flesh still raw and raised. He said it was like Jonah’d been sucked dry by a mosquito the size of a Doberman. It was then he and Mama knew what evil lurked in dat church, Trix. An’ it was then that the clergy cast their eyes on him. Especially after he went to Miss Anna May with his suspicions…”
My eyes must’a been as wide as saucers.
“Are you tryin’ to tell me what I think you’re tryin’ to tell me, Quentin?”
“You can tell if I’m lyin’, can’t you, Cher?”
I looked at him for one long moment, then took his hand in mine, marveling at how well we seemed to fit together, even as my heart beat like a hammer in my chest, anxiety coursing through me. Did I really want to know?
Lord, wasn’t I already in it up to my eyeballs with these boys?
I sighed, and steeled myself, then nodded to him to continue.
“The church was housin’ vampires—keepin’ ‘em safe in its ranks.”
His heart beat was steady, his thoughts echoing his words, his eyes full of sincerity as he spoke this bizarre and awful truth.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” I muttered. “Vampires are real, too?”
“Believe me, Cher. I wish it weren’t so. Daddy didn’t know if it was da priest of our parish, the two assistant priests he be trainin’, or if it was all o’ dem, goin’ all the way up to the bishop. No one was allow’d to set foot in the back rooms of dat church, ‘specially not Anna May, not even after she scream her head off, accusin’ dem of murderin’ her only boy.”
“Your father told her, and she believed?”
“Anna May wasn’t educated, but my folks say she was one o’ the sharpest minds aroun’, and she a Root Worker, too. Ain’t no stranger to the sup’natural, her, an’ she knew it when she saw it.”
Root Worker…
That phrase stuck in my mind, the words like an old familiar song I could only half-remember. For a minute, I was back in my grandma’s kitchen, listenin’ to her hum as she crushed herbs together with her old mortar an’ pestle, a red felt bag lying n
ext to her, ready to be filled. The mingling smells of cinnamon and cloves floated through my mind, tickling my senses.
“After she accused ‘em, it weren’t long b’fore she turn up in da river, too, but dis time, everyone jus’ let it go, cause she was jus’ a poor black woman, ya know? In a week, it was out’a they heads. Ain’t nobody thought ‘bout her or li’l Jonah again. That is, nobody but Maurice Boucher.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Soon after, he found himself under the curse? The Rougarou?”
Quentin nodded, squeezing my hand.
“Legends ran deep in that land already ‘bout the Rougarou. People say you get da curse if you miss Lent for seven years in a row, or if you a blasphemer. The church has long warned again’ takin’ the holy church fo’ granted, les’ the curse come for ya. When it befell my Daddy… Well, it didn’t take no schola’ to put two an’ two togetha’. He knew it was one of ‘em. But there weren’t no way to prove it, and no way to know which man were the one that lay down dat trick.”
“Hold on, now,” I said, the hair rising on the back of my neck. “Did your father, Maurice, ever find anythin’ suspicious ‘round the home? A little red bag or a doll under the porch, or maybe powder on the doorstep? Somethin’ he would walk through?”
Quentin looked at me like he’d seen a ghost.
“Oui, but, how did you...” He stroked my hand with his thumb, and let out a low laugh. “You are a remarkable woman, Cher. I’m still figuring out jus’ how much.”
I could barely breath with him touching me like that, but now wasn’t the time to get all hot ’n’ bothered.
“There was powder on the stoop. He thought Mama was sweepin’, or some such, an’ tried not to track it in. Still, he walked through it, alrigh’. It was only later he done realize it was some kinda hoodoo.”
I ran my hand over my face and though my hair, sighing. I didn’t like this, no sir. No one little bit.
“My Grandma used to do a little root work,” I said. “Nothin’ fancy. Just some mojo bags for herself and others, magic floor washes for the home to draw luck and keep things peaceful… But she taught me to always watch out for tricks laid in my path. She called it ‘getting’ poisoned through the feet.’ As soon as the person the curse was intended for walks through the trick, the magic enters them…”
I looked up at Quentin, who watched me carefully, his face rapt.
“It’s the dark side of that magic, and few have ever used it. But, people have laid down spells for giving bad luck, spells for bringing illness, sometimes even a spell for making their enemy wither up and die. Victims just waste away, without even knowin’ what got ‘em.”
“But in dis case… Well, we know da rest. Someone laid down the Cunja of the Rougarou, an’ now we bea’ the burden.”
His hand tightened around mine, and his face contorted into a look of pain.
“Naw, da blood is on our hands.”
“But Quentin, now we know somethin’, don’t we? Now we know that whatever low-down, lilly-livered piece’a pond scum did this to your family must’a known known how to lay down a trick. An’ that ain’t exactly something most white folk, especially, men of the cloth, can just pull out of a hat, right? He’d have to be taught.”
“You right,” he said, standing up.
He let go of my hand and walked toward the largest crypt, right in the middle of the clearing. The white stone was clean, the engravings swept free from moss and vines. I followed at a close distance, letting him think in peace.
“There be only one who coulda done it, Cher,” Quentin said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
I moved closer to hear him over the soft swaying of the trees, and the gentle burble of the water in the distance.
“I remember dem two assistan’ priests came ova’ from anotha’ town, migratin’ down from Oklahoma territ’ry,” he said. “But dat main priest? Lived here a while, him, but before dat, he’s stationed in them British Islan’s. Came over with a man or two in tow, too, callin’ them his ‘wards.’”
“If he was a… a vampire…” It still felt too weird to say it, despite all I’d learned in the past 24 hours. “Is it possible he’s still around? Could he rid y’all of the curse?”
Quentin’s eyes narrowed, and he suddenly seemed far away.
“Church burn’ down the summer after,” he said. “And we never saw dem priests again. They left, sayin’ this town had a darkness upon it… that they wouldn’t rebuild… The nerve ah them, Cher! People never look’d at my family the same way. Not after that, even though he never had nothin’ to do wit it. I saw a picture ah the man my father kep’, but that’s all. He got away, like it weren’t nothin’, what he and his did to those kin’ people…”
He looked for a moment, like he wanted to punch the stone, but instead, he laid a tense hand upon the crypt.
I read the names etched into the stone in front of us: Maurice and Amelie Boucher. There were no dates, but the names were large and deep, surrounded by carvings of creeping ivy, winding above them in a beautiful arch.
He traced the names with his fingers slowly, but from the hard line of his jaw, and the deadly glint in his eyes, I knew he was far from cool and collected. He was enraged. I felt it, white-hot inside of me, and somewhere deep below that, a blood lust was tensed, howling, ready to burst forth and leap upon its prey.
The feeling moved through me almost faster than I could acknowledge it, and for the blink of an eye, I knew what it was like to crush bones in my powerful jaws, to feel the life of a living creature pouring over my muzzle and throat, hot and tangy, filling me with a primal ecstasy that made me shake with hunger and need.
I gasped, and stepped back, stumbling over a broken piece of stone. I fell backwards, and cried out, my arms in the air as my legs slipped out from under me. But before my head could crack against the cold stone of the crypt behind me, he was there, surrounding me, pulling me to him, inches from the ground, his arms strong and firm around me, his grip both terribly firm and comforting, all at once.
He pulled me back up, and set me on my feet, as if I weighed no more than a doll, even though I was a curvy little thing, and make no mistake. I realized I was trembling in his arms, my head spinning. He grabbed me so fast. How…?
“Trix,” he exclaimed, brushing my hair tenderly over my ear. “You alrigh’, Cher?”
The beast was gone now—the rage subsided—and in its place, I felt a warmth flowing between us, a tenderness, so deep and pure, it made me want to cry.
“That gave me quite a start, an’ that ain’t no lie,” he said. “You hurt, beb? You ankle twisted any?”
I looked up at him, eyes wide, and mouth open, feelin’ for a minute like one of them cartoons with the little tweety birds goin’ round and round their heads.
“I… I think I’m alright,” I said.
I took a tentative step, and screeched, and almost toppled over again.
“Shyit!”
My ankle burned like hellfire when I put my weight on it. That couldn’t be good.
“Oh, hell,” Quentin said, leaning down. “You got a sprain hyeh, hon. You can’ be walkin’ on that. Come on, naw.”
Before I could protest, he tossed my arms around his neck and scooped me up like a bride being carried over the threshold. He was warm and solid, the planes of his chest rock-hard beneath his faded plaid shirt, unbuttoned just enough to show a light scattering of chest hair. I leaned into him, marveling at how little effort it seemed to take him to hold me like this. I felt embarrassed that he had to carry me like this, but at the same time, with his strong arms supporting me as he jogged back to the house, moving effortlessly like a wolf through the brush, I felt safe for the first time in years.
I inhaled his scent as he moved quickly through the trees, allowing him to take over, wondering how on earth I could possibly feel this warm, this cared for, when just a moment before, I’d been recoiling in terror at what I sensed within him? At the monster, waiting to claw its way o
ut?
I just couldn’t make sense of it. Then again, maybe I didn’t have to.
Maybe things like this were felt rather than understood…
We burst into the yard just in time to see Felix and Bastian carrying boxes into the house, Rose chatting away as she held the screen door for them. Heads turned, and before I knew it, all three men surrounded me, and I was being whisked inside by strong, masculine hands.
The brothers argued about which couch to set me on, until Rosa muscled her way through the group, and whistled shrilly, making us all wince.
“Now that’s better,” she said, hands on her hips. “Felix, boy! You go set the kettle on, and you, Bastian! Help me arrange these here pillahs… Quentin, stop lookin’ at me like I done asked ya to pick a switch, and tell me what happen’ before I give you what for!”
Felix stopped, stunned, before dutifully jogging off toward the kitchen, and Bastian was already preparing the couch before Rosa stopped talkin.’ Quentin helped me out of his arms and got me leanin’ back with my leg up, trying hard as he might not to swear at his kindly caretaker, although he looked about fit to burst.
“Rosa, she done sprain’d an ankle’s all,” he said, “But she need lookin’ afta-“
“CANDIDE!” Rosa bellowed, making us all jump. “BRING ICE!”
I heard a heavy sigh from the other room, then heavy footsteps.
Soon, I was propped up on pile of pillows, my legs stretched out, and my ankle ice. A mug of hot tea was in my hands, and despite the heat of the day, the steam rising from it, and the delicate floral scent, soothed my anxieties away.
The men were sitting around me, Quentin perched on an ottoman next to me, and his brothers leaning forward from two wingback chairs, their muscled bodies tense, like they were ready to spring to action at a moment’s notice.
Fed to the Wolves, Part 2: Bad Moon Waxing Page 2
