The Mirk and Midnight Hour

by Jane Nickerson

  As we made our way through the forest to Anarchy’s house, I caught a glimpse of Sparrow flitting along ahead, under cover of the trees.

  I called to her, but she gave no sign that she heard.

  She was standing beside Anarchy in the herb garden by the time we arrived there. “My baby gals,” Anarchy said. “Sparrow told me you was on your way. I been waiting on you.”

  “Aunty,” Laney said, “we didn’t come just to visit. Miss Vi’s got a big problem. She’s been messing with those VanZeldts—those hoodoo folks. She needs your help.”

  “Laws a-mercy, child,” Anarchy said. “Don’t I know it? Of course I do. I been worrying over you, li’l Miss Violet. The last few days them bees been warning me for your sake. Why’d you go and mess with them folks?”

  “I didn’t mean to. It’s them who are messing with me,” I said. “So you know about the bees?”

  Laney looked at me questioningly; I’d explain later.

  Anarchy grinned. “Sure ’nough. And they know about me. You best come inside and set a spell. Tell old Anarchy all about it. Bees can’t explain all the details, even when they buzz to high heaven. Just bzzz this and bzzz that—right hard to decipher.”

  Anarchy’s house was clean, cozy, sweet-smelling, and full of color. Yellow-sprigged curtains hung at the windows and a scarlet-sprigged cloth covered the table. In the center of the table sat a ribbed yellowware bowl that reminded me of an upside-down bee skep. It held peaches, pears, and weirdly shaped roots. Herbs hung from the ceiling.

  Laney and I pulled out chairs. Sparrow retired to a dim corner so I could not see her well, but I knew she was watching solemnly and listening.

  Anarchy brought us each a cup of chamomile tea. “Now,” she said, “tell me.”

  I glanced significantly toward Sparrow.

  Anarchy bobbed her head. “It don’t matter that my Sparrow will hear. Sometimes I thinks she understands these odd things better than I does. Her spirit be old.”

  For the second time that day, I told my story, this time adding the details Dr. VanZeldt had related of the snake god, Raphtah-from-the-stars.

  Sparrow spoke only once from the shadows. “The People Things,” she whispered, early on.

  Dusk deepened as I spoke, and Laney and I exchanged uneasy glances while Anarchy drew the curtains and lit a candle. In its flickering light the tight-stretched skin over Anarchy’s cheekbones made her face appear skull-like. Her expression was grim and her tone hushed. “That creature might’ve been half snake, but it wasn’t no god. Whatever it was, though, it ain’t up to no good in this here world. I ain’t a conjure woman—I is only a root woman, and a Christian one at that—but I got to know a little black magic in order to fight it. This is bigger doings than any hoodoo I ever heard tell of, but it’s got bits of the same. Them mojo bags and all.”

  “Have you ever heard of a grigri?” I asked, and pulled my amulet from my pocket.

  “Uh, uh, uh,” Anarchy said, holding the stone carefully. “Who give you this?”

  “Amenze. One of the VanZeldts. She isn’t a bad person. She meant to help me with this. It’s how the forgetting and illusion spells were broken.”

  “No one ain’t ever all good or all bad.”

  This was the second time in the day that someone had said this. Dorian flashed through my mind. Perhaps even he had once or twice genuinely cared about us—a little.

  “ ’Cept Cletus,” Anarchy added a disclaimer. “He was the bocor back at Oakhill Plantation, where me and Permilla was borned. He was all bad. Killed babies just to use their tiny pieces for bone reading. Hold on to your grigri. It ain’t real strong, but it do got power for good. Now, this forgetting spell—you look on the tops of your outside windows and doors. Also dig round your steps, and I bet you find a little packet of nasty trash—lizard heads and bloody chicken feathers. That’d be what caused your forgetting.”

  “I caught Amenze in our kitchen yard a while back. I think … it’s foggy still, but I think that was right before I forgot Lieutenant Lynd. She acted so strangely. She didn’t speak and her eyes didn’t focus.”

  “Drugged,” Anarchy said. “Drugged so she seemed like walking dead. I seen it at Oakhill. The bocor slave had a slave hisself. I used to feel so sorry for poor Floyd. One day he up and died. We buried him, but next thing we knows, there he come back again, shuffling about, not looking at no one and doing Cletus’s chores. Later I learned how Cletus done it. Dosed Floyd with some powder so’s he couldn’t move a limb and his heart almost didn’t beat and we buried him. Then Cletus dug Floyd up, waked him a bit, and give him jimsonweed tea to keep him in a trance. So much of hoodoo be drugs and tricksiness and creepy trappings. Like that Uwa fellow this morning. He didn’t really turn his flesh and bones into your soldier’s flesh and bones. He just fooled your eyes. You know what I’m saying—it ain’t like in the old tales where a fox really do turn into a possum.”

  “Aunty,” Laney said, “we need to hurry. They’re fixing to hurt Miss Vi’s soldier. How do we fight them?”

  Anarchy sighed and suddenly looked haggard. “Ain’t a lot I can tell you. You got your grigri. ’Twill help some with illusions. I reckon they’re fixing to sacrifice the poor feller, sure ’nough, but they’ll wait for some sign—some uncommon cloud or some shooting star or some unusual animal happening by. Be best if you sneak to their place and find him before the sign comes. Probably there’ll be patterns of cornmeal dribbled around for a guard where he’s hid away. Brush away them patterns while you pray. Then if you got any of them folks’ spit or hair or toenail clippings—”

  “Oh, Aunty,” Laney groaned, “how’d Miss Vi come by those things?”

  “Or that woman’s blood from her female time …”

  Laney snorted and Anarchy shot a look up to the ceiling. “Forgive this child for she knows not what she do, mocking her elders. I’m just telling you young’uns—if you had them things, we could make dolls to embody the Van-whoevers’ spirits and ’twould cause such pain they’d do whatever you made them do. That’s why bocors are so careful about them things. Why, Cletus, he used to hide out in the trees to pee and buried—”

  “Aunty!” Laney said sharply.

  “Miss Vi,” Sparrow said.

  We all looked at her. We had nearly forgotten she was there.

  “You got the wooden dolls. The ones that favor them People Things.”

  I nodded slowly. “You’re right. I have”—I hesitated, then made up my mind and continued firmly—“I have two carved figures that look just like Amenze and Ahigbe. Would those work?”

  Anarchy’s old eyes lit up. “Might would, might would, even without the spit. What you got to do is, you gonna take them dolls and you rub them with this oil I gives you and you write their names on them. Then pass the dolls over a burning candle. Utter the names and concentrate on the flame. Don’t burn them all up—you don’t want to out-and-out kill them, I guess, but just force them to let your feller go.”

  I twisted my hands together. “I hate to use such methods.” I especially didn’t want to hurt Amenze.

  “Got to fight fire with fire. No decent, God-fearing folks wants to mess with ugly things, but ’twas them Van—them fools started the messing. Sparrow, run and get Miss Vi a flask of root oil.”

  Sparrow returned shortly to hand me a tiny bottle. As we stood to leave, Anarchy took my cold hands in her own warm, gnarled ones. “Honey child, it be true these folks can command some spirits—loa, they is called—to do their bidding, but them loa are puny earth-trapped beings, not like God’s holy angels or the good Lord hisself. Say your prayers and remember what the prophet Elisha said. He said, ‘Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.’ And ’tis so for you.” She squeezed my hands. “You bring your young man here to meet old Anarchy when all this be over and done.”

  “I will if I can, but he’s a Union soldier and I don’t—”

  “By ‘all this’ I meant all this. When them crazy, pow
erful men be done busting the United States wide open and have set themselves down to mend it. Then your young man’ll scoot back to you and you bring him here. That be what I meant.” She gave us each a hard, bony hug.

  I think Laney and I both wished we could stay there in the safety of Anarchy’s wings, in the candlelight, but we turned and walked out into the darkness. We were all Thomas had.

  The air was still and foggy when I left before dawn the next morning. Mist blanketed everything in a hush that was menacing in its quiet.

  I made my way alone to Shadowlawn. I had wanted to run off to find Thomas as soon as we returned from Anarchy’s, but Laney convinced me that such headlong action would come back to hurt me in the end. Instead I had stayed up all night, first with the others, debating how to proceed, next searching for Amenze’s unpleasant hoodoo objects and then burning them. One revolting-smelling little bundle of blackened, shriveled animal bits, bound by twine, was found buried near the steps in the kitchen yard; another was above the door of Laney’s cabin. I spent the final minutes by myself in my room, upon my knees, praying for help.

  Against argument, I had insisted I go alone. In this case, physical numbers and strength would not help. If I failed, it would do no good for anyone else to be caught in the VanZeldts’ web. In the end our only strategy was that I find Thomas undetected, release him, and bring him back to Scuppernong. If I was discovered, I would use the wooden figures as a threat. If I had not returned by the next morning, Michael would begin slowly burning the carvings. If I still did not return by the afternoon, he would inform the marshal of all that had taken place. Even if civilized man’s law could not stop the evil, at least it could bring trouble to the VanZeldts. That was all. My only weapons were the figures, my only armor the amulet. I felt naked.

  The pearly air turned the landscape into a faded dream with no boundaries between field, river, and wood. I must be extra watchful, extra wary in such a world. I paddled past the inlet where I left the canoe for Lodge visits and on a ways farther to the Shadowlawn dock. Just beyond the VanZeldts’ boat, I hid the canoe behind a bushy outcrop. Heat dragged at my boots and at my bones, and my clothing hung heavy. I had donned a pair of Rush’s old trousers to enable me to move quickly, unencumbered by billowing skirts. It had taken me a moment to put them on; it took courage to wear men’s clothing. I found them less comfortable—hotter and more binding—than ladies’ things. Still, they made for swifter travel.

  The closer I crept to Shadowlawn, the more afraid I was of the forest. A pair of malevolent-looking squirrels glared down through the fog and scolded me. The normal stirrings of the trees made me recoil. Faint breezes curled vapor into swirls that confused direction.

  Somehow I reached my destination. The house at Shadowlawn slept, floating on its cloud of mist like Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted castle. For several minutes I lingered behind a trunk, searching for signs of life. None appeared. No one came out. No shapes moved behind dark windows.

  A soft humming broke the stillness. Five bees flew in from the forest. They hovered around my head and then moved slowly to the left. I followed them as they darted from tree to tree and behind clumps of bushes. They led me to a shed where, just as Anarchy had said, someone had dribbled cornmeal before the doorway in a pattern of intertwined squiggles, arrows, and death’s-heads. It was the shack where I had glimpsed the skull and snakes.

  I attacked the designs with my boots, dashing away every last line. The bees floated off as I stormed the door, expecting to find it locked. If it was, I would beat it open. It swung inward easily, with only one short, agonized squeak.

  Thomas rested in the shadows.

  Wearing only his breeches, he lay on his side, knees drawn up to his chest. His bare skin was streaked with dried blood. He had been beaten. As I drew closer and my sight grew accustomed to the dusky interior, I could see that one part of his face was covered with purplish bruises, one eye was blackened, and his lips were swollen and misshapen. I hardly recognized him, and it seemed he did not recognize me.

  “Thomas,” I whispered.

  He made no motion.

  “Thomas,” I said, louder.

  Nothing. The slight rising and falling of his chest was the only indication that he lived. Was he unconscious? Yet his eyes were open, staring straight ahead. I squatted beside him and shook him, first lightly, and then harder.

  He lifted his head a little. Slowly, ponderously, he rolled to a sitting position. His head hung low between his shoulders.

  “Please, Thomas,” I whispered, “we have to get you out of here.”

  Still, his eyes did not focus. I pulled at his arm, but it was heavy and unmoving as lead. It was the drugs, just as Anarchy had described—the drugs that made a man appear to be walking dead. Only Thomas would not walk. I hated how he looked—Thomas and yet almost as un-Thomas as the Uwa creature.

  Frantically I pulled off my amulet and held it against his chest. It gave a feeble glow but brought no change to his condition. Perhaps it only held power for me.

  The shed stank of dead things. I glanced desperately about, seeking help from somewhere, anywhere. Next to Thomas was the glass case of snakes. The serpents were motionless, all wound about each other, with varying sizes, colors, and patterns. Their only movements were the wink of a cold eye or flicker of a forked tongue. There, on the floor in a cobwebby corner, lay the skull. A wall of shelves held other empty-eyed skulls of various creatures, grinning down, along with a scattering of bones. There were also heads still covered with fur or desiccated flesh, including one that appeared to be human and capped with silky black hair, but that was too tiny to have ever belonged to a person. There were slimy things in bottles—some with obvious tentacles, some with eyes, and some with teeth—as well as what appeared to be empty jars labeled with writing in an unknown script. There were bundles of feathers and roots and pungent herbs, carved and painted chalices and bowls.

  No help could be had from these unclean objects.

  The snakes began to awaken. One uncoiled itself and others followed suit. The glass case roiled and seethed with slithering motion.

  I gulped a deep, shuddering breath and tried to concentrate on Thomas. His hand lay stiff and unmoving when I took it in mine. His breathing was forced and raspy, as if whatever dulled the rest of him also affected his vital functions. If only I could talk to him, say something that would catch hold of some glimmer in his brain. And so I made the attempt. Beginning with what I knew of Thomas’s family and his life before the war, I went on into the time we had spent together, things we had said to one another, moments we had enjoyed.

  All the while I remained fiercely aware of the situation we were in. At any moment the VanZeldts might enter. I licked my lips and now resorted to tales of my own childhood and the years after my mother’s death. I voiced memories I had never related to another soul, and as I did so, it seemed I was listening to someone else, gaining a new understanding, as if this eerie, deadly place made me see myself, my family, and events more clearly.

  I had no idea what time it was, but my growling stomach told me it must be afternoon. “We can’t just stay here talking,” I said at last to the un-Thomas. “We have to take some action.”

  Thomas’s sightless, bewitched gaze offered no response.

  The door began to open. I scrabbled against the wall, making myself as small as possible.

  Amenze entered, her head ducked under the low doorway, carrying a dark flask.

  She showed no sign of surprise or any other emotion when she took in my presence, but neither was she in a trance, as she had been the last time I saw her. “Miss Violet Dancey. I thought you would come. You removed the guarding signs my grandmother drew outside, but as you’ve discovered, we don’t actually need them to keep your soldier here.”

  “I’ve come to take him away.”

  “That is impossible. He is necessary. We have cared for him many weeks and we cannot let him go now, when it is so close to time for the ceremony. I am s
orry.”

  “You’re going to kill him.” I nearly choked on the words.

  She opened her lips to speak, then closed them. Her face looked taut, her eyes strained. “You do not understand our ways. It is a wonderful thing we would do. We would bring the god Raphtah down to live among us, as a man, our king. He is to be my husband and I will be a queen. But to call Raphtah it takes power, greater power than we have. So the power must be gleaned from life energy—which pours out with the life’s blood of a healthy man. We tried here once before with another soldier, but he was too weak and wounded; it did not work. That is why we have labored so hard to restore this man.”

  “Someone has beaten him.”

  “That was Uwa. It happened before Father VanZeldt could stop him. My brother hates the soldier because—because of what happened between you and him.”

  “Your brother tried to trick me into lying with him.”

  “That was also necessary. You were chosen to be Uwa’s mate. It is an honor to be the consort of one of the Children of Raphtah. You will learn it is an honor.”

  “I’m promised to Thomas—to Lieutenant Lynd, the soldier. I never, never will go with Uwa.”

  “You will have no choice. If you will not go freely, we will have to give you this.” She shook the flask. “It is a brew we call dakar. It makes one docile and pliable.”

  “Why would I drink it?”

  She looked at me with patience and pity. “Even I have been forced to drink the dakar at times.” She sank down on the floor beside me. “You love the soldier, I know. You must understand—it is a hard thing, but it will bring such good. One man’s death. Not like your thousands perishing in your war—more like your god, your Jesus, who died for the good of many. The ceremony would be difficult to watch if we were in our natural minds, but during the drinking and the dancing, the spirits of others from Raphtah’s star come to possess us. They are not aware of human agony and human suffering. Even the sacrifice himself will feel no pain because he will have drunk the dakar, which removes all hurt and sorrow.”