by Linda Ladd
Jasper Danforth glared at her, but he turned and looked at Nev and Poppy and waited for them to answer, too. Poppy got talkative. She talked very fast with a New Jersey accent, and in a real high-pitched voice, a real soprano Tony Soprano. “I guess it was a couple of weeks ago that I saw her standing out there in the hall. She had a backpack on, looked like she was headed out somewhere. She looked scared, too, at least I thought she did, but when I asked her if everything was okay, she just nodded and said she’d see me later, that she had to get to her History of Art class.”
“What about you?” Claire asked Nev.
“I’ve been studyin’ crazy hard. Daddy put me on probation. I gotta get my grades up to a C average or he’s gonna pull the plug on me. And make me take this red outta my hair.”
Since Jasper was backing off some, Claire took advantage of his largesse. “Do you both live on this floor?”
“Yeah, right across the hall. We’re roommates this year.”
It looked like Nev a.k.a. Red had now decided to give Novak the come-hither-you-sweet-thang eyeball ogle. Wow, she had some gumption to take him on. Novak was a lot older than Nev, and he was pretty scary looking for coed-suitable flirtation material, too. But Nev hadn’t seen him throw that girl onto the bed like she was full of feathers. Or maybe Nev liked that kind of rough stuff. Maybe the bigger, the better was her motto.
The ambulance chose that time to roll to a siren-shrill stop somewhere far below, and the sound died a few moments later. Jasper Danforth walked to the window and looked down at the pandemonium, which was no doubt still in full swing below. “Okay, the cops are here. I want everyone to stay put until they get up here. They will want to question all of you. Man, this is just godawful. Poor kid. I can’t believe she just up and killed herself like that. Right in front of us all.”
Minutes later, two NOPD cops came traipsing into the room, looking large and official with their Kevlar vests filling out their own dark blue uniforms. They looked at the little congregation sitting around the room. The taller one with the sergeant insignia and a nameplate that said GROVENER halted his gaze on Claire’s face.
“You’re Claire Morgan, right? The homicide detective from Lafourche Parish. What you doin’ over here?”
Damn. What was she gonna have to do, shave her head and wear tinted contact lenses? Maybe she should. Incognito wasn’t gonna be an option around New Orleans, if she didn’t. Not after that last voodoo case. Maybe Novak would shave his, too. Just to be partner friendly.
“That’s right. I’m not here in an official capacity. I’m working private now.”
“No shit? That’s surprising, after all those commendations our department gave you last summer. What happened to your arm?”
“The victim was hiding in that closet over there. She jumped me when I opened the door to check it out.”
“You need an EMT up here?”
“No,” said Claire. “But thanks.”
“Yes,” said Novak. “She’s gonna need stitches. It’s a pretty deep cut.”
“Who’re you?” Sergeant Grovener asked Novak, frowning at him with a good bit less admiration in his gaze.
So Novak told him, and Claire decided if they ever got all the damn introductions over with, maybe they could figure out why the girl had jumped to her death. But it took a while longer, and the cops did allow them to sit in on their interview with the two girls, out of professional courtesy. As it turned out, they asked a lot of the same questions, but even though neither girl had seen Prudence or Andrea for a while, they hadn’t been particularly worried because their friends across the hall took off a lot without telling anyone when they snuck off to smoke weed and shoot dope, and stuff. They were real sorry for what happened to Pru and they sure did hope Andi was okay, but they were really shaken up and could they go call their parents and stuff and maybe get something to eat and stuff because they had skipped breakfast to sleep in because they’d been cramming all night for exams, and they sure were creeped out and stuff by all this bad stuff that was going on right across the hall. The cops released them on their own recognizance a lot sooner than Claire would have if she’d been the detective on the case, but she and Novak hung around, even after they strung the crime scene tape and headed back downstairs to where Prudence’s body still lay on the pavement. There were a lot of kids who lived on the fifth floor. Novak took one end and Claire started at the other end, and the interviews began.
Witch Way
For months, Diana thought about just running away, far out into the deep swamp where Luna couldn’t get her. She tried it a couple of times, but Luna always found her, no matter where she hid. Luna knew how to track animals and kill them for their meat and skins and for sacrificing to their gods and goddesses, so she was very good at tracking Diana and Spirit when they ran off together. Fearful to venture too deep into the swamp, anyway, for fear she’d get lost or eaten by the alligators, she spent a lot of time on the back porch where she could go through the house and out the front door if she saw Luna coming up from the Sanctuary on the swamp trail. One day, she sat there pushing the porch swing back and forth with her toe and staring across the backyard at the little shed way down at the end of the yard, the one with the strange black symbols painted all over the walls.
The shed used to be weathered gray from the rain and wind, but one time in the middle of the night, her mommy had started screaming that the shed looked ugly and jerked Diana out of her bed and told her that the Horned God was waiting out there in the shed and had ordered them to come worship him. That scared Diana half to death, but when they got out there and threw open the door, nobody was inside but them. Her mommy had told her then that Satan himself must have come calling at the shed and taken the Horned God away to hell. She told her that she had been down to hell, too, and that she had met many demons and seen all of Satan’s evil things and met his huge hell hound dogs and his evil giant birds that clawed and ate human flesh. Diana listened to all of that, but she was afraid of what Luna might do next. Luna was getting worse all the time. She just acted so crazy all the time.
After that day, Mommy started telling Diana that Luna was the Devil Incarnate, whatever that was, and that Diana was a Demon Princess. She sure hoped Mommy stopped being the Devil Incarnate soon. Diana was getting really, really scared of her mommy. She was going to look for an even better hiding place down on the bayou and stay there whenever her mommy turned into the Devil Incarnate and came looking for her. She didn’t want to be a Demon Princess. She didn’t even know what a Demon Princess was.
Then early one winter morning, well before the sun came up over the trees and the day was still gray and misty and cold, Luna came into Diana’s bedroom and jerked back her covers. She grabbed Diana up out of the bed, and Diana screamed with fright. But her mommy seemed herself again, and she was laughing and picking Diana up and twirling around with Diana in her arms, very happy, just like she used to be. Diana clutched her around the neck and held on tight, never quite sure what was going to happen next. Spirit was barking and jumping up on their legs, happy, too, and her mommy put her down and gently cradled Diana’s little face between her palms like she liked to do when she was telling her something important, something that she needed to try very hard to remember.
“Good morning, my darling little one, my beautiful little Diana, my Good Princess of the Wiccans. Come, come, today we’re gonna learn many new things, wonderful, lovely, miraculous things. I’m gonna take you hunting for your very first time, and we are going to kill some beautiful animals for you to stuff in my workshop. But first we will kneel down and worship them and ask their permission to use them for our taxidermy needs and their permission for us to eat their tender bodies in order to sustain our lives. Just like I have told you many times before.”
“I don’t know how to kill anything, Mommy.”
“I’m Luna now, darling, you must remember that. But I will teach you all that you need to understand, sweetness. I will teach you everything I know.
I will teach you to use a knife and a gun and how to break the necks of wounded prey so they do not suffer long. I will teach you how to skin and gut the animals, just the right way, so we can stuff them and sell them to our neighbors, for that is our livelihood. That’s the way I make our money, and you will make yours that way someday, too. Okay? You will be my little helper in my taxidermy business and in all else that I ever do. You’re my life, my only love, my other half, my beautiful Diana. You’ll like helping me, won’t you, darling heart?”
“Yes, Luna.” But she was pretty sure she wasn’t gonna like it. She was pretty sure she was gonna hate all of it.
Luna ran to the dresser and grabbed out some shorts and a T-shirt, the one with a picture of puppies sitting inside a basket on the front. “What kind of animal do you want to start with, lovebug? Huh? Today will be your special choice. You can kill it and skin it and gut it, all by yourself.”
“Okay. Well, a rabbit, I guess, but I don’t really want to kill anything.” Diana looked up at Luna, who just kept smiling down at her. There was something that had been troubling Diana for a long time, something she feared very much, and she felt that she had to ask her mommy about it. “You aren’t never gonna kill Spirit, are you, Mommy? He’s a very good dog, he truly is. He’ll be good, I promise. We won’t never have to ever stuff him up and put those glass eyes in him and sell him, will we? He never does anything bad, nothing at all. He helps you take care of me.”
“Not if you’re a good girl. But there will come a day when we’ll have to make him last forever. When he dies all by himself, you know, when he gets too old, or a water moccasin bites him, or something like that. Then we’ll fix him up so you can put him in your room right beside your bed, just where he always sleeps, on that little rag rug. Then the two of you can always be together. Won’t that be sweet, honey? I have always stuffed all my beloved pets. It’s the way to preserve things that you’re never ready to give up. That’s what Gram did, too.”
“But I don’t wanna stuff him. He wouldn’t like it. He likes to run and play. He wouldn’t want to sit in my bedroom all day.”
“You will like it, darling, once you see how lifelike we can make our dear dead friends.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Come along now. Don’t make Luna angry. She doesn’t like to get mad, but sometimes you make her very angry. Please don’t do that, Diana.”
“Yes, Luna.”
Then Luna looked very serious and she knelt and held Diana by her slender shoulders. “Sweetie, you must listen and try to learn all that I am going to teach you. Remember, you are special and you don’t always learn things so well, but you must learn how to be self-sufficient and take care of yourself, because I won’t always be here with you. You will be all alone, and you must know how to live on your own and kill meat to eat and grow vegetables in the garden and take care of everything around here.”
“But where are you going, Mommy? I mean, Luna.”
“I will die someday, just like the animals we hunt. But the Moon Goddess will still be here, and she will guide you in the right path to follow. Someday, when I am gone, a man, or perhaps a woman, might come to check on you. If they see that you are all alone out here, then they will take you away and put you in a place for orphaned children or some kind of foster home. You don’t want to go to any of those places, darling. When I am gone, you must hide from everyone and take care of yourself. Some of our neighbors will help you, too, if you ever get hurt or in trouble. I will ask them to check on you. Okay, Diana? You think you can remember all of that?”
“I guess so. But I don’t want you to die.”
Luna smiled and pulled her close for a nice tight hug. “It won’t be for a long time, sweetie. You’ll probably be a big girl when it happens, okay?”
“Okay.”
After that, Diana was really confused about what was going to happen to her. She didn’t understand any of it, but she obediently followed Luna downstairs and then out to the shed where Mommy stuffed all the animals that she hunted for their meat and for their hides. Diana didn’t like the taxidermy shed, not at all. She thought it was spooky inside, with dead animals hanging up by their tails on the tree branches outside, and other ones from the rafters inside, their blood dripping slowly into two-pound Folgers coffee cans. Some of them didn’t even have any skin on their bodies, anymore. Luna had cut it all off. So the ones they didn’t eat just hung there, naked and rotting and dead until Luna threw their carcasses into the fire pit beside the bayou.
Inside, the shed didn’t have all the pretty Wiccan symbols on the walls or the bright candles, so it was really gloomy and dark. The pentacles and candles in the Sanctuary always made Mommy act nice. It was cool and dark inside the shed because the sun hadn’t come up yet. But it wasn’t the night of a full moon, so they wouldn’t be having their sacred Wiccan rituals, and that was too bad. She liked what happened to Luna when the moon was full. That’s when she was real nice to Diana and Spirit.
“Okay, sweetness. Today, we’re gonna go hunting with our bows and arrows. I bought you one just the other day when I was in Walmart. See, look here, it’s just your size.”
Diana took hold of the bow and felt how tight the string was. She kinda liked the way it felt. Mommy’s was much bigger and longer and called a compound bow, and Mommy showed her the long arrows with the feathers on the ends and the sharp steel points. Then she showed Diana how she could dip the tips in a certain kind of poison that acted real fast so that the animal would die quickly. She said that would make it easy for them to track it and cut off its skin and pull out its insides so they could stuff it and display it on their porch and sell it down at the swamp store that catered to the tourists. But they could never eat one they killed with their arrows.
That sounded like a lot of awful things all in a row for Diana to have to think about, but she smiled and nodded, afraid not to act happy about her first hunting trip. Mommy might turn back into Bad Luna if Diana didn’t do what she said. She didn’t want that to happen. No telling what Bad Luna would do this time. So she followed her mommy down the little gravel path that ran alongside the bayou until they passed the one shallow swimming hole where it was okay for Diana to wade without fear of the gators, and then onto the weedy and overgrown trail that led deeper into the swamp.
Then finally, her mother turned around and placed her forefinger against her lips. “You must remember to be very quiet. We’re goin’ out and hide in the thickets and wait for the rabbits and squirrels to start stirrin’. Those rabbits love it here in the shade. I’m sure you’ll get one for your very first kill.”
Diana did as she was told and leaned her back against an oak tree and practiced putting the arrow against the string. Mommy told her that was called notching the arrow. But then, she made a real terrible mistake. She accidentally let go of the string and sent her arrow flying and it hit a tree trunk and fell to the ground with a little thunk.
Luna jumped up. “You stupid little brat! I told you not to do that! You never listen to me, do you? You hear me, Diana! Are you listenin’? You want me to throw you in the water for the gators! That it? That what you want? I wish the alligators would eat you up so you’ll leave me be. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
Then Mommy slapped her hard on the cheek, and Diana tried not to cry. Her mommy stared at her a moment, and then she seemed to wake up and realize what she’d done. “Oh, sweetness, what happened? Did your arrow hit you? You poor little thing, you little darling. Look at that big red place on your cheek. You have got to be more careful or you won’t be able to come out huntin’ with me. I don’t want you to get hurt. I love you too much for that.”
“Yes, Luna,” Diana said, holding her palm against her stinging cheek. She just wanted to go home and hide under her covers. She didn’t know who her mommy was anymore, but she sure didn’t like her much, either.
When Luna finally got tired of shooting the little animals for her daughter to learn to stuff, she
made Diana carry them home by holding on to their little soft bunny tails. Diana just felt sorry for them, because that sharp arrow cut right through their little hearts and made them die. But after they fetched the dead bunny, Mommy had said prayers over it and thanked it for giving its life so they could stuff it and sell it, and Diana supposed that was a good thing. Mommy said they would take the rabbit she found in her trap by the bayou and make rabbit stew for supper with carrots and potatoes and onions and a special kind of chocolate cake for dessert, and it would all taste just so very delicious that the rabbit would feel good about dying so they could eat him up and live their lives.
Then she took Diana into the shed and began to carefully skin the poor little bunnies with a great big sharp knife. It wasn’t the athame, though, because that was sacred and not to be used except to direct positive influences toward them. Mommy made the incisions carefully and in just the right spots, and made Diana watch her pull and tug the rabbit’s hide right off, like she was stripping off its little tight shirt. When she was done with that and had its skin hanging up to dry out a bit, she made Diana take hold of the second little baby rabbit and peel off its hide. It was horrible and made Diana cry and made her stomach roll around inside her belly.
“I know you don’t like this part of the process, lovebug, but you just wait now, little one. When we’re all finished up and it looks like it’s still alive and lookin’ back at you, you’ll love what we’re doin’ here. You can keep it in your room, too, so you can remember your very first try at taxidermy. I know you’re goin’ to love doin’ this as much as I do. I just know it. It’s our family business, you know. All of your family’s done taxidermy work for years and years, stretching back, well, just forever.”
Diana wasn’t so sure that she’d ever love any of it. She stood obediently by the table and watched her mother jerk and pull off more rabbit’s fur. It looked sickening. Her mother never stopped talking, explaining, as she ripped off more hide and slit it so it would come loose. “You listenin’ to me, dear? To stuff it so it will last, you will need to scrape out the brains with this little silver spoon. Gram used this same spoon, too. See how I’m doing it, diggin’ it in real careful-like? We’ll put the brains in our next milk bath so we can commune with the rabbit’s spirit, or I can use it in our summonin’ spells. You should always preserve the brains of the animals that you bring home. Now let’s take out his little eyes and scrape his little bones so that you can work with them.”
