by Eva Pohler
“What do you suppose that represents?” Ellen pointed to an image of a snake biting its tail.
“Death and rebirth,” Tanya said. “Don’t you think?”
Before Ellen could reply, the priestess said, “That’s one way of looking at it. Creation is another.”
Sue, who had been talking with the priestess, said, “Priestess Isabel, these are my friends Ellen and Tanya.”
“Today, you can call me Lucibel,” the priestess said with a laugh as she looked up to the ceiling. “I’m feeling loose-y today.”
Ellen wondered what the woman might have been smoking in the back room.
“I was just asking her what it takes to be a high priestess in the Voodoo faith,” Sue said.
“I wouldn’t call myself such a grand thing,” Isabel said. “I’m just an old woman who pays her bills.”
“What is a high priestess, anyway?” Ellen asked. “And what led you to decide to become one?”
“I didn’t choose this life.” The woman laughed. “It chose me.”
“And what is ‘this life?’” Ellen pressed.
“Well, if you really want to know, my ancestors were the psychologists of their time. They had an intuitive way of treating the ailments of the people when no doctors could. Even today, modern medicine doesn’t suit everyone and everything. You can’t read in a book what my grandmother knew. You can’t learn that in school.”
“It had to be passed down?” Tanya asked.
“Not passed down,” the priestess said. “Understood intuitively, from the creator. The gift is inherited, so, I suppose, in a way, it’s passed down, but not in the way you mean.”
Ellen noticed that Tanya’s foul odor had returned. She ignored it as best as she could.
“So, you don’t see the ailments as spiritual warfare?” Sue asked her.
“Not warfare, no,” the priestess said. “But it’s spiritual, all right.” She winked at Tanya.
“You don’t believe in spiritual warfare between good and evil?” Sue asked with her brows furrowed.
The priestess smiled and closed her eyes. “You see, spirits are energy, and energy is energy. It’s neither good nor evil.”
Ellen felt even more certain that the woman was high.
“You really don’t believe in good and evil?” Sue asked.
“I didn’t say that,” the priestess said with a laugh as she looked up to the ceiling again.
“Then what are you saying?” Ellen asked.
“We assign it, that’s all. It depends on your perspective.”
Ellen was beginning to wonder why Carrie French had sent them to this woman, who, in Ellen’s opinion, was right to call herself Loosey Bell.
“Then what’s the purpose of the gris-gris sachets, if not to protect one from evil?” Ellen pointed to the baskets of sachets marked $7 each.
“And what about this incense called ‘Evil Away’?” Sue held up a small plastic pouch marked $8.
Tanya laughed. “Tricks for the tourists?”
“I pray over those,” the priestess said. “And then people burn them or hold onto them and get a better feeling than they had before. I try to be a facilitator of peace.”
“So, it’s all in the mind?” Ellen was confused. It sounded like the priestess was admitting it was all a scam.
“I didn’t say that,” the priestess said, laughing.
Sue cleared her throat and put a hand on her hip—a posture that Ellen had come to recognize as “warrior ready.” “Just suppose some of this energy attached itself to a living person, and that person wanted to get rid of it.”
The priestess laughed again. “You can’t get rid of it. The energy does what it will.” Isabel stopped laughing and glanced suspiciously at Tanya. “Where’d you say you was from?” the priestess asked.
“San Antonio,” Sue replied when Tanya didn’t. “But we were just in Tulsa. Have you heard of Carrie French?”
“I don’t remember Carrie,” the priestess said. She turned to Tanya. “Do you know Carrie?”
Tanya nodded.
“What’s your plan, friend?” the priestess asked Tanya with a laugh.
“What do you mean?” Tanya asked, turning pink.
“Come back tomorrow,” the priestess said. “I’ll be able to help you better then.”
“Can we buy some authentic gris-gris and a Voodoo doll?” Sue asked.
“Over there.” The priestess pointed to the baskets on the shelves.
Sue picked through the dolls. “These are all handmade. I don’t know which one I like best.”
Ellen picked up three sachets. “Do you have any we can wear around our necks?”
“Oh, you want my special stuff.” Priestess Isabel disappeared into the back room and returned with three smaller gris-gris bags tied to thin, soft leather, like the one Carrie wore.
The quiet young woman behind the counter took Sue’s credit card as the priestess disappeared into the back room again. Ellen had a feeling Carrie had sent them on a wild goose chase.
As they left the temple, Sue said, “Let’s take a cab. I don’t think my feet can endure the return walk to the hotel.”
“But Bourbon Street is just a few blocks this way,” Tanya said, taking the lead.
“A few blocks,” Sue complained.
“Oh, Sue,” Tanya said, dismissively. “You can do it.”
Tanya called back to them. “Let’s check it out. It’s been so long since I’ve walked these streets.”
“I thought this was your first time in New Orleans,” Ellen said to Tanya.
“I grew up here,” Tanya said.
Ellen and Sue stopped in their tracks and looked at one another. They knew for a fact that Tanya had not grown up there.
“Tanya?” Sue called to their friend.
Tanya ignored them and kept on walking.
Ellen stayed back with Sue as Tanya went on several paces ahead of them. When she seemed out of earshot, Ellen said to Sue, “What now?”
“Who the heck knows,” Sue muttered. “I don’t have much faith in Priestess Isabel.”
“What was Carrie thinking?”
Sue shook her head. “I don’t know, but let’s put on one of those gris-gris bags, just in case.”
Sue handed her one of the gris-gris bags, and they each put one on. Ellen had been hoping to feel more confident in its protection, but confident she was not. So much for getting peace of mind and a good night’s sleep.
“Tanya!” Sue called to their friend, who was a half a block ahead of them. “Wait up! And put one of these sachets on, will you?”
“No, thank you,” Tanya said as she waited for them on the sidewalk. “I’m good.”
Ellen decided to send off a quick text to Carrie, to ask if she really had faith in Priestess Isabel and her gris-gris.
She was shocked by Carrie’s reply: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s Priestess Isabel?
Ellen’s mouth fell open as she showed Sue the text.
“Then who was that we talked to at the Mayo Hotel in Tulsa?” Sue whispered.
“Are you guys coming?” Tanya asked as she resumed walking.
“Slow down, Speedy,” Sue said. “You know I have a bad foot.”
“Are you okay?” Ellen asked Sue.
“I could use something to recharge my batteries and calm my nerves,” Sue replied. “Oh, look. There’s a bakery.”
That evening, curious about the way Tanya had insisted on taking them to see Lalaurie Mansion and concerned by the cryptic way she had said that it was once a place of torture but not the way most people think, Ellen used her phone to conduct a Google search. Tanya seemed to have no memory of stopping there or of making her statement about torture, and this worried Ellen. What was that demon up to?
Ellen’s Google search of Lalaurie Mansion brought up gruesome articles about Madame Delphine Lalaurie’s mistreatment of slaves. Apparently, an 1834 fire revealed dozens of slaves chained in an attic, their limbs pointing in
all directions, skin peeled, intestines tied around their waists, and other horrors that hinted to medical experiments. When the neighbors discovered the horrifying mistreatment, a mob descended upon the mansion that same night, and Madame Delphine Lalaurie fled with her children to France to avoid persecution.
Glancing over at Tanya, who was beneath the covers and on the verge of sleep, Ellen feared for her friend’s life. What kind of evil thing had taken hold of her?
The following day, when they returned to the Voodoo Spiritual Temple, Priestess Isabel held a can of Sprite in her hand and was speaking with another patron as the three friends entered from the street.
They had taken a cab, because Ellen and Sue hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep and were dead-dog tired. Ellen had kept her eyes trained in Tanya’s direction, half-expecting to see the red glowing eyes of the demon she’d seen crouched behind Tanya in the bathroom at Drummond Lodge.
The other patron seemed to be conducting an interview, for Priestess Isabel was recounting her life.
“I worked as a domestic in Mississippi before going to Chicago, where I was an operating room technician in a hospital,” Isabel said.
“Is that when you converted to Voodooism?” the young woman, who looked just out of college, asked.
“I don’t like the word ‘convert,’” the priestess said. “I’ve been talking to spirits since I was a little girl. I never changed. The label did.”
“You met your late husband in Chicago, isn’t that right?” the interviewer asked.
“Yes,” Isabel said. “We built this congregation together, and, after he died, I carried it on in his name, as a tribute to him. It’s his legacy, you see, and my inheritance. It’s both my honor and my duty. It liberates me, but it’s a great burden.”
“A burden?” the young woman asked.
“Until you’ve walked in my shoes,” the priestess said, “you have no idea what it means to be me. If you knew how many letters I receive, daily, from mothers whose sons are in jail, or in the hospital, or otherwise troubled…How do I begin to answer them all?”
Ellen was beginning to wonder if they’d come at a bad time. To Sue and Tanya, she whispered, “Maybe we should come back later.”
“We’re nearly done here,” Priestess Isabel said.
Ellen hadn’t expected to be overheard, especially by a woman in her seventies.
The interviewer asked a few more questions and then thanked the priestess for her time before leaving the shop.
“Can you believe that young thing is from Time Magazine?” Priestess Isabel asked.
“Wow,” Ellen said. “We’re so sorry to have interrupted.”
“You must be pretty famous to be interviewed for Time,” Sue added.
“I’m just a woman who pays her bills,” the priestess said.
“Evidently you’re more than that,” Tanya said.
“I can’t see your friend today,” the priestess said to Tanya, “but I can feel him.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Tanya said with wide eyes. “What friend?”
“Deep down, you know,” Isabel said.
“Can you help us?” Ellen asked.
“First, there’s something you need to understand,” the priestess began. “I don’t think you comprehended what I had to say yesterday.”
“You’re right,” Sue said. “We didn’t comprehend it.”
Ellen wanted to add that it might have had something to do with how high the priestess was—and maybe that’s what people meant when they said Voodoo high priestess. Ellen was tempted to ask if they were still speaking to Loosey Bell, but she bit her tongue.
“We assign words like good and evil to spirits, but they just energy,” Isabel repeated. “Spirits can bring harm to people, and they can commit harmful acts, but the spirits themselves come from the creator and are not without the possibility of redemption. There’s goodness in all of us.”
“We think this demon is killing our friend,” Sue said bluntly.
“Sue!” Tanya berated. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Just hold on there, friend,” Isabel said. “People never think of themselves as evil. From their point of view, their evil acts is justified. Sometimes it’s because they sick. Or they have a narrow point of view. But most of the time, it’s because they desperate.”
“But…” Tanya began.
“Just hear me out,” Priestess Isabel said to Tanya. “There’s only two ways this can end. The spirit sucks you dry of life, or you help it.”
“Help it?” Ellen asked. “How?”
“Find out what it wants, what it needs.”
“And how do we do that?” Sue asked.
“We ask,” the priestess said.
Chapter Five: Of Snake and Bone
Priestess Isabel turned to the quiet woman behind the counter. “Keep an eye on things, will you, dear?”
The young woman nodded as Isabel motioned for Ellen and her friends to follow her from the front gift shop, through a cluttered back office, and into a courtyard filled with plants, herbs, and other botanicals.
In the center of the courtyard was a table with two chairs. The table was covered in a green fibrous cloth with yellow and red markings. Priestess Isabel motioned to Tanya to have a seat in one of the chairs. Ellen and Sue sat on the brick pavers of a raised garden bed a few feet away. The priestess went to what Ellen now noticed was a glass aquarium, and, from it, the priestess lifted a large python, at least five feet in length, which she coiled around the top of her head.
“The snake is a powerful conduit between us and the other side,” Isabel explained.
Ellen gave Sue a worried glance as the Voodoo queen sat opposite Tanya.
“Don’t be afraid of Henry. He’s been with me for over twenty years. He ain’t venomous. My late husband brought him here from Belize in the nineties.” Isabel took up a leather pouch and emptied its contents into Tanya’s hands. “Shake the bones.”
Tanya stared down at the items in her hand. “Are these real bones? What kind of bones? I see shells, but what kind of bones am I holding?”
Ellen recognized the real Tanya coming through. That wasn’t the demon talking.
“Those are the bones of my spirit animals,” Isabel said. “They were pets that died of natural causes over the years. They help me to speak with the ancestors on the other side. They may be able to tell us what your new friend wants from you.”
“Oh,” Tanya said with a tinge of disgust. “I didn’t know you were going to ask me to hold the bones of dead animals.”
The priestess adjusted the python, which had begun to uncoil and lift its head. “Shake them and then scatter them onto the table.”
Tanya did as she was told. One of the shells landed on the ground beneath the table.
“If it landed face down, you can leave it. It’s not important,” the priestess said. “But if it’s face up, I need to look at how it landed.”
Ellen couldn’t see it from where she and Sue were sitting, but Tanya leaned over and asked, “How can I tell if it’s face down?”
“Can you see an x marked on it?” Isabel asked.
“No.”
“Good.” Isabel adjusted her snake. “Now lookie here.”
Ellen stood up and moved closer to the table, so she could see what the priestess was pointing at.
“The position and placement of this bone means a sacrifice, an important sacrifice. The spirit attached to you is willing to give up something very important to be here.”
Ellen wanted to say, “Yeah, our friend Tanya,” but she didn’t.
“This bone here gives another meaning,” the priestess continued. “It has something to do with finding something hidden. The spirit wants you to find something. It’s something he treasures, but it isn’t where it’s supposed to be.”
“What does he want us to find?” Sue asked.
“This other bone means balance or justice,” Isabel continued, ignoring Sue’s question. “By finding what
is lost, you will restore balance or bring about some kind of justice.” She pointed to a shell and said, “And this balance will bring freedom, not just to the spirit, but to someone close to him.”
“How can we figure out what the spirit wants us to find?” Ellen asked.
“Take up the bones,” Isabel said to Ellen. “Take your friend’s place and cast the bones.”
Ellen felt her hands begin to tremble. She wasn’t sure why she had become so nervous as she gathered up the bones and shells.
“Don’t forget the one on the floor,” Isabel said.
Tanya crouched down and picked it up and handed it over to Ellen.
“Shake,” Isabel said. “And think hard about your question.”
As Ellen shook the bones, she said in her mind, “What do you want us to find?”
Then Ellen dropped the bones onto the table and watched them land and roll, until they settled.
Ellen watched Priestess Isabel studying the bones and shells on the cloth. The red and yellow markings were lines and symbols that apparently meant something to the Voodoo queen.
“He’s looking for a loved one,” Isabel said. “Someone who has passed. He must be looking for his or her remains. For the bones. They haven’t been consecrated.”
Ellen’s mouth fell open. “Can you give us a name? Who are we looking for? And why?”
“Where do we start?” Sue added.
“Let her take your place,” Isabel said to Ellen. “Let her ask her question with the bones.”
Ellen stood up, and Sue took the chair before taking the bones in both of her hands and giving them a shake.
Aloud, Sue said, “Where do we start?”
Then she scattered the bones across the table. Three of them fell off the table and rolled across the courtyard.
“Check if they’re face up,” Isabel said as Ellen and Tanya went to retrieve the fallen bones.
“These two are face down,” Tanya said.
One of them had flown clear across the courtyard and landed on a piece of trash. Ellen bent over it to have a closer look.
