Carolina Conjuring

by Alison Claire

  The first to try was a half-Seminole man named Tunka who helped break horses for the Walkers. He produced a blade, a knife with which he was quite adept and that had spilled blood before, and he threw it with pinpoint accuracy and blinding speed directly at Ezekiel’s forehead.

  It stopped in midair and returned to sender, spinning a macabre dance of death all around Tunka, shredding him with dozens of slashes as the terrified group looked on.

  John Junior, the only one who’d seen or felt Ezekiel’s power, broke from his trance first, fleeing the scene on foot.

  “No!” Ezekiel commanded, and John Jr. found himself frozen in place, having made it scarcely fifteen feet.

  “Gawd have mercy on your soul Ezekiel Indigo, chil’ you don’t have to do this,” Mother Bessa Jean called out. She was the oldest slave on the Walker Plantation, a house slave who was very close to Abigail.

  “They done took my bubbuh and sistuh and my Maamy. I fixin’ to kill ‘em all!”

  An older man, Harold, cousin to John Walker Sr. exploded. Pieces of his flesh and bone sprayed like shrapnel as the slaves scattered and ran for cover. Every white man was rooted where they stood, unable to move.

  Mother Bessa Jean wept and pleaded with Ezekiel to have mercy, but she was silenced by the same gagging and choking that previously afflicted John Jr.

  Ezekiel was drunk with power, blinded by rage, and he didn’t care who he hurt, just as long as he inflicted pain.

  A pitchfork whizzed through the air and impaled Karl, passing through his chest and lodging so deep into a tree that even a team of horses would later fail to remove it from the trunk.

  Ezekiel’s rampage across Walker Plantation only stopped when he had no one else to kill.

  Slaves fled, but not before three of them, beloved Momma Bessa Jean among them, lay dead. Fourteen whites joined them.

  The only person spared in the bloodbath was John Walker Jr.

  Spared physically, anyway. He was made to watch each and every death, to listen to screaming, begging, and praying, but unable to intervene.

  Ezekiel drew strength from Junior’s indescribable anguish, promising that he’d make him watch his own father be butchered once he returned from Charleston.

  While they waited, Ezekiel burned each structure on the plantation, making Junior set all the livestock free before setting the barn aflame.

  As neighbors arrived to investigate the smoke, Ezekiel cut them down mercilessly, leaving the property John Walker Jr. had awakened that morning looking forward to one day inheriting and using to earn his fortune nothing more than a blood-soaked killing field.

  Ezekiel’s plan was to kill the rest of the Walkers once the old man returned, then complete the obliteration of the Walker family tree by killing John Junior.

  After that, he intended to turn his wrath on the nearby city of Charleston, a place he’d neither seen, nor visited. But he knew that many of the slaves he’d worked alongside and who’d become his de facto family had been bought in Charleston, and perhaps among its smoldering, bloody ruins, he could find something to fill the great void in his soul.

  Suddenly, a black woman emerged from the tree line, but no one he recognized, and she wasn’t wearing the rags he’d come to expect from the slaves he’d known. She wore a flowing black dress, with her hair piled atop her head under a bright red scarf. She strode confidently toward Ezekiel, who felt a soothing relief in her presence. He waved his hand, forcing John Walker Jr. to his knees, and he faced the stranger.

  “What you want?” he asked, summoning courage that for the first time since his rampage began, had faltered.

  The woman stopped ten feet from Ezekiel and surveyed her surroundings. The main house was consumed in an inferno; parts of bodies were strewn all about.

  Nodding her head, she spoke for the first time. “You did all this? Why, you’re just a boy.”

  “I did this here,” Ezekiel replied. “I did it and I fixin’ to keep on doin’ it. Don’t you try to stop me now, hear?”

  The woman tossed her head back and laughed. “Why would I try to stop you? If I didn’t think this one,” she pointed at John Junior, “meant something to you, I’d end him personally.

  “But you’re going to draw the wrong sort of attention soon. A lynch mob. Maybe even the army. I’ve come to take you somewhere safe, somewhere you can figure out just exactly what you can do. And what you want to do.”

  Ezekiel tried, in vain, to read the strange woman’s mind. It was as if she wasn’t even there.

  “Who you is?” a stunned Ezekiel asked aloud.

  “My name,” she replied, “Is Ella Mae Dixon. And you’re better off not trying to use your powers to snoop around in my mind. Come with me unless you want to see how you fare against a trained militia. I can make you invincible if you let me.”

  Ezekiel considered her words, then gestured toward the kneeling John Jr. The ground rumbled, then opened and swallowed the screaming man whole. Ezekiel looked to the woman for a reaction, expecting horror. Instead, she appeared unmoved and indifferent.

  Ezekiel had to know more about her.

  Confident he’d won, and that he could return for John Sr. at his leisure, Ezekiel took Ella Mae Dixon’s proffered hand and let her lead him away and into the forest.

  3 Briar

  The day after Walter’s funeral dawned thick, humid, and hot on the Charleston peninsula. The AC inside the Embers mansion was acting up, and not even Calista’s considerable talents could get it working properly.

  I considered going “home” to my rental, which actually had fantastic air conditioning, the place from which Virginia had abducted me, but after the recent events at Martha Lou’s and what happened to Walter, it wasn’t hard for Emma to talk me out of it.

  Fiona scurried about, refreshing cold drinks and checking on ceiling fans that did little but move the hot air from room to room.

  Calista had gone out to lay by the pool, and I’d considered joining her, but one look out the window at her impossibly perfect bikini-clad body basking on a chaise made me reconsider.

  “I know,” Emma said, walking up behind me to see what had caught my attention outside. “She makes you feel like a turnip, right?”

  “I think,” I countered, “she’d make Gisele feel like a turnip. No way would I be caught dead at the pool or the beach with –”

  The cheerful voice of Josephine chimed in from behind Emma.

  “The beach? That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day!” she bounced and clapped her hands like a six-year-old. If Calista was the very essence of beauty and sex appeal, then Josephine was the word “adorable” in the flesh.

  “Not exactly what…” Emma replied, trying to politely correct Josephine.

  But whether it was Jo’s powers or just the fact that it had been ages since I’d been to the beach and I needed something to lift myself, and all of us, out of our collective funk, I agreed.

  “Folly or IOP?” I asked, referring to the two most popular beaches in our part of South Carolina, Folly Beach and Isle of Palms.

  Josephine snickered. “I’d be fine with Folly, but somebody,” she cocked her head toward the window to where Calista sat poolside, “wouldn’t be caught dead with the ‘regular’ (Josephine used air quotes) people on James Island. Let me check with Virginia and see if anybody is using the house on IOP.”

  “Virginia owns a house on Isle of Palms?” I asked, incredulous. Although, of course she did.

  “It’s right on the beach. Near the inlet,” Josephine replied. “Virginia rents it out sometimes, but it’s so expensive that it’s usually vacant. So, we use it. You can see Sullivans Island from the upstairs porch.”

  “Isn’t that the island where the ships from Africa first reached America?” Emma queried. “The Ellis Island of slavery?”

  “It is,” Josephine responded. “And there’s a memorial there and a cemetery and everything. Parts of the island are very solemn. There’s a tremendous amount of psychic energy left over, ev
en centuries later. I haven’t been to Sullivans in years. It’s overwhelming for me.”

  Emma embraced Josephine, and I made it a group hug.

  I didn’t much care if Calista went or not, since her attitude was a taste I hadn’t yet acquired, and I didn’t much care to look like an eggplant stuffed into a one-piece next to her, but she dispassionately agreed to accompany us. Virginia confirmed that the house was empty, and she encouraged Fiona and Chantelle to take the rest of the day off and join us if they were so inclined. Chantelle said that she’d prefer to take the day to visit family in Orangeburg, but Fiona was thrilled to be invited, after receiving repeated encouragement from Virginia that she should “get away and enjoy herself with the girls.”

  Fiona packed a cooler with drinks, the rest of us picked out swimsuits and beachwear, and Fiona drove us to Isle of Palms in Virginia’s shiny new, forest green Land Rover. I’d been to the beach there a few times, but I had a feeling doing it Belles-style would be an entirely different experience.

  When we reached the island, we took a turn down a non-descript side street several blocks prior to where the public parking and beach access I was accustomed to was located. Before long, we were on a road flanked by jaw-dropping houses that looked like they’d be comfortable featured on a Bravo show with the words “Real Housewives of” in the title. Here and there, sports cars and luxury SUVs dotted the driveways.

  Emma squeezed my hand and we stifled laughter. The novelty of our new shared life wasn’t close to wearing off yet.

  Fiona turned into the driveway and then beneath a yellow house on the beach side. White wraparound porches encircled the first and second floors. The ceilings for both were painted blue, which I was starting to think was a common theme.

  “The pool is that way,” Josephine explained as we tumbled out. “If you need to go inside, the elevator is over there.”

  I mouthed the words “Elevator?” and “Seriously?” to Emma and she laughed.

  And then we joined Fiona and Calista. On the elevator. Josephine had gone to the pool.

  Stepping out into the house, a right turn brought us into the kitchen, where Fiona set her cooler down on the large island and began to unpack.

  Calista disappeared up a flight of stairs.

  “Make yourselves at home,” Fiona suggested. “Explore, let me know if you need anything.”

  The space beyond the kitchen contained a long dining table that looked as if it had been cut from the trunk of a redwood. A dozen people could eat comfortably at such a table. Despite its size, it didn’t dominate the room at all. Beachy art hung on the walls, and a television the size of a movie screen hung before an enormous sectional with cushions deep enough for three adults to nap comfortably side by side by side.

  The far wall was floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the porch and then the endless blue of the Atlantic Ocean.

  “This place is…” I began, but Emma sidled up to me.

  “I know,” she said. “What will they show us next? The summer house on the moon?”

  “Didn’t Jo say that Virginia rents this place out?” I asked. “No wonder nobody’s here. Who could afford to rent it? She probably asks twenty grand a week.”

  “Fifty.” Came Calista’s bored voice as she brushed past us onto the porch. “During the summer. Fifty thousand gets you a week here in July.”

  We followed Calista onto the porch, where we leaned on the railing and enjoyed the ocean breeze and salt air on our faces. The tide was out, and the beach was nearly empty, just a few scattered joggers and dog-walkers. I could only imagine how crowded the more touristy area further north must be.

  Below us, Josephine gracefully dove into the pool and Fiona busied herself setting out towels and drinks.

  Emma wandered down to the end of the porch and disappeared around the corner.

  Moments later, she shrieked and stumbled backwards, falling before scrambling to her feet. I rushed to her aide, helping to right my trembling twin, all the while expecting a lizard man or Ezekiel Walker or someone or thing sinister to come wheeling around the corner. We reached Calista, who, for the first time since I’d known her, had a genuine smile on her face and was stifling laughter.

  “It’s… there’s…” Emma muttered, backpedaling and clinging to me.

  “It’s still not here, Edward,” Calista said firmly, having regained her composure. “You aren’t even in the right state, dear.”

  A gray figure materialized through the wall near the corner, as if it had taken a shortcut through the house from where Emma had encountered it. I concentrated to focus my bone-shattering power, but it soon became apparent that whatever was visiting with us no longer had any bones to break.

  Nor a head.

  The form, broad-shouldered in a long, dark coat and boots, with a cutlass hanging from its belt, hovered just off the ground a few feet in front of us, semi-transparent and less than solid.

  “Don’t come back,” Calista instructed. “Move on, now.”

  “What the hell was that?” Emma asked as the shimmering man left the porch and dissipated in the open air.

  “Very perceptive,” Calista countered. “Hell, indeed. That was Edward Teach. He’s looking for his head. Has been for three hundred years.”

  “Blackbeard?” Emma asked.

  “The pirate?” I added.

  “Do you know another?” Calista asked. I wondered if I’d ever figure out how not to annoy her.

  “If I remember correctly,” Emma said, “and thanks again, mom, for the endless tour of every museum in America, Blackbeard’s head was hung from a British Royal Navy ship as a warning to other pirates. Once it was taken down, it disappeared.”

  “It’s in North Carolina, but he’ll never find it,” Calista countered. “A nasty coven of witches near Kill Devil Hills have it. It would require some powerful magic to liberate it from them and set it back on Edward’s shoulders.”

  “So, what you’re telling me is that we just bumped into the ghost of Blackbeard the Pirate, and that he’s searching for his… head?” I was incredulous.

  “Did it look to you like he had one, Briar?” Calista condescended. “Besides, he’s a ghost. Other than scaring the Emmas of the world, what else does he have to do with his time?”

  “If I see him again, I’m telling him that you know where it is,” Emma said, pushing past Calista and back inside.

  “You keep calling him ‘Edward’ as if you knew him or something,” I observed.

  “Indeed,” Calista replied, looking out at the ocean as if she were watching something fascinating. Something I couldn’t see. “I think half the reason he keeps showing up here is because of me. He was quite smitten. Maybe I led him on.” She shrugged, and her words drifted. “Not my type, though.”

  I stared at Calista in disbelief, while she ignored me.

  Moments later, we were poolside with Fiona, while Jo swam laps.

  “Was that the headless pirate I saw up there?” Fiona asked.

  “Yep,” I replied. “I wish y’all would start warning us about this kind of stuff before Emma and I have heart attacks. I know all this supernatural sort of thing might be normal to you, but it’s all a little weird to us… to me, at least, you know?”

  Emma nodded her assent.

  “Since we’re here, although I’d be surprised to see him today because of the weather, there’s another ghost we run into at the beach from time to time. He’s called The Gray Man. He warns people about storms, hurricanes and such. Usually further north, by Pawleys Island, up closer to Myrtle Beach. But he was here during Hurricane Hugo and he comes around. I’ve never seen him, but Virginia and Calista have.”

  “Was he a pirate, too?” Emma asked.

  “Not at all,” came Aleta’s melodic voice from behind us, walking in from beneath the house. “His is a much more romantic story.”

  “Hey, A!” Josephine called from the pool, where she’d stopped swimming and climbed atop a float that looked like a strawberry.


  Aleta smiled and waved. She wore oversized sunglasses, sandals, and a simple red and white sundress that clung to her like a second skin. A stylish, wide-brimmed red hat completed her ensemble.

  Aleta hugged Fiona and settled into a chair next to me. “The Gray Man was an early Charlestonian who fell in love with the wrong girl. Her family was much more important and wealthy, and they forbid her to see him. He was a bit of a, to put it in colloquial terms, a rapscallion.”

  Led by Aleta, we all laughed at her dramatic pronunciation of the antique word.

  “Her father even went as far as to have the boy put on a ship and sent back to France, hoping he’d never trouble their daughter again.

  “A few years went by, and word came back to the colonies that he’d ben killed in a duel. The girl mourned her lost love, and eventually married, settling on Pawleys Island. But her husband went off with so many other men to fight in the American Revolution. The old lady up there can give you a first-hand account of that.” Aleta pointed to Calista, leaning on the upstairs porch railing, eavesdropping. Calista rolled her eyes and vanished into the house. Aleta smirked.

  “One day a ship from Europe sunk in a storm off the coast of Pawleys, killing everyone aboard. All save one. An exhausted man emerged from the ocean, nearly dead. A servant from the nearest house pulled him from the surf and dragged him up to the house, explaining to him that although his master was gone, that the lady of the house would know what to do to help him.

  “When they reached the house, and the half-drowned survivor came face to face with the woman, she realized her true love hadn’t died in a duel at all; he’d nearly been killed trying to return to her. But she was now married to another. She fainted immediately.”

  The three of us sat, enraptured, although I was sure Fiona had heard this tale before. Josephine floated blissfully out of earshot.

  Aleta continued. “When she came to, the man was gone. He’d recovered and fled, and nobody ever heard from him again.

  Years went by, now it was the 1820s, and the new lady of the house was confronted by a gray man who appeared to her and warned her to flee, that a hurricane was coming. She took the advice, and once the storm passed, she returned to the island to find that everything had been destroyed, with only her home having been spared.