Red House (10 page)

I nodded. “My house is gone. I had to go live with my cousin.”

Lorraine spared me any pity. I had a place to go to, after all. “There’s people uprooted all over where the flood waters ran. Uprooted just like trees.”

“And there’s ghosts uprooted too.” Suddenly I felt helpless, so hopelessly inadequate to the task of ridding Maple Hill of ghosts, I just wanted to pack it in. That wasn’t an option, but I for damn sure didn’t know what to do.

“What do you do?” I asked, not really expecting a definite answer because I knew there wasn’t one.

“Every situation is different. Sometimes you just have to ride out the bad, until it runs its course. After some time people will get back in their homes, or find new ones. It can be the same with them.”

I gave her a brief sketch of the Maple Hill situation. “I can’t go back there and tell her she has to keep her house on lockdown until the ghosts decide to leave. I have to figure something out. What if they don’t leave on their own? At least one of them in there is malevolent.”

“You need more about the home’s history. Think there’s any way of finding out more about what the two women did to bind that dead soldier?”

I shrugged, doubtful. “I can talk to the homeowner again, but it sounded like no one had any details. Just family legend, and real vague at that.”

“Things might calm down on their own after some time. Nature corrects herself. But people can’t always wait, right? There were some folks in New Orleans with access to information. Knowledge of how it was corrected after the last flood that was that bad.”
      
“The one in 1927, when the Mississippi flooded?” I first learned of that flood through music. Charley Patton wrote the original version of
High Water Everywhere
about the 1927 flood.

“That very one and again in ’37 too. We’re talking about very complicated rituals, over many nights with a number of people. It’s not something you or I could do alone. It takes a lot of power to calm that much natural fury.”

“You think anything like that would help this area?”

“Oh sure. There’s a little talk of doing something too. Some of the Pagans are starting to think about it. You should talk to Maura. I did. I told her I’d help if they decide to do it.”

Maura, who owned the former Broom Closet and the space I used to rent for my office. Before the flood, that is. Both our businesses were wiped out by water. I had her number, though, and I’d definitely call. If there was going to be a mass ritual to bring as much peace as possible to the local spirits I wanted to be a part of it.

I pulled two books from my backpack, Rozella’s grimoire and my own spell book. “I’ve been trying to come up with a ritual to sort of cleanse the house, set it to right.” I showed her the ritual in the old grimoire that I’d used as my guide, then the one in my spell book I wanted to try.

Lorraine studied the rituals carefully, going back and forth between them. “That’s good work,
chere
. Real good.”

A surge of pride flared in me, something I didn’t feel very often anymore. It had been a long time since I’d felt the approval of a teacher. “Think it’ll work? I mean, it’s not exactly revolutionary.”

Amusement lighting her eyes, Lorraine said, “Tried and true usually works best. But you never know. There’s never any guarantees. I only see one problem with it.”

“What’s that?”

Lorraine fixed me with a hard stare. “We hadn’t ever talked about this. It’s not my business how you practice and I won’t tell you what’s best for you. But the thing of it is, you work with nature but you don’t work with spirits. You’re tying one arm behind your back with that.”

A small personal altar was in my direct line of sight. Work for clients wasn’t done there. It was dedicated to Saint Cyprian of Antioch, the patron of root workers and conjurers and himself a Pagan sorcerer before converting to Christianity. A large framed image of the saint served as the centerpiece, flanked by purple candles and incense. Rozella had had something similar in her home. She lit the candles and burned the incense every day to commune with the saint and maintain a relationship with him. Lorraine probably did the same.

I believed in things like ghosts and vampires and even demonic spirits because I had proof of their existence. I’d witnessed the truth of those things with my own eyes. Religion, though, was something I’d always had trouble with. It was hard for me to reconcile the saints and Bible passages conjurers used with the judgment and the fear and disgust I’d received from the religious people I grew up around. I quit even trying a long time ago. It wasn’t something I talked about but I knew it was why I did more ghost evictions than traditional conjure work. I didn’t have a relationship with Saint Cyprian or any other disincarnate spirit.

“I just don’t know if I can work that way.” Staring into my empty coffee cup was easier than meeting her eyes.

Tapping the table she said, “You might have to find out one day, little miss. Come up against something bigger than you and you just might need some help.”

I packed up my books and newly bought supplies. Lorraine hugged me as I left, telling me to let her know how things turned out. Hopefully I’d be able to call her tomorrow and tell her it worked. Tonight Daniel and I were going to Maple Hill.

* * * *

With plenty of daylight to kill, I went to the library. I didn’t need what little they had on occult subjects but a history lesson seemed in order. Lorraine had piqued my curiosity when she mentioned the flood of 1927 so I found a book on it and tucked into a plush chair.

The Grunt
by the JBs exploded from my backpack, earning me a dirty look from a passing circulation clerk. Embarrassed I’d forgotten to turn off my cellphone when I entered the library, I scrambled to dig it out.

It was Daniel. “Hey, are you okay? That sumbitch called me asking if I’d heard from you. Do I need to rip his throat out? ’Cause I will.”

It always worried me when Daniel sounded that country. It meant he was feeling maudlin and probably drinking pretty heavy. He’d been doing that a lot lately and I didn’t know what to make of it. “I’m fine, Bubba. What about you? You sound a little out of it.”

“No, I’m not out of it.” He paused and I heard the click of a lighter and a deep indrawn breath. Damn vampires. So unfair they could smoke without worrying about that pesky lung cancer. “I am right in it, Roxie. You’re the one who needs to be careful.”

“What do I need to be careful of?” What the hell did he and Blake have to say to each other?

“Look.” He paused, the sound of the icemaker painfully loud in my ear. “I know you’re a big girl, you don’t need me to be your daddy.” Since when, I wanted to say but didn’t. “You wanna bone that guy, bone him all you want.” He laughed. “Hell, I don’t like him and even I think he’s pretty boneable.”

Nearly dropping the phone, I cringed the biggest cringe that has ever been cringed. My bisexual vampire ancestor did not just say he thought my maybe-boyfriend was boneable. No, that did not happen.

“But that’s all it can be, Roxie. He might be Mr. Right Now but don’t confuse him for Mr. Right. For God’s sake, don’t fall in love with that man. Love makes you crazy. Makes you stupid. Makes you think nothing else matters and that’s just a lie. Love don’t build no bridges and it don’t work miracles.”

For a long moment all I could do was gape, aghast at the suggestion that I might lose my head over a man like Blake Harvill. Then I pushed aside my own troubles and zeroed in on Daniel. Something was going on with him and it wasn’t just too much whiskey in his O positive. “Bubba, what’s going on? Is something wrong?”

There was a scratchy silence for almost a full minute. “No, honey, I’m fine. Everything’s copacetic. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Are you sure? I can come on home now if you want.”

“No, you do whatever you got to do. I’ll see you tonight. Just don’t let that man talk you into anything crazy. Maybe he really does love you, but that doesn’t mean he’s good for you.”

He said goodbye quickly and I could barely respond. I wanted to focus on Daniel, find out just what exactly was going on that would make him sound so unlike his usual composed self. All I could hear in my head was his assertion that Blake loved me. The thought filled my mind, expanding in a bloom of dark colors washed with star trails.

* * * *

“The other name for black cohosh.” Rozella’s teacher voice was firm, a little louder than her normal speaking voice, and brooked no nonsense.

“Black snake root,” I answered. I lifted the bucket of floor wash and climbed up a few more steps. Dipping my gloved hand and wash rag in the water, then squeezing out the excess, I went to work on washing down the next few steps. I’d done the first floor the day before and would do the second floor on the next day. The floor wash was water with a little bit of ammonia and three teaspoons of a special herbal mixture designed for a more spiritual type of cleaning. I’d been wanting to try it at home ever since Rozella taught me the recipe, thought it might have helped ease some of the tension, but I knew if I was found out it would cause more harm than good.

“Its uses.” Rozella sat on the sofa with a quilting project arrayed around her. A neighbor was expecting a baby so Rozella was making a blanket for the child.

I answered with confidence. “Protection and strength.”

“What else?”

I paused mid-scrub, raising my head and flipping my braid over my shoulder. Nothing else came to mind.

She eyed me over her quilting. “What was in the tea I gave you when you were hurting last week?”

I slapped the washrag on a step. “PMS and hot flashes.”

“Did you pay any attention to what I put in that tea?”

Ooh, that was not a good line of questioning. “No, ma’am,” I replied guiltily. “I felt so bad I just drank it.”

The look she gave me could have set that bucket of floor wash to boiling but she said nothing. She knew she didn’t have to, the glare was enough. I knew better than to eat or drink something without knowing what was in it, especially when it was given to me by a practitioner. I had a feeling there would be a few weeks of “name that ingredient” to emphasize the point.

We went over a few more herbs before the jukebox got to the song that always made Rozella stop what she was doing. That jukebox was a thing of beauty. She’d gotten it in payment for work–root work. It was one of the big floor models popular in juke joints and clubs and Rozella had plenty of records to keep it going. Blues and soul were her favorites. The jukebox provided a steady stream of background music but when Jimmy Reed’s
Little Rain
started, it had Rozella’s full attention.

Near the end of the song she rose from the couch and strode to the jukebox to play it again. I’d seen her do this before but she never offered any explanation or comment. I sure knew better than to ask, too.

“Coriander seeds,” she said in a demanding voice.

“Uh, usually for love spells.”

“Love, passion and fidelity,” she corrected. “Use it with rose petals and honeysuckle flowers. A little cherry bark. Some catnip. But the best thing for a love spell is Queen Elizabeth root. That’s a powerful root there.”

Her intensity made me nervous. “Does it work every time?” I only asked just to be talking.

“Yes it does.” She returned to her seat on the couch, picking up her quilting. “Balm of Gilead.”

It took me a second to realize we were back to quizzing as her voice lacked its usual sharpness. “It’s for comfort, I think. Is it for a broken heart?”

“Yes," she replied so quietly I barely heard her.

I gave up on the scrubbing to watch her for a moment. She was intent on her quilting but there was a shadow across her face. Years later her son would show me photographs of Rozella when she was young. Beautiful and stylish with a smile on her face, she looked happy. But the pictures were torn in half, someone stricken from her past. There were plenty of pictures of her late husband–her son’s father–so we didn’t think that’s who this mystery man was. And it was surely a man based on tell-tale signs of a man’s suit and masculine hands. There were so many things Rozella never talked about, so many secrets she took to the grave.

“Does it work every time?” I finally asked.

“No.”

That was the end of the conversation. I went back to work, the hollow ring in her voice silencing my questions.

Chapter 8

Daniel paced, his wiry frame full of nervous tension. “How much longer?”

I hit the button to light up my cellphone. “Eighteen minutes. Two minutes less than the last time you asked.” At full dark it would be safe to leave the house. As the last minutes of the day ticked by we waited impatiently, both stewing in our own unspoken problems.

Bouncing on the balls of his feet and swinging his arms, Daniel put me in mind of a sugared-up toddler. At least he wasn’t singing. Yet. I sat on the bottom of the stairs, backpack full of ghost-evicting goodies at my feet. The phone lit up with another message. I’d turned the sound off earlier, not wanting comments from my peanut gallery of one. “Hey, why don’t you go do some yoga or get a drink or something? You’re making me tense.”

He turned his world-renowned “bitch, please” face on me. “I’ll go get a drink. But I am not what’s making you tense.” After a pointed look at my phone he walked away in a graceful shuffle, humming.