The Prophet

“I see.”

She shifted the baby to her other arm. All three stared at me with those dark, shimmering eyes. “You have folks around here?” she asked doubtfully.

“No. I was just visiting Chedathy Cemetery.” And just like that, it came back to me where I’d seen her before. “I know you,” I said. “Your name is Tay-Tay.”

She glowered. “No one calls me that anymore. I’m Tamira. These are my brothers.” She bounced the fretting baby to quiet him. “This one here is James and that’s Marcus.”

I said hello to all of them. “I’m Amelia.”

“How do you know me?” she demanded.

“I walked past your house once with Essie and Rhapsody Goodwine. We saw you on the porch.”

Her eyes widened, and I could have sworn I saw a flicker of fear. She called down the street to another girl chatting with a group of friends. She looked only a year or two younger than Tamira. “Timberly, you get your butt over here right now!”

The girl rolled her eyes and said something to one of her companions, then sauntered over to Tamira. “What do you want?” she asked sullenly, bending to scratch behind her knee.

“I need you to carry the baby home and give him a bottle. Take Marcus with you.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“Because I can’t,” Tamira snapped imperiously. “Now you do as I say or I’ll tell Mama you been sneaking out at night to meet up with that old Peazant boy.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Oh, yes, I would,” Tamira threatened. “And don’t give me no more lip about it, either.”

The girl took the baby and plopped him none too gently on her scrawny hip. “I’m never having kids. They ruin everything.”

She trudged off with Marcus in tow, and Tamira turned back to me. “You come to see Miss Essie?”

“No, I told you. I’m visiting the cemetery.”

“You got people buried there?”

“I’m a cemetery restorer. I take care of graveyards,” I said vaguely. “Chedathy is one of my favorites.”

“That old place?” She turned to stare down the road toward the cemetery. “I reckon that’s where they’ll plant Mr. Fremont even though they wouldn’t bury his grandson there.”

“Why not?”

Despite that earlier flash of fear, she looked to be enjoying herself now. Her eyes gleamed with self- importance. “Because of the wudu.”

“Wudu? You mean magic?” I asked.

“Black magic.” She leaned in. “She was very powerful, they say. Powerful enough to come back from the dead. His people were afraid she wouldn’t let him rest in peace and they didn’t want him coming back. So they buried him someplace else.”

“Who wouldn’t let him rest?”

“Mariama Goodwine.”

I felt the chill of a ghostly breath down my collar even though it was hours until twilight. “Did you know her?”

“I used to see her in the bone-yard sometimes. She went there to meet him.”

“Robert?”

She nodded.

“You saw them together?”

“Lots of times. You want me to show you something?”

“I…sure.”

She led me back to the cemetery, pausing outside the lichgate to make the sign of the cross over her heart. Then we walked deep into Chedathy where the thick canopy all but blocked the sun.

“See this?” She pointed to a carving in a tree trunk. “This is where they used to meet. They cut these initials in the bark when they was just kids.”

“What does that symbol mean?”

“Love everlasting.”

I thought about Robert and Mariama’s history. They’d been together as teenagers. He’d both loved and hated her, and then he’d moved to Charleston and discovered there was a world beyond her. And yet, he’d allowed her back into his life.

“When was the last time you saw them here?” I asked.

“The day he got himself shot. I stood right over there behind that tree and listened to every word they said.”

I knew I should stop her, but I was spellbound and morbidly fascinated. “What did you hear?”

Her eyes rounded, and she waved her arms theatrically. It was almost as powerful as having been there. “She kept grabbing his shirt, like this.” Tamira demonstrated with her own T-shirt. “She clung with both fists, begging him to run off with her. She said he was the only man she’d ever loved and she didn’t want to live without him. He just laughed at her, and said she’d never really loved anyone but herself, and the only reason she’d come back to him was to taunt her husband. It had been a mistake to start things up with her again and even if he had been in love with her, his job was too dangerous to take on a family. He had no room in his life for a wife, much less one with a kid.” She finished with a dramatic flourish, shivering a bit as if overcome by the memory of all those emotions.

“You remember all that?” I asked in awe.

“I never forget a thing. Just ask Timberly.”

“I believe you.”

“You want to know the scary part?” She leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper. “I think Mariama comes to me in my sleep sometimes and tries to mess with me. I’m the only one that knows the truth about her and she don’t like it.”

“What truth?”

Tamira made a production of glancing over her shoulder. “She told Robert he would be sorry if he left her and the very next day I saw his body right here in the exact same spot where they’d stood talking. It was like she put a root on him or something.”

“You found him?” I asked in surprise.

She nodded proudly.

“But Robert was shot. Mariama couldn’t have done it because she was already dead.”

“If she came back as bakulu, she could have made somebody do it for her. That’s what they do. They make slaves of the living.”

“Tamira, listen to me. Were you in the cemetery the night Robert was murdered? Did you see what happened?”

Her eyes bulged suddenly, and her hands flew to her throat. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. I thought at first this was just more of her theatrics, but then I followed her gaze.

Rhapsody Goodwine stood between two graves, the resemblance to her father, Darius, so uncanny in that eerie setting as to raise goose bumps on my arms. She lifted her hand and pointed to Tamira.

“Tie your mouth, Tay-Tay!”

Beside me, the girl began to choke.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Tamira fell back against the tree in a fit of gagging and coughing. I stared at her in alarm. “Are you okay?”

As quickly as the spell came on, the choking subsided. Gasping for breath, she looked beyond me to Rhapsody. “Stay away! You hear? Stay away from me!”