Taneea’s lip quivers. “Yes, ma’am.” She rushes from the room, swinging the door shut behind her.
Miss Delia breathes deep. “
“What’s her deal?” Despite her snootiness toward me, I can’t help but feel sorry for her.
Miss Delia shakes her head. “Seems my great-grand-daughter likes to court trouble. Been kicked out of every school Angelica can get her into and the stress has nearly broken up her latest marriage.”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea for her to stay?” We do have a pretty busy agenda, what with saving Cooper’s soul and helping Miss Delia recuperate from her injuries.
She sighs. “It’s against my better judgment, but sometimes you’ve got to do things for family you wouldn’t do for anyone else. I expect you understand that better than most.”
That’s for sure. Cooper and I put our lives on the line to save Jack. Now that Cooper’s the one in danger, there’s no question Jack and I will do the same for him. “I do.”
“In a way, I suppose I owe this to Angelica. Though not for the reasons she thinks.” Miss Delia looks out the back kitchen window into the yard, but it’s clear her mind is somewhere else, perhaps reliving the past. A few moments later she shakes her head. “Choosing between a man and your own flesh and blood isn’t easy. Though sometimes there’s no choice at all.”
I’m desperate to ask what she means but I know better than to pry. She rarely speaks about her past. After today’s walk down memory lane, I’m sure it’s the last thing she wants to discuss. Maybe we should pack it in after all.
“Do you still want to do this today? If it’s too much, I can come back tomorrow.”
“No, child, that curse isn’t going to wait on us.” Pushing the joystick on her chair, she drives toward the pedestal that holds the ancestors’ mortar. Although she’s only had the stone vessel back for a few weeks, aside from her spell book it’s probably her most prized possession. As it should be since Cooper, Jack, and I basically risked our lives, or at least prison, to liberate it for her from the King Center, the local Gullah museum.
She strokes its rough granite exterior, her aged fingers tracing the cracks that mar its surface. The worst of them, one deep enough to threaten to split clean through to the inside, was mended by a terrible twist of fate. Buoyed by my success with ending The Creep, I tried to break the Beaumont Curse, too, by throwing Cooper’s family heirloom, a ruby necklace, into the fire burning in the mortar. Turns out that was exactly the opposite of what I should have done. The ruby exploded, breaking into three pieces, and the gold melted, bubbling up over the mortar’s rim, oozing down the exterior, and filing the fissure. It’s probably the world’s most costly repair job.
“I’ve been thinking about your boy’s curse,” Miss Delia says. “It’s going to take some powerful magic to break. Best I can remember from our
“A what?”
“It’s some of the darkest magic there is, especially when used with a black magic potion and a strong incantation. Almost always brings on death of some sort.”
A chill races over my arms, raising goose bumps as I recall the harsh curses Sabina wrought to avenge her granddaughter Magnolia’s murder. “Wasn’t she chewing something when she cast The Creep on the pirate ship, too?”
Miss Delia nods. “She was. Now I’ve got to figure out what was in that powder she threw when she worked those spells. In the meantime, Cooper needs a powerful protection charm. It won’t be potent enough to stop the curse, but it might buy us some extra time.”
Pointing to the shelves, she calls out the ingredients we’ll need for a super-strong
I add each ingredient to the ancestors’ mortar exactly as she’s called them out knowing the order is nearly as important as what is used. Once they’re combined, I grind them together with a stone pestle, crushing the dried leaves and tiny chips to release their essential oils. Soon, the agrimony’s apricot scent and verbena’s lemony notes mix with the balsam flavor of the bay, sweetening the sharp and bitter odor of the black snake root.
A gentle breeze blows around Miss Delia’s house. It’s a natural consequence of working hoodoo magic, which taps into the natural elements and uses their power. So is the yawn that works its way up my throat. Spells require energy to work, and every charm requires a tribute of sorts from its practitioner. The stronger the magic, the more energy it draws, which is probably why my lids feel like they suddenly weigh about three pounds each. Fighting to keep them open, I rub the pestle against the last remaining chunks in the mortar. My head swoons, begging for sleep, but I power through, knowing I’m nearly finished. Supposedly I’ll gain a tolerance for this magic eventually, but that day can’t come soon enough.
Finally, the mixture is ready. Miss Delia hands me a small white pouch with an extra long drawstring. It’s a gris-gris bag or a mojo, meant to be worn either around the neck or kept in a pocket, as long as it’s close to the skin. “Pour the powder in here and cinch it up nice and tight.”
I follow her instructions then wipe out the mortar for the next part of the spell, which will kick-start this charm into overdrive. After scattering a few pieces of charcoal in the bottom of the granite mortar, I strike a match and light the coals, then pull back as a wisp of black smoke rises and curls around my face. While it burns, I assemble the last few herbs we’ll need. A few minutes later, the briquettes are a dusty gray, a sure sign they’re ready. Miss Delia directs me to layer some agrimony first, then the sandalwood, and finally some verbena over the coals. As they heat, the kitchen fills with their creamy, fruity scents. Bracing myself for the hardest part of the spell, I step to the mortar and hold the gris-gris bag over the smoking fumes.
Rubbing the red and white beads on my
The wind picks up, rattling the trees and whipping around the house. A gust of air blows in from the backyard, blasts through the kitchen and past the swinging door, then through the living room and presumably out on to the front porch.
My limbs grow heavy. Blinking hard and fast, I force my eyes open. Just a few more minutes and the charm will be finished. My head bobs, but I give it a good shake to stay awake. I’ve got to hold on. If the bag drops or I nod off, the spell will fail and we’ll have to wait for the mortar to rest before we can work another charm. Which will take three days we don’t have.
Finally, the last of the buttery sandalwood burns off and the smoke dissipates. Grasping the gris-gris bag between my fingers, I giggle. It buzzes with brilliant white energy, shooting tingles up my arm.
“Holy cow! Feel this.” I hand it off to Miss Delia then dump water into the mortar to drench any remaining embers.
It jiggles in her palm like it’s filled with Mexican jumping beans. “Well done, Emma.” Miss Delia laughs. “This is a strong mojo. That boy of yours should realize how lucky he is. If you didn’t care about him so much, it wouldn’t be half as powerful.”
Slumping into a stool at the counter, I sink my heavy head against my palm. “I guess that explains why I’m so exhausted. It took a lot out of me.” I yawn.
“But you’re doing so much better than even a few weeks ago. Back then you’d be asleep by now and couldn’t have produced something near as potent. You’re learning and your resistance is beginning to build.”
Beginning? At this rate, I won’t have the strength to get to the end. “Isn’t there anything we can do to speed things up? Because I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.” Or if I’ll make it home before I conk out.
“There’s always a way with hoodoo, but I don’t like shortcuts.”
Easy for her to say. She’s not the one who’s half-uncon-scious. But I know better than to argue with her, especially since I can barely concentrate.
