“Listen,” I say. “I’m glad Carmel’s noticing you. If you play your cards right, you might have a shot. Just don’t invade her mind too much. She was pretty creeped out by that.”

“Me and Carmel Jones,” he scoffs, even as he stares hopefully after her car. “In a million years maybe. More likely she’ll end up comforting Will. He’s smart, and one of the crowd, like her. He’s not a bad guy.” Thomas straightens his glasses. Thomas isn’t a bad guy either, and someday maybe he’ll figure that out. For now I tell him to go put some clothes on.

As he turns and walks back up the drive, I notice something. There’s a circular path near the house that connects to the end of the driveway. At the fork of it is a small white tree, a birch sapling. And hanging from the lowest branch is a slim black cross.

“Hey,” I call out, and point to it. “What’s that?”

It isn’t him who answers. Morfran swaggers out onto the porch in his slippers and blue pajama pants, a plaid robe tied tight around his extensive belly. The getup looks ridiculous in contrast to that braided, mossy rock ’n’ roll beard, but I’m not thinking about that now.

“Papa Legba’s cross,” he says simply.

“You practice voodoo,” I say, and he hmphs in what I think is an affirmative. “So do I.”

He snorts into his coffee cup. “No, you don’t. And you shouldn’t, neither.”

So it was a bluff. I don’t practice. I learn. And here is a golden opportunity. “Why shouldn’t I?” I ask.

“Son, voodoo is about power. It’s about the power inside you and the power you channel. The power you steal and the power you take from your goddamn chicken dinner. And you’ve got about ten thousand volts strapped to your side in that bit of leather there.”

I instinctively touch the athame in my back pocket.

“If you were voodoo and channeling that, well, looking at you would be like watching a moth fly into a bug zapper. You would be lit up, 24/7.” He squints at me. “Maybe someday I could teach you.”

“I’d like that,” I say as Thomas bursts back onto the porch in fresh but still mismatched clothes. He scampers down the porch steps.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“Back to Anna’s,” I say. He turns sort of green. “I need to figure this ritual out or a week from now I’ll be staring at your severed head and Carmel’s internal organs.” Thomas turns even greener, and I clap him on the back.

I glance back at Morfran. He’s eyeballing us over his coffee mug. So voodooists channel power. He’s an interesting guy. And he’s given me way too much to think about to sleep.

* * *

On the drive over, the high from the events of last night starts to wear off. My eyes feel like sandpaper, and my head is lolling, even after downing that cup of paint thinner that Morfran called coffee. Thomas is quiet all the way to Anna’s. He’s probably still thinking about the feel of Carmel’s hand on his arm. If life were fair, Carmel would turn around and look into his eyes, see that he’s her willing slave, and be grateful. She’d lift him up and he wouldn’t be a slave anymore, he’d just be Thomas, and they’d be glad to have each other. But life isn’t fair. She’ll probably end up with Will, or some other jock, and Thomas will suffer quietly.

“I don’t want you anywhere near the house,” I say to snap him out of it and make sure he doesn’t miss the turn. “You can hang in the car, or follow me up the driveway. But she’s probably unstable after this morning, so you should stay off the porch.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he snorts.

When we pull into the driveway, he elects to stay in the car. I make my way up alone. When I open the front door, I look down to make sure I’m stepping into the foyer and not about to fall face-first into a boatload of dead bodies.

“Anna?” I call. “Anna? Are you all right?”

“That’s a silly question.”

She’s just come out of a room at the top of the stairs. She’s leaning against the rail, not the dark goddess, but the girl.

“I’m dead. I can’t be all right any more than I can be not all right.”

Her eyes are downcast. She’s lonely, and guilty, and trapped. She’s feeling sorry for herself, and I can’t say that I blame her.

“I didn’t mean for anything like that to happen,” I say honestly, and take a step toward the staircase. “I wouldn’t have put you in that situation. She followed me.”




Most Popular