Lizzy Ford: Cursed

“Welcome,” added Candace Igbo, a woman in an African head wrap and robe with a warm smile. She smelled of the café above, a sign she had been working in her shop before coming down.

“I apologize for the emergency phone calls,” Olivier started. “We’ve had an incident. The … menace we thought was gone has returned.”

“I sense the evil all around,” Marie said. “It followed me from the bus stop here.”

“I ain’t evil,” Rene objected.

“Not you, my warrior.”

Frowning, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.

“Rene, give us a minute,” Olivier ordered. “We need to talk about official matters. Go upstairs and wait for me.”

“A’ight. Candace, I’m grabbing some beignets or something,” Rene said.

“You’re welcome to any of our snacks, as usual,” Candace replied.

The gang member left.

“He is a good boy,” Marie said.

“He, his brother and their street thugs serve a purpose,” Olivier replied. “They keep our culture safe and secrets hidden. There are still parts of the city where police won’t go. If we can’t protect our own, how can our religion withstand another Hurricane Katrina, let alone other threats?”

“The religion is not as vulnerable as you believe,” Candace chided, her accent giving her words a pleasant rhythm. “People may die, but our religion will remain.”

“You and I will never agree,” Olivier said with a smile. “My family has been protecting the Original Three Houses of New Orleans for a few hundred years. We are the -”

“- First Families of voodoo,” Candace finished. “I’ve heard it enough times.”

“It’s a source of pride and responsibility. We are charged with covering up issues like those we need to discuss tonight and ensuring the continuation of our way of life.”

Marie watched them talk. Candace glowed with goodness. She was a mambos, a voodoo priestess who was gentle, wise and focused solely on healing magic. Olivier’s background was more like Marie’s: mixed. Having dabbled in black magic as well as healing, Marie found her place, but only after making a few mistakes she was still trying to right.

C’est la vie, she told herself.

It didn’t take long for her to tune out Olivier. Once he got on his soapbox, she lost all interest. She wasn’t there to be reminded how voodoo in New Orleans had withstood great challenges, from hurricanes to witch hunts to being condemned as a satanic religion, until the Original Three Houses went underground in the 1700s, long before Madame Leveau helped take the legitimate religion out of the mainstream circus it had become in the late 1800s.

No, Marie wasn’t in the mood. She pulled a small wooden box and her cascarilla out of her bag and returned to a spell she’d been working on for a week now. It had to be done by tomorrow, when her beloved grandson, Jayden, visited.

Opening the box, she withdrew the old, round dog tags that belonged to her grandfather and set them on a cloud of eggshells to work on.

“… because we are the original three Houses in New Orleans, each one representing a sect of our religion. African, Haitian, American, we are …”

He will talk forever, if we let him.

Tomorrow morning, she’d prepare the altar in the shed where she practiced her voodoo for the final ritual meant to give the dog tags her most powerful protection spell yet. Her collection of oils, powders and special prayers had grown over the years to the point where she doubted anyone outside of the high priests and priestess in Africa knew more.

If what the spirits told her was accurate, then her grandson was going to need every ounce of knowledge and powder she had.

“Am I boring you, Marie?” Olivier asked, tapping the table to draw her attention.

“ Chatte brile pair di feu ,” she replied in Creole. A burnt cat dreads the fire. Is creole french different than regular? Chat is cat in French. “I don’t never vote and I know you too well. You ain’t ever gonna impress me.”

Candace laughed. Olivier gave a slow smile.

“Okay. Onto business,” he said.

Marie put her project away.

“The LO gang is reporting two more murders like those that used to be frequent a few years ago,” he started. “Black magic deaths. The voodoo serial killer is becoming more active again.”

“The Red Man returns as well,” Marie said. “The spirits have warned me.”

Olivier shifted in his seat. “Last time, the Red Man came and left and then the ritual murders started. Both are connected to the curse, but the LO never found out why.”

“It is the foulest curse I have ever seen,” Candace murmured. “What kind of curse is beyond my skill to heal?”

They both looked at Marie.

Marie touched the mole between her eyes the way she did whenever she was troubled. Every woman born in her family the past four hundred years bore the birthmark; it made her feel closer to those who came before her. She worked on recalling what she’d been told by the spirits.

“It’s the return of the Fourth House, that which used to be one of the original families of New Orleans,” she said. “The spirits told me another member of the Fourth House has come. The Red Man follows.”

The other two exchanged alarmed looks.

“Your ancestors warned us about him last time. I don’t understand how the spirits of your family know so much about this Red Man curse,” Olivier said.

I won’t never tell you, neither, she said to herself.

“The tale of the Red Man comes from Africa, Olivier. He is known to be hungry, to eat his own, body and spirit and must claim who he comes for, or he will never leave. He pulls others into his curse, anyone in his way, even the innocent,” Candace said. “Whatever he was sent to do last time, he did not finish it, if he is returning. He was supposed to be a legend, a myth only.”

“He came when the Fourth House resurfaced in New Orleans last time and left when the serial killer claimed her life. The Fourth House is here again. We should just send its member away,” Olivier reasoned.

“No,” Marie said quietly. “It is too late. This time, the Red Man will not be satisfied with the girl. He brings great evil.” The images the spirits had shown her flooded her mind: those of a gorgeous young woman with the touch of death. Marie pushed the vision back. “Evil that will not stop.”

“Your ancestors told you this?” Olivier’s tone was hushed.

“Yes.”

“Marie, can we speak to them? Please?” Candace asked. She leaned forward, her brown eyes concerned, and took Marie’s hand. “Maybe there are things they told you that you don’t recall. Maybe we can ask them for guidance.”

Marie hesitated and looked around the dreary room. “The spirits … there are always some near,” she said. “But we should be outside, where more will hear us and speak through me.”

“This is too important to wait. Even if they only tell us a little bit more, we must know,” Olivier said. He stood and removed his jacket, draping it over his chair. “I’ll prepare the area.”

Marie frowned, torn about letting them talk to her ancestors. She feared revealing her family’s secret and exposing her beloved grandson, Jayden, to harm. The spirits had told her recently that his fate lay in a direction filled with black magic. The most she could do: try to protect him while he traveled his path and guide him to using healing magic rather than blood magic. It would not be long before he learned of his role in what was to come.

Soon, he’d meet her , the white zombie that plagued Marie’s dreams. A beautiful girl in her early twenties with blonde hair and light eyes. An un-dead girl whose spirit was returned to her even after her body was gone. Her siren song would draw the Red Man and doom everyone around her.