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We both began to rock in the creaky wooden chairs. My heart was still racing and my breathing heavy. He seemed to take notice and we sat in silence, staring off toward the street. The yard once again appeared like a normal yard. Birds chirped in the trees, unconcerned, no omens to deliver.
“Didn’t you say something about lemonade? Maybe a half and half?” I asked.
“You cut the grass? No sir.”
My idle thoughts started to sort through rituals which might be able to pull that off. Atofo had plenty for growing crops. The Timucuan farmers had not only kept themselves fed but managed to keep European invaders from starving when they weren’t fighting. Miles of cornfields, all the gift of the sun. Cutting grass? There’d have to be a spell for blight. This guy’s yard could use a good dusting of magic Round Up.
“Kibaga woulda been easier. Better than your bleeding in the street over yonder.” He tilted his head toward the sun. “If you could cast it while Ata Emit watches.”
“Ata Emit?”
“He is the sun. And the sky. And the stars. We don’t play around when we’re talking about gods.”
“Gods, huh,” I said. Religion and magic crossed paths plenty often. Whether gods were truly real or just the first human ancestors who discovered how to cast a spell, nobody could say. But I didn’t want to start any debates. Not yet. I shifted the conversation back to my own bewitchment. “Worked didn’t it?” I said, easing back into the chair. “No magic without sacrifice.”
The old man grunted. “Sacrifice done been made.”
I rocked forward and settled with my elbows on my knees. “What does that mean?”
“There’s magic of all kinds in this world, that all I mean.”
He maintained his disinterested stare. Cryptic responses came with the territory. Magic had become rare enough that those who had it were tight-lipped. Everybody around them either didn’t believe or were looking to exploit them.
“What kind of magic makes your yard into a death trap? Did you put it there to keep people out or somebody else put it there to keep you in?”
“If somebody else do it, they wasting their time. I ain’t going nowhere. But you mind, there be monsters out there.”
The hound came to mind. The more I thought of it, the more convinced I was it had followed me through the woods that night. What else did he know?
“You seen these monsters?”
“Mmm hmm.”
He didn’t share details, just let his attention drift toward the intersection. Braving his wards hadn’t earned enough respect or broken much of his chilly exterior. I tried to start over, back to basics.
“Name’s Ace. You?”
“Ace, huh? Well, call me Fortune then.”
“Fair enough, Fortune. I’m searching for something—”
“Ain’t we all?”
“—and I was wondering if I could get some advice.”
“I done give you advice when I first saw you.” His concentration hadn’t left the intersection and he gave a brief nod. “Told you to go back the way you come.” His lower lip curled into a frown. “Didn’t listen, did you? Why would you listen now?”
“I meant no disrespect. If I’ve missed my chance on advice, how about some information? You’ve got to know quite a bit about the history of this place.”
“I do.”
I was starting to miss Atofo’s smart ass comments. At least when he told me nothing, he made it entertaining. Even Mr. Kitterling had a better way of blowing me off, direct and upfront about his lack of desire to share anything.
“Tell me about Fenwick Hall then.”
He tucked his thumbs underneath his suspenders. “Never got invited to the house. My family, neither.” I almost started into another question, thinking he’d told me all he planned to say when he spoke again. “Worked the fields for a lifetime though, and then some. Sunup to sundown, we waded in the rice and minded the river’s course.” He finally regarded me, pupils milky with age. “That was my family’s job, trunk minder,” he said, not masking the pride.
“Trunk minder?”
He gave me the look which says that there are, in fact, stupid questions. “Watered the fields. All them acres, they need just the right amount. Too much, they drown, you ruin the crops. Too little, they dry right up and don’t produce.” He shifted closer. “Plants, like magic, require tending. A tree that grows in the shade of another will die small.” My silent nod seemed to satisfy him, and he eased back. “The manor though, I can tell you the name says Fenwick, and them Hallewells took up residence after that.” His face turned sour and he spit off the side of the porch. “Not many men ever owned more human beings than them Hallewells.”
Magic built on ancestral power had all the baggage time placed on it. Tremors of both glory and injustice reached into the present. A not so subtle reminder that not even a spell could help you escape your past.
“I’ve been told there’s a boy buried in the woods. One of the Hallewell’s put him there.”
Fortune huffed. He pitched forward until he needed one hand to support himself and grabbed a fistful of dirt. Wobbling, he righted and held the clod up. “You’ll find plenty of boys and men ground into the dirt here. Womenfolk too.” With a harsh flick he scattered the dirt to the wind.
I was beginning to understand. The sacrifice which had already been made. Lives had been lost in those fields, plantations which spanned miles. Same as a graveyard, their essence had infused itself where they’d been left to bleed and die. The idea of a magic like that which I could wield was both sobering and exhilarating.
“Your magic...can it heal?”
“Depends on what ails you.”
He didn’t say it like he wanted an explanation as to why I’d asked, more like he wanted me to consider what the right answer might be. Chasing a cure had consumed me so long, I didn’t know any more if that was the real problem. I could still feel the tightness in my chest, the rattle with each breath.
Seeing the Gallu had put the fear of the maker into me, not gonna lie. But I hadn’t fought back or even tried. I’d been resigned. Maybe ready. What of Izaak then? Do I just give up?
Fortune scooped his cane off the ground. With a hollow thump, he planted it on the porch. I got to my feet and offered a hand which he didn’t refuse.
Standing eye to eye, he flicked the cane toward the horseshoe nailed over his front door. “You hopped my fence, but you can’t speak to your sun on this porch.” Or did he say son? I couldn’t be sure. He opened the screen door and stood concealed behind it. “No can you come inside.” He went in, the creaky spring snapping the door closed. I listened to him shuffle around the house, only seeing a steel haze through the screen. Moments later he returned holding a fork.
Fortune hobbled past and stepped into the yard. I froze. One trip to the Temple of Doom down, I wasn’t quite ready for the sequel. He insisted impatiently, swatting with his cane.
“Move with me.”
Words, they mattered. Not “follow me” but “move with me.”
I took careful note of every step while he worked his way down a barely visible garden path and toward the stranded hunks of concrete in his driveway. His shuffling step mixed with a more complex pattern. Almost a dance the way he paused and shuffled from one patch of ground to the next. I fell in close behind, imitating every move. The snakes in the yard hissed across a vast gulf this time. I couldn’t even be sure if it wasn’t just the wind in the palmettos.
When we reached the road, he held out the fork. Cutlery wasn’t part of my typical antique collecting. Tarnished a mottled gray, the solid four-tined fork was made of pure silver. When I hesitated, he waggled it closer to my face and I took it.
“Come sundown,” he said, “for three days, you gonna go out to that there crossroads and plant this in the middle.” He gripped my hand that held the fork and shook it for emphasis. “Animals gonna come. Beasts. Maybe those monsters I told you about. But at the end of those three days, you’ll see the Devil and he’ll give you whatever you want. Hoodoo. Music learning. Rolling dice,” he said with a gratuitous leer. Couldn’t be he knew about my luck with them, could it? “Though, if it were me, I’d be careful asking for buried boys.”
Backwoods hoodoos borrowed ritual and spell craft from all over and blended them together. I’d learned of the salted red earth from one, a mixture of African and European magic. I had little doubt he was teaching me a genuine ritual, but the simplicity sounded suspicious.
“Do I bring an offering? A sacrifice?”
“Those indians been growing corn in your ears?”
“I know, you said the sacrifice had been made. A spirit told me enough blood had been spilled too. But shamans always need their own skin in the game. You saying all that’s in the past?”
He angled his cane upward and tapped my chest, right on the covered plate. “That’s where you wrong. Those sacrifices, they bein’ made right now, every day.”
An SUV crunched up the road, a dark omen in a smoky cloud of dust. The black Escalade slowed at the intersection then revved the engine and lurched through. Approaching Fortune’s house, it slowed to a predatory crawl.
I caught myself searching for hard cover. They weren’t dropping speed for a neighborly wave. The way they crept had the feel of a drive by. Any minute, I expected the darker than legal windows to whir open and the barrel of a gun to emerge from the blackened interior.
Standing there with a fork in my hand, I couldn’t have been that intimidating. My jacket still draped on Bubonic’s hood, at least my sidearm was visible. Could be enough to dissuade any violence. Could also be the spark for the fuse.
The SUV continued to creep. I noticed a magnetic sign slapped on the passenger door which read, “Promised Land Ministries.” I kept my eyes trained on the windows, ready to react. The SUV crawled on by.
Becky had mentioned this same crew asking questions about Fenwick Hall. Evangelists? I didn’t think so.
According to her, they’d been out to the manor before I had. Maybe they’d come back after I’d tried to speak to Hallewell. He’d let them in to hear about the Good Book, gotten up to get a drink...
Could be they were after the sword too.
“You know them?” I asked Fortune as the SUV faded into a dusty cloud.
“Them’s the monsters,” he said.
I gave him the side eye. Was he for real? His hand slid across my shoulders and he drew closer. I turned an ear to listen.
“No time for talk,” he whispered.
With more strength than I’d imagined in those twisted hands, he shoved me into the road.
Darkness fell so suddenly, I thought I’d been robbed of sight. The pallor of dusk only slowly filled my sun-drenched eyes. Fortune’s porch was empty. The lights were off. Bubonic sat cold and idle, a fresh coat of dust on the surface.
The sun had left only a purple bruise and deep shadows. I’d just lost an entire afternoon. My chest felt tight and sore after the morning’s record-setting long jump and magical drain. Three days? I’d be lucky if I made it two. Less if I had to deal with more of this daylight savings bullshit. But how he’d pulled that off, I had no idea.
I flipped the fork in the air and snatched it. Anything was worth a shot. I walked over to the crossroads, planted the silverware and waited.
An hour later, I had exactly what I thought I’d have — a fork in a fork in the road. Whether this was some sort of Mr. Miyagi paint the fence schooling or some kind of practical joke, I didn’t know. One questionably magic fork back in my pocket, no sword on my hip, I retrieved my jacket off Bubonic’s hood and drove back into town.