Spell For Sophia (5 page)

"It should be safe." We reached a break in the palmettos and Breaux broke into a jog. I ran to keep up with him, my gaze glued to the ground, fearful of tripping over a root or stepping on a snake. We reached a cluster of palmettos, hid, and sucked air into our lungs.

"Did you see Mam'zelle?" I wheezed.

"No! Where?"

A series of sharp snaps and cracks cut off my response. "The house is going," Breaux warned.

I peered around the fan of palmetto fronds and my breath hitched. Mam'zelle's hut collapsed upon itself as though it had been built from craft sticks. Her magic room and the bedroom where she had died sank first. Next the kitchen nosedived, smashing her brightly colored dishes. Glasses and jam jars shattered. Through an opening in the wreckage, I watched the shards plop into the brackish water.

My chest constricted. The sitting room with the treasured schoolbooks Breaux had given me and the sofa that had served as my bed slid into the bayou. "Not our books!" The force dragged down the tiny bathroom and what remained of the footbridge.

On the shore's edge, Mam'zelle's ghost twisted toward us. Her arms hung slack at her sides. Spying us, she lifted her chin and the white light surrounding her brightened. I searched her expression for meaning, for some kind of sign, but her features had altered. Gone were the wrinkles, worry lines, and crow's feet. Her face had been recast. Otherworldly. Inscrutable.

I'm in transition
, her voice explained inside my head. Her speech had lost the rasp of illness and its female quality. It reminded me of a bell — genderless and timeless.

A luminous figure materialized beside Mam'zelle. My pulse jumped.
She Who Guides
Me!
Cloaked in a long white
kitanga,
the spirit guide fingered the cowrie shells at her throat. Six faceless beings of light huddled behind She Who Guides Me, their heads attached to her by glowing silver cords. Tingles hopscotched up my arms. She Who Guides Me leaned close to Mam'zelle and whispered in her ear. Mam'zelle bowed her chin. Without a farewell gesture, they vanished.

My heart skittered. I detected the low growl of a slow-moving motorboat. I grabbed Breaux's wrist. "Get down." I sank into a squat and the fronds closed in front of us.

Breaux crouched beside me. "See if you recognize them," he whispered.

I pushed aside a frond, creating an eye-width opening. "Not the driver," I murmured.

"Me neither. Then he's not a local. Might explain why they're not in an airboat — no expertise."

Good. Then he doesn't know the waterways as well as Breaux.
I swallowed hard at the sight of the second man. My muscles trembled as I took in his oil slick hair and acne-pocked face. Even from a distance I recognized the merciless flatness of his eyes and the determined line of his lips.

"Soph?"

The phantom stench of gasoline, sulfur, and creosote melded with the toxic fumes scorched in my memory: burning acetone, bleach, and ammonia. "It's their boss…" My voice faltered.

The skin between Breaux's eyebrows pleated together. "The guy your parents were going to—"

"Yes. The drug lord." I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. The alligators had slithered off. I searched my memory for a voodoo chant to call them back and compel them to attack. Fear scattered my thoughts. Napoleonic French and African phrases drifted through my brain like embers rising from a fire. All I could remember was Mam'zelle challenging me about my desire to learn magic.

"Not to control ot'ers?" she had asked. "Or seek revenge?"

"For protection,"
I had sworn. I groped beneath my sleeve and scratched the skin graft on my arm.
Maybe if I cut the psychic cord, the men will leave.
I groped for the sheath at my waist. Panic kicked me. "Where's my silver knife?"

Breaux glanced down at me. "I haven't seen it."

"Mam'zelle told me to wear it always."
When did I last have it?
With a sinking sensation I remembered dropping it in the magic room when I had heard Breaux's voice.

Don't panic.
I couldn't think with my pulse ricocheting. I closed my eyes and focused on my heartbeat.
Slow down.
I forced a long breath out of my mouth. "Hand me my backpack."

He shrugged it off his shoulder and passed it to me without removing his gaze from the two men in the boat.

"You don't happen to have a black hen's egg on you, do you?"

He snorted. "No."

With regret I thought of the valise containing my meager wardrobe. By now it was at the bottom of the swamp along with my textbooks. I had stuffed my backpack with a few clothes, snacks, and magical necessities. No eggs, but after some fishing, I extricated my jar of homemade Four Thieves Vinegar, a pencil stub, and a brown paper bag. I tore off a piece of the bag.

"You know the guy's name?" Breaux asked.

"Yes." My parents had slipped up once and used it in front of me. My teeth clenched as I wrote the drug lord's name nine times on the scrap.

"Got any red pepper?"

"It's already in the vinegar," I replied.

He nodded. "Smart. Black cloth?"

"No time." I drew a large X over the guy's name then handed the pencil to Breaux. "I need crossroads. Don't break my pencil."

"Bossy, bossy, bossy," Breaux mumbled as he searched for a suitable patch of dirt.

The motorboat had slowed down so much it was a wonder the engine hadn't cut out. The men ogled the ruins of the stilt hut. Not much remained above the surface. They appeared loath to leave.
Well, kick it.
I folded the brown paper over and over into a tiny, tight bundle.
Depart and don't return. Depart and don't return. Depart and don't return.
I carried the paper and jar over to Breaux.

"It may not work," he worried in a hushed voice. He stared down at his handiwork — a crossroads scratched into the earth. In the center he had dug a small indentation. "It's still daylight. And the paper should soak for nine days."

"I know. Well, it will soak now." I placed the folded scrap in the hollow and then unscrewed the jar lid, releasing the sharp scent of apple cider vinegar. Red pepper and bits of chopped garlic, rosemary, and rue floated in the amber liquid.

"Depart and don't return." I pictured the men in the boat leaving as I drenched the paper in the vinegar concoction. I started to think
drown,
but stopped myself.
What goes around comes around,
my last foster mother used to say.

A small puddle formed around the brown paper. "I know this should be done at midnight," I said, referring to the optimum time for casting the spell to banish an enemy. "But—" I angled my head toward the water where the motorboat still droned, "—we don't have time. Any minute they might take it into their heads to search the island."
It would be easier to conceal and transport a body or two in a motorboat than a flat-bottomed airboat. Plenty of swamp available to dispose of our remains.

"Wait." Breaux rolled up his right pant leg, revealing a silver dime tied to his ankle with a red string.

"What are you doing?" I whispered when he pushed down my dingy ankle sock.

"Protecting you." He transferred the amulet from his leg to mine, tying off the red string with a double square knot.

"But you need it."

"Not as much as you do." He rose to his feet and took the jar of Four Thieves Vinegar.

I rolled down my pant leg. "You worried about Papa Legba?"

"We made a crossroad. Who else you gonna call to open the gate?"

"Saint Peter?"

"Your choice." He stepped back.

The dime pressed against my skin, carrying Breaux's body heat. Papa Legba is a trickster, I thought. He might help me. Or he might sow chaos.

The alligators.
My chest swelled with certainty.
Mam'zelle sent him. He's already here.
I kicked some dirt over the paper and vinegar then walked in a square around the crossroads, stopping at each corner.

"Papa Legba,
ouvrez la porte.

Papa Legba,
ouvrez la porte, la porte.

Papa Legba,
ouvrez la porte.

Open the door, remove all obstacles, and help us get to where we need to go."

I closed my eyes and envisioned a midnight sky. "See it as so." Then I visualized the drug dealer's boat traveling in the opposite direction of our boat. When I opened my eyes again, a cloud blocked the sun.

"The boat is headed this way," Breaux warned.

My pulse surged. I stomped on the buried hex. "Enemy, begone!" Magic tingled down my leg, then my foot, and passed through the sole of my sneaker before rippling across the ground in successive circles. The sharp scent of pipe smoke and rum seared my nostrils. Two apparitions rose from the psychic waves — an elderly black man dressed in a straw sun hat and a scarlet mud cloth skirt, and a wary-looking mongrel dog. Both glanced about as though getting their bearings. The old man's watery eyes settled on me.

The temperature spiked and a hot breeze blew across the crossroads, then swirled upward, tossing my long hair. I lowered my gaze and pressed my knees together to still their quaking. Breaux stepped closer and clasped my hand. I shifted so our jeans touched and his warmth seeped into my leg and hip. I sensed Papa Legba's stare as it traveled over me. He made a back-of-the-throat
humph.

As I glanced up, he inclined his walking stick toward the water and shouted a command in his native tongue. A commotion erupted down by the sunken footbridge. Splashing. Yelling. The spirit dog barked once.

Papa Legba twisted back toward me. Fear jerked my body. Breaux squeezed my hand. Papa Legba lowered his staff and stroked his curly gray beard. His watery stare migrated to Breaux. Goose bumps prickled my flesh and I shifted from one foot to the other. I didn't want Breaux swept into my bad mojo. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, Papa Legba cut me off with a throaty be-careful-what-you-wish-for laugh. I swallowed hard. Unseen rattles jangled. Papa and his spirit mongrel vanished. The waves of magic retreated to the crossroads and erupted into flames. I jumped back. The flames sizzled and then died.

My blood pulsed. "Breaux—"

He placed his finger on my lips to quiet me. His warm nutmeg skin had paled. "Complete the spell."

I itched to rush back to our hiding place and see what Papa Legba had wrought. Instead, I forced myself to turn my back on the smoking lines scratched in the dirt. The spell dictated I walk away and not look back. I scrambled over the bracken and pushed aside tree branches and palmettos in my rush toward Mam'zelle's boat. With a start, I realized Breaux had hung back.

Kick it, Breaux! If you wreck my spell…
Although he hadn't cast the spell, he had carved the crossroads. In my mind, it bound him to the same don't-look-back rule. Instead, I heard him scrambling over the roots and bramble behind me. I began to sweat.

Angry curses carried up from the vicinity of the wreckage. Then the drug lord yelled, "Turn the boat around!"

"Depart and don't return. Depart and don't return."
Darn it.
Worry for Breaux jumbled my concentration.
Magic always has a price.
What if Papa Legba messed with him? What if Breaux had crossed the hex path? What if the men had spotted him?
Depart and don't return.
With a sickening feeling, I realized "depart" could mean die. Secretly I wanted the drug lord dead. Had I poured my desire into the hex? My stomach tightened.
Just what I need. More bad mojo.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
It sounded as though the boat had struck debris from the collapsed hut or footbridge. The motor sputtered, then died. The silence raised goose flesh on my arms.
Enemy, begone. Enemy, begone
. A twig broke behind me. I tensed at the sound of footfalls, quick and drawing closer. I couldn't look back, so I prayed to Mother Mary
. Please let it be Breaux.

"Wait up."

Relief flooded me. I halted and waited for Breaux to catch up. When he did, I pinched his arm. "What were you doing?" I whispered. "You can't look back during a banishing spell. What if you broke the hex? What if it struck you by mistake?"

"But I didn't cast it." He massaged his arm and frowned.

I bugged my eyes at him. "You carved the crossroads."

"Crap!" He rubbed his face.
"Grand-mère
would disown me if she knew. Soph, I'm sorry. I didn't think." He slid my backpack off his shoulder. "I went back for your pack. I thought you might need it."

Tension slumped out of my shoulders. "Thanks. But never do it again!"

He bumped his shoulder against mine and flashed one of his stomach-fluttering smiles. "Were you worried about me?"

"Yes," I admitted. "Stop grinning."

He pressed his lips together, but triumph flashed in his eyes. I scowled. He summoned a half-serious expression. "If it's any consolation, you put the roots on them. The Big Daddy alligator charged the boat. Man, they couldn't do a U-turn fast enough."

"Seriously?"

"You should have seen them. Then they hit something beneath the surface. The footbridge, probably."

"I heard the engine clunk. Did they sink?"

As if on cue, the motor sputtered back to life, then died again. We froze, listening. A long moment passed and then the engine roared anew and settled into a loud drone. I held my breath until the noise faded. "Think one of them got off the boat?" I asked.

"Shh." He angled his head; his brow furrowed. I strained, listening. No sound of someone tripping on a root. No labored breathing. The breeze rustled through the cypress and palmettos.

"I think we're good," Breaux whispered. "But let's find
Grand-mère's
boat and get out of here just in case."

Chapter Six

The lantern hanging from a hook in the prow of Mam'zelle's rowboat cast a small circle of light on the dark water. Pain stabbed my right eye from straining to see more than a foot in front of me. If we didn't reach Breaux's car soon, I was pretty sure my eye would explode.