Magic and Macaroons (11 page)

Cookie’s heels clicked quickly down the hallway that the nurse at reception had directed us toward, and I hurried after her. She slowed at the end, where we were supposed to turn left, then stopped. I reached her side and put my hand on her arm.

“You okay?”

She shot me a look of defiance, but I could see the reluctance there, too. Sudden trepidation bloomed in my own chest. I was about to meet a voodoo priest, and I realized I had no idea what to expect.

“Is this Jack fellow an intimidating sort?” I asked.

Her cool green eyes regarded me. “It depends on whether he likes you or not.”

“How can you tell if he does? Like you, I mean. Me, I mean.” Good goddess, I was babbling like an eight-year-old on the first day of school.

A humorless smile quirked her lips. “Oh, you’ll know soon enough.” Taking a deep breath, she stepped around the corner.

Paused, staring.

I rounded the corner, too, as a wide smile broke out on her face. “Oh, Poppa Jack!” And she was running down the hallway, arms open to embrace the man standing in the doorway of a room on the right. She flung her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. He swayed at her impact, but caught himself with the cane he held in one hand and embraced her with his other arm.

“Cookie. It has been so long.
Far
too long.” The way he said it made me feel warm and fuzzy. I’d never met any of Cookie’s family. Her brother was several years older and lived in Florida, and her mother had left Savannah to live near him and her grandchildren. But this man had
family
written all over his face, in sentiment if not by blood.

“I’m sorry, Poppa. I should have called before.” She stood back and beckoned to me.

Poppa Jack turned slowly as I approached. Despite the deep lines carved in his mahogany face and the gnarled fingers that gripped his cane, his back was straight and his gaze steady. A ruff of still mostly black hair ringed his shiny pate like a monk’s tonsure. Close up, I saw that his eyes, though trained on me, were both filmed with cataracts.

He was not nearly as enthusiastic in his greeting to me. “This is the woman you told me about,” he said. Not a question.

Cookie nodded. “Katie Lightfoot. She needs your help.”

“We will see.” His tone was mild but firm.

“You’ll like her,” she said.

“We will see,” he said again.

I pasted a smile on my face and held out my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Pop—”

Cookie shook her head, just once, and I brought myself up short. Apparently
Poppa
was a title I, an outsider, was not supposed to use.

“Um, Mr. . . . I’m afraid I don’t know your last name.” My eyes cut to Cookie. Why hadn’t she told me how to address him?

“Call me Jack,” he said, turning toward the paned double doors at the end of the hallway. “Let’s retire to the garden to talk.”

“Outside?” I asked, instantly regretting it.

He turned and looked at me with cloudy eyes. “Yes. Outside. They keep it too damn cold in here for old bones like mine.”

“The grounds here are beautiful,” I said. “Lead the way.”

Whether he detected my false enthusiasm for sitting out in the ninety-eight-degree heat in ninety-five percent
humidity, he didn’t say. He simply nodded and, with Cookie’s hand on his arm, went outside.

I followed behind, thoughts as to what to tell this man about Franklin and Dawn Taite already racing through my mind.

The back door opened into a courtyard, charming in its simplicity and lush with the sun-warmed scents of lavender, sage, basil, and jasmine. Cookie and I exchanged glances as we realized it was laid out in the shape of a five-pointed star, a classic witch’s pentacle. Each of the points was devoted to plantings, while the center was paved with smooth stones, upon which wicker furniture clustered in an intimate seating arrangement. With increasing curiosity, I took in the plants, realizing as I did so that they were grouped much as I had arranged the beds in back of my carriage house.

In one section, savory herbs offered their leaves. In another, roses and lavender circled around a five-foot stone obelisk. Pink flowering jasmine climbed toward the point, all surrounded by sweet woodruff and the spent leaves of fragrant lily of the valley. A fountain formed of stacked, spherical marble burbled in another triangle, with lotus leaves floating along the edge and King Tut grasses reaching fuzzy flower heads six feet into the sky. But most interesting to me was the grouping of angelica, elderberry, and fluffy, golden Saint-John’s-wort—all traditional magical plants with multiple uses. I turned to see that Jack had settled onto the cushion of one of the chairs and was considering me with those misted eyes.

He could see me. I knew that somehow. And as I had the thought, I felt a little
nudge
, an extremely subtle inquiry at the edge of my consciousness. I tilted my head to let him know I felt it, and he raised his eyebrows a fraction before the feeling of mild interrogation vanished.

Maybe Jack couldn’t read my mind, but, like I was sometimes able to do, he could direct his intuition, focus it, and get very real information that way. He was probably a lot better at it than I was, though.

“This is a beautiful garden,” I said, sitting next to Cookie on the willow love seat across from his chair.

“I enjoy it,” he said. “A good friend who is a resident here planted it and cares for it almost daily. It gives her great peace to work out here.”

“I imagine,” I said.

“She practices magic,” he said.

I kept my expression neutral.

“Of the old-school variety,” he went on. “Like the old village witches used to practice. From what Cookie told me on the telephone, you know what I mean.”

I hesitated for a second before nodding. “I know exactly what you mean.” Of course Cookie had told her old family friend I was a hedgewitch. He needed to know who he was dealing with. After all, I was about to ask him questions about his own magic. Or was it a religion? Like Wicca, voodoo was apparently both.

“Are you any good?” he asked.

I blinked. “What?”

“At working with plants. Roots. In voodoo, we call your kind
grune hexe
.”

That was the term Cookie had used. I leaned back against the woven wicker, and heard it creak. “My kind, being those who practice garden and kitchen magic.”

He shrugged. “For the most part.” He settled further into the chair like a cat in front of a comfortable, warm fire, as I felt a trickle of perspiration run down my temple.

“I’m still learning about my gift,” I said, trying for modest. “And I have a long way to go.”

That nudge at the edge of my mind again.

I nudged back. “But I have hereditary power from
both my mother and my father, and I’m doing my best to learn quickly—from anyone who is willing to teach me.”

“Is that so?” A small smile tugged at one side of his mouth. “Is that why you’re here?”

I looked at Cookie. She dipped her chin, encouraging me.

“Not exactly,” I said, leaning forward. “I need information about voodoo queens in Savannah, and Cookie says you’re the man to talk to.” This was not a time to play games. Jack would know if I kept anything back and would probably refuse to help.

So I told him everything. I started with Franklin telling me I was a lightwitch—that raised a speculative eyebrow—then gave him the play-by-play on Dawn showing up at the Honeybee, her muttered message and subsequent collapse, and ended with Quinn telling me Franklin was dead. “I still don’t understand how that could be,” I said. “How could he contact me through a psychic if he was still alive?”

Jack sat for a long time, looking at the garden with his veiled eyes. I could practically hear his thoughts clicking away—and then clicking into place.

“It is possible,” he began, then stopped, frowning with indecision.

We waited. My temples throbbed, and I realized I was holding my breath.

In the silence, a shiny purple dragonfly winged into the garden, zooming from star point to star point, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw it pause at the fountain to drink. If this was one of those taps on the shoulder from the universe telling me to pay attention, it was a bit late. I was already focused like a laser on Jack and what he was about to say.

Then the dragonfly flew to me, landing on the back of my hand. I sat perfectly still, watching it flex its pairs of
iridescent wings, wondering at its appearance. Coincidence? Suddenly it took off again and went toward Jack. It landed on the handle of his cane, which leaned against the arm of the chair. He examined the insect, face impassive, the smooth skin of his head reflecting the sunlight like a sacred orb. A second dragonfly, this time a dark, glistening red, landed beside the first.

Without warning, he threw his head back and laughed. “Well! I guess I have my answer.” This time when he trained his misty gaze upon me, it felt open. Maybe even welcoming.

“It is possible,” he said, this time with no hesitation. “That your Detective Taite was suffering from a curse—a curse that put him in a coma like his niece is in now. Deeply unconscious but not dead. From such a place he could perhaps contact this medium you spoke of.”

I blinked. “Really? Is that normal?”

He waved a hand in the air. “What is normal? But it is possible, I think. It would have to be a powerful curse, from a powerful priest or priestess.” He pointed at me. “You would do well to steer clear of anyone like that. To be in such a comatose state would be very unpleasant.”

I felt myself blanch. “Unpleasant how?”

“Imagine wanting to awaken but being unable to. Being trapped in your own consciousness.”

A chill ran down my back despite the blazing heat of the day. I felt Cookie looking at me.

“Katie? We can go now if you want.” She sounded worried. “You can drop the whole thing.”

I squared my shoulders and shook my head. “There’s a reason why Franklin contacted me, whether he was dead or alive. Now his niece is in the hospital, and no one knows what’s wrong with her. She could be under the same kind of curse you describe, Jack. That’s horrible.”

Jack dipped his chin in approval. “So, you will continue to seek the gris gris.”

I held up my palms. “I don’t have any real choice, do I?”

His eyes smiled, but I also saw regret etch his features. “The fact that you don’t think you have a choice indicates that perhaps for you there is not one.”

I chose to ignore that. It sounded a little too much like Franklin Taite telling me that lightwitches were incapable of dark magic. “So?” I asked. “Can you tell me who Dawn Taite might have meant when she talked about a voodoo queen here in Savannah?”

He tapped his a finger on his knee, looking thoughtful. “Three women in this city come to mind. They are all very different, but all could be considered voodoo queens.”

I leaned forward in anticipation.

“Do you have something to write with?”

I reached into the tote bag by my feet and extracted pen and paper.

“The first one is a traditional vodou practitioner, a woman I knew in Port-au-Prince. There she was a mambo, or high priestess. Here in the United States she has eschewed the title and is only known as Marie LaFevre. She has a shop in Midtown. It is tucked away in a strip mall, easy to overlook. The name is Esoterique.”

“Thank you,” I said, scribbling away.

“Take Cookie with you,” he said. “Otherwise, Marie may not talk to you at all.”

I looked up. “Why not?”

“You’re Caucasian,” he said simply. “Voodoo is not your history, not part of your culture.”

Technically I had a good dose of Shawnee Indian running through my veins from my father’s side of the family, but Jack wasn’t wrong about the rest. My heart sank.
How was I going to get the information I needed to help Dawn Taite if no one would talk to me?

“Having said that, Mambo Jeni isn’t African-American, and she calls herself a mambo,” Jack said. “She’s a fairly recent transplant to town, but I keep track of all the major practitioners. She is a businesswoman, and I don’t know if she was ever ordained. She’ll probably talk to you, but it might cost you a few dollars. I also don’t know whether she’ll be able help you. She works out of her home.” He gave me an address from memory.

“The third woman, Eulora Scanlon, has lived here in Savannah for twenty years. She is from Louisiana originally, where she learned from an older mambo and grew into her power in New Orleans. She does not call herself a priestess or a mambo, however, only a spiritualist. As such, she is known as Mother Eulora.”

New Orleans again.

“Unfortunately, she is semiretired. However, she is well-known in the city, and has many former clients.” He gave me another address.

“Thank you,” I said, tucking my notebook back into my tote bag. Sitting back, I regarded the old gentleman.

“You have another question, Katie Lightfoot,” he said. “What is it?”

“Well . . .”

“Spit it out.”

I couldn’t help a smile, but it dropped away as I asked, “Do you have any idea what the gris gris might be for? What kind of power it might have? And why Dawn wanted me to find it?”

He shrugged with one shoulder, then pushed himself to his feet with the aid of his cane. Cookie rose and hurried to take his other arm.

“A gris gris is usually a charm bag filled with herbs and other items specific to its intended use. Most often it
is worn for protection. But like many voodoo spells, a gris gris’ power can be reversed. If so, a protective gris gris can do harm instead.”

I followed them back into the building, shivering in the refrigerated air after acclimating to the garden.

“Thank you,” Cookie said when we reached his doorway.

“Yes, thank you, Jack.” I held out my hand.

His palm was dry and warm in mine. “Poppa Jack to you, Katie. It has been an honor to make your acquaintance.” He turned to Cookie. “And you, young lady. You must promise to come see me often. We could use some of your bright light around here.”

“I promise,” she said, warmth shining from her eyes.

“Katie,” he said as we turned to go.