Chapter 21
Murmuring incantations, Jeanne LaRoux lit the candles on the altar, watching the charred wicks tremble with light, tiny flames casting shifting illumination on the grayed walls of the hut she’d constructed by hand half a century earlier.
The boards were rotting here, so near the swamp, but this was still her sanctuary, where she connected with the spirits.
Whether they were good or evil.
One by one, the candles began to glow.
For power.
For wisdom.
For cunning.
There were dozens of them, all flickering quietly, tapers and pillars and votives stacked upon the altar where the bleached bones of sacred animals appeared to stare at her from dark, knowing spaces where once there had been eyes.
She loved them all.
Remembered them as living creatures.
Revered them in death.
A red-shouldered hawk with its wicked beak and wide, filigreed wings.
A snake, its flexible skeleton coiled.
An alligator’s skull, missing a few crooked teeth.
And on the highest level, centered over the crossbeam, was the deer skull. A white-tailed buck, his antlers stretching wide over the altar below.
Jeanne LaRoux had known these creatures in life.
Felt their blood, slick on her fingers.
Tasted their flesh.
And now, honored them in death.
Once all of the candles were lit, she touched the tip of her match to the tinder in the age-old fire pit with its blackened ring of stone, a place she had come for peace and to pray for most of her seventy-odd years.
This little hut was her sanctuary, her private place where only a few were allowed in, only those tortured souls who needed her guidance.
Around the perimeter of her shrine of glass jars and crystals she had gathered during her lifetime, the shifting flames made her humble little hut pulse with luminescence as she lit the incense:
Eucalyptus for clarity.
Dragon’s blood and patchouli for inner spirituality.
Cinnamon for strength.
Closing her eyes, she sensed the planet ever-turning on its axis, felt a connection to the very earth.
And a disturbance.
Something moving.
Something duplicitous.
And evil.
A shudder ran through her soul. Her gaze shifted to the highest point of the altar. There, surrounded by flickering votive candles, was a framed picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The picture was a gift from her mother, the Christian depiction of the Son of God with his visible flaming heart.
Jeanne, like her mother before her, believed in Christ.
Was she pagan?
Yes?
Heathen?
No.
Her skin tingled, and she knew the time had come.
It was urgent that she bridge the great chasm between this world and that of the spirits.
She watched smoke from her fire rise past the crossbeam to the hole in the roof, where she caught a fleeting glimpse of the dark night: clouds had gathered, a storm brewing, the spirits restless.
Softly, she whispered. “Venez à moi.” Come to me.
She glanced to the open doorway where creatures beyond these rotting walls lived. Often, she’d caught the reflection of eyes always watching her—nocturnal creatures who inhabited the undergrowth, rabbits and opossums, otters and raccoons.
But there were also predators and spirits hidden in the darkness. Sometimes, the twin eyes of a bobcat or a coyote caught in the light before the beast scampered away. More often, an alligator’s reptilian orbs reflected as it scuttled to the waiting swamp only feet from this small shack.
But none frightened Jeanne LaRoux, not like the malevolence that would soon arrive.
Slowly, she lowered herself on a pillow and sat cross-legged, took a calming breath. Steadying herself.
She closed her eyes, listening past the sounds of the lowland, the frogs croaking, the gentle lap of water nearby, and a soft breeze wafting through the cypress, all punctuated by the hoot of an owl, low and steady.
And more.
Quiet footsteps over the now-accelerated beating of her heart.
Le démon.
Approaching swiftly.
His evil presence moving as stealthily as a water moccasin through water.
“Donne? moi de la force,” she whispered, praying for strength.
Beneath the worn cushion lay a weapon. A sharp little machete she had never before used. One she had hoped she would never need.
Her falchion.
Shorter than most, hand-carved by her great-grandfather, the curved, deadly blade of her unique machete would serve its purpose.
She heard the slightest scrape of leather upon the uneven boards that provided a walkway over the soggy ground.
Somehow he had discovered it. L’être maléfique. The evil being.
The air in the hut shifted.
Candles flickered.
And evil, like a black wraith, seeped through the open knotholes and spaces between the boards of her sanctuary.
He was here.
Calming her heartbeat, she slowly reached below the pillow, withdrew her weapon, and pushed herself upright. Though in her seventies, she was, and had always been, athletic.
“Quitte cet endroit, diable!” she hissed, before he stepped foot inside, “et je pourrais te laisser vivre.”
Machete in hand, she eyed the doorway. Did he understand that she called him the devil? That if he left now, she would let him live?
Did it matter?
If he didn’t know the translation, he surely understood her meaning.
For a heartbeat, everything quieted.
The frogs quit croaking.
The owl no longer hooted.
Bat wings stilled.
She gripped her weapon.
She would cleave him in half should he—
The demon himself flew into the room.
Dressed in black, his face in darkness, his eyes glittering, he growled, “Die, Sorceress.”
She swung.
Hard.
The devil in black danced away.
She attacked again.
He twirled back to the other side of the fire, where his face was illuminated in gold, the flames reflecting in his eyes. She knew this monster. Dear Jesus.
He leapt over the flames.
She raised her weapon. Sliced downward. Felt her blade find its mark, only to glance away.
With an unworldly growl, he grabbed her wrist. Holding it in steely fingers. Bending her hand backward.
Pain screamed up her arm, the pressure pure agony.
She heard the snap of ligaments and then the brittle pop of her bones breaking as she dropped the falchion.
It clattered against the floor as she screamed.
“Alle? en enfer!” she commanded, damning him to hell as she was forced to her knees.
“You go first!”
With his free hand, he picked up her largest amethyst crystal, the one with several polished points, the blessed rock she used for clarity.
For protection.
Its lavender facets sparkled.
She sent up a prayer.
Too late.
With bared teeth and evil gleaming in his eyes, he raised the sacred stone over his black-cloaked head.
“Die, heathen,” he spat, his arm slicing through the air.
She cringed. Turned her head away.
Thud!
The amethyst smashed into the back of her skull.
Pain exploded behind her eyes.
Sheer agony ripped down her spine.
He let go of her wrist, and she fell.
“Now we’ll see who goes to hell,” he said, though his words were a blur, pain throbbing through her brain. She felt the warmth of her blood flowing and matting in her hair.
Suffering, she found her pride. She twisted her neck.
Saw his image turn red as blood streamed over her eye.
Still, she hurled her last words, damning him.
“Je maudis ton ame à tous les niveaux de l’enfer, pour que tu sois damné à jamais.
” Then, fighting the black veil of unconsciousness, just so that he understood, she spewed a curse in English.
“I condemn your soul to burn in all the fires of hell forever!”
She thought she saw him flinch, just before she caught a glimpse of the knife he withdrew from a pocket. Its blade gleamed as if it were the soul of Satan.
With his lips pulled back in a rictus smile, he inched closer. The point of his knife pricked at her skin.
Thankfully, the gods were kind.
As blood began to flow from her throat, a curtain fell over her eyes.