Voodoo in the Streets of Savannah

Voodoo in the Streets of Savannah

by Anne Jindra

Published by Anne Jindra at Smashwords

Copyright 2017 by Anne Jindra

One: Madichonnen

My life ended the day that my father took me to have my fortune told. It was my fifth birthday and it was evening. The heat from the setting sun was sweet and languid, caressing our skin as we walked down the beaten path to the beach. To this day I can feel the sand shifting under my feet, pushing up through my toes, still hot from the ball of fire that was now turning the sky a bloody scarlet as is settled beneath the sea.

The air smelled of salt, the soft susurrus of the waves whispered to me as I fidgeted with excitement, wanting to run on ahead. My father was shirtless, his ebony chest held high with pride as he walked with his only son, guiding him through the first step out of childhood. He ran his hand along his shaved head as he looked down at me and smiled.

The rickety shack wasn’t far, but it was very different from the huts of our village. It was a ramshackle thing, patched together from materials that had washed ashore. The ocean debris was salvaged by the small population of wild ones who lived entirely off the land, making their homes in the jungle and on the beach instead of working in the cities and villages.

People visited these solitary homes from time to time, bringing gifts that the ocean couldn’t offer. Sneakers, tea, spices. Anything the land didn’t provide you could trade for their wisdom, or for their company. I smelled burning basil as we got closer and my toes curled deeper into the sand at its sharp scent.

The inside of the hut was cramped and dark. Woven mats padded the floor and a small table and chair were shoved back against the far wall. A hammock had been halved, and was hanging in a tangle of rope in one corner. The medicine man sat cross-legged in the center of the shack, his hair a stiff crest of dreadlocks that snaked their way along his corded shoulders and down his back.

He was humming softly under his breath, a single note repeated in a strange, uneven rhythm. My father set down the plastic bag that carried a pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt by the door. It wasn’t much, but it had taken him a month to save enough money for the offering.

Without opening his eyes the medicine man reached out one strong but slender hand, the roped muscles of his arm playing under his skin as he delicately scooped up a hollowed gourd. His eyes snapped open, pools of blackness in the growing dark. They fastened on me and my stomach dropped, fear intruding for the first time, piercing my excitement.

"Come here boy." he said to me, his voice gravelly from lack of use.

Hesitantly I stepped forward, trying not to shame my father by shaking. I forced one foot in front of the other, focusing on the feel of the reeds that made up the woven mats beneath my feet. I concentrated on drawing each breath in smoothly and letting it out. It seemed to take forever to cross the small room, but eventually I halted in front of him and he raised the gourd, shaking it as he traced the form of my body, the humming growing in intensity but never straying from that single note.

Beads of sweat burst from my forehead, slicked the space between my arms and my body, across my palms. His face grew more distant, more alarmed as he moved. The terror rising inside of me reached a breaking point and I opened my mouth to scream at him to stop.

He flicked his wrist, scattering the seeds and bones in front of him, and it was too late. Too late to call back the future as it bounced and danced along the dirty beaten mats in the form of dead things; seeds that would not bear life, bones that no longer supported vibrant bodies.

The medicine man waved me aside and leaned forward, slowly tracing his hands over the patterns that curled out before him. His humming picked up tempo, the single note forced free in faster and faster staccato patterns as he studied my future.

I was shaking all over, pushed past the ability to control my body, too scared to worry about shaming my family. I watched him tense and knew that what he was seeing was terrible. My father began to catch the mood and shifted, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

The humming stopped and the silence was thick. The waves seemed far away and timid, unwilling to bring their voices into the darkened hut. The medicine man took a deep breath, placing his hands palm down on his knees and shaking his head sadly. When he looked at me his face was full of pity.

"You will live a cursed life, boy."

My world crashed down around me. I didn’t want to know. I tried desperately to shut it out, shut everything out as his voice droned on and on. I focused on a single seed, caught in the edges of a bent reed, its frayed stem broken and twisted into grasping fingers. It filled my vision as his voice filled my ears.

"From this moment on, all faces will turn from you. You will find no shelter. You will long for love so fiercely that when it comes it will seem like the coldest, purest water on the hottest, most hellish day. You will ignore my warnings, and in doing so you will doom yourself to slavery and pain. You will be shattered, split in two. You will serve darkness and death, and it will own you."

A little, broken noise sprang from behind my father’s closed mouth, creeping out from his throat. I could feel the medicine man’s gaze, pinning me in place, could feel the gaping pits that were his eyes in the darkness, eating my soul with each passing second.

I could hear my heartbeat roaring in my ears as I saw my future dissolve into discord and pain. There was no way out, nowhere to go, I couldn’t outrun the words. And so I just stood, just stood and listened.

"Your soul will be stolen. It will be locked away into a steaming hell. You face an eternity of imprisonment and suffering. Only after you are damned is there the potential for change. There is a slight possibility that you will escape."

"There will be a small, fiery woman...

One: Cursed

A brightly colored green and orange trolley edged its way past me, painfully slow on the unfamiliar ice caking the streets of Savannah. A few stubborn tourists leaned out the open window slots, ridiculously underdressed in the bitter cold. I turned my head from the line of exhaust streaming along behind, trying to convince myself it was thick from heat and not pollution. The sharp and acrid taste that filled my mouth and nose said otherwise.

I coughed and shivered, completely miserable and seriously thinking of calling it a night. My Nikon hung heavy around my neck but my wallet seemed painfully thin as it pressed against my generous, curvy bottom. I patted it, secure inside the back pocket of my blue Dikkies and sighed. My other pocket beeped at me and I popped open the snap, freeing my worn pink Razr and checking to see who was texting me.

Daniel. I groaned audibly. I should have given my boss a fake number, I hated how often he micromanaged me. Reluctantly I flipped it open, not having any real desire to check out what my editor had to say.

Try to have the pictures in by 9. Two pieces on the ice storm so far. We’re counting on you. I snorted.

Tx, Boss. Btw, when you mass send a text it sticks FWD: at the front of it. Killin it on the motivation there.

I stared at my sarcastic reply for a few breaths before reluctantly deleting it. I had no illusions about being the only photographer the CoastalEmpireNew.com used, not that it was any of my business. It was a good job, and not one I needed to lose to a fit of pique about the cold. I’d been spoiled enough to do that once, and six months in the ghetto was a harsh lesson on growing up.

C’mon Val, I teased myself mentally, You’re going to be way grumpier if you run out of food! Or vodka.

I was right, not that I needed me harassing myself about the realities of my bad habits. I wonder if other people are nicer when they talk to themselves. I adjusted my grip on my oversized handbag and trudged on.

The ice was as beautiful as it was unexpected and most of the people brave enough to head out into the unusual cold wore expressions of wonder. It cascaded from trees, coating the frothy green of the trailing Spanish moss, taking the normally beautiful neighborhoods of the historic district beyond enchanting and all the way to mystical.

The grand antebellum homes and businesses sported icicles with a bemused tolerance, the words frozen in time being repeated far too cheerfully by tour groups and visiting families. It was obvious that both tourists and Savannaians felt the new winter wonderland theme enhanced the ever present vibe of the city- the feeling that anything could happen.

I took the whole thing poorly and rather personally. I’d traveled eleven hundred miles to escape the chill embrace of winter, leaving everyone and everything I knew. They’d promised me no cold. They had lied, whoever they were.

Regardless of my opinion, people would be talking about it for days, so Coastal Empire was going to cover it repeatedly. I huffed out a breath, scrubbing a hand through my mess of black curls and stomped my feet a little harder than was necessary against the ground, trusting the treads of my purple graffiti Keds to keep me upright.

I found myself daydreaming about covering meaningful pieces on world events and sighed again. I’d moved up from photography as a hobby and turned it into a job. It was a start. My left pocket beeped again and I flipped open my phone. Daniel.

Awesome, we’ll review them right away.

I shook my head. This man had a serious technological handicap. How did he manage to send a response to the wrong person? All he had to do was hit reply and whoever had their pics in to him would have gotten the message. What the heck had he done instead?

I wandered the streets, searching for the perfect picture, one that would capture the mood of the whole city. In between scanning for a good photo op, I entertained myself by picturing how Buffalo drivers would react if they were stuck in the creeping traffic that still managed to fishtail in the right angles of the city squares. Eventually my musings led me all the way to the Telfair House.

As I’d suspected the ancient gutters had overflowed in the sleet storm, and a forest of icicles hung from every corner of the two story museum. They sparkled, catching what little light filtered through the dimming, overcast sky. The shining rivers of ice turned the building from a historic monument to a fanciful daydream. It was breathtaking.

It took fifteen or twenty attempts but I was finally satisfied that I had the shot. With a sigh of relief that poured out visibly into the frosty air I turned back towards the west side of town where my car, and its heater, awaited me. The mammoth churches and blocks of stores snuggled inside of huge historic townhouses loomed above me, blocking the fading daylight. The temperature was plummeting quickly in their shadow.

I hustled along, studying the rise and fall of the brick sidewalks for slick spots, and crossing them with the silly penguin steps that let you make good time without wiping out and eating pavement. A lot of my attention was focused on the ground, which is the only excuse I have for being caught off guard by what followed.

I usually have a very good sixth sense, although Savannah does occasionally play strange tricks with it. It is most definitely a haunted city, and over the years it has become a spiritual rainbow, thanks to the people it draws in. A city filled with angels and demons and little in between. Distracted as I was, I still don’t know how I managed to get that close to the alley without it pinging my psychic radar.

I was buried so deeply in my irritation at the cold in general and the icy patches in particular, that I almost crashed right into the homeless man shuffling quickly towards me. I dodged at the last minute, catching a mouthful of sour, sad smells and glanced at his ragged form in surprise.

He didn’t stop moving but the look on his weathered face caused me to drop the walls that I subconsciously kept in place and reach out with my Gift. He was petrified. It rolled off of him in waves, battering against me violently.

I tried to figure out where he was coming from, stretching out to Feel the surrounding area and was caught off guard by the strength of the feelings that attacked me. Mindless fear poured out of an alleyway ahead of me, chilling blood in my veins and causing me to shiver violently. Raw, aching terror caused my heart to begin pounding in a hiccupping beat and stole the moisture from my mouth, leaving it painfully dry.

My breath became ragged as I tried to fight the rising tide of panic. A voice as loud as thunder screamed at me to run, my vision started to blur as it roared soundlessly in my head. I slammed my walls shut, one hand unconsciously reaching out to the old stone building by my side for support.

Just like that the fear was gone. I panted for a moment, feeling as though I’d run miles in those few short seconds. I’d never felt anything like that before. Even at our most terrified, people have a mixture of other emotions diluting that fear. Awe, disbelief, anger- and in some darker cases pleasure or interest- are threaded into the emotion. What I had just felt was too perfect, too pure to be coming from a person. I took some time to center myself and get grounded before I reached out again.

The icy fear rose out of the earth, oozing lazily outward from the back street formed by two brick structures off of East State Street. Fascinated I began walking towards it, calming a flicker of unease as it dawned on me what a truly great place it was to get jumped.

I took a breath and held it, willing myself to serenity. If I was walking into danger I’d really rather have it register on my sixth sense before it happened. My Gift is no good when it’s drowning in my own emotions and I had no idea what lay around the corner. Slowly I blew out the breath and stepped around the ugly brick building.

The alleyway was eerily deserted. It was straight as an arrow, the only place for anyone to hide was behind one of the beaten dumpsters that bracketed the multitude of backdoors. The narrow space was filled with the usual detritus of city living. Cups and wrappers lay tangled in the sharp, scrubby weeds that pushed through broken pavement, crumbled brick, and cement. I shook my head, wondering that Savannah’s beautiful face could house such spooky ugliness.

A strange muskiness tickled my nose, thankfully masking the softer, but infinitely grosser, scents of garbage and stale urine. Underneath it lay an iron tang that settled in the back of my throat, turning my stomach. The second I stopped scanning for potential threats I noticed the glow from behind the battered greenish metal of the first dumpster. My Nikon came off my chest and I was switching out the lens even as I moved hurriedly forward.

Someone had been working big juju on the back streets of Savannah, I could tell from the traces left behind. He’d abandoned his black and white candles, flames guttering in their deep pools of wax, and a few oddly shaped stones. I paused to examine them. They blended so well with the garbage and broken pavement that I couldn’t be sure they were part of the spell, although my instincts said they were.

Here and there were some circular impressions in the dirt and I found clumps of what I really hoped was fur. There was black liquid everywhere, seeping into the ground, splashed against the decaying metal of the dumpster, splattered against the stone wall. I had an awful feeling it was blood. The parts of my brain responsible for keeping me in one piece started gibbering with fear, but I suppressed them and lined up a few darkly sensational shots for the paper before changing from a normal close range lens to one that had been personally modified.

I heard a sharply indrawn breath as a man- his dark cargo shorts and long sleeved shirt marking him as a tourist- caught a glimpse of the gore lit by my flash. I ignored him, fascinated by the ash markings doodled on the wall. I had managed to miss them on first glance.

Firmly blocking his presence from my mind I drifted into a light trance, trying to trace the energy patterns curling out from the drawings and away from the site of the spell. They’d show on the pictures I was now taking, but seeing it in person was always better. It was almost as though the spell had a life of its own, reaching out hungrily.

My trance was broken as the passerby began talking, his pleasant baritone slowly penetrating my churning thoughts. I noticed that he had his mobile out, pressed to his strong jaw by thin graceful fingers. He’d drifted into the mouth of the alley but was keeping his distance, his free hand scrubbing through silky brown curls nervously.

Yes. Savannah. Georgia. He said urgently.

I idly wondered how many people had bought it while they waited for their cell operator to connect them to the proper sector of 911. I listened absently, trying to get as many pictures as possible before the cops came and cordoned everything off.

The scene flashed in and out of shadow, coming into horrific, technicolor relief as I took shot after shot. I felt the first creeping claws of panic latch onto me as the splashes of blood and the foreign, frightening spell components filled my vision and faded away over and over again.

Look, I’m telling you there’s blood here! Don’t you think you should check it out?

The young man’s voice was peaking wildly with hysteria and he gestured violently as he attempted to stir the operator to action. At this point I decided it was time to get lost, before somebody decided I was a material witness. The police station had uncomfortable chairs and crappy coffee.

Well, it’s down the alleyway off of East State Street, past Abercorn. Yeah, thanks. With that he flipped the cell shut and took a step towards me, roughly combing long fingers through his thick brown hair again. It looked touchably soft.

Are you ok? He said, his voice gentle with worry.

The stranger’s angular features were etched with concern and his hand drifted towards me. The fading daylight lent his face a hint of mystery as he took in my olive skin and large, dark eyes appreciatively.

I had to throttle down the sudden surge of interest that warmed me against the cold. It drifted lazily along my shoulders and down my body to settle in the pit of my stomach. Crappy coffee, crappy coffee, I did not want the police showing up and hauling me down to sample their crappy coffee. No guy was hot enough to suffer that torture.

I’m fine, I said stepping around him, ignoring the slender fingers that curled impotently around empty air, I showed up after.

I waved my hand to indicate what was undoubtedly a crime scene. He nodded and I began walking back to the car, feeling the smallest pang of guilt as I left him standing near the world’s spookiest back alley to wait for the cops.

Move it, girl, I chastised myself, You can’t keep getting caught elbow deep in weird crime scenes.

I’d gotten interviewed once already since I moved down, hence my knowledge of the brown sludge that they used to torture witnesses into talking. I kept walking.

I started to rummage in my purse for a cigarette before I remembered that I’d quit three months ago. The urge to buy a pack hit suddenly, as strong as ever and I gritted my teeth, taking a deep breath of frigid air. The temperature made my teeth ache and I grew, if possible, even more sour.

I’d moved eleven hundred miles to get away from this crap. It wasn’t supposed to get cold here. I quickened my pace, hoping the activity would heat me up a bit, and focused my thoughts on the strangeness I’d left behind. My rapid walk ate up the distance and all around me the mansions shrank into townhouses and finally smaller Victorian style homes.

A fresh surge of adrenaline hit me as the reality of the situation sank in. The camera gives me distance, letting me shelve my emotions while I use it pin down the truth, but they always catch up with me afterwards.

I felt a thousand pinpricks of terror spring to life across my skin, causing my hair to stand on end, and I started shaking violently. I’m not the fainting type but my body delicately suggested it as a feasible option as the edges of my vision darkened briefly. I stopped, resisting the urge to sink to