Hot liquid stings my cheeks. I’ve got no working mortar, an ex-boyfriend who’s either losing his soul or his mind, and I can’t even visit Miss Delia for advice.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so screwed.
Miss Delia’s voice echoes in my mind, her last words assuring me I can figure it all out. Which only makes me laugh between garbled sobs. I can’t. Every time I think I’ve come up with something, it comes back to bite me in the rear. Who am I to think I can break a three hundred year old curse by myself? Especially one cast by someone as powerful and vengeful as Sabina? I’m not special. I don’t have hoodoo in my blood like Sabina and Miss Delia. I’m just a teenager, a buckrah comeyah with a couple month’s worth of hoodoo training. In other words, I’m nothing.
Looks like Taneea was right after all. About everything. Which burns even more.
A fresh set of sobs threatens to well over, but I suck them up. I will not shed them over her or Cooper. Maybe they deserve each other.
Bitter acid coats my tongue. Maybe he deserves everything that’s coming to him, including his soulless fate.
I shudder, sickened that I allowed such a hateful thought to pass through my head. I should know better. In his heart, Cooper isn’t the canker he’s been for the last couple weeks. Maybe Taneea has found a way to magically mess with his feelings. Though I’m inclined to believe the Beaumont Curse has settled in a bit early, snagged him in its claws before he officially comes of age. The only way to bring him back is to break the hex that holds him in its grip.
But that still leaves me clueless about what to do next.
A familiar scent tickles my nose. Lifting my face to get a better whiff, I breathe deep. It’s sharp and cloying and almost antiseptic. A charge jolts my body. It’s a stargazer lily. Maggie’s fragrance. Maggie, Jack’s ghostly ex-girlfriend whose evil murder at the hands of Bloody Bill and his pirates kicked off The Creep and the Beaumont Curse in the first place.
But there are no lilies in this cemetery, just rows and rows of faded white headstones and grave markers draped with clinging green vines.
The stargazer perfume swirls around my head, enveloping me.
Which only proves I’ve officially lost it. Not only am I blathering alone in a cemetery in which I have no dead relatives, but I’m sensing imaginary flowers. I should probably leave before I start hearing voices.
I rise to my feet once again, determined to bolt though I’m not sure to where. The moment my flip-flops touch the ground, my soles tingle. With my luck it’s probably an allergic reaction to the kudzu I’ve been tromping through for the last four-and-a-half hours.
Making a beeline toward the path that leads out of the cemetery, my feet begin to itch. Stooping to scratch them, I don’t feel any welts or bug bites, so I pick up my pace. The cloying scent intensifies and seems to follow me as the itching intensifies to a burn. A strange urge implants itself in my brain. If I return to the cemetery to the cool, lush leaves of the kudzu, the stinging will relent. Which is crazy because that’s where it started in the first place. I break into a jog, but the urge turns into full-on longing and the burning ratchets so high I can barely stand the feel of my feet at the end of my legs.
Suddenly the King Center comes to mind, along with the sensations I felt when Maggie induced me to pick up the pirate’s dagger before we nabbed the ancestors’ mortar.
I stop short. The burning quiets, reducing to a low tingling that buzzes on the tender flesh of my feet. The stargazer scent infuses my clothes and hair. I’ve probably lost it, but it can’t hurt to test my theory.
“Maggie?” I call into the air. “Is that you?”
The wind blows past me, toward the cemetery. Maybe that’s a sign. Or maybe it’s not. I take another step down the path, away from the cemetery to be sure. The burning blasts back, singeing my feet.
I squeal. “Ah! Okay, okay. I get it.”
Backtracking toward the cemetery, I stop at the end of the path. “I have no idea where to go,” I call to no one, or maybe Maggie. The sweet perfume wafts under my nose then carries away on the breeze, deeper into the graveyard. Oh-kay. I guess I’ll follow it.
Chasing the scent, I make my way through the rows, past Missy’s plot and the crypt, to the most kudzu-chocked area of the graveyard. Somewhere in here is Cooper’s mother’s grave, though thanks to my dad’s freak-out, we never saw it. I stand on the cusp of the thick vegetation and look around, not sure where I should put my foot. Who knows what’s under the thick emerald carpet? For all I know there could be snakes lurking in there, waiting to bite anyone who passes over them. My flip-flops aren’t exactly built for hiking.
An electric shock prods my heels.
Exasperated, I look up into the sky and yell, “I don’t know what you want from me. If I climb through here, I’m liable to trip and break my neck.”
“Emma Guthrie. You are closer than you know.” Maggie’s voice, faint, but oh so very clear, carries on the breeze.
Okay. It’s official. I’m hearing the voice of a dead girl.
My legs tremble. “If this is some sort of a sick joke, I’m not laughing.”
Stargazer scent circles my body. “Emma Guthrie. Have faith. You are closer than you know.”
Tears flow and a cool, calm sensation rushes over my body. It is Maggie. And she wants me to trust her. I draw a deep breath. Why not?
Following the scent, I carefully step forward, lifting my flip-flops and placing them on the lush emerald vines as I pass a number of cloaked headstones. Another zap strikes my sole. “What? I’m walking like you wanted me to.” I take another step, but this time, the shock is stronger and shoots straight up my leg. I pull up, halting in place. The buzzing stops completely. I’m guessing I’m exactly where I should be. Right in front of a vine-covered headstone so completely cloaked in kudzu it looks like a topiary bush.
The breeze blows, rustling the bright green leaves clinging to the stone.
I’m closer than I know, huh? Stepping nearer, I reach over and claw at the dense vines, yanking them away. The thick strands are stubborn, seeming to cling harder as I pull. There’s no way I’ve come this far to be beaten by a plant. Wedging my foot against the marker for leverage, I lean back, gripping hard on the vine until it finally snaps. Repeating the motion several times, I break enough to make out the name on the marker.
Clarissa Beaumont. Born: 1973, Died: 2002.
I do the math. The woman in this grave died when Cooper was just five years old. It’s his mother.
I clear the rest of the stone. It’s polished and looks practically brand new, as if it hasn’t been sitting here, exposed to the elements, for the last eleven years.
And there’s something else. Below her name and dates of birth and death, a silver heart-shaped pendant on a chain is embedded in the stone, encased in glass. It’s about two inches long and features a mother and child etched on the cover, with tiny ruby hearts embedded in each of their chests. The mother is gazing at the babe in her arms, a smile on her face. Below the glass case, the stone is inscribed, Beloved wife and mother.
For Cooper’s sake, I’m glad I found Clarissa’s grave, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this discovery. Why did Maggie lead me here? Is it too much to hope she’ll give up her cryptic messages and just tell me what she means?
“So now what?” I run my hand over the smooth, marble surface.
The stargazer smell hovers above the stone. I bet Maggie’s perched right here, laughing at me. “You know, you could give me a hint.”
The sun beams on the glass cover, making the tiny ruby shards sparkle.