Who are you?
I tried to focus on the shadow, to see something more than the blur of dark air, but I couldn’t.
What do you want?
“Hey, man. You okay?” I heard Link’s voice, and the pressure dissipated, as if someone had been kneeling on my chest and suddenly got up. Link was staring at me. I wondered how long he’d been talking.
“I’m okay.” I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to tell him that I was—what? Seeing things? Having nightmares about rivers of blood and falling off water towers?
As we made our way deeper into the cemetery, the intricately detailed tombs and the sparse, crumbling ones gave way to alleys lined with mausoleums in complete disrepair. Some were actually made of wood, like the dilapidated shacks that lined parts of the swamp in Wader’s Creek. I read the surnames that were still visible: Delassixe, Labasiliere, Rousseau, Navarro. They were Creole names. The last one in the row stood apart from the rest, a narrow stone structure, not more than a few feet wide. It was a Greek Revival, like Ravenwood. But while Macon’s house was like a picture you’d find in a South Carolina photography book, this tomb was nothing much to look at. Until I stepped closer.
Strands of beads, knotted with crosses and red silk roses, hung next to the door, and the stone itself was etched with hundreds of crude Xs in various shapes and sizes. There were other strange drawings, clearly made by visitors. The ground was littered with gifts and mementos: Mardi Gras dolls and religious candles with the faces of saints painted on the glass, empty bottles of rum and faded photographs, tarot cards, and more strands of brightly colored beads.
Link bent down and flipped one of the dirty cards between his fingers. The Tower. I didn’t know what it meant, but any card with people falling out of the windows probably wasn’t good. “We’re here. This is it.”
I looked around. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing here.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He pointed at the door of the mausoleum with the water-stained card. “Amma went in there.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Dude, would I joke about goin’ into a creepy tomb at night, in the most haunted city in the South?” Link shook his head. “’Cause I know that’s what you’re about to tell me we’re gonna do.” I didn’t want to go in there either.
Link tossed the card back into the pile, and I noticed a brass placard at the base of the door. I bent down and read what I could make out in the moonlight: MARIE LAVEAU. THIS GREEK REVIVAL TOMB IS REPUTED BURIAL PLACE OF THIS NOTORIOUS “VOODOO QUEEN.”
Link took a step back. “A voodoo queen? Like we don’t have enough problems.”
I was only half listening. “What would Amma be doing here?”
“I don’t know, man. Amma’s dolls are one thing, but I don’t know if my Incubus powers work on dead voodoo queens. Let’s bail.”
“Don’t be an idiot. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Voodoo is just another religion.”
Link looked around nervously. “Yeah, one where people make dolls and stab them with pins.” It was probably something he’d heard from his mom.
But I had spent enough time with Amma to know better. Voodoo was part of her heritage, the mix of religions and mysticism that was as unique as Amma’s cooking. “Those are people who are trying to use dark power. That’s not what it’s about.”
“I hope you’re right. Because I don’t like needles.”
I put my hand on the door and pushed. Nothing. “Maybe it’s Charmed, like a Caster door.”
Link slammed his shoulder against it, and the door scratched across the stone floor as it opened into the tomb. “Or maybe not.”
I stepped inside cautiously, hoping to see Amma bent over some chicken bones. But the tomb was dark and empty except for the raised cement casement that held the coffin, and the dirt and cobwebs. “There’s nothing here.”
Link walked to the back of the small crypt. “I’m not so sure about that.” He ran his fingers along the floor. There was a square carved into the stone, with a metal ring in the center. “Check this out. Looks like some kinda trapdoor.”
It was a trapdoor, leading under a cemetery—in the tomb of a dead voodoo queen. This was beyond going dark, even for Amma.
Link had his hand on the metal ring. “Are we doin’ this or what?” I nodded, and he lifted the door open.
Wheel of Fate
When I saw the rotting wooden stairs, illuminated by a dim yellow light from below, I knew they didn’t lead to a Caster Tunnel. I had stepped onto my share of stairs that twisted down from the Mortal world into those Tunnels, and rarely saw them when I did. They were usually veiled with protective Casts, so it looked like you could fall to your death if you dared to make the leap.
This was a different kind of leap, and somehow it felt more dangerous. The stairway was crooked, the railing nothing more than a few boards haphazardly nailed together. I could’ve been staring down into the Sisters’ dusty basement, which was always dark because they never let me replace the exposed bulb above the door. Except this wasn’t a basement, and it didn’t smell dusty. Something was burning down there, and it gave off a thick, noxious odor.
“What’s that smell?”
Link inhaled, then coughed. “Licorice and gasoline.” Yeah, that was a combination you encountered every day.
I reached out for the railing. “You think these stairs will hold?”
He shrugged. “They held Amma.”
“She weighs a hundred pounds.”
“Only one way to find out.”
I went first, each board groaning beneath my weight. My hand tightened on the railing, tiny splinters digging into my skin. There was a huge room off to the side of the staircase, the source of both the light and the nauseating fumes.
“Where the hell are we?” Link whispered.
“I don’t know.” But I knew this was a dark place, a place Amma would never ordinarily go. It stank of more than gas and licorice. There was death in the air, and when we entered the room, I understood why.
It was some kind of shop, the walls lined with shelves that housed cracked leather volumes and glass jars filled with both dead and living things. One jar held bat wings, fully intact but no longer attached to the bodies. Another container was brimming with animal teeth; others, claws and snakeskin. Smaller, unlabeled bottles held murky liquids and dark powders. But the living creatures imprisoned here were even more disturbing. Huge toads pushed themselves against the walls of glass jars, desperate to get out. Snakes slid over one another, piled inside terrariums coated with thick layers of dust. Live bats hung from the tops of rusty wire cages.
There was something more than wrong about this place—from the scratched steel table in the center of the room to the strange altar in the corner, surrounded by candles, carvings, and a stick of black incense that reeked of licorice and gasoline.
Link elbowed me, pointing at a dead frog floating in a jar. “This place is worse than summer school in the bio lab.”
“Are you sure Amma’s down here?” I couldn’t imagine her in this twisted version of my great-aunts’ basement.
Link nodded toward the back of the room, where a yellow light flickered. “Red Hots.”
We walked between the rows of shelves, and within seconds I could hear Amma’s voice. At the end of the aisle, two low bookcases flanked a narrow walkway into the back of the store—or whatever this place was called. We dropped down onto our hands and knees and hid behind the bookcases. Chicken feet floated in a bottle next to my shoulder.