Four and Twenty Blackbirds (17 page)
Read Four and Twenty Blackbirds Online
Authors: Cherie Priest
Tags: #Fantasy, #Horror, #Contemporary, #Dark Fantasy, #Fiction
UNKNOWN SEMINOLE MAN
WHO CAME TO THE HOUSE ON
OCT 22, 1906
AND ASKED FOR JOHN GRAY
GOD HELP HIM
WE COULD NOT
Bizarre. Just bizarre.
I got to my feet and dusted myself off, then limped to my car.
Down at Tatie's, much havoc had broken loose. The unmarked cars had emerged from their hiding places, interior blue lights raging. I drove by without stopping to see if they'd caught Malachi. If they hadn't yet, I was pretty sure they would get him before long. I squeezed forth a few drops of pity for the lad and went back out to the main road.
He was my brother, after all.
Eliza had told me everything she was going to for now—not that I could expect to get any more out of her while her nephew was busy getting rearrested under her roof. For lack of any better ideas, I returned to the hotel to pack up my things.
Dave was waiting for me in the lobby.
"Lu's worried sick about you. She called me in Atlanta and told me to come and get you." His hands were folded in his lap, an overnight bag beside him, bulging with his camera equipment. A Styrofoam cup of brew, still mostly full, steamed on the coffee table before him. He hadn't been waiting long.
"How'd you find me?"
"Called around. It's not like you were using an alias or anything, and you've got that Visa card on my account."
"Oh yeah. I forgot about that."
I sat down next to him on the white plush couch. "Next time I should come incognito, eh?"
"Wouldn't have done you any good to hide. I can't come home without you. Lu'd kill me first. I wasn't too worried for you until I started watching TV a few minutes ago. Check that out." He pointed at the screen that the night clerk was listlessly paying half attention to.
I looked in order to humor him. I could have guessed what it was without seeing the rolling captions.
A police helicopter was combing the ground with a spotlight, circling and scanning the area around Eliza's homestead. If they were still looking that hard, he must not be in custody. "They haven't caught him yet?"
"No. But they know he's there. They'll get him."
"Yeah." I should have hit him on the head when I had the chance. Lounging there next to Dave, I suddenly couldn't remember why I hadn't done so.
My uncle didn't take his eyes away from the television, so I didn't either. "Did you find your way out there? Well, I guess you must have—since you recognized the place on TV."
"Yeah. I found it."
"How? Lu didn't point you there, did she?"
I shook my head. "Good God, no. I did it the old-fashioned way, with a phone book."
"Learn anything good?"
"Sort of. I found my father."
"Really?"
"I mean, he's dead and everything, but I found him."
"Oh." I thought he sounded relieved, maybe a bit.
I went ahead and filled him in on the evening's events, leaving out the parts about Malachi being my brother and seeing him in the graveyard. Dave grunted agreeably at the narrative, finishing his coffee while I talked. I concluded with, "And then I saw you sitting here," bringing him as far up to date as I had any plans to.
He twisted his arm around in his bag's strap, then stood with it. "Does this mean you're ready to come home?"
I hesitated, but couldn't think of a reason to say no. Even so, I wasn't ready to run off to my room, pack up, and leap into my car. My hesitation was not lost on Dave.
"It isn't safe here in town, not with that boy still running loose."
I wanted to point out that Malachi was in his mid-thirties by now, but it seemed superfluous. I wanted to insist that I stay where I was for a while yet, that I hadn't found out everything I needed to know, but nothing sounded practical or convincing.
Dave shifted his weight beneath the heavy bag, waiting for my response. He looked old and tired, his eyes sagging from concern or lack of sleep and the first starts of gray decorating his temples. He wasn't my hippie fudge buddy anymore, but he was still Dave, and he deserved more from me than ambivalence.
"I think I'm going to stay here, at least for another couple of days. They'll have Malachi before morning, and I'd like to talk to Tatie some more if I could. She got drunk and passed out before I managed to ask her everything I wanted. And maybe I'll go back to the cemetery in daylight or . . ." I glanced down at his camera bag. "I might take some pictures, or something," I finished weakly.
"That's your call. But just so you know, Lu's gonna hurt me when she hears it."
"But you know where to find me now." I sounded like I was pleading, and maybe I was. "I'm sorry I didn't call or anything, but I'll give you my room number and I won't change locations without letting you guys know. I promise." I meant it, too.
"You should call Lu."
"If I do, she'll just yell at me. She's probably not finished from yesterday."
"She's worried. And she hasn't been feeling well. Let her yell. It'll do her good."
"I'll think about it. What do you mean, not feeling well? She was fine last night."
"She's a tough old birdie, she is. She's all right. Don't worry about her."
"You take care of her, then."
"I always do, don't I?"
"Yeah."
"Call her," he said, patting my cheek. "I'm going to head on. My cell phone's in the car. On the way home I'll let her know you're alive, but you call her too. Let her hear your voice." He slung an arm around my shoulder, squeezing me with a half hug. "Be careful."
"I always am."
"You and I both know that's not the case."
"Yeah."
He turned to leave, pausing at the door. "Good-bye. I mean it, be careful."
"Maybe I will, and maybe I won't. But I sure won't do anything
you
wouldn't do."
"Dear God," he swore. "Don't put it that way, or we're both screwed."
I was about to hug him and send him on his way when I got an idea. "Hey, Dave?"
"Huh?"
"What do you know about the Seminoles?"
"The football team or the Indians? I know they're both from Florida, that's about it. Why?"
"The Indians. And, uh, no reason."
Dave thought a moment, ignoring my lie and leaving his hand on the door. "If you really want to know, there's a store downtown called the Crescent Moon. I went to school with the guy who owns it—we ended up at UT together for a while. He's not Native American himself, but he dabbles in the culture. He could help you out, maybe. His name's Brian Cole."
Of course. Leave it to Dave, the Answer Man. I should have known he'd have the right connections. "Brian Cole at the Crescent Moon?"
"Yeah, it's one of those incense-smelling New Age shops. Tell him I sent ya. I'd try to think up some directions, but since you've become such a master of the phone book, I'll trust you to figure it out on your own."
"Yeah, I will."
Only after he was gone did I begin to feel tired. It had been a big day, and it was getting late—at least late enough that an independent retail shop would not be open. I retreated to my room and turned on the TV, trying to find a local channel that wasn't covering the manhunt at Eliza's. They'd catch him, I knew they would; but I didn't really want to watch it.
I gave up and turned it off, then hit the lights as well, still not knowing what I intended to do in the morning.
My dreams took a strange turn that night.
I often dreamed of the ghosts, and of the sticky swampland that had haunted my childhood. Frequently enough I heard Mae's quiet crying or her sisters' warning pleas, but that night the voice was different.
It was not vague, or tearful. It was not begging, or demanding. It was simply calling.
Come home.
In my sleep-choked state, I tried to interrogate the speaker with half-formed questions. "Who are . . . ?" "Where is . . . ?" "Why do . . . ?" I tried to remember the name on the stone. "John Gray?"
Come home.
As in my youth, I saw the book again, sitting on the table beside the vials of powders and syrups. I approached it slowly, like struggling through tangible fog. I needed to see what was inside. I needed to look in the back. I put out my hands and touched the dry leather of the binding. It crackled beneath my touch, as though it were alive or on fire. A fine yellow powder that was not dust covered my fingertips. But the hands were not mine—they were not my fingertips. They were different, bigger or smaller or older or younger, different. I couldn't see them. I couldn't feel them. I began to panic.
"I can't feel my hands," I blurted out, fumbling with the book.
You don't need them here.
"I don't . . . I
do
need them. Everywhere." The book came open to a crinkly page covered with formulas and drawings. I think the sketches were plants, or trees, or roots; I saw words I didn't recognize:
Korombay, diggi, sibitah kaaji
. . . but the numbers ran together and I couldn't sort them out from one another. "What is this?"
You should know.
"But I don't." I lifted the pages and pushed them over to the left, ten or twenty at a time in order to reach the back cover. "What is this? What is this?"
The speaker was chanting, softly but with increasing volume.
Asi goun goun ma . . .
Asi goun goun ma . . .
Asi goun goun ma . . .
One more page. I held it between my thumb and index finger. "What is this?" I turned it.
Violently, a giant black bird flapped out, up towards the ceiling, then back down to peck at my head. I shrieked and dove away, shielding my face with one arm and trying to close the book with the other. I slammed the covers together but the bird did not stop its assault. I waved my arms, trying to push it away and meeting the feathery pressure of strong black wings beating the air around me.
You can't put him back now. He knows you're here.
"What is this?" No. Not the right question. "Who? Who is this?"
Laughter.
You said a name. John Gray. How much do you know, after all?
I sat up, sweaty and cold. Calmed to find myself in my hotel room, I reclined against the pillows and panted until I'd caught my breath. I opened my eyes again expecting nothing but the ceiling fan.
Willa was standing above me, a knife in her hands aimed down at my chest.
Not this time, you don't!
she growled, plunging the blade down through my ribs.
I gasped.
It was then that I truly awakened, wet with fear, clutching the blankets around my neck. I hunkered into a crouch, leaning my back against the headboard and rocking myself back and forth like a child.
7
The Right Tree
I
When day broke, when light crawled under the heavy hotel curtains and spilled onto the floor, I was finally able to sleep a few hours more. Otherwise, I spent the night angry and afraid, curled in a rag-doll bundle with the covers up under my ears. Who did these ghosts think they were, harassing me like this?
I got up feeling drained and unhappy, and a shower did little to take the edge off of my misery. By way of distraction, I took the phone book out of the nightstand and looked up the Crescent Moon. The day clerk at the front desk supplied me with fuzzy directions that got me downtown all right, but then lost me. I had to stop at a gas station and get more directions, and thereby learned that the day clerk had been off by miles. Lovely. Once I did get to the correct block, parking was tricky; but the Death Nugget is small and I can parallel park in two flawless moves, so the situation remained manageable despite my grumpy frame of mind.
The Crescent Moon was just as Dave implied—thick with incense smoke and light with imported fabrics. Candles of every color were grouped in clumps according to their scents: musky and exotic, floral, perfumey, and simply decorative. Along the back wall were rows of specialty books on everything from feng shui to natural childbirth. Silver wind chimes tuned to friendly minor keys tinkled when the door fell shut behind me.
"Peace be with you, little sister," greeted the man behind the counter. He was maybe fifty, with a Walt Whitman beard and a straw hat that had feathers in it. "Can I help you with something?"
A large brown dog ambled slowly out from behind the counter. It stretched with a mighty grunt and came to sniff my legs. "That's Bo. He'll just smell you and leave you alone unless you start petting him—and then he's yours for life. He's real friendly."
"He sure is," I said, scritching the dog's scruffy head and ears. He thumped his tail against the counter and leaned into my thigh.
"Some folks don't like dogs, but I don't understand it."
"Bo seems real nice," I said, and I meant it. I'm more of a cat woman, personally, but I'll not begrudge anyone a fondness for a good old mutt.
"Are you Brian Cole?" I asked.
"Oh yes, yes, I am," he nodded, unsurprised that I knew his name. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm Dave Copeland's niece, Eden. Dave said you might be able to help me out."
"Dave? Well, I'll be . . . how's that old son of a gun doing? Good, I hope?"
"Same as always. Indecent, dishonest, and up to no good."
Brian laughed. "That's him, all right. I'm glad to know he's well. And what can I do for you today, little lady?"
Where to start? And how to phrase it? "See, I was going through some old family things and I kept coming across these vague references to places in Florida—maybe places having something to do with the Seminole Indians, or a guy named John Gray."
Brian's eyes went wide. "Whoa, there—John Gray? You want to know about
him?
"
"Um, I guess so."
"That's a tall order of trouble right there, sister. You're not thinking of getting involved with a group like his, are you?"
I waved my hands in a hearty disavowal. "Man, I don't know the first thing about him. There's just a rumor that some cousins of mine were wrapped up with him, and I wanted to know what he's about—that's all."
"Whoa," he said again, this time as an exclamation and not a suggestion. "Whoa. Not anyone on Dave's side, I hope?"
I shook my head. "This is on my mom's side, a couple of generations back. So he wasn't a real nice guy, huh?" I said suggestively, trying to prompt him to say something more helpful than "whoa."
"Hold on a second." He held up a finger and stepped over Bo, who had flopped down beside me and was all but lying on my left foot. "I've got a book over here that—yeah, hold on. I got it."
He went to the rack and pulled out a volume entitled
Occult America
. Checking the index in the back, he selected a page and let the book fall open to a full-page black-and-white photo of an older man in Native American dress. His light, loose-fitting cloth tunic was decorated with small, ornate bead patterns and woven feathers, and his hair hung in long braids tied up in suede strips. But his skin was quite dark, and his nose was broad, not arched. I traced his full mouth with my fingernail.
"He's black," I announced the obvious. "Why's he dressed like that?"
"His father was a Seminole. Couple of hundred years ago there was a freedman's colony outside of St. Augustine, on the northeast coast of Florida. It was a popular destination for runaways and free people of color alike."
"Why? I thought most runaways headed north."
"Back then Florida was more old-Spain than slaveholding Dixie. The Spaniards were fairly tolerant as long as you went through the motions of being Catholic, and the Seminoles who lived nearby were friendly with the Africans. The free colony was destroyed when the British made a move on St. Augustine, but at any rate, there was a great deal of intermarriage. That's where John Gray came from."
I turned the page and scanned the text. Brian summarized and paraphrased behind me.
"John made a nasty mix of his mother's Hundun and his father's native ways. No one knows how powerful he really was, but between his magic and his charisma he gained a small cult of followers who called themselves Graysmen. Eventually the Spaniards had enough of him—he was accused of killing a priest or something. Who knows if it was true, but they hunted him down for it and killed him in 1840."
"That must have been a blow to his followers."
"Yes and no. They stayed in a loose alliance for some time after his death. When are you thinking your family members might have been involved with him?"
I had to calculate a rough time frame. It took me a second. "Maybe twenty years after the Civil War. Maybe the 1880s or '90s. I'm not sure."
Brian's head bobbed quickly to the left in a half shrug. "I don't know when they officially disbanded—or even if they ever did, honestly, but they were being harassed by the police as late as 1882. A round of them got hung for witchcraft, of all things. Of course the official charge was something more ordinary, but everyone knew why they really got them."
I leaned forward against the counter and pressed my chin into my palms. "But why? Why after all that time? What did John Gray promise them to make them keep his memory alive so long?"
"What everyone who wants a cult promises: eternal life."
"I hate to harp on the obvious, but he
died
."
"He was killed, yes, but he hadn't told anyone that he
personally
could make them live forever. He had this idea he got from his mother; there's some potion, or formula, or powder, or something, that a true wizard could concoct. Unfortunately for him, he never managed to get the right combination of ingredients mixed up. The trouble was, most of his recipes called for plants that grow in Africa, so he was forced to substitute. It's not quite the same thing as swapping apple juice for sugar, I don't imagine."
"But his cultists believed he'd work it out?"
"They were certain of it. He'd demonstrated his powers with smaller miracles. Other spells—spells that made you stronger, faster, smarter. Spells that could make you invisible, or give you the power to see other people's dreams. He claimed he could astrally project, and walk through solid objects."
"So, what you're saying is that he was a charlatan."
"Don't assume that so fast. In his mother's country there's a long tradition of
sorkos
who have demonstrable supernatural abilities. Anthropologists took a shine to them in the early 1970s, and there were several studies published on the subject of African tribal occultism. Fascinating, really."
"Hang on—what did you call them?
Sorkos?
I know that word. Where was she from, John Gray's mother? Was she from Niger?"
"I think so. Yes, I think that's right. Is that where your cousins were from?"
"Yeah." I turned the next page. It featured another photo of Gray, this time with a woman.
"That's Juanita, his wife."
"It says she went mad when he died."
Brian shook his head. "She didn't go mad. She knew good and well what she was doing when she cut off his hand."
I jumped as if the gentle fellow had punched me. "His . . . his hand? Why would she do that? Why would she . . ." I was stammering, but I couldn't make my tongue straighten out and work right. "Why would she cut off his . . . his hand? That doesn't make any sense, it just doesn't."
"Calm down, child—I swear by the goddess—calm yourself down. There's no need for it, now. Whatever's gotten you? Yes, she cut off his hand, but she waited until he was dead, if that's what's worried you."
I braced my elbows on the table and took two or three measured breaths, avoiding his eyes until I'd shrouded my own. "It's just the way you said it." I spoke carefully, trying too hard to sound light. "I thought you meant it was while he was alive. Yeah, that creeped me out." I shuddered, and the shudder was real enough to satisfy Brian, but I could tell he felt I'd overreacted.
"He was dead. No doubt for it. Juanita wanted a relic to work magic with. She took his left hand off clean at the wrist, she did. It was easier than taking just his ring finger."
"His . . . why would she want his ring finger?"
"Magic. According to his hodgepodge theology, the fourth finger of the dominant hand is the power finger. It's the only finger in African cult lore that has no name. So long as she had that piece of him, there was the possibility she could raise him again. Fortunately—at least for the members of the holy order that hanged her husband—she came down with smallpox and died before she could wreak too much havoc."
I didn't really want to know, but I couldn't stop myself from asking. "And the hand?"
"Disappeared. She wasn't really strong enough to do anything with it anyway; Juanita was more of a hanger-on than a priestess. But for a long time there were serious fears that someone else might make a go of it. Eventually, John Gray and his crew were pretty much forgotten."
I shifted uncomfortably. "That's not surprising. It's been an awfully long time."
"No, not surprising, but possibly dangerous. The time's not quite up yet. Soon, though."
"How do you mean?"
Brian turned another page. "It's not yet been one hundred and sixty-five years. That's the longest his soul can stay tied to earth close enough to come back—before passing all the way over to the other side, that is. Once that anniversary has passed, he's gone for good."
"So it's this year?" My math was never the best, but I knew I had to be close.
Brian returned to the book and went to a page we'd already passed, dragging his finger down the page until it stopped on the date John Gray had died. Apparently he wasn't much good with numbers either, because he then reached for a calculator in a drawer beside the cash register to confirm my calculations. "Yes. This year. September twenty-ninth."
"That soon?"
"Yep. About a week and a half from now and the world will be quite safe."
"That's . . . reassuring." Only a week and a half away. "Quite safe" was just around the corner.
"You don't
look
too reassured."
"I'm sorry," I said, but then I felt stupid for apologizing. "I'm not sure why it makes me feel so uneasy."
"Probably because it's not past yet. You're just showing good sense."
I grinned, trying to make it look real. "Thanks."
He patted me on the back. For a minute I thought he was going to call me "little sister" or "little lady" again, and I might start laughing despite my unease. "Don't worry about it so much. John Gray's dead, and so are all his children. There's nothing more to fear from the likes of him."
"You're right. I'm sure you are," I lied, for he was too kind to argue with.
As thanks for the information, I went ahead and bought the book and some incense that smelled sweetly of vanilla and jasmine. "Take this too, on the house," he said, handing me a tiny velveteen bag about the size of a strawberry. It was soft and blue, and inside it was tied a mixture of herbs and powders that might have been cinnamon and sage. "It's a gris-gris."
My confusion turned to mild skepticism, but I accepted the gift. I didn't have any lucky charms, and perhaps this one would do me good. I took it with the same apathetic optimism with which I swallow the occasional vitamin—it can't hurt, and it might help. "Thank you so much for your time."
"No, thank
you
—for your company. And take care of yourself, miss. Tell your uncle I said hello. Tell him too that he should make his own way out here before long. I haven't seen him in ages."
"I sure will tell him," I promised, "and thanks again."
I left the shop clutching the brown paper sack with the book, incense, and gris-gris. My car was parked outside, so I opened the passenger's side and set my purchases on the seat before venturing into the street.
Though it was well past lunchtime, I couldn't detect much in the way of hunger pangs. I was too distracted by the wealth of new information to worry about food. I paused before a newspaper rack and read the date on the right-hand corner. September 18. Eleven days until John Gray was thoroughly sent to rest, even by his own religion.
No one remembers him anyway,
I told myself.
This is ancient history. There's no one left alive to try to raise him—as if it could even be done.
I'd seen plenty of ghosts, but nothing of the resurrected. And I'd certainly not seen anything like a man dead for a century and a half brought back. It was more than I could imagine. There would be nothing left of him to raise.
