Poppy Z. Brite - 1992 - Lost Souls (44 page)

 
          
But
lately Simon had been getting into animals. Ann had pitched a crying fit the
day she found him cutting up the lusterless carcass of Sarah Jane, a
black-and-white kitten she’d been feeding on the back steps. Since then, as far
as she knew, he had stuck to using mice from the Woolworth’s in Corinth and
toads he caught in the vacant lot next door. He injected the toads with varying
amounts of his own blood and sometimes with liquid LSD. Mostly they jumped
around a lot.

 
          
Over
the rims of his glasses Simon looked at her oddly. “Were you thinking of going
out tonight, Ann?”

 
          
Involuntarily
she glanced at the space beneath her bed. The bed skirt hid the suitcase, but
again she felt sure that her father could see through mere cloth, that he knew
her intentions. “I might go down to the Yew,” she said.

 
          
“You
aren’t going to see Steve, are you? After the way he dishonored you?” She had
told her father only that Steve had slapped her. For once, with rare
sensitivity, he had not pressed the issue.

 
          
“No,
Simon,” she said. “I’m not going to see Steve.”

 
          
“Or
his peculiar friend?”

 
          
“Simon,
Ghost isn’t “She stopped. There was no point saying Ghost wasn’t peculiar; that
wasn’t what she meant anyway. “Ghost never did anything to me,” she finished.

 
          
“I
wish you wouldn’t go out tonight, daughter.”

 
          
She
looked at him. “Are you requesting or ordering?”

 
          
“I
have your best interests in mind,” he said frostily. Ann rubbed her wrists. At
sixteen she had come home roaring drunk one night. Simon was still drinking
then too, but that didn’t make him any more compassionate. He trussed her to
her own bedposts with rope and kept her tied there for seven hours, until she
pissed herself and begged him to forgive her stupidity. The memory of the
chafing had never quite gone away.

 
          
“So
I’m not supposed to go out tonight,” she said. “I’m supposed to stay home and
wait on you.” Defeat welled in her. Why did Simon have to get his way every
damn time?

 
          
Maybe
he didn’t.

 
          
She
looked up at him again, this time trying to make her eyes submissive, to wipe
away the frigid hurt from his face. “I’m sorry, Daddy.” That would get him for
sure. “Had a long day at work. Why don’t you go read the paper? Or your library
books? I’ll fix us a pot of coffee.”

 
          
Simon
was touched. He came across the room to kiss her forehead. She had to stop
herself from flinching back, sure he would know what was up when he tasted the
sweat at her hairline. But he straightened and gave her another slanted smile.
“You may rest,” he said. “I will make the coffee.”

 
          
No,
dammit! That wouldn’t work. She put on her sweetest smile. The taste of vomit
rose in her throat. “Let me do it,” she said. “I know you want to see the
paper. There’s another article about the disappearances.”

 
          
That
got him. Simon had followed the disappearances with a weird avidity,
considering it was only a Violin Road rug-rat and a couple of bums that had
been killed.

 
          
Maybe
be had been dissecting them, too.

 
          
As
soon as Simon left the room, Ann dug through the top drawer of her dresser
until she found a little plastic bottle. She opened it and shook the contents
into her cupped hand. Several tiny pills, wafer-thin, each with a V-shaped
cutout in the center.

 
          
The
Valium dated back to her mother’s last nervous illness. Ann had stolen it out
of the medicine cabinet a year ago. She had taken almost all the pills on
various sleepless nights; only these were left. She hoped there was still some
decal in the freezer.

 
          
“There
you go,” she said a few minutes later, setting a yellow ceramic mug on the arm
of Simon’s chair. “It came out a little strong, so I put in a lot of sugar. I
hope it’s not too sweet.”

 
          
“I’m
sure it will be lovely,” he said.

 
          
She
held her breath as he took the first sip, but through the steam his face
registered only tired contentment. He might have been any father letting his
daughter bring him a cup of coffee after a hard day’s work. She still felt a
little sad.

 
          
An
hour later she kissed his lips lightly and locked the front door behind her.

 
          
His
breathing was a little irregular, and she tasted the sourness of coffee and
tranquilizers on his mouth, but she would save a prayer and a curse for him
when she got on the bus. No one could stop her from going to meet her true love
now.

 
          
The
Greyhound took her south, frosting her to the bone with its air-conditioning
adjusted for the middle of August, not for this November night. As the bus
lumbered away from the dark depot, Ann half-rose out of her seat, one hand on
her suitcase, the other raised to stop the driver.

 
          
Wait,
she almost said. Wait, I went a little crazy, let me out and I’ll trade in mil
ticket and go back home, maybe Steve will take me back, maybe my father will
welcome me home.

 
          
But
the bus lurched and toppled her back into her seat. Then they were bumping
across the railroad tracks that led out of Missing Mile, and she saw an omen:
far down the line, at some other junction, a pair of signal lights gleaming in
the night.

 
          
They
were green.

 
          
Bright
green.

 
          
Like
the color of her lover’s eyes.

 
          
“This
is the best goddamn food I ever ate,” said Steve, digging a spoon into his
third bowl of gumbo. They hadn’t had much to eat on the road.

 
          
“Better
than my cooking?” asked Ghost, hurt.

 
          
“Shit,
Ghost, you can’t eat
mung
bean sprouts and tofu all
the time.”

 
          
“That’s
good stuff,” said Ghost. But the waitress put another bowl of gumbo in front of
him, and he hunched over it, breathing the savory steam, his eyelids fluttering
with pleasure. He stirred it and spooned up a mouthful. The flavors melted
together on his tongue. He tasted the delicate meatiness of crab and shrimp,
the green sassafras tang of file, the soft blandness of okra,

 
          
“This
might be even better than soy-bean-mushroom loaf,” he admitted when he had
swallowed.

 
          
Back
outside, agreeably full of gumbo and strong chicory coffee, they dodged the
tourists on Bourbon Street and turned down a shady side street whose iron balconies
were festooned with lush green hanging ferns and thousands of colored Mardi
Gras beads. Soon the street turned into a narrow alley, and Ghost thought
they’d gotten lost. Instead they suddenly found themselves in the cacophony of
Jackson Square, with the silvery spires of St. Louis Cathedral looming up
behind them and a panorama of portrait painters and street musicians spread
before. In the middle of it all Andrew Jackson reared up on his horse,
sour-faced and pigeon-spotted, challenging the giant magnolias that surrounded
the square. Ghost couldn’t recall ever seeing a map of New Orleans, but he knew
the Mississippi River curved around the city in a giant crescent shape, like a
cradling hand.

 
          
He
could smell the water and feel its throbbing current in his nerves. But he knew
about the miasma that could sometimes hang over such a powerful body of water,
especially in such lush, humid weather. It was as if the water vapor created a
palpable feeling of despair. His grandmother had told him of a man she’d known
who stood on a spot in England by the sea and heard a voice urging him to jump
to his death on the rocks a hundred feet below. Later the man found out that
several suicides had occurred from that spot.

 
          
Considering
the state he and Steve were in after driving all night, if they saw a large
expanse of water, they might be tempted to take a swim.

 
          
They
crossed the square and were soon deep in the Quarter again. The side street
they were on did not look as well travelled as some of the others. The long
shutters on either side of the doorway stoops hung crooked, their bright paint
fading, and some of the cobblestones in the sidewalk were smashed to pieces.
Steve’s pace slowed as they passed a dark little bar, and he stared in
longingly at the rows of bottles reflected in the mirror. “So what do we do
now?” he asked Ghost. “You think they’re here yet?”

 
          
Ghost
closed his eyes and tried to send his mind out, tried to find something
familiar, something young and lonely, something green-eyed and frightening. At
last he opened his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t tell. There’s too much
magic here. This place is too haunted. I can’t separate it all.”

 
          
Steve
clawed at his hair. “Well fuck it, then! Let’s just go back to that bar!

 
          
Jesus,
I thought you’d know what to do once we got here.”

 
          
“Calm
down,” said Ghost. “I’m working on it. First we need a place to stay, I guess.”

 
          
Steve
shrugged. Okay, thought Ghost, if that’s how it is, then that’s how it is.

 
          
Steve’s
tired and disgusted, I don’t blame him. And maybe when we find Ann, she’ll tell
us to fuck off. But I’m not giving up yet. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll ask
around for a cheap place. Then maybe we can get a drink and decide what we’re
gonna
do next.”

 
          
They
asked at several hotels and guest houses, starting with the modest ones and
progressing to the seedy-looking dumps. There was nothing under fifty dollars a
night, which would take just about all the cash they had. “Let’s just stay up
all night drinking,” Steve suggested. Ghost was almost ready to agree with him
when he saw a small wooden sign at the mouth of an alley: MAGICK SHOPPE. Below
that, in smaller letters: Arkady Raventon, Proprietor.

 
          
Had
he found his way here on purpose? Were such places like a magnet to that part
of his mind? Ghost was too tired to care much; at any rate he would inquire
here. He felt comfortable among practitioners of the occult; he had grown up
around them. Maybe Arkady Raventon, Proprietor, would know of a cheap place to
stay.

 
          
The
shop was far back at the end of an alley, its door hidden behind shadows and
garbage cans. “Creepy place,” said Steve.

 
          
“You
never know,” Ghost told him. “There might be somebody here who can help us.

 
          
You
got a better idea?”

 
          
The
alley was dim, and the inside of the shop seemed fully black. Steve and Ghost
stood just inside the door for a moment, waiting for their eyes to adjust to
the sudden absence of light.

 
          
Slowly,
pinpoints of fire began to appear in the darkness. They were candles, Ghost
realized, scented votive candles, the only source of light in the shop. He
smelled cinnamon, orange blossoms, nutmeg. And under the perfume of the
candles, a smell like the back room of
Miz
Catlin’s
store. Spices and ancient dust, herbs and medicines, rust and wood and bone. He
breathed in deep. His nose prickled. He sneezed once, twice, three times.

 
          
“Bless
you,” said a voice from within the darkness. “If your spirit has escaped your
body, I promise not to capture it.”

 
          
Only
now did the darkness in the shop begin to soften. Ghost made out a figure standing
behind a long glass counter, a small emaciated figure draped in white. The
proprietor. Ghost saw sharp jutting cheekbones and hollow eyes, thin dark hair,
spidery hands resting flat on the glass, bony fingers splayed.