A Woman of the Swamp

2. Little Shop of Voodoo

The New Orleans Voodoo of Museum was a small collection of rooms tucked away behind an overstuffed curio shop. Marie stood just inside the main entrance, waiting to see if her assumptions about the shop’s alarm were wrong. Two days before, she visited under the guise of a tourist and found a shocking lack of security. The till was taken out nightly, so aside from souvenir t-shirts and commercially sewn voodoo dolls, there wasn’t much of value to steal. Marie knew better. While the walls of the tiny shop were packed floor to ceiling with items meant to serve as purchasable culture, the artifacts in the back were a different story.

She moved slowly, avoiding piles of knickknacks hiding in the semi-darkness. A checkout counter guarding a cramped hallway served as the museum’s entrance. Hanging above was a sign proclaiming a ten-dollar entry fee. Marie stifled a scoff. The city had made an art of scamming tourists who wanted to feed their fascination with what they considered dark arts; never mind that voodoo was traditionally a religion of respect and community. Through the hallway were the museum’s two rooms, filled to the brim with religious items of varying value.

Once out of sight from the main windows, Marie turned on her cell phone flashlight. It was less impressive than conjuring a witch light but didn’t bring the risk of accidental arson. Sometimes, the new ways were best. Portraits of famous voodoo practitioners stared down at her from the walls. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t really need something. Surely you understand?” She looked at a smirking portrait of Marie Laveau, her namesake. “You definitely understand.”

Ignoring the growing shame in her gut, Marie advanced to the back room. A shrine covered the wall to her right, bedecked in small figurines and candles depicting various saints. Dollar bills covered the small surface, representing the hopes and dreams of tourists from around the world. On the back wall was a taxidermied alligator head on a human skeleton’s frame, meant to represent a Rougarou. Why they had picked a reptile head to represent a werewolf was beyond her, but it did look intimidating in the dim light.

Marie poked and prodded, looking for anything that might be a genuine article of power. The shrine felt like an obvious choice but would also carry clear consequences. Disturbing a holy site would leave her in worse trouble. Taking a second pass at the room, she caught sight of a skeleton in a top hat and flinched. The representation was cheesy, but the fear was real. Baron Samedi, a practitioner’s worst nightmare.

The Baron was a trickster, saved from eternal death to torment the living with crooked deals, nightmares, and all manner of monstrosities. The skeleton looked nothing like The Baron, but the simple mention of his name sent a creeping sensation up Marie’s back. Suddenly and irrationally afraid, she spun around. The Rougarou stared back, still as dead as the day they pulled the poor creature from the bayou. Hadn’t it been further in the corner a second ago? She couldn’t tell for sure. Its stuffed feet were nailed to the display platform and wires held its arms up in a threatening posture. No, the Rougarou wasn’t going anywhere. “Stupid thing.” Marie flipped it off and felt better.

“Jumping at shadows?” asked a cool voice from behind her.

Marie felt like she had stepped into a full-body ice bath. The room, previously quiet, was now deathly still. Even the dust motes seemed afraid of falling. Marie turned, knowing exactly who was behind her and wishing it were anyone else. She closed her eyes involuntarily and found when she tried to look again, they wouldn’t open. A childlike notion that the monster couldn’t see her if she couldn’t see it took hold, strong and resolute. There was safety in the darkness.

“Oh, come now, you’re supposed to be a necromancer. You can’t possibly be scared of these old bones.” The voice was smooth like silk and oddly calming.

Marie opened her eyes. Standing before her in a black suit with a deep red tie was a lanky man in a top hat. The polished white bones were gone in favor of smooth skin over a slender frame. He twirled a pencil-thin mustache below shining black eyes. “Now, that’s better, isn’t it, child? Nothing to fear on a beautiful Saturday evening like this. We’re just a couple of friends having a chat in a shop you’re burgling. These are culturally sensitive items, you know?” He clucked his tongue, but there was no real air of chastisement behind it. “For someone named after the great Laveau, you sure don’t respect your history.”

“History has its uses.” A mixture of fear and anger roiled within her. Threading the two while arguing with a veritable god was not a favorable position. “Samedi, I presume?”

“So, you have heard of me. Let me guess, I wasn’t painted in a friendly light, was I?”

Marie shook her head, wanting to quip at him, but couldn’t find her voice.

“No, they wouldn’t. I’m supposed to be the villain. Evil, through and through. Hurtful stories.”

“But you are evil.” Marie had read enough about Baron Samedi to know that whatever he was selling, she shouldn’t be buying. The spirit, man, or whatever he was, had a habit of showing up when people were in crisis, offering a way out, usually with hidden punishment. Her mentor always said: Nothing good ever comes from making deals with The Devil and sit up straight or the magic gets all crooked. Well, here she was with perfect posture, but still listening to the demon talk.

“Evil is a subjective term. It means whatever the beholder wants it to mean. Let me ask you a question. Is a man that’s going to give you the ingredients you need to save your husband’s life evil?”

Marie tried to hide her shock. How does he know about that? No one knew Ray was sick apart from his doctors. She had worked hard to keep it that way.

“Yes, I know your struggle. So, what do you say we cut a deal?”

“Never cut a deal with The Devil, you don’t have to be a necromancer to know that.”

Samedi put a hand on his heart like he had been shot. The clack of his bejeweled fingers on the polished suit buttons completed the image. “You wound me, child.”

“I’m not your child.” It was a stupid retort, but Marie was off balance. She needed to shift the conversation back in her favor. Every fiber of her body told her to run out the door and never look back.

“Please, we’re all children of death, you’ll forgive my colloquialism. I am not The Devil, nor do I work with him. I am a one hundred percent bonified product of the spirit world. No devil down there other than those who became one up here.” Samedi circled the room, running a hand along the various tacked-up pictures and herbs along the wall. “When did it all become about The Devil? In the old days, no one talked like that. I came to them with a deal, they understood it would be to the letter and they didn’t complain.”

“You through monologuing? Someone is going to notice that broken window any minute and then we’re both up a creek.”

Samedi smiled, the corners of his mouth reaching unnaturally high up the sides of his face. “I’m counting on it. Now, let’s get down to brass tacks before the local authorities come down here and put us both ‘up a creek’. None of these objects are going to get you the power you need.” He plucked a sprig hanging from the ceiling and crumbled it, emphasizing the point. “What you need can only come from beyond, and there aren’t many couriers going to get there in your short timeframe.”

In her head, Marie told the man to screw himself and booked it out of the shop with whatever items she could get her hands on. She sprinted all the way back to the car, drove like a bat out of hell, and went home. In the months after, she did her best to save Ray, and when he died, she mourned. It would never be enough. Even before she had started making progress with the ancient traditions, she knew it in her bones. When the world said it was someone’s time to go, they went; that’s how death worked. Who was she to stand in the way?

Instead of all that, she looked at The Baron in his glittering, dark eyes and asked: “What do you want?”

He clapped, sending a cloud of dust through the air, and rubbed his hands together. “Now we’re cooking with gas. Doesn’t even ask what I’m offering but wants to know the price. I like that. Well, call me old-fashioned, but I want to show you what you’re buying first.” Unbuttoning a breast pocket, Samedi pulled a polished skull from the folds of his jacket. “Now, this will do a damned site better than what you’ve got on top of your little staff right now.”

Only half conscious of the motion, Marie pulled out her staff. She flexed her fingers around the polished wood handle and looked into the vacant eyes of the skull on top. A few months earlier, she had stolen the topper from a classroom. In comparison to the skull in Samedi’s hands, hers looked inadequate and dingy.

“I see you understand what I’m talking about. That old thing simply won’t do. Might raise a few of the dead for a minute or two, but prolong life? Not a chance.” Baron Samedi reached out his free hand and held it face up. “May I?”

Marie thought of all the hours she had spent searching for the perfect staff. Parting with it, even for a moment was sacrilege, but she didn’t have time to debate. Something told her that if the cops arrived, all they would find was her in an empty room. Marie handed the staff over.

The Baron took the object, turning it over. “Nice rune work and a sturdy base. Not bad for your first time.” With a flourish, he swung the staff against the wall, shattering the skull.

“Hey, what the—”

In a smooth motion, he jammed the new skull in its place. Purple flame crackled to life in its eye sockets and traveled down the length of the wood illuminating the runes. “I said we were cooking with gas, didn’t I?” He started to hand the staff over to Marie and retracted it at the last second. “Right, now you’ve seen what I can do, but we still haven’t discussed terms.”

A siren wailed in the distance. “I’d rather that not be my ride.” The staff’s power radiated, and Marie hungered for it.

“Right, I’ll be quick. Are you familiar with the Old Ursuline Convent?”

Marie spat on the floor.

“Ah, good. Well, I’ve got a bit of a gathering planned, and one of my guests of honor is stuck in that raggedy old building.”

“You’re not telling me there’s actually vampires up there?” The Ursuline Convent was an old religious building where nuns educated young girls and proselytized loudly. If rumors were true, it had also been used to house a batch of early 18th-century bloodsuckers.

The Baron laughed. “Would vampires be so far-fetched? Afterall, you brought a man back to life today—briefly as it were—but still.” His face creased with an eerie, broad smile. “Who or what is up there isn’t your concern. Your concern is getting them out. Do that and your debt is paid.”

The sirens grew louder. Likely only a few blocks away.

“Clock’s ticking, my dear.”

“Fine, deal.” Marie stuck out her hand and Samedi clasped it with surprising firmness. A jolt of electricity ran up her arm, followed by a wave of nausea.

Samedi’s eyes glowed in the darkness, and he let out a prolonged sigh. “Oh, I do love a good deal.” He released her hand and passed Marie the staff. “Careful with that, you’ll shoot your eye out.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “What’s magic without whimsy? Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small paper list. “That staff alone won’t keep your husband alive. You’ll need to follow these instructions daily for a month. I trust I don’t have to tell you what happens if you miss a day.” He handed Marie the paper.

She took it and read. “Seriously? This is it? Garden variety herbs and get-well prayers?”

Baron Samedi was gone. In his place stood a skeletal effigy with a fading top hat. Marie held the staff out in her hand, wondering if she had imagined it all, but a soft purple glow in the skull’s eye sockets told her otherwise. Energy coursed up the length of the wood, vibrating her fingertips. Cooking with gas. It certainly felt like she was sitting on the edge of a powder keg.

The sirens grew closer, and Marie’s heart raced. She hurried out of the room and back through the front door. The warm city air greeted her, smelling like a mix of piss and damp pavement. She started to laugh, and then a white spotlight clicked on, illuminating the front of the museum.