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“Yeah, grandbabies—beautiful, strong, most likely very athletic grandbabies. But first we have to fix Zeb so he can apologize to Jolene, profusely, and they can get married.”
Mama Ginger sighed, twisting a Kleenex into complex tornado shapes. “I took Zeb to Madame Zelda and told him it was for his headaches. It was stress relief, I told him. Madame Zelda could use hypnosis and suggestive imagery to put him in a better state of mind. Every time he told Jolene he was coming over here to do chores, I was taking him to Zelda. She’s spent weeks planting thoughts in his head. Bad stuff about Jolene. Good stuff about you. I made her tell him that you were the only girl he could possibly marry, that you were the only one who could make him happy. That he should be more aggressive with you and let you know how he feels. Zelda fixed it so every time Zeb heard you say the word ‘wedding,’ he would do something to hurt Jolene’s feelings or make a pass at you. And he wouldn’t remember doing it later.”
In my head, I ran over the conversations that had preceded Zeb’s bizarre behavior. In all of them, we’d been talking about the wedding in some capacity. Considering that we’d been planning Zeb’s wedding, that was natural, inevitable. Mama Ginger had set out a minefield for us. “What makes you think you have the right to do this stuff, Mama Ginger? Do you have any idea how crazy this is?”
“I just wanted everyone to be happy!” she yelled. “We weren’t even sure it was working because Zeb was being so resistant. But he kept coming back. Zelda fixed it so he wouldn’t remember anything except the thoughts she put in the back of his brain. We just couldn’t get him to dump her.”
“Because in his heart and his head, he loves Jolene,” I told her. “He was rude to her a few times, said some really hurtful things. He slapped me on the butt in front of my vampire boyfriend, which put him in serious peril—oh, yeah, Gabriel and Dick are vampires, too. But Jolene loves him so much, she forgave him for all of that. So you had to do something bigger.”
Mama Ginger blushed and wiped the mascara streaks from her cheeks. “Zelda fixed it so as soon he heard someone say ‘peas in a pod,’ he would tell Jolene he didn’t want to marry her. He’d repeat all the things that we’d been planting in his head.”
“Well, if there’s a trigger keyword, there has to be a release keyword, right? What is it?”
Mama Ginger flushed. “She didn’t tell me. I only paid half up front. She wouldn’t give me the release word until I paid the rest.” I stared at her. She shrugged. “I wanted to make sure it worked.”
“Well, pay her the rest!”
“I tried. Earlier tonight, I called her and told her I wanted to call it off, that my son was miserable and she had to take everything back. I may have used some words she didn’t like.”
“Such as?”
Mama Ginger sniffled. “Crackpot … crazy old coot … buck-toothed hag.”
“Did you stop to think maybe it wasn’t a great idea to use your special brand of phone manners on the person who has access to your son’s subconscious?”
Mama Ginger was sobbing in earnest now, which meant she would be no further help.
“So I need to track down a psychic who specializes in hypnosis and mind-control techniques to try to wrestle information out of her?”
Mama Ginger nodded pitifully.
“Great.”
After persuading Mama Ginger not to move Zeb or further scramble his brain, I followed her soggy directions to Madame Zelda’s “parlor front” shop on Gaines Street. Madame Zelda lived in a one-story “shotgun”-style house with peeling green paint and a giant plywood hand advertising five-dollar palm readings.
I rang the doorbell, and after some audible shuffling inside, I was greeted by a little old wrinkled lady wearing a fringed purple shawl, a long Indian-print skirt, and a smoky topaz ring the size of a door knocker. Her eyes were heavily kohled. And suddenly, my weird encounter with Esther Barnes made sense.
“Hi, Ms. Barnes,” I said, smiling sweetly.
“I am Madame Zelda,” Esther said in a deep, obviously fake Transylvanian accent while she waved me into the parlor. Her house smelled of yesterday’s fried chicken and overbrewed coffee. Her “office” looked exactly how you would expect a five-dollar psychic to decorate: beaded curtains, stinky candles, busy fabrics, and creepy angel figurines. “I do not know this Ms. Barnes of whom you speak.”
She gestured for me to sit at a tiny tea table covered in a sari, with a laughably large crystal ball in the middle. “That’s funny. You look so much like a lady who came into the bookshop where I work. I must be mistaken.”
“Indeed,” she intoned. “How may I be of service?”
“Well, you’ve been helping a friend of mine with some ‘headaches.’”
“I help many people,” she said, her lips tightening so that I could see the carmine-colored lipstick feathering even further into the tiny lines around her mouth.
“Well, this is a special case. See, he came in, thinking he was going to get your two-hundred-dollar six-session stress treatment and tarot reading. And instead, he ended up brainwashed into thinking he was in love with someone other than his bride-to-be.”
“You!” she growled, the venom in her voice killing off the fake accent, turning her voice thin and brassy once more. “You’re that ‘Jane’ she just won’t shut up about. If I had to hear one more time how wonderful you are, how many beautiful grandbabies you were going to make, I was going to throw up. Wait, wait!” Suddenly, she burst out laughing. Carefully wiping her lined eyes, she hooted, “Ginger doesn’t know you’re a vampire, does she?”
“Not until recently.”
“Oh, that’s priceless!” she cried. “All this time, she was plottin’ to get her boy away from a perfectly nice girl and hand him over to a vampire! Oh, you’ve made my day.”
“Well, I do what I can,” I said flatly as she lit a long brown cigarillo. “The thing is, Zeb’s wedding was ruined because of that crap you put in his head. Having some experience in the psychic arena, I recognize that you’ve got some serious chops. I mean, whatever you did to me at the shop was impressive. My ears were ringing for hours.” A faint flush of pride spread across her furrowed cheeks. “Now, look, Mama Ginger still owes you a hundred dollars. I’m willing to pay you five hundred so we can settle this whole thing without any hard feelings. All you have to do is hold up your end of the deal and give me the release keyword.”
