AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jilo stuffed the bills into her own bra. “Like I told you, there are no guarantees. Don’t try my patience. The spirits,” she said, stretching the word out, giving it a sense of fearsomeness, “are taxing enough.” She secured another button on her dress, just to help make the money harder for the woman to retrieve. Jilo would never have treated a buckra woman with such audacity outside her home, but this woman seemed torn between her belief in her own superiority and her fear of Jilo’s mysterious Negro powers. It was as clear as water that the story of what happened here tonight would never be shared with a single soul. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to threaten the buckra with unpleasant repercussions if she were to speak of the secrets she saw here.
“Come through to the kitchen. We can talk better in there.”
She rapped on Binah’s door as she passed by. “Get on out here,” she commanded. “We’re calling on the spirits.” Binah opened the door a crack, her eyes wide and brows arched in a mixture of worry and confusion. Jilo gave her a wink. “The missus here has paid us to approach the spirits on her behalf.”
Binah’s face froze in disbelief, but she quickly recovered. She opened the door fully. “Then I should bring the baby, too. His innocence will protect us from any unclean ones.”
Jilo smiled and nodded. “You are a wise child.”
After leading the way to the kitchen, Jilo pulled a chair—one that faced away from the pantry—back from the table. “Sit here,” she said. The woman stepped into the kitchen, looking around it with wide eyes, filled with a mixture of expectation and fear, as if she might bolt at any moment. Jilo stepped back, giving the woman a clear and unhindered path to the seat. There was a moment’s hesitation, but the woman made the decision to do as she was told. She slid the seat an inch or so farther back from where Jilo had left it, then sat down, tugging on the hem of her skirt as she did.
Jilo decided to move slowly. She wanted the woman spooked, but not spooked enough to flee without feeling she’d gotten her money’s worth. Even if the woman never spoke of this night to a soul, a poor outcome could still lead to some very unpleasant repercussions for Jilo herself. A rich buckra like this could find other ways to strike back.
The woman looked around, taking in the exotic setting in which she’d found herself. “Should we dim the lights? Light some candles?”
“No,” Binah said, entering the room with Robinson in her arms. “Dim lights, dark spirits,” she said. Though she managed not to laugh, there was a twinkle in her eye.
“She’s right,” Jilo said. “The good spirits aren’t afraid of the light.” She nodded at the table, signaling for Binah to join their guest. “But they will only come to us if we provide them with an offering.” She paused. “I’ll only be a moment.”
She took her time crossing to the pantry, but once inside, she attacked the shelves, searching for ingredients she remembered from her first days of her Chemistry I class. On the lower shelf, not far from the front, sat the yellow box that held powdered sugar. The sugar was left over from frosting Nana had made for the cake she baked for Cousin Barney’s funeral, only a couple of months before her own. Jilo shook the box, disappointed that it felt so light, but relief swept over her when she opened it. There were about six teaspoons of the powder left, which s
hould be plenty for her needs.
One shelf up sat another box, also yellow, but with a blue circle circumscribing a hand wielding a hammer. Baking soda. Plenty heavy, nearly a full box.
“Don’t let me down, now, Nana,” Jilo mumbled under her breath. On the top shelf should be a bottle that Nana had forbidden the girls ever to touch. She went up on her tiptoes, her heart falling when she didn’t see the bottle of clear rum she would certainly have sampled if she hadn’t forgotten it until now. She strained, stretching up even farther, and ran her hand along the shelf. There. She nearly cheered as her fingertips found the round glass container. She grasped the body of the bottle, sliding it forward a few inches, and then snatched it by the neck.
After tucking the two boxes under her arms and grasping the bottle, she left the pantry and crossed to the table, assuming an air of solemnity as she placed the ingredients on the table before the woman, whose expression showed marks of skepticism as she stared at the elements of Jilo’s purported offering to the spirits.
Jilo acted quickly to circumvent any questions. “A simple offering for pure spirits. The dark ones, they demand blood,” she drawled out the last word, then flashed a sharp look at Binah, hoping her little sister wouldn’t forget herself and laugh.
But there was no need for worry; her sister proved quite the worthy actress. “No blood, Lord. No blood,” she said, shaking her head as she clutched Robinson close. “Don’t want any evil ones coming in here to lap it up.”
Her manufactured fear served to engender true terror in their visitor. “No,” the woman echoed Binah. “I don’t want to enlist any dark spirits . . .” She hesitated. “Unless it proves absolutely necessary.”
“Won’t be necessary,” Jilo said in a steady, reassuring tone. “We’re taking the fix off you. That’s white magic. Good magic. The dark spirits can’t help us with that.” She turned away and grabbed a spoon, a small mixing bowl, and a thick ceramic meat plate, arranging them next to the boxes and rum bottle. Then she lifted the rum bottle and unscrewed the lid. After pausing to nod at their guest, she lifted the rum to her lips and knocked back a shot. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Helps me get in tune with the spirits.” A shot’s worth of rum went into the bowl, too, and then she set the bottle aside. “The fiery water that separates our world from that of the spirits.” She grabbed the spoon and measured out four rounded spoonfuls of the sugar into the rum. “To remind them of the sweetness of the lives they led here on earth. Makes sure we only attract the happy, helpful spirits. Not the angry ones.” She set the nearly empty sugar box aside and clutched the baking soda. “To assure we get only the purest of spirits.” She added one rounded teaspoon of the soda to the bowl and stirred the mixture into a thick paste, which she then scooped into a ball and dropped on to the meat platter.
Jilo laid the spoon on the table and closed her eyes, holding her hands out over the ball of paste. “We call upon you, our guiding spirits. This fine lady has had the fix settled on her by an impure woman, a woman so covetous she wants to take this innocent’s very life.” She paused, pretending to listen to voices from beyond. “Yes. Yes. You must be her judge, but I come to you on her behalf. I do believe her to be worthy.” Jilo opened up her eyes, forcing them wide, and held her right hand out toward the woman. “Do not move. Not an inch. They are here. They have heard us. They must determine if you are indeed worthy of their help.” The woman blanched, but held still. Jilo allowed her hand to tremble and her eyes to roll upward. Slowly she let a smile form on her lips. “Yes. Yes.” She closed her eyes, then opened them again, focusing on the woman. She nodded. “They have deemed you worthy.”
Praying that the box of safety matches in the drawer by the sink wouldn’t be empty, she crossed the room, speaking as she did. “They have agreed to accept our gift to them, and in return, they will”—she emphasized the word—“remove the black fix that has been set on you by your rival.” She tugged open the drawer, pleased to see that a red box emblazoned with a blue tiger was tucked in next to a box of fuses. She retrieved the matches and returned to the table. Once there, she pulled out one of the matches, but before she struck it, she pulled the bottle of rum over to her and took another sip. “You must concentrate. Open yourself up to the spirits. Give them your permission to remove this curse.”
“I do,” the woman said, leaning forward. “I do give them permission to cleanse me.”
Jilo flashed the woman her most reassuring smile, then doused the ball of paste with a bit more rum. She struck the match, not hesitating this time, and touched the flame to the white paste.
The woman’s eyes widened as the ball of paste caught flame and then began to darken, expanding, lengthening, and growing into what resembled a small black snake wriggling along.
“There it is,” Jilo said. “That’s the fix. Right there. The spirits done drew it out of you.”
The woman wobbled in her seat, nearly swooning, but caught hold of the edge of the table and steadied herself. Her eyes filled with tears. “You have the gift,” she said, a tone of gratitude overriding her earlier haughtiness. She raised her hand like she wanted to reach out for Jilo, but instead she stood and rushed out of the house, to all appearances a terrified but happy customer.
Jilo and Binah squealed in simultaneous delight, shocking the drowsy Robinson awake. He began to wail in displeasure, but Jilo swept him into her arms and spun him around and around, planting one kiss after another on his face. As his cries lessened, she looked up at Binah. “We’re gonna get by just fine.” She looked down at Robinson and planted another kiss on his cheek.
THREE
April 1955
“You? You the one claiming to be able to work the root?” The woman had only been in Jilo’s house a matter of minutes, but she was already struggling to pull her heavy frame up out of Nana’s haint-blue chair so she could leave. “I ain’t got time for none of your nonsense.”
