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“You found a dead boy?” Mama asked the boys.
“Yeah,” Charles answered for his sons. “I done seen the body, too. Lying there buck naked.” His forehead wrinkled. “Them who did it slit him clean open from his throat all the way down to his privates.” Charles’s lips puckered, then he turned and spat.
“It’s Rosie’s boy,” Toby said, tugging against his daddy’s grasp. Rosie was a white woman who lived out on the edge of the colored area. She made her living selling corn liquor and the spot between her legs.
Boys and girls had been disappearing around this part of town for as long as Jesse could remember. People didn’t talk about it. Not out in the open, at least. Most were deemed runaways by the law, but twice before within the span of his memory, boys had turned up butchered in the exact manner Charles was describing. Both of them colored. Rosie’s boy was white. The killings of the colored boys never got much official attention. The murder of a white child would, even if the dead boy’s mama was the town whore.
Although several years had passed between the murders and disappearances, Jesse didn’t doubt that the killer was the same man. Nana Tuesday, she may or may not have known who it was, but she sure knew the reason for the killings, and she had taken precautions to make sure Jesse would never end up like Rosie’s boy.
“Boy never was quite right,” Aunt Miriam muttered. It was true. Some folk blamed syphilis, others Rosie’s heavy drinking, but it was undeniable the boy had been left dull witted and deformed.
“Yeah, but he was still white,” Charles said, giving voice to what they were all likely thinking. Either the killer had grown more brazen or more desperate. “He wasn’t killed there. Not enough blood for that. Just dumped there.”
Jesse’s mama took a few steps toward the porch stairs. “Tell me,” her voice was low, “did they leave any kind of marks on him?”
Charles nodded. “Lines and squiggles.” The school board had just approved yet another school for the white children, but Savannah only had a couple of schools for the colored. These buildings were dilapidated—one of them had even been condemned—and they lacked light and sufficient seats. Even though both schools offered two shifts of classes per day, half of the black children in town never got the chance to attend, and out of those who did, most never got to go further than the second or third grade. Charles had enrolled his boys, but Jesse wasn’t sure Charles himself had received the same opportunity. He wasn’t even sure this cousin from his father’s side of the family could read.
His mama must have had a similar thought because she turned to Toby. “You saw the boy twice. What did they look like?”
“Nothing really, just scribbles,” Toby said. “Not like words or anything. Just circles and lines and stars, like this . . .” He squatted down and began to draw the shapes he remembered.
“Don’t you do that,” Jesse’s mama snapped before the youngster could get two lines linked together. “Don’t you ever draw those markings out. You forget ’em now.” The terror in her voice caused Jesse’s skin to prickle. Her eyes were round and full of fear, even though Jesse felt sure she had no clearer idea of what the aborted symbol might signify than he did. She was afraid of magic—Nana Tuesday had seen to it that she would be.
His mama had been unfazed by the heat of the day, let alone the even greater heat of the kitchen, but now heavy beads of sweat formed and trickled down her face. She braced herself against a post and looked up at Jesse and Charles. “You make sure everybody knows to shut up about this. Ain’t nobody found nothing. Nobody ever went back to that clearing.” Her voice rose. “You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Charles responded. “Ain’t nobody gonna say anything. You know that.” Jesse reckoned his cousin was right. A murdered white child meant somebody was gonna be facing the noose, and there were plenty of black men in the area, himself included, handy enough for the law to lay the blame on.
“You tell them all anyway,” she said, the tone of her voice a stern warning.
“Yes ma’am,” Charles repeated. Just then, Charles’s wife, basket in hand, came around the side of the house and caught up to him. He nodded to her and began pushing his boys across the yard and down the drive.
“Ain’t just the law we gotta worry about,” his mama said, her gaze shifting between Miriam and Jesse. “Someone’s sacrificing to the Red King. There’s still a collector in these parts.”
The Red King. Jesse had grown up sitting at his nana’s feet, hearing stories about the four demon kings, Red and his brothers. She had never spoken of such things outside the family, but the story had grown legs and run around the community as member after member shared it, despite having promised Nana they never would. Maybe that had been her plan all along. If she’d asked them to spread a warning, folk would’ve laughed the story off as the rantings of an eccentric old woman. But forbid it to be told, and it gets whispered far and wide.
According to Nana, the three elder kings had been around pretty much forever. This very world had spun into being around them, but the youngest had only come to exist after man rose on this earth. All four took their nourishment from whatever spirit essence was left in a person’s body after death, but each brother could only feed from a certain type of death.
T
he Red King gorged himself on the leftover energy of those who died by mishap or were struck down by others, whether the killing was personal or an act of war. The Yellow King took those who fell from disease or famine. The Black King, also called the “Kind King,” only took from those who had seen the fullness of life. Seeing as how he fed on folk who were mostly used up, the Black King’s pickings were always the slimmest, earning him a third name—the “Beggar King.” He was a wispy shade that lingered among the shadows, coming most often while a body slept. The youngest brother, the White King, was also known as the “Mirror King.” He always appeared as a warped reflection of those he targeted: faults, mistakes, and problems magnified to such a degree they’d destroy even the most stubborn sliver of hope. The White King held dominion over those who died by their own hand. He was the only one of his brethren who feasted solely on the human spirit.
Three of the demons were greedy, keeping all the spoils to themselves, but when a servant of the Red King honored him through killing, Red would share with the collector, converting a bit of the victim’s forfeited life force into black magic for the collector’s own use.
Nana Tuesday used to swear that while the brothers had never existed in the normal sense of the word, they were real all the same. This made little sense to Jesse, but Nana had seemed so sure.
His mama swallowed hard, and her eyes flashed, like a burst of lucidity had just helped her make a connection. “Your nana said she was gonna put an end to this, or die trying.”
“Looks like she might’ve done just that,” Miriam said. She held both hands up. “Dear sweet Jesus, I don’t want to hear no more of this.” With that, she turned and fled into the house.
A chill ran down Jesse’s spine. He knew now his nana hadn’t died from causes that came anywhere near natural. Jesse realized his daughters were nowhere in sight. He knew Jilo would be safe inside, but given the exodus that had just occurred, he wasn’t sure anyone would be out back looking after the other two. “I need to find Opal and Poppy,” Jesse said, and his mama nodded.
Jesse took the first three steps leading from the porch to the yard, then turned back to face his mama. “You don’t believe any of this, do you? About the kings?”
The corners of her mouth pulled down as she considered his question. “I reckon it don’t matter whether I believe it or not. Looks like someone does.”
FOUR
In the closet of Jesse’s boyhood room, on the shelf, pushed all the way back against the wall, sat an old cigar box. Somehow Jesse knew it would still be there even though he hadn’t laid a hand on it—had made a point not to touch it—in twenty years. The box was decorated with a drawing of a man wearing a black top hat, a red kerchief, and matching red pants. His shirt, a long-sleeved white tunic of some kind, exposed a crescent of the man’s chest.
