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We all walked to the courtyard entryway, and everybody took up the places we’d discussed earlier, Aaron and James on their marks and ready to record the different angles we needed. I turned to James.
“We’re ready to enter this amazing two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old plantation home and see what awaits us. This dwelling is rich with history and rife with stories. Something our crewmember, Burke Mathers, would have loved. Burke passed suddenly before the filming of this episode. On behalf of myself and the entire cast and crew ofHaunted New Orleans, I want to dedicate this episode to him.” I turned to Aaron so they’d get a different angle for editing. “This one’s for you, brother. Thank you for everything.”
I walked to the side of the entryway wall and knocked three times. “Knocking is a ritual gesture.” I turned to the camera briefly. “It is also a sign of respect to let anyone inside know that we’re coming.”
I moved to the middle of the space and knelt, taking the things I needed from my mesh bag. Everybody closed in around me, and I felt Hanlen’s soft palm on my shoulder for a brief moment before she backed away to join the others. It gave me strength.
“The Guardian of the Crossroads has a personal symbol. A geometric design known as a veve. All of the lwas have one, each special to them.” I started drawing the sigil. “Papa Legba, dealer of destinies, intermediary to the spirit world.” I finished the veve and sat back on my heels for a moment, gathering my energy.
I placed my palm over the middle of the veve and whistled. “To all the spirits of all directions . . . We call upon you spirits of fire, I want you to come through.” I lit the candle sitting at the south point of the sigil.
“The spirits of water, we request you.” I sprinkled Florida water in a circle around the veve, starting on the west side, the blessed cologne acting like holy water and as a connection to the element.
“The spirits of air, we request you.” I waved a feather over the symbol, starting in the east.
“The spirits of earth, we call to you.” I reached into a small pouch and sprinkled some graveyard dirt mixed with tobacco on the sigil, starting in the north, the earthy herb mixture representing the element and also acting as an offering to the lwas.
“We give offerings, as well, to feed your way,” I sprinkled some peanuts over the veve, one of Papa Legba’s favorites, and then took a drink from my flask, spraying spiced rum in three directions—also a favorite of not only the Guardian of the Crossroads but also other spirits. “Does anyone have any coins?” I asked.
As we’d discussed, Hanlen, Larken, and Schuyler came forward with coins, dropping them onto the sigil.
“I, Dev Glapion, descendant of Marie Laveau. I, Devereaux, of many names in the past and in the future, call upon the spirits of this place and to Papa Legba. We ask that we may communicate with you. May we see you, may we hear you, may we photograph you with great respect. Open the way. May I present my friends.” I turned to the group. “Please state your full names.” They each did as requested. “We call upon them. We let you open the way for them to come through today.” I whistled again and smacked my palm left, up, right, and in the middle three times. “Open the way.”
I stood and turned to face the group, smiling. “The way is now open.” I tucked my things into my bag and walked into the courtyard backwards, turning to the camera once I was in shadow. “Things in Vodou and Voodoo are mirror images. Therefore, it’s always more powerful to walk through a portal backwards.” The group followed suit, and once we were all inside, I motioned for the camera guys to cut for a second.
I walked to Hanlen. “Are you okay?” I asked. She looked up at me, her expression a little awed.
“I’m . . . I’m great. That was amazing. I’m still so new to all of this, especially believing in any of it, but there’s no denying the way the things that you and Larken do make me feel. Can I kiss you, or would that be breaking some rule?”
I laughed and wrapped my hand around the nape of her neck, tipping her head back with gentle pressure on her chin with my thumb so I could take her lips. “You can kiss me anytime you want. The lwas love it—they’re all quite randy. And so do I.”
She placed another quick peck to my cheek and stepped away, spinning in a circle to take in the courtyard. “Where are we starting?” she asked.
I gestured for the guys to start recording again, and the whole crew did a walk-through of the house on all levels, doing some quick EVP recording sessions and checking for electromagnetic energy with the K2 meters. We got some voice responses in the master bedroom, the kitchen, and in the old cold storage space off the dining room. Larken got some pretty strong impressions on the widow’s walk, so I told her to set up her Handycam and stay up there to do some automatic-writing work, where she let the spirits use her as a conduit to communicate by scribbling on a notepad. She could hear them, and so could the recorder if they so desired, but sometimes she got great results doing it this way, and it stopped her from being inundated with excessive voices and flashes.
Padre and Sky took the cold storage room since both Lark and I had felt the energy in there was a bit more malignant, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a skeptic and an ex-priest dealing with that. I sent Dakota into the kitchen so she could use her psychometry and read some of the objects in there, and Hanlen and I took the bedroom. Everybody else was in the command center in the corner of the courtyard, keeping watch on all the rooms and the property, observing, waiting, and listening.
“Why don’t you take a seat on the bed?” I said to Hanlen while scanning the space with our thermal imaging camera. “The device I have here,” I said, “records the temperature of objects in the room. If a temperature variance happens, it will show up on the display and record the anomaly. Spirits most often present themselves as cold energy, which renders as shades of blue, so anything that differs from the quote-unquote normal, will show up here.”
I took a seat on a chair near the bed and turned on the voice recorder, setting it on the edge of the night table. “Is there anybody here who would like to communicate with us?” I asked, sweeping the camera over the room. “We don’t mean any disrespect. We’d just like to know who you are and why you remain.” I paused. “Can you tell us your name? If you talk really loudly into that red light there,”—I pointed at the recorder—“we will be able to hear you.” I didn’t usually let on during a show that I could see the departed. They didn’t normally manifest like that to me anyway, especially if I had no connection to them. The only spirits I communicated with in any physical way during a show were the lwas and my family and friends, and that was generally done off-camera.
I glanced at Hanlen and saw her bring her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “Is this your home?” I asked. “We heard you briefly earlier but weren’t sure what you were trying to tell us. Can you repeat that?” I waited and then startled a bit when I heard Hanlen’s voice.
“Are you an Arbor?” she asked. “Are you one of Arborwood’s workers? Are you watching over the property?”
I couldn’t hold back the smile that overtook my face at her joining in on the investigation. “Okay, let’s take a listen to this,” I said and stopped the recording, backing up to the beginning of the session. We listened to the questions without any responses until Hanlen chimed in. Clear as day on the recording, we heard intelligent responses to her inquiries in a soft, feminine voice.
“Are you an Arbor?”
“YES.”
The answers to the last two questions were no and yes respectively. I thought I knew who this might be. I started the recorder again.
“Myrtle Arbor,” I said. “Is that you? . . . Are you still here to see to your kin?” I paused. “Why do you bother the renters while they’re here? . . . They say they see a woman in white a lot in this room and the halls. Is that you?” Another pause. “Is there anything that you need us to do for you?”
“Do you really think this is my many-times-great-grandmother?” Hanlen asked.
“I do,” I said. “From all the research we gathered, she died in the house. In this room, actually. It makes sense. And she was a fierce woman. Extremely protective of those under her care. It seems entirely plausible that she’s our woman in white. That she’d remain to continue her matronly duties.”
