The Witch of Bourbon Street Read online

  Jack.

  He was deep in the cypress trees where Millie and I used to play when we were little, heading toward the lean-to hidden on the right banks of Sorrow Bay. He didn’t see me. I smiled to myself. “What you up to, boy? An adventure?”

  I left him there. Confident that he’d be safe, that all boys about to turn thirteen should feel wild and free.

  And when I got back home, ready to settle in, that’s when I saw the boat full of trouble heading my way. I put down my basket of phlox and picked up my gun.

  7

  Sippie and the Meat Boys

  Sippie opened her eyes. Just like all the other times she “flew” with Crow, she felt queasy. But this time, it was a bigger sort of feeling. She was close this time, so close to what she always wanted, she could almost reach out and touch it. Like the brass ring on the merry-go-round Simone took her to once when she was little and they were happy and safe.

  She slowly packed up her few belongings. “I have to tell Eight Track where I’m going. And maybe … maybe he’ll finally get his act together if he knows that I know.” She dumped a box of costume jewelry into a bag; stuffed in some of her short, second dresses and torn leggings. She found the other red Chuck, even though she didn’t really want to look under the bed. After all, how could she face her real mother without wearing her red sneakers? She had standards.

  She threw the bag over her shoulder and went to find Eight Track. But when she got to St. Mark’s Square, he wasn’t there—which worried her more than she cared to think on. He’d been looking thinner lately, weaker. It had been a solid two months since she’d seen him, and last time he had said, “The liver can take only so much.”

  It was so hot out, the air felt like it was burning holes in her eyes. She took the back streets to 13 Bourbon, so she could get herself a little piece of luck from the Lost Girl of August. She’d loved that tomb by the Ursuline Convent since she was a little girl and Eight Track had first told her the story, what there was of it. “We lost girls together,” she’d whisper, and tap the cool marble twice, for luck.

  She’d been to 13 Bourbon before. Too many times to count. She had always felt like a spy, peering in through the windows, pretending to be fascinated by the faded posters inside, advertising tours. Swamp tours, ghost tours, haunted New Orleans tours, voodoo tours, even “Authentic Witch” tours. That was the one that caught her eye. The illustration of the woman reading tarot cards—of Frances reading tarot cards. “Meet the cursed Sorrow witches and have your fortune told LIVE right here on 13 Bourbon Street! But be warned! These ladies don’t lie!” Then, in fine print across the bottom: “By appointment only.” Just looking at Frances was like looking in a mirror. But even though she’d known, she’d still needed Crow to spell it out for her.

  These are my people, she thought to herself, trying to find a little courage in her deep well of sarcasm. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said, standing in front of the big green doors, staring at the gold “13” right above the mermaid-tail knocker. Everything was different now. The times she’d been here before, she was only guessing she belonged here, to this building, to these people. But now she knew. All of this was part of her. Every part of her wanted to run away. But she couldn’t run anymore.

  She opened the door and walked in. She was one step closer to Frances.

  Inside, it was cool and dark. A flight of old stairs rose in front of her to a second-floor hallway lined with doors. To her left was a tourist trap magic shop. People milled about, bumping into round wire postcard holders and shelves of fake voodoo doll kits. No one was behind the counter. There was a torn sign taped up: RING FOR SERVICE. She grabbed a map that read, BAYOU TOURS: TIVOLI PARISH, and walked back to the foyer where it opened upon a cozy lobby. She continued through the large archway that led to the bar. She hoped Abe was there. She could go for some gumbo and a root beer. It was still fairly empty. Just the bartender and a few loud twenty-something boys drinking too much, too early.

  All of me … why not take all of me…, she heard from some far-off memory. She shook the sound out of her head.

  “Hey there, Sippie! Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age. What brings you round today? You need something?” asked Abe. He always reminded her of a younger, happier Eight Track.

  “Hey, Abe.” She smiled, walked up to the bar, and sat on a stool, spinning a little as she did.

  “If you’ve finally gotten up the courage to meet with one of the Serafinas, you’re out of luck. They’re all back in the bayou getting ready for their big celebration.”

  “That’s just it, Abe. It’s not about courage anymore. Now I got no choice. I got to go where they are.”

  “Why you got to go there, little lady?”

  “This one here, this one’s Frances, right?” asked Sippie, pointing to the laminated poster fixed to the side of the big, gold, old-fashioned cash register. For some reason, it always reminded Sippie of an organ grinder.

  “Dat’s right,” Abe confirmed, picking up a glass and drying it with a perfectly white towel. “But you never asked for her before. And she don’t come here. Gave up on all this hoodoo years ago, before I took over this bar. Your daddy knows her, though. Knew her real good when she was growin’ up. How’s Eight Track doin’, anyway?”

  Sippie tried to answer but couldn’t.

  “Still can’t find him?”

  “I’m scared he might have gone and died, Abe,” she whispered.

  “I kept tryin’ to tell him to come back and work here with me. But he just wouldn’t. Strange. And if he’s gone, Sippie, maybe he’s better off. All those years I watched him, that big strong man, get smaller and smaller.”

  Sippie didn’t think it was strange. She already knew part of why he couldn’t bring himself to go anywhere near 13 Bourbon. And why he’d always forbidden her to go as well. It was where Simone made her final mistake.

  She shivered.

  “Okay, sugar, let’s change this sorry subject. Now, I know Frances pretty well, Sippie. She’s hard. A hard woman with a name that suits her. Full of Sorrow, that one. I’m not sure surprising her would be the best idea.”

  “Come on, Abe. Just take me. None of these maps you have in this tourist trap even have Serafina’s Bayou listed.”

  “The Sorrows like it that way, cha.”

  “Abe, I got to go. I got some news about Jack.”

  Abe put the glass down hard. “Something wrong with her boy?”

  Her boy … that would make Jack Sippie’s brother if what she thought was true was true. And it was.

  “I’m not sure, that’s why I’m here.” Knowing that this Jack person belonged to her as well, Sippie’s sense of urgency grew.

  “Well now, that’s different.”

  “Is there some way I can get to her?”

  “Well, how ’bout I go make a call, and then we can see what she says. If she says you gotta go out there to the bayou, then I’ll wait for my shift to end and take you myself. How’s that sound? I head out there every Monday anyway to bring the Serafinas up to date and pick up fresh produce from the gardens. They got the special ingredients that been makin’ people come back for this same gumbo for a hundred years or so. Going a day early won’t hurt. But give me a few minutes, Sippie. I can’t call straight through, got to leave a message with whoever is manning the bar at the Voodoo … now that place. You could lose your whole life inside there.”

  Or find it, thought Sippie.

  “And then if we can’t reach her, I’ll give you one of the rooms upstairs for the night, and I’ll take you there myself in the morning. She won’t be mad if it’s about Jack. You sure he’s not in real trouble? I could call—”

  “All I know is it’s got to be me that tells her.”

  I can’t stay the night here. Not here. Not where Simone …

  “All righty, then. You watch the register for me while I go try to get someone on the phone.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Abe. Can I have a root beer? On the house?�
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  “Sho’ can. You want some gumbo, too? It’s just finishing up its first boil. Guaranteed to make you feel lighter on the inside.”

  “On the house?”

  “You bet.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “See those boys down at the end of the bar? You don’t let them bother you. Troublemakers. Born and raised in Tivoli, people round them parts call the “The Tivoli Trash,” but they ain’t got nothin’ inside of them. They always hanging around.…”

  “I’ll be fine … I can hold my own, I always have.”

  “You know something, Sippie? I swear, I never noticed it before, but you have a little of the shine, don’t you? You a Serafina? We ain’t had a new one of them here in a long while. It’s good to see a young one! I’ll go get your gumbo and make that call. Here’s your root beer.”

  I got to get there quicker somehow, she thought.

  As soon as Abe went into the kitchen, those troublemaking boys meandered over to Sippie.

  One of them, “the handsome one,” said, “You know them?” pulling the poster off the register.

  “Hey!” said Sippie. “That don’t belong to you. You slow or somethin’?”

  “Mayyybeeee heeee isssss sloowww,” responded another, even less handsome than the original. This one looked like he’d eaten the entire state of Mississippi. They reminded her of every mean kid she ever went to school with.

  In ten years, you’ll be nothing.

  “So, do you know them or not?” the boy asked again.

  Sippie decided to take a chance. She might regret it, but she needed to get to Frances, fast. Faster than that convoluted way Abe was trying. Call here, maybe there … later … Nope.

  “You boys from Tivoli Parish ain’t you? Why you so interested in these witches if you come from where they come from?” she said.

  “Not all of them, Just that one there. The one who hides. She’s supposed to be the real deal. Been trying to get her to tell our futures. Can’t get close, though.”

  “Well, it just so happens that I need a ride. You think you can rip yourselves away from this”—she glanced around the empty bar—“huge party, and take me?”

  “That depends.…” The fat one leered.

  “On what?”

  “If we take you there, you got to promise she’ll give us what we want. “

  “Sure I will, don’t you know? I’m on my way to her right now. She’s expecting me.”

  The boys huddled up, discussing. Sippie knew she was risking a lot, but she figured if they were real jerks, she’d find a way out and be halfway there. Besides, she wouldn’t lead them to Frances. When they got to Tivoli Parish, she’d lose them and find her way into the bayou. Sippie was good at shaking off men with evil intentions. It was a skill she’d had to hone for years.

  She wrote Abe a note. A clever one.

  “Them boys left without paying their tab. I decided I had to find out once and for all what happened to Eight Track before I left. Sorry if the gumbo goes to waste. Best, Sippie.”

  “You ready, little lady?” asked the fat one.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said, walking out after them and back out into the heat.

  “I’m Stew,” he said. “And this here’s Chuck.” He pointed to the almost handsome one. “And that one with the keys? He’s T-Bone.”

  “How long does it take to get there?” she asked, climbing into the backseat of their four-door truck.

  “Want a beer?” Chuck asked as they were heading out of town.

  “Sure,” she said. She listened to their stupid talk while she slowly drank her beer. Soon they were crossing the wide water, and she started to feel dizzy and slow. Everything blurred.

  Dammit, Sippie, you know better!

  “What did you do to me?” she asked, her voice sounding far away in her ears. She tried to open the car door, not caring that it was moving fast. When one of them, Stew maybe, reached over to stop her, she bit him, hard. Then he hit her right in the side of her head with a closed fist.

  Well, that’s one sort of answer, she thought before she passed out.

  She drifted in and out of consciousness, relieved she still had clothes on. They must have continued to hit her because she felt sore on her arms and legs. One of them threw a beer can at the red-haired one—what was his name … Stew, Chuck, T-Bone? They sounded like a meat lover’s buffet—who was sitting in the backseat with her, and it hit him.

  “Hey! T-Bone, she’s the target, not me! Watch it!” The fat one, Chuck, answered by throwing a lit cigarette back there, too. They were drunk and clearly acting more reckless than they’d planned. Sippie couldn’t help laughing. Meat heads … oh God, it was so funny, really. Did they even know … T-Bone reached back and pulled her hair hard, slamming her head against the side window.

  “We in it now boys! Didn’t plan on this but can’t turn back now. Just don’t hit her too hard! Not the face or that witch will know.…”

  “She gonna know already or she’s no kind of witch, we just gotta change our plans. She’ll read our fortunes and then we’ll all take turns” Sippie passed out again.

  She woke when they stopped someplace called Pete’s Gas and Imports. Sippie wanted to yell for help, but she couldn’t move her arms or legs. Whatever they put in her beer had made her into jelly. T-Bone went inside.

  “Got it,” he said, jumping back into the driver’s seat with a six-pack.

  As they drove, beer cans and insults flew out the windows, Chuck and Stew trying to hit passersby as they drove out of town.

  I’m supposed to bring her a message and find a home. Instead I’m bringing her trouble. I’m so sorry, Frances. For the first time during the whole ordeal, Sippie felt like she might cry, and she didn’t want to give those fools the satisfaction. She focused hard on trying to push the fear away. And then everything became clear inside the fog. Jack. Something was going to happen to him. Something bad. And maybe she hadn’t been stupid at all, maybe she’d changed fate. Brought the bad on herself to save her brother.

  The truck pulled over near a sign that read: TRINITY BRIDGE. “Get one of them boats untied, fool! We got to hustle! There’s people comin’!” Chuck shouted.

  They shoved her in the boat and started up the motor. As they sped away, Sippie heard people shouting.

  “Damn Tivoli Trash stealin’ boats now, too?” and “They headin’ toward Sorrow Hall!”

  “Danny and Old Jim are down in Destin, trawlin’. You gonna radio them?”

  “Yeah, I’m headed to the Voodoo now. Danny’s s’posed to be callin’ in anyway, but they’re at least a week out on the Gulf.”

  Please hear me, please.

  Sippie hoped against hope that these Sorrow witches were all they were cracked up to be.

  Hear me … Frances. I’m on my way, but I brought a literal boatload of trouble. I’m so sorry I didn’t think this through better. I forgot to look for the exit sign.

  She passed out again, waking only when she felt the boat bang against a dock. She felt the boys go stiff before she sat up slowly and looked around. Two of them were on the dock already, one was standing with one foot in and one foot out of the boat. But there, where the land rose a bit above the dock, was Frances. She looked just like she had in Sippie’s dream, only better, fiercer. Because she had her finger resting on the trigger of the biggest shotgun Sippie’d ever seen.

  “You want me to tell you your futures, boys?” Frances called out from behind the barrel, squinting hard so they knew she was a good shot. “Well, I don’t need no magic to do that. You step one more foot on my land and you ain’t got none. You hear?”

  Looking up at her, Sippie felt a safety she hadn’t felt before.

  “Now, you lift out that beauty you been abusin’ real careful like, show her the respect she deserves.”

  The red-haired boy lifted her out, trembling, and laid her on the docks.

  “Now I’ll give you what you boys came here for. I see you runnin’ deep
into the bayou afraid I’m gonna get the police after you, or your daddy’s who I know will beat you senseless like you beat this girl. Only I’m not going to do that, see … what happens next is that I find you while you sleep, and none of you don’t never wake up. That’s what you came for and that’s what you got. Now go! Git!”

  Then those fools took off quick. Sippie tried to get up on her own, but her body gave out when she tried to stand up.

  “Shit,” said Frances, putting down the gun and rushing to Sippie’s side.

  “Don’t you worry,” she said with a warmth that finally made Sippie break down and cry. “I got you. You’re safe. I got you.”

  She pulled Sippie up, managing to half carry her to a porch that was lit with candles, even though it was broad daylight. Frances propped her up in a comfortable wooden rocker piled up with colorful pillows. And Sippie fell back into oblivion.

  She woke again only a few minutes later to the sound of a speedboat racing up to the docks. Frances came out of the little cottage, ready for a fight.

  “Oh, it’s you. What you doin’ here, JuneBug?” Frances yelled, walking with purpose down to the dock and picking up her gun, not aiming it but making a point. “I’m busy!”

  “Just thought I’d come on by, worried those boys might’ve done some harm, is all. Don’t get yer panties in a bunch!”

  “Does it look like I been harmed?”

  “What about dat gal on your gallery, Frankie? They harm her?”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “Should I call the law?”

  “I got them so scared they gonna need diapers. I’ll take care of the girl, and that Tivoli Trash, too.”

  “You takin’ in strays these days? Danny won’t like it.”

  “I could give a hot damn, Junie. When you radio him with this mess … Don’t try to tell me you won’t! You can’t help yourself, and I forgive you. You just tell my ex-husband I’m just fine, and that petite chère I got visiting seems like a lost soul to me. And this place”—she gestured wildly at the ruins of the old Sorrow property—“is the perfect place for lost souls to wash up. Lost souls on lost shores. That’s the way it is. The way it’s always been. Leave. Us. Be.”