Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 6

  I advanced toward the front door and pressed the doorbell. Westminster chimes choraled from within. The butler I half-expected to appear never arrived. Instead, a barefooted Joni, sporting pajama pants and a loosely fitted purple-and-gold LSU t-shirt, opened the door. Her long, golden curls were now pulled back into a ponytail. She beckoned me inside with a warm smile, a lateral slide, and a gesture toward an equally immaculate, though oddly dated, foyer.

  Taking the clue from her shoelessness, I slipped my loafers off at the door and followed her toward a small room adjacent to the foyer, where tea-for-two had already been prepared. Genuine southern hospitality. The whole house was an extension of that same character. It was like an old southern mansion—elaborate but quaint all at once.

  “Have a seat, darlin’. I’ll be back with the sugar.”

  I sat down. Moments later, Joni reappeared with a paisley-decked porcelain sugar dish in hand. She poured hot tea from a matching teapot into the two identical tea cups already set out on saucers.

  “Sugar, sugar?” she asked, evoking the art of double entendre in an endearing manner that could only be met with a smile.

  “Please.” I wasn’t used to this sort of hospitality. She seemed to sense that I felt out of my element.

  “My momma raised me to welcome a guest with class. Anything you need, don’t you dare hesitate.”

  It was a bit over-the-top, but it was charming nonetheless. “I’m pretty low maintenance,” I responded with a grin of gratitude.

  Joni looked at me incredulously. “You’re a man, hon. Eighteen today, so you best learn it now. All men say they’re low maintenance. But just sayin’ it doesn’t make it so. A man left to his own devices rages against all wisdom.”

  “A southern quip, I suppose?”

  “Only if you live north of Jerusalem, honey. A paraphrase of Proverbs 18. See the prophet Jeremiah, also 18. Left to one’s own devices leaves one in the prison of his own evil heart. You need other people, honey. With what you’re going through now, it couldn’t be more true.”

  “I didn’t know you knew your Bible so well. My adoptive parents would be impressed.”

  “I heed a good word when I hear it.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Most of us men do like to think we’re low maintenance. Truthfully, Emilie usually has her hands full with me.”

  “Emilie. Sweet girl. Real sweet. So why aren’t you two together?”

  “It’s complicated,” I sighed.

  “What do you mean, complicated? Boy likes girl. Boy asks girl out. Complicated comes later. Haven’t you asked her?”

  “More or less. We’ve talked about it.”

  “Mmmhmm… and?”

  “And she said maybe… someday.”

  Joni sat down and looked me straight in the eye. “And while you’re waiting for that ‘someday,’ you’ve got to live, darlin’. ‘Someday’ is no guarantee. Not for anything. Don’t give up today for a tomorrow that may never come. My gran’ pappy used to say if you’re tryin’ to find happiness by looking in the past or into the future, you’ll be blind to true happiness when it stares you in the face today.”

  “Well, it’s just her situation now. She has commitments…”

  “Has she asked you to wait for her? To wait until her situation changes?”

  “Well, no…”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, she doesn’t want to trap me. Doesn’t want to hold me back.”

  “She wants you to be happy.”

  I nodded. Joni’s eyebrows rose as her eyes widened into an expression that seemed to suggest she thought the answer was obvious. It didn’t seem obvious. It was all so complicated. So many mixed emotions. Feelings I couldn’t define. Why were we talking about Emilie, anyway? I tried to change the subject back to the purpose of this visit.

  “So, either I’m the greatest botanist in the history of the world, or you know what’s happening to me.”

  Joni settled into her chair as she swept a stray curl behind her right ear. She took a sip of hot tea. “I don’t know for sure.” She paused. “I do have a theory.”

  “What do you know about all this? Or better, how do you know about this stuff at all?” I asked, not caring particularly which question she tackled first.

  “It all began when I was a little girl growing up in Baton Rouge.”

  “Louisiana?”

  “The one and only. Louisiana is Cajun country. Lots of superstition in those parts. Legends. Stories. Voodoo.”

  “Voodoo, huh?” My countenance probably betrayed my skepticism.

  Joni ignored my cynicism and continued. “You see, all this family wealth”—she glanced around, gesturing at our surroundings—“we come from a long line of plantation owners going back to a century or more before the war.”

  “The Civil War?”

  “Of course. There was an account in one of my ancestor’s journals of two slave girls. One day, they disappeared. Come to find out, the older sister Messalina was responsible. But she was a troubled girl. Had been treated poorly by her former masters. Turned to some dark magic to get revenge…” Joni paused. She inhaled deeply, holding her breath a moment before releasing it.

  I listened intently, offering a friendly grin, as I’d noticed a bit of sweat gathering on her brow.

  “Wealth isn’t the only thing that’s generational down south. In some of the slave families, the Voodoo is, too. Not all Voodoo is evil. Most of it, in fact, is all about balance in nature. But there is a school of Voodoo—the Bokors. It’s technically a red magic, but some people call it dark magic. Maleficium.”

  “And this Messalina, she was a Bokor?”

  “Technically she was a Caplata, a female Bokor. She was very powerful. She mastered the art of necromancy… reanimating the dead.”

  “Necromancy? You mean that stuff is real?”

  Joni nodded. “Most practitioners are diviners. They communicate with the dead. But she went deeper, learned how to reanimate the bodies of the dead. There was an accident. Her sister tried to intervene and stop her from completing a sacrificial rite that would have reanimated other deceased slaves. She wanted to raise an army to murder slave owners. She was going to sacrifice a goat, to arrest its spirit and channel its life into a corpse. But her sister got in the way, and the spell meant to take the goat hit her instead. Messalina panicked and harnessed her sister’s spirit, channeled it into a fetish—a locket. But she didn’t have the power to bring her back to life. So she cast the spell upon herself, imprisoned her own spirit in her bones, and buried herself alive in a grave until she could harness enough energy to appeal to a Loa…”

  “A Loa?” I asked.

  “The gods revered in Voodoo. The Loa she appealed to was the god of the dead. A demon might be a better word for it. When I was fourteen, Messalina came back. She drew upon magic that I didn’t even know I had… and then she came after us. Horrible things happened. Things I don’t talk about… can’t talk about. Things you wouldn’t believe if I did. She went after our family. Struck a curse that made Momma sick. Something they mistook for food poisoning.”

  “And you figured it all out?”

  “Eventually, yes. Like I said, this sorta thing went back generations. Of course, Pa was a skeptic like most people. Figured whatever the legends were based on died out ages ago. But I’d found a name in one of my ancestor’s journals. Someone who had helped stop Messalina back in the 1850s. A Choctaw Shaman. Thundershield was his name. I managed to find one of his descendants, just a few years older than me. One visit to our home, and Momma started getting better. Then he taught me a few tricks. Protection spells. Wards and the like.”

  “And what happened with Messalina? How did you get away?”

  “It’s a long story, but I’ll just say I had some help, and managed to handle it. It didn’t hurt that I had a natural inclination toward magic, too. So I learned what I could.”

  “From the Shaman?”

  “Some. I was only fourteen at the time. Ro
ger—the Shaman, I mean—told me that my family belonged to a long line of ancient Druids. There wasn’t much I could learn, really, but it was a part of my heritage and Roger told me that seeking the mystic arts according to my own heritage would be the surest and simplest path if I was going to stand a chance against Messalina. Problem is, Druids don’t write much down. I learned what I could. It was like a whole new world was open to me. And it was more than curiosity. It was about protecting Momma and Pa. It was about protecting myself.”

  “So, did Messalina ever try anything again?”

  Joni nodded. “She did, not long after the first attack. I thought I was ready for her. I managed to handle Messalina, but not before she struck my momma with another curse, stronger than the first. This time even the Shaman’s magic couldn’t heal her. Been in a coma ever since.”

  “For almost four years? I’m so sorry, Joni. I had no idea…”

  “Yeah. Losing Momma that way, it took a toll.”

  “So, why did you move away?”

  “A few months ago we got a letter from a doctor up here who heard about our case. He believed our story, which was more than I could say for any of the doctors in Louisiana. Thought he could help. Pa and I moved here straight away. Seems like it was the right choice. Momma has been improving. She’ll squeeze mine and Pa’s hand sometimes.”

  “Well, that’s something…”

  “But when I saw what you did, Elijah… it scared me at first. I’ve seen such magic at its worst. But when I saw it was you, well, I know magic at its best, too. I thought we might just be able to help each other out.”

  I exhaled. I didn’t even realize I had been holding my breath. I had a lot of questions for Joni. Questions about her story, her magic. Perhaps those questions would be answered in time. But those questions came from a desire to satisfy my own curiosities above all else. They could wait.

  “Joni, I don’t know what to say. I mean, I don’t even know what’s happening to me, much less how I can help.”

  “If you can help, I’ll be grateful. But don’t put pressure on yourself. Like I said, she’s getting better. Tell me, Elijah, what is your family ancestry?”

  “Well, I don’t know many details. My family died when I was young, and I don’t remember talking about it much. I think Celtic, mostly.”

  Joni’s eyes widened. She shrieked and grabbed my hand. “I know what you are!”

  “Um… you do?”

  “Yes! Well, I think so. If it’s true…”

  “What, Joni?”

  Joni took a deep breath. “You’re a Druid! Like me. Well, technically I’m half-Druid, half something else. Long story. But we’re both Druids!”

  I raised a single eyebrow. She squeezed my hand tighter. She seemed so… convinced. A Druid? All I knew of Druids was from World of Warcraft, and I doubted any of that accorded with reality. I’d heard of them, of course, but mostly as a dead religion of pre-Christian times.

  “You mean… like the ones who built Stonehenge?”

  “Exactly!”

  I leaned back in my chair, casually slipping my hand from her grip. After a moment of contemplation I reached for my tea and took a sip. A fascinating theory… but what did it mean?

  “Druids,” Joni confirmed, “have been around for centuries. They are known to revere the trees. That was my first clue.”

  “So, if I’m a Druid and you are too, are there others like us?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, there are… Mostly, though, orders of Druids today are more about keeping tradition and ceremony than anything else. It’s more like a philosophy, maybe a religion, than a magical art. They wear white robes and conduct ceremonies on Glastonbury Tor. I’ve learned a lot from them, but very few harness any real magic. Still, if the legends are true, even in part, then the most powerful sorcerer ever known was a Druid!”

  I shrugged. I didn’t even know sorcerers ever really existed, much less who the most powerful of them could have been. “Who do you mean?”

  Joni rolled her eyes. “Merlin, of course!”

  I almost spit out the tea I had just sipped. “Seriously? Like King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table? The Sword in the Stone? That Merlin?”

  Joni nodded. “Of course, I never had any way to know if he really existed. So many legends. So many conflicting stories. To what degree any of it conforms to fact, I can’t say.”

  “So, say for the sake of argument, this Druid theory about me is correct…”

  “Then, based on what I saw you do,” Joni interjected, “you might be the most powerful sorcerer since Merlin.”

  “Powerful…” I sighed. The girl in black had spoken of my power, too. “I don’t even know what I’m doing. I don’t even know what I could do.”

  Joni squinted. “I’m not sure, either. Separating truth from legend... Wait right here. I have an idea.”

  Joni dashed from the room and returned with a small potted plant. It looked like one of those Japanese bonsais that Mr. Miyagi was always messing with in the Karate Kid movies. Joni set the plant in front of me and returned to her chair.

  “Elijah,” Joni addressed me with intention in her voice, “remove the necklace for a minute.”

  I looked at her inquisitively. “What does this necklace do, anyway?”

  “It’s basically a magic inhibitor. Not perfect. If I’m right about you, you could easily overpower it. The contents are mostly salt and a few things you’d probably rather not know about. I didn’t make it, it was given to me. The elements it contains, they sort of act like insulators on an electric wire. With enough juice, it can be overcome. But so long as you aren’t running too hot, not totally engaging your will, it should prevent any magical… oops.”

  “Magical oops… Yeah, could be bad.” I set the necklace on the table.

  “Okay. Now try to make the tree move.”

  “Joni, I don’t even know how to begin…”

  “Ask it.”

  What the heck. I felt like an idiot, but gave it a try. “Tree, move!”

  Nothing.

  “Not just with words,” Joni explained. “With your will. Don’t boss the tree around. It isn’t your minion. Ask it. Ask for its help.”

  “Tree, move please!”

  Still nothing.

  “Try again,” Joni insisted, “but really mean it. Focus.”

  “Tree, move pretty please!”

  Joni rolled her eyes. “Next time throw in some sugar and honey on top.”

  I laughed. “I doubt it will respond to bribes. Can’t you just show me how? You’re a Druid too, right?”

  Joni paused, stood up, and began to pace. “My abilities don’t work that way. I can harness energy and channel it if I have access to it, but I can’t call it forth like you did this morning. Try to remember… when that tree flew out of the highway, what did you do?”

  “I can’t say. It was like a reflex… It just happened…”

  Suddenly Joni pivoted on her foot, and with a quick and calculated motion hurled something violently my direction. I raised my hands, ducking out of way. I felt a tingle. I heard a dull thud. Joni was grinning.

  “Joni, what the hell!”

  “Elijah, look…”

  My eyes followed hers. The bonsai had doubled in size. A single branch had grown upward from its base, and out of the branch stuck a silver letter opener. I saw my own image mirrored back in its reflective surface. A green glow emanated from my eyes. I fixated on my reflection as the glow slowly faded back to normal.

  “Holy crap, Joni. How did you know…”

  Joni looked smug. “Call it a hunch?”

  “You just threw a letter opener at my face… on a hunch?”

  Joni shrugged.

  “You are a crazy…”

  “Oh, come off your high horse. It worked, didn’t it?”

  “And if it hadn’t worked, Joni… then what?”

  Joni smiled, and with a wave of her hand dismissed my protest. “Oh, it would have hurt like hell. But I kn
ow a few healing spells. No biggie.”

  This, I thought, is the comedy my life has become. Did she just throw a dagger at my face and say, “No biggie?” I was temporarily at a loss for words. How does one respond to that? She reached and pulled the letter opener from the bonsai’s newly ascended limb.

  “Careful, Joni. You could poke someone’s eye out with that thing.”

  She ignored my jest as she retrieved a plastic bag containing rose-colored, crystallized grains. She took a pinch of the bag’s contents and began sprinkling it in a circle around the bonsai.

  I tilted my head. “What are you doing?”

  “Showing you how your infamous I-64 oak managed to… flee the scene of the crime.”

  I watched as she completed the circle. She traced the path with her finger to bridge any gaps between the grains. She stepped back, following the circle with her eyes from a distance. She had an impressive focus, unlike any expression I had ever seen on her typically jovial face. Then I saw a sort of green luminescence emerge from the tree, spiraling away from it as if caught in a whirlwind. As more green light was extracted from the tree, the bonsai gradually returned to its previous size. The green glow continued to spin until it settled into the rose-colored ring. Joni’s focused gaze disappeared, and an expression of accomplishment took its place.

  My jaw dropped as I looked at her with wide eyes. “Wow. How did you do that?”

  She lifted the bag of pink stuff. “Salt. Neutralizes and absorbs pretty much anything magic. Any salt will do. But this is Himalayan salt. Purer. More efficient. Technically I can siphon the magic directly, but if I don’t cast it immediately it becomes difficult to control. Using the salt lets me store it just in case I might need it later.”

  “And you did that to my tree this morning, too?”

  “Yup. Have an emergency store of salt in the car. Never know when it might come in handy.”

  “Wow, thanks. I mean, if that tree didn’t disappear…”

  “If that tree was still there”—Joni hesitated a moment—“someone would have tracked you down. There are people out there. Bad people. They would have used you.”