Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
“You’ve always been such a good boy. I’m so glad I could help you get things back in order with Faith. Merry Christmas.”
“Uh. Thank you.” I tried not to stare at her heads. They gazed at the snow with pure enjoyment as if they’d never gotten outside much. “Thank you for helping Faith and me, but next Christmas I would just like a package of socks or a fruit cake. Maybe, just a card.”
A cackle left the hole in her head-face. “Oh no. I want me another grandbaby. It must happen. A little baby girl.”
“We don’t need any help with that, if we decide to take it there.”
“You will take it there. I’ve seen it many nights. And there’s nothing wrong with a little push in the right direction.”
Dear God. They say you should be careful with what you wish for. Have I wished for too much this year?
She chanted a weird sentence over and over. Light sparked in the air, illuminating the space. Red blood seeped out on the ground in a line that stained the snow.
Addie Mae pointed to the ground. “The land will lead us to her.”
So many questions spun around in my head.
I silenced them.
It seemed like the more I asked questions and received answers, the less I understood.
Save Faith. Get us out of the snow. Think about this stuff when I have a bottle of liquor.
We followed the trail of blood. I stumbled and shivered. She continued to slither. And I guess since I hadn’t raced away, she decided to be more open. Which was the moment I’d pretty much had enough information for the evening. All I wanted to do was find Faith, make sure she was safe, and then crawl under a blanket and lay in the fetal position.
I may even suck my thumb. That’s how fucked in the head I am right now. I’m going to return to sucking my thumb.
Addie Mae continued her story like we were walking on a summer day and heading to a picnic. “Remington loved a girl that didn’t even like him. I can never forget her name. Margarite.”
Margarite? Why does that sound so familiar?
“She was a little Black girl that had barely turned eighteen. I think she went to school with you all. Probably graduated a year ahead of Faith and you.”
“Margarite,” I muttered it under my breath. “I knew her. Hold on. That was Brett’s ex-girlfriend.”
“Yes.” The heads on her back grimaced. “Remington loved that girl. I don’t know what she did, but she did something big, when he spotted her. That boy couldn’t get the Black girl off is mind. He came to me and I shouldn’t have even took the job, but graduation was coming up. Bills were due. And Faith had that hopeless look in her eye like she would never see the world. I took the money. It was a lot of money.”
“How much?”
“I bought my house with it and helped Faith go to art school. That’s how much money it was.”
“So? Was Margarite with Brett at the time?”
“Yes, but I had no idea. I was just helping this white boy with some girl. He lied and said she was single. Had I known, I would’ve never messed with it all. Margarite and Brett might’ve had a clear path set out by the universe. My hoodoo might’ve messed with it.”
I rummaged through my head, picking through mental files and flipping through pages. “What happened to Margarite?”
She twisted that head-face my way. The hole for the mouth thinned and then curved into a frown. And all the heads around the hole saddened too. “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” Shock hit me. “How?”
“I killed her with my spell.”
I stopped on the path of blood-stained snow.
“I didn’t mean to.” She kept on slithering forward.
I hurried after her. “But how?”
“I started the tea for Remington. Somehow, he found a way to slip it into that poor girl’s body every day. I often wonder how he did it. Did he follow her around and have someone give it to her each day? She’d been with Brett. How did Remington get close to her?”
I tried to make sense of it too. “The Townsons own most of the diners and restaurants downtown. In my day, teens spent all their time down there.”
“That could’ve been one way.” The head-face nodded. “Maybe he had the waiters pour it in a drink that she ordered.”
Still confused, I asked. “The tea killed her? But it didn’t hurt Brett or me.”
“The tea wasn’t enough for Remington. That’s what I’m trying to say. The tea broke Brett and Margarite up, and I know now that it was the wrong thing to do. I was the practitioner that altered the path, and because of that, I had to pay.”
“Pay with what?”
She ignored that question and continued, “Brett lost his twin flame. His soul mate. I’m just guessing. But he lost someone significant in his life and because of that, the path guided him to Faith.”