The Voodoo That You Do Read online

  “So this is like a princess curse,” Rye continued. “We need a fairy or something.”

  “We need a voodoo priest or priestess who can talk to the entity. The problem is, I have no idea where to find one.”

  Rye patted her silvery hair thoughtfully. “Will a ninja do?”

  “I’d accept a kid with a mail-order throwing star at this point, so sure, bring on the ninja. How do you, uh, know a ninja?”

  “I met him when I was a counselor at camp Copperfield. We called it Camp Cop-a-Feel.” She snorted into her drink.

  “He was a counselor?”

  Rye smiled. Suddenly she looked older, smarter and much more sober. “No, a kid. With a mail-order throwing star.”

  Chapter Four

  I was moping over a bowl of oatmeal and coming up with reasons not to do my morning yoga when my phone rang.

  “Is this Jinx?” A man’s voice, one I didn’t recognize. Or did I? It was too early to tell without more coffee. “It’s Cole. We met yesterday at the prenup.”

  The cute lawyer with the floppy hair. I wondered what he wanted from me. Did I sign my name on the wrong line?

  “Rye gave me your number. I hope this isn’t presumptuous, but I was wondering whether you’re free today. I’m new in town and I could use someone to show me around.”

  I shoved away the oatmeal. “Yup! I happen to be free today.”

  “Great!”

  Even better, I thought while ending the call, dreamy lawyer guy could take me to the Mayday Barbecue Festival. I’d seen posters up in the town square and the event promised beer, music and all the smoked pig I could stuff in my mouth.

  I went upstairs for my workout, shower and costume selection. The look today would not be Broke-Ass Realness but Small Town Princess. I examined my closet with care and chose a yellow summer dress. Okay, my only summer dress. My only dress. What do you want? When you shop thrift your choices are limited. My vintage straw purse was a little catawampus but I brushed away the spiders and came back down to stuff it with sunglasses, phone, tissues, pen (you never know), lipstick and a bottle of water. A small “ahem” interrupted my preparations.

  “Not now, Mojo, I’ve got a date.”

  “Shouldn’t you be cautious, with the deadline so close?”

  “Pfft. No one’s going to snatch me in front of a crowd of gaping rednecks with barbecue sauce on their faces. Anyway, Cole can be trusted. He’s Rye’s family lawyer. She’s probably known him for years. You’d like him, he looked very smart drawing up papers, sitting there all cute in his little glasses. Did I mention he wears glasses?”

  “And where do you suppose Rye is right now? At home alone painting her hideous talons while you go gallivanting with the family solicitor?”

  “In Charleston shopping for naughty underwear with one of her bridesmaids. I told her to stay in touch. Relax.”

  “Yellow is not your color.”

  “You can’t bring me down, Mojo,” I sang, heading out the door.

  *****

  Cole looked nice, maybe too nice for an outdoor event in Asswallop, where pajamas were an accepted outfit for grocery shopping. Suit, tie, little glasses, floppy hair. He took my arm as we strolled into the town square. The smell of roasting pig and woodsmoke filled the air.

  We rolled up at random booth and ordered two plates of ribs, potato salad and hush puppies. I thought I should probably look for a salad but there wasn’t a green thing to be found unless it was growing out of the ground. We got beers, found a spot under a tree and sat. My stomach gurgled at me, annoyed. I hadn’t eaten since the nachos fiesta at Rye’s the day before.

  “Mm, this smells great,” I said. “I want it in my mouth so bad.”

  Shit. Seriously, Jinx, were you raised in a cave?

  “Sorry, I don’t normally say dirty things to guys I just met. Not on purpose, anyway.”

  Cole laughed. “That’s okay. I like that in a girl.”

  I forked in some potato salad so I didn’t look like too much of a pig-devouring pig. “I expected you to say, ‘That’s what she said’.”

  A look of confusion crossed his face but he shook it off and smiled again. He had nice eyes, gray with friendly crinkles at the corners. “I don’t follow.”

  “It’s a pop-culture thing. Kind of dated.”

  “Oh. I don’t really follow pop culture. I’m a book guy myself.”

  I knew those glasses meant he was smart! I am so good at picking boyfriends. As a reward for my genius, I tore into a rib.

  “So what brings you to town?”

  “Business. For a lawyer, it’s always business.”

  Boring. I didn’t want to hear about torts and briefs and such. His briefs? Maybe. He was awfully cute and polite, but not mouth-wateringly sexy. More boyfriend material than fantasy fuel. I was pretty sure he wore boxers anyway. That kind always does.

  “That makes sense. Well-paying jobs are hard to come by here.”

  “I’ve seen what you do. Well, I saw the neon sign, anyway. Ghastly thing.”

  I tried not to bristle at that. I really like my sign. “How long will you be in Assflap?”

  “What? Oh, here? I’m not sure yet. I have a lot to do.”

  So poor Cole was staying alone in that big dumb house, surrounded by garish white furniture, listening to Rye shriek for more this, more that while Yasmina scurried. It waslike theReal Housewives version of a haunted castle.

  “Well, I can keep you occupied until then. There’s a pancake breakfast this weekend, and some good antiquing out on Route 15…”

  That’s when it hit me that I would be doing none of this stuff. With the exception of this little outing, I was in full-time protect-Rye mode. I dabbed at the sides of my mouth and changed the subject. My plate was empty. Cole’s plate was full. Oink, oink. Oh well, in for an ounce, in for five pounds.

  “I’m going for ice cream. Can I get you anything? Another beer?”

  He shook his head. My phone rang. It was Rye, crying as if the world had ended. I gave up on my dream of a double strawberry cone.

  “What’s wrong?” I gestured to Cole and stood, walking a few paces away.

  “It’s me! I’m wrong. I wanted the baby blue bralet and panty set but they only had one left in my size and when I was in the dressing room Jayda bought it and now she’s a rat—“

  “Rye, slow down. Just go to another store or something.”

  Really, to call me with trivial crap like this was exactly why I didn’t want to get involved with a Whoo! Girl. Everything is the end of the freaking world to these drama queens.

  “I don’t have a ride,” she sniffled. “’Cause Jayda’s a rat.”

  “I get that she did a shitty thing…”

  “A real rat! Four legs, tail, whiskers. I was so mad I put the purple zap on her and the next thing I knew, she nibbled through my cup and frappuccino went everywhere.”

  I froze on the grass in the middle of the town square, people moving around me like paper cutouts. Nothing seemed real. My brain was cracking in two.

  The purple zap, like the one she’d threatened her maid with, the zippy metabolism. Sometimes I think I’m the dumbest human being ever to walk this planet. I apologized to Cole, telling him it was an emergency and I had to rescue a friend. Of all the fake-sounding excuses to get out of a date, but he was kind about it.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “You’re loyal. I like that in a girl.”

  I hightailed back to the shop to get my car and speed all the way to Charleston without stopping for red lights.

  Rye was a witch and she didn’t even know it.

  Chapter Five

  We were seated around my kitchen table—Rye, unwitting witch in false eyelashes; Jayda, formerly a curvy blonde with a nose piercing and currently a pale yellow rat; Mojo the snarky floating head and me, doomed psychic. Just an ordinary gathering over coffee and cookies.

  There was no use yelling at her or demanding to know how she could have overlooked the tiny fact that
SHE’S A GODDAMN WITCH… ugh, I was getting angry again. I took a deep breath and waited for her sobs to subside before asking her how long she’d been able to enrat folks.

  “A long time. I’d get really mad and my hands would start to tingle, like I was being electrocuted, and then lavender light would start kind of zipping around my arms. I called it ‘the purple zap’.” Ruefully, she chomped into a cookie. “But I’ve never done anything as bad as this. Never! Jayda, you have to believe me.”

  Jayda twitched her nose, beady eyes on the cookie.

  “Can you reverse it?”

  “I don’t know how. I can’t control it. Stuff just…happens.”

  “You can,” Mojo intoned from his crystal cage. “I can help you control the power and put this creature back in its proper form.”

  Jayda nuzzled the ball and Mojo giggled.

  “What do you know about witchcraft, Mojo?”

  “Many things,” he said, “although I am not an adept myself. It was a witch who ensorcelled me hundreds of years ago. I spent my formative bodiless years in her company, traveling through our native Russia frightening children and enchanting woodsmen and such.” He sighed. “Good times.”

  “I thought you were French. You wear a beret so well.”

  “That I do. But I am Russian.” He popped a fur hat onto his head. “Baba Yaga saw fit to make me her companion and I never complained until she threatened to smash the crystal and destroy me. I sang ‘Kalinka-Malinka’ off-key, it seems.”

  “I found you in a flea market in Alabama.”

  “For which I am grateful.”

  “Wait!” Rye’s eyes were bright, and not with tears this time. “Baba Yaga? Does she dress like she’s in an aerobics video from the ‘80s?”

  “I couldn’t say,” said Mojo primly.

  “That’s her! She’s the one who gave me my powers. I must have been about twelve. I was at a school dance and Becky TempletonstoleAiden Cartwright while I was in the bathroom, becausesome people are bad friends and steal stuff while you’re not looking.” She shot Jayda the rat a poisonous glare. “So I was outside the gym crying and then a lunch lady in a Flashdance top came up and asked what I wanted. Which was the power to destroy stupid idiots, obvs. Ever since then, I’ve had the purple zap.”

  “A lunch lady in a Flashdance top?”

  Rye shrugged. “She wore a hairnet. Seemed legit.”

  “So she’s here in Assfunkle? Mojo, do you realize what this means? We can get you free. You’ll be human again! Uh, if you ever were.”

  “I was,” he said with dignity. “And mortal. I would like to see her again, but, odd as this may sound, I prefer everlasting life to clipping my toenails.”

  He meant he was happy being my sounding board, friend, instructor and number one boon companion, the sentimental old fool.

  “It clears up one thing, you having magic,” I said to Rye. “I think Mr. Doll is trying to up his power by collecting an army of special wives—witches, psychics, shifters too, I suppose, and vampires. Whatever’s out there.”

  “Ohmygod, I want a vampire boyfriend so bad!”

  Moving on. “So what else can you do?”

  “Not much. Usually they just yell ‘Ouch!’. Though a waiter at China Palace broke all the bones in his foot when they ran out of kung pao chicken.”

  I sighed. “Mojo, you and Rye go work on getting Jayda back to normal. I’m going to…” What was I going to do? Until I heard from the baby ninja, there wasn’t much on my plate except burping up barbecue and freaking out.

  “Find Baba Yaga,” said Mojo. “She may know something about curses.”

  *****

  Rye had told me this ancient, powerful crone could be found at a mini-mall just outside town limits, so I headed over and scanned the signs. Puppy Love Pets, For Her Jewelry, Koo’s Dry Cleaning, Jazztastic Fitness…

  Way to take a style choice all the way.

  I peeked into the window at Jazztastic and there she was, leading a class in a grapevine. Some old crone! She looked to be in her thirties and wore purple Spandex leggings, a pink leotard cut way too high over the hips and a blue glittery sweatband around her head. She was in pretty fantastic shape for her age, which according to Mojo was in the hundreds if not thousands. I really should dig up those five-pound dumbbells and get my lift on.

  I waited outside the classroom until the music stopped and she emerged, mopping her neck with a pink towel.

  “Baba Yaga?” I whispered. It didn’t seem like a name you should go shouting around in an aerobics studio.

  “I’m going by Barb now,” she said, peering at me closer than I liked. In contrast to her body and face, her eyes were old, very clever and not particularly kind. More like terrifying. I felt as if she could see right through me. Which she could. “And how do you know me? You’re not one of us.”

  The last word came out like a hiss. At the sound, my vision blurred and my stomach dropped, as if I had crested a roller coaster and plunged toward earth. I saw something fuzzily moving amid a forest of green—no, an actual forest. It looked like an old wooden house on giant chicken legs, and smelled like evil. I blinked to scatter the vision like marbles, but the fear was still curled in my belly, a serpent waiting to bite.

  “A witch?” I squeaked. “Ha ha, no. Not me. Not a witch. Nope. But I do have a friend you gave powers to. Pretty blonde, about yea high, a dozen or so years ago. There was a lunch lady scenario—“

  She began to brush past me. She smelled like gingerbread and spite. “I don’t do that anymore. You want powers, find another sucker.”

  I stopped her. “I’m not looking for powers, just information. You see, I was cursed by a minor voodoo entity, and I kind of want to back out of it.”

  “Voodoo? Not my scene. Anyway, their curses are pretty much unbreakable. A witch can’t help.”

  “It was a witch who arranged it, a voodoo priestess, but still, the powers must overlap some.”

  “Wasn’t me. Look, I got cardio-funk at three.”

  “Name of Serafina.”

  She paused, her scary eyes curious. “Serafina? That swamp mambo with the sweet ride? What do you want with her?”

  “To talk with her, see if she can undo the curse.”

  Baba Yaga crouched down to retie the laces on her blinding white shoes. I barely heard her when she said, “Good luck with that, sister. She’s dead.”

  Chapter Six

  Nothing keeps a Whoo! Girl down. Not finding a place to have fun in a crummy little town, not turning her best friend into a rat, not finding out she’s destined to be the bride of Yuckula. Well, maybe a bad hair day.

  “We are getting in trouble tonight! Whoo!” Rye tipped back her Jack-and-ginger and drained it.

  Mojo had figured out how to reverse the spell. Jayda handed over the blue bralet and panty set and called her parents to get her back to Charleston and pick up her car and her dignity, and we were out for a night on the town. Sweet Willie’s was hopping for a weekday night, mostly because there was nowhere else to go. Boot-scooters were scooting their boots on the dance floor, brown stuff was being poured into glasses and I was sitting at a table in the back with a head in a ball on the chair beside me. He likes to get out once in a while. This time he wore a cowboy hat and a condescending smirk.

  “Don’t beg to come along if you’re going to be such a snob,” I told him.

  “It’s this music,” he sniffed. “’Heartbreak’ does not rhyme with ‘fast lane’.”

  “He’s cute,” Rye giggled. She had been surprisingly okay with making the acquaintance of my snarky sensei, especially after he put on the top hat to greet her.

  “Pfft. He’s just an otherworldly entity trapped in enchanted crystal. And he’s kind of a jerk.”

  “I mean him.” She nodded toward the bar and patter her shining hair.

  Gah. Tall, dark and glowery from the gas station. He was sitting at the end, big muscular arms crossed on the bar, an untouched glass before him, lookingfiiine. Same
dark T-shirt, same longish rock-star hair, same amazing eyes.

  He caught me looking and I choked on an ice cube in that flirty, tempting way I have.

  Rye hit my arm. “He’s coming over!”

  He ambled lazily toward our table but his long strides had him there in seconds, which was not enough time for me to swipe on lipstick or cover Mojo with a napkin.

  “Hi, I’m Rye.” She pouted and twirled a strand of hair. Where do girls learn these tricks and how much are lessons?

  He nodded politely and smiled at me. “Draven. May I sit down?”

  Mojo, that ass, was preening under a top hat. I slapped my hand over his face.

  “Of course. So, you, uh, come here often?”

  “Apparently not often enough.”

  He was sitting very close to me, our thighs touching. Or maybe not close enough. Hard to tell. He was also looking into my eyes and I felt myself melting into a puddle of goo.

  “Black hair and blue eyes,” he rumbled. “That’s lucky in my religion.”

  “We’re Southern Baptist,” said Rye. “We’re taught to submit to men.”

  “Rye!”

  “What? It’s in the Gospels.” Finally, she figured out she should cut her losses. She slipped Mojo into her purse and headed to the ladies’ room.

  I turned back to Draven. “So do you work here in town?” What was a walking wet dream doing in Asstrap, WVa?

  “I fix cars when I can get paid for, and sometimes when I can’t. There are a lot of people who depend on their trucks, so I take care of them.”

  “You sound like a good man.”

  “No, I’m bad,” he said somberly. “I'm rotten and I shouldn’t be here, drinking cheap rum and trying to see down your blouse.”

  I blushed and my hand went instinctively to my sweetheart neckline, which exposed my collarbones and the tops of my boobs, praying my nipples weren’t visibly pleading for him to touch them. What kind of slut was I, going on a date with the dreamy, polite Cole and now shooting my nipples at this dark god and his killer smile? I tried to pick a light, innocent topic that would prevent me from climbing him like a tree.