Voodoo Queens of New Orleans

** Mama's shop was nestled in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans, right on the corner of Tulane street and Spelman avenue. "Dumont House of Voodoo." It was popular—more popular than when I was a kid running around the counters on a slow day. I mentioned this to Mama, how suddenly the newer generation was garnering an appreciation for voodoo. "It's hoodoo they think they're coming to get," she answered over the phone; I heard her cutting something, but I didn't want to know what it was. "They think I'm a root doctor or a witch. That ain't true; it's always the white folks and the tourists who don't know what they're getting into." That same phone conversation, I told Mama I'd be coming down for the summer, and she was so happy she couldn't stop screaming about it. I didn't tell her that I had thoughts of dropping out of college or that I had exhausted much of my college fund paying for classes that catered to m

** It was a horrible time to think of it, but I thought of it anyway: I thought of how normal my day was supposed to be. Going to the mall, buying some clothes, getting something to eat, then returning home to spend time with Mama and work on one of my many manuscripts before falling asleep. That's what my day was supposed to be. It turned into delving deep into the dark, damp forests with my mama's novitiate to save Tia Valeria's ass; we didn't know who or what we were saving her from. We didn't even know if we could save her. But I had too much courage and too much confidence. It was dark, to say the least. Very dark. The "hold my hand so I don't fall" type of dark. I envied the bugs and the lizards for their eyes; I envied the crickets and the owls, singing and talking freely

** I thought the sounds of Tia's House screaming before their death was the most heart-shattering noise I had ever heard, but I was proven wrong once the sound of my mama's scream echoed in my head. I got up, surrounded by darkness with the occasional twinkle of the charms on the walls. My heart was thumping faster than Thumper's foot, and there was no if's, and's or but's about it. I slipped on some sneakers, put on my spectacles and ran my black ass out into the pitch-black hallway until I was stumbling down the staircases. And down in the shop, I saw one of the novitiates sleeping on the couch, completely unnerved. I was praying that it was just my mind playing tricks on me; trauma messing with my head and such. But conveniently, the screaming started up again, and the novitiate on the couch jolted awake immediately. That's whe

** "The Shack" was a rundown piece of shit that made me miss the vampire-mansion-lair-dungeon-of-doom. It was in the middle of nowhere. Literally, it was in the middle of nowhere. The only neighbors were some gators in the bayou and maybe some birds and lizards. Oh! And don't forget those crickets! The shack was nestled deep in a bayou that was probably on no map in existence. Abraham told Hezekiah to make sure that we weren't followed—that was a pretty easy task to fulfill. Hezekiah hauled me through the front door and set me on the floor with absolutely no courtesy or gentleness in his grip. My neck was still aching and my body was weak, so him throwing me around like a rag doll was counter-intuitive.

I didn't know that "fat vampires" were such a thing. That's what Mr. Boone was—a big fat man that could barely keep the buttons of his suit together. His office was downstairs in the basement of the Jubilee, but you know what else was also downstairs? Mr. Boone's training grounds for the Rejects. Some of them controlled themselves around me (most likely due to Hezekiah's presence), while others became rabid at my scent. Those rabid ones were behind cold steel bars, fortunately. It's clear which newbies needed a little more training in the art of self-control. Mr. Boone's office was hot enough to the point where I felt like I was suffocating. There were no fans (like he'd need one) and no windows; I was sweating like a slave. It was dark, too. Like the rooms in Abraham's house, Mr. Boone's office was lit by weak lanterns.