It has come to my attention that I am face to face with death itself. And not the faceless, quiet, passive creature whose enigma encompassed most of my rituals. No—death, this time, has a face. Several faces, rather. The faces of those I have damned long ago, vengeance ripe in their rotten minds.
I am having this letter written on my behalf by a confidant of mine, only to be passed down after the event of my soon and inevitable death. I wish to confess to my crimes, both inflicted upon the living and the dead. Many here in New Orleans have come to me seeking healing, guidance, spells, incantations, herbs to heal and herbs to harm, in addition to many other things the gift of practicing Voodoo has entrusted me to bestow faithfully upon the populace. I dedicated many years of my life before my illness to teaching the practice of Voodoo—as well as the art of conjure—to those who wished to enter the power and grace of the loa. I am known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, and I wish for this title to live on in other viable figures. These potential figures are aware of the current situation that awaits me. I told them not to fight the hands of fate and the presence of Papa Legba judging me for my crimes and often misuses of the sacredness of Voodoo.
Therefore, before my time ends, I shall confess to all my wrongdoings and abuses I have conjured in the name of Voodoo. In my quest for forgiveness, I confess to:
-Hexing innocents in fits of jealousy and discontentment.
-Lying about my capabilities in the practice of Voodoo and in the art of Hoodoo in exchange for compensation from the naïve and the desperate in their time of need.
-Abusing the gifts of the loa, in turn, one example stated in the first line above.
-Using Voodoo and Hoodoo interchangeably; blaspheming the Vodou gods in the name of the practice of Hoodoo, and vice versa.
-Practicing Voodoo selfishly instead of in favor of the loa.
I hope that the loa and God Almighty will have mercy on my soul; my death will be by Hezekiah's hand, I am certain, due to the horrible evil my family has done to his family. But I see the eyes of his Dread Father, Abraham- the one who bestowed upon Hezekiah the Gift of Darkness. If any of my apprentices or colleagues should find this note where I have kept it safe from the undead cult, be wary of this warning that I give:
The long years of my illness, I have been given visions by Legba. My death will cause strife and discord between our Voodoo and their
vampire cults. The visions were blurry, but strife will lead to the destruction of my sacred order, if union is not established. Our religion, our art, our craft, will be left to only a mere mythical tale shall you let them gain control.And my daughter, Marie. Should she survive the coming sacrilege, I beg that she does not become consumed by vengeance as I was. I feel those who are left will turn to her for guidance. I pray she does not lead them astray.
So, by the grace of Legba,
Baron, Damballah, Erzulie, and all other spirits merciful and powerful, do not let these undead—these Vampires—gain control. I deserve this painful death, but Voodoo does not.Should this letter be found, let it be brought to the most powerful Voodoo workers. My word must be immortalized.
Signed ,
Marie Catherine Laveau, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.
'X'
**
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** 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
I woke up the next morning with sweat sticking and dripping in places I wish it hadn't. Mama's laughter—her loud, cackling, deflating balloon laughter—could be heard across the hallway in our kitchen. I assumed it was Mambo Nene she was laughing with, since Mambo Nene had the best sense of humor out of the entire Coterie and always made Mama laugh. I got out of bed and walked out into the dark hallway until I made it into the sunlit kitchen. My suspicions were right about Mambo Nene being in there. Priestess Qadira was there, too, but she was preoccupied with a transcript she was reading. "I told that ole white cat that he'd have to find a root doctor to get rid of an itch likethat," I heard Mambo Nene say right when I walked in. "And guess what this fool
** 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 ran faster when I realized what they were, pumping my arms and lunging my legs with a speed I had never achieved before. The trees were blurs; Imani's figure was merely a blur of blue and black running by my side. I sprinted until I could feel my lungs and limbs burning. "This way!" Imani shouted at me. I followed her without losing momentum; I dropped my bat halfway through. When we saw the road and the small spec of gray that was my car, we ran faster until we collapsed on the goddamn vehicle. Then we were inside; the memories are patchy and blacked out from that night. Fear made me act sometimes unconsciously and out of instinct and the need to survive. It was like I was out of my body and inside it again, the cycle repeating. The world was spinning and I was sinking
** 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 last thing anyone would want is to wake up in a place they don't recognize. Especially when that said place is certainly the home of bloodthirsty monsters. My eyes were heavier that weights when I tried to open them. Little by little, my lids revealed a dark room covered wall-to-wall with French provincial décor that was shadowed by the candles hanging upon the corners. Immediately I sat up, the world spinning around me. My glasses were on the bedside table by a lantern. Quickly, I put them back on and all of my senses started to click at once—I smelled what I thought was cocoa and raspberry. I saw the scenery out the window of deep-rooted trees with a marsh about a mile away, haunting in the night. I felt my skin chilled in the cold air but damp with sweat, and tasted a hint of blood in my mouth. But what scared me most wa
** "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 ofnowhere. 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.
Hezekiah made me undress in front of him into the clothes he had brought me. "You lost the privilege of privacy when you tried to kill me," he said when I asked why I couldn't get a minute to myself to change. Knowing there was absolutely no use in arguing with him after the 'entanglement' he put us in moments before, I turned my back and began to undress. Even though I couldn't see him, I knew he was drinking me up like a goblet filled with blood the moment I slipped off the straps of my nightgown. I pulled out the dress that was in the bag Hezekiah brought in. It was long (thankfully), violet, and thin against my fingertips. The accents gathered at the bottom but feathered out once they reached the top. I appreciated that it was sleeveless, but that's about it. The dress was hideous to me besides that factor. Regardless of its desig