Death Brings a Shadow Page 19

  Prudence whirled around in surprise. He’d spoken so matter-of-factly he might have been hypothesizing about the weather. “How do you know that?” she demanded.

  “Look at her, Prudence. Think about her.”

  “Minda?”

  “Of course, Minda.”

  “The first time I saw her in the chapel, I called out Eleanor’s name. I’m still embarrassed to admit I thought for a moment I was talking to a ghost.”

  “But you found out very quickly that you weren’t. I wish you could have been spared all this, Prudence.”

  “It’s bad enough that husbands abuse their wives, and I know they do. There’s no point denying it. But for a man to force himself on a helpless slave and then sell off his own child as if the infant were an animal—I don’t believe it’s the kind of sin that can be forgiven.” She slammed the pillow she was holding against the knotted ropes supporting the rolled back mattress. It had already been slashed once, and most of the feathers emptied out, but now it burst wide open and the remaining feathers filled the air. Prudence coughed and batted them away.

  “Oh, my God, Geoffrey,” she stammered when she could breathe again. She held a small, stitched-together stack of papers in her hand. A silver ring rolled across the cabin floor.

  Geoffrey bent to pick it up, held it out for Prudence to see. “It’s a man’s ring. Too large for a woman.” He moved to a shaft of sunlight, rolling the ring around in his fingers. “Initials and a date. EJB. 1866.”

  “A wedding ring?”

  “No. There’s only one set of initials. This is a mourning ring.”

  “EJB could stand for Ethan Bennett,” Prudence said. “And the date doesn’t contradict what Maggie Jane told me about him. He survived the war.”

  “This would have been worn by a close male relative.”

  “His brother Elijah or one of his two nephews. Teddy or Lawrence.”

  “Lost or stolen?” Geoffrey wondered. “And when?”

  “I imagine silver tarnishes quickly in this climate,” Prudence said. “Humidity makes it darken much more quickly than dry air,” she explained. “That’s why tableware and serving pieces are kept in cabinets or velvet-lined chests.”

  He handed her the ring.

  “I don’t think this has been off the owner’s finger very long.” Prudence rubbed vigorously with a fold of her skirt. “Look how easily the tarnish comes off.”

  “How long?” Geoffrey asked.

  “I’m not an expert, but I’d guess no more than six months. The thing about silver jewelry is that the more you wear it, the more it shines.” Prudence gave the ring back to Geoffrey, who had no difficulty sliding it onto the fourth finger of his right hand. “Now all we have to figure out is how it came into Queen Lula’s possession.”

  “She was using it in a spell,” he declared positively. “For some of the more potent conjures, the words have to be said over an object that belongs to the person being targeted. There’s a lot I don’t know about voodoo, but I’m sure of that much.”

  “Elijah?”

  “More likely than Teddy or Lawrence, I think, depending on how old the boys were when their Uncle Ethan died. Mourning rings were usually only made for the adult members of the family. Children would outgrow them too quickly.”

  “I could ask Aurora Lee or Maggie Jane whether their father wore a mourning ring for his brother,” Prudence said. “I wouldn’t have to reveal that we’ve found it.” She was sure she could think of some way to introduce the topic of mourning jewelry into their conversation. Perhaps in relation to Eleanor’s trousseau.

  “We need to look at the body again,” Geoffrey said, glancing up to gauge how far the sun had traveled across the sky.

  “I couldn’t make out exactly what she wrote on these pages,” Prudence said, wrapping the homemade book in a piece of the ripped pillowcase and stowing it in the deep pocket of her skirt. “It looks at first glance like recipes, but I can’t be sure.”

  “That can wait until we’re at Seapoint,” Geoffrey said. “Minda will be back here any moment with Preacher Solomon.”

  He lifted the coverlet from Queen Lula’s body. Her face was darkened with constricted blood, tongue black and swollen, lips blue, open eyes bulging from their sockets, neck encircled by the ligature mark of the rope that had been used to string her up. Her fists were clenched, and her bowels had voided at the moment of death, soiling the bright red and yellow of her skirt. She was barefoot, and the tignon she usually wore had been knocked off as the rope was lowered over her head. Tightly curled cropped gray hair covered her skull. One of her dangling bone earrings had been ripped from her earlobe.

  The black cat’s neck had been wrung in someone’s strong hands, the spine snapped before it was hanged beside its mistress.

  Both bodies were as pliable as though they had fallen asleep from too much strong drink. Rigor hadn’t had time to set in.

  “I heard someone ride out from Wildacre,” Geoffrey reminded Prudence.

  “Do you think—”

  “It’s possible. The timing would be right. She hasn’t been dead for more than an hour or two. Probably less.” He lifted Queen Lula’s hands one by one, unclenching the fingers. “No defensive wounds. Nothing under the fingernails. Just rope burns across the palms.”

  “The cabin wasn’t as thoroughly ransacked as Aunt Jessa’s. The killer may have thought he was running out of time,” Prudence said, searching Queen Lula’s clothing. “A handkerchief, Geoffrey. That’s all that was in her pockets. But she isn’t wearing the bracelets and necklaces I always saw on her. Not a single one.”

  “Just an earring.”

  “Could there have been a struggle even though her hands and fingernails aren’t showing it? The necklaces and bracelets snatched off as she fought for her life?”

  “Nothing about the state of her body suggests anything like that. If I had to make a guess, I’d say whoever killed her rendered her unconscious somehow, stripped off the jewelry, then hanged her. Queen Lula regained consciousness long enough to fight the rope. Her hands weren’t tied, so she tried to climb it, but ran out of oxygen. The weight of her body did the rest.”

  Prudence sat back on her heels and looked down at the dead voodoo queen who had seemed so mysterious and invulnerable.

  “Everything about a juju woman has meaning,” Geoffrey said. “When the killer took her jewelry, he stole the symbols of her magic.” He shrugged. “It’s not the best explanation in the world, but it’s the only one I have right now that makes sense.”

  As they covered Queen Lula, Preacher Solomon stepped into the clearing, Minda trailing behind him.

  “I sent out the word,” he said. “Others be comin’. We’ll dig her a hole beside Miss Jessa.”

  “Did she belong to your church?” Prudence asked. She couldn’t imagine the colorful voodoo queen singing spirituals with the congregation in the unpainted clapboard building that didn’t even have glass in its windows.

  “Don’t matter. Ain’t never turned nobody away. Not in all the years I been preachin’ there.”

  “I’ll send word to the sheriff on the mainland, if you want,” Geoffrey offered. “And I’ll inform Mr. Bennett of what’s happened.”

  “I ’preciate the offer, suh,” Preacher Solomon said. “But I don’t expect Sheriff Budridge gonna do more ’n tell us to bury her. Ain’t gonna be no investigation.” He didn’t have to remind them that there had been no official notice taken of Aunt Jessa’s death either.

  Prudence swallowed her anger. “Did Queen Lula ever work for the Bennetts?”

  “Long time ago, miss. She were just plain Lula then. Born in the quarters and sold off to Old Miz Bennett’s sister in New Orleans when she were about fifteen. That’s where she got the juju. She come back to Bradford Island mebbe ten years ago, but all her people was long gone. She showed up one day with her baskets of spells, and slept on the floor of Miss Jessa’s cabin ’till she got one built for herself. Didn’t take long. She had cash m
oney when she got here. We heard later she got run out of New Orleans, but she never would talk about it. Don’t know to this day what the fuss was all about.”

  “She went straight to Aunt Jessa’s cabin?”

  “Knowed where she was goin’ and who she was lookin’ for. They was chirren together in the Wildacre quarters. Lula was lighter than Miss Jessa. She was one of the real pretty ones.”

  “Didn’t anybody think at the time how strange it was that she came back here?”

  “I reckon folk knowed better than to mess with a juju woman. Miss Jessa looked out for Lula as best she could before Lula got herself sold off. Seemed like Lula was gonna pay her back. There wasn’t no kind of healing or magic the two of them women didn’t know when they set down together. Remembered everything there was to tell about every soul ever lived on this island.”

  The silver mourning ring on Geoffrey’s right hand caught a gleam of sunlight as he coiled the rope he’d removed from the tree.

  Minda stifled a cry and turned as if to run back into the shelter of the trees, but Prudence blocked her at the last moment, both hands gripping the girl’s arms.

  “What is it, Minda?” she asked. When the girl refused to meet her eyes, Prudence tightened her hold. If she had to, she’d shake an answer out of her.

  “That Master Bennett’s ring,” she muttered. “I seen him wear it.”

  “This ring, Minda?” Geoffrey turned his hand so the sun glinted off the silver again. “Are you sure?”

  “I seen it, too,” Preacher Solomon said. “Mister Bennett didn’t never take it off.”

  “He lost it,” Minda said. “We near tore that house apart lookin’ for it. Didn’t nobody find nothing.”

  “How long ago was that?” Geoffrey asked.

  “Christmas time.” Minda squirmed out of Prudence’s loosened grasp. “Master Bennett got a letter from New York City. From Mister Teddy. Saying he was gonna marry Mr. Dickson’s daughter and they’d be comin’ to the island for the weddin’. It took everbody by surprise. Everbody except Miss Jessa. She said she knowed all along it was gonna happen. Ever since Mister Teddy got it in his head to go up North. Nobody else didn’t suspect nothin’. But Miss Jessa knowed. Said Miss Eleanor and Mister Teddy was made for each other and couldn’t nothin’ keep them apart.”

  “How do you know all this, Minda?” Prudence asked.

  “I been working the Big House since I was twelve years old, Miss Prudence. Ain’t much about the Bennetts I don’t know.”

  It was on the tip of Prudence’s tongue to ask the obvious question—if Minda realized that she, too, was a Bennett. But she caught Geoffrey’s eye and saw him give an infinitesimal shake of the head. Not yet.

  Preacher Solomon gave a sigh of relief.

  “Do you know when he got the ring?” Geoffrey asked. “Who gave it to him? Or why?” He removed it from his finger and held it out so Minda could get a better look at it.

  “That Mister Ethan’s mournin’ ring,” she said, recoiling from the silver circle.

  “You’re positive?” Prudence insisted.

  “I polished it,” Minda said firmly. “Got his initials inside, and a date. I seen ’em when I cleaned it. Everbody thought it mighty strange that Master Elijah would care about somethin’ like that, seeing as how the brothers never did get along.”

  “There was bad blood between them?” Geoffrey asked.

  “Bad enough so’s they was talk Master Elijah weren’t too broke up about it when Mister Ethan’s boot got caught in his stirrup. Made Master Elijah owner of Wildacre.”

  “Mister Ethan wasn’t married? Didn’t have any children?”

  Minda looked at Preacher Solomon, who shook his head.

  She didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER 21

  “One of my governesses was French and an excellent teacher, so I know I should be able to understand this,” Prudence said despairingly, “but I can’t make out most of it.” She’d undone the looped stitches holding Queen Lula’s book of spells together, given half the pages to Geoffrey, and spread the rest on the large table in Philip Dickson’s library. A French-English dictionary lay open in front of her, a book on voodoo customs of New Orleans beside it.

  “This is Creole, Prudence. It’s an oral language that evolved over time from the French spoken by Louisiana plantation owners and the African languages of their slaves. We don’t know where or when Queen Lula learned how to read and write, but I’d guess she used the sounds of the English alphabet to transcribe the spells she’d memorized in Creole. The trick is to keep reading the same sentence over and over again until the rhythm of it starts to make sense. If you keep at it long and hard enough, you’ll find some recognizable French roots.”

  “How can we ever hope to decipher all of it?”

  “If we’re right, and Queen Lula wrote down the most complex and least used spells, the same words will appear in many of them. We don’t need a complete translation, just enough clues so we can guess at what she might have concocted for Aunt Jessa. That should point us toward whatever secret she was hiding.”

  “I always thought I had a good ear for languages.” Prudence’s lips moved as she sounded out the oddly spelled words that didn’t make any sense to her.

  “Don’t give up yet.”

  She never conceded defeat, no matter how impossible a situation seemed, but she was close to throwing up her hands and escaping to the beach to walk off her frustration. Geoffrey seemed to have some particular suspicion in mind that he wasn’t sharing, which made things worse. He’d mentioned two spells Queen Lula might have cast—a blinding spell and a changeling spell—but he hadn’t explained what either of them entailed or how he even knew what they were.

  Prudence wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep her opinions about this whole voodoo notion to herself. The only thing holding her back was the fear that if she came right out and said that Queen Lula’s spells were nothing but ridiculous mumbo jumbo, it would register with Geoffrey as another rejection of who and what he was. It was bad enough that she so obviously didn’t fit into this world of semitropical heat and oppressive history; to question the validity of some of its obscure beliefs could translate as cruel mockery. She wouldn’t do that to him, no matter how impatient she became.

  “I think I’ve got it,” he said, straightening in his chair, rolling cramped and hunched-over shoulders. He pointed to the list of words he’d copied from the pages in front of him. “Aveugle means ‘blind’ in French. What I’ve found is a spell that uses a variant of that word. And here’s another that repeats chanjman several times.”

  “Chanjman,” Prudence said. “Changeling?”

  “I don’t think it can be anything else.”

  “Then maybe it’s time you told me what those spells are and how you know about them.”

  “I told you we had a voodoo woman at Sandyhill when I was young,” Geoffrey began, pushing back from the table, turning away from Prudence to face the floor-to-ceiling windows that brought light and a view of the ocean into the library.

  Afraid to break the stream of confidence when it had barely begun, she said nothing, hoping he would read her silence as encouragement.

  “I remember Mama Flore as a whip-thin woman whose fingers wound around each other like newly hatched snakes. She had her own cabin, but most days she was at my mother’s side from sunup to sundown. I suspect my father was the only individual on the plantation who wasn’t afraid of her. He knew why she was there and why my mother had insisted on buying her. Mama Flore’s charms and concoctions kept my mother calm. He didn’t believe in voodoo, but he allowed her to heal and cast spells in the quarters without interference from the overseer. To this day I don’t know why, but Mama Flore had a special affinity for the small, lost boy whose mother had forgotten she’d birthed him and whose father couldn’t be bothered to rear him.”

  So different from Prudence’s sheltered childhood. Bathed in the love of a mother who knew she would have only a few years to
share with her only child, doted on by a father who did not believe a woman’s mind had to remain an empty receptacle, Prudence had never known the type of loneliness Geoffrey was describing. Until her father remarried. She shook off those bitter, unproductive memories and concentrated on what Geoffrey was saying.

  “I got in the habit of hiding myself in the shadow of her skirts. They smelled of herbs, crushed flowers, and candle wax. She fed me boiled sweets. I remember the tang of peppermint and the sweetness of honey. And when she cast a spell, she didn’t shoo me away. It was as if I wasn’t there, and yet I was. That’s why I know about the blinding spell, the changeling spell, and so many others.

  “The spells she cast for my mother kept her safe from unnamed threats and faceless enemies. Mama Flore brewed soothing drinks to help her sleep, whipped up creams and unguents to smooth her skin and keep age wrinkles at bay, sang mesmerizing chants to stem a blood flow that left her weak and as white as the cotton that grew in our fields. I absorbed all of that like a cat licking up warm milk. It nourished me, and I was unaware of how strange my upbringing had been until Father sent me north to school . . . where I very soon developed enough common sense to hide my differentness. I willed myself to forget, and for the most part, I did. Queen Lula brought so much of it back.”

  He passed a hand over his forehead and down across his eyes as though he were replacing a mask that had been temporarily lifted. “I’m sorry, Prudence. You have enough burdens to carry without my laying more on you.”

  “Tell me about the blinding spell, Geoffrey,” she said gently.

  “It’s used to make a particular individual unable to recognize someone who wants to be able to approach without revealing his identity. It doesn’t steal sight; it just alters it. A man or woman might use it to visit a lover if he or she fears being seen by the lover’s wife or husband. A daughter who runs away from home but remains in the same city as her parents might protect herself from discovery by calling down a blinding spell on them. They could pass one another in the street with no stirring of familiarity. The parents wouldn’t know who she was, and no one witnessing the encounter would be any the wiser.”