Madison shoved her hands further into the pockets of her hoodie and kept walking. The search had taken her out of the bar district, filled with lights and cheerful music to a street where brick buildings hid abandoned junk behind dusty windows. A neon sign buzzed intermittently on a beer store with no one in it. A cat scavenging for crickets slipped into the shadows.
Madison wasn't sure if she was getting closer to her destination or if she should abandon the task and turn around while she could still find her way back. She walked a little faster and the dusty-windowed buildings soon gave way to busted windows and bent doors. Missing street lamps made it impossible to see beyond the next block.
Footsteps sounded behind her in quiet, shuffling starts and silent pauses. Her skin began to crawl and she quickened her pace, resisting the urge to break into a sprint.
Had her grandmother realized how dangerous this part of town was when she had sent her here? Madison had taken the envelope from her hand and stepped off the creaking porch, leaving her grandmother staring into the bayou. Her uncle had garbled something that sounded like, "Don't go Maddy," as she made her way down the dirt path. She had glanced over her shoulder to see his limping form pull back behind a corner of the house into the dark. A gate hung lopsided at the edge of the property where the gentle mutt, Dixie, had stopped and whined as Madison had walked on.
She hurried through a long stretch of darkness along the street, jumping at the skittering sounds coming from the blackness between buildings. Madison finally saw a storefront with a dim glow farther up the street and broke into the run she had been resisting. A glance at the envelope clutched in her hand confirmed that this was her destination.
A faded and peeling sign declared the building to be Lafayette Voodoo Museum. It didn't look like any museum she had ever been to, with its dark-curtained windows and crumbling brick walls, but she was relieved to see the Open sign in the door's window. Thank goodness, she breathed.
Madison turned the brass door knob, dented and grungy with years of use, and pushed the door open carefully. A smell, musty and odd, swirled over her as she stepped onto the worn wooden floor.
An aging cash register stood on a glass-case counter just inside the entrance. Madison reached out to place a hand on the counter but withdrew it with a start. Black candles lay stacked in a box under the glass. A wax snake coiled along the length of a solitary candle. Clusters of dried herbs and twisted roots were labeled and priced. Madison took a step back from the counter. Dark blue and brown vials with cork stoppers stood in rows on a wall of shelves. Black Salt, Dove Blood Ink, Clove Oil, Anise, Deer Tongue Extract, the labels read.
The tiny hairs on Madison's arms began to rise when she looked deeper into the shadows and glimpsed a large black candle in the shape of an ornate, rose-covered cross.
Madison was brought upright by a muffled sound from a room further back.
"Hello?" Madison managed.
Her heart was pounding. She wanted so much to turn around and leave. To take her chances on the dark streets behind her. But she clutched the envelope her grandmother had given her and waited for a reply.
"Yes?" came a soft voice.
"Um, m-my grandmother sent me. With an envelope."
"Come back here, child."
Madison followed the soft voice down a hallway crowded with small tables and stacked books. There was no light here except for the glow that spilled from a door ahead and to the left.
She peered into the candle-lit room where heady smell greeted her amid swirling smoke. A woman sat in the center of the small room. Her dark hair twisted and curled around her shoulders, she glanced at Madison with heavy-lidded eyes.
"Bring in a chair from the hallway. Have a seat."
Madison set a chair on the once-opulent rug, now tattered and faded. She sat and looked at the wall the woman faced. It was so crowded with things nailed to it and piled on an alter that it was hard to focus on any one item. The cracked photographs of faces became clear first. Half-empty liquor bottles, a curved knife, pendants hung from chipped statues, a cross made of small white bones. Curious odds and ends like a spool of thread, one well-worn glove, a lipstick-stained cigarette, and scattered dollar bills. Candles dripping wax and throwing shadows made the entire montage sway and skip in a morbid dance.
The room was too warm. Madison's stomach began to feel heavy and sick.
"Hand me the envelope, child."
She did as she was told. As her hand met the woman's dry skin, Madison's eyes landed on a dead cat at the back of the altar. It was dry and stiff, its fur missing except in the creases of its legs and paws, moth-eaten holes in its skin. The candle light pulsed and Madison felt something dreadful pushing at her mind, pushing at her body to leave this place. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she released the envelope to grip the edges of the chair.
The woman was saying something but time slowed down around Madison. The air was thick between them and she could only see the woman's mouth moving as she glanced at Madison and unfolded the contents of the envelope.
Madison tried to stand and obey the overwhelming need to leave but the rug rose up to meet her, or did she lie down on the rug? She couldn't tell if her legs were moving, she could only look up at the smug smile of the woman holding her grandmother's letter.
The woman stood and took the few steps to the altar. She picked up a small blade, then lunged down to where Madison lay and made a quick stick into her hand. Madison barely felt the pain and was too heavy on the floor to move away. The woman's eyes showed too much white as she turned back to the alter and thrust the blade through the letter so that it hung open from the front of the altar.
The letter fluttered in a phantom breeze as Madison tried to focus on it but her brain felt thick and her grandmother's heavy scrawl swam on the page. Fighting gravity, she strained up on one elbow. The woman's low chuckle seemed to cause the ink on the letter to assemble into focus.
It worked. My son lives.
The girl is yours.
My debt is paid.
Slow realization and then terror flooded through Madison. She began to struggle toward the door and the hallway beyond. A glance back at the woman showed the same smug smile rolling into a low chuckle that bounced over Madison and tried to drag her back.
Madison gripped the edge of the door and pulled herself into the hallway, scrambling on her hands and knees.
A sharp "Ssssstt!" from the woman sent an oily shadow slipping from the room and down the hallway. It darkened the floor and the walls and grasped at Madison's ankles, twining its way up under the legs of her jeans. She kicked and screamed and continued to pull herself along the floor. She could see the front door standing open. If she could just make it that far and into the streets.
The inky shadow ran over her shoulders and out onto the floor in front of her, then it rose up to slash pain across Madison's face. She screamed and tried to hit back at nothing. It grabbed onto her finger tips, darkening them with its morbid stain. It crawled up her arms and onto her neck as she slapped and clawed at her own flesh. The oily shadow slipped over her jawline and seeped into the four thin claw marks on her cheek.
Madison's vision slowly cleared and the contents of the hallway swam into focus. She continued to crawl, close to the floor, blinking away the high contrast objects around her. As she neared the front door, the push to leave became less urgent. Her progress slowed and she pressed her side against the counter as she passed it.
She came to a halt at the open door. Her ears twitched at the sound of the woman behind her. She sat back on her haunches and curled her tail around her feet.
The woman, bending to pick her up, purred in her soft voice, "It's so good to have you back."
Madison stretched open her mouth on a scream but the satisfied feline only yawned.