“Why don’t you take a seat,” Ambrosia gestured to the couch, the gold bracelets around her slender wrists jangling. “I’ll go see if Maryse would like to see you.”
She disappeared down a dark hall, and Rose, Perry, and I took a seat on the flowery couch while Maximus tried to fit his frame into a wicker rocking chair. We waited for a few tense minutes, all of us taking in the sights of the house, except for Rose of course, who was texting someone on her phone.
When I got bored trying to figure out what kind of reading material a Voodoo priestess tried to keep herself busy with (books on chicken sacrifice, and romance novels, probably), my mind drifted over to Maximus. He was sitting there in the rocker, awkwardly I might add, and avoiding my eyes. Which was just as well, I’d been avoiding his eyes too. But the words from the morning kept filtering into my head like tiny drops of acid, making me pay attention to them. Even though I couldn’t figure out the why aspect of what Maximus had told me, other than he was an obsessed psycho, it was the way he said it that was getting to me. He had been sincere, and when he said he was worried about us, he meant it. And that was the scariest thing of all.
“She’ll see you now,” Ambrosia said, coming back into the room. “She’s awake. I’m just going to bring her tea, but you guys can go right ahead. She’s a bit tired and you might not get much from her, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you, Rose.”
The way that Ambrosia said Rose threw me off a bit. Now I had to wonder if there was bad blood between these two. Perhaps the young Voodoo apprentice was worried about Rose stepping on her toes. Or vice versa.
I kept my observations to myself as we walked down the darkened hall, the matte lamps that hung overhead in shapes of flowers flickering as we went under them.
Rose knocked on the door at the end and slowly opened it when she didn’t hear a response.
Here the room was dark, all the blinds drawn shut, the air cool and damp. There was a large white, four-poster bed at the end with mosquito netting draped all around it, a ghostly look. I could see the shape of a small woman sitting up in the bed, just her hazy, dark outline through the netting. It gave me the f**king creeps.
“Mambo Maryse?” Rose asked gently as she slowly approached the bed. The three of us hung by the door, watching her, unsure of what to do. I grabbed Perry’s hand. To reassure her, of course.
Rose drew back the netting and we all tensed up. She was going to be dead, with spiders coming out her eyes and a snake for a tongue, I just knew it. But all we saw was a skinny little white lady with long grey hair, nestled into a mound of fluffy pillows. It was too dark in the room though to figure out where she was looking, even though enough light had come in through the curtain to be reflected in her eyes.
“Can you hear me?” Rose asked, standing at the foot of the bed. “Ambrosia said it was okay to talk to you. I have some friends here you’ll want to meet.”
Maryse didn’t move or make a sound. Rose went for the curtains. “Here, I’ll let more light in.”
“No!” Maryse suddenly screeched, her voice hoarse and louder than I expected. “The light, it burns.”
Christ, what was she, a vampire?
Rose spun around and nodded frantically. “Okay, okay, don’t worry. We’ll leave it dark. I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t know, you’re barely around,” the Mambo sniveled, settling back into her pillows. “Everyone is shunning me, including you.”
Rose sighed and looked over at us, as if we were supposed to say something. The thing is, I didn’t know what. The whole Voodoo zombie angle was Rose’s idea, not mine. I wanted that haunted house and I had a feeling an ailing Voodoo priestess would be no help with that.
“Maryse, I have some people here I’d like you to meet. Ambrosia told you about them, didn’t she?”
“Ambrosia tells me a lot of things. I never listen.”
Wow, being Maryse’s apprentice was starting to sound like a pretty shitty job. I started to wonder what Ambrosia’s deal was when I felt my gaze being drawn to the bed. Maryse was staring right at me, I could feel it.
“Who is that young man?” Maryse asked in weird disbelief, a crooked finger extended in my direction.
I pointed at myself. “Me?”
“You seem familiar.”
Well, that certainly wasn’t possible. I looked up at Maximus hulking over me and elbowed him. “This guy, I’ve heard you met him before.” I shot him a look to step forward. Apparently he was feeling nervy too.
He cleared his throat and came toward her, one slow step at a time. “Mambo Maryse. Do you remember me? It’s Maximus.”
She fell silent. The whole room did. Outside, you could hear the crickets and cicadas, the drone of dragonflies. Finally she said, “I don’t think I know you. Who is this man, Rose?”
Rose tilted her head at him apologetically before answering her. “He was my…we worked at the bar together. I know you can’t really see him now, but he was tall, handsome, with red hair. We were…together. A lot. You know him, Maryse.”
More silence. I was about to say “Ouch” on his behalf, since he failed to make an impression on her over the years, but suddenly Maryse sat up straighter, her posture rigid in the dim light.
“Jacobs,” she whispered.
The way she said his last name made chills run down my back, stopping at my balls, and continuing to my toes. Perry applied pressure to my hand, perhaps feeling the same way. Except for the balls part.
“That’s right,” Maximus said, his voice shaking a little. “Maximus Jacobs. I used to be in love with your Rose here.”
“But…” Maryse trailed off, shaking her head. “You’re mortal.”
Rose and Maximus’s eyes flew to each other, both of them wide and shining with horror.
“Of course he’s mortal,” Rose said quickly, trying to laugh it off. “He—”
“No,” she interrupted Rose, her focus back on him. “No, you changed. You’ve gone rogue. I remember now.”
I raised my hand even though she probably couldn’t see me. “Uh, miss Voodoo lady? I hate to break it to you but this dude’s been mortal for a long time. He was my college roommate and I drank him under the table time and time again.”
“You,” she seethed, her finger pointing at me again. I cringed a bit, feeling like she was poking into my soul. “You. I know you, I know about you! You’re the exception.”