Chapter 8

A deal made for a cat, but not the cat you're thinking...

Lucille held Stanley in her arms as she made her way down the long hallway of the old house. The floor groaned at the fact that it still had to deal with the world walking over it, and the walls were filled with painted symbols of dark things beside skulls of deadlier things. Each room was filled with members of the Hades Clan, turning to face the strangers coming into their home. They would jump to their feet to watch them walk along, letting the soft smell of sweat leak into the dry space. The southern heat, which in truth never seems to take a day off this far south, hung over the house the way hate hung from the eyes of a lover scorned.

                All the eyes of the house were on them as the lovely lady opened the doors to the massive room with a table sitting in the middle of it. She walked around the old wooden table where candles had been piled at the edge, like a wall of pure wax, circling the whole flatness of the surface, then sat down across from the two chairs.

                Lucille kept looking around the place, waiting for something evil to come stalking out of the long shadows. Her heart was racing so much that Stanley moved closer to her, trying to keep her calm, but there was nothing he could do. Fear had walked in with Lucille holding onto her hand, whispering, "These people, most of all the lady in front of them, know something." There was a deep truth hidden behind every word of this lady, even if she barely spoke, but the fear had promise that she was going to say a lot of things, and all Lucille could hope was that it wasn’t the hidden truth of her life. Truths she did not yet know, and there was a part of her that didn’t want to know them.

                “Seat, little dream,” the woman said, making Lucille look back at the table. Charon was already sitting down with a bottle of beer in front of him. The tiny water drops from the chill bottle were rolling off it as everything in this land begged for a moment from the heat.

                Lucille took a seat next to Charon, with the lady’s eyes falling on her.

                “Strange things abou’,” she said, turning to speak with the Stanely and then Charon. “Bad, Hoodoo all around these days. Can feel it in em bones. Would y’all like somethin’ to eat, des gens estranges?”

                “No, thank you,” Lucille said.

                “I would like some gravy and biscuits, ma’am,” Charon said with a grin on his old face.

                “Sure thin’,” she said, snapping her fingers, and someone mumbled back while a guitar started to get picked on the back porch of the house. Lucille wanted to enjoy all the odd things going on around her, but the fear that had followed her now placed its long, bony fingers on her shoulders. He stood over her like a long shadow, never letting her go. She wanted to jerk her head back and forth to all the edges of the room, looking for trouble. She felt as if she were a rabbit trapped in the middle of a pack of hunting dogs.

                They were snarling. They were licking their lips. 

                “Would you like some tea, little dream?” she asked, turning to stare right at Lucille.

                “No, thank you, ma’am,” Lucille said.

                “Je make the best sweet tea in the deep south,” she said. “Are you sure?”

                “I’m very sure,” she said.

                “Tres bien, petit reve,” she said in her thick Creole tone. She turned those long eyes back to Charon, who was having his food placed in front of him by some young women hidden in the house. They hadn’t seen the kitchen, hadn’t even walked past it, but it seemed the kitchen was in full swing, with steaming food coming out with great speed.

                The plate rested right in front of Charon with steam softly strolling up to him, and the food looked as if it was made by the angels and smelled the way Heaven ought to in the long hours after death. Charon took his cigar from his mouth, placed it on the table, and picked up a fork. He took a bite with a gasp from the depths of his chest. He almost sounded like a lover had touched him, and he had his eyes closed for the deed.

                He sat there with the fork in his mouth, moaning with it. He didn’t smile. Charon wasn’t a man who smiled, and Lucille had rarely seen one on his lips. She could get him to laugh, and therefore, smile, but it was a hard battle every step of the way. Now, at just one bite, he almost sat there in pure delight.

                He shook at the second bite.

                “How’s my sister?” the lady asked.

                “Was better until now,” Charon said, finishing off the plate and pushing it to the side. “I see where she gets her cooking skills from.”

                “Emelina always had a talent for the pan,” the lady said. “Why did she send you, traveler, and this lovely dream to ma house?” She glanced over at Lucille and then back to Charon, who was drinking some of his beer before putting the cigar back in his long mouth.

                “We come to get her son,” he said, and whatever joy he felt from the eating had faded with the words, and the hard man that was Charon now sat there chewing on his cigar.

                “The Saturday Man has sweet ol’ Jermey,” she said, “took him to his wicked house.”

                “Where is his house?” Charon asked, and the woman stared at him, rolling her jaws.

                “The Saturday Man is a powerful, traveler,” she said, “he is the shadows, and his Voodoo comes from the dark places.”

                “I’m not worried.”

                “But toi should be,” she said nodding at Lucille, “takin’ this petit reve to his house, bad idea,” she shook her head, “bad, bad.”

                “We can handle it,” Lucille said. She spoke for the first time without being asked a question.

                “Why y’all do this for ma sister?” she asked. “She can’ be the great of a friend to y’all?”

                “She’s not our friend,” Lucille said, “she's our family.”

                “Ah, famille, hm?” the lady said, nodding. “D’accrod, all right, I’ll help you, but nothin’ is free in this wicked world, so a price must be paid. After all, you ate at ma table.”

                “What?” Charon asked.

                She turned her long eyes towards Stanely, and Lucille pulled him back against her chest.

                “I want a cat,” she said and then looked back at Charon.

                “A cat?”

                “Oui.”

                “We’ll get you a cat,” Charon said, nodding, “but not Stanely. He’s no good to you, skinny, and a pain in the a*s.” He reached out his long hand towards her. “We will bring you the right cat, yes?”

                She studied his hand the way someone might study a knife being pointed at them, and then she sighed, taking it. When he pulled his hand back, a wooden whistle sat there. The wood was black, filled with Hoodoo symbols, and a massive toad sat atop it.

                “Only one who knows where the Saturday Man’s dwellin’ be,” she said, “is grand-papa, he’s somewhere deep in the Bayou, not sure where, but blow the siffler, and y’all will meet grand-papa.” She sat back, looking between the two of them. “Good luck, traveler, and petit reve made the angels walk with y’all.”