Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(16)
In that moment, it struck May that Jilo hadn’t wandered off. She’d been taken. May felt it with the same cold and fearful certainty with which she’d known her mama’s spirit resided in that buckra boy’s broken body years ago. Her mouth went dry; her breath came in quick, shallow gasps. But who could have sneaked in without disturbing her? Every floorboard in her house creaked unless you knew exactly where to step. And how could the culprit have removed the baby from the bed without waking her sisters?
“Jilo,” she cried out, unable to keep the panic from her voice. May’s skin began to prickle, tiny bumps forming along her arms. The air around her seemed to vibrate; it smelled of a lightning strike. She’d felt this before. She tried to resist, but her hands tingled as sparks, so close in color to the turquoise folk called “haint blue,” danced along her fingertips. She swallowed hard and willed the magic to dissipate. She’d made promises, to herself, to Jesus, to her mama, promises never to use this magic that always tested her will in her weaker moments.
Not until May was a full-grown woman had her mama explained why she didn’t want her to use the magic she herself employed on a daily basis. “I done sold myself to the devil for using that magic, gal.” The memory of her mother’s voice tickled her ears as surely as if she’d just breathed the words into them. “Don’t you do what yo’ mama done. You find another way to get along. That old devil can find another horse to ride.” The remembered anguish in her mama’s voice nearly succeeded in dousing the sparks, but then the thought of her grandbaby getting carried off into the dark fought its way up. May hesitated, but only for a moment.
She’d resisted the magic all her life, ever since she was a girl not much bigger than Jilo. It hadn’t been easy; she’d been tested time and again. But she couldn’t bear the thought of that baby, her baby, out there alone and frightened. A moan escaped her lips as she thought of that collector her mama had failed to stop. “Just a little,” she thought. “Just this once.” She lifted her hand and let a single spark escape. That spark, so close in color to her porch’s overhang, rose into the air, twinkling like a touchable star.
“Show me where she is,” May’s voice trembled as she addressed the light. “Show me where they took my Jilo.”
EIGHT
The spark circled around May, forcing her to turn to keep it in view. Then it bobbed up and down, floating off toward the live oaks and pines that lined the back side of May’s property. The light swam lazily in the still-warm night air, moving no more quickly than May’s feet could carry her.
The light led her through her backyard and over the unmarked border where her property ended, just past the grove of live oaks where the tall pines began. She did her best to stay clear of the first pine past the oaks to avoid the grave she’d made beneath it for Rosie’s boy. The dry grass gave way to a carpet of equally dry needles, the scent of evergreen reaching up to fill May’s senses with her every crunching step. The smell tugged at vague memories—the sound of bees buzzing, a tall man wearing a stovepipe hat, harsh words from her mother—unrelated to the present moment, and at this moment unnecessary, perhaps even detrimental.
The haint-blue light flashed, then dimmed, nearly going out, warning May that she needed to stay focused on finding her grandchild, not on the dim ghosts of her past. As soon as she returned her concentration to the bobbing spark, it began to glow with a renewed incandescence. She knew nothing of how to use magic, and her mother had refused to share even the slightest insight, lest May be tempted to claim the dangerous power available to her. Still, she intuited that it was indeed her attention that was keeping the turquoise glint alive, and if she let her mind wander too far from her purpose, it would be extinguished, leaving her alone in the night, with Jilo lost to her, perhaps forever.
“I’m right with you,” she addressed the spark, and it reacted to her words with both an increase in speed and brightness. May sharpened her focus until the spark was at its center. Though she did not like the woods, she picked up her pace, trying not to worry about exposed tree roots that might cause her to take a tumble, and allowing herself only the slightest shudder at the thought of the snakes, spiders, and hundreds of other creatures who made their home in this sap-sticky world. She wondered at her mother—the outside, the night; this had been Tuesday Jackson’s world. Not so for May.
The spark carried on, heedless of her very human fears, until it reached the edge of a clearing, where it stopped and hovered in place. As May drew near, another scent, a marriage of smoke and tar, began to overtake the sharp spice of the pines. Fear and worry confounded May’s ability to estimate the distance she had come. Even though her common sense told her she couldn’t be more than a quarter mile from her own property, her sense of direction had deserted her, leaving her without the slightest idea of where her own house lay. It was almost like the natural world beyond her tree line had transformed into a vast and fearsome forest.
May slowed and softened her footfalls. The scent of smoke grew even stronger, and the sound of distant voices, their words indiscernible, reached her ears. Had the light led her to someone’s home? The spark moved again, passing just beyond the tree line, then faded away. May crept forward.
She stopped cold the instant she slid beyond the cover of the trees, and her heart very nearly stopped, too. There was a gathering of white-clad figures at the far end of the clearing, and the silver light of the moon was losing its battle with the darting flames licking at the cross standing in the center of the gathering.