The Hollow Ones(71)

Solomon got to the door, looking behind him for Blackwood. He saw the odd Brit walking down the center aisle toward the altar. Solomon couldn’t believe it.

“Hey!” he called out to him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Solomon’s voice carried loudly off the church walls. He remembered the organist above and lowered his voice, moving quickly to stop Blackwood.

“I’m talking to you. Where are you going? Get out of here.”

He grasped Blackwood’s arm, turning him around.

“You’ve done enough,” said Solomon. “Don’t make this worse.”

“Let me go,” said Blackwood.

“I’ve never thought about hitting anyone in church,” said Solomon. “Don’t test me.”

Blackwood’s eyes communicated something unexpected. A warning. Not about Blackwood retaliating, but about what he might find.

“If you want to leave,” said Blackwood, shaking his arm free, “then leave. But don’t get in my way.”

Solomon watched him approach the sanctuary, which was small and unadorned. An empty table was set against the rear wall under the hanging cross. Other than the candles and the pulpit, there was nothing here.

Solomon turned, looking at the empty pews. He wanted to leave. He wanted out. If only to show Blackwood he wasn’t someone to be intimidated or coerced. He wouldn’t be a party to desecration or disrespecting a house of worship.

Blackwood never did enter the sanctuary, nor tread upon the church altar. Instead, he walked to a door to the right, leading to the sacristy.

“Don’t go in there,” said Solomon.

Blackwood opened the door and stepped inside.

Solomon looked at the empty church again. No one was watching them. Outside on the street, a small-town race war was brewing. Solomon was torn.

He walked to the door leading behind the altar, just to see where Blackwood had gone. Inside was an open closet of shelves for hymnals, communion plates. Solomon, hating Blackwood, moved inside.

He was beside the altar now. A doorway led out to the pulpit, where the pastor made his entrances and exits. A bowl and towel for anointing hands stood in a recessed part of the wall. Bibles and religious schoolbooks for children sat on a table with a cup of pencils, some votive candles, a box of matchsticks. Blackwood was near a window at the very rear, looking out at trees. Solomon thought it could be that those same trees led eventually to the hanging site, and the graveyard.

“Okay, this is all there is,” said Solomon. “Let’s go.”

Blackwood pulled on a small door with a fixed wooden handle. The entire piece pulled free, not a hinged door but a flat section of wood, revealing a crawl space behind the altar. It was dark inside, no windows.

“Matches,” said Blackwood.

Solomon again felt himself caught in the middle. What tipped the scales for him was Blackwood’s quiet determination. He was a man on a mission. Solomon had to know what Blackwood had found.

He retrieved the box of matches and watched Blackwood strike flame. The orange nimbus of light did not reveal much until it found the wick of a blood-red candle. A moment later, the flame rose to illuminate the space.

The candle sat with others upon a wax-stained table. There were gnarled roots, cleaned of dirt, selected for their twisted shapes, resembling a natural sigil. A bowl of powder. Some dried flowers and a chart of hand-drawn symbols.

“What is this?” said Solomon.

Blackwood responded literally. “Jimsonweed and sulfur.”

“No…what is this?”

Blackwood plucked the candle off the table, illuminating the wall where a crude face was drawn in red wax and blood, its eyes upturned, mouth open. “Hoodoo,” said Blackwood.

“Voodoo?” said Solomon.

“Folk magic,” said Blackwood. “It originated in West Africa, but was brought to the American South with the transatlantic slave trade. Ancestor veneration and spiritual balance. But that balance, during slavery, became in some regions translated as retribution. Hoodoo is more backwoods, less homogeneous than voodoo. Therefore, it is more open to spiritual corruption. Especially when practiced on hallowed ground.”

Solomon said, “The pastor?” He remembered seeing him at the Jamus house. Talking to him, listening to him praise the character of Vernon Jamus. “No,” said Solomon, less a denial than a plea.

Blackwood oriented himself. “This is the wall directly behind the altar. The dark side. A mirror reflection.”

He turned and used the flickering candlelight to search the floor. He sorted through some items there, lifted a white article of clothing. It was a robe, the hem dirty with soil as from the woods.

“Oh no,” said Solomon, not wanting to believe it. “A man of the cloth.”

Blackwood said, “The pastor had access to the key to the boy’s chains.”

Blackwood passed the robe’s hem over the candle flame, the fabric catching fire, crinkling, starting to burn.

“What are you doing?” said Solomon.

Blackwood draped the flaming robe over the table. The sulfur caught quickly, a blue flame rising out of the bowl, filling the space with the smell of rotting eggs.

Solomon said, “This whole church will go up.”

Blackwood said, “That is the idea.”

The robe was engulfed, flames dripping to the floor.