The Line (Witching Savannah, #1)(5)

“I’m here on business, Sam,” I told him, easily moving through his grip. The smell of sweat and booze nearly brought tears to my eyes. Even in the afterlife, the homeless man was best loved from upwind.

“Now what kind of business could you possibly have out here?” he asked. “Just who do you need to see here at this time of night?”

“I’m here to see Mother Jilo,” I replied.

His bright eyes bulged out of his thin face. His mouth fell open to reveal gums that were pocked here and there with a few remaining teeth. “Girl, you ain’t got no kind of business with Jilo. Your Aunt Ginny would skin you alive if she knew you out here in the middle of the night to talk with a juju doctor.”

My great-aunt Ginny Taylor was the true seat of the family power in more ways than one, and an insufferable tyrant to boot. “It was Ginny who sent me.” I hated lying to Sam, but if I didn’t, he might take it into his head to inform Ginny, which would be disastrous. If there was one person Ginny held more deeply in contempt than me, it was Jilo. I couldn’t risk that he would take it upon himself to look after what he thought were my best interests by going to Ginny.

“You telling me the truth now?” he asked, eyes narrowed. I nodded my head yes, and he let out a deep sigh. Who knew that a ghost could sigh? “Your Aunt Ginny, she gotta understand. It’s a different world than it used to be. When I was young, your people were respected. Everybody knew not to lay a finger on one of y’all. The young ones these days, they don’t respect nothing and they don’t fear much.”

“They fear Jilo,” I said.

“That’s because Jilo deals with them on their own terms. A gangbanger cross her and a gangbanger gets killed—or worse. Frankly, it has been a long time since y’all have given them anything to fear. Everybody think your family is toothless.”

“Well, they are soon to find out otherwise,” I bluffed. “That’s the reason Ginny sent me here to talk in secret with Jilo.” I paused for a moment then added. “She’d be angry if she knew how much I’ve told you.”

“You swear to me that Ginny know you here, and you under her protection?”

“I swear,” I assured him.

“Then I’ll let you get on with your business, but you mind yourself,” he said. He turned and headed back the way I’d just come. I watched as he moved noiselessly across the empty field then dissipated beneath one of the street lights on Randolph. I settled my bike down into the tall grass, praying that it wouldn’t catch the attention of anyone who might have a mind to steal it.

Before me lay the beginning of Normandy Street, which wasn’t really a street at all, at least not anymore. Time had taken its toll, and now it was more like the memory of a street. Choked in parts with barbed greenery, it intersected the old railroad tracks but not much else.

Sam had tried to warn me off with good reason. It was one of Savannah’s well-known secrets that there was a homeless encampment not far from here, north of the cemetery and west of the golf course. But that wasn’t where I was headed. A little way down, Normandy Street was intersected by a narrow lane that had long ago lost its name, assuming it had ever had one. Jilo ran the commercial end of her practice out of Colonial Park Cemetery, but it was at this crossroads where she performed her art.

I took a deep breath and dove into the thickets that formed the gateway between the Baptist church’s parking lot and no-man’s-land. It felt like every living green thing was clawing at my ankles and begging me to have the good sense to turn back. If they were, I ignored them, heading farther down the path instead. I stumbled over a beer bottle and thought about turning on the flashlight I had brought in my backpack. But then I remembered that anything that made it easier for me to see would make it easier for me to be seen. The moonlight would have to be enough of a guide.

One thing was for sure: This was a place for those who had nothing left to lose. Remembering how very much I had to lose, I walked slowly and carefully, listening for movement. As I drew nearer to the spot where I hoped to find Mother Jilo, I sensed, more than heard, a presence. It moved with me, stopping when I stopped. It seemed both intelligent and feral. Suddenly an empty glass bottle was thrown out of nowhere, splintering into shards at my feet. It took everything I had not to scream like a little girl and run, but I held my ground.

“Everybody know this here crossroad belong to Mother Jilo.” A voice spoke from the darkness. “A precious little white girl like you should think twice before she go digging around here. She might not like what she turn up.”

I scanned the bushes, sensing menace but seeing nothing. “Is that you, Mother? I’ve come to see you,” I called out in the direction of the voice. “I need your help.”

Her brittle laughter preceded her footfalls. “Jilo thought her help was beneath you Taylors. That right,” she said stepping out from the trees and onto the moonlit road. “Jilo recognize you. She know who you are. You Mercy Taylor.”

Mother Jilo herself stood there before me, dressed mostly in black now, with a scarf of a dark but indeterminate color tied around her head. An aged leather satchel, kind of like an old doctor’s bag, was clutched in one gnarled hand, and the other held a squirming burlap sack. She sat the satchel on the ground, but held tight to the sack. “Jus’ what kind of ‘help’ you wantin’ from Jilo?” she asked, circling me counterclockwise, keeping her eyes tightly on me. “?’Cause, girl, only thing Jilo inclined to help a Taylor to is an early grave.”