Four and Twenty Blackbirds

"Hold on a second." He held up a finger and stepped over Bo, who had flopped down beside me and was all but lying on my left foot. "I've got a book over here that—yeah, hold on. I got it."



He went to the rack and pulled out a volume entitled Occult America. Checking the index in the back, he selected a page and let the book fall open to a full-page black-and-white photo of an older man in Native American dress. His light, loose-fitting cloth tunic was decorated with small, ornate bead patterns and woven feathers, and his hair hung in long braids tied up in suede strips. But his skin was quite dark, and his nose was broad, not arched. I traced his full mouth with my fingernail.



"He's black," I announced the obvious. "Why's he dressed like that?"



"His father was a Seminole. Couple of hundred years ago there was a freedman's colony outside of St. Augustine, on the northeast coast of Florida. It was a popular destination for runaways and free people of color alike."



"Why? I thought most runaways headed north."



"Back then Florida was more old-Spain than slaveholding Dixie. The Spaniards were fairly tolerant as long as you went through the motions of being Catholic, and the Seminoles who lived nearby were friendly with the Africans. The free colony was destroyed when the British made a move on St. Augustine, but at any rate, there was a great deal of intermarriage. That's where John Gray came from."



I turned the page and scanned the text. Brian summarized and paraphrased behind me.



"John made a nasty mix of his mother's Hundun and his father's native ways. No one knows how powerful he really was, but between his magic and his charisma he gained a small cult of followers who called themselves Graysmen. Eventually the Spaniards had enough of him—he was accused of killing a priest or something. Who knows if it was true, but they hunted him down for it and killed him in 1840."



"That must have been a blow to his followers."



"Yes and no. They stayed in a loose alliance for some time after his death. When are you thinking your family members might have been involved with him?"



I had to calculate a rough time frame. It took me a second. "Maybe twenty years after the Civil War. Maybe the 1880s or '90s. I'm not sure."



Brian's head bobbed quickly to the left in a half shrug. "I don't know when they officially disbanded—or even if they ever did, honestly, but they were being harassed by the police as late as 1882. A round of them got hung for witchcraft, of all things. Of course the official charge was something more ordinary, but everyone knew why they really got them."



I leaned forward against the counter and pressed my chin into my palms. "But why? Why after all that time? What did John Gray promise them to make them keep his memory alive so long?"



"What everyone who wants a cult promises: eternal life."



"I hate to harp on the obvious, but he died."



"He was killed, yes, but he hadn't told anyone that he personallycould make them live forever. He had this idea he got from his mother; there's some potion, or formula, or powder, or something, that a true wizard could concoct. Unfortunately for him, he never managed to get the right combination of ingredients mixed up. The trouble was, most of his recipes called for plants that grow in Africa, so he was forced to substitute. It's not quite the same thing as swapping apple juice for sugar, I don't imagine."



"But his cultists believed he'd work it out?"



"They were certain of it. He'd demonstrated his powers with smaller miracles. Other spells—spells that made you stronger, faster, smarter. Spells that could make you invisible, or give you the power to see other people's dreams. He claimed he could astrally project, and walk through solid objects."



"So, what you're saying is that he was a charlatan."



"Don't assume that so fast. In his mother's country there's a long tradition of sorkoswho have demonstrable supernatural abilities. Anthropologists took a shine to them in the early 1970s, and there were several studies published on the subject of African tribal occultism. Fascinating, really."



"Hang on—what did you call them? Sorkos? I know that word. Where was she from, John Gray's mother? Was she from Niger?"



"I think so. Yes, I think that's right. Is that where your cousins were from?"



"Yeah." I turned the next page. It featured another photo of Gray, this time with a woman.



"That's Juanita, his wife."



"It says she went mad when he died."



Brian shook his head. "She didn't go mad. She knew good and well what she was doing when she cut off his hand."



I jumped as if the gentle fellow had punched me. "His . . . his hand? Why would she do that? Why would she . . ." I was stammering, but I couldn't make my tongue straighten out and work right. "Why would she cut off his . . . his hand? That doesn't make any sense, it just doesn't."



"Calm down, child—I swear by the goddess—calm yourself down. There's no need for it, now. Whatever's gotten you? Yes, she cut off his hand, but she waited until he was dead, if that's what's worried you."



I braced my elbows on the table and took two or three measured breaths, avoiding his eyes until I'd shrouded my own. "It's just the way you said it." I spoke carefully, trying too hard to sound light. "I thought you meant it was while he was alive. Yeah, that creeped me out." I shuddered, and the shudder was real enough to satisfy Brian, but I could tell he felt I'd overreacted.



"He was dead. No doubt for it. Juanita wanted a relic to work magic with. She took his left hand off clean at the wrist, she did. It was easier than taking just his ring finger."



"His . . . why would she want his ring finger?"



"Magic. According to his hodgepodge theology, the fourth finger of the dominant hand is the power finger. It's the only finger in African cult lore that has no name. So long as she had that piece of him, there was the possibility she could raise him again. Fortunately—at least for the members of the holy order that hanged her husband—she came down with smallpox and died before she could wreak too much havoc."



I didn't really want to know, but I couldn't stop myself from asking. "And the hand?"



"Disappeared. She wasn't really strong enough to do anything with it anyway; Juanita was more of a hanger-on than a priestess. But for a long time there were serious fears that someone else might make a go of it. Eventually, John Gray and his crew were pretty much forgotten."



I shifted uncomfortably. "That's not surprising. It's been an awfully long time."



"No, not surprising, but possibly dangerous. The time's not quite up yet. Soon, though."



"How do you mean?"



Brian turned another page. "It's not yet been one hundred and sixty-five years. That's the longest his soul can stay tied to earth close enough to come back—before passing all the way over to the other side, that is. Once that anniversary has passed, he's gone for good."



"So it's this year?" My math was never the best, but I knew I had to be close.



Brian returned to the book and went to a page we'd already passed, dragging his finger down the page until it stopped on the date John Gray had died. Apparently he wasn't much good with numbers either, because he then reached for a calculator in a drawer beside the cash register to confirm my calculations. "Yes. This year. September twenty-ninth."



"That soon?"



"Yep. About a week and a half from now and the world will be quite safe."



"That's . . . reassuring." Only a week and a half away. "Quite safe" was just around the corner.



"You don't look too reassured."



"I'm sorry," I said, but then I felt stupid for apologizing. "I'm not sure why it makes me feel so uneasy."



"Probably because it's not past yet. You're just showing good sense."



I grinned, trying to make it look real. "Thanks."



He patted me on the back. For a minute I thought he was going to call me "little sister" or "little lady" again, and I might start laughing despite my unease. "Don't worry about it so much. John Gray's dead, and so are all his children. There's nothing more to fear from the likes of him."



"You're right. I'm sure you are," I lied, for he was too kind to argue with.



As thanks for the information, I went ahead and bought the book and some incense that smelled sweetly of vanilla and jasmine. "Take this too, on the house," he said, handing me a tiny velveteen bag about the size of a strawberry. It was soft and blue, and inside it was tied a mixture of herbs and powders that might have been cinnamon and sage. "It's a gris-gris."



My confusion turned to mild skepticism, but I accepted the gift. I didn't have any lucky charms, and perhaps this one would do me good. I took it with the same apathetic optimism with which I swallow the occasional vitamin—it can't hurt, and it might help. "Thank you so much for your time."



"No, thank you—for your company. And take care of yourself, miss. Tell your uncle I said hello. Tell him too that he should make his own way out here before long. I haven't seen him in ages."



"I sure will tell him," I promised, "and thanks again."



I left the shop clutching the brown paper sack with the book, incense, and gris-gris. My car was parked outside, so I opened the passenger's side and set my purchases on the seat before venturing into the street.



Though it was well past lunchtime, I couldn't detect much in the way of hunger pangs. I was too distracted by the wealth of new information to worry about food. I paused before a newspaper rack and read the date on the right-hand corner. September 18. Eleven days until John Gray was thoroughly sent to rest, even by his own religion.