Tales From The Cross

      He cradled a scotch on the rocks in the palm of one arthritic hand; the other clutched a loaded revolver. Both were meant to numb the pain. Despair etched itself into Adrian Beaumont’s chiseled face as he laboriously downed the scotch and fought the stiffness in his joints to place the muzzle of the gun against his temple. A week ago he had been a handsome, virile man in his late twenties. Today, he was much too young to feel this old, or emasculated. Perhaps this was the coward’s way out, but the witch had cursed him, and, given the circumstances, suicide seemed the only reasonable action a person in his position could take. Yet, as I’ve often attested, things are not always what they seem, and the greatest of plans can be undone by a single neglected detail.
      A warm, tropical breeze rustled the palm tree leaves and entered the upstairs study through the open balcony doors. Below, the pulse of the Caribbean Sea thundered against the beach as waves broke and washed over the soft sands.
      Yet, the beauty of this paradise served only as a mocking reminder of Adrian’s own hell, just as the lavish décor of his mansion harkened to the futility of his fortune. He had always believed that money meant power, and assumed that even the dark arts of the spirit world could be bought. The wrath of a Voodoo priestess scorned had proven him wrong.
      He closed his eyes and whimpered the only tears he knew would ever be shed on his behalf. This was his reward for expanding the Beaumont Family Empire on the broken backs of men and the pleasures of “disposable women.” He certainly had it coming, and Makia made sure he would receive his due.
      The justice of his curse was more than he could bear. So, he fumbled back the pistol’s hammer with his thumb, and braced himself for the brief instant of pain which would bring his ultimate release.
      At that exact moment, Eleanor, an attractive young maid in a degrading uniform, entered the room. She started when she saw the gun and clutched her feather duster with both hands for support, but then quickly relaxed. Adrian watched her ebony chest rise and fall as the two stared at each other for a few awkward moments. Eleanor looked like a befuddled bride with a feathered bouquet of flowers. Adrian imagined he looked as wretched and miserable as he felt. She didn’t bother to turn away, and he didn’t bother to lower his gun.
      “I suppose,” she said nonchalantly, finally breaking the silence between them with her smooth Creole voice, “That this means I have the rest of the afternoon off?”
      She didn’t wait for an answer, but dismissed herself with a curt smile and curtsy. A lonesome tear ran down Adrian’s cheek as he watched her disappear back through the door. He could hear the delight in her steps as she descended the stairs.
      Adrian began to sob as his index finger tightened around the trigger. No man wants to leave the world knowing it would be a better place without him. Yet, this was the legacy he was leaving behind. The sound of the pistol’s report would surely signal the start of an island wide celebration.
      Bang!
      Let the festivities begin.

      Adrian opened his eyes and gasped in anguished horror, as though he’d been stabbed in his sleep. Another strike of the statue sent the nail flush and completed the spell.
      Resurrected and frantic, Adrian Beaumont looked around the room as though trying but failing to reconnoiter. His wide and tearful eyes pleased Makia who moved in closer to help her victim regain his bearings. She took his face in her hands and made certain their eyes met.
      “Hello, Lover,” she said in an icy tone.
      “Makia?! What…? Where…?”
      “Did you think you could escape me?” she asked. “Did you think I would let you cheat me again? No, Lover. You can’t get out of it that easy.”
      “Is… Is this for real?” His eyes were wide and wild. “Makia, is it really you?”
      She nodded, hatred radiating like heat from her elegant face.
      Adrian relaxed and wept so that tears streamed like torrents down his face. “Oh, thank God! Thank you, God. Thank you!”
      Makia was taken aback by this response.
      “Fool,” she said. “What you saying thank you for? I’ve just nailed your lousy soul to your cursed body where it’s gonna stay for the rest of your natural life.” She crawled on top of him and pressed her weight against him for emphasis. Adrian groaned in pain. “You’re mine to torment for the next fifty years.”
      “Fifty years?” Adrian’s anguished lips curled up into a smile. “How wonderful!” Again, this was not the reaction Makia had been expecting.
      “Wonderful? Man, you gone crazy. Maybe that nail’s affecting your brain so you think fifty years of life with a curse is wonderful.”
      “Fifty years of life on earth with a curse,” he said returning her gaze with equal intensity, “is still better than a single day in hell.”
      Makia searched his eyes and saw that he meant every word. She was standing in the center of the room before she even realized that she had begun to slowly retreat. He should have been screaming, inconsolably lamenting his misfortune, pining if not pleading with her to be released. Instead, he was overcome with joy, positively thrilled with the arrangement.
      She mastered her surprise and pounced on Adrian’s lap, knowing that his arthritic body would amplify the harsh landing of her 120 pounds. He opened his mouth, but the pain coursing through his frame strangled the cry in his lungs.
      “This is better than hell?” Makia asked, enjoying the sight of his suffering.
      “Considerably.” It was no more than a throttled whisper, but she understood it perfectly.
      Once again, she found herself retreating into the center of the room. The thought of hell had never occurred to her, except as a widely acknowledged myth. But now, the reality of what she had done washed over her in cold waves that chilled her blood to ice. She had sought to rob him of his reprieve, and instead she secured it.
      “Thank you, Makia!” Grateful tears continued to stream down his face. “Thank you, so much!”
      “Shut up! Just shut up!”
      But he didn’t shut up. “Listen, I know I treated you horribly, and I don’t deserve what you’ve done…”
      “I said, shut up!”
      Makia placed her hands over her ears, willing herself not to hear him. She needed to think. “Actually, I treated a lot of people badly, but I want you to know that that’s going to change from now on.”
      “I said,” she retrieved the discarded marble statue from the floor and raised it above her, “shut up!”
      Before Adrian could respond, she rammed it down against his head. There was a crack as the skull gave way beneath the blow. Adrian cried out in pain, but not in anguish. Something in his demeanor suggested that this suffering was tolerable compared with what he had recently experienced; like enduring hospital needles after having been stabbed.
      Makia understood the expression with disgust and raised the statue for another blow. “Back to hell with you then,” she said, pummeling him repeatedly until her arms ached and his head resembled a bloody, deflated balloon. She dropped the statue to the floor, and took a few steps back to admire her work. The damage she’d done him was severe. Yet, at the end of her furious barrage, the spoiled prince still lived.
      “Ow,” he said with a chuckle, raising his stiff and knotted hands to cradle the remains of his skull.
      “I think I’m going to need an aspirin.”
      “Good! Anything I can do to torment you…”
      “I wouldn’t call this torment,” he said. “Comparatively speaking, I mean.”
      Makia graced him with a sardonic grin. “Working on it, Lover. Be patient.”
      “Take your time.”
      She looked around for another weapon to use, but soon realized it was pointless. The thought of Adrian suffering from an unearthly migraine was a cheerful one indeed, but it wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted the undoing of deeds done. She wanted vengeance. She wanted Adrian Beaumont back in the fires of hell as he rightly deserved.
      It’s a curious thing in human nature that the facts most often missed are also often the most obvious. Makia rolled her eyes at her own foolishness when she remembered the nails which bound his soul to his body. Until they were removed, she could assault him all she wanted, but he simply wouldn’t die. Again, not what she wanted.
      She pounced on Adrian again, and ignored his cries of pain as her slender fingers grappled with the head of the nail still firmly imbedded in the remains of his forehead. It didn’t budge. The bloody mess of his face made holding on to anything difficult, especially something so small. In desperation she tried prying it out with her teeth, but to no avail.
      “What are you doing?” Adrian asked reaching his hand up as best he could to push her away.
      She abandoned the nail in his head and reached for the one embedded at the base of his throat. It hadn’t penetrated the sternum and with the absence of any bone to hold on to, it should have come out rather easily. The flesh was pliable enough for her to grip the nail’s head. But while his skin gave way, the nail did not.
      Realization of what she was doing dawned in Adrian’s mind, despite the present condition of his brain.
      “Oh, no you don’t.” He did what he could to fight her off, but Makia’s curse had left him with the strength of a decrepit old man who could be easily overpowered by his attending nurse. His efforts to stop her did little good, but she finally abandoned the nail of her own accord.
      In frustration, she sprang off of him and began searching the room for something she could use as a tool to pry the nails out.
      “Makia,” Adrian said, “please, you can’t send me back to that horrible place. You have no idea, and trust me, you don’t want to find out.” He paused to catch his breath, and cough up a few drops of blood. “Makia, listen to me, for your own sake. Avoiding that awful place is easy. All you have to do is believe in—”
      But she wasn’t listening to him. She had no interest in hearing his voice ever again. Even the sound of his tortured screams had become repulsive. All she wanted now was to silence him forever, to send him back to the underworld where his anguish could truly be complete.

      Her eyes found a letter opener on his desk, which resembled a bayonet from the Second World War. It was too small to affix
War. It was too small to affix to the front of a rifle, but the handle was perfect for Makia’s grip.
      She dashed to the desk, returned with the weapon, and raised it above her head.
      “Makia, please listen—”
      But, she didn’t listen. Instead, she plunged the blade into the base of his throat, withdrew it, and
drove it in again. She continued to hack at him, as though his neck were a block of ice. The coppery
scent of blood issued from his new wound and spattered Makia crimson. She paused in her assault only long enough to try her luck with the nail. She tried carving it out with the tip of the knife, and prying it out with the edge.
      Nothing worked. Finally, she gave a mighty tug with the nail’s head pinched between the blade and her thumb, but the blade slipped causing her to topple backwards off of Adrian’s lap and onto the hardwood floor. It took a few moments for the wind to return to her lungs. When it did, she sat up and looked at Adrian with disgust.
      Of course the nails remained obstinate. She had sealed them in place through the magic of her craft, granting him a fifty year reprieve that could not be undone, not even by the witch who’d cast the spell.
      She stood, raised the knife, and commenced stabbing him in frustration. This time, her aim was less discriminate. She stabbed his chest, his abdomen, his frail arms vainly raised in defense. Blood and sweat glistened together on her face, though the victim she wished to vanquish refused to die. Stabbing him would accomplish nothing, but it was still highly therapeutic. Makia drove the blade into his chest one final time and left it there. She rose to her feet and paced the room, reviewing her options.
      “Ouch,” Adrian said, as if Makia had done nothing worse than step on his toe. The gurgling sound of blood in his lungs could be plainly heard, and the damage to his larynx reduced his voice to a forced whisper.
      Still, he chuckled. “That blade has a bit of a bite to it, doesn’t it?”
      “Shut up!”
      Makia was growing tired of this exercise, and Adrian’s laughter was the last sound she wanted to hear. In her heart, she supposed that he was laughing at her. And why not? No act of revenge could have backfired as horribly as hers. Indeed, he was laughing at her, as would everyone else when they learned what she had done. Unsettling images flashed through her mind. She envisioned herself walking through the market place in disgrace and being shunned by those who once held her in great respect. Her seat of honor in the community would be gone. Makia the wise and powerful would be reduced to Makia the fool.
      She had to do something before the others found out. Whatever it was had to be done quickly—it was only a matter of time before those on the beach noticed she was missing.
      Adrian spoke again. “Makia, this is important. I have to tell you about Jesus. He can help you.”
      “I doubt that,” she said, her mind racing in search of a plan.
      “It’s true. He can keep you out of hell. He’s the only one who can.”
      Adrian babbled on, but Makia was no longer listening. Hell. She was already standing perilously close to the gates of a comparable nightmare. The others from the beach would find them, and they would find the dead Adrian very much alive. This wouldn’t be a problem, if he wasn’t so thrilled about it. But, he was, and Adrian, the bastard, would make no effort to hide this fact, ruining everyone’s delight in his earthly suffering. They would, no doubt, agree with her that he was better left dead, and probably ask her to undo her spell. She would fail, as she was failing now, and the sight of her failure would lead to her ruin.
      Jesus could help? What could this Jesus do to redeem her reputation, to maintain the reverent fear her post and power afforded her? She would no longer be respected, honored, adored. One act of folly could tarnish a lifetime of triumph; she’d seen it happen, and Adrian Beaumont had become her foolish and fatal mistake. All things are connected and what is done to one is done to all. As a priestess in the Voodoo religion, she should have known better. This was her punishment; the retribution of the spirits for using them to harm another.
      “No!” she reprimanded herself out loud for surrendering to fate so easily. It wasn’t too late. She could still cover it up. It was only one mistake, after all, and if mere men could commit murder without being caught, then surely she could accomplish the same feat here.
      “Don’t go away,” she said over Adrian’s senseless droning.
      Makia walked out of the study and into the shadows of the darkened hall. The walls were decorated with medieval weapons of war, and from among the various swords, maces, and halberds, she selected a stout battle axe. She removed it from the wall and marveled at its considerable weight. Returning to the door of the study, she froze when she heard someone calling her name.
      “Makia?”
      It wasn’t the liquefied voice of Adrian Beaumont, though at the moment she would have preferred it to be. Instead, it was the voice of Joseph, the gardener. Another voice called too. Eleanor, the maid, was with him.
      She moved to the top landing and looked down, hoping to see without being seen. The last place she wanted them to look would be upstairs.
      “She’s up here,” Adrian said, but his words didn’t carry far enough for them to make any difference. Makia smiled at this wasted effort. Unfortunately, Adrian began pounding his foot against the floor.
      “Do you hear that?” Eleanor asked from the level below.
      “Yes,” Joseph said, “someone’s upstairs.”
      Footsteps approached the lower landing.
      “Makia?”
      She shot a spiteful look at the object of her wrath, scolding him for giving her location away. Now they would surely come, see the fruits of her misfortune, and most likely join in with Adrian’s laughter. If she was lucky, all they would do is laugh.
      “I be down in a moment,” she called to the main floor, doing her best to sound calm and relaxed.
      Joseph appeared at the lower landing and looked up at her, straining his eyes to distinguish her form in the dim light. Eleanor quickly appeared at his side.
      “What you doing up there, girl?” he asked. “Your party’s down at the beach and you missing it.”

      She gave him a coy grin. “I wanted to show my respects.”
      “Respects?! To him?!”
      “Well,” Makia lifted the head of the axe so the others could see it, “perhaps, ‘respects’ is the wrong word.”
      Joseph eyed the axe as though the beautiful witch before him had sprouted a twin—minus the clothes. “Well, in that
case,” he said beginning to ascend the steps with enthusiasm, “perhaps I should show my ‘respects’ as well.”
      “No!” Makia said sharply; more sharply, in fact, than she intended.
      The exclamation was enough to stop Joseph mid-motion with either foot on a different step. He cocked his head back
and raised an eyebrow. His forehead tightened in suspicion. Makia quickly recovered from her error, relaxed her
stance, and smiled her typically charming smile. “You’ll get your turn after the party, but for the time being
give a girl a private moment: I be down soon.”
      “Yes, ma’am,” he said, giving Makia a bowing nod. The eyebrow remained raised, but he seemed willing to accept her
answer. He descended back down the few steps he had climbed and led Eleanor towards the front door. “We’ll wait for you,”
he said, and the two of them disappeared.
      Makia sighed with heavy relief and returned to the study. It was just the three of them now: Makia, Adrian, and the axe.
      Adrian had managed to remove the bayonet from his chest and stand to his feet, although it was obvious how much it physically
pained him to walk. His gait was unsteady, and in truth he could hardly stand. Yet, he walked with determination, as though souls depended
on him reaching them in time.
      “Bring them back,” he said in his gurgling whisper. “I need to tell them.”
      “Sorry, Lover,” Makia said coldly, taking the weapon in both hands and readying it over her shoulder.
      “You won’t say anything to anyone ever again.”
      Adrian opened his mouth to speak.
      But, at that same moment, Makia swung the axe with all her might, and the blade passed through his neck. His head fell in the direction
of the stroke, and rolled across the floor before finally coming to a stop. The rest of the body flailed around in disoriented fits, but it didn’t fall.
      Makia positioned the axe behind her back, as though she were about to chop firewood. With a mighty yell, she brought the blade over her
head and then down into Adrian’s torso. It entered through the stump of the severed neck and stopped in the atriums of the heart. At this, the knees finally buckled. She released the handle of the imbedded axe as the decapitated body dropped, still animated in pathetic gestures. It hit the floor with a hard thump and tried to roll over.

the peace, out with the frustration and fear. Her shameful mistake was covered up. Her secret was safe. Her only witness would soon be a charred, battered skull in a fireplace—deaf, blind, and mute.
      Another deep breath swept misfortune from her mind and she finally resumed her descent with her usual confidence. By the time she reached the ground floor and emerged through the front door onto the mansion’s wraparound deck, she was quite herself again. She turned to close the door behind her as though dancing with it to the music wafting up from the beach. The catch clicked in time with the rhythm, and the dance continued to consume her.
      It was a while before she opened her eyes and noticed Joseph and Eleanor waiting for her at the base of the steps. Their eyes were wide, and Makia guessed it was due to the deck light illuminating her grisly appearance.
      Joseph confirmed it. “Those must have been some respects.”
      Makia smiled at him, as though each drop of blood that stained her face, arms, and clothes was a badge of vindication. She sauntered down until her bare feet once again made contact with the flat stone walk which led to the beach. Joseph and Eleanor watched her pass between them and proceed down the path. Without another word, they joined her.
      “Messy business, those respects,” Eleanor said, finally breaking the silence. “I just hope you didn’t chop off all the good bits.”
      Makia turned to face her, and with a wry grin she communicated that she had not.
      Joseph caught the look that passed between them. “Better him than me, that’s all I have to say. Course, it would be nice if he could still feel it—when we’re hacking away at him, I mean.”
      This time, the wry grin was meant for Joseph, though Eleanor seemed to catch its meaning first.
      “Makia, you naughty girl.” Eleanor’s eyes were wide with mischievous delight. “What have you done?”
      Makia smiled, repressing the uncomfortable truth so that her eyes would show no hint of shame or regret. “He owed me fifty years of suffering,” she said. A muffled crash came from what sounded like the second floor study. Joseph and Eleanor looked up to the closed balcony doors, and then back at Makia. “I came to collect, that’s all.”
      Joseph turned his attention to the balcony doors. “Yes, sir,” he said with a malicious, vindictive, eager look in his eyes. “Can’t wait to hear Master Beaumont sing when be his back that’s breaking.”
      “He won’t sing for you, Joseph,” Makia said.
      “Oh yes, he will.”
      “Not without a head, he won’t, boy. Feel free to break his back, though. Like I said, he owes me.”
      Joseph smiled with grim understanding. “Oh, beautiful Makia—may I never find myself on your bad side.”
      Makia answered with a grin, turned, and continued walking until the firm stone path gave way to the soft stand of the beach. Waves thundered like a deep bass rumble under the music. The ring of torches continued to flicker in the cool night air, and before the priestess entered their circle, a handful of revelers noticed and welcomed her back. The hullabaloo alerted others to her return, and likewise they lifted their drinks in a toast to the guest of honor. Only a few noticed the reddish brown droplets against her ebony skin in the firelight, and she simply beamed in reply to their bemused expressions.
      Eleanor rushed past into the crowd where she was instantly surrounded by other women who smelled a juicy story and wanted to hear it first.
      Makia, having rejoined her people, quickly lost herself in the dance. Her heart still hadn’t forgotten her rash actions, and it panged with uncertainty. She grabbed a bottle from a nearby dancer and drank to drown the feeling of dread. Her fears were irrational, and unfounded. No one would find out, and the head in the fireplace certainly wouldn’t be able to tell them. Yet, she often caught herself looking up at the balcony doors, and the dim glow of firelight behind the curtains.
      Within an hour, her fears were realized. Horrified gasps drew her attention to a figure walking unsteadily towards the beach. His hands were on his battered head as though to keep it on his shoulders. The handle of an axe still protruding from his chest made his identity unmistakable.
      Makia looked closer in the light of the tiki torches and saw to her dismay that Adrian’s head was singed but not completely burned. His lips, still intact, were moving, and though she couldn’t hear any words, she imagined that ghastly gurgling whisper speaking secrets all the same.
      Several people overcame their fear at the sight of the animated dead, and vented their rage at the man he used to be. Some bellowed their hate in angry words, others hurled it at him with stones, and the truly brave took up large sticks for a more intimate approach. Adrian was unable to defend himself, though he absentmindedly swung his clumsy arms out to do so.
      The attackers jumped back in alarm as his head rolled from his shoulders and onto the sand, while the rest of him, awkward as ever, wandered aimlessly in the general direction the head had fallen. None but Makia had seen this strange sight before, and even the brave considered it rather alarming.
      The headless body bent down and started groping the surrounding area for its missing appendage. Joseph summoned enough courage to snatch the severed head from the ground and at once the body gave a start, as though aware that the item of its search had been taken.
      This emboldened the crowd so that at once they resumed their tumultuous roar.
      Makia moved in to take the head from Joseph, but before she reached him, Joseph threw the head against the trunk of a tree several yards away.
      “There you go, Master!” He laughed manically at the projectile as it hit the ground and rolled to a stop near Eleanor’s feet. “Let’s see how you like it! Ha ha ha!”
      Makia moved towards her, but the way was blocked by the crowd. She shouted over the din. “Eleanor, give me the head.”
      But the appearance of Adrian Beaumont had turned the party into a mob, and the mob mentality was quickly taking over. Makia alone seemed immune as the rest became sharks who smelled blood.
      Eleanor heard the command, but did not obey. “You had your turn.”
      Makia tried to step forward and take the head from Eleanor personally, but a throng of revelers pressed in between them. Her slender frame wasn’t able to muscle through the mass of humanity, and her voice could not—or would not—be heard over the thunderous roar of the horde.
      Eleanor turned her attention to the head, bobbing it up and down by the hair so that some of the follicles came out. “Hey, Master. Did you try to cheat sweet Makia’s curse? You should have known you can’t escape her that easily!”
      “Or us,” said a man in the crowd, evoking hearty laughter from his compatriots.
      Eleanor laughed with the rest of them. But when she looked back into Adrian’s disfigured face the smile disappeared from her own. There was no hint of terror in his eyes, though she had obviously expected to see it. Instead, his eyes locked with hers intently, filled with an urgent gleam. His mouth was curved upward in a smile, as though a practical joke intended for him had backfired.
      Makia watched in helpless horror as Adrian arrested Eleanor’s attention and mouthed their secret.
      Eleanor cocked her head and adopted a bemused expression. “Better cursed, than in hell?” she said, repeating his words so the whole assembly could hear. “Man, you crazy!” The remnants of her mocking laughter were beginning to return. “Have you completely lost your head?” This comment summoned a new round of laughter from the throng. “Oh that’s right.” She placed her index finger to her chin, faking an epiphany. “You have! Who’s at whose mercy now, Master? Not even death will help you escape us this time.”
      She gripped the back of the severed head in one hand and planted a fist in his nose with the other.
      “When we’re done with ya, Master Beaumont, you’ll be in more pieces than this, and you think that’s better than being in hell?”
      The answer was inaudible, but Eleanor seemed to clearly understand it as “yes.” The maid studied him for a moment before realization dawned in her eyes. Nothing they could do to him in his earthly form could rival the horror of what waited for him in the next world.
      Her jovial mood vanished as she found Makia’s face in the crowd. Betrayal welled up in the young maid’s eyes, and Makia began to wilt under the judgmental stare. Her secret was out, her lie was exposed, and the curse she had inflicted on another living soul had returned to her. All things are connected; a Voodoo priestess should have known better.
      “Send him back,” Eleanor shouted passing Adrian’s animated head to Makia as though it were a basketball. Makia reached for it, but so did everyone between them; each one eager for their turn to repay the villain’s hateful deeds. In an instant, the gruesome sphere vanished in a melee of rage, only to reappear when several men broke away from the main group with their prize. They pounded it into the sand, allowing the abrasiveness of the particles to do their work on the skin.
      Makia tried to intervene, but it was Eleanor who reached the head first.
      “No! Stop!” the maid said. “Stop! Listen to me!” After a while, they finally did. “You want your vengeance; we all do. But look into his eyes. He doesn’t fear us nearly as much as he fears the afterlife. I say we send him back to the spirits, then we can do what we wish with his body afterwards.”
      The gathered mob agreed with a hearty cheer, and once again all eyes went to Makia. One of the young men came forward and placed Adrian’s head in the witch’s hands.
      “Send him back,” Eleanor said.
      Makia looked at the eager, expectant faces which surrounded her, and felt like an amateur magician whose rabbit had just escaped. Send him back? Nothing would have pleased her more, but in that regard, she was as powerless as the rest of them.
      “Don’t you think a body that screams would be more fun to torment?” she asked, hoping they would change their minds.
      They didn’t.
      “Send him back,” Eleanor said with a firm finality, and everyone else seemed to agree with her.
      Makia resigned herself to the request, turned around, and walked towards the headless torso which was vainly trying to flee a myriad of spiteful attackers. Eleanor called them off, and when they saw that Makia was with her, they reluctantly obeyed. Soon, they had formed a large circle around the witch and the undead Adrian, isolating the two of them from the rest of the group.
      “Catch,” Makia said, tossing the head in the body’s general direction.
      The body opened its arms hoping it would be able to draw the head into its chest like a football. Unfortunately, the head hit the handle of the axe and by the time the arms reacted, the missing piece was effectively fumbled. The headless form bent down, dropped to its knees, and began exploring the ground with its hands in completely the wrong direction.
      Makia found the scene comical as did a handful of others, but on the whole, the spectacle wasn’t well received.
      Next, the witch waved her arms signaling for more room until the circle widened. Then, she called on her spirits with words I dare not repeat, and at her command a large flock of carrion fowl gathered overhead. With another wave of her hand, she directed them at Adrian. Herring gulls and turkey vultures alike descended upon Adrian so that in moments he was surrounded in a maelstrom of feathers. He waved them off as best he could, but it wasn’t enough. A turkey vulture found the head his body could not, and flew away with it.

      Again, Makia laughed at the comical misfortune of one who so dearly deserved it, but no one
else seemed so easily amused. Her smile faded as Eleanor, Joseph, and many others eyed her
disapprovingly. She hadn’t sent him back as they had asked, and the looks and whispers told
her more than she wanted to hear. The power of voodoo depends on the belief of the people,
and their belief in her power had certainly been shaken.
      Tiki torches continued to dance against the night in the cool ocean breeze.
But the music had stopped, and the party was over.
      The carrion fowl abandoned the unnaturally animated head of Adrian Beaumont, though by the
time his body finally recovered it he was irrevocably blind. Makia herself had seen him stumbling through
the streets the following day. What was left of his lips still curled upwards in their hideous, deformed smile and formed around the inaudible words: “…better than hell. …better than hell.”
      Depressing as this sight was, it had been the highlight of her day. Everyone else avoided her as though she bore the plague, and those who did speak to her spoke in curses. One old woman was particularly harsh, and when Makia threatened her, the woman shouted, “I don’t believe in your powers anymore!” and came at her with a broom. The spirits didn’t answer the witch when she called, and she was forced to retreat amid the humiliating laughter of those who witnessed the confrontation. By sunset, everyone seemed to be carrying brooms, and it was Makia who avoided them. She knew these people too well to think they might forget her trespass over time. Adrian would be back in hell before that happened.
      A lone candle burned in the upstairs study of the Beaumont mansion, and the vanquished witch sat before it gazing wistfully into the flame. One hand wrapped around a bottle of rum, and the other clutched Adrian’s revolver. Both were meant to numb the pain. Tears streamed down her face as she pressed the bottle to her lips and took one last drink. She let it fall to the floor and roll under the couch. “They won’t forgive you, ‘til you’re dead, girl,” she said, placing the barrel of the gun against her temple.
      She couldn’t think of any reason to make them wait.
      She pulled the trigger and barely heard the report.
      Yet, before her dead body collapsed against the hardwood floor, she knew this to be grievous mistake. For while some may argue that a quick death is better than a lifetime of suffering, Makia learned that Adrian’s claims were not at all exaggerated. Her body hit the floor, but her soul continued to plummet into a dark pit of unspeakable torment. She called out to her spirits, but instead of coming to her aid they simply let her fall as though they enjoyed watching her descend into darkness. The slaves had become the masters, and in a moment of clarity Makia realized that she never really ruled them at all.
      She suffers to this day, hounded by the knowledge she learned too late. She knows there will be no reprieve from the mocking laughter of her spirits, or the condemning eyes of the Christ she rejected. She knows He could have helped her avoid this place. She knows there will be no future different than the unbearable present.
      But most of all, she knows—as Adrian tried to warn her—that a lifetime on earth with a curse is far better than a single day in hell.