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.”
I turned in time with her movements, determined to keep her in front of me. “I need you to work a spell for me, Mother. I can pay,” I said, but she started shaking and waving her free hand at me.
Laughter tore through her, and her chest started to heave and rattle until she coughed up phlegm. “A high and mighty Taylor witch wanting to hire Mother Jilo to work juju?” She gasped out the words, punctuating them with more mucus. She coughed again then caught her wind. “So tell Jilo now,” she said, her eyes burning bright with the desire to do harm, “who is you wanting to curse?”
“I-I,” I stammered, “I’m not wanting to curse anyone.”
“Well what is it you-you-you is wanting to do then?” She mocked me. She looked up at the sky. “The moon be headin’ to dark. You got your red head here nosin’ around lookin’ for Jilo. And it after midnight. If you ain’t come for cursin’, you must not know what the hell you doin’.” She paused. “So you tell Jilo. What you doin’ here at her crossroad?”
“I came to see you. I want you to work a spell for me. I can pay,” I repeated myself. Here, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, standing before Savannah’s busiest root doctor, I felt my cheeks heat with embarrassment. I couldn’t look the woman in her eyes. Instead, my focus fell to the grimy ground near her feet. “There’s a boy,” I began.
“Of course they a boy,” she said. “They always a boy when a girl your age come to Jilo. I seen him. That pretty young man your sister been leading around by the nose lately. You in love with him, ain’t you? You want Mother to help you steal him from your sister. You want Mother to work you a love spell,” she said, stretching the word “love” out until it was something dirty. “Little miss got an itch she need scratched.” With her free hand, Jilo rubbed her crotch and laughed again, the croaking sound scaring an owl from a nearby limb.
The old woman was right. I loved Jackson, my sister’s boyfriend, more than I could find the words to say…and had since the moment she’d brought him home six months ago. A mere glance from him made my pulse race and fire rush through me, and I envied my sister his touch. God, how I envied her. But I loved her too.
“No. Yes. I mean,” I stammered, but she interrupted me before I could explain.
“Now Jilo ask herself, why don’t pretty little miss just work it for herself? Just don’t want to get those dainty little hands dirty? Or don’t you want the magic to be trailed back to you? But then again,” Jilo continued, “you ain’t like the rest of your people, are you? That sister of yours. What her name?” she asked.