foyer with a table, around which sat four or five women, all white except for one. That was probably the friend Sarah had told me about who had bought some "blue water" from a traveling prophet for $150, hoping to kill the wife of a man with whom she was having an affair. The potion hadn't worked. Later, the woman had gotten a job with Margaret, after which the husband left his wife. Now he lived with the woman.
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My mind said: Witches. Maybe they were just clients, but I said goodbye, left my card, and drove back to Ruston. En route I stopped at a roadside stand and bought peaches, tangerines, apples, and bananas. I wouldn't be caught unprepared again. As soon as I got back to the motel I cleaned myself.
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At four that afternoon, uninvited, I drove back out. This time I went directly to the small shed. I knocked on the door and someone said to come in. When I did I saw two women facing each other across a small desk flanked by votive candles. One, black and middle-aged, was the client. The other was Margaret, a statuesque, white-haired, part-Cherokee of about fifty. Both seemed startled, but Margaret more so; after all, she was supposed to be out of town. I didn't stay, but agreed to meet her two days hence. "I don't usually use cards," she said, referring to the deck in her hand, "only with clients who find it helpful."
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Sarah spread her color-coded Bible before us on the kitchen counter to show me how many times she thought the Bible revealed the use of hoodoo. First there was Exodus, in the tale of Moses casting down his rod and it turning to a snakehoodoo magic. There was also Saul's reliance on prophecy, which Sarah considered a type of hoodoo, because prophecy was too often the work of man, not God. And did not Jesus cast out demons? She turned the pages rapidly, her finger like a pointer in a military briefing. There: spirit healers in Corinthians, more prophe-
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