Bless the Child (6 page)

“Don’t leave me here!” she shrieked. “They hurt the baby!”

Ghania moved with incredible swiftness for one so large. She crossed the floor in a stride and twisted Cody from Maggie’s arms in a wrench so fierce, the grandmother had to let go to keep the child from being torn apart.

“Help me, Mim!
Help me!
” Cody screamed, pounding at Ghania with her little fists and feet, as the woman carried her away.

“
Please
, Jenna! Don’t do this!” Maggie begged tears welling. “Let her come back to New York with me for a little while. I miss her so badly. I’ll bring her back to you in a day or so. Please, Jenna. She’s so upset!” The sound of Cody’s screams made her words nearly unintelligible.

“I think you’d best go now, Mother,” Jenna, replied icily.

“Jenna, please! She needs to be comforted,” Maggie pleaded. “At least let me try to calm her down.

“Mim! Help me!” Cody’s cries were echoing now, down the long corridors. She sounded so far away.

“Dear God, Jenna!” Maggie breathed, furious, frightened. “Is this really necessary?

“If your visits will cause the child such distress, Mrs. O’Connor,” a male voice interrupted, and Maggie turned to see Eric had entered the room. He was bigger than she remembered, more rugged of feature. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to ask you to visit, if you have so unsettling an effect on her.”

“How dare you threaten me,” Maggie snapped, sick to death of the whole macabre situation. “It wasn’t
I
who upset her. She simply misses me! I’m the only family she’s ever had . . . surely you can understand that she misses me, as I miss her.”

“And surely you can understand that such a disturbance isn’t good for the child’s constitution. I wasn’t threatening you Mrs. O’Connor, I was merely seeing to Cody’s welfare.”

“And what about her emotional welfare? What about the loss she feels at having her world turned upside down?”

“She will get over it.”

There was nothing left to say, and no reason to stay a minute longer.

Cody
sat on her bed, in the austere nursery, after Maggie left, looking fearful, but defiant. She could see Ghania and the man Mommy said she was supposed to call Daddy talking in the doorway; but she didn’t care.
She wanted Mim!
No matter what they said, or what they did to her, she wanted Mim. Two big tears welled in her eyes and trickled down her plump cheeks. She wasn’t supposed to cry, they said. If she cried again, they would never let Mim come back. Cody tried hard not to, but there was a big, hurtful lump inside her, and the tears came from there. Mim had made her feel so safe again, for a whole day! Mim’s chest was just as soft and warm as she remembered. Her hair and skin smelled like home . . . and all the love in the world was in Mim’s eyes. Cody sat on the edge of the bed and tried very hard to know what to do to get Mim back.

The words they were saying drifted toward her. “We must keep the woman away,” Ghania stated emphatically. “The child will be contaminated. There is a heart bond between them. Very strong. Very old.”

“We have no need for concern,” Eric replied, with confidence. “There’s so little time left. Even if she finds out, she can do nothing.”

Eric stared for a long moment at the little girl on the bed. “At times it is difficult to believe that so small a human can have such importance in the world.”

“Do not mistake her for a child, Eric. The envelope is an illusion.”

“The man nodded and left the room.

Cody saw the Daddy-man shut the nursery door behind him. Ghania smiled malevolently at her. “You will remain here until I return. Then we will determine what your punishment shall be.” She didn’t sound angry anymore, just mean.

Ghania made her way from Cody’s bedroom to her own. She glanced in the mirror as she entered her suite. There were a few stray hairs escaping her turban, so she stopped to reposition it, then suddenly craving freedom, she shook it off entirely and loosed a long torrent of jet black hair, that fell to her waist. Ghania examined herself again in the glass; it was the self-examination of a woman of great vanity.

Undoing the frog-closures of her djellabah, she let the coat-like garment drop to the floor heedlessly. Clad only in the elaborate loincloth
ibante
that is the Ju Ju priest’s source of power, Ghania stood before the mirror, breathing deeper and deeper, until a trancelike condition had been achieved.

In this altered state, Ghania glided to the huge armoire that dominated the wall opposite her bed. She turned a key in the lock and opened the double doors wide, revealing an altar within.

A severed goat’s head dominated the center, its horns stained with blood, its red eyes glistening with an unnatural light. Black candles stood in candle holders made from human skulls; small bones were scattered in seeming patterns near a chalice that was ancient and well used.

A small rag doll protruded from the goat’s obscene lips, it’s little arms and legs flopped past the yellowed teeth and blackened tongue.

The doll had Cody’s face.

Maggie
sat behind the wheel of her car, after leaving the Vannier house, tears streaming.
What in God’s name were they doing to Cody in that house?
Those terrified screams . . . the desperation in her sad eyes. . . .

The blaring horn of the eighteen-wheeler jarred her attention back to the road; she fought the steering wheel to avoid a head-on collision with a construction site. Thank God the trucker had blasted her with his horn! I-95 was no place to lose your concentration.
Keep your wits about you, damnit!

Cody’s screams still resounded in her ears. What could she do to rescue the child from that hateful world? And what the
hell
was wrong with Jenna, that she didn’t see the disastrous changes that had been wrought, in only one month? What kind of creature had she given birth to, who could wrench a child from home and warmth and safety so abruptly, and plunge her into such a cold and heartless, place?

Maggie pulled gratefully into her garage. She barely nodded to the attendant with whom she usually shared pleasantries; she needed to get home to think this through.

Her house felt warm and welcoming, but Maggie merely shrugged off coat and shoes, and headed blindly for the living room. As she passed the liquor cabinet she almost stopped to pour herself a drink, an unheard-of move. She had no head for alcohol and seldom drank anything stronger than wine, but tonight she felt chilled to the bone, with an unnatural cold. As if all the warmth of the world had vanished and what was left was icy and alien.

She passed the liquor cabinet by and dialed the phone.

“Amanda? Maggie. I’ve been to see Cody.” Then the whole story tumbled out.

“Ghania doesn’t sound like any mammy I ever knew,’’ Amanda responded, disturbed. “She sounds hard as a piece of the nether millstone, as they say back home.” Maggie was smart and rational and not in the least given to hyperbole; the situation in Greenwich must be really bizarre to put her into such a state.

“There’s something about Madagascar darkies that niggling at me, though, darlin’,” she mused. “I believe Mammy Erline told me something years ago . . . I’ll have to think on it.” She paused, trying to remember. “Are you sure you shouldn’t go to the authorities about this?”

“I’m beginning to think I’ve got to talk to somebody who could find out about these people. I just don’t know who.”

“Just be careful darlin’, won’t you?” Amanda replied worriedly. “I keep thinking my daddy would say, ‘Never let anyone know you’re nosing around, until you know what kind of people you’re nosing.’ With the amount of money this Vannier has, there’s bound to be power somewhere in the bushes.”

Maggie collapsed into a hot bath, trying to get warm, and to soak the tension from her bones, but every vision that floated into her mind was of a desperate little girl, begging for help.

C
ody stood in front of Ghania, trying hard not to listen to what she was saying. It had been over a week since Mim’s visit; the days were long and the nights worse. Ghania was telling her bad stories about Mim, again.

“You think your grandmamma loves you?” the Amah sneered. “She doesn’t even come to see you, she is so glad you are gone.”

Cody felt tears puddling close to her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to keep them in. “Mim loves me,” she said resolutely, but it was getting hard to know what was true. It had been days since Mim’s visit and she hadn’t even called once. And ever day Ghania said bad things . . . hurtful things. Things that made her wonder . . .

“Did she ever come back to see you?” Ghania demanded. “Did she even call you on the phone?” Sullenly, the little girl shook her head no. She didn’t know why Mim hadn’t come back to see her—she’d
promised
she would. She didn’t know of the dozen phone calls from Maggie that had been rebuffed on Ghania’s orders. Every night when she went to bed, she prayed and prayed, but Mim didn’t come back.

“Your grandmamma so happy you gone, she tell everyone she know. ‘That little girl ruin my life for three years. Now I have some fun.’ Ghania laughed, but her eyes didn’t change. Cody hated Ghania’s eyes. They glittered like an animal’s and made her scared.

“Mim loves me,” she murmured, afraid to say it out loud, and equally afraid not to. If she didn’t keep saying it, maybe she would stop believing.

Ghania threw back her head and laughed. “Foolish child! Doesn’t even know who her friends are. Ghania is the one you must have for your friend. Ghania is magic. Ghania knows
everything
you do and everything you say. Ghania even know what you think! You can have no secrets from Ghania, so you better be careful of every thought in your head, because I look inside and I see them all! Just like you made of glass.”

Cody’s eyes widened. What if that were true? Ghania would know how much she hated her, and how much she needed Mim.

“Last night, when you were in your bed, Ghania looked inside your brain, child, like it was a crystal ball. Ghania heard you pray to that stupid God who doesn’t care about you, one little bit.”

“God loves me!” Cody said defiantly. “Mim said so!”

“He loves you?” Ghania sniffed.
“Ridiculous!
Does he answer your prayers?
No!
Does he make your grandmamma love you enough to come get you?
No!
He doesn’t even know you exist, this foolish God of yours.”

The Amah caught Cody’s horrified gaze with her own mesmeric one. “Ghania knows the
friendly
Gods, child . . . the ones who make your wishes come true.”

“There’s only one God,” Cody said stubbornly. “Mim told me.”

“What does she know!” Ghania replied vehemently. “My island got Gods your grandmamma never heard of. Gods that kill you if you make them mad . . . Gods that make all your dreams come true, if you know how to ask them.

“I heard your prayers last night . . . you ask for Mim to come. But is she here?
No.
Stupid God did not bring her! I will tell you which God to pray to, if you be my friend, child. I will prove to you how powerful my God is. Tonight, you will pray to the God whose name I will whisper in your ear. And whatever you ask for will be given to you.”

Cody looked uncertain. Maybe Ghania’s God was scary, like Ghania and the Daddy-man.

“If you ask him to send your grandmamma here tomorrow, he will do it,” Ghania wheedled, playing her trump. She had instructed Jenna to keep Maggie away; now she would rescind the order. “Do you want to know his name or not?”

Cody hesitated. Ghania raised her great body, lithe as a cougar, and moved toward the door.

“Wait!” Cody called after her nervously. “I want Mim!” Anything to get Mim back. Mim would understand she had to do it.

Ghania smiled in satisfaction and leaned down to whisper a strange sound into the child’s ear three times. It didn’t sound like a name, just a hissing noise. Cody started to repeat it aloud, but Ghania’s hand closed over her mouth before the word escaped.

“
Never!”
she spat. “This is a god of
power!
Never speak his name except in your thoughts.” Cody felt the electricity of fear tingle through her. What if this was a bad God?

“Tomorrow he will give you what you want.’ Ghania dangled the carrot, and the promise of Mim’s return was too powerful to resist. Cody repeated the name in her head many times after Ghania was gone, to keep from forgetting it.