Read Online Death Before Facebook by Julie Smith - Free Book Online

as Caitlin’s alien gold curls caught the light.
    Her father had been black—“had been” because Lenore only saw him once. Or at any rate he had been a Creole, someone with more white blood than black, probably, but “black” all the same. He was a beautiful tall tan man (as well as she could remember) with hair lighter than Lenore’s, but not nearly so light as Caitlin’s, which was curly as poodle fur and shot through with gold. Not blond, but pure gold. Her skin was dark walnut, the most beautiful color Lenore had ever seen on a human being, and she was chubby, with tiny little creases in her arms and legs.
    “Okay. Mom’s dumb, huh?’
    “Yes. Yes!” Now Caitlin was banging happily, delightedly.
    “Honey, don’t get so worked up so close to bedtime. Let’s go take a bath, okay?’
    “No!” But she smiled when she said it.
    Half an hour later, Caitlin was fresh in a white nightgown with Mickey Mouse faces all over it, and Lenore was suddenly overcome with the burdens of the day, with missing Geoff.
    “Bedtime, honey.”
    “Story!”
    “Not tonight. Mama’s too tired.”
    “G’night Moon.”
    “That’s right. Good night to you too, Moon.”
    “Book.”
    She spoke sharply. “I said no, Caitlin.”
    And suddenly, it was the great flood of Tupelo. Damn! The slightest little thing and the kid tuned up and cried.
    “Goddammit Caitlin, shut up!”
    That only made her cry more.
    Well, there was nothing to do but rock her, which Lenore did until they were both asleep. Lenore came to with a start, grateful she hadn’t dropped the baby in her sleep.
    She put Caitlin to bed, but she couldn’t go herself yet. There were things to do. Many, many things to do.
    She began to get things out—the black altar cloth, the black candles, the cauldron, the ritual black-handled knife. She was so tired….
    A bath first. It would wake her up and she needed to do it anyway, to purify herself, to get ready. She put out her black robe.
    She put herbs in the water—vervain, marjoram, peppermint, rosemary—a special mixture for the things she needed; healing, especially.
    Afterward, she decided against the robe. Better to work sky-clad. But she wore her cord, from which hung charms that were still working, each tied in its own silk or leather bag, and around her neck she slipped a pendant, a silver pentacle hung on a black silk cord.
    She found the four candles she needed to call the quarters—yellow for east, red for south, blue for west, and green for north. She got ready some paper and matches—later there was something she would bum in her cauldron. (Some held that the cauldron was really a cup that should never hold anything but water. Lenore did not subscribe to that; she needed fire in hers.) She got the water and salt she needed, her altar pentacle; her chalice. And a bolline, a white-handled knife, for carving words in the candles, the black ones. And then another thing—dragon’s blood to anoint the candles.
    Was that all? She thought so.
    She was exhausted. But she had everything together and she had already written the incantation she would need.
    It was just past Samhain and the veil was still thin—she could feel the pull from the other side. She felt it often at this time of year, but more so now;
because of Geoff
, she thought. She couldn’t cope on her own; she thought she would never be rid of him, rid of this horrible weight on her shoulders, this knife in her heart. But what she was about to do would help.
    She picked up the black-handled knife.
    * * *
     
    Pearce Randolph poured himself a nice friendly little drink of bourbon before logging onto the TOWN. It was a nightly ritual, one he had come to love. To adore.
    Sometimes he would light a cigar, puff on it, rub his softening belly, and think smugly to himself,
I own this TOWN; I’m somebody here.
    Tongue firmly planted in cheek, of course. Pearce Randolph was in no way a stupid man, a fact of which he was well aware and reminded himself