VOODOO MUSEUM? I WASN’T sure what to expect when the carriage pulled up to a shabby-looking building in the French Quarter. A pair of simple black doors stood beneath the overhang, and a humble wooden sign proclaimed it the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. Dusk had fallen, and the sign in the grimy window read Closed. Grimalkin nodded to Puck, who muttered a few words under his breath and tapped on the door. It opened with a soft creak, and we stepped inside.
The inside was musty and warm. I tripped over a bump in the carpet and stumbled into Ash, who steadied me with a sigh. Puck closed the door behind us, plunging the room into blackness. I groped for the wall, but Ash spoke a quick word, and a globe of blue fire appeared over his head, illuminating the darkness.
The pale light washed over a grisly collection of horror. A skeleton in a top hat stood along the far wall beside a mannequin with an alligator head. Skulls of humans and animals decorated the room, along with grinning masks and numerous wooden dolls. Glass cases bore jars of snakes and frogs floating in amber liquid, teeth, pestles, drums, turtle shells, and other oddities.
“This way,” came Grimalkin’s voice, unnaturally loud in the looming silence. We trailed him down a dark hall, where portraits of men and women stared at us from the walls. I felt eyes following me as I ducked into a room cluttered with more grisly paraphernalia and a round table in the center covered with a black tablecloth. Four chairs stood around it, as if someone were expecting us.
As we approached the table, one of the desiccated faces in the corner stirred and floated away from the wall. I screamed and leaped behind Puck as a skeletal woman with tangled white hair shambled toward us, her eyes hollow pits in a withered face.
“Hello, children,” the hag whispered, her voice like sand hissing through a pipe. “Come to visit old Anna, have you? Puck is here, and Grimalkin, as well. What a pleasure.” She gestured to the table, and the nails on her knobby hands glinted like steel. “Please, have a seat.”
We sat down around the table as the hag came to stand before us. She smelled of dust and decay, of old newspapers that had been left in the attic for years. She smiled at me, revealing yellow, needlelike teeth.
“I smell need,” she rasped, sinking into a chair. “Need, and desire. You, child.” She crooked a finger at me. “You have come seeking knowledge. You search for something that must be found, yes?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
The hag nodded her withered head. “Ask, then, child of two worlds. But remember…” She fixed me with a hollow glare. “All knowledge must be paid for. I will give you the answers you seek, but I desire something in return. Will you accept the price?”
Defeat crushed me. More faery bargains. More prices to pay. I was so much in debt already, I would never see the end of it. “I don’t have much left to give,” I told her. She laughed, a sibilant hissing sound.
“There is always something, dear child. So far, only your freedom has been claimed by another.” She sniffed, as a dog might when catching a scent. “You still have your youth, your talents, your voice. Your future child. All these are of interest to me.”
“You’re not getting my future child,” I said automatically.
“Really?” The oracle tapped her fingers together. “You will not give it up, even though it will bring you nothing but grief?”
“Enough.” Ash’s strong voice broke through the darkness. “We’re not here to debate the what-ifs of the future. Name your price, oracle, and let the girl decide if she wants to pay it.”
The oracle sniffed and settled back. “A memory,” she stated.
“A what?”
“A memory,” the hag said again. “One that you recall with great affection. The happiest memory of your childhood. I’ve precious few of my own, you see.”
“Really?” I asked. “That’s it? You just want one of my memories, and we have a deal?”
“Meghan—” Puck broke in “—don’t take this so lightly. Your memories are a part of you. Losing one of your memories is like losing a piece of your soul.”
That sounded a bit more ominous. Still, I thought, one memory is a lot easier to pay than my voice, or my firstborn child. And it’s not like I’ll miss it, especially if I can’t remember. I thought about the happiest moments in my life: birthday parties, my first bike, Beau as a puppy. None of them seemed important enough to keep. “All right,” I told the oracle, and took a seat across from her. “You’re on. You get one memory of mine, one, and then you tell me what I want to know. Deal?”
The hag bared her teeth in a smile. “Yesssssssss.”