The spirits crowded around Alara as she emptied one of the tobacco packets into a bucket of water and stirred it with her hand. “We have to make a floor wash and cleanse the room of negative energy or the loas won’t come.”
“The what?”
“The loas are intermediaries in the spirit world. Some of them guide lost souls to the other side,” she explained, her arms soaked to the elbows. “But they won’t show up unless we scrub this room down.”
Jared studied the brown water. “And this is what we’re using to clean the place?”
“Florida Water makes the best floor wash. But unless you have bergamot oil, rose water, oil of neroli, and about seven other ingredients stashed in the van, we’re going with this. Lots of cultures use tobacco to purify sacred spaces.” She handed Jared a wet towel. “Start purifying.”
Lukas walked up and down the stairs, refilling the bucket in the kitchen until Alara ran out of Red Cap and the floors were clean, at least according to her standards. He didn’t say a word to Jared and not much more to me. When he caught me watching him, his usual playful expression was gone.
Alara lit a novena candle in the center of the room. By now, some of the children were sitting cross-legged around her, fascinated. “We need something to offer the loas.”
I glanced at the stripped beds and the IV poles, the bare bulb and the dirty faces of the spirits. There was nothing here. Lukas and Jared looked through their pockets, but weapons and salt probably weren’t the right sort of offerings.
I only had one thing of value.
My hand shook as I slipped my mother’s silver bracelet off my wrist and handed it to Alara. I heard a rip and turned in time to see Jared tearing something off his father’s jacket. He dropped the white patch bearing his last name next to the candle.
Alara shook her head. “I’m not sure if it’s enough.”
One of the smaller children scrambled to her feet and disappeared behind a metal bed frame. She scurried back and handed Alara a dirty bundle with two circles drawn on the front, and a piece of IV tubing wrapped around it. A crude doll made from one of the bed straps.
Alara’s eyes glistened in the candlelight as she opened her journal and read from a page written in Haitian Creole, the language of the loas. The children listened intently and she turned to the next page, written in English—Psalm 136.
Her voice was quiet, and I only heard snippets as she spoke.
“To him who alone doeth great wonders:
for his mercy endureth for ever…
With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm:
for his mercy endureth for ever…
And hath redeemed us from our enemies:
for his mercy endureth forever.”
Their bodies started to fade, two or three at a time. Until there was nothing left but a patch, a silver bracelet, and a doll lying on the floor.
Upstairs, I lingered by the front door, trying to sense the change within the house. Part of me wanted to open the pantry in the kitchen to see if the spirit of the little girl was still locked inside. But I knew she was just a fingerprint left behind, and I wanted to remember the real spirits who had finally found a way out.
Jared was standing in the center of the rusty merry-go-round, staring past the gates over which no child would’ve been tall enough to see. From where I stood, the world was framed by those black bars. Had the children ever seen the world without them? Would they be able to see it now?
“When I was little, I wanted to be a superhero so I could protect people from the bad guys,” Jared said. “I couldn’t even protect you from a dead kid.”
“If you’re talking about what happened today—”
“We could’ve died, Kennedy.”
The front door slammed behind me.
“And whose fault is that?” Lukas stalked across the yard toward his brother.
“Do you really want to go there right now?” Jared stepped off the edge of the merry-go-round, sending it spinning gently without him.
“I want to know how many people are going to get hurt because of you. Are you gonna get her killed, too?” Lukas asked.
Time seemed to slow down as Lukas closed the distance between them. He lunged, tackling Jared, and they hit the ground hard. They rolled in the dirt, both grappling for the upper hand.
Jared made it to his feet first and grabbed Lukas around the waist, lifting him in the air. He slammed his brother’s back into the dirt and pinned Lukas’ arms down with his knees.
I ran down the steps just as Jared punched his brother in the face. “Stop it!”
Jared looked up at me. It was only a second, but it was enough time for Lukas to free one of his arms. His hand closed around Jared’s throat.
“What happened in there wasn’t Jared’s fault or mine,” I said. We all knew I was talking about more than getting trapped inside a wall.