Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. II | In Progress

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Skeleton Woman

I stood at the front door of The Great Oracle Sinah's place, but couldn't bring myself to knock. The lights were off inside so I'd be waking her up, but I couldn't care less about it. I needed to see her on my own time; I had questions. 

It didn't take long before I saw the lights in the living room come on through her curtains. A shadow of a small, slow-walking old woman appeared before the locks on the door twisted, and the front door opened up for me to see her. I looked down, and she looked up, even though she ain't had a need to; those sockets for eyes were still there, hollow and empty. But I guess to Sinah, she could still see - more than we ever could. 

Nothing had changed much since the last time I had seen her thirty years before - small, thin, but this time, her hair was even grayer, damn near blinding. There were more signs of aging on her face, but only if you were really paying attention. 

Sinah was in her nightgown when she met me. I wondered how sleep worked for someone with two caverns for eyes, but by the way she was yawning and stretching her muscles, my presence at her house woke her up from a deep sleep. 

"You early," she said, smile lopsided. "I wasn't expecting y'all till tomorrow night." 

Of course, she knew we were coming. 

"I came on my own accord." I wondered if Sinah already knew that, too. 

"Took you long enough," she replied. A crack of thunder from the thick clouds above brought our conversation from out on the porch to into her living room. I was antsy and had no intention of hiding it. It had been a long night, getting longer as the time kept trudging on. And I half expected Abraham to be waiting for me when I was done with my session. 

The interior of the house still looked the same from last time --gold and purple Saints memorabilia, plastic covering over the couches and coasters on the coffee tables woven out of straw. I wasted no time with small talk and sat down on the couch across from her. The patter of rain began to slowly hit against the window in her living room. 

"I don't mean to wake you, Sinah," I said to her after she sat down. "I didn't--I...I couldn't wait. This, it...it just couldn't wait - " 

"You lost your girl," she told me plainly in the midst of my rambling, and I only nodded. 

"The last time I was here, I wasn't open to hearing any of your answers," I said to her, my head hung low. "Now, I'm starting to figure that me running away from the truth is just...prolonging the inevitable." 

Sinah laughed. "I didn't take you for the philosophical type, Hezekiah." 

I huffed, amused at myself. "I'm usually not. Abraham, now that's his type of thing." 

"Funny, you speakin' so fondly about a man that you're sneakin' behind." 

I said nothing, 'cause we both knew she was right on the money. And frankly, I didn't care to play mind games with Sinah this time. All I could think about was Lisa, and Sinah knew this since it seemed like she wasn't up to no mind games, either. Beyond those eyes where they used to be, she saw more to people than what any of us could see, even the keenest of vampires; she saw me. And I was tired. I was angry. 

"You too humble for your own good, sir," Sinah told me. "Too modest. And you let Abraham use that against you, 'cause he knows it, too." 

"I ain't come here to talk about Abraham - " 

"Really? 'Cause that's what's heavy on your heart right now, sir. Abraham and the woman you love. You want to rescue her, but after that, there's a small part of you that's wonderin' what comes next?"