Love Bites

Cast iron of hearts

When my mom was pregnant with my younger sister, I saw an old woman sitting outside our house in her rocking chair. It was storming that night but I could still hear the chair creaking in the distance. I went to the window to see what it was that was causing that spine-chilling sound and saw her icy blue eyes glaring at me. I stood frozen at the window. My older brother, Aries, pulled me away after two minutes but it felt like an eternity. Aries picked me up and put me on the bed next to my mother's side. Our sisters Sunshine and Breeze, helped calm mom down by reminding her to control her breathing and getting fresh towels warmed up by the furnace. Aries brought clean sheets from mom's tiny pine wardrobe and placed them at the foot of her bed.

Then the door flung open and the rain started to come inside our small duplex. I wanted to shut it but I couldn't will myself to move, I was stuck in place, sitting in my mom's bed. The old lady was still watching me from her rocking chair. A street lamp flickered above her head as she smoked an old pipe in the middle of the street. When the door flew open my aunt, MaMoon was the only one who was able to move. She walked over to the wall above my mother's headboard and wrote the words to make the old lady reveal her true identity.

My aunt, MaMoon didn't have any kids of her own but her strong and gentle hands have delivered hundreds of babies in our small town. Any pregnant woman who's ever had a demon, witch or warlock after her baby knows to go to MaMoon for a safe delivery. After a few months, I was helping my aunt with the laundry and my aunt explained that the old woman wasn't after my mom or my sister. She was there to take my soul. My mom was scared that one day she was going to get it too. I finally got the nerve to ask mom why the woman wanted my soul a few months later. And I still remember her saying 'darling, when life puts you in tough situations, don't say "why me", say "try me".

That summer, I went to live with my aunt in the mountains. She taught me all she knew about magic and witchcraft. Most people thought I was an immature child back then but not my aunt. She said the lines in my palms indicated that my soul had been here for ages. And that I was more mature than most kids my age. She entrusted our family secrets with me when she passed away ten years ago. She left me a book of recipes, her comb collection, my grandmother's house and most importantly her magic blue quill. The very same quill she used the day my little sister, Paris, was born. My mom boxed them up and put them in the attic. We moved to Boston, Massachusetts after she died. It was too sad living in that old house with her gone. She left her mark everywhere.

While I was attending high school in the states, I got a call from my brother. Aries asked me to come back home to Mirebalais, HT. His wife Maria is pregnant with their first child and she saw the old woman in a rocking chair with a pipe in her dreams last night. Maria doesn't believe in superstition but our aunt MaMoon made us all swear not to recount the events of that night to anyone. And Aries is convinced his wife and their baby are in danger.

I got on the first flight to Port-au-prince and took a taxi motto up the mountains to see if we could find out where the old woman lives now. The driver was a young Russian woman named Katya. Katya is a web design student living in Port-au-prince. This girl is inked from her neck down to her toes.
The old woman lives as a beautiful young maiden during the day but at night, she stalks the streets seeking the souls of small children. To keep her youthful features and sexy body, the woman feeds on the flesh of street kids, orphans, runaways, and those rich little brats who like to stay out past curfew. She takes the child back home with her, bathes her, clothe her, and cooks her in a furnace in her kitchen. When my mom was pregnant with Paris, my Aunt MaMoon cast a spell on the old woman and she turned into a crab. She crawled into her shell and hid under the sea. No one had seen her for several years.

MaMoon faced her by the sea as a child. She lured the girl away from her family with a song. She asked the girl to wash her back and my aunt did like she asked. She had broken pieces of glass in her back but MaMoon washed the old woman's back anyway. She took her home with her, made the girl cook her homemade breakfast and fell asleep to the sound of the rain beating on her old tin roof. All the woman had in her kitchen was two eggs and one slice of bread. MaMoon cooked the eggs and placed the bread in the woman's wood-fired brick oven. The girl picked tangerines hanging low just outside the old woman's window. She found a silver old mug and poured her freshly squeezed juice into the mug. She sliced up aged pork sausages hanging from the woman's ceiling and cooked them on high heat in a cast iron pan with garlic and olive oil and threw in her family's secret seasoning. She blended parsley, thyme, chili peppers, and a variety of other veggies in a hand mixer. She pounded her veggies and added the mixture into her cast iron pan.

The woman woke up to the smell of a Haitian breakfast like the kind she was used to eating as a girl. She sat up from her bed and pulled her long kinky black hair up into a high bun on top of her head. She walked over to the breakfast bar and sat on a stool. The girl pulled the mug of fresh tangerine juice from the refrigerator and covered it with a lid. She placed the mug and eggs on a beautiful vintage silver and glass serving tray. MaMoon carried it to the woman. Then, I walked over to the woman's dusty old pantry and found some goat cheese and homemade confit and sat them down at the bar before her.

The woman did a happy dance in her chair as she ate the girl's cooking. MaMoon noticed the woman's feet were dirty and offered to wash them. She took off her sandals, poured Epsom salt in a basin of warm water with tea tree oil and massaged the lady's feet. She hummed a tune as she washed the woman's feet. 'Wash your worries away' she said. Washing the lady's feet as if she were her own mother. When she was done, MaMoon dried the woman's feet with a warm towel and painted her toes. The next day, the woman took the girl to a seaside market with her where she bought MaMoon groceries to take home to her mother. A thank you from the old sick woman: a ten-pound sack of rice, a goat, two fat belly piglets, three hens, and a roaster, a sack of sugar, a jar of coffee beans, and a basket full of fresh blackberries. She loaded her items in a rusty wagon she had in her yard and saddled up her old donkey for the girl to ride home.

Before she sent MaMoon on her journey home she gave her a leather pouch filled with $200 dollars in gold coins. The wise old woman gave the girl a road map home and a piece of advice. She said 'do not talk to strangers along the way, there are dangerous characters lurking in the woods at night. She instructed her to take the donkey just past the sea into the woods and don't stop to get water. She poured fresh water from the brook beneath an old tree into a canteen and placed it on MaMoon's hip. Ride that old ass through the woods and you will find a fork in the road. Take the road less traveled, the old woman said. There you will meet some strange folks but also great ones too. And when you get home, don't forget to tell your loving mother all about the old crabby woman you met in the woods.