Cursed (#1, Voodoo Nights)

Chapter One

Chapter One

“Lookin’ good, Jayden.”

“Got your daddy’s rich-boy smile and yo’ mama’s good looks.”

“He dresses like a magazine ad.”

Jayden forced a smile at his laughing uncles and cousins. He was doing his best to hide his irritation at hismother’s side of the family. He gently threw the football back and forth with one of his uncles, not wanting to injure his uncle’s pride or aggravate the back injury that left him on unemployment.

“You get scouted yet?” another uncle called from the sideline.

“Yeah, by a few places,” Jayden said, grunting as he threw the ball again. “Nothing big yet.” He wasn’t going to tell them he entered his senior year of high school with scholarship offers from two huge football colleges, the University of Georgia and Lousiana State University.

“Maybe your daddy can make a phone call.”

The resentment was killing him. He recalled why he didn’t like coming to the family barbecues, and it was more than the rundown house north of New Orleans. He didn’t wish bad upon anyone, but he didn’t know how his grandmother’s house had withstood the hurricanes. It was the only one for miles that hadn’t been destroyed.

She’d probably tell me it was the spirits protecting her.

His eyes went to the good-sized shed leaning against the back of the house. While the men were out back with him, barbecuing, drinking and tossing the football, most of the women in the family were gathered within the shed, listening to his crazy grandma talk to the spirits of their ancestors and cast voodooluck spells that never seemed to work for his mama. Her family was what his wealthy father referred to as ignorant.

Caught between two families that couldn’t be more different, Jayden was grateful he wasn’t more screwed up than he was.

A commotion came from the direction of the house. Jayden’s mother slammed the screen door open. She was arguing with one of her sisters. They both held glasses of alcohol and cigarettes. Jayden was too far to hear what they fought over.

“So much for being sober. She never been able to stick to anything,” one of his uncles said.

“Shoulda stayed with Jay’s daddy. We’d all be rich if she did,” another said.

This was the other reason Jayden hated the barbecues: his mother was a wreck every time they left. The sisters quarreled for a few minutes before the door of the shed was opened by the third sister in the family of eight kids. She waved for them to come inside.

Gritting his teeth at the thought of putting his mother back together again, Jayden caught his uncle’s latest throw and made a show of studying the time. It was close to noon, and he had to take his mother home before crossing town to his dad’s. 

“If we don’t leave now, we’ll get stuck in a few funeral processions on our way out of town. It’s about the time when they start up,” he said, aware that at least two graveyards were between his grandmama’s house and the downtown apartment where his mother lived. “We’ll play next time, Uncle Tommy.”

“A’ight.”

Jayden flashed another smile and jogged to the picnic table area. He grabbed a pulled pork slider, tossed the football on the ground under a massive oak tree and headed towards the house. Dear god, could the elderly voodoo priestess cook! He wolfed the sandwich down and entered the house to grab his keys and wallet first.

The interior was in worse shape than the sagging exterior. It smelled moldy beneath the rich scents of homemade barbecue sauce and collard greens. The wallpaper had long since yellowed or peeled in many rooms. Grandmama Toussaint smoked like a chimney and burned her magical incense to the point that the house reeked. Worn, outdated furniture, filthy drapes, the scent of cat urine …