The Soul Compact (Now Free on Amazon)

Chapter 6

When the man known to Dimitri as Lionel reached his luxurious beachfront home in Boca Raton, his younger brother was waiting for him.

“How did it go yesterday, Steven?” The brother asked, anxious for the next big payout.   

“I saved a life. That’s all,” Steven said to his brother, which prompted his brother to emit a sarcastic laugh.  Steven’s Haitian accent had evaporated.  Even his New Orleans accent was barely noticeable.

“Where does everything stand now?” The brother was restless.

“Same as before. The spirit had told Dimitri to give four more souls or it was going to be him.  When he didn’t deliver and was becoming sick, Dimitri seemed to think that the spirit had decided to take his life in exchange for the four souls.  Then he figured that if the spirit agreed to spare his life, he would no longer be required to give the other four souls since the spirit had released him.

“Does he really think that the spirit is that stupid?” his brother asked, with an incredulous look on his face.

“I don’t know what he’s thinking. I’m just telling you what’s going on.  In any event, in a couple of weeks, his son will pass and we will have another big payday,” Steven reassured his younger brother.  Seeing his brother relax at the news, Steven smiled and added, “Go get dressed. Let’s go to a bar. Maybe we might be able to do some more soul hunting while we are there.”

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Jackie’s parent’s property was nearly twice as big as Linda’s.  The main house on the property looked more like an old Caribbean plantation house.  It was blue and, although it looked like a wooden house, it wasn’t.  It was designed and painted to look that way.  Each of the five upstairs bedrooms had its own private balcony with views of the ocean, and there were two hammocks on the back porch that overlooked a swimming pool.  Although the elegant dining room was designed for entertaining large parties, Jackie confided that her parents never had parties inside the house. It was more for show. They usually entertained under portable tents on the back terrace, by the pool. 

Like Linda’s property, Jackie’s parents’ property had an abundance of fruit trees. There were two other houses on the property. One was a very small two-bedroom house on the left side of the main house, where the couple overseeing the property resided.  On the far right side, closer the boundary line, sat a one-room house that Jackie described as the peristyle. 

“Ready to see inside the temple?” Jackie asked, after they completed the tour of the main house. 

When Heather hesitated, Jackie guessed what she was thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ve done it before.  My parents don’t mind.  In fact, they’re not even home.  They had something to do in the town nearby.

“It looks kind of primitive,” Heather said.  It wasn’t what she had expected.  The peristyle was made entirely of straw and looked more like a small African village hut.

“Due to poverty and customs, the majority of peristyles in the country are built this way,” Jackie explained. “Sometimes there are ceremonies that are done here for other voodoo priests. So, my dad wanted this to be authentic.”

“I still don’t understand why your parents do it. My dad thinks it’s a bunch of superstitions and my mom says that it’s devil worship.”  As soon as it came out, Heather regretted what she said. She didn’t want to insult Jackie or be harsh about Jackie’s parents’ religion. 

Instead of being insulted, Jackie laughed and said, “My dad told me that all religions have some form of superstitions, and those who think of voodoo as devil worship are usually ignorant people who formed opinions without knowledge of the religion.” Sensing that she might have hurt Heather’s feeling, she added, “I’m not saying that your parents are ignorant.  That’s just what my dad usually says.”