Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Brett will be pissed. Ha! Welcome to my world. . .am I losing my mind?
All the divorce books said there were five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. For me, the denial phase rushed by. Currently, I walked in the destroy-my-ex’s-property stage.
Most women had a soul sister or an inner goddess. I had an undercover bitch stomping through the halls of my heart and gripping a sledgehammer.
My daughter grabbed my attention. “Our snowman is so lucky.”
“He is.” I returned to my frozen king and picked up the blow torch.
Rose bounced on one foot. Ice crunched under her pink boots. “I love when you use the chain saw. Are you going to use it now, Mommy?”
“I don’t need it anymore,” I said. “We’re done with all of our snow people.”
Weeks ago, my friend had delivered several blocks of ice. It was a tradition I’d started, when my first daughter was born. Each day in December, I carved a creature. This year had me off schedule. I’d only done a few—four elves, Santa, and two mermaids per Rose’s request.
I’d even created a tribute to the singers the world lost this year—Prince, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen. I’d carved a massive guitar that sat upright in the snow. Their faces peeked out of the icy instrument’s body. Musical notes decorated the finger board. I’d used the girls’ old glitter ropes for the strings.
Thanks, universe, for taking away people that helped me get through the world’s craziness!
Today was Christmas Eve and I’d just finished the snowman, bringing my creature total count to eight.
“What’s the snowman’s name?” Rose asked.
A sound buzzed in my ear.
A word, I thought.
It was like someone with a deep voice whispered, “Remy.”
It was an eerie wisp of sound that might have been anything else like a distant whistle mimicking a human voice. Whatever it was, it put me on edge.
What was that? Did someone say something.
Rose stared at me. “Mommy, are you okay?”
I blinked. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
The deep voice came again, “Remy.”
Rose grinned. “What’s his name, Mommy?”
“I guess. Um. . .” I shivered. “I’m going to say that his name is Remy.”
“Why Remy?”
“I have no idea.” The red leather amulet heated up against my chest. It had been doing that all day. I clutched it and hoped I wasn’t having an allergic reaction to the spell. I had to call my Mom and ask her about it.
God only knew what that woman had in this bag.
Last week, Mom had stopped by the house, had some tea with me, and handed me the mojo bag. “Faith, this is going to take care of everything. It makes dreams come true.”
“What? It helps dreams come true?” I sniffed the bag. “My husband cheated. I don’t need voodoo. I need a good lawyer and a gun.”
“This is hoodoo. Voodoo is a specific set of deities and spirits.”
“Yes, it’s a religion.”
“Hoodoo is a set of folk magic skills.”
“Yes, Mom, and these are skills that I don’t need right now.”
Her gray afro outlined her face like a halo. “This is a mojo bag.”
“I heard you.”
“Just believe.”
“In what?”
“Anything.” Mom chuckled. “For your name to be Faith, you sure don’t have any.”
“There’s no hope for this world.”
“I’m worried about you, Faith.”
“Me too.”
“Be positive. Stay hopeful.” She kissed me on my cheek. “Enjoy the bag and Merry Christmas.”
All her life, Mom earned money as a conjuring woman. She was the type of person to leave saucers of rum in front of the door for all the good spirits that had taken over animals. She sold love trinkets and healing potions, made hoodoo dolls and interpreted dreams. Warding omens off with her amulets was her main claim to fame. People visited our house at night when they were dealing with horrific times.
Many referred to folk magic and rootwork as Hoodoo. It was brought to the United States by the Central and West African slaves and a mishmash of spirituality, rooted in African practices and beliefs, Native American botanical knowledge, and even European folklore.
Hoodoo practitioners, like my mom, used spiritual forces to exert influence over the world.
I didn’t think all that hoodoo stuff worked in the ways she thought. I’d learned in college that the mind was a powerful thing. Our thoughts created our reality.
Still, Mom had a way of making a person believe in the impossible. That was her true power. All she had to do was tell someone that they would heal, and just like that, they believed. They visualized the impossible and the universe replied with all the actions that needed to make it possible.
When I’d told Mom my hypothesis, one day, she’d simply nodded and said, “Yep. That’s hoodoo.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not. It’s really your thoughts and positive energy and—”
“Baby, all that metaphysical-jumbo-budda-meditation stuff is all hoodoo.”
“But Mom, you’re talking about magic and I’m talking about brain science.”