out front for the ambulance. Make sure they don’t have trouble finding this place.” He brushed past, and Annie lifted her chin, turning her body to the side to avoid accidental contact. It might be unfair to blame him for Tia’s condition, but she couldn’t help resenting him, nonetheless.
Tombi raised a brow but said nothing.
The door shut behind him, and Annie let out a deep breath, resuming her place by Tia’s side. She slipped the carnelian crystal into her grandma’s weathered palm, and Tia curled her fingers over the rock.
“Does this help you?” Annie asked, hoping it eased the pain.
Tia nodded. “Helps me focus. To say what needs sayin’.”
Her grandma took a long, raspy breath, and Annie winced at the rattle that sounded like oxygen was leaking and gurgling from her lungs. She eased down and sat beside Tia’s sprawled body. “Take your time. I lit the candle and said a prayer like you asked.”
“Ain’t much time left.”
“Don’t say that,” Annie scolded. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Listen.” Tia struggled to rise on an elbow, but gave up and sank back into the cushions. “I know I been a disappointment to you this visit.”
Annie started to deny it, but Tia cut her off.
“We ain’t got time for nothin’ but the truth between us. And the truth is, you need to help Tombi. He needs you. He needs your gift.”
But what about me? It’s not what I want.
Tia frowned, eyes sparking with reprimand.
No doubt she’d heard the selfish, unspoken thought. Guilt and shame washed over Annie in a heated flood of remorse.
“You listen here, Annie girl. You help that man. Now. Tonight.”
Annie shook her head again. “No way. I’m staying with you.”
“I’m goin’ somewhere you cain’t follow.”
“You aren’t going to die,” Annie insisted.
“I mean it, missy. You go with Tombi. Promise me.”
Her tone was fierce, insistent—one that Annie remembered as a child. A you-better-mind-me-this-is-your-last-warning kind of voice. The siren’s wail grew distinct and piercing.
Annie crossed two fingers behind her back. “Okay.”
Tia tugged Annie’s right hand around to the front of her body. “You stop that childish nonsense, or I’ll haunt you all yer living days.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now, then. They fixin’ to take me to that infernal hospital.” Tia sniffed as if she’d smelled something unclean. She hated the hospital and always said they hurt more than helped. “Guess it’s for the best in this case.”
“They’ll take good care of you. You’ll be better in—”
“Hush. If you ever loved me, if you ever trusted my judgment...don’t go to the hospital with me. Say you won’t.”
Annie’s shoulders slumped. “Okay,” she whispered in defeat, crushed at the mandate. “Is there at least some spell or working I can do while you’re gone?”
“No. You be my good girl and help Tombi.” Tia’s eyes filled with tears that poured down her cheeks like trickles of rain.
Annie couldn’t ever remember her grandma crying, except that one time when Annie’s mama got in a huge argument with Tia and walked out, saying she would never come back to this backwater hell. That day, Tia’s great shoulders had heaved in silent sobs.
Flashing red lights strobed through the window like a disco party from hell. Annie squeezed Tia’s hand.
“You always were my special girl.” Tia nodded. “But now it’s time for my release. Tombi is your destiny now. Ya hear?”
The screen door burst open, and two men in dark blue uniforms entered with a stretcher, Tombi close at their heels.
The men hurried to Tia’s side and took her pulse, listened to her heart, assessed for damages. Tombi explained what had happened, and Annie sank to her knees, hands covering her mouth. How could her grandma expect her to stay here while she went to the hospital?
Tia was transferred to the stretcher, and the men labored to the door with their heavy burden. She still clutched the carnelian in one hand, taking a piece of home with her to a foreign place bustling with antiseptic, modern doctors who prodded you with needles and probed your flesh and innards with an impersonal, impatient air.
It was about as far from hoodoo healing as you could get.
“We’re taking her to Bayou La Siryna General Hospital,” one of the young men said.
She couldn’t speak past the clogged boulder in her throat, but Tombi responded. “Thank you. Family and friends will follow shortly.” He walked the EMR staff to the door and shut it behind them.
Annie curled into the sofa. The cushions were still warm from her grandma’s fever and smelled like her special scent of cinnamon and sandalwood. She punched a throw pillow, aching with the need to follow her grandma.
But she’d promised.
She gave in to her grief and sobbed into the battered pillow.
A warm hand touched her shoulder. “Annie?”
She jumped. She’d completely forgotten Tombi was present.
“You,” she spat.
A flinch danced across the hard planes of his face, so fleeting that she wondered if she’d misread it. He withdrew his hand.
“I’m sorry about your grandmother.” He stood erect and awkward, as if unsure what to do or say.
Annie swiped her eyes and edged away from his presence. She tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa and hugged her knees to her chest. “Why don’t you go away and leave me alone?”
She didn’t care if she looked or sounded childish. Grandma Tia was gone. And it was all his fault. If she’d never met him, never made the mistake of following the will-o’-the-wisps into the woods, her grandma would still be here.
I’m going where you can’t follow. Was Tia talking about her death? Or something else?
“Is there someone I can call?” Tombi asked. “Family? A friend?”
Annie didn’t want to call her mom. It would take her hours to drive down from the north Georgia mountains. That was, if she came. And she’d be impatient and cross that Annie hadn’t gone to the hospital. No matter that she’d shirked her own daughterly duties. Best to wait a bit for some news on her grandma’s condition before calling.
Annie nodded at the desk by the far wall. “Open up that middle
