The push pole sought the thick, chocolate mud of the stream’s belly. Feet spread, shoulders squared, Albert bent to his task, skillfully navigating our slender dugout through the tangle of swamp and bog.

Braided mists trailed over the bayou’s surface, parting as we knifed through them, closing ranks to mask the thin, twin wake of our passing.

“Is it much farther?” I asked.

“No, sah,” Albert responded.

I batted away an insect. Glowing scarlet beads smoldered with primeval dispassion beneath knees of ancient cypress. Deep, throaty bellows echoed in the gloaming. “Are those crocodiles?”

Sliding the pole into the water, Albert pushed. “Gator, sah.”

I turned my attention to my tortured thoughts. This was insanity. If the best physicians in Hattiesburg and Jackson couldn’t diagnose the illness devouring me – one moment wracking my body with unspeakable pain, the next disappearing without cause – why should I give credence to the machinations of anyone secreted away in these convoluted slackwaters?

Albert, my caregiver of fourteen weeks, had been cunningly persuasive as to why. The cause of my torment was a mystery: “So, why not fight mystery with mystery, sah?”

Initially I’d feigned amusement at his suggestion, toying with the notion, ostensibly for his benefit. Then, after playing with the idea for an hour or so, I’d acquiesced, with the assertion that I might find such an adventure entertaining diversion. But truth be told, I was desperate — my options, exhausted. So, here I sat, sweating profusely on a hot August night, knees-to-chest in the clammy trough of a hand-hewn dugout, reduced to engaging the fantastic in search of a cure.

The next twenty minutes passed without words. Swarms of fireflies lit tangled webs of Spanish moss. Crickets chorused in the saw grass. Owls stole through the heavy air.

Albert stopped poling. The dugout drifted arrow-straight into an open channel. “There, sah,” he whispered.

I searched the far bank. “Where?”

“Higher, sah,” Albert responded, squatting down and pointing over my shoulder toward a low rise. A soft yellow light flickered through the trees. As we approached the far shore, Albert swung the dugout’s bow around and gently brought us to rest against the pilings of a small landing. Upon mooring our craft and setting our lantern on the warped timbers, Albert offered me a helping hand out and, with it, imparted a warning: “Don’t look her in the eye, sah, ‘less she tell you to. Don’t speak, ‘less spoken to. Touch nothin’, ‘less givin’ you.”

Slinging a bulging gunnysack over his broad shoulders, Albert plucked the lantern from its resting place and turned to lead the way. We trudged uphill, pushing through knee-high grass and tufts of bearded sedge. Bullfrogs leapt across our path. Clouds of insects rose on translucent wings. Approaching the top, our lantern illuminated the porch and façade of a weather-worn shack, its windows boarded shut, its screen door ajar.

Laying the sack on the ground, Albert switched the lantern to his other hand and gestured that I should wait. “When I wave, take the gunny in both hands and bring it, eyes to the ground.” Holding the lantern at arm’s length, Albert walked to the front of the porch, set the lantern down, folded his hands together at his waist and called out, not loudly, but with sufficient volume to be clearly heard, “Joon Tai. Joon Tai. We come with offerin’s, Joon Tai.”

Silence lay heavy on the air. Then from within came a quavering, though melodic, response. “For whom them offerin’ be?”

“For you, the spirits and our ancestors,” replied Albert.

“Be there jungle fowl in them offerin’?”

“Yes, Joon Tai.”

“Needles, sharp as spines?”

“Yes, Joon Tai.”

“Moon shells, white as lilies? Beads, green as seawater? Thread, red as blood?”

“Yes, Joon Tai.”

“Come.”

Albert waved me forward. As instructed, I lifted the sack from the ground and shuffled, eyes down, to the edge of the porch. There was a high, rusty whine as the screen door opened – a hushed double-thump as it closed. Two dark, naked feet with crooked, discolored nails crossed the floorboards to stand in front of me. “Open.”

I felt Albert’s hands grasp the neck of the sack, but his actions were promptly stayed. “No!” she said. “If this one be seekin’ Joon Tai’s help, then best he be makin’ them offerin’.” Albert’s hands fell away.

Lifting the gunny to the porch’s lip, I fumbled to untie the knot. A pair of soft, wrinkled hands with long, tapered fingers enveloped mine before assisting with the task. As I held the sack, the woman rummaged inside, the thin gold bracelets encircling her wrists clinking together like muffled wind chimes. “These will do.”

Closing the sack, I followed in her wake, my eyes respectfully averted, so that all I saw were her feet and the tattered lower fringe of her multi-colored skirt. Albert dutifully held the screen open as we entered, but was stopped before entering himself. “Not you,” commanded Joon Tai. “Them spirit’ business be with him. Come back when the sun rise.”

I found the hut’s humid interior softly lit by black candles; the air awash with intoxicating aromas of exotic herbs and spices. “Put them offerin’ on the table. Take off them shirt and shoe. Sit there.” I did as told, taking a seat on a wooden stool. And though my eyes surreptitiously wandered over the walls and furnishings, soaking in the marvelous collection of odds and ends that adorned every niche and corner, I took great care not to regard too closely the woman with whom I shared the space.

After a few moments she dragged another stool opposite mine and sat down, her skirt hiked to her bony knees, her feet widely splayed to either side. “Look here. Up, to my eyes.”

I did so. She was very old — dark and frail. She may have been Creole or Seminole or African. Her large clouded pupils swam in pale yellow pools. Her upper lids drooped. Her lower lids sagged. Without blinking, she handed me a pewter vessel heavy with brew. “With one breath, drink it down.”

The bitter concoction rippled past my tongue, searing my throat. My face flushed, my eyes watered. I lowered the now-empty vessel and gazed with distorted sight at its scarred exterior. “Look here,” she commanded. I obeyed.

Between us sat an open-topped tripod. Joon Tai’s hands were drawn up as if in prayer, her eyes rolled back in her head. Curling the tapers of her fingers inward, she began rubbing her nails together, faster and faster, until sparks began to fly. Soon, an intense blue glow shone in the cup of her upturned palms. Spreading her fingers like the petals of a pale orchid, fire spilled from them to dance across the floorboards and pool beneath the tripod. Leaning left, she lifted an iron caldron from the darkness and fixed it squarely in the tripod’s ring. Leaning right, she plucked a clear mason jar from mid-air, unscrewing the lid with a graceful pirouette of her fingers. Pursing her lips and lifting her chin, she methodically tilted the jar toward the caldron. A fog tumbled forth, filling the caldron to the brim. A snap of her fingers and a long wooden spoon was in her right hand. Carefully, she lowered the spoon into the caldron and began to stir.

As Joon Tai stirred, she chanted a rhyme. Then, lifting the spoon clear, she hammered it four times against the caldron’s lip while emitting an eerily erotic moan of satisfaction, followed by a single word, drawn out to sound like a timber rattler shedding its skin amongst crisp, dry leaves — “nice.”

“Lemon grass and sassafras, hick-koh-ree an’ rye. Umm... niiiccssss...”

Thrice she stirred. Thrice she chanted. Thrice she hammered on the caldron.

As the final syllable slithered into space, she released the spoon, leaving it standing upright in the caldron, unassisted. Spreading her hands on knees, she pointed her elbows to either side so that her silhouette resembled that of a vulture. “Now, you. Take them spoon with them left an’ stir against the clock turnin’ way.”

I did so.

She took a deep breath. “I see them spirit flutterin’ about you like moth to the flame, hangin’ off you like leech.”

I continued stirring.

“You think them spirit troublin’ you for no reason? Hum? You think them spirit go away if you pay them no heed?”

The stirring had become automatic.

“No. Them spirit stay with you like hair an’ skin. Like dirt under them fingernail. Know why? ‘Cause they you!”

A bright flare, like a jagged sliver of glass, sliced through the air. A searing pain radiated from the back of my hand. Looking down, I saw a trickle of blood streaming from a two-inch long cut across the back of my hand and dripping into the toothless maw of the caldron.

Joon Tai reached out and stopped the spoon’s motion with her fingertips, opened my fingers, then delicately pressed against my wrist, pushing my bleeding hand aside. Taking the spoon in her right, she slowly extracted it, and with it a diaphanous strand of plasma. A deft flick of the spoon and the plasma rose to the ceiling, sucking the caldron’s fog up along with it. When the plasma and fog had gathered beneath the rafters, they descended in silver rivulets to my left and metamorphosed into a standing form.

Initially the apparition simply stood before me like a shroud, displaying no features or character, though bearing a roughly human form. But soon, like candle wax yielding before a flame, the fog began curling toward the floor to reveal the plasma’s manifestation.

It was me, but with a singular and horrifying omission — there were no eyes.

An excruciating pain suddenly shot through my brain and the room went dark. I raised my hands to my face. I could feel my eyelids fluttering against my fingertips, my eyeballs sitting in their sockets, but I could not see.

“Joon Tai?” I called in panic.

“Quiet!” came her stern reply.

I said no more.

Moments passed without a sound.

I heard Joon Tai’s stool creak as she stood, then felt her hot breath on my neck as she bent over to whisper in my ear, “Here how it be with you. You know there be sufferin’ souls about you, but choose to not see. Oh, you know they there, but you turn your eyes away, hopin’ they just disappear. But they don’t go — they follow you like stink on a corpse — followin’ you wherever you be.”

Soft footfalls told me she was moving away. “Now you know what it be like to be blind — sightless — no eyes in them head. Now, you sufferin’ — just a little. How you like it?”

Four solid thumps on the caldron and my sight was restored. Joon Tai was once again seated opposite me. She raised the spoon before the apparition, inscribed an arc, and the form dissolved back into a mix of plasma and fog before following the spoon back into the caldron.

As the last vaporous strands slipped in, Joon Tai began to stir.

“Lemon grass and sassafras, hick-koh-ree an’ rye. Umm... niiiccssss...”

Thrice she stirred. Thrice she chanted. Thrice she hammered on the caldron.

Releasing the spoon, she assumed her vulture pose. A small gesture told me that I should, again, grasp the erect handle and stir counter-clockwise.

Joon Tai inhaled. “I see them spirit eatin’ through you like worm, poisonin’ you like water moccasin.”

The stirring was robotic.

“Think they be gone? Think they be done with you?”

Without volition, I continued to stir.

“No. Long as you be feedin’ them, they be stayin’ — eatin’ like flies on dead meat.”

A silver glint lit the air between us and pain again shot across the back of my hand. I glanced down. A second two inch cut now paralleled the first and, as before, my blood flowed into the caldron’s clouded void.

A touch of her fingertips and I let go, leaving the spoon standing in place. Once again Joon Tai grasped and raised the spoon, and with it the plasma and fog. After a moment swirling overhead, they cascaded to the floor on my left and gathered to rebuild the apparition. The fog peeled away and my image once again stood before me. This time my eyes were intact, but my lips and nose were bleeding, crudely sewn shut with lengths of rusted baling wire.

My tongue curled back into my throat. I began to choke. Reaching up, I struggled to breathe; scratching and clawing at my lips in an unsuccessful attempt to pry them apart and allay my misery.

Joon Tai regarded me from across the caldron, the spoon resting on her shoulder. “Here how it be with you. You willin’ to sting other soul with your word, but say nothin’ to save them sufferin’. Oh, you could say much — a little word make a difference, but you don’t say nothin’ and their sufferin’ go on and on.”

My breath was becoming exhausted. My vision was fading. My heart pounded in my ears.

“Now you know what it be like to be without speakin’ — dumb — tongue of no use. Now, you sufferin’ — just like them that have no voice. How you like it?”

Four solid thumps on the caldron and my tongue returned to its rightful place. I gagged, gasping for air, saliva dripping from my mouth. With a smooth motion, Joon Tai recalled the fog and plasma to the caldron.

She began to stir.

“Lemon grass and sassafras, hick-koh-ree an’ rye. Umm... niiiccssss...”

Thrice she stirred. Thrice she chanted. Thrice she hammered on the caldron.

The routine of the last two cycles was repeated. After a few moments Joon Tai left the spoon erect in the caldron — I took it and stirred counter clock-wise.

“I see them spirit bitin’ you like rabid dog, gnawin’ on you like tiger shark.”

Around and around the spoon did go.

“You think they finish with you — goin’ away? No, they stay as long as you stay what you be — stay who you be.”

I knew what was coming next, but could do nothing to stop it. A fleeting flash of candlelight and the sting on the back of my hand told me, unseen, that my flesh had been lanced anew. A third two-inch cut had joined the previous wounds and my blood was again feeding the caldron.

A light touch and I released the spoon. Joon Tai seized it and drew the fog and plasma aloft. After tumbling from the rafters, the apparition — my apparition, took form beside me. The fog peeled away. This time there were only ragged stumps where my hands should have been.

A horrid throbbing took hold of my limbs. I cried out in pain. Slipping from the stool, I begged for mercy on bended knee.

Joon Tai stood to tower over me. “Here how it be with you. You see them sufferin’, but you turn your eye away. You could speak to stop them sufferin’, but you be silent. You could give them helpin’ hand, but you hold back.

“Now, you sufferin’. But no one goin’ reach out to help you, lift you up. Not me. Not now. Not for the rest of the night. See how you like it.”

Turning away, she walked to the door. For a moment I believed she was going to see me out, but she did not. Instead she opened it, then closed and locked it behind her.

Through the night, I cried in agony.

Over time the apparition faded, its visage evaporating like dew. The blue flames dancing beneath the iron caldron died to a mercurial luminescence, then disappeared, draining away through the cracks in the floorboards.

With the coming of first light Albert returned, unlocking the door and taking me home.

* * * * *