Poison Tongue Read online

  Poison Tongue

  By Nash Summers

  Levi Bell can see a person’s soul just by looking into their eyes. In Monroe Poirier’s eyes, he sees the devil himself.

  When Monroe moves back to the small Southern town of Malcome, Levi is repelled by the darkness of the stranger’s soul. But Levi is cursed to love things dark and wicked, and each time he looks into Monroe’s eyes, he’s seduced by the swamp behind the old Poirier house.

  As strange occurrences begin to happen when shadows and visions visit him in the night, Levi sees a flicker of something good in Monroe’s soul. But the need to submerge himself in the swamp’s murky waters grows stronger as Levi’s desire for Monroe becomes unbearable.

  In his struggles to help Monroe save his soul, Levi will have to decide if it’s worth losing his own.

  For those with muddy souls, careful hearts, and a love for the darkness.

  This one’s for you.

  Chapter 1

  GRAN HAD always told me that wicked things came to me during the night.

  A purple haze swirled and danced in front of me.

  When I laced my fingers through the mist, it twirled between them, leaving no warmth or coolness against my skin. On its touch, images of horror kissed at my cheek, caressing my consciousness and soothing my aching need to wonder about the differences between reality and make-believe that pulled at me. The haze toyed at the back of my mind as though it were a young child playing, beckoning. But this child was not sweet. Terrible, horrific pictures flickered in front of my eyes, and just as quickly, disappeared.

  Sleep rarely provided any rest for me, as proverbially for the wicked, and now alertness prickled against the sweat on my collarbone.

  Still, I knew better than to question what I saw in dreams. Dreams are the truest part of me, my gran used to say. She said dreams were my soul talking to me in pictures and feelings, and I knew few things to be truer.

  Smoke wrapped itself around my neck, my waist, my arms, my legs. Loose, white pajamas fluttered sentry against the breeze.

  That was strange.

  Breeze rarely ever affected me in my dreams, and even though I couldn’t feel it, it streamed through my hair, pressed against my face, fluttered against my clothing. It poured against me as real wind would.

  All around, the trees cried. The wind blew heavy against their swaying vines and low-hanging branches. While awake their hugeness had never bothered me, but here, in the darkness of my slumber, they loomed taller than ever, surrounding me from all sides.

  Up above, the midnight sky filled with gloom. The navy blanket held a few dark clouds, allowing almost none of the moon’s rays in through the tall trees of the swamp. Still, a few strands of light managed to push through the cracks, illuminating the water around my bare feet.

  The water was up to my ankles, but it was rising.

  The purple haze grew thicker than fog. When I reached out, I felt as though I could wrap it around my wrists like a silken ribbon. Its smoothness ran along my skin gently, like the touch of a lover.

  No critters of the night chirped. No animals howled in despair. All was silent, all but the heavy sound of my breath—and a voice in the distance.

  The voice screamed. The mere sound of it was paralyzing. I tried to put my hands up to cover my ears, but I couldn’t. My muscles were stone, my eyes unblinking. I could do nothing but stare off into the dark abyss, toward the screaming.

  Strands of mist closed around my wrists. As I watched the translucent shackles form, an unearthly sense of dread crept up my spine. Slowly it tightened until the skin beneath its grip turned red and tingled. And when the thick haze began to pull, trying to drag me into the depths of the swamp, I gasped.

  No sound came out.

  Something wicked pulled me into the darkness—some kind of horror that made the sick feeling in my stomach want to pour out of my mouth.

  The swamp water turned to tar around me, thick and heavy like molasses. Any translucence it once held became solid black. One by one the few strands of light peeking through the willows snapped away, like lightbulbs shattering against a concrete floor.

  The tar kept rising.

  The voice in the distance shrieked louder.

  My eyelids began to flutter.

  It was only as I started to slip from my deep, dark sleep that I heard what the voice was screaming.

  Chapter 2

  DARKNESS HAD a way of finding me.

  During my first moments of consciousness, I always expected to see something standing at the end of my bed, something terrible that had followed me from my dreams. But the childishness of my fear always dwindled quickly as my heartbeat slowed, and the warmth of the sunlight touched my face.

  The bedsheets were caked in mud and the dampness of water. They smelled of the swamp. I smelled of the swamp.

  Pulling the covers back, I wasn’t surprised to see the mud and grime had come from me. Up to my waist, I was covered in dried, dirty water and plastered with mud. Leaves and dirt clung to my clothing like glitter to skin. My bare feet were black with mud and covered in red scratches that continued up my legs, past the hem of my knee-length pajama bottoms.

  Sighing, I touched the side of my face. Wet from tears, or rain, or swamp water. There was a tightness as my eyelashes stuck together. The muscles of my neck and shoulders ached with fatigue.

  I looked down at my bare arms and frowned. Purple, angry bruises laced around my wrists and forearms. They’d come upon me like a tormentor in the night and followed me back into the world of the waking.

  Tossing the blankets off, I stood and went to the dresser. I wasn’t surprised to see that I looked as exhausted as I felt when I caught my reflection. Dark bags hung under my eyes as signs of a sleepless night. Light blond hair was stuck to the side of my head, full of leaves and twigs and moss. The paleness of my skin was alarming. I was outside most days and was usually colored from the sun’s warm touches. But now my color was drained and gaunt, as if my heart had stopped beating lifetimes ago.

  I stripped my dirty clothing off and went to the bathroom adjoining my bedroom. The reflection in the bathroom lighting didn’t pay me any favors. When I stepped under the hot spray of the shower and lowered my head, I began to shake. Behind my eyelids swirled visions of dark, purple serpents, twisting and squeezing my arms, waist, neck. They cut air off from my lungs, squeezed my throat. Their colors swayed from mulberry to black.

  The darkness was closer, preparing to swallow me. It was clawing at my insides, screaming and wailing. It wanted me so badly, I could almost taste its need. And I needed it back. I needed those purple swirls of smoke and fog to fill my lungs, to wrap around my heart and slow its rapid beating.

  My breathing came hard, fast, and uncontrolled. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the universe to fill my lungs.

  And then, just as quickly as the vision had come, it left me.

  The tiles on the bathroom wall were off-white, and I held on to that fact as best I could. I wasn’t in some dark, dank place. I wasn’t in a swamp. I was at home, in my shower, staring at the off-white tiles.

  Cold water beat against my naked body before I finally dragged myself out of the shower. I grabbed one of the dark blue towels, which hung on the rack next to the door, and dried off. The rough feel of a towel against bare skin brought me back to where I was.

  I dressed quickly in a loose, black T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The dresser was covered in jewelry: gold bangles, beaded necklaces, rose-gold earrings with dangling green and blue gems. I ran a touch along the wooden box that Mama had given me when I was only young. It had blossoming flowers carved into the top, with an ornate frame around the edges. The hinge on the back was wearing down with age, and there were chips missing out of the sid
es of the box.

  I opened it and took out a few braided black-leather bracelets, twirled them around my wrists, and tied them. Golden bangles followed behind them, and then a long beaded necklace around my neck that hung almost to my navel.

  After closing the bedroom door behind me, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen where my family would be. As I walked through the hallway, I looked at the flower-patterned drapes that hung alongside the window and the framed pictures on the walls. My throat dried when I thought of my gran picking out those drapes and of her hanging the pictures of our family.

  Everything in the house reminded me of Gran, which wasn’t surprising. Most of the things we owned were hand-me-downs from Gran, things she’d collected throughout her years. The rug that ran down the hallway had been hers. It was blue and gold, and I remembered her telling me once that she saw it in a pawn shop in southern Mississippi and thought it was the tackiest thing she’d ever seen. Of course she had to have it.

  Gran had a wicked sense of humor and sense of being that few people understood—but I was lucky enough to be one of them. She’d once told me we were kindred souls, that in life and death we’d always understand each other. She believed that blood was thicker than liquid cement and twice as strong than even the dry kind.

  In the kitchen the smell of fresh tea leaves and peanut butter greeted me. The sunlight from the main window pierced the glass, bringing light to the small room. The appliances were old, much like the countertops and cupboards. They’d been here when we’d bought the house years ago. Almost everything was made of wood—handcrafted, we’d been told. The wood was refinished and shone slightly from the lacquer we often reapplied to keep it from splintering. Against the opposite wall from the counters was the breakfast table that always had fresh calla lilies in a tall blue glass vase. All around the table were mismatched chairs, some with pictures of blue skies, some with old, red fabric fraying at the ends.

  My mama stood in front of the gas oven, her black, knee-length dress swaying back and forth as she cooked. Mama usually wore black dresses. Often I wondered how she wasn’t sweating half to death in the heat of the thick fabrics and dark colors.

  “Morning, Levi,” my little sister said without looking up from the table.

  “Good morning, Silvi.”

  “You do not look well,” a familiar, monotone voice said.

  Ward sat at the end of the table, thick arms folded across his chest.

  I ignored him and went to sit between him and Silvi. She had pencil crayons scattered about the table, one of each color, and a stack of papers in front of her. I didn’t have to look at the piece of paper to know she’d drawn the same thing she always drew: ghosts.

  “Your hair looks pretty today, Silvi.” I reached out and pulled on a lock of my sister’s blond hair. It was done in ringlets that were loose, falling just above her shoulders. Her brown eyes were intently focused on the paper in front of her and the pencil crayon in her tiny hand.

  At eight years old, Silvi was small for her age. My mama didn’t worry because she said I was the same size as Silvi at that age. But one day, it seemed, I grew like a weed. I could see why my mama thought that the same could probably be said for Silvi. My little sister looked like a miniature replica of myself. We had the same high, full cheeks, the same straight, slim nose, the same soft jawline. Our eyes were both sooty brown, our eyelashes both long and naturally curled. They looked prettier on Silvi than they did on me.

  “Ward helped me with my hair.” Silvi began drawing a tree next to the ghost.

  I smirked at Ward. He was unblinking.

  “Have you been sleepwalking?” Ward obviously didn’t want to let the subject drop.

  Mama turned around and faced us, her eyes unfocused on the wall above our heads.

  “Sleepwalking?” she asked. “What did you dream of?”

  I didn’t hesitate to answer her. I knew she’d get the answer out of me one way or another. “The swamp. With water thick and solid, rising to my knees. And a voice screaming something I couldn’t understand.”

  “And?”

  “And a serpent made of smoke. It spun around me. It coiled around my throat. It felt so real. I remember how it felt against my skin, the feel of its scales.”

  “And you wanted it there.” Ward said it as a statement, not a question.

  “Yes. I wanted it there.”

  My heart loved wicked things. It loved the darkness and the horrors of things that crept through the swamp under a midnight moon.

  My mama walked to the opposite side of the table, reached out, and put her hand on my forehead. Streams of sunlight glistened against her long blond hair, highlighting how she looked thinner than she ever had. None of us brought it up. It was a game we played now: tiptoe around Mama’s thinness and sunken, tired face. Her eyes—hazy, clouded—remained fixed on the wall behind my head.

  After a moment she snatched her hand back. She didn’t have to say a thing. I already knew.

  “I’ll go to the store,” I assured her. “I’ll get supplies.”

  “This might be too strong for basic hoodoo, Levi. I could see it when I touched you. It’s crawling just beneath your skin.”

  “I know, Mama.”

  She began to fret, wiping her sweaty palms on her dress. Her eyes never found my face, but still I knew all her attention was focused on me.

  “Don’t worry, Mama,” Silvi said. “Nothing bad will happen to Levi. Ward will protect him. Won’t you, Ward?”

  “Always. And forever.”

  My gaze slid to my best friend, sitting at the end of the table. Ward sat with his thick, dark brown arms crossed over his chest. When he sat up straight like that, it reminded me of how much bigger he was than myself. His head was shaved clean, and the tank top he wore was the same crisp color of the whites of his eyes. His dark, almost-black eyes looked right back at me as if he knew every thought that was running through my mind. He probably did. Ward knew me better than anyone else, and I him. My mama often said we’d been designed since the beginning of time to stand side by side.

  “Still,” I said, “for peace of mind, I’ll go to Miss Annamae’s and pick up a few things.”

  Ward stood up, then tucked his chair back under the table. “I will come with you.”

  “I know.”

  “Stay close,” Mama warned, even though we all knew it was in vain.

  As I walked by my little sister, drawing at the table, I tugged on one of her strands of hair. “Do you need anything from the store, Silvi?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t look up. “More black and white pencil crayons.”

  Ward and I left through the back door. As I stepped outside onto the back porch, I shielded my eyes from the bright, blistering sun. The hot Louisiana air hit me like a solid brick wall. The winters here were hot, and the summers even hotter. The summer sun was unrelenting, the heat forcing a person awake even in the middle of the night. The humidity seeped into a person’s bones and stayed there. Gran used to say that once you lived in Louisiana, its tinge of heat followed you around wherever you went. She once said she could spot someone from Louisiana in a group as easily as picking a gumball out of a bag of marbles.

  I looked out into the wide-open field behind our house, staring off into the hazy distance at nothing but the dirt and short weeds.

  “Is it something we should talk about?” Ward asked from where he was standing behind me.

  “It could be nothing.” I swallowed hard, forcing the dryness of my throat away. We both knew it wasn’t nothing. Dreams like that rarely meant nothing—at least not when I was the one having them.

  “You have always been a terrible liar, Levi.”

  I ignored him. “Sun’ll be up high soon. We should go before midafternoon, when it gets too hot to breathe.”

  I stepped down the rickety, splintering wood of the porch steps, Ward, naturally, following close behind me. We rounded the path along the side of the house, me running my fingers along the paneling o
f the house as we passed by. White paint chips tickled my fingertips before fluttering from the panels and dropping to the flower beds below them. The house was old and hadn’t been painted in years. It had been one of those family things we’d set out to do, before Mama couldn’t any longer. Now the residual memory of the three of us last painting the house together weighed heavily on her, bringing her spirits into a dark place.

  “What will you get at Annamae’s?” Ward asked.

  “Oils, candles, roots, incense, herbs. Just the basics to make a mojo bag or two.”

  “Nothing stronger?”

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “No.”

  We spent the rest of the walk in silence, glancing at the few houses on the street, at the packed-down path we walked along. The few people who passed by us smiled at me or nodded an acknowledgment. Malcome was a small town, and almost everyone knew everyone. It was the kind of town where folks knew each other on a first-name basis and constantly called upon their neighbors for small favors. Since I kept to myself, I didn’t pay much attention to many of the Malcome townsfolk, and in turn I was given the same courtesy.

  The town of Malcome, if one could even call it a town, was southwest from Baton Rouge. The town bordered onto a bayou that was so vast most folks thought the bayou itself might’ve been larger than the town as a whole. People thought our town was defined by that bayou—everyone from around here knew about it and knew to steer clear. More than once someone had gone missing into those deep, dismal waters of the swamp.

  Children around town liked to tell tales about beasts living in the swamp. They spoke of monsters, with long, spindly fingers dripping with acid and decay, that would reach out from the pits and grab hold of whatever they could find. Others talked of demons and curses or people half-dead, living just beneath the surface of the waters, watching, waiting to tear the gentle flesh off passersby.

  At twenty-two I should’ve been too old to believe in tales of monsters and half-dead people living in the swamp. But I knew something about that swamp wasn’t right.