“A journey to the corridor of spiritual experience! Bloody Mary's supernatural side of New Orleans is both fully documented with history and rich with the magic act of invocation through storytelling. Recommended not only for the adept, but also for students of metaphysics, paranormal enthusiasts, practicing spiritualists, and those who need to see how to extend motherly love beyond the human realm.”
—Yeye Luisah Teish, author of Jambalaya: The Natural
Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals
“New Orleans is a place with a colorful history shrouded in dark mystery. Ghosts and voodoo are a part of daily life, and who better to tell you the stories than Bloody Mary, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Mary doesn't just tell the stories of the Big Easy—she lives them. She bridges the world of the living with the realm of the dead, and takes you on this thrilling, lifelong journey of hers in this book.”
—Brad Klinge, lead investigator on Ghost Lab, Discovery
Channel, producer/star of 9 Diamond Productions' Strange
Curiosity, and co-author of Chasing Ghosts, Texas Style
“An entertaining and interesting fact-filled journey guided by the inimitable voice of raconteur Bloody Mary who brings the dead back to life in her Supernatural guide to the other side of New Orleans.”
—Carolyn Long, author of A New Orleans Voudou
Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau and
Madame Lalaurie: Mistress of the Haunted House
“I love this book. Bloody Mary brings to life those who are gone but still with us. And Bloody Mary writes their history so beautifully—poetically and lyrically. But, more importantly, she shares her own supernatural insight and experiences with them too.”
—Angela Hill, award-winning journalist, veteran news
anchor, and New Orleans television personality
“Bloody Mary, Voodoo priestess, folklorist, and storyteller, allows the reader to enter her spiritual and professional world . . . the author illustrates the marriage between the mundane and the spiritual, between the supernatural and the religious, between legends and the truth.”
—Alexandra Reuber, PhD, professor of Practice in
French at Tulane University in New Orleans
“Fascinating insight through Bloody Mary's eyes into the paranormal and New Orleans. A hauntingly good read.”
—Nick Groff, coauthor of Chasing Spirits and founding
team member of Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures
This edition first published in 2016 by Weiser Books, an imprint of
Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
With offices at:
65 Parker Street, Suite 7
Newburyport, MA 01950
www.redwheelweiser.com
Copyright © 2016 by Bloody Mary
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.
ISBN: 978-1-57863-566-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request
Cover design by Jim Warner
Cover images: Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana © Paul Souders/World-Foto,
6836 16th Ave NE, Sea/Corbis; Sky: Shutterstock © Stephanie Frey
Interior by Deborah Dutton
Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro
Printed in the United States of America
M&G
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
www.redwheelweiser.com
www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter
To all the spirits, especially my mother, Beverly
Millan. She taught me how to pray and how to
love an undying love—she still does.
Gratitude and thanks also to my living and loving
family who ground me here and now, with special
honors to Jagger, Matthew, Gina, and Olga.
I am an afterlife coach to those who have passed, but I am
always their student. I learn directly from the source—
because I listen. I try to help these phantoms evolve and
provide a mirror of truth to aid in their rescue, but I believe
it is a two-way mirror.
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
1 
Julie, the Ghost of Forbidden Love
Her Story
Séance
The Red-Eyed Demon
LAGNIAPPE Hitchhikers and My Haunted House
2 The Voodoo Museum, Seven Ghosts and Counting
Trickster Tom and the Hungry Haint
Le Collections
Ghost Snake: La Grande Zombi
Ghost Gator: Le Grande Crocodille
Ghost Cat: Le Chat Noir
Voodoo Charlie's Ghost
LAGNIAPPE Angel Mom, My Longest Love
3 Madame Lalaurie, La Vampyra
Torturous Truths
Death's Toll
Ghosts of the Lalaurie Mansion
Modern-Day Happenings
Aftermath and Exorcisms
Why?
LAGNIAPPE Henriette, the Phantom Who Wanted to Come to America
4 Jean Lafitte, the Gentleman Pirate
Finding Lafitte in the Battle of New Orleans
A Wandering Pirate
The Cast of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar
Ghosts of Love
LAGNIAPPE Blood and Ice
5 Cities of the Dead
The Shadow of Death
Burial Process—The Inside Story
Grave Encounters
The Lady in White
The Crossroads
Underneath Us All
The Bronze Beauty
LAGNIAPPE Katrina and the Cauchemar
6 Marie Laveau, Queen of Voodoo
The Legacy
The Legend
The Spirit
The Life
The Lies
Conclusion
Bibliography
NEW ORLEANS. THE BIG EASY. Like its music and food, the city itself is a blend of cultures, beliefs, flavors, sights, and sounds.
With much of the city residing below sea level, the constant threat of Mother River reminds all who live and visit that life is both fragile and short. Given her history—full of tragedy, travesty, and triumphs—there's no question that New Orleans is America's most haunted metropolis.
In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina claimed thousands of lives. That disaster is but one chapter in a long book of New Orleans legend, lore, and history.
Around 800 C.E., the Mississippian people settled this region and built earthworks and burial mounds. In the 1690s, the French arrived sowing seeds of their culture that can still be found in every Creole's accent and cooking. Later, New Orleans was caught up in the war between the French and Spanish. The outskirts of town were once full of plantations and African slaves were brought in by the boatload. They brought their folk magic and Voodoo—adding to this gumbo of culture.
Who could forget the infamous early-nineteenth-century pirate Jean Lafitte calling New Orleans his home port? Or Madame Lalaurie, a socialite and serial killer known for torturing and murdering her slaves? With most of the graves in the city cemeteries located above-ground, it's no wonder the dead walk so freely here, including the spirit of the city's most famous Voodoo Queen: Marie Laveau.
What you're holding in your hands right now has been more than twelve centuries in the making. By turning this page, you're embarking on a journey of haunted New Orleans with one of the most visible and qualified guides you'll ever meet . . . Bloody Mary.
Unlike television's ghost hunters who rely on gear and gadgets to look for ghosts, or psychic mediums who offer only their mental impressions of spirits, you have Bloody Mary who blends her psychic abilities with limited technical gear. As a Voodoo Priestess, she can also bring those magical elements into her work. Mary offers drumming and dance, conversation, libation, and of course, creole food, to the spirits as a way to glean a complete picture with local flair.
Bloody Mary is a product of her environment, just as her city is a product of the millions of people who have come and gone through the Big Easy over the centuries. Each person has left their mark on New Orleans . . . and some of those voices still echo today . . . if you know how to listen.
Fortunately, Bloody Mary does in a method she calls Voodoo Paranormal. I've had the privilege of knowing and working with her for over a decade now. I can think of no better person to take you on this trip to haunted N'awlins.
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
—Jeff Belanger, author of The World's Most Haunted Places
WELCOME . . . I AM BLOODY MARY, a born and bred, proud native New Orleanian. My lifelong quest is dedicated to spiritual endeavors the world over, but it is my own backyard that has proved the premier microcosm of mysticism with a heavy hotbed of spirit activity to share. I was exceedingly blessed to be born and raised in America's Most Haunted City, where my roots were planted nearly three hundred years ago, long before we were American. My earliest ancestors Troxler (later Troxclair, or Troslcair), came here from the Alsace–Lorraine area of France in 1718, and their spirits still speak.
Spirits have come to me here since childhood. Throughout my entire life, I've been polishing my understanding of the spirit worlds and how different people entreat them. I believe in angels and saints as the source of many of the apparitions I encounter—they are. I believe in many levels of human and nature spirits, too.
True proof of the supernatural lies in the experience. I share these experiences through a spiritualist and shamanic approach with a cordial bedside manner, and I consider it a privilege and a responsibility for us to work together.
My personal search pointed me to Voodoo some thirty-three years ago, but yours should go wherever makes sense to you. The religion of Voodoo is as cultural here as my native blood, and the spirit world of New Orleans is organically part of it all. Voodoo is a religion that still allows the spirit world to talk to you directly. The ancestors speak; I listen. This is a religion that is alive. It has been speaking to me my whole life, from my own backyard and the waters that surround.
While I am Voodoo, I never gave up my Catholic upbringing. I wouldn't, for it is one with me and my city. My mom was a St. Joseph nun before she married my dad, and I was the result of her ten-year-long novena in request for a daughter. I was trained my whole life, and prior, to pray with the saints as intermediaries. They send me messages and I listen.
I work as a psychopomp but serve as Voodoo Queen. I am also Mamaissi—Priestess of the River, and Haitian Voodoo Mambo Asogwe. I am an especially proud disciple of the spirit of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau. I preach her tradition, which includes all these aforementioned traditions as natural ingredients in the great gumbo that is New Orleans.
As an earnest and state-sanctioned priestess, I perform hundreds of weddings, baptisms, and death rites—all of which have witness of the living and the dead. I also provide spirit counseling, rituals, and ceremonial healings for the living and the dead. On top of that, I also do house spiritual cleansings, uncrossings, and even full exorcisms, if warranted. But, all in all, people come to me to learn how to connect with spirits more often than to remove them. I teach people how to get along with spirits, clear their own spirit, and conquer their fears.
This treatise is meant to invite you into the other side of New Orleans. Through true story and experience, I hope to help you stop and listen to these Invisibles who still whisper their memories to you before they are silenced or rewritten in the wake. I am their voice.
This book is committed to all those who have come before as well as those who will come ahead who face the danger of losing these precious components of the legacy of New Orleans in these post-Katrina changing times. Join me; let me be your spirit guide, leading you through to the other side of my New Orleans.
LIFT THE VEIL WITH ME as we uncover the supernatural world of New Orleans. Hear about the famous and the infamous ghosts of New Orleans in a different light, discover previously unpublished details about New Orleans's most famous spirits—the Voodoo queen Marie Laveau, Jean Lafitte the pirate, our femme fatale Blood Madame Delphine Lalaurie, and Julie, the ghost of forbidden love—and meet some personal everyday spirits that help make this place tick.
Join me for a toast to the ghosts as we travel through portals known and unknown in New Orleans. Meet my spirit mom, Beverly, a few of my personal house spirits, and some phantom hitchhikers that I've picked up though the years. Ghost animals also pop up here and there.
Tag along through New Orleans's cities of the dead. Understand the how-tos of our unique burial process, and get inside-the-box knowledge of what's really hidden underneath it all. Join me as we meet some of the residents I have encountered on my graveyard excursions throughout more than half a century of visits.
See paranormal photos from my ghost photo gallery, then take a walk on the dark side and get details of some of the exorcisms I've been called in to execute. Get behind-the-scenes info on the documented spirit case studies you have seen me cover on hundreds of national documentaries for the past twenty years, and I will even share some case studies never before revealed.
I include a Spirits' Who's Who and explain what they do after each chapter to spotlight specific roles that the dead can help you with. Then, go through to the Afterlife Lessons and Warnings sections to help you understand and navigate communicating with the spirit worlds around us. Discover how-to hints through my personal method of Voodoo Paranormal, psychic connection techniques, and direct spirit revelation.
Come explore the paranormal impact of many of our historic founding families and travel with me all the way up to the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Explore some modern spirit activity accented by my world of paranormal experiences in vignettes through lagniappes (that's “a little something extra” in ole New Orleans patois).
I will provide a voice from another era—storyteller prose mixed with modern style with a splash of channeled information sprinkled throughout. The spirits want their stories told. They've even stepped up to correct their own history, and they could jump out of these pages to visit you, too.
I will tell you both sides of the stories I share, and explain the paranormal aftermath still felt today. The nineteenth century is the backbone when many of my main spirits lived in the flesh—these are the spirits who talk the most and are still interested in keeping the old ways present. I have been directly involved in New Orleans twentieth- and twenty-first-century supernatural worlds affairs, where I continue my work as a psychic detective.
The mystic and supernatural side of New Orleans must be realized as just as important to her history as her Creole cuisine, jazz music, and Mardi Gras.
You may wonder why New Orleans is called America's most haunted city. There is never just one answer to that. Wars, plagues, pestilence, and hurricanes have not destroyed New Orleans, and these disasters are not the only things that have created our ghosts. Ghosts are our history; they have tales to tell and recipes to share.
You should also be aware that New Orleans is on great geophysical ley lines, with portals regularly opening and closing. These dragon lines, faery roads, or ley lines are long-known highways of spirit activity and power grids. New Orleans and Cairo, Egypt are on the same ley line, and when you travel east from New Orleans it shares a ley line with the great tantric center of Lhasa, Tibet. We are the base chakra; we are Malkuth; we are the filter, too. Many things snake their way though our port town by riding on the back of our mother, the Mississippi.
There is also a group of adept ascended spirits here that I call collectively the architects. They have shown me the key to many things and have helped in healing many situations. Their imprint here is deep, and these Old Ones unlock the mysteries.
Believe, or do not believe, in spirits: This is a decision only you can choose to satisfy. I record first-hand experiences from inside the box, from qualitative paranormal field studies, and from the perspective of an avid historian. I simply speak and mark their words and mine. There is a balance and a spirit path embedded here. Power points charged with spirits await if you know where to find them. The spirit of place here is wild and wise. But there is also a dark side . . . Are you ready to look further beyond the veil?
I WAS INTERVIEWING SOME PSYCHICS at Bottom of the Cup Tea Room who owned and worked in this known haunted building of 734 Royal Street. Specifically, I was inquiring about their famous resident spirit, Julie. This group shared many ghostly tales: electrical issues, water faucets turning off and on, items disappearing and reappearing, and even one tale about their haunted swing in the courtyard. Everyone had an experience to share—a meandering ghost cat, occasional phantom voices calling them near—plus a unanimous reporting of a very uncomfortable presence. Some reported it as a simple feeling of being watched or “cased out.” Words like “danger” and “suffocation” were mentioned. The general consensus was that there was a rather indomitable masculine entity whose darkness was apparent upon occasion. They all agreed that Julie was light and sweet. I was here for Julie at this time, and an important tale presented itself.
A sweet female psychic in her mid-twenties and I exited the main building to the courtyard for our session. Mind you, the entire time we were chatting, I was covered with spirit-formed cold chills that were getting stronger and stronger, pulsating through my whole body. I attributed them to the fact that spirits were near and listening. Doors slammed in the nearby slave quarters, bells tinkled by unseen hands, and soft laughter echoed from the throat of an unseen watcher from the haunted rear patio where we were sitting. My interviewee noticed me trance away (“getting tipsy,” as we sometimes say), and laughingly remarked, “Oh, that's just Julie—she's really trying to get your attention.” I nodded and bid a kind hello and acknowledged Julie's spirit presence.
The psychic continued, “Once I was napping in this same courtyard, and I was awakened by a beautiful stranger. She was a young woman who appeared barely twenty. She was of olive complexion and very pretty. She shook me to wake me and spoke in a tone of concern. Over and over she repeated, ‘Henri Je Rouge, Henri Je Rouge.’”
Mistakenly, this psychic thought the spirit of Julie was looking for someone with that name, perhaps a child. But I knew better, for now Julie had stepped even closer into me, and I was the medium. I knew her real meaning. Plus, as a local, I certainly knew of the feared Je Rouge.
I chimed in, “No, no. She was warning you and waking you to protect you. Je Rouge is a demon—the red-eyed demon, an evil one.”
An arctic cold enveloped us from the beyond at the precise moment I repeated that refrain. A sense of urgency was upon me to run out right that minute. This was not out of any sense of fear, just a knowing. Julie was urging me on. It was time to go. The second I stepped out of the boundaries of the building, I realized that the pulsating icy feeling was not a tingling from the haunted courtyard, but was emanating from inside me. Exhilaration is the best word to describe it, coupled with a sense of awe and a sensation that the whole world was my personal oyster.
I began to skip down the street (not a normal pace for me). I even tried to jump up to hit all of the store signs I encountered. Giggling and laughing aloud, I merrily skipped through the Vieux Carré as I was both self and other, overpowered with glee. There was still a slight sense of human embarrassment. Was everyone staring at me? No mind, this felt great! But I had things to do. I needed to fetch my child from pre-K, but that would mean I would have to drive home after. I had to do something to fix this. Then again, I did not want it to stop at all because the feeling was so happy and carefree. There was so much I could learn from Julie, and she from me. I hated for her to leave.
Julie's spirit body, with her head tilted, approaching from the left.
Photo by Matthew Pouliot © BMT, Inc.
I usually prepare for spirit encounters with protection amulets in hand, but I was empty-handed on this day. No matter, mine were only two blocks away, with sacred altars in wait. I skipped merrily toward the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum on Dumaine Street, where I was stationed at the time and where Creole mystic Madame Cocoa was busily preparing her own mojo. I knocked on her door and told her quickly that I was not alone—I had a ghost with me. I hoped she wanted to co-channel and socialize with us, but Cocoa went right to the heart of the matter.
“Do you want me to get rid of it?”
That sounded so final.
“Well, I think I would rather talk and get to know her.”
But Cocoa was busy and not in the mood.
“Do you want to get rid of her or not?” she pressed.
I calculated quickly: Pick up child + drive home + cook dinner = “Yes.”
Cocoa took her bottle of Florida water from the altar, poured some into her cupped hand, slapped it on my heart chakra, and said “Julie!” The moment she called her name, the spirit was gone. I had not told Cocoa where I had just come from or the name of the ghost.
Julie's spirit was gone quicker than she came, but our connection lingers. I can honestly say that Julie is still a close friend of mine. She was the first spirit to take a full ride on my back that had to be ritually removed. Some nineteen-plus years ago, right at my transition from part-time to full-time spirit work, Mademoiselle Julie walked in. She needed a ride.
Orb at a rooftop where the residual energy ghost of Julie walks
Photo by Bloody Mary © BMT, Inc.
Julie was the most beautiful woman in town: long hair down below her waist, skin the color of café au lait, and eyes of hazel. She wanted nothing more than to marry Zachary in the eyes of God and bear his children. But this simply was not done in the day. Legally, she was a woman of color, and marrying between races was not permitted. She was his placée, a form of legal mistress. Julie did not understand why they should not wed—everyone else in town seemed to want to marry her. Her love for Zachary was beyond compare, as she thought his was for her. What could her one-eighth strain of blood noir possibly mean between their love?
Whenever Zachary was entertaining his friends below, she was expected to spend many a night alone on the third floor. This was a part of his world that she was not privy to, and it saddened her greatly.
When they were alone, they had quite the storybook romance; but these days were few and far between now. For, as in any story-book romance, there was an evil shadow in the background—and this tale has several.
One was Zachary's family. They had selected someone for him to marry—someone of title, someone of wealth. More and more, he would leave his love to spend time with the other woman to appease his family. And more and more, Julie was left alone—trapped, not only by the sadness of her man seeing another woman, but because another evil shadow was weighing heavily on the shoulders of Julie.
Julie was haunted. She saw and felt the menacing presence of the evil spirit Je Rouge. She saw his red eyes in the windows at night. She felt his draining desires. A young lady should not be alone; it simply was not proper. She was easy prey.
And now there was a strange man lurking about. Soon he seemed obsessed with Julie, or possessed. Henri was a local slave, and he terrified her. In Julie's eyes, now he stalked her, too. Now, Henri and Je Rouge were merging as one, and Julie was the one on the menu. It was maddening. She knew not what to do.
When Zachary did come home, all he and Julie did was fight. She begged and pleaded for him to stay, for she truly feared for her life. At first Zachary thought this was a ploy to get him to stay home longer, but soon he realized that this was destroying Julie. Worse, it was destroying their love. Without a word, but with a noble nod, he stared into her hazel eyes, and she knew deep in her heart that he would take care of things. From that night forth, she knew she was safe. It seemed as if all the monsters vanished when he held her in his arms. They never spoke of it again.
Slowly, Julie's strength returned. Her fears subsided, and she was free to deal with the true matter at hand: her man was seeing another woman. No one should marry him but her—it was destiny.
Maybe Marie Laveau would help. She was renowned in the field of love. In fact, she was the mistress of l'amour. Her work had an impeccable reputation. So Julie gathered her strength and went to see the Voodoo queen to procure a love ritual. She asked Marie to make their love last for eternity and Mam'zelle Marie gave Julie everything she needed.
With those items in hand, she returned home and climbed up the stairs to wait for her love. The Thursday night card game had rolled 'round, as usual. And, as usual, Julie waited above as Zachary's friends gathered below. But when Zachary climbed the stairs later that night, there was nothing usual about the kiss they shared. It was more passionate than any other. He was speechless when they broke from that embrace, transfixed by her eyes. Why, he couldn't even speak until spoken to. He was under her spell.
The words they shared that night seemed to seal their fate for eternity.
“You have taken care of me in every way for all these years, and somehow you rid me of Je Rouge. You're my knight in shining armor. Now comes the time that I must prove my love back to you,” Julie said.
“There is nothing you need prove, my dear,” Zachary retorted gallantly.
“It is my debt due,” she shrewdly replied, knowing he was foremost a man of honor.
Julie persisted with this demand, and Zachary relented. “Alright then, Julie. If you feel so strongly about this . . . prove your love to me. Walk then. Walk the night on the roof. That will prove your love!”
That night, there was a terrible ice storm.
“If I do that, then you'll certainly marry me,” said Julie.
“Why, yes,” Zachary said. “In fact, I will marry you in the morning if you walk all night on the roof without the benefit of any of your clothing.”
Julie disrobed, much to Zachary's dismay. He thought it would be over and done with, such an obviously preposterous statement. But, then again, he should have known how serious a subject this was with Julie.
“Go. I know how improper it is to keep your friends waiting,” Julie urged. “After all, I will be Madame in the morning and never have to leave your side again. But do indulge me. Look deeply into my eyes, the windows of the soul, so you know how much I love you. For I very well could freeze to death up there tonight.”
Zachary replied, in all earnestness, “No. My love will keep you warm.”
They embraced, and then each went in their opposite directions. Throughout the night, Zachary became increasingly nervous. He did not hear Julie's footsteps overhead as usual. But he was not going to give in to her—not this time. He would find her warm, waiting in bed, and things would be back to the way they should be by morning.
All the night he did fret. At 6 AM, when the cock did crow, Zachary sent his friends away and hurried upstairs to see where Julie was hiding, but could find her not. He raced up to the roof. There, he found her frozen, naked body clutching the chimney. Zachary pried Julie's fingertips from the brick, scooped her up into his strong arms, carried her through the attic window and down the ladder, and laid her on the bed where they once made so much love. The guilt was overwhelming. He had no idea she'd actually go through with such a thing, but he should have known. Zachary held Julie tightly in an embrace until she expired in his arms.
On cold December nights, Julie walks on the rooftop—sometimes searching, sometimes protecting, but most often lingering and listening for love's small tap, tap, tap upon her door. Groups gather on Rue Royale waiting to catch a glimpse of what many say is the world's only naked ghost. Most ghosts have more shame, but not Julie. She walks boldly back and forth across the roof in afterlife as she did in life, until the first rays of sunshine hit and she disappears.
Another ghost is sometimes seen: a man, formally dressed in period attire, wandering the rooms. Other times, just his ghostly hands are glimpsed, usually shuffling a deck of cards. And once in a blue moon, two shadow lovers embrace. Sometimes they are even seen strolling hand in hand across the courtyard in midair. For Zachary too died, not long after Julie, they say, of a broken heart.
But there is that other ghost—the dark one. He is the one felt and feared by many who have lived in this building throughout the years. Unbeknownst to me, I was destined not only to befriend Julie, but fate planned for me to deal with this Other as well.
They say that the other side is a mirror image of what happens here; so it seems to be for Julie. For that slave Henri could not rest on the other side without coming back to catch a glimpse of the woman he wanted but society would never let him have. So heavy is his presence that Julie's spirit still feels as though she is being stalked. It important to her to warn people who visit of the evils they may encounter where she once lived. “Henri Je Rouge! Henri Je Rouge!” These are the words I have heard echo from the rooftop. Perhaps she was not really alone on the roof that night.
You don't have to hold hands 'round a table to have a séance, and you don't have to use EMF meters to have a paranormal investigation; these are really only techy trumpets and bells of modern day that amplify your own psychic abilities.
I cleared permission to do an overnight investigation at 724 Royal Street. My sister Carol, my friend Sarah, and I all collaborate on psychic and spiritual encounters, plus a few fans tagged along. Six women sat to psychically connect.
We were on the second floor of the main building this night. There was a connecting entrance from the slave quarters' rooms to ours and a joint winding stairwell between all the floors. We started with some simple social connections in the parlor, but Julie's terror and warnings were increasingly felt this night, and Henri came out in all his fury.
It started slowly. We felt there was someone out of place, lurking. Someone who really should not come into the main house; a dark man. The current owner, Glenette, heard the phrase “the bad man.”
At one point, I went into a separate room alone to do some automatic writing. The overall message followed suit:
Be careful. Watch out. He is close. Be wary of your company, too.
I said nothing to my companions about this. We continued for another hour or so of mutual channeling and back and forth with our Q&A mediumship. When that social connection part of the night was done (or, more precisely, when the spirits decided it was done), the door to the stairwell slammed shut, sending shivers reverberating clear down to the bones of all. We ran to pursue the culprit and caught the wisps of a white ghostly dress hem as Julie's ghost turned up the winding staircase and retreated to the third floor.
Knocking quickly on the tenant Chris's door, we asked, “Did you see Julie? We followed her to you from downstairs.”
Chris and his wife Lisa had many experiences with Julie on countless other nights, especially in the realm of sound. Frequent ghostly dinner parties with the clinking of crystal goblets and murmurs of conversation just out of reach embraced them on many a quiet evening. We all searched for her this night, with no luck. She just disappeared.
Soon everyone exited the building except my sister and I—we stayed overnight on the second floor. We continued our quest and experienced many anomalies, photographed paranormal evidence, heard whisperings through the night, and were followed by the scent of old-fashioned sweet perfume. Later, I had dream visions that were both lucid and concrete.
By morning, I knew how to help. I wanted to do something to protect Julie; my empathy was strong on her case. I gathered classic historic protections against demons, vampires, and/or general suckeurs.
I would drive the honey locust thorns into the window ledge that divided the slave quarters from the main house, to prevent Henri from entering and scaring dear Julie again. I treated and activated the hand-gathered thorns with traiteur techniques and ole swamp magic. I then whipped up some strong protection oil from a secret recipe. Carol and I then returned to this Royal Street address to seal the entrance.
With our mission accomplished, we readied to leave. As we descended the stairs, I glanced over to the courtyard and encountered an eerie and bizarre sight: Precariously balanced on a narrow brick ledge forming the back wall betwixt the bishop's abode and Julie's home was a young man whom I had seen on many an occasion enter and exit the building. He lived in a slave quarters apartment and seemed to be a quiet man. But on this day, he was a creepy man. He was perched perfectly and was staring at us with an unblinking gaze. His long black coattails were barely grazing that three-story, crumbly mortar and Mississippi mud brick courtyard wall. He appeared sinister, somewhat like a deranged crow stalking prey. He did not move an inch nor say a word. He simply stared with vacant eyes and watched intently as we walked away. Eerie, indeed.
I went back to the Voodoo Museum immediately, where Madame Cocoa came running at me, ready to chastise. Before I said a word, she yelled, “Who have you brought back this time?!”
Uh oh, was I in trouble?
“Come quick, Ms. Mary,” Madame Cocoa said, not waiting for my reply. “Come quick. I swear to you—those big red heart bottles you have in the back altar threw themselves across the room all on their own just two minutes ago. Come see.”
The broken heart bottles were shattered all over the floor, and I knew who did it. I whispered, “Henri.” It must be Henri—after all, the bottles were red. Was his heart broken?
“Who's Henri?” she asked quickly.
“Je Rouge,” I said quickly under my breath.
She got angry. “Don't bring no Je Rouge in here! What do you think to bring Je Rouge? I want no part of any damn Je Rouge . . .”