“Okay.”
He waited by the door. The fast barking from the cockatoo suddenly stopped, the chants of frogs and cicadas mixing in the night air. Courtney handed him the Beretta and said, “Be careful.”
“Hide over there, behind the canoes. Here are the keys to the old red Toyota truck in my drive. If something happens, get away. Take the truck and go.”
“Boots, I can’t just—”
“Shhh. I’m going to check around the house and perimeter of the property.” He turned and vanished in the night, carrying a flashlight and the Beretta. Courtney stepped closer to the seawall that separated the property from the broad creek. She tried not to think about the water moccasins as she squatted between two canoes turned upside down and propped off the ground on cinderblocks. She could see Boots walking around the house, staying away from the direct light cast from floodlights on each side of the home.
Within a few minutes, Boots returned. He said, “Courtney, you can come out.”
She stood and walked back to the edge of the trailer, where Boots was waiting in the shadows. “What was it?”
He smiled. “It’s something that’s very scary to Clementine on her perch inside the screen. There’s a bobcat, probably weights forty pounds, and it caught some chickens in my neighbor’s yard last week. I saw fresh bobcat tracks in the wet dirt near my garage. Can’t get grass to grow there because it’s always in the shade. Clementine knew the bobcat was very near her. Poor thing. Come, let’s sit and talk. I’m intrigued by this hypnotist — magician — uncle of yours and what that thing is he owes your family. I’ve known a few magician and hypnotist types in my career. I want to hear more.”
They sat back down on the bench and Courtney said, “The thing taken is an Irish torc, a bracelet. It was my grandmother’s. My grandfather found it in a bog in Ireland many years ago. It was made during the time of the ancient Celtics. My grandmother wore it on special occasions, like their anniversary. She kept it aside in a safe place because of its value.”
“Is it worth a lot of money?”
“The value I’m talking about doesn’t come from money. It comes from the power of the bracelet, the power within the torc.”
“What kind of power?”
“Grandma said it truly brought guidance and wisdom to its rightful owner. Since my grandfather found it, after its original owner was dead for centuries, and because he gave it to my grandmother, she was the rightful owner. A thief is not the owner. Grandma said it also brought a little bit of luck, along with the guidance. Something I could use a lot of right now.”
“Is that why you seek this torc — guidance and good fortune?”
“No, it’s not mine. I want to return it to my grandmother.”
“Who took it?”
“My uncle from hell. He killed my mother and father. She was his sister, and he left with the torc.”
“And police can’t find him?”
“The FBI was even looking for him at one time. He’s like a chameleon; he can blend in anywhere.”
“Do you think he sold it?”
“No, because it would be worth more to him wearing it on one of his wrists than it would be for him to sell it.” Courtney watched as two fireflies rose out of the grass and flew up into the boughs of the old oak, the light like small blinking lanterns in and around the leaves.
“This uncle of yours, did he work the carnival circuit?”
“Yes. He’s been spotted working as a hypnotist. He’s real good at taking volunteers out of the audience and hypnotizing them into doing stupid stuff, you know, making them strut like a chicken and crow like a rooster. People think it’s funny. I think it can be dangerous.”
“How so?”
“Because he’s a dangerous person … no … he’s an evil man. He’d think nothing about using his skills at hypnosis to make people do stuff that would benefit him.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Who knows? Maybe even rob banks for him.”
Boots slapped at a mosquito that alighted on his big toe, near the yellowed and curled toenail. “The human subconscious mind is a destination with a landscape as different as that person’s character and his or her hidden thoughts. Many in the business say people under hypnosis won’t do something that violates their code of ethics, such as commit a crime. Do you believe that?”
“No, not with somebody as immoral as my uncle. I believe he has the power to prey on the weak, to persuade them to do things they wouldn’t ever do under normal circumstances.”
“When’s the last time you saw your uncle?”
“It’s been more than four years. Between carnival gigs, he was a con-man preacher in a few backwater churches. He’s the opposite of Robin Hood. Rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, he takes from the poor and gives to himself.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Women like him, unfortunately. He’s got dark hair and handsome features. I think he’s about forty-four, maybe forty-five. He has thick eyebrows and eyes the color of a blue sky. Wears his hair combed straight back.”
Boots snatched a firefly from the air in his right hand, then cupped the firefly in both hands, the broken light seeping out between his short fingers. “This creature possesses the secret to cold light. The properties of light create heat, but not in this being.” He leaned closer to his hands, the light from the trapped insect caught in his eyes.
Courtney said, “Don’t hurt it. Let it go.”
“I shall. It will journey through the dark with its own light. You must travel through a dark world with an internal light, one from your heart. I think I know your uncle. Before I retired, I worked a summer circuit with Sun Amusements. They were looking for a new act. He showed up, as if from nowhere. He called himself the Illusionist. He drew in the crowds, night after night. Hypnotizing people from the audience with lightning fast speed. Even some of the carnies thought he worked with plants in the crowds. Not so. He was fired after he was found having sex with underage girls, girls he’d culled from the audiences and enticed them back to his trailer.”
“Why wasn’t he arrested?”
“Because none of the girls could actually remember having sex or being raped by him. His powers of hypnosis were that good. The carnival boss got rid of him to prevent big lawsuits and horrendous publicity. He left carnivals and began posing as an itinerant evangelist, traveling the country and calling himself the Prophet.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because a woman he left with, Mariah Danford, is a friend of mine. She traveled with him for a few weeks before escaping.”
“Escaping?”
“He’d held her against her will and started picking up other women, marrying them in some make-believe fashion, and either brainwashing them or keeping them under his control by hypnosis. He sells the women over and over as prostitutes. The Prophet was really the pimp.”
“Where is Mariah Danford?”
“New Orleans. I’ll give you her address and number. No guarantee that she’ll know where the Prophet is today, but she might. If she does know, what will you do?”
“I’ll find him.”
“Be very careful, Courtney. You stay in touch with me. This thing will work itself out, okay?”
Courtney smiled and kissed Boots on his cheek. “Okay.”
Boots opened his cupped hands, the firefly in the center of his palm. “Go little one,” he said. “Because you travel at night, darkness surrounds you. Don’t be afraid of the dark.” He turned to Courtney. “Be vigilant. Your journey will be most difficult. When will you go?”
“Soon.” Courtney watched the firefly crawl to the tip of Boots’ short index finger, open its wings and fly toward the creek. It flew over the sets of fiery red eyes on the surface, and then rose higher, flying with the guidance from a bright moon so far away, like a lighthouse on the edge of a dark sea.