Sugarcane and Indigo

The End of the Road

Iris Fletch learned right then that while the future might be her's to see, it was never her's to control. It was a lesson she was determined to never learn again.

Maybe that's why she did what she did with Zula Ryland.

She hadn't realized what was going to happen with Zula Ryland until the moment she conceived. It had been the middle of the night and Iris Fletch - not yet the voodoo queen or the witch - had sat up with a gasp as her eyes peered through time to see the not too far off future. She saw the babe growing in Zula's belly, she saw the rot that spread through her soul, twisting through organs, snaking around bones, curling itself tighter and tighter around her heart, spreading from womb as that - that horrid child drained the life from the only person Iris still considered family.

She had laid in bed next to the soon-to-be father of her child thinking of what to do.

The father of her babe ... now that is an interesting story. But this is not that story.

So, Iris laid in bed for a long time, staring deep into the darkness, her mind turning over and over as she tried to figure out what to do. She kept peering deeper and deeper into the future, trying to see any other path this could take. But they all ended the same way - with Le Fouet cursing Zula and the child killing her from the inside out.

"Darling, you awake?" the man next to Iris whispered in his gravelly voice as his hand snaked up her thigh.

She pushed him away and turned onto her side as a single tear fell down her nose and tumbled off the angles of her face.

"What's wrong?" he muttered into her shoulder, pressing a kiss onto her skin.

"My friend's going to die. She's cursed." she whimpered, swiping the tears off her face as fast as they fell.

The man paused, before resuming kissing her shoulder. "So? Uncurse her."

Iris snorted. Nothing was ever that simple.

The man propped himself up on one shoulder and peered into her face in the dark room. "I mean it, Irie. Curses seek out people, just convince the curse that it's found the wrong person."

Iris hesitated but the idea ... well, it was an interesting idea to say the least.

It was a rather easy spell to transfer the curse to the next unlucky woman to conceive with an outsider. All said and done, it only took a day of brewing a protection spell and a little voodoo to transfer the juju away from Zula. It had been months and the Whip still hadn't realized the curse had failed.

She was already working on a darkening potion to dim the wits of her fellow Whip members when Zula announced that she had to leave town.

That, that Iris had not seen coming.

"You have to leave? Why?" Iris demanded, pausing in the preparation of the spell.

"I was cursed!" Zula exclaimed like Iris was being particularly stupid.

"And I fixed that! This potion will keep you safe. When I'm done with it, Le Fouet won't know which way is up let alone how to throw together a competent curse. You'll be safe."

"But my baby won't. And neither will its father. They'll be singled out their entire lives. It'll only be a matter of time until someone else tries again. Not everyone is as accepting of outsiders as you are, Iris."