CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning when Manda came into the living room, Sierra was curled up on the couch writing in a notebook. Manda had gotten up early as usual, and had spent the last two hours online, looking up accounts of paranormal sightings. She must have read at least fifty of them. Her eyes were tired from staring at the screen for so long.
From the windowsill behind Sierra, two male dolls eyed Manda blankly as she walked across the carpet. She had seen that same blank stare in the eyes of many real boys a long time ago when Sierra had tried to introduce them to her. Sod all of them. Sunshine spilled through the living room curtains and washed Sierra and the couch in a river of light. She was dressed in a luxurious blue silk dressing gown with matching slippers, and her hair was pinned up like an auburn crown on top of her head. Her skin glowed from an early morning cleansing and a good dollop of expensive face cream. She looked portrait-ready. Even at home, she wouldn’t be caught dead looking anything but fabulous. She had always been that way, and probably at birth her swaddling clothes had to be silk or cashmere. Manda, meanwhile, was still wearing the black headscarf she had tied around her hair before going to bed, and an old yellow dress she had rescued from Sierra’s Goodwill box. That was one of the many differences between her and Sierra. The things that Sierra could easily discard as old and unworthy, were the same things that Manda yearned to give new life to. But if there had been a fire right then, there was no doubt who the firemen would scoop up and rescue first.
“Morning, Miss Kizzie,” Sierra said, when she looked up and saw Manda. She flipped over a Brides magazine that had been lying on the couch beside her.
“Sierra, you don’t have to hide it. I already saw the cover,” Manda said. Ever since they were young girls Sierra had been buying bridal magazines. Now she was acting as if Manda might break if she even saw a cover.
“I just thought…well, never mind. Did you enjoy Noah’s reading yesterday?” Sierra smiled.
“Oh, it was alright.” She thought about the way he had looked, standing on the podium before a roomful of people, hypnotizing them with his words. “He’s got a lot of fans, doesn’t he?”
“Did he take you to dinner afterwards? Or drinks?” Sierra cocked one eye up at her.
“No, Sierra, it wasn’t a date. I told you I’m not ready for that sort of thing. It’s only been a few weeks since Daniel…since he…”
“Okay, have it your way,” Sierra said. “Oi, what do you think of a mini-ball?”
“A mini ball?” Manda dropped down on the couch beside her. What was she on about now? Sometimes Sierra switched subjects so fast, it was impossible to keep up. “What do you mean? Like a golf ball or tennis ball?”
Sierra poked her in the arm with the pen. “I’m talking about my birthday party. I was thinking of having a mini-ball. Nik’s living room is massive. If we push back all the furniture, it could serve as a ballroom. Everyone could dress up in gowns, gloves and tuxs, and we could have a champagne fountain and a lavish banquet spread. What do you think?” Her hands flashed around excitedly as she spoke.
“I think it’s a bit much, actually,” Manda said.
“Listen, Manda. You only turn thirty-five once. That’s only five years to forty, and another step closer to the grave. You might as well celebrate every step, that’s what I say.”
Manda jumped and looked around as something dark slid by behind her.
“What’s the matter, love? Are you cold? It’s hot as blazes in here.”
“Nothing.” It had just been the shadow of a cloud passing through the living room. She had read too many of those ghost stories. They had left her jumping at shadows. “Sierra, I can’t think about your party right now.”
“Do you want to help me plan this thing, or what?”
“I do, but…I think it’s a bit much. It’s not a wedding, for goodness’ sake.”
At that, Sierra frowned. “Manda, with your attitude, you’d think I was planning a funeral.”
Manda shuddered. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she mumbled.
“What was that? I didn’t catch it,” Sierra said.
“Sierra.” Manda cleared her throat. “Angie invited me to her house on Sunday for lunch. And she’s hoping you’ll come along. She really wants to see you, and-.”
“Oh, no,” Sierra said, dropping her notebook on the coffee table and springing up.
“But-.”
“No, Manda, if you want to go see her, then fine, but I’m not going to her house.”
“Sierra, don’t you think it’s time you make peace with her? She’s your family, isn’t she?”
“Family? Manda, this is the same woman who accused me of trying to seduce her husband. And when you meet Tee, you’ll understand how ridiculous that was.”
“She did? You’re joking.”
Sierra shook her head.
So there was something behind all that animosity Sierra held for Angie after all. “Why did she think that?”
“I really don’t know.” Sierra threw up her hands. “Maybe he grinned a little too broadly whenever I was around. But that’s not my fault. And then one night I walked into the bathroom when I thought it was empty, and there he was - standing by the bathtub, naked. Angie thought I did it on purpose. And you should see her husband too, with his dried-up little winkie. What a laugh,” Sierra said. “But Manda, you know me. Would I do something like that?”
“No, you wouldn’t.” She wouldn’t have to. Sierra had a way of seducing men even when she wasn’t trying. Nik seemed to know it too, judging by the way he stuck so close to her whenever they went out. And there was that very awful time in secondary school when one of Manda’s boyfriends had fallen head over heels for Sierra.
“That’s why I had to move out so fast,” Sierra said. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Manda took a deep breath. “Well, be that as it may, that was a while ago, and Angie is obviously sorry and wants to put it behind her, and I think this lunch will be the perfect opportunity to do so. She’s the only family you have in New York.”
“Nik is my family now,” Sierra said, pointing her chin over to the corner of the couch, where his doll sat. “And anyway, I couldn’t go with you, even if I wanted to. He’s taking me to Connecticut tonight to meet his parents, and we won’t be back until Sunday afternoon.”
“But…” Manda jumped to her feet. “But you can’t go!” Since arriving in New York, she had barely let Sierra out of her sight, except to go to the radio station. Now the thought of Sierra leaving the city and going off without her…a lot could happen between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
“Manda, I’ve wanted to meet them for a long time now, and this is the perfect time.”
“Why? Can’t you go next week? I think this is more important, Sierra.” She paced the floor. “Angie will be hurt if you don’t come.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Then let me come with you,” she said, wheeling around to face Sierra.
“Manda, really. You don’t take your sister to meet your boyfriend’s parents for the first time. It’s…tacky.”
Manda rubbed her forehead. She knew pleading with Sierra would be hopeless. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Manda, you’ve got to stop worrying about me,” Sierra said. “You’ve been through such a rough time as it is. You have to take care of yourself. Have some fun. Listen, there’s a salsa dancing event at Gonzalez y Gonzalez at eight tomorrow night. Why don’t we go?”
“I really don’t feel like going dancing,” Manda said.
“But you love to dance. Come on, it’ll be a blast. I’ll ring up a couple of my mates, maybe Jackie and Carmen, and we’ll make it a girl’s night out. I’m not taking no for an answer, so you might as well pick out something to wear tomorrow.”
With that, Sierra snatched up her notebook and went into her bedroom to get ready for work, leaving Manda alone in the living room. It was clear that Sierra was going to Connecticut, and there was nothing Manda could say or do to stop her. She couldn’t keep an eye on her twenty-four hours a day, for the next month, could she? It wasn’t possible.
Manda picked up the Brides magazine and put it on the coffee table. Under any other circumstances, she would have been happy to come to New York and help Sierra plan a special event. But this was no pleasure trip. Something terrible was going to happen to her sister, and Manda didn’t know exactly when or where it would happen. That was what made it so terrible. Now all she could do was pray for her safe return, and hope Angie knew as much about Obeah as Aunt Beryl thought she did.
That evening, Sierra called from Nik’s car to say that they were on their way to Connecticut. Manda made her promise to ring her back when they got there, and the next morning. She also made Sierra leave the phone number for Nik’s parents, just in case she needed it. She barely slept that night, thinking about Sierra. She kept imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios, and all of them ending with Sierra going over a cliff.
She got up late the next day, exhausted from a lack of sleep. She quickly dressed and hurried out of the flat. As she reached the second floor, she met Noah coming up the stairs towards his flat. She greeted him and hurried past.
“Wait a sec,” Noah said, coming down the steps towards Manda. “I’m glad I ran into you. I wanted to give you something.”
“Can it wait till later? I’m heading for the train.” She had also planned to stop at a local flower shop and pick up a plant for Angie. Aunt Beryl had said that Angie loved plants.
“Where are you going? Maybe I can give you a lift.”
He was dressed in nice black trousers and a light blue shirt. She wondered where he was coming from so early on a Sunday, with his large briefcase. “Thanks, but I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said. “It’s quite far, actually.”
“Okay, maybe next time. But I think you could use what I have to give you. I’ll just be a sec. I promise.” Noah turned and hurried back up the steps.
Manda stood waiting for him on the landing, wondering what he could have to give her. She had told Angie she would be there by one o’clock, and she hated to be late for things. She heard Noah’s footsteps hurrying back down the steps towards her. When he reached her, he pulled a book out of a Barnes and Noble bag and held it out. Manda glanced at the cover, expecting it to be a copy of his own book, but it wasn’t. It was the same book she had been looking at two days earlier, when Noah had surprised her in the bookstore’s aisle. She had tried not to make him see it.
“Noah, you shouldn’t have,” she said.
“No worries,” he said. “You seemed to be into it, but since I held you up and you didn’t get a chance to buy it, I thought I would get it for you.”
“Well, you didn’t have to. Really.”
“I know.” He put the book in Manda’s hand and winked at her. “You can read it on the train.”
“Thanks, I will.” Manda smiled and looked away. She hurried out of the building. When she emerged into the sunshine, she glanced again at the book’s cover and read the title to herself. Obeah: Mystery and Magic. She pushed it down into her bag and headed off to the train station.
Angie lived beyond the last train stop on the E line in Queens, followed by a long, twisting bus ride through the streets of Queens Village, and then an endless walk down shaded sidewalks past old brick houses, some looking like they had seen better days. Flag decals for Jamaica and other Caribbean islands were proudly displayed on the windshields of cars that sat outside some of the houses. Myrna would have approved of this neighborhood, but Manda wondered how Sierra had managed to last there for even six months. There were no cute little cafés on the corners, or trendy new bars on the main street. And how on earth had she managed the long commute to the city, and the isolation of living so far into the suburbs? And why did West Indians like to pick neighborhoods in the most out of the way places they could find? By the time she reached Angie’s door, Manda was exhausted from the trip. She was carrying Angie’s plant, and it had grown heavier by the block.
Angie lived in a red brick house with a neatly trimmed lawn spread out before it, and gray stone steps leading up to the front door. Heavy-looking red velvet curtains hung in the living room windows.
“Hello, Cuz,” Angie said, laughing, when she opened the door and saw Manda. “You look like you just walk all the way from hell’s bottom.”
Manda panted in response. “It feels like I did.” She handed Angie the plant and a little package that Aunt Beryl had sent for her, and Angie thanked and hugged her profusely. She smelled like soup. Manda remembered the summer she and Sierra were sent to Jamaica to spend two weeks with their grandparents. Mama Dove had smelled just the same way when Manda had crawled up to sit on her big, flower-print lap. And she remembered the first time she had seen Angie, a skeletal thirteen-year-old girl, legs spotted with mosquito bites, standing over a large metal basin in the yard washing her knickers.
Now Angie spun Manda around and pinched up her flesh.
“Eh-eh. Look at that. Not one ounce of fat,” she said. “You people don’t eat, but don’t worry, I got a big lunch ready for you.”
“Great. I’m famished,” Manda said. She couldn’t help staring at Angie. It was like standing before a younger, slightly taller version of Aunt Beryl. Angie had grown into the spitting image of her mother, from her little round dumpling figure to the gold front tooth that sparkled when she laughed. An ill-fitting black pageboy wig sat on top of her head, with the red tag showing in the back that said “Made in Korea.”
Angie led Manda through her small house, showing her the carpeted rooms, including the one where Sierra had slept. She showed off her many plants, and put the one Manda had given her on a stand by the door. The only room that didn’t have plants was Angie’s bedroom. Angie was afraid they would suck up all the oxygen at night and suffocate her and her husband in their sleep.
As they came back downstairs and entered the living room, Manda reached out and tucked the tag under the wig.
“Oh, thank you darling,” Angie said. “Boy, I would kill for even half of that weed growing on that head of yours. You lucky.” She tugged Manda’s hair. She even sounded a lot like her mother, though she hadn’t been raised with her. It was uncanny, positively amazing.
The living room was decorated with a burgundy replica of a Victorian sofa and love seat, both covered in plastic. Gospel music played from a stereo that sat on a corner bookshelf. On the wall was a large, beautiful print of an emerald green paradise with a crystal blue river winding through it, and little white-robed people petting lions and feeding tigers from their palms. A dove flew above it all against a clear blue sky. As Manda followed Angie across the living room towards the sofa, she glanced at the picture again. The green paradise was gone, and in its place was a red, fiery landscape. Little naked humans ran here and there, trying to escape from the sharp spears of grinning, horned devils with long tails. Manda gasped. She had never seen a holograph like that one. It was in turn both beautiful and horrible, depending on where you stood.
“So, how’s life treating you, cuz?” Angie said. “Haven’t laid eyes on you since you were just a little thing.” She pinched Manda on the leg. Yes, this penchant she had for pinching was definitely genetic.
Manda told her about her life in England, and Angie responded with tales about her own life in New York and what things had been like for her in Jamaica. Manda thought she was warm and funny, in spite of what happened between her and Sierra.
Angie was Aunt Beryl’s oldest daughter. Because Aunt Beryl had been only thirteen when she got pregnant, some people said “duppy breed her.” The duppy turned out not to be the vaporous apparition people expected, but a seventeen year old cousin of theirs who used to come by the house to feed the hogs. When Angie was born, Mama Dove and Papa Gordon decided to raise her themselves. Aunt Beryl was sent away to England to stop her from breeding up the place, as Mama Dove had described it. But swapping salt fish for fish and chips didn’t curb Aunt Beryl’s breeding, and within seven years’ time she had had a brood of five additional children, for four additional men. But Angie had done fine for herself. She had met her husband, Tee, while visiting New York five years earlier. Tee was a transplanted Jamaican who had moved to New York some years back and opened a small West Indian restaurant in Queens. Now he and Angie ran the restaurant together and she spent her days cooking up all sorts of dishes.
“You must come to the restaurant some time,” Angie said now. “We make pure Caribbean food. None of that American rubbish.”
“I’d love that,” Manda said.
“But you better come soon,” she said. “Cause we’re moving to Miami, come September.”
“You are? How come?”
A creak sounded nearby. Manda turned to see an old man coming through an archway at the other end of the living room. He had a short salt and pepper afro, tired eyes, and a slightly stooped walk.
“We can’t take these New York winters anymore, isn’t that true, Tee?” Angie said.
Tee nodded. “Man wasn’t meant to live in a refrigerator,” he said. He came over and Angie introduced him to Manda. He eased himself down on the loveseat with a groan.
Manda sneezed as a strong herbal smell filled her nostrils. It seemed to be coming from Tee.
“Tee, Manda’s allergic to you,” Angie said, laughing.
So this was Tee, Angie’s husband. Angie was about forty, and Tee had to be at least twenty-five years older than her. Manda wondered why she hadn’t married someone closer to her own age.
“I was just telling Manda about the restaurant,” Angie said. “I want her to come have a meal on us.”
“I’ll come soon,” Manda said. “And maybe next time Sierra will come.” She had told Angie that Sierra hadn’t come this time because she had to go out of town. Angie had just given her a look as if to say that was just an excuse.
Now Angie shook her head. “Sierra would never come to the restaurant. After how I was there for that girl when she first got to New York, and she jus’ turn around and treat me like a dog. Now she doesn’t want to know the likes of us. True, Tee?”
Tee nodded. “Man can’t please everybody,” he said, giving Manda a broad, wrinkled grin.
“Tee and I will be celebrating our fifth anniversary next week,” Angie said. She turned and smiled at him. “It’s been five good years. True, Tee?”
Tee scratched the top of his head. “True,” he said. He held onto the chair arm and pulled himself back up.
Manda sneezed again.
“Tee, get out of here before you kill Manda,” Angie said.
He scuffled back out the room the way he had come.
“Tee goes to get his money washed in special herbs,” Angie explained. And then in answer to Manda’s puzzled look, she said, “Before he left Jamaica, he went to an Obeah man and the man tell him people are gonna try to get his money in America. So now he goes to get his money washed, to protect it. One time he gave me some cash - three hundred dollars I think it was - and the money stink so bad I had to try and wipe it off. But not even water could get rid of that smell, and it even stink up my purse. Manda, I was so embarrassed, carrying that money to the bank.” Angie laughed.
“I’ve never heard of that,” Manda said, laughing too. “It seems a little mad.”
Angie’s face grew serious, and at first Manda thought it was because of what she had said.
“Manda, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with that man,” Angie said. “Look how he run himself so ragged. That’s one reason I can’t wait to get him out of here.”
“Well, at least when you get to Florida, he can retire and take it easy,” Manda said.
“Retire? Tee’s not ready to retire. He’s forty-three,” Angie said.
Manda’s eyes popped. “Oh.”
“Yes, never mind.” Angie rubbed her leg. “People always think he’s older than he is. I’m hoping Miami will young him up again. Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”
Angie led her into the kitchen. The air smelled of chicken soup.
“And this is the room I spend the most time in,” Angie said. “It’s where I brew up all kinds of concoctions.”
Tee called out to her from the back door.
“Just a minute,” Angie said. “Let me bring Tee his lunch.” She shared out a plate of food from the stove and hurried off to her husband.
Manda looked around the kitchen. There were covered pots on every burner, including what looked like a large black cauldron. She went up and peered inside. A mass of yellow chicken feet floated in a sea of oily water. Manda jumped. She grimaced and backed away from the pot. Just under the window, there was a shelving unit and on it was a row of glass bottles filled with orange pepper sauce, with round white pepper seeds floating in them. Manda had seen similar bottles on the kitchen shelves of many West Indian homes.
“That’s my special pepper sauce,” Angie said, coming back into the kitchen. “I sell it in the restaurant, and people buy it up as fast as I can make it. I grow the pepper plants myself.” She beamed with pride.
“Good for you,” Manda said. “My father loves pepper. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat a meal without it. He picks up peppers and bites into them without flinching.”
“My Tee loves pepper too,” Angie said. She adjusted the black wig on her head, and one of her own braids popped out from under it.
Manda tucked the braid back under the wig for her. She sat down at the table, while Angie shared out a meal of ackee and saltfish with fried dumplings.
“Angie,” Manda asked, when they were through with lunch. “I have to talk to you about something. Aunt Beryl said you might know some things about Obeah.”
“What did she tell you?” Angie gave her a suspicious look.
“Not much, really, except that you might have some fam-.”
“She thinks my father’s family is full of Obeah people, but my mother don’t know nothing. She just likes to gossip.”
“Listen, the reason I’m asking is because…well, alright, this might sound strange, but I think Sierra and I are cursed.”
“That don’t sound strange to me,” Angie said. “I know plenty of cursed people. But why would anyone want to curse you? Sierra, maybe, but why you?”
Manda let out a breath of relief. At least Angie didn’t think she was losing her mind, like Sierra did. She told her cousin all about what had happened between her and Daniel the night before their wedding, and about the visions she had been having. She ended with what Aunt Beryl had said about the curse put on them by Dar, the Obeah woman, all those years ago. “I tried to talk to Sierra about it, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“That’s Sierra for you.” Angie shook her head. “She don’t take nothing seriously, not even herself. But I believe you, Miss Manda. “My father had three sons by another woman out in Jamaica. About seven years ago now, one of his sons, Manley, he went and slept with another woman and his girlfriend catch him in the act. Well, before anybody could say eh-eh, all three of those boys got sick and died suddenly, one-by-one. Everybody knew it was because that wicked girl got somebody to work Obeah on them. These things have been happening for generations, Manda.”
“It’s like Ondine’s curse,” Manda said, nodding
“What about cousin Ondine?” Angie asked.
“No, not…we have a cousin named Ondine? Never mind. Ondine’s curse is the name of a rare medical condition. Some people’s brains forget to tell them to breath once they go to sleep. It’s a problem with their central nervous system. Ondine was a water nymph whose lover betrayed her, so she put a curse on him that would make him stop breathing whenever he tried to sleep, and so he had to stay awake forever.”
“Wretch,” Angie said. “Well, I’m not too sure somebody hasn’t put a curse on me either. I spend so much time in the restaurant cause I don’t have a baby to keep me home.”
“Yes, Aunt Beryl told me you were having trouble getting pregnant,” Manda said. What Aunt Beryl had actually said was, “Angie can’t breed. Poor girl, her punani must be all dried up.”
“It’s been years of trying, but no baby to show for it. It don’t seem natural to me.”
“Is there anything people can do to stop an Obeah’s curse?” Manda asked.
“The best thing is to not get cursed in the first place,” Angie said. She put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “Some of those Obeah people are wickeder than the devil himself.”
“Well, if I don’t find a way to change things, Sierra will be over a cliff very soon and my life will turn out miserably. Angie, I’ve even been seeing Dar’s ghost.” She told her cousin about the incident in the bathroom, and at the barbeque party the week before. “Before then, I’ve never seen a ghost in my life. I didn’t even believe in them, for goodness sake.”
Angie had that same stunned look Aunt Beryl had given Manda when she had spoken to her about the ghost.
“Does Dar say anything to you?” her cousin asked. “You know you should never answer back a duppy.”
“No, she doesn’t say anything. She just appears and looks at me with those horrible eyes, and then vanishes again. Aunt Beryl said she’s come back to make sure her curse comes true, now that Sierra’s thirty-fifth birthday is coming up. I’m not sure where she’ll pop up next to frighten me out of my skin.”
“Manda, you need to see a professional about this,” Angie said. “Tee goes to a man out in Brookyn – the same one who wash his money for him. I hear he’s really good. Obeah people like to set duppies on other people, but if Dar is coming to you herself, she must be pretty powerful. So you need all the help you can get, and this man might be able to do it.”
“Angie, I’m not really comfortable with that idea. Maybe if I can talk to him on the phone,” Manda said. In fact, the more she read about Obeah, the more the practice frightened her.
Once, when she mentioned to Daniel about Aunt Beryl’s refusal to use her own front door, and that she had been looking for an Obeah person to put a protection spell over it, Daniel had accused her aunt of playing with fire. He said Obeah was evil and unbiblical, just another form of black magic, and people would do best to stay away from it altogether. He told her about the time when he was in seminary school and he and three friends had taken a trip to the Philippines. They had stayed at a man’s house, where Daniel had come across a ouija board for the first time. The man had shown them how to use the board, and they had taken turns asking it questions. Later that night, they had all been woken out of their beds by loud noises coming from the kitchen, and when they had run inside, Daniel swore that a pot had flown across the room and crashed into the wall, hurled by unseen hands.
“When you open that door,” he had said to Manda. “You can’t predict what will come through.”
“I’m not telling you to go practice Obeah,” Angie said now. “That’s another thing altogether. But sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. It’s no different from going to a priest for an exorcism.
“What do you think he’ll do?” Manda asked. She hoped it wasn’t anything like an exorcism.
“I don’t know. Probably give you something to help break the curse. He’s a little too expensive for me, though. I buy oils from a woman who lives right here in Queens Village. Her aunt is an Obeah woman, and she sells oils and herbs for the old woman out of her basement. The only thing is, that Obeah woman is strange. She doesn’t like to see people. At least you can sit down with Tee’s man.”
Manda frowned. What other option did she have? Sierra’s birthday was just over a month away, and there wasn’t much time to waste. If an Obeah curse might have sent the Titanic into that iceberg, then it could certainly send Sierra over a cliff.
“Alright, I’ll go see him. But will you come with me?”
“Well, the restaurant doesn’t leave me with much spare time, but I’ll see what I can arrange,” Angie said. “In the meantime, I want you to take this.” She pulled a silver ring off one of her fingers. “This is a little something I wear for good luck. It certainly couldn’t hurt.”
“I can’t take your ring,” Manda said.
“No, man, I can get another one easy. I bought it in a shop on Jamaica Avenue that sell all kinds of stuff like that. Besides, it’s not for you, it’s for Sierra. Just don’t tell her who it’s from.”
Manda took the ring, although she knew Sierra would never wear it. “Thanks, Angie.” It felt good to have an ally in her.
“Here, I want you to taste this,” Angie said. She hurried to the stove and scooped a chicken foot out of the Dutch pot. She came back and dropped it on Manda’s plate, then poured a little of her pepper sauce on it. “Tell me what you think.”
Manda looked down at the small, scaly yellow foot sitting on her plate, with its three puffy claws.
“Um…Angie...”
“When Sierra was here, she wouldn’t even eat my food,” Angie said. “She act like I was trying to feed her poison or something.”
Thanks, Sierra, Manda thought. Well, she had come all the way out here to seek Angie’s help. There was no point offending her like Sierra used to do, was there? Manda picked up the foot. She closed her eyes and nibbled at one claw. The effect was immediate. Pepper burned her lips, her tongue, her nostrils.
“Whaaaa.” Manda dropped the foot. She looked towards the sink. She needed water, anything. Her mouth was on fire. It felt like a flaming lump of hot coal was burning a hole through her tongue.
“I thought you said your daddy can take pepper?” Angie looked at Manda, her face incredulous. “Aren’t you your daddy’s daughter?”
“Whaaa,” Manda said louder.
Angie walked over to the sink. “It’s my new and improved pepper sauce,” she said, catching some water in a glass. “On a scale