He was beside the altar now. A doorway led out to the pulpit, where the pastor made his entrances and exits. A bowl and towel for anointing hands stood in a recessed part of the wall. Bibles and religious schoolbooks for children sat on a table with a cup of pencils, some votive candles, a box of matchsticks. Blackwood was near a window at the very rear, looking out at trees. Solomon thought it could be that those same trees led eventually to the hanging site, and the graveyard.

“Okay, this is all there is,” said Solomon. “Let’s go.”

Blackwood pulled on a small door with a fixed wooden handle. The entire piece pulled free, not a hinged door but a flat section of wood, revealing a crawl space behind the altar. It was dark inside, no windows.

“Matches,” said Blackwood.

Solomon again felt himself caught in the middle. What tipped the scales for him was Blackwood’s quiet determination. He was a man on a mission. Solomon had to know what Blackwood had found.

He retrieved the box of matches and watched Blackwood strike flame. The orange nimbus of light did not reveal much until it found the wick of a blood-red candle. A moment later, the flame rose to illuminate the space.

The candle sat with others upon a wax-stained table. There were gnarled roots, cleaned of dirt, selected for their twisted shapes, resembling a natural sigil. A bowl of powder. Some dried flowers and a chart of hand-drawn symbols.

“What is this?” said Solomon.

Blackwood responded literally. “Jimsonweed and sulfur.”

“No…what is this?”

Blackwood plucked the candle off the table, illuminating the wall where a crude face was drawn in red wax and blood, its eyes upturned, mouth open. “Hoodoo,” said Blackwood.

“Voodoo?” said Solomon.

“Folk magic,” said Blackwood. “It originated in West Africa, but was brought to the American South with the transatlantic slave trade. Ancestor veneration and spiritual balance. But that balance, during slavery, became in some regions translated as retribution. Hoodoo is more backwoods, less homogeneous than voodoo. Therefore, it is more open to spiritual corruption. Especially when practiced on hallowed ground.”

Solomon said, “The pastor?” He remembered seeing him at the Jamus house. Talking to him, listening to him praise the character of Vernon Jamus. “No,” said Solomon, less a denial than a plea.

Blackwood oriented himself. “This is the wall directly behind the altar. The dark side. A mirror reflection.”

He turned and used the flickering candlelight to search the floor. He sorted through some items there, lifted a white article of clothing. It was a robe, the hem dirty with soil as from the woods.

“Oh no,” said Solomon, not wanting to believe it. “A man of the cloth.”

Blackwood said, “The pastor had access to the key to the boy’s chains.”

Blackwood passed the robe’s hem over the candle flame, the fabric catching fire, crinkling, starting to burn.

“What are you doing?” said Solomon.