“Mmhmm. It’s as I expected. You got a hanger-on—a few of ’em by the sound of it.”

“A what-what?”

“Your grandmother’s passing left a hole in you, and something has moved in to fill it,” she explains, as if it’s perfectly obvious. She rises from the table, takes my arm, and spins me toward the front door.

Daniel follows. “Where we goin’?” he asks as we step into the nostril-stinging twang of the afternoon air, a daylight moon already dangling like a curved blade overhead.

“Ain’t good to cook much less eat on a troubled stomach,” she says, patting my hand. “Only one person I know can put this right.”

“Izora Jo?” Daniel asks.

“Izora Jo.”

Daniel grins at me. “Welcome to the real New Orleans.”

“Where does she live?” I ask.

“Two blocks that way,” he tells me. “You can’t miss it. She and Mawmaw Barb go way back.”

I nod, trusting, because what choice do I have?

“Mawmaw Barb knows her way around the spirits,” Daniel says to me in a low voice to stay out of earshot. “But Izora Jo does the heavy lifting.”

I give him a fearful look.

“Hexes, curses, possessions—stuff most people are afraid to touch,” he explains. “She’s what we call a ‘rootworker,’ only her magic is as unique as her heritage—West African, Spanish, Caribbean, and Irish.”

Daniel is right. The second the house comes into sight, I realize this must be the place. A black rooster and two hens, round and orange as pumpkins, are pecking about in an herb garden behind a rusty iron fence. The shotgun house rises behind it like a jagged tooth from the ground, painted a deep purple with black-and-white trim. Several large jars of brown liquid litter the steps, their contents a mystery of sediment at the bottom. As if on cue, a fat, cawing crow lands on the peak of the roof as we enter the gate. And a chicken foot swings from the front doorknob, which opens before Mawmaw Barb ever gets a chance to knock.

A heavyset woman with hair as dark and glossy as her rooster’s feathers stands in the entrance wearing a white sundress. Her smile is wider and curvier than the moon overhead and just as bright, framed by red lipstick and a face full of makeup. The sag of skin beneath her eyes alludes to many years, as do the folds over her eyebrows and around her mouth. But there is something behind her face that is exuberant. It is a face that is quick to laugh. “Barbara? I thought that was you coming up the street.”

Daniel’s grandmother gives her a quick hug and turns to show her we’re in tow. “We need your expertise, Izora Jo. We got a haunt that won’t break.”

The woman looks from her to Daniel and then to me. “Better come inside.”