Things did not unfold as smoothly as Liora had planned. She had expected the world to bend to her will the way people inside that house always had, but the world outside did not care for her beauty, her pale skin, or her crocodile tears. We gave Mr. Louis a funeral. It was small, quiet, attended by only a handful of people who came more out of curiosity than grief. For a man like Mr. Louis, whose sins were known in whispers across Lafayette, such a turnout was expected.
Afterward, we learned the truth of how little his written wishes mattered. Although Mr. Louis had arranged through his lawyers that all his money, businesses, and properties were to pass to Liora, none of it meant a thing when faced with the greed of the white men he had done business with. The judge presiding over the matter was deep in those men’s pockets, and in the end, all Liora received was the house we lived in, an old Moreau property originally left to a freed Negro mistress generations ago, and the personal wealth Mr. Louis had accumulated over the years.
His businesses, his clubs, his rental properties scattered across Louisiana and Lafayette, those were handed over to the white men without hesitation. It was a lesson for Liora, a brutal reminder that no matter how pale her skin or how pretty her face, she was still a colored girl born from a Black womb. And as a female, she owned nothing in the eyes of the law. Even white women had no true claim to property. Liora’s rage simmered beneath her skin, but she held it in as that white lawyer sat across from her, smiling like he was delivering good news instead of robbing her blind.
The moment he left and the door shut behind him, Liora’s mask shattered.
She stomped and raged, throwing whatever she could reach; vases, books, porcelain figurines. Her screams echoing through the sitting room like a storm tearing through the bayou. She cursed the judge, cursed the men, cursed the world that dared deny her what she believed she was owed. I stood there silently, watching her fury unfold, knowing better than to interrupt.
Eventually, her rage burned itself out, leaving her panting and trembling.
“What did you expect?” I asked softly, my voice steady despite the chaos around us. “You may have the skin and looks to pass for white, but you were born a colored girl just like me. Born from a Black womb. And you’re a girl at that. Even white women own nothing. Be glad you still have this house and the money. Those men could have taken everything.”
Liora turned toward me, her eyes blazing with a fury that would have terrified anyone else. But she would never harm me. I knew that as surely as I knew the spirits in the house watched us both.
Instead of striking me, she threw herself into my arms, burying her face against my chest.
“Men,” she spat, her voice trembling with venom. “They’ll see what happens when they think they can cheat me.”
“What are you planning?” I asked, though fear curled in my stomach at the thought of knowing.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. I knew her well enough to understand that she would never let this go. But truly, what could a ten‑year‑old girl do to five grown white men?
I should have paid closer attention. I should have remembered how vindictive she was, how her cruelty was not childish mischief but something inherited, sharpened, and nurtured by the house itself.
Days passed, heavy and strange. The air inside the house felt thick, charged, as though something unseen was pacing through the halls. The usual spirits, the slave woman, the drowned driver, the lost mistress, were nowhere to be found. Their absence unsettled me more than their presence ever had.
Then, one night during a violent storm, Solange burst through the front door like a hurricane made flesh. Her clothes were soaked, her eyes wild, her breath coming in sharp bursts. She threw a newspaper onto the floor before striking Liora hard across the cheek.
“MÉMÉ!” I screamed, rushing to help Liora up from the floor.
Solange ignored me completely. She stood over Liora, pointing a trembling finger at her, her voice shaking with rage.
“You wicked… demon,” she hissed. “You dare meddle with things you have no business touching. I knew……knew that after killing your mama, I should have drowned you.”
“Mémé, what has she done?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Solange turned to me, her eyes burning, and jabbed her finger toward the newspaper.
“Read it.”
I picked it up, and the headline froze the breath in my lungs.
All five white men and the judge who had cheated Liora out of her inheritance were dead. Found in a gentlemen’s club. Bodies beaten and torn apart, dismembered as though some beast had ripped through them.
I looked up at Liora, my eyes wide.
“What did you do?” I asked softly.
Despite the red mark on her cheek, Liora looked untouched, unbothered. She gazed at the photographs of the dead men with a satisfied smile, her expression serene, almost joyful.
I knew then that she had not laid a hand on them. No human could have done what was shown in those pictures. This was not the work of flesh and bone.
This was demonic. This was spiritual. This was something she had called.
“What did you do?” I asked again, my voice trembling.
Solange answered for her, her voice sharp as broken glass.
“What did she do? She played with the spirits, baby. She played with magic and cursed those men.”
Liora scoffed, brushing off her expensive dress as though the matter bored her.
“Oh, please,” she said. “I just used the anger and suffering of those white bastards’ victims. It’s not my fault their rage tore through them.”
“Who taught you?” Solange demanded.
Liora smiled sweetly, a smile that chilled me to my bones.
“Now now, Mémé. I won’t tell you that. You’re not the only rootworker in Lafayette.”
I stepped between them, terrified that Liora might decide Solange was a threat. So far, she had kept her distance from our grandmother only because I asked her to. I doubted she could overpower Solange’s spiritual strength, but I was not willing to take that chance.
“Mémé, please,” I begged. “What’s done is done. Those men are dead, and no one will believe you even if you go to the police.”
Solange swallowed her fury, her jaw tight, her eyes wet with a grief she did not voice. She knew I was right. She knew the world would not listen to a Black woman accusing a pale‑skinned child of witchcraft and murder.
So, she left the matter alone. Just as I did. Just as the house seemed to demand.
Solange left that night, storm still raging outside, and she did not step foot back into that house again. Her absence settled over the place like a veil, thinning the air and making every creak of the floorboards feel sharper, more intentional. I, however, remained. I stayed in that house with Liora even though every spirit in the walls whispered warnings, even though I knew exactly how dangerous she was becoming, how steadily she was growing depraved, drunk off her own gifts, and emboldened by the darkness that had always lived inside her.
I have no answer that makes sense to anyone but myself as to why I stayed. Perhaps it was foolishness, or loneliness, or the kind of hope that clings to a person even when it has no business doing so. Maybe I believed that by being there, by keeping close to her, by watching her, by loving her in the only way I knew how, I could pull her back from the edge she seemed determined to leap from. I wanted to save her soul from the eternal darkness that had its claws sunk deep into that house, the same darkness that had swallowed Mama and twisted Mr. Louis into the monster he became.
It was a naïve hope, one born from the part of me that still remembered Liora as a baby in my arms, soft and quiet and innocent. I forgot, in my desperation to keep her close, that Liora’s love for me did not come with any desire to be saved. She did not want redemption. She did not want guidance. She did not want the light I kept trying to hold up for her.
No, Liora wanted power.
She wanted the fame Mama had chased with every breath she took, the kind of attention that made people bow their heads and whisper her name. And she wanted the fear Mr. Louis inspired in everyone who crossed his path, the kind of terror that made grown men tremble and women pray for mercy.
So, I stayed.I stayed beside her.I stayed in that cursed house.I stayed even as the spirits withdrew and the air thickened and the shadows lengthened around her. And in my staying I made things worse.
There was no saving Liora.
