“At home I pulled all my blinds. I said to my Grandmama and Mama this and that. I said to them, You believed in signs. I remember that well. I remembered how my Mama could read the steam coming off a soup kettle. Especially if it had good, fresh marrow in it. And if I didn’t feel good, Grandmama would go out and bring in fistfuls of wild herbs. She’d throw them in broths and read, depending on my ailment. She was half doctor, half priest. I said to her once when I had the croup and she was making me drink something that had grass in it, I said, “Grandmama, are you making me drink magic?” “No baby, this is good ole-fashioned hoodoo.”
Book:Sugar Cage
