Chapter 5: Hoodoo

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     "Psst, Henry," hisses Molly, her luminous face glowing from out of the darkness up above the building site as he's finishing up the day's excavating.

"Be right up," he whispers back, loading tools into a barrow and wheeling it over to the batch mixer before heading down the street. "Night boss," he waves back, tossing his hair out of his eyes as he turns the corner toward the back of the Evergreens.

     "I've only got a minute," she gushes, emerging from a carriage bay carrying a derby jacket and riding gloves. "We're driving to Trenton in Dad's new Nash."

"Fancy meeting you here," he smiles, his face lighting up in the growing glow of the harvest moon. "What's cracking?"

"You have to take these to the point tonight," she gushes, handing him a small wing bone, shiny black feather, and smooth white stone. "My old nanny says your finger will heal if you leave them for the snapper under a full moon."

__________

     Molly was passing on the objects given to her by an aging African-American housekeeper who had stayed with the family after the fall of the south. She'd explained that the chicken bone represented Henry's hand, the hen feather it's cleansing, and the gemstone an alter to call on his ancestors. This particular stone was an analcine crystal from nearby First Watchung Mountain.
     The Watchungs are an upstart volcanic triumvirate extending from the more staid Appalachians in northwest New Jersey.  The southernmost ridge, First Watchung, cuts across the waist of the state's figure-eight figure to the palisades of the Hudson River valley, demarcating the north's ridge and valley woodlands from the South Jersey pinelands. In 1918, quarrying of the Watchung's predominant stone for gravel was becoming the basis for the paving of the garden state, but periodic finds of rare minerals protruding from the basalt attracted rock hunters of all stripes, including the LaFollette's elderly ex-slave housekeeper.
     George junior was in the thick of an intense race for the New Jersey seat to the U.S. Senate. He'd been hand-picked for the Democratic nomination by a friend of his Virginia family, President Woodrow Wilson. At stake in the race was the senate majority, held by a slim margin by the President's progressive party favoring international engagement.

__________

     "Everybody and their mammy has got a bone to pick for the cure of my hand," Henry groans, slipping the three objects into the baggy back pocket of his dusty knickers. "I just want to know why there are bones under your old house."

"Maybe that's why this place always seemed haunted," Molly counters, stepping closer to lean into her friend. "My sister once woke in the night and thought she saw a soldier with a bloody sword down in the ballroom."

"What was here before this place?" he wonders, feeling her heat on his chest as he wraps his long arms around her narrow back, hands resisting settling on her newly bulging hips.

"I certainly don't know, but Daddy tells everyone who'll listen that there was a Revolutionary war battle in Bound Brook. I'll mention it to him on the long drive tonight."

"No, don't!" he blurts. "I'll go back to the Point if you won't tell anyone about the bones."

"If you'll leave those three things beside the hole, I promise I won't tell Daddy," she bargains, looking up into Henry's hazel eyes, "but I am going to ask the school librarian  about this hill."