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palm. “These here are mushroom seeds. I want you to take them to the pasture at night and sprinkle them on piles of fresh cow plop. Go back the next morning and pick the mushrooms. When you got you a sack of mushrooms, go into the woods and pick some nightshade … then come back here and I’ll show you how to make a potion that will bring back the dead.”
    Hussey had wondered to herself how Mama Wati knew of the buzzard puking game.
    â€œI know everything,” Mama had said aloud in response to Hussey’s thought.
    The memory faded, bringing Hussey back into the present, as Mama’s house came into view. Hussey smiled to herself as she thought of the evening after her first encounter with Mama. How she had climbed out of her bedroom window in silence and with stealth that night, made her way to the lake, and placed a few mushroom seeds on top of every pile of cow flop she could find in the dark. A few she found with her bare feet, the poop oozing up through her toes. And for good measure, she sprinkled some of the seeds on top of the little puddles of buzzard vomit. Little did she know then, in the regurgitation of the eaters of the dead there was a spark of life. In the buzzard bile was purification and rebirth on a microscopic level, a ying and yang, a maypole dance of enzymes.
    And even now, preparing to move away from Cassandra and start her new life, Hussey had no idea how that simple act of sprinkling a few mushroom seeds on drying puddles of buzzard vomit would change her life, and the lives of so many others.

Chapter Three
Halifax Hottie
    The first thing Roland saw when he pried his eyes open the next morning was Stinky, perched on the edge of his pillow staring down at him, with breath both bated and baited, his tail lashing back and forth across Roland’s face.
    â€œAre you still here?” Roland said. He winced at the sunlight streaming through the window, his head pounding from the evening before. He scooped up the cat with one arm, lurched to the door and deposited the feline outside his room.
    â€œGo find someone else to bother,” Roland told Stinky as he slammed the door.
    Roland sat back down on the bed and ran his hand across his face. He had a vague memory of the cat talking to him last night in the bar, but that was impossible. Those Rum Runners were a lot stronger than he’d thought. In his drunken state he must have found a stray tomcat and imagined the whole thing, even brought the cat home. Geez, he thought, I have to cut down on the drinking. Bleary eyed, Roland stumbled from the bed into the shower and let the warm water drizzle over his body from the low pressure shower head.
    Feeling better, he pulled on a pair of baggy shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the door. Stinky was sitting in front of his door, waiting for him. “You still here, kitty?”
    â€œWe’re still friends, so I’m still here,” Stinky’s voice said in Roland’s head. “I go where you go.”
    â€œShit. I can still hear you in my head,” Roland said. “I thought that was merely a drunken illusion.”
    â€œFrom the looks of you it might still be a drunken illusion,” Stinky said, “but it wasn’t an illusion last night and it isn’t now. Want to get some lunch?”
    Roland shook his head and stared at Stinky. “Can everybody hear you?”
    â€œOnly those I want to hear me,” said Stinky. “I know a great place for lunch, just down Duval Street. Whaddya say?”
    â€œI can’t even think about food right now,” Roland said, wincing at the mid-morning sun stabbing his eyes through the palm fronds. “I’m going to play tourist and go to Hemingway’s house to take the tour.”  
    â€œI used to live there. Not all that much to see,” said Stinky. “Just Papa’s writing room off the main house and that big pool. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have lunch?