Tarot Cards

One

If I told you my family wasn't so normal, that would be the understatement of the century. In my world, Voodoo is the practice of black priest and priestesses here in New Orleans. While the witches in the French quarter practice magic, voodoo runs a little deeper. Magic was more on the surface, what you can see and the glamour that was witchcraft. Voodoo was not only a glamour and something that could be seen; It was a feeling-the unseen. My family's legacy was wielding the most powerful connection with Voodoo because of our direct ancestor, Marie Leveau.

Of course, I wasn't brought up around the connection of voodoo. When I was not yet fully one year old, my father, Idris Montgomery, had finally put his foot down and moved my mother, Monique, and I out of New Orleans to a sleepy little town in Indiana called Deercreek. I had been one of five black girls at my schools until I reached high school. By this time my parents sent me to an art school to pursue my passion in photography.

I had a pretty amazing childhood I would say. I was an only child and though I begged my parents to give me a little brother or sister constantly, they'd often times pile me with gifts and money to pacify me.

Idris was a serious man who had a serious career in Law. He'd work so much during the week I'd only really see him Friday nights and Saturdays. He was six feet tall, with walnut skin, hooded eyes and often wore his hair cut short. He was a handsome man and I could see why Monique fell for him.

My mother, Monique, was an aspiring actress and model in her youth. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen and I was honored to call her mom. She was tall and thin with mahogany brown skin, long brown eyes that slightly slanted upward at the corners. Her lips were full and pouty and often painted ruby red with her favorite lipstick. Her hair was long, jet black and often times worn bone-straight. When she had me, I was her world. I donned the same mahogany skin as she. I looked an awful lot like my mother, though my features were softer, where hers was more prominent and angular. She dropped her dreams to take me on fulltime. Had both my parents not conceived me on their honeymoon night in Barbados seventeen years ago, they probably might never have had children.

For a long while, our little corner of the world was okay. I'd graduated high school and had been accepted into my dream school, Columbia University. Everything in my world changed the summer I was supposed to go away to school. On a quiet night while I decided to hang out with some friends at the movies and my father was working late, my mother was home alone. When I returned from the movie, the front door to our house was wide open and my mother was gone.

At first, we'd thought she'd been abducted. One day passed, then a week. We filed a missing person's report and there was a huge investigation, but there were no leads. She was gone. As if she'd vanished into thin air. One of the lead detectives of the case had suggested that she may have left willingly. That didn't sit well with my father and he definitely had words for him.

After that terrible summer, I decided against going away to be closer to my father. He opposed this decision, but there was no way in hell I was leaving him in this time of turmoil. I stayed home and continued my search for my mother. The search lasted for a year until I finally lost all hope.

"She's out there somewhere." My father said one night at our dinner table as we were deep in conversation about ending the search. "She'll come home if she wants to."

"How do we know she wasn't taken, dad?! You know she would never just leave us! She wouldn't!" I yelled.

"Amara, this has taken over our lives! We have to move on! We have to!" He shouted.

"I'm not giving up until she's back home safely! This is bullshit! How can you give up that easily?!" I stand from the table and scowl at him.

"You think this is easy for me?!" He stood then. "This has been a nightmare I can't wake up from!"