Brick Dust and Bones by M.R. Fournet
Marius Grey, twelve-year-old monster hunter, is hiding inside Violet Humphrey’s closet with only his book and the disembodied voice of his deceased mother chattering away at him about monsters tormenting houses with terrible electricians. Marius shushes his mother and waits in silence. Finally black tendrils reach out from under Violet’s bed and eventually the boogeyman appears, wearing a long wispy coat of shadows. Marius can’t see the boogeyman’s eyes under his top hat, only his ghoulish grin and pointed nose stand out.
The boogeyman calls out to the terrified Violet, telling the little girl to look into his eyes. Marius steps out of the closet, book in hand, open to the next blank page. The boogeyman turns to Marius, spitting his name and lunging at him. Marius throws brick dust at the monster and Violet runs to Marius. He hands her the book, pulls a silver flask of salt from his pocket and makes a circle ordering Violet to stay inside. The boogeyman tries to get to Violet but can’t while she's inside the circle. Marius takes his book back and recites a spell: "Grab the arm, grab the crook. Stomp the ground until it's shook. Invisible line, invisible hook. Get the monster inside this book!" With a wail, the boogeyman is sucked inside and appears on the once blank page.
This encounter was not silent and Violet’s parents can be heard coming to her room. Violet dives for her bed, Marius covers the salt circle with a rug, then sock slides to the corner behind the door. Throwing her dad under the bus and knowingly giving up future treats, Violet says she had a bad dream caused by Daddy giving her a coke before bed. Top notch deflection. Violet' promises to go straight to sleep as her parents leave the room. Violet checks with Marius that the monster is really gone and he assures her that the boogeyman won’t bother her again.
Marius heads to the Habada-Chérie to cash in the boogeyman. It’s a building with no windows and no doors, at least not for people on the outside world, and the sign is spray painted on. Against his disembodied mother’s request to go somewhere else, Marius pulls at a brick and a door opens. Inside is a collection of curiosities, sacred stones, blades, magical roots, herbs, and powders. This is the real deal, and not a tourist trap. Madame Boudreaux, the ancient proprietor, stares him down with her one good eye. You don’t get on Madame Boudreaux’s bad side, and Marius should know. He coughed up feathers for a month after she turned him into a chicken. Marius very politely asks to speak to Papa Harold, the six-foot-seven teddy bear of a man who will give him payment for catching the boogeyman.
Papa Harold pulls out his Mystic scales and places Marius’s hunters book on the scale. The scales calculate the monster’s worth in Mystic credit which isn’t for food or other basic things, but spells, favors, and magical ingredients. Marius’s boogeyman is worth only 10 Mystic coins. This upsets Marius but he refuses to show how upset he is. Papa Harold points out that Marius doesn’t have to be a monster hunter to survive, he’s a cemetery boy and gets a stipend from the High Mystics. It’s not enough for Marius, but Marius won’t say why he needs Mystic coins. Papa Harold reminds Marius he sent him after a mermaid six months ago which should fetch a fair price, but Marius just says he couldn’t find it. Papa Harold tells Marius to grab a bowl of gumbo before he goes.
Marius returns home to Greystone Cemetery near the town of Lafitte. It’s been in his family, who are the ghosts’ caretakers, for generations. When Marius’s father disappeared and his mother died, the duties of ghost keeping fell to him. Marius doesn’t want to walk through the mausoleums and tombs to his home and bed because he misses his mother really badly right now, even though her disembodied voice is still chattering away at him. His mother died almost two years ago when he was ten and his father disappeared a year before her death. All they left him was his book of monsters, a raven skull necklace and an enchanted coat. Walking toward the bayou, Marius grabs a fish he caught earlier, throws it into a little boat, climbs in, pushes a way off and sprinkles a circle of jasmine before throwing the fresh fish guts in. Now he waits…
After only a few minutes, a mermaid pops out of the water: Rhiannon. Anyone would think this was a thirteen year old girl, but mermaids age differently, so Rhia could be any age, and she might have a sweet face, but she’s more than likely to rip yours off. Her hobbies include luring sailors to their deaths, murder, music, and eating her victims. This is the mermaid Papa Harold told Marius about, but instead of capturing her monstrous soul to sell, Marius and Rhia became friends. Rhia offers to sing Marius to sleep as he settles down in the boat, still reluctant to go home as his mom’s disembodied voice is so much louder there.
Marius wakes up about ten the following morning meaning he’s late for school. Madame Millet, a fringe priestess, is going to kill him. Unfortunately Mildred, Madame Millet’s eldest daughter, opens the door to Marius, and she is her typical brattish bullying self until her mother calls them into the classroom. Madame Millet runs a hybrid school for normal kids, magical kids, and children like Marius who are in the fringes of both. While Madame Millet continues her lesson on creatures that can possess humans and how to get rid of them, Marius’s mind wanders to all the items he needs to restock and how he’s going to get more mystic coins.
Later, Mrs. Pine, a normal person, comes in to teach math class. Oh goodie. Marius has time for more mind wandering and a little nap. Mrs. Pine doesn’t appreciate Marius falling asleep in her class, nor does she appreciate Marius pushing her buttons to get sent home. Madame Millet comes in, sees the adult and child pretty much squaring off and asks to speak to them in private. Mrs. Pine goes into Madame Millet’s office first, Marius listening in at the door. Mrs. Pine is having a breakdown about magic and Marius being disrespectful. When Madame Millet reminds her Marius is just a kid who lost his parents, Marius feels like he's been hit in the gut, is this how he’s seen? Madame Millet’s youngest kids, twins Mina and Marcel, come running up to Marius, dance and sing around him, outing him to Madame Millet for listening at the door.
Marius follows Madame Millet into her office, a room that has a mix of the expected normal Mystical paraphernalia and actual magical items, but her real magic storeroom is hidden behind a curtain and no one is allowed in there. Madame Millet tries to bolster Marius and offers to find help with the cemetery, but he declines. She then asks if he is monster hunting. Part of Marius wants to share that he is, but he doesn’t.
Marius goes back to Greystone Cemetery and heads straight to the Family Tomb of Grey and Stone, the mausoleum home he shared with his mother and father. It’s like any regular small house with all the essential cozy mess of home, only it has four rectangular grave markers on the back wall. The disembodied voice of Marius’s mother reminisces about his father’s love of reading, but Marius is like his mom and is only interested in one book: his monster book. Marius again asks his mom if his dad is dead, and again, his mom doesn’t really answer him. Sigh. Marius grabs his gardening tools and heads out to tend to the cemetery; however, Hugo, an orphan ghost, has other plans and wants to play and talk as clearly Marius is his hero. As the sun goes down, Marius leaves for Mama Roux’s Cajun Kitchen.
Mama Roux’s Cajun Kitchen caters to the living and the dead and has dining rooms for each, but Mama Roux is fine with some intermingling. Marius holds the door open for several ghosts to enter before following them in. As Marius is shoving fried shrimp into his mouth, he spots Rex, a nasty crossroad demon who is being approached by a frightening looking woman with a wad of money which the demon rejects. When Marius mentions she should pay with mystic coins, Mama Roux asks Marius if he has any and he gives her a big fat lie, no, only the leftover ones from his mom. Mama Roux bluntly asks Marius if he’s monster hunting and again he lies like a liar, saying his nose is clean. He hates lying to Mama Roux.
Marius heads to Habada-Chérie for a new monster hunting job, a bigger one, from Papa Harold. Reluctantly, Papa Harold offers him a rougarou, but Marius isn't looking to take on something that big, so they settle on a candy lady instead. Papa Harold transfers the bounty to Marius’s book with a warning that candy ladies are tougher than they sound.
As a cemetery boy, Marius can travel by grave hopping, which is useful since he legally can’t drive. Today, Marius needs to go to the French Quarter of New Orleans for supplies to catch the candy lady which means hopping to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. His mom’s disembodied voice tells him not to because it’s dirty, but he does it anyway. As he's collecting some holy water and dunking his rosaries at St. Louis Cathedral, Marius is spotted by Duncan, a young, cowardly priest that Marius once saved from some baby gargoyles. With his holy water and rosaries, Marius is almost ready to face the candy lady, but he has one more stop to make first.
Marius heads to Papa Renard’s store. For the cost of some brick dust and the mystic coin he earned for catching the boogeyman, he purchases a dozen chicken feet, black salt, ground honeycomb, and some cat claw's bark; the makings of a tracking spell. With a handshake, the barter is agreed and Papa Renard takes the jars and coin as his son Antoine, a schoolmate of Marius’s, comes out. Marius and Antoine have a deal. Antoine will get a spell for Marius to use to resurrect his mom and Marius won’t tell Antoine’s parents about the thunderbird egg Antoine is trying to hatch. Reluctantly Antoine hands over the spell, warning Marius it needs to be done within two years of the person's death and that resurrected people don’t always come back right. Angry and frustrated, Marius tells Antoine he knows that.
Mixing the tracking ingredients together, Marius heads into the neighborhood Papa Renard mentioned to him while they made the deal, tossing pinches of dust to magically locate the correct area. Eventually the tracking powder glows brightly down one particular street. Marius’s mom’s disembodied voice tells him to check the windows for sweets and bushes for calcium and sugar deposits because a candy lady will leave sweets in the windows for the children to take, unknowingly granting the candy lady permission to enter their rooms during the night to steal their teeth. Marius starts to locate piles of sweets which he takes so the children inside don’t, until he gets to one house where the pile is gone, and the window has been disturbed, the boy inside sucking on a peppermint stick. Marius finds a hiding spot, a nearby thick bush, makes himself comfortable to wait until the candy lady arrives. He didn’t mean to fall asleep.
Marius jolts awake and scrambles from the bushes, noticing the boy's window is open. Inside the bedroom he can see the candy lady standing over the boy, peeling her skin off revealing green, swampy flesh beneath, she’s not a candy lady, she's a boo hag! The boy screams but there is no sound, the boo hag locks her mouth on to the boy and starts to suck the life out of him, her chest filling with its glow. Marius uses this opportunity to get inside the bedroom and draw a salt circle around himself, however the boo hag is not low level. Marius throws dust in her face to break her connection, opens his monster book and starts the spell to trap it. The boo hag reaches down and hits the ground, the ripples tear into the salt circle leaving Marius exposed. The boo hag grabs Marius by the neck, pulls him away from the salt and scratches his hand. Marius is able to fight her off before pulling at his shirt to reveal his mother’s raven skull necklace which scares the boo hag. This gives Marius the opening he needs to grab his book and read the trapping spell. The boo hag continues to claw and scramble on the floor as she is sucked into Marius’ monster book.
The little boy, Henry, starts to cry which is 100% understandable considering the literal monster that was in his room. Marius is able to calm him down, though he's left with a sour feeling as it doesn’t seem that Henry has a happy or potentially safe home life, so he leaves him one of his freshly blessed rosaries and a worry bead bracelet. All the while, the boo hag in his book has been fighting to get out and one of her claws leaks out when he’s outside. The slash wound on Marius’ hand is hurting him terribly and stopping him from binding the boo hag properly, is there something inside the wound? He needs help, thankfully the Mississippi River is near.
Marius walks into the water and sprinkles jasmine from one of the many pockets of his coat hoping it is enough to call Rhia. As he waits he calls to his mother’s disembodied voice, but doesn’t get an answer. Thankfully he doesn’t have to wait long for Rhia to come, she’s been following him and his delicious grave dirt and fish smell. Marius explains he fought a boo hag who clawed him, and the monster is fighting to get out of his book. Rhia looks at the wound seeing a creature inside. Rhia opens her double mouth and inserts her tongue inside the wound. The disembodied voice of Marius's mom screams that Rhia will eat him, but boo hags leave a piece of themselves inside the wounds of their victims and Rhia is fishing around for this eel-like creature which she finds and happily munches down on. Noticeably the book is no longer fighting Marius since Rhia extracted and ate the eel. Rhia then cuts a lock of her hair and winds it around the wound, instantly it feels better and stops bleeding. Marius wants to cash in on the boo hag straight away in case it tries to escape again so he arranges to meet Rhia back at the graveyard dock. When they part, he gives her a newly blessed rosary bought especially for her Mystic coins. It’s beautiful with fish detailing and should help keep her off hunters’ radars so long as she doesn’t eat people.
After some clumsy grave hopping, Marius finally reaches the Habada-Chérie. He heads straight to Papa Harold and explains it wasn’t a candy lady he sent him to find, but a boo hag in candy lady skin. Papa Harold is shocked, all his scrying said it was a candy lady. With his apologies, Papa Harold weighs Marius’s book and he receives one hundred Mystic coins for the boo hag. Papa Harold offers the rougarou job again since Marius has proven he can handle bigger and more dangerous monsters, but Marius declines. He leaves with his Mystic coins and two large servings of jambalaya.
Two days later, Marius is back at Madam Millet’s school, pretty much on time if the big bully Mildred would get out of his way and not use her magic on him to make him tired. Marius has very potent dust, made from his very own graveyard dust and dirt which counteracts Mildred’s stupid spell. As they’re sitting down to a history lesson where magical and normal history intersect, Mrs. Pine bustles in, disheveled and upset. As Madame Millet ushers her to the office, Marius hears a few curious things, especially the word “Doctor.”
Marius spends the next week going to school, tending his graveyard, chatting with Hugo and Rhia, sleeping in the boat, and feels infinitely better for it. One day, he heads to Mama Roux’s Cajun Kitchen with his ghosts. As he’s watching the other patrons, he spies the crossroad demon Rex in the corner eyeing an anxious woman outside. Marius realizes the woman is the same person who tried to pay her debt with cash, and is in fact Mrs. Pine. Mama Roux explains she sold her soul to save her sick child. Marius becomes angry and stomps over to Rex, his mother’s disembodied voice warning against approaching the demon, saying that she once spoke to a different one, but Marius has his mind set. He reaches into his pocket and pulls the one hundred Mystic coin from it, asking Rex if it will pay off Mrs. Pine’s debt. Rex’s eyes light up and he confirms that it will. Marius returns to his food and when Mrs. Pine finally comes inside the restaurant to confront Rex, Mama Roux tells her some questions are best left unasked. However, Mama Roux does ask what business Marius has been up to to get that kind of coin.
Later, Marius is recounting what happened to Rhia. Rhia doesn’t understand why Marius helped a person he doesn’t like since it put him back in his savings significantly. (Mermaids either love someone or eat someone, none of the other weird stuff.) The only thing Marius can do now is go after the rougarou because it would give him the Mystic coins he needs to get his mother back in one go. Rhia offers to help find the rougarou, a fifolet clan she knows could lead him, but they’ll need to offer them a present of virgin water. The only place Marius can get that from is Madam Millet’s very-difficult-to-get-into locked storeroom. Together they hatch a plan for Marius to break in during the day using a mermaid barb Rhia produces from her wrist to open the door, while Hugo, a very special type of ghost that can come out during the day, will run interference.
The next day Marius ditches school, instead going to visit Papa Harold at Habada-Chérie for the rougarou bounty. Papa Harold takes the bounty and adds it to Marius’ book, telling him the rougarou has been spotted in the swamp near his graveyard. It is, however, a big swamp. On Saturday, Marius and Hugo head to Madame Millet’s. When Marius says beignets, Hugo will make with the poltergeisting. Unfortunately Mildred opens the door and she reluctantly calls for her Maman. In Madame Millet’s office, Marius talks to her about Mrs. Pine and mentions bringing beignets in as a treat, making Hugo start his distraction perfectly and Madame Millet’s twins seem to unwittingly assist in the chaos. As Madame Millet chases the ghost down with salt, Marius pulls out Rhia’a barb and unlocks Madame Millet’s storeroom, of course there is also a magic lock which he’s able to dispel with sage smoke. Inside is a treasure trove the Habada-Chérie could only hope to have, including a set of monster book scales. Interesting. Grabbing the virgin water, Marius leaves and runs right into his nemesis, Mildred.
Mildred shouts that she caught him stealing and says, “Vengeful Faery, blood and bone. Expel this criminal from our home!" thrusting Marius to the yard. Gleefully Mildred tells him she is going to tell her Maman and he’ll never be allowed back into her home. Marius begs her not to, saying he’ll just leave. Curious, Mildred wants to know what he wanted the virgin water for, it can’t be poltergeists or boogeymen. Marius admits it’s for a rougarou, which she doesn’t believe, but she does believe him when Marius says to be able to bring his mother back. Mildred wanted to try and bring her dad back, but her Maman told her no. She doesn’t want to be the person to say no to Marius so she hands over the virgin water. It seems they have a very delicate truce and a little better understanding of each other.
Marius and Rhia head to find the fifolets. Rhia is not hungry, she’s always hungry, she doesn’t like not feeling hungry, is this fear? The mermaid asks her human why he’s doing this and Marius explains that his mom made a deal with a crossroad demon two years ago, giving her soul for it to find his missing dad. The demon reneged on the contract, saying his father was unfindable. Since the demon didn’t hold to its side of the bargain, his mom backed out too; however, the demon found a loophole and made his mom crash her car. She died, it got her soul, and now she is in hell where she can’t be a ghost and he needs to free her. Eventually they get to the outcropping of stones where the fifolet clan lives.
At Rhia’s instruction, Marius puts the virgin water on the rocks and asks them for help to find the rougarou. After a while tiny green bubbles of lights appear and dance around the water. Suddenly Rhia grabs Marius and kisses him. Marius’s mind goes foggy and he forgets everything. There’s no pain, no plans, no history, just a world of water. Marius’s mom’s disembodied voice calls to him, pulling him from the void. When Marius comes back to himself, he demands to know what the heck, Rhia? The mermaid is visibly upset. She has hoped at every stage Marius would fail because she doesn’t want to lose her friend. Upset, Rhia swims off.
The fifolet didn’t disappear during the exchange but seemed to wait patiently. When he’s ready, Marius follows them. The fifolets take him to a small beach which opens to a meadow. Marius’s mom’s disembodied voice warns him that dust has no effect on a rougarou but salt does and he needs to find and cut the string that binds them as they are creatures made not born. On the beach, Marius makes his salt circle and the rougarou howls.
It doesn’t take long for the monster to appear and its attack is wicked fast. Thankfully the salt circle keeps it at bay. The rougarou is seven feet tall, a mash of an alligator, a wolf and a man, though you’d think it was a gorilla by its size. It’s covered in dark fur except for its wolf face which is white. Marius recites his spell to trap the monster in his book and closes his eyes, bracing for the feel of power, however nothing happens and the rougarou isn’t in front of him anymore. Now it’s behind him and it throws rocks and sand, breaking the salt circle. Marius becomes the rougarou’s toy as it batters him about, playing with him, though he is ab le to stab it with a knife, but that seemingly has no effect on the monster. Suddenly Rhia appears and latches on to the rougarou with her giant mermaid double maw. It doesn’t like that, but it revitalizes Marius - she didn’t leave him, she must have followed him. The rougarou is able to rip Rhia off its back and throws her at Marius who was trying to use Rhia’s distraction to get to his book. As Rhia seems to lie lifeless in front of him, Marius follows his mom's disembodied voice and holds the raven skull amulet out at the rougarou. Everything goes white.
Whatever happened to blind Marius also made his ears ring. When he comes back to his senses, he sees Rhia near him looking pale and maybe dying, and the rougarou who is also lying wounded but still alive. Knowing he can’t help Rhia with the threat of the rougarou ten feet away, Marius heads to the beast. He sees his knife he was able to dig in behind its ear earlier and climbs onto the monster, pulls out the knife, revealing a golden glow coming from a thread. Marius cuts the thread and pulls and the rougarou unravels into a pile of body parts. Marius looks around and finds his book under the now incapacitated rougarou. Reciting the spell, the rougarou is trapped in the book. Marius returns to Rhia, pushes her into the water, cuts her hair and lays it over her worst wounds. He puts her gills in the water and tries the spell to call recently departed souls back to their body. The spell doesn’t work, so he takes his raven skull amulet, puts it on Rhia and says the spell again. Once more, everything goes white.
When the white and the ringing in his ears fade again, Marius looks at Rhia, but she looks dead. As Marius howls and cries into the Louisiana bayou, he feels the cool kiss of Rhia on his forehead. She was dead, but got better. Interestingly, all their wounds seem to be linked in pain. It makes getting into the boat and back to Greystone Graveyard harder.
Instead of going home, Marius heads straight to Madame Millet’s house, and again Mildred is the one to open the door. Seeing his condition somewhat stops her typical barrage of insults as she realizes Marius faced the rougarou and survived. Madame Millet comes running, ushers Marius into her office and calls for an ambulance. Marius refuses to go to the hospital until he’s paid his bounty. Reluctantly Madame Millet retrieves her scales and weighs Marius’s monster book. He gets four hundred Mystic coins, way more than he needs. When the ambulance arrives he gives into their ministrations and happily accepts their pain medication. Hopefully Rhia is getting the benefit too.
A day and a half passes before Marius returns to his graveyard. Rhia is at the dock, her shoulder is wrapped but she’s doing well and their wounds are still linked. She gives him back the Raven skull amulet saying he’ll need it for what he’s about to do, and besides, she liked the skulls on the rosary he gave her more. Marius heads inside his family's mausoleum and prepares to cast his spell. With the Mystic coins, raven skull, candles, stolen spell, brick dust, salt collected, he opens the tomb of Kelly Stone with a crowbar. The body is already gone, baked to ash, because this is Louisiana after all. Marius sets everything up and recites the spell three times. "Angel's wing, demon's bait. Take the lives of ones who wait. Crooked tails, lies so straight. Allow this soul through Hell's cursed gate!" Nothing happens.
Dejected, Marius heads to the dock to see Hugo and Rhia. He doesn’t want to talk about his failure, but they have something to say to him, or well, point out to him. There is a stranger in the graveyard, a man who looks rough and in pain. He asks if Marius is the monster hunter boy and when Marius confirms, the man transforms into a huge wendigo and Rex the crossroad demon steps from behind him. Rex explains that Marius was missing one key ingredient to bring his mother back: a body. Unfortunately for Rex, Hell owes Marius a debt and they don’t like to be in debt, so they pay up. The Wendigo reaches inside itself and pulls out a rib bone that Rex buries in the graveyard dirt. They’ve come to make a body for his mother.
For a few heartbeats, nothing happens, but then the ground begins to move and a woman climbs out. Marius’s mom stands looking around as if she’s in a dream. Marius approaches and she tells him that Hell doesn’t let her dream and asks if this is real? She looks like Kelly Stone, smells like Kelly Stone and hugs exactly like his mom did. As Rex and the wendigo leave, the crossroad demon comments, she’s all yours, baby Hunter, you get what you paid for.
Kelly washes her hands and face in the bayou water, giving Marius the opportunity to introduce his mom to Rhia. Marius wasn’t expecting his mom to thank Rhia and caress her cheek in a motherly way, though Rhia, as it happens, isn’t Kelly’s first mermaid. Kelly tells Marius he can relax now that she’s back to look after him, he can give up monster hunting and be a kid. Marius looks at his monster book which has become an extension of himself. He could give up monster hunting, but does he really want to? There are so many people to help and so many Mystic coins to collect…
Marius is enveloped in the vice-like grip of Mama Roux. It’s been over a week since she has seen him, though he’s been picking up a considerable amount of food to go in that time. She heard the rougarou rumors and has been worried about him. Kelly wants to keep her presence a secret for now as she adjusts to being alive and not dead in Hell, which is fair.
Back home at the Greystone Graveyard, Kelly and Rhia are chatting at the dock waiting for Marius to come back with their food. As Rhia enjoys her first cooked and spicy crab (whole), Kelly orders Marius to put his coat in the laundry. It is, frankly, disgusting, covered in blood, guts, slime, dust and other things, possibly life forms. Marius does as his mother asks, taking his more important items from the many pockets including a new rosary for Rhia and his monster book. An envelope bookmarks a page. The envelope arrived in the mail two days after Kelly came back with only a few lines of information and the word Chupacabra. That word is now in his monster book, a promise of a future adventure.
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