"I've been there."
"You find Auntie Mae out there and you tell her who you working for. Tell her what you looking for, and she'll help you if she can. She don't know nothing about Sorry George, but she can maybe find you someone who does."
"I can't do this."
"It ain't gonna be easy."
"How can I find something that you've never found?"
"It ain't gonna be easy. But if you want to try, it's there for you to try."
Dr. Crow reached behind his shoulder without looking and brought a small leather pouch down from the shelf and handed it to Minnow. The empty pouch could be cinched closed with a thread of leather woven through its top edge.
"You fill that up and bring it back to me, and our deal is done. Your daddy will live. I guarantee it."
Minnow wanted to leave. He thought of his father and took the pouch. He put it in his pocket and nodded.
"It doesn't sound so hard. It's just a trip across the river."
Dr. Crow didn't move. Then he turned his head left, right.
"You gonna have trouble."
"Pardon?"
"A man as bad as Sorry George ain't gonna let you get out there easy. He gonna make it hard."
"But he's dead."
Dr. Crow laughed.
"Death don't stop a hoodoo man. He's gonna try and stop you like he stopped everyone else who come before you."
"How?"
Dr. Crow tilted his head down, and his dark glasses lost the candlelight. The world outside fell silent, and the shack might have been buried under a mile of earth.
"Only he would know. But I know what I would do. And I can tell you that three things gonna come at you. It may be something you know, or someone you know. It may be a stranger, or something you never seen before. I don't know what, but it's gonna be three things. Some of them are already on their way. Some of them may be already here. But it's gonna be three things."
Minnow shook his head.
"What can I do?"
"Do what everybody does. Look for it, and when you see it, face it straight on. Ain't no use in running. Here."
Dr. Crow turned around and looked at the shelf. All Minnow could see was shadows and the edges of innumerable glass vials. Crow picked a flat flask with a cork in the top. It was smaller than a playing card.
"Don't you open this, till you need it most."
"What is it?"
"A potion that will help against evils. Old evils who respond to such things."
"Thank you."
Minnow put the vial inside the leather pouch. He put it back in his pocket, next to Varn's arrowhead, and when he looked up Dr. Crow was standing. Crow was tall, his head lost in the darkness. His dry voice sounded far away, like a ghost speaking from deep within an ancient crypt.
"There ain't nothing left for you to know or do here. You got to get on your way."
Minnow nodded and stood up.
"Don't come back here if you don't have what I want. Understand?"
"Yessir."
"Then go."
He backed out of the shack. Dr. Crow, invisible in the shadows, did not speak. Minnow closed the door and ran his finger along the blue trim. The river lapped at the muddy banks. A gull squawked. Men worked. The world outside went on.
He walked around the shack toward the docks. His stomach felt empty and sour after the secret meeting. He looked over the water at the dark line of the Island and its marsh apron spread on the other side of the wide river. Sorry George's final resting place would be even farther, over creeks and through woods and swamps and jungles. It was past lunchtime, and already his mother would be worried. He gazed back over Port Royal: dingy, muddy, bustling with workers and sailors. Back over the rooftops was the road to town, the road that would take him home. To his mother. To his father, still dying in bed. He'd return without the medicine and everything would be fine. His mother would understand. She'd be furious that he'd left town, and more furious that he'd gone all the way to Port Royal alone.
He walked along the shore past the docks, past a place where men hung big fish from hooks and scraped shiny scales. A man lay next to the workers, asleep or dead. He had no nose—just a black scabby hole—and yellow skin.
His mother would be upset that he'd come this far, but she didn't really have to know. Especially if he could get the medicine. If he had the medicine, maybe no one would ask anything but why the errand took so long. Maybe he was playing with his gang. Maybe he stopped to drink his soda and fell asleep in the sun. He had such a long way to go, though, to find the grave of a man he hadn't heard of until just moments before. A long way over the islands.
He heard laughing behind the fish cleaners. Boys his age. Two of them, one maybe younger, the other very close in age. They were maybe brothers: both had black curly hair, dirty white shirts, and cutoff pants. One held a rock in his hand, batting it against the side of a dog's head once, then twice. The dog—almost still a puppy—recoiled and pressed its back against the wooden wall, growling and then whimpering with closed eyes.
"Get him," the smaller boy said. He had pimples all over his face.
The bigger boy dropped the rock and lunged at the dog, putting two filthy hands around its neck. The dog shrieked and whipped its head to bite the boy, but could not reach. The younger boy kicked the animal in the stomach.
"Stop," Minnow said.
The little one kicked the dog again, and it wrenched in the older boy's hands.
"Stop that," Minnow said louder, and this time the bigger boy turned to see him. In that one instant the dog gained leverage and wrenched its neck free, snapping at the boy's hand but not biting him. The younger boy fell back, and the older boy stood up taller to avoid the dog's snapping. The dog lunged at him, then used the extra room to slip away around the side of the building.
"What'd you do that for?" the older boy said, stomping across the sand to Minnow's face. He was half a head taller and his breath smelled like onions.
"What did it do to you?" Minnow asked.
The older boy spit in his face, and as Minnow wiped the spit off, the older boy shoved both hands out into Minnow's chest and his breath went. He fell backward over the younger boy, on his hands and knees, and his lower back took the brunt of the fall against the hard-packed sand.
By the time he could scramble to his feet the boys were gone in the same direction as the dog.
Minnow brushed off his back and adjusted his short pants. He stood frozen, waiting for them to return. When they didn't, he started walking for the docks again, toward a busier part of the port. He watched over his shoulder as he went, but the boys were gone.
Then he smelled it: something salty and savory and good like the river itself. The warm aroma came in through his nostrils and made his chest ache. His stomach called for food.
Music floated to him from one of the nearest buildings: a continuous stream from an instrument that sounded like a high-pitched guitar. Something thumped along, giving deep rhythm to the song. He couldn't see inside, but he could smell smoke coming from the crooked pipe that vented the kitchen out to the plain, stinking world. A few men gathered at the door, smoking, and one man talked to a woman around the side. Another woman came walking from around back with a metal platter balanced on her palm.
"Five cents a hand," she called. "Five cents and fill your stomach."
Minnow