The Guardian
The bus rumbled past swamps thick with cypress and moss, the kind of stagnant water that looked like it could swallow a body whole. Eighteen-year-old Marcus leaned his head against the window, staring at the ghost of his own image. His social worker’s letter still remained folded in his pocket, heavy as a rock.
The house is yours now.
The house. His grandparents’ house. A house he barely remembered, except in fragments — groaning wooden floorboards, the acrid smell of whiskey, insults hurled at him like stones. His fists tightened. Why leave him this house, of all houses?
His social worker, Ms. Harlow, had explained it to him painstakingly in the courthouse office. “Marcus, when your parents died, you were four. Car accident. I know you don’t remember much… but your father’s parents took you in, although they hadn’t approved of his marriage. Your mother had no living family. And then, a few months later, your grandparents died. It was. strange. Unexplained. You went into foster care after that.”
He’d just nodded. What else could he do? Strange, unexplained — those were terms that were band-aids put on rot.
Now he was back.
The house squatted at the end of a gravel road outside Opelousas, half-eaten by weeds. Spanish moss hung from oaks like burial shrouds. Marcus hesitated at the gate, clutching the pendant at his chest — a roughly carved wooden charm, hung on frayed cord. A gift from his mother. Maybe his grandmother. The stories blurred with the years, but the pendant was the only thing that ever made him feel safe.
Within, the house smelled the same: old smoke, mildew, a metallic something underneath the air. He dropped his bag on the buckled floorboards.
Memories came back at night, knives. The belt. The slurs. The poison in his grandfather’s voice, spit flying, as if Marcus’s own skin were a crime. And then — that night. Age five, backed into the corner of his bedroom, the pendant burning hot against his skin. The figure in the doorway. Eyes glowing like coals. Blood splattering the walls.
He woke up in a cold sweat, gasping, the sheets tangled around him. His pendant pulsed with heat, as if alive.
The next morning, there was a knock on the door.
Marcus opened it to find a woman, thirty maybe, skin the color of fertile earth, hair tied back with a scarlet scarf. She stood like she owned the porch.
I knew you’d be here,” she said, brushing past him into the living room without waiting. “Eighteen now, out of foster care. I knew you’d come.”
Marcus’s eyes widened. “Do I… know you?
“Not really. I’m Althea. Your mama’s second cousin. You wouldn’t remember me — I was sixteen when your parents died. I babysat you that night. They whisked you away so fast after the accident, I couldn’t reach you. Wouldn’t have made any difference, I was a kid myself.”
She glanced at his chest. “But I see you still wear it.”
Marcus touched the pendant. “Yeah. Always.”
Althea smiled, slow and wise. She drew a cord from beneath her own shirt — her pendant, carved in the same style. “Your grandmother made these before she passed. She was hoodoo, you know. Said these were guardians. I made sure you were wearing yours when they took you.”
Marcus frowned. “Guardians?”
“You don’t know?” Althea chuckled softly. “That thing killed your shitty, racist grandparents, didn’t it?”
The words hit him like ice. His mouth went dry. “I… I don’t…”
“Don’t what? Pretend you don’t remember? Blood on the walls? The eyes?” She tilted her head. “You think that was some burglar? Some accident? Nah. That was your guardian.”
He swallowed. “.It happened again. In foster homes. When things got bad. People just… died. No explanations. Police wrote it off. But I know what I saw.”
Althea’s grin widened. “And you’re still alive, aren’t you? That’s the plan.” She tapped her own pendant. “Mine’s the same. Not with foster parents — I had my own, and they were no saints, but they weren’t monsters either. My issue was strangers. Men who figured they could take, use, discard. But my guardian?” She leaned back against the wall, eyes glinting. “My guardian don’t play. He likes red meat.”
Marcus stared. His stomach churned. Half of him wanted to rip the pendant off, fling it into the swamp. The other half — the older, deeper half — clutched it hard, as if it was all that stood between him and the world.
Althea’s hand emerged, coming to rest on his shoulder. Her palm was warm, earthy.
“You’ve something powerful watching out for you,” she said to him. “It ain’t no curse. It’s a blessing. Question is, what you gonna do with it?”
The house creaked around them, as if listening. Somewhere inside, Marcus felt the pendant stir, alive and waiting.