CHAPTER 35-THE DREAM was being keyed in that the curse was temporarily lulled to rest. The spells described in this manuscript are real and my intense concentration while keying in the herbal ingredients and the protection spell inadvertently had a positive effect. The invisible storm that had plagued me over the years was there one moment and gone the next. Once work could be printed and saved to discs, the manuscript rapidly neared completion.
A full month of retyping and editing was enjoyed at the same library site before the curse returned. Much weaker now, it confined itself to occasionally bouncing work off the screen, printing variations of a given font, freezing the printer in mid-task, or refusing formatting instructions, but this was eventually overcome.
By the time of the second printing, the curse again reared its ugly head. Portions of text mysteriously changed place, and fonts switched type before our eyes, page numbers disappeared, and the synopsis on the full-color cover suffered from bizarre computer glitches, proving time and again that this certainly was a cursed manuscript.
Worse yet, the curse brought me a hideous, howling experience, in the nature of a barking-mad, religious zealot of a woman who, despite having never been to the Dominican Republic (or ever meeting a Dominican), publicly howled accusations that all my facts were wrong. She especially took fierce exception to hearing that song birds, in one part of the Dominican countryside, were being consumed as food.
I tried to explain that this had been my personal observation and the matter had been confirmed by the Peace Corps staff.
After all, I asked, do not customs and laws differ from country to country and, when we come right down to it, what is the difference between one bird and another? Do we not eat chicken and turkey in the USA? Was not pigeon pie a favorite dish of our Colonist forefathers?
Did not author, Barbara Kingsolver, in her marvelous novel, THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, mention the homeless people of Atlanta, Georgia, roasting pigeons for dinner? Is not the eating of cats and dogs considered a delicacy in some eastern countries of our globe? Will not people, who are hungry enough, attempt to consume anything, including grass, dirt, and their own leather shoes? And just a few years back, was not an immigrant worker caught roasting a songbird for lunch on the premises where he worked in Manhattan, and summarily dismissed?
But my words fell on deaf ears and this woman is still howling her protestations, but, happily, far from me.
After meeting this lady, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, as time for the second printing drew rapidly nearer, the curse was gearing up again!
Again, in 2010, an attempt at self-publishing this novel was thwarted as the cover developed bizarre pixel problems. This last attempt is being made in 2011. And as the file is being formatted for submission as an e-book, the first chapter disappeared without warning. Thinking to simply cut and paste that chapter from an earlier version failed as it was also missing from all other files. Then the built-in mouse on my lap top died, necessitating the purchase of a external mouse and the recreation of the missing chapter.
I assure you the basic plot is true and the villain did sacrifice children in magical ritual. He extorted monies from those least able to pay and those who refused his demands claimed to have been visited, in dead of night, by either a huge, black dog or a horse.
The other events described herein are all true, but everything didn't happen within the same time frame or to the same family. The Baka is a legendary demon in Hispaniola folklore and, in order to provide cheap labor for Haitian cane fields, people have been drugged and used as zombies. The drugs listed for use in zombification are real, while the salt antidote is of folklore.
In real life, those who engage in dangerous magical practices always make enemies of other magic users. In this manuscript, the villain is brought down in the way some zombie traders have been killed in the past. As for the family on which this book is based, the villain’s sister did eventually reclaim the book and the evil brother was forced into retirement.
The names of the characters and some of the villages are fictitious. Those who visit places where such magic is practiced, strongly insist something strange and unexplainable is encountered there.
The characters in this manuscript raise the question of which one of the many Gods and accompanying religions is the true one. In this author’s humble opinion, it is the singer, not the song, which validates any given religion. Whatever one comes to fervently believe becomes that person’s truth.
One bit of advice before we end: Children, don’t try any of this at home because this little exorcist doesn't make house calls.