Primal Creatures by Eric Wilder Book Trailer - Official

Black Magic Woman - an excerpt

I wanted to post a ghost story for Halloween and it occurred to me there are lots of ghosts in my paranormal mystery Black Magic Woman Book No. 4 of the French Quarter Mystery Series. French Quarter sleuth Wyatt Thomas learns he is haunted by a ghost because of a curse placed on him by a voodoo houngan in another life. In Chapter 6, Wyatt’s dear friend and business associate voodoo mambo Mama Mulate summons a spirit to try and determine the cause of the curse. Wyatt learns he is a “walker,” a person that has lived many lifetimes. To lift the curse he must return to Antebellum New Orleans circa 1840 and consult with Marie Laveau the most powerful voodoo practitioner that ever lived. He has only 48 hours to accomplish his task or remain trapped in the past forever. Hope you love it.

Chapter 6

Mama lit another candle and then disappeared into another part of the house. She returned carrying a small jar, a necklace, and an ornate box. After placing the objects on the kitchen table, she brought the teakettle from the stove. Thunder, lightning, and pounding rain continued outside the house without any sign of slacking as steam swirled up from our teacups.

“Hold out your palm,” she said.

When I extended my hand across the table, she tapped something into it from the antique jar.

“What is it?”

“Mushroom.”

“Like in magic mushroom?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not with me here it isn’t. I’m a practitioner. Remember?”

“I trust you.”

“Good. I’m giving you just enough to help induce a trance so I can channel the spirit that visited you in the hospital. Chew the mushroom; swallow it, and then wash it down with tea.”

Thunder rocked the ceiling as she pushed the box toward the center of the table. Wax had begun dripping down the sides of the candle and drying on the tabletop. Mama didn’t seem to notice or to care. In the flickering light, I could see the box was constructed of beautifully polished wood with intricate markings carved into it.

“What is it?”

“More magic. A music box made by monks in the Early Middle Ages. Christianity was in its infancy in Europe at the time, and still very much a mixture of folk religion and paganism. This music box produces a very specific and wonderful melody. It was used in rituals to create trances.”

“To what purpose?”

“To ward off demons, curses, and the evil eye.”

“It must be very valuable. Where did you get it?”

“Don’t ask,” she said. “Is the mushroom working yet?”

“How will I know?”

“You’ll know. Put this around your neck and drink the tea.”

She handed me the pendant necklace with a stone, black as the sky outside the house. Rain and wind had set the chimes on the back porch sounding a discordant mixture of percussive music. Something heavy blew loose and slammed against the wall. I held the stone in my hand, rubbing its polished surface.

“What is this?”

“Psilomelane; a mineral with very special properties.  It’ll help us induce the trance.”

“This isn’t going to hurt, is it?”

“Stop kidding around. No time for silliness.”

Mama wound the music box and then opened its carved top. Centuries had not dulled the instrument’s dulcet tones. A simple, repetitive melody began filling the kitchen with metallic-inflected sound. As it continued, it seemed to probe my very psyche.

“Breathe in,” she said. “Breathe out. Close your eyes and become one with the tones. Focus only on the melody.”

The tune was enchanting, the pleasant pitch of plucked pins as poignant as a full orchestra. The noise of the storm had disappeared as the mushroom started working, the far wall rippling and changing colors from vivid yellows and reds to ghostly white through my slitted eyes. I felt weightless as if I’d somehow risen out of the chair and was floating, not touching anything. When I glanced at the candle, the wax pouring down its sides had turned to blood. It was the last thing I remembered for a while.

***

Wyatt’s eyes had closed, his head tilted, chin almost touching his chest. He didn’t notice the shimmering cloud that had suddenly appeared behind him, or the spirit staring at Mama with steely resolve. It was the spirit of a young man, his dark hair and distinctive clothes cut in the style of a different era. Though an aquiline nose dominated his face, it somehow made him appear regally handsome. He wasn’t smiling.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Zacharie Patenaud,” the apparition said. “Who are you, and why do you summon me?”

“I’m Mama Mulate, a close friend of Wyatt’s. I called you here for answers.”

“The man you call Wyatt has the answers.”

“If that’s not his name, then what is it?”

“I do not need to tell you what you already know.”

As Mama stared at the flickering apparition, a python appeared around his shoulders. The eyes of the dark reptile glowed red as it jutted its neck toward her, Its mouth open wide with evil intent. When Mama put her arm up to block the assault, pentacles, pentagrams, and hexagrams began flying toward her like an out-of-control, 3-D movie. The melody from the music box had become suddenly and relentlessly loud.

“You are cursed!” she shouted. “Why have you attached yourself to Wyatt?”

“Because it is he who caused the curse I bear. We are doomed to stay with each other for eternity unless. . .”

“Unless what?”

 “Only he can have the curse lifted.”

“You make no sense. Why would he place a curse on you that would have such an evil effect on himself?”

“Only he knows,” the spirit said.

“That isn’t true. Someone else has cursed you. A facilitator of the Devil and not Wyatt.”

“He paid for the curse with twenty coins of gold.”

“Then you must have done something horrible to cause him to do such a thing. What is it you did?”

“Elise,” the spirit said.

“A woman? He cursed you because of a woman?”

“What matters is that only he can lift the curse from my soul. If he does not, we will remain together for eternity,” he said, his image growing dimmer.

“How can he lift the curse?”

“That is a question only he can answer.”

The music had grown earsplitting, Mama’s eyes rolling to the back of her head as she tried to muffle the sound with her hands.

“What’s his name,” she shouted. “And the name of the woman who can lift the curse.”

The apparition’s voice and its image began to fade. He held out his hand to her as he disappeared into the darkness. Mama continued shielding her face as the serpent and flying Devil signs went with it.

When they were gone, she poured a straight shot of whiskey and then slugged it down in one gulp. After her second shot, the music box lay quiet, thunder shook the roof, and the candle in the center of the table flickered and died.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

3.8 Carat Canary Diamond Found in Arkansas

Yes, there are diamonds (real diamonds) in Arkansas. Check out my book A Gathering of Diamonds for an adventuresome take on the subject.

Diamond Story

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Prior Approval Required for Burial

Here is a pic of the O'Farrell Cemetery, located in the East Texas county of Cass, not far from Atlanta. The sign on the fence says no burial without prior approval. My great-grandparents J.P. O'Rear and Annie Childress O'Rear are buried there.

John "Pink" Pinkney O'Rear, my great-grandfather, lost a leg in the Civil War while serving with Company D of the 1st Texas Infantry Battalion. After the war, he hiked from Georgia to Texas on the wooden leg the Union doctors provided him.

He died long before I was born, but my grandmother assured me he had no ill will against the Yankees and had told her many times they treated him with respect while he was in their prison camp.

I'm glad I had no one to bury on the day I visited because I had no prior approval.

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All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.

Ghost of Marie Laveau

Not long ago, I reconnected by email with my old Vivian friend Jay Denny. Finding out at a North Caddo High reunion that I had started writing novels he’d bought a copy of Big Easy and began reading. Like me, Jay Denny lived in New Orleans for a time. He has moved back after a stint in LA. Here is a ghost story he swears is true. He is allowing me to tell it but made me promise not to reveal the actual hotel and bar so as not to offend the ghost of Madam Marie Laveau.

* * *

When I was nineteen, I lived across the street from Madam Marie Laveau’s house on St. Anne’s. In the seventies, I worked in a hotel on Rampart. It was rumored that part of Madam Marie’s bed was on the wall above the bar. It was a side piece that had a sliding door. This is so she could close herself off totally while sleeping and no one could cast a spell on her.

In the nineties, after a long sojourn in California I was back in New Orleans for a visit and decided to stay at the hotel. I went in the bar to see if the bedside was still there. It was, the bar remodeled, and the bedside moved it to a new spot.

I didnt tell a soul thinking some disrespectful person might mark it up if they knew the story. After checking into my room, I went about the business of seeing old friends from my LSU days and having dinner with them. We ate at recently opened Baco on Rue Chartres.

After returning to my hotel room I retired for the evening and turned out all the lights but one in a little dressing area kept coming back on. Thinking it had a short, I unplugged it. It came on again!  Then I realized my room was directly over the bar and the piece of Madam Marie’s bed. Now that I think of it, maybe she was trying to thank me for not giving away her secret.

####

All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.

Yashica Dreams - tale of two f-stops

I bought my first camera, a 35 mm Yashica rangefinder during the summer of 1968.  I ached for that camera for weeks before purchasing it from one of the many electronics stores that line both sides of Canal Street in New Orleans. 

The Yashica was great and let you do the focusing, set the f-stop and the shutter speed.  Of course, if the printed picture was over or underexposed, or out of focus you had no one to blame but yourself. 

The sturdy Yashica took awesome photos but I soon decided that I couldn’t live another day without a single lens reflex.  Since I couldn’t afford a more expensive brand with interchangeable lenses, I settled for a fixed-lens, Kowa SLR.  It wasn’t as sturdy as the Yashica nor did it take pictures even half as good, but I kept it until it finally locked up on me. 

Gail and I had little money for cameras after we married but I did manage to purchase a Minolta SRT-101 while passing through Japan on the way back to Vietnam from R & R.  The Minolta was another awesome camera that finally, like all SLRs, finally broke because of all its moving parts.  Since the Minolta, I’ve owned many more cameras.  My latest purchase arrived this very day, an old Pentax K1000 with a 50 mm lens. 

No one buys 35 mm SLRs anymore.  Well, except me.  A few years ago, on a surfing trip through eBay, I purchased ten or so SLRs of various makes and models.  I have so many cameras and lenses that I can never use them all, and, well, I’ve now discovered digital photography. 

I have a tiny little Nikon that takes wonderful pictures and movies if I feel like it.  I can download them instantly to my computer and crop, touch-up and doctor any photo to my heart’s content, or delete it completely if I don’t like it. 

Unlike my old Yashica, the Nikon performs all the tasks for me. I barely have to think about it.  I love it, but sometimes, usually, late at night and after quaffing a few strong brews I regret the loss of choice and decision I had back in 1968, but not enough to give up my little Nikon.

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All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.

New Feed on Twitter

I'm on Twitter now. Please check me out @ericwilderok. thanks

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Primal Creatures on Sale at Amazon and B&N

When a movie producer asks Wyatt Thomas to investigate a strange death on an island in the wetlands south of New Orleans, the French Quarter's favorite sleuth finds himself fast-stepping to avoid a similar fate. Did wild dogs cause the death, or a rougarou, a Cajun werewolf, as the  voodoo woman in a village on the bay has said. Primal Creatures, regularly priced at $3.99, is on sale for only $0.99 for a limited time. Read Primal Creatures on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble at a discounted price and catch the magic.

Primal - Amazon

Primal - B&N

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A Halloween to Remember

Halloween was on a Friday, so we planned the big bash for Saturday.  Not all of our guests got the message as three revelers showed up for the party Friday night. Born on the day before Halloween, I seem forever destined to be connected to that holiday.

Anne and I married early in 1980 and decided to host a Halloween party that year.

Jakob, an Israeli expatriate that was doing stonework around our house for us, showed up as a cowboy.  He was soon followed by Nancy, a geologist, dressed, strangely enough, as an Indian princess.  John, another geologist, showed up a little later, his only costume a mask. 

Nonplussed, Anne and I broke out the alcohol.  There was a championship boxing match on television that night - Oklahoma City's own Sean O'Grady versus James Watt, a Scottish boxer.  The fight took place in Glasgow, Scotland and to say that there was a bit of home cooking going on is but a mild statement.  After a few rounds, Watt head-butted Sean resulting in a horrible cut over his eye.  Watt should have been disqualified and O'Grady declared the winner.  Instead, the local judges ruled the cut caused by a punch rather than a head-butt. 

Those days there was no rule about excessive bleeding.  To say that there was a little blood strewn around the ring would be a true understatement.  The ring looked more like the inside of a working slaughterhouse, all the viewers, including myself, in shock and totally aghast.  The fight was soon called and Watt proclaimed the world champion. 

We went on to drink, carouse and to celebrate into the wee hours, neither Anne nor I in shape for the real Halloween party that continued as planned the next day. 

A few years later I met Sean O'Grady at a Christmas Party in Oklahoma City.  The room was crowded and I was standing against a wall, sipping my whiskey.  When O'Grady spotted me, he pushed his way through the crowd, looked me straight in the eye and said, "You look just like "Little Red" Lopez." 

He wasn't smiling and I could tell from his expression and the clench of his fists that he was getting ready to hit me.  Having seen his devastating punching power on more than one occasion, I immediately raised my right palm. 

"Believe me, I'm not "Little Red" Lopez.  I'm one of your biggest fans." 

Sean smiled and we proceeded to have a nice conversation.  Lopez, it seems, had beaten the teenaged O'Grady and he had never forgotten or forgiven.  I have posted a picture of "Little Red" on my photo page so you can see for yourself that I look nothing like the former boxer. 

That was the first Halloween party that I hosted, eventful like everyone else that followed.  I have another Sean O'Grady story but I'll save it for another day.

###

All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.

Old Creole Winter Okra Soup - a weekend recipe

In Black Magic Woman,  my French Quarter Mystery No. 4, Wyatt Thomas, and Mama Mulate's latest squeeze Jason Fasempaur travel back to old New Orleans, circa 1845 to implore voodoo high priestess Madam Marie Laveau to help them lift a curse that is plaguing Wyatt. While there, they visit a haunted plantation on River Road and a townhouse in New Orleans. Wyatt also fights a duel with a French sword master. When Jason visits the rustic kitchen of the New Orleans’ townhouse, he enjoys a bowl of cook Sarah's delectable soup that he declares ‘a taste of heaven.’ Here is Sarah’s recipe. Try it, and I think you’ll agree with Jason.

Old Creole Winter Okra Soup

Ingredients

      ·         3 pints Okra

·         6 tomatoes, fresh

·         2 onions

·         2 T butter

·         2 dozen oysters

·         3 T rice

·         1 red pepper pod, deseeded

Directions

Wash and stem the okra, and then slice it very fine. Chop the tomatoes finely and preserve the juice. Chop the onions finely, and then fry them in the butter, in a large pot. Wash the rice well. Slow stew the onions, tomatoes and juice, and pepper in about three quarts of water and one pint of oyster juice for three hours, stirring frequently. Don’t add the okra and rice until ten minutes before serving, then let it come to a boil. Drop in the oysters, boil up once, and serve.

Note: South Louisiana usually has a long growing season, but the Creoles of New Orleans didn’t have fresh okra and tomatoes during the winter. They resolved this problem by canning fruits and vegetables during the months they were plentiful. To follow the original recipe, use one can (jar) of okra, and one can (jar) of tomatoes instead of fresh okra and tomatoes. Either way, it's wonderful.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.