Free Burn- pigeon 16 by Nevada Barr

said, "The guy's possibly on drugs. If not, maybe he should be."
    "I think he probably should be. During his myriad examples of bizarreness I never got the sense he was high, but there's something going on. He looks like he has a wasting disease that's burning him at his own personal stake."
    "Maybe he was the target of a vodun, a mambo, or a loup-garou--see, I did remember something. A mambo is a witch, and I think a loup-garou is a werewolf. Google it before you embarrass yourself by assuming I'm right," Molly suggested.
    Anna'd been so swayed by the pigeon it hadn't occurred to her that Jordan might have gotten crosswise with someone who believed in the practice--or believed the punk did--and was being stalked. It made sense. He had tried to hide the thing, not to use it to affect Anna's behavior, and, after all, that was the point of these things, she supposed.
    "I have to think about that," she said. "He's the kind of guy who probably doesn't make friends easily, what with the reeking clothes and penchant for sudden unexplained violence."
    "Sounds like half the people you've met in the backcountry," Molly laughed.
    Anna was offended. Backcountry people were the nicest people in the world. Since she'd just been stomped and shot by a couple, though, she didn't think it was the best time to argue the point.
    They talked a while longer. Then Anna tried Paul again, but he wasn't answering. When she'd married him, she'd chosen not to worry when she couldn't get in touch. Both his job and hers guaranteed there would be times answering phones was not reasonable. Not yet ready to sleep, she filled the funky tub--set corner to corner in the square of Pepto Bismol-colored plastic--and set the kerosene lamp on one of the solid corners.
    The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Molly's hunch was correct, that Jordan and not Anna was the target of the messenger pigeon. She hadn't been in town long enough to ruffle anyone's feathers so badly they'd resort to complex and messy magic to dispose of her. Jordan would have had to be quick to have gotten it all together between the time he discovered he and Anna were neighbors and the moment of the trash dump. Less than three hours all told; not much time for capture, torture, painting, and wrapping. Not to mention there were surely lengthy spells or incantations with this sort of thing.
    Anna had been raised without religion of any sort. Her parents neither attended church nor read the Bible. They had no objection to Anna and Molly trying out churches with their friends, going to church camps if the opportunity knocked, or weaseling into a Christmas pageant when the acting bug was upon them. Neither parent was outspokenly atheist; both bowed to the concept that there was probably something, but never evinced any particular interest in trying to guess what that something was, what form it would take, or what it required of them.
    Anna'd grown up with that, and it seemed a particularly sensible way to live. As she'd gotten older her view of believers shifted from disinterest to mild alarm. Faith could move mountains. It could also put Jesus' face on a pancake, destroy statues of Buddha, raze cities, and, in the case of voodoo, entice the powerless to feel powerful by promising that words and weeds and bits of bone could get them what they wanted or destroy what they feared or hated.
    From what Anna had seen of the commercial side of voodoo, it was more a craft than a religion. Faith was important, but so were recipes. It was hands-on, much like primitive Catholicism and other fundamentalist belief systems. One of the major tenets was that humans can barter with the gods, offer prayers or actions, sacrifices or money, and, in return, get an intervention here on earth.
    Sitting up in the tub, she pulled the plug and stared down at her body. In her own way she had made a number of animal sacrifices for her beliefs; unfortunately, the only animal she seemed willing to skewer