Ashes in the Delta, Roots in the Dark 🌿🩸
🌙 Smoke Returns to the Delta: A Hoodoo Shack, a Lost Love, and a Baby Named Nova Tha
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Smoke returns to the Delta after seven years in Chicago with his brother Stack, now building a juke joint out of an old sawmill. Before the grand opening, Smoke slips away to a hidden hoodoo shack where Guest—a rootwork healer and his former lover—still lives. Their reunion is tense and heavy with history, especially the child they lost, Nova. Between old love, spiritual power, and the weight of what Smoke became, they confront everything time never healed while the juke joint’s future hangs in the background 🌿🩸
Characters
Intro
The early-to-mid 1930s Delta still felt like it was half in the world, half in something older 🌾🌙 Cotton fields, dirt roads, and hoodoo whispers moving through the heat.
Smoke stepped out with white flowers in hand and walked to a small grave beside the shack. He knelt, brushing leaves away slow.
“Papas here… papas here,” he murmured.
Behind him—wood creaked.
Footsteps.
He didn’t turn. He already knew.
⸻
Guest stepped out like she belonged to the land more than the decade itself.
“How you be?” Smoke asked.
“No misery’s worth complainin’ about.”
A beat.
“You come alone?”
“Yeah. Stack’s on the other side of town.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Whatchu come back for?”
He faced her fully.
“We bought that old sawmill. Turnin’ it into a juke joint.”
She scoffed. “A juke joint? That Stack’s idea?”
“Yeah. Grand opening tonight.”
“I thought y’all was done with the Delta.”
“Nah. We done with Chicago.”
“Chicago done with y’all?”
He sucked his teeth. “Who you think we robbed for a whole mill?”
She turned away into the shack. He followed.
Inside smelled like roots, herbs, and protection older than the 1930s itself. Kids came in asking for a pouch.
“Just this, Ms. Guest. High John too.”
She nodded. “Don’t sell it on the way home.”
Smoke watched them leave.
“I can’t believe you still doin’ this.”
Her eyes snapped to him. “Give me my money ‘fore I cut your black ass.”
He smirked. “Put the blade up.”
He offered cash. “I’ll trade ya.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Your money come with blood.”
“All money do.”
“Not like yours.”
She pushed it back. “I don’t need curse money.”
He leaned in. “Money’s power. That’s all I trust.”
She stepped closer. “You standing here alive… you think that’s just Chicago?”
A pause.
“So why it didn’t save our baby?” he asked.
Her face tightened.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it saved you.”
She touched his chest. He covered her hand.
“Still got the mojo bag?” she asked.
He gave it to her.
⸻
Later, she worked the counter, whispering Yoruba 🌿
Smoke lit his pipe by the door.
“What you want with me?”
“We need you at the juke. Cook tonight.”
She looked at him.
“Elijah…”
Then softer:
“You still can’t say it clean.”
He exhaled. “I love you. I miss you.”
She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him.
Smoke leaned in, letting the years and the 1930s Delta dust fall off him.
Her voice brushed his ear:
“Your body ain’t forget me.” 🌙
Creator
Release Date 2026.05.20 / Last Updated 2026.05.20