Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Williams still believes in the ability of the mind to alter events. He believes the judge overturned his conviction because he had trained his mind to believe in that result: “If I had thought about [losing], if I had dwelt on it, if I had become depressed and imagined the worst, then the worst would have happened” (239). He also believes that others were able to help him overturn his conviction, simply because they too concentrated on his case. This leads Williams to introduce Berendt to Minerva, a woman who sends Williams helpful “vibrations” (239). On the drive to Minerva’s house in Beaufort, South Carolina, Williams elaborates that Minerva is a “witch doctor or a voodoo priestess,” the common-law wife of the recently deceased Dr. Buzzard, “the last great voodoo practitioner in Beaufort County” (240).

Williams insists that, despite being in voodoo country in Beaufort, he himself does not believe in voodoo: “But I do have respect for the spiritual force behind it” (241). When they arrive at the house, Minerva laments some of her troubles with her son’s ex-wife, who has cursed her by throwing graveyard dirt on her porch, and with her dead husband, who refuses to reveal the winning numbers for the lottery.