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aithne[This is the serial that needs a disclaimer. It's set in 1832 Louisiana, which was a very ugly time in American history. Those who are sensitive to certain attitudes about race and certain grim realities of the historical slave trade probably ought not to read this particular serial. That said, on with the story!
Also, to follow this story in your RSS reader, the USS URL for this serial is http://silenceleigh.livejournal.com/data/rss?tag=black+angel+crossroads ]
April 30th, 1832
South of New Orleans
"A mwen, Feray O!
Se pa jodi a yap lome nom mwen.
A mwen, Feray O!
Se pa jodi a yap lome nom mwen.
Depi aye yap lome nom mwen.
A mwen, Feray O!
Anko mwen danjere."
The voice paused in its singing, the hands stilled in their whisking around the kay myste in the middle of refilling a bowl of water. That sound had not been in the rhythm of the wind and rain and the thunder that had started at sunset and was still going strong now, two and a half hours after darkness had fallen in the swamp. The owner of the voice and the hands paused, listening. Yes, those were cypresses slapping the house, but then--another noise. Pounding on the door, insistent.
"Ki c'est?" There was no answer, probably whoever was knocking couldn't hear her voice. Who on earth could it be on a night like this? She crossed the front room, picking up her rifle and tucking it into her arm.
Odile opened the door to find a white man dripping on her porch. His fair hair was plastered to his skin with the rain, his hat having evidently been no impedance to a Louisiana thunderstorm. He lifted the soggy hat anyway. "Terrible evening, ma'am. Can we come in?"
Gabriel Rousseau, owner of the Barataria plantation just to the north, was standing on Odile's porch with his bodyguard Benjamin behind him. Benjamin had a body slung over his shoulder. "Of course." She stepped back and put down the rifle, motioning the two of them in. "What brings you out here on a night like tonight?"
She knew Benjamin; he was a regular visitor and participant in the ceremonies Odile held. Mister Rousseau was familiar as well, though she'd never spoken to him. He was distinctive with his suits and his limping walk, using a cane, and she often saw him in the mornings and evenings walking around the plantation. Odile had few complaints about him; he never sold any of his slaves, and took good care of them. Benjamin never had anything bad to say about him. "Benjamin, actually, and the person he is carrying," he said now, and motioned to Benjamin who had stepped into the house behind him.
Benjamin was tall and handsome, no less so with his dark skin soaked with water. For a brief, irrelevant moment, Odile envied his wife. The man he had slung over his shoulder was a black dressed in rags, shivering violently. "Who's this? And how long has he been ill?"
Mister Rousseau turned to her, caught scanning the room. She supposed it would be strange, the colorful hangings on the walls and the shelves of charms and such. "I don't know. He staggered onto the plantation house. I can tell he has yellow fever. His eyes give it away. I can also tell you he probably belongs to Oak Vale Plantation. Can Benjamin set him down somewhere?"
"In the center of the floor. I'll get blankets, for him and for both of you."
"Thank you, miss...? Benjamin, if you would please?"
She turned and gave the man a long look, grey eyes in a face the color of cream in coffee giving away her heritage. She was tall, all curves under her blouse and skirt. "My name is Odile. It's all right to use it, Mr. Rousseau." There was a chest of blankets in the corner, kept for guests on nights much like this one.
His voice, like Benjamin's, was English with a touch of French to it. "Gabriel, and Benjamin you know."
Odile nodded, and handed the dripping man a blanket. "Yes, I do. Benjamin, help me get this blanket under him. I've seen yellow fever before. This is going to take a bit." She'd turned and knelt next to the shivering body of the man. He was half-starved, a familiar look of slaves from Oak Vale, likely the property of Bertrand Leroy. She had congregants there, who she would visit under cover of night to help them with their many needs. She could not make their lives much less miserable, but she could do some.
Benjamin slid an arm under the man's shoulders and lifted him, and Odile slipped the blanket beneath him. Behind her, Gabriel said, "I would introduce you to the sick one there, but alas, I don't know his name. If it were simple yellow fever, I wouldn't have bothered. But something else is going on and Benjamin recommended you."
"All right, you'd better tell me the whole story." There was something unusual about this one. Odile couldn't decide what it was, but definitely something. She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed sweat away from his brow.
"Not a lot to tell, watch the left arm." He pointed to a small wound that looked like a much-scratched flea bite. A few seconds later, something wriggled in the wound, and then something small and black emerged from the skin. A mosquito. It rested for barely a second, and then flew away with a whine. "They are coming out more frequently."
This was some of the blackest of black magic, and instinctively, Odile recoiled. Then she reached forward, to roll the man on his side and see the scars on his back. He had been whipped many, many times, and more recently, by some sort of tool that probably had nails in it. His back was a mass of wound and infection. On his front, low on his chest, a mark; death and plague, inscribed into the skin. A bokor's work. The mosquitoes were coming quickly, their whine now audible over the crash of thunder outside.
This was more magic than she could deal with short-term; she turned to the shelves nearby and snatched up several charms against dark magic. She might be able to bind it temporarily--
But from behind her there was a scream. The man was convulsing, and more and more mosquitoes were coming out, almost hiding him in the cloud. Odile shoved the charms into Benjamin's and Mister Rousseau's hands, snapping out the chant that would attract the loa's attention to the charms. She dropped her own charm around her neck.
The flesh was peeling off of the man's bones and his screams faded into the whine of mosquitoes as his lungs failed, bursting open as the man's whole body seemed to dissolve into mosquitoes. "Hold the bag in your hand," Odile said, voice calm but urgent. "There's nothing I can do for him now, but with luck we can make the magic pass by us."
The insects gathered into a dense cloud near the ceiling. The mass of them made a deafening noise, and then they dove at the three people left in the room. Odile felt the magic in them push at the magic of her charms, and the cloud parted around them. It streamed by and then turned and headed out the door that was banging in the wind.
The feel of the magic was sickening as Odile stepped to the door and caught it, opening it wide. It headed north, towards Barataria. "You said he came from Oak Vale?" she asked.
Mister Rousseau answered, "Yes, based on direction and scarring, it's Mister Leroy's handiwork." The magic was heading for a statue that stood at the heart of the plantation, a monument in the shape of a black angel that was Mister Rousseau's testament to his dead wife. The magic abruptly turned, went upward, and streaked away towards New Orleans, fading from her perception. "I have seen yellow fever before, but never that type," Mister Rousseau said. His voice was fascinated and disgusted. "There is nothing left of him."
She turned to see he was right. Nothing remained, not a stitch of clothing or a shred of flesh. The blanket was lying there, empty. Mister Rousseau pulled his own blanket closer around himself, staring. "Blackest of black magic. A bokor's work. We will be seeing much yellow fever in town soon, I think." Her voice was harsh, accented with the hard consonants and high vowels of Creole. "You have a powerful guardian on your crossroads, Mr. Rousseau."
"Gabriel," he said, correcting her. He shifted, his cane thumping on the floor. "Crossroads? The angel, you mean?"
"Something. Perhaps the angel. Whatever it was, it scared the magic away north."
"Good to know. The charms that you make as well seem to guard you. My people will probably want some. Can I impose on you to make some more? I will pay, of course."
Odile gave this white man a measuring look. He knew how things were done, that mambos and houngans were paid for their work. "Of course. It will take me a few hours to make them. I will tell Benjamin how they're to be used."
"Thank you," he said. He shook his head. "Why here?" His eyes had gone distant, abstracted.
She turned away, towards the wall of shelves, and began to get down several boxes that had in them things she'd need. "Why the black magic, you mean?"
Gabriel blinked. "Yes, mostly I was pondering out loud. I was wondering if he was sent here deliberately to Barataria. Or to you, perhaps? Mister Leroy and I have no love lost between us. But whoever sent him would have known we would take him to you."
Odile lifted the lid of a box, took a deep sniff. Ah, the spurge root was still good. "I'd say that it was likely aimed at you. Or your plantation, more like. There are only a few bokors around who could work such a magic, and I would have to say that Remy is the one most likely to have done this." She wrinkled her nose. "Though he'd spit at me if he heard me call him a bokor. It does not change what he is."
"Remy? Ah, the colorful one in the French quarter," Mister Rousseau said. "He is a voodoo practitioner as well? Is he for hire?"
Colorful did not quite cover Remy. He claimed to be a favorite of Ghede, the guardian of the crossroads between life and death, and painted his face white and wore a black top hat to make sure everyone knew it. He was a black who claimed to have been freed, but popular scuttlebutt said that he had killed his master and forged his manumission papers. Nobody challenged him to his face on it, though. He was more than competent, and had a decided taste for black magic.
Odile snorted. "For hire? In a way. In the same way we are all for hire. Give him money and adulation, and he will make your enemies ill, give them boils, make their slaves die. Better if you're a pretty girl, he'll take it out in trade then. He claims to be something much larger than he is."
"Ah, I understand, so Mister Leroy could have hired him to do something like this, or given him something in order for him to cooperate."
"Might be. Might be someone else," she said, taking down another box. "I've never heard Mister Leroy a believer, and surely Remy would brag."
"I think in the morning, we should pay a visit to Mister Leroy and to Remy. What do you think, Benjamin?" Gabriel turned to his bodyguard with a questioning look.
Benjamin nodded. His deep voice was familiar and welcome. "I think so, Gabriel."
Nodding, Gabriel turned back to Odile. "Miss Odile. Would you like to join us? I think I could use your type of help, just in case."
Odile raised an eyebrow. This man thought that a mulatto vodou practitioner was going to help him with Mister Leroy? What sort of moun fou was she dealing with, here? She was curious, she had to admit. "I want to know who sent this. I'll come. Remy knows me, though, and he likes me not a bit," she warned.
"That's fine. I don't think he is going to like me, either. Can I send the carriage to you in the morning?"
She blinked. "If you have a driver who knows the swamp," she replied, slowly. "Too easy to get mired, out here. Otherwise, I can meet you on the road."
"Benjamin does," Mister Rousseau said.
Odile was frowning, lines appearing between her eyebrows. He had to be crazy. "Then I'll see you in the morning, Benjamin," she said, nodding to him.
Unexpectedly, Gabriel laughed. "Sorry, that frown was very cute," he said, keeping his smile. "Something wrong with that? The carriage, I mean?"
"Nobody 'sends a carriage' for the swamp witch like she's some kind of white lady," she said, rolling her eyes. What was this man, that he could be so ignorant?
"You are a free, beautiful woman and should be treated like such. Race makes no difference. Or at least, it shouldn't."
The statement was really too much to take. "Benjamin never told me you're crazy, Mister Rousseau."
"Gabriel, please. Maybe I am a bit off from everyone else, but somebody has to be," he said, giving her a smile. It was a nice smile, and now that he was dried off a bit Odile could see that he was probably handsome when he wasn't wet to the bone.
She gave him a dubious look. "Hunh. In the morning, then."
"Goodnight, Miss Odile," he said, touching the brim of his hat. "Benjamin, if you could wait for some of those charms, I will meet you at the house."
"Good night, Gabriel," Benjamin said, and for the first time Odile noticed that the two of them had nearly the same accent, both that English with an edge of French. Well-schooled, both of them. Gabriel nodded at them both and let himself out, closing the door behind him. She listened to the peculiar rhythm of his feet and his cane cross her porch and go down the stairs.
"Un moun fou," she muttered, then thumped the box she was holding down on the table.
"Indeed," he said, nodding. Benjamin spoke at least the basics of Creole; it was close enough to French that he was able to understand most of her mutterings. "Stranger than usual tonight, I have to agree."
"Well, have a seat," she said. "Water and rum's in the usual place if you want some. What exactly happened that had you and Gabriel showing up on my doorstep? I'd have thought he'd just have sent you."
Benjamin stepped over to the hearth that served as her kitchen, opening a door in the floor and hoisting up a bucket that held several bottles of rum. "The man showed up on doorstep, like you saw him but walking. He was like a zombie. He collapsed after I opened the door.
Gabriel took a look at him and said yellow fever. We took him inside and put him down. But the mosquitoes came popping out. I told him this was the work of a bokor and we needed a mambo in protection to fix this. He asked if I knew one, and I said you. He insisted that he come along. I told him I could deal with it, but he came anyway. Walking on that damn cane of his."
Odile fetched her mortar and pestle, the bowl of it bigger than her cupped hands. "Maybe the thunderstorm made him crazy. Why would he want to come along? Did he say?"
"He said that Mama wanted him to," Benjamin said. "He later said Noemi, as well."
The name was familiar--ah, yes, Mister Rousseau's dead wife, whose memory he held so close. "Noemi--oh, his wife. He speaks to her spirit?"
Benjamin shrugged. "He talks to the angel. Sometimes I think she answers."
"Strange that he would hear her. Or maybe not so strange. Some mouri can be loud," she said, thinking about her Maman and Grandmere. Both of them spoke to her, her mother more often than her grandmother.
"Not so strange," he said, and he grinned. "Our mama was a mambo. Like you." He'd pulled out a bottle from the cupboard as well as a glass. He motioned with the bottle at her, and she shook her head.
She cocked her hip, planting one hand on it, her other hand on the pestle. "Noemi's your sister?"
"No, Gabriel's my brother." He was still smiling, as if enjoying the stunned look on her face. "Step-brother, actually. Gabriel and I were born on the same day, same year. His mama was white and mine was black. Different fathers, too," he said, forestalling her next question. "His mama died right after the birth. My Mama wet nursed us both."
Very interesting. "Raised together then. And your mama being a mambo makes sense."
"Gabriel knows about vodou. He feigns disinterest," he said with a shrug. Rum splashed into the cracked glass. "It wasn't until we were twelve that we found out by walking in on my mama and his father that they were sleeping together. They told us they had been for awhile. They thought it would bother us somehow, but neither one of us cared. His father asked my mama to get married, when we were about seventeen." He grimaced. "You know how that went over when he tried to get papers for the marriage."
Brave, noble, and ultimately foolish. Sounded to Odile like the apple had fallen into the roots of the tree. "Pitchforks and torches, probably."
"They lynched them," he said, simple words for a brutally ugly truth. "Took the land, and Gabriel and I started over. Gabriel took it hard and never smiled much until Noemi, but she was taken too. Elisabeth and I married, privately, of course, and he built that angel for Noemi."
Benjamin had told Odile stories, during dark nights of drinking after rituals were done, of Noemi, how beautiful and ultimately how fragile she'd been. She had been a happy soul, he'd said, and Mister Rousseau had never been the same after she died. Unlucky, to lose his mama and papa and then his wife, and her so young and childless. "He knew right where to put the angel, too," Odile said, thinking of the place by the largest crossroads on Barataria that the angel presided over, one wing outstretched in a gesture of protection, the other held tightly to its body, eyes staring down at those who passed by. Crossroads were special places, where death and life yearned close to one another, where decisions were made.
"He knew," Benjamin said, and there was a depth of meaning in his tone that Odile didn't really want to go into at the moment.
"Well, I'd say that your Mama and Noemi definitely wanted him to come along. Mambos tend to stick around after they've died. Maman and Grandmere surely have."
"So, understand him better?" he asked. "Think he is crazy, yet?"
"Still deciding. But I do understand more about him, now," she said. Perhaps his offer of a carriage wasn't madness after all--at least, if it was, it was a madness she could almost understand.
Benjamin smiled. "Well. I think you will see more of him. I haven't seen him laugh in years, or even smile."
"He did both, here," she said, remembering him laughing at her frown, and calling it cute.
"Yes, yes, he did," he said with a chuckle that seemed to come from the lowest part of his chest. He lifted his glass to Odile in salute.
"Ai, drink up," she told him. "Let me get about my business."
The next two hours were taken up with carefully grinding herbs to a fine powder and making the herbs into charms, waved through the fire on the hearth, the correct prayers said over them, the correct songs sung. Odile called Papa Legba, keeper of the doorway, and Sobo, keeper of thunder and great protector, her favorite loa. He always came easy, on nights like this, brought by the thunder and her need. Benjamin was one of his favorite horses, and when Sobo mounted him he always seemed taller, blacker, taking up half the space in the room with his stern and fatherly presence.
When it was finished and Sobo departed, there were twenty-seven new charms ready to be given to those who needed them. Not enough to protect everyone, but more than there had been. Benjamin departed into the storm that seemed not nearly ready to finish venting itself, and Odile barred the door, tired to the bone.
Tomorrow, then, a visit to one Mister Leroy. But before then, some sleep. No matter how late she was up, she had to be up in the morning to take care of the goats and the chickens.
Morning came all too soon, and the fury of the storm had settled until a warm stillness. Mist curled between trees, making trunks and branches black silhouettes in the false dawn. Sleepy chickens muttered and grumbled, goats balked and butted as she woke and fed them and moved them out for the day. Larch the mule also needed seeing to, and by the time all the chores were done the chicory was finished boiling, and it was time to wash and put on some going to town clothes.
Odile was sitting on her porch drinking from a mug when she heard the jangle of harness and the thud of hooves coming her way. The horses and brougham threaded the road between the two cedars that marked the edge of the land she considered hers, and pulled up in her yard. The horses stamped and steamed, the near one stretching out its neck towards Odile, curious.
She dumped out the dregs of her mug and went to the carriage, considered her options briefly, and began to swing up into the seat next to Benjamin. "Morning," she said as she settled beside him.
Benjamin eyed her. "I think that he wanted you inside."
Like some fancy lady who never saw the sun? Ha. "Crazy man."
He laughed. "You can ride up here back to the house if you want, but I am pretty sure he will ask you to come inside for the trip to mister Leroy's."
"Too early in the morning to be cooped up inside. I'll ride up here as far as the house." Odile smoothed out her skirts, tucking her feet under a bit. Her house looked some different from up here, she decided. Smaller. And if she wasn't mistaken, she could see some shingles that wanted replacing near the edge of the roof.
She talked with Benjamin all the way back, asking after his wife and children. Anton was the eldest, and he was a strapping man of eighteen. The two younger children were Ines and Isabelle, both sixteen, twin girls. Elisabeth, Benjamin's wife, was quite rightly proud of them. Elisabeth wasn't much of a believer in vodou, but she was very tolerant of Benjamin's practice.
The ride to the plantation house was relatively brief, and Benjamin did know the best way through with the least risk of getting mired. The way was narrow and wound through tall trees with moss hanging from them. The morning mist was starting to fade, and the chorus of birdsong and insects was quieting down a little as the sun climbed higher.
It was less than a mile from her place to the edge of Barataria, the path opening out abruptly into cleared land. The road they followed now went straight between fields, rutted from years of wagon wheels brought out for planting and harvest. Odile held on to the side of the seat as the brougham bounced and juddered over the ruts.
As they rode, Odile could see people working in the fields, and Elisabeth sitting under a tree with the twins, evidently working on sewing. They waved as the brougham went by. Benjamin pulled up in the wide drive in front of the house, and got down to go get Mister Rousseau.
Odile stayed where she was, waiting. A few minutes later, Mister Rousseau appeared at the door. His limp was more pronounced today than usual, and he leaned heavily on his cane. He hobbled down the stairs and to the carriage, where he looked up at Odile with a strange expression on his face. "Coming down, Miss Odile?"
She looked down at him, regarding him with her eyes that were a stormcloud grey in the morning light. "Well, I suppose. If you're asking me to, that is."
He was silent for a moment, then held out a hand. "I am."
Odile shrugged and climbed down. Mister Rousseau insisted on helping her into the carriage, though she could have very well gotten in by herself. He got in after her, taking the seat that faced the rear, and settled himself. He rapped on the side of the brougham with his cane, and a moment later the horses began to pull. Mister Rousseau settled his cane across his lap; it was made of a dark reddish wood with a heavy-looking knob for grasping at one end. "Unpleasant night, about to be followed by an unpleasant morning. Except for the company," he added.
She gave him a small, enigmatic smile. "So what are you going to do, march in there and accuse Mister Leroy of sending black magic against you?"
"No, Mister Leroy loses a lot of slaves. I am going to tell him that we found one and ask about if he has lost any more."
"Think he'll tell you the truth?" Odile asked, curious.
Mister Rousseau gave a short bark of an unamused laugh. "Mister Leroy has a temper and if you can make him lose it, he will let things slip. And making him angry is very simple."
"So I've heard." Her expression darkened as she remembered the things she'd seen during her clandestine visits to Oak Vale. Men and women whipped to an inch of their lives. Girls hardly old enough to bleed with big bellies on them, bred either by Mister Leroy or their own fathers, a practice that was supposed to make the resulting children stupid and docile. "So I've seen the results of."
"So have I. I have paid a lot of money to that man over the last few years," Mister Rousseau said, and the sharpness in his voice surprised her, somehow.
The carriage lurched, and Odile watched Mister Rousseau shift to compensate. She hadn't noticed his eyes before. The light coming in through the brougham window revealed them to be a light green. "So some of your people have told me," she said. "Buying the ones that escape."
"There is no point in sending them back. He would beat them even harder and then kill them. I don't like unjustified deaths."
Unjustified. Interesting word for someone who, despite his brave words, still owned slaves. "Mister Leroy isn't worth the water wasted to spit on him."
Mister Rousseau shook his head. "I have to agree. A great many people, actually."
"I see the results of their handiwork. Mister Leroy is the worst of a bad lot."
"I am sorry that you have to see that. I wish it were different." He took a long breath. "Some day, maybe."
Odile inclined her head. "I serve the loa, and they have put me here. I like to think I make things easier for people, at least a little."
He was looking at her intently. "You do. I have seen the faith they put in you. And what that brings them."
She smiled gently. "I try. The loas love us and want to help us, after all. I simply help them."
"Passing out of Barataria, Mister R!" Benjamin called down.
Mister Rousseau leaned towards the window. "Thank you, Benjamin." After he settled back into his place, he said to Odile, "So you do, and sometimes so do we all."
Odile had pulled herself back a bit, into what shadows there were in the brougham. "Benjamin mentioned a few things, yes," she said quietly.
"He did? Telling all my secrets?" He cocked an eyebrow at her. "And I don't know a thing about you."
"I was curious about the strange man who'd shown up on my doorstep in the middle of a storm," she told him. "I don't know, what is there to know about me? I've lived in my little house all of my life."
"Always a mambo? How far back? And did you find out all you wanted about the strange man?"
"All I wanted to know, for the moment. I'm sure Benjamin didn't spill all of your secrets." She paused, considering. "Maman was a mambo, and Grandmere before her, and generations before her. It runs in the family. Maman served the loas and the people here as I do now."
"I am glad you do. Do you do readings and the like or just charms and the callings of the loa?" he asked.
"I do some readings, but nobody ever really wants to know their future," she said. Her voice was slow and measured. "They want hope, not the truth, and if they want truth they can go to someone else. Truth is that we're all food for the worms, some sooner than others."
"So you dispense hope mostly?" Something came across his expression briefly. "You and I are not so different. So, does that make us both crazy? Or just me still?"
Odile shifted as the brougham went across a particularly nasty bump in the road. "I don't know, I still think you might be a bit crazy."
"Why is that, exactly?"
She motioned at the carriage that surrounded them. "I am who I am. Not someone who usually rides inside carriages with white owners. And you claim race makes no difference." Her voice was blunt, and there was a good amount of suspicion in it. "I don't know why you're paying the respect to me you are, and it makes me uneasy."
His eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped low. "We bleed the same color. We all die in the same ways. Because your skin is darker, I don't have to treat you the same?" He shook his head. "I think that is crazy. I am sorry if it makes you uneasy. But if it helps, think of the discomfort that it will cause Mister Leroy."
"Oh yes, it will." She smiled, leaning forward a bit out of the shadows. "A good thought."
They passed the time with talk about the weather and the swamp until Benjamin called down, "Plantation house of Mister Leroy coming up." Then the two of them fell into silence, Mister Rousseau contemplating something, Odile watching out the window at a perspective on Oak Vale she had never seen before. It was a beautiful place, if you didn't know what the owner had done to it.
Slaves worked in the fields, many of them with halting movements that indicated unhealed wounds. Some of these were mulattos--Mister Leroy's children, most of them. Mister Leroy didn't consider them his children but his property, selling or keeping them as he saw fit. It was a legal practice, but one considered distasteful by many.
The brougham stopped, and Mister Rousseau opened the door and got out. They were in front of the plantation house, and as Odile moved to step out of the carriage, she could see Mister Bertrand Leroy himself coming over. His suit was crisply pressed, but his bowtie was a bit wilted, and the man himself was perspiring in the morning heat. He was round, balding, and to look at him Odile wouldn't think he was one of the most loathsome things to walk around on two legs in these parts. Know the man by his handiwork, she thought.
Mister Rousseau offered a hand to help her down. This time she didn't give him any argument. When she landed on the ground, her skirt settling around her feet, she looked up to see Mister Leroy's face go several shades redder and his frown deepen into an ugly scowl. "Christ, Rousseau," he blurted, evidently unable to keep his tongue still for a moment longer. "Have you lost your mind? What's that doing riding in the carriage with you?"
Odile drew herself to her full height. She was a tall woman, just like her mother had been, and she knew that tall and unsmiling she was an imposing sight. Mister Rousseau didn't turn a hair, replying calmly, "She is having a ride, same as I. Mister Leroy, this is Miss Odile."
Mister Leroy looked at her with one of those appraising stares, and blinked and almost stepped back when Odile calmly met his eyes. "She's a voodoo minister, or whatever they call them," he muttered.
Mister Rousseau ignored the comment. "We found a slave of yours on my property last night. Have you lost any others?"
"Five, well four, technically. Three from the one you found. Where is he, by the way? Or was it the female?"
"He passed last night, died of a fever it seems," Mister Rousseau said.
Mister Leroy snorted. "Mine had the same thing. I shot him before he got in the house."
"He was trying to get in your house?"
"Ya, crazy bastard was running at the door, slamming his whole body into it. 'Bout eight last night. I looked out the window and saw him. He changed course and tried to ram the window I was looking out of. I flung open the window and shot him. Died right there in the rose bushes." He pointed at some rose bushes under a big window. "You sure yours died or you just not wanting to pay this time?"
"He's dead," Mister Rousseau said calmly. "I've always paid you before. What's one more? Do you have yellow fever here, then?"
"Nope, so far nothing. I had the doc out from New Orleans. He didn't find any. New guy, too. Yank accent."
That was someone Odile had heard of, the Yank doctor just out of school with some funny new ideas. Adrien Thomas, if she remembered correctly. She wondered how he was finding New Orleans.
Words from Mister Rousseau brought her back to the conversation. "Heard of him. So what about the other three, then? Anything?"
He pulled out a handkerchief, mopping his forehead. "Nothing so far. I only want the female back. She was pregnant and getting close to birthing in a month or so."
Odile's eyes narrowed. She knew the slave he was referring to. Her name was Nicole. She was about fifteen, and she was currently Mister Leroy's favorite piece, even far gone in her pregnancy. Odile had gently offered her services when Nicole had found out she was pregnant, but Leroy had started being nicer to her after she'd caught a babe, and she'd refused.
Well, Mister Rousseau had said that part of the object was to make Leroy angry. She gave him a hard stare. "Maybe that one just got tired of warming your bed," she said in a disdainful voice.
Leroy snarled. "Who told you to talk?"
Mister Rousseau remarked mildly, "I think I hear an ass braying, don't you, Odile?"
It occurred to Odile to wonder where Benjamin had gone. She'd heard him climb down off the brougham, but he was nowhere in sight. She resisted the urge to look around, focusing her attention on Leroy. "I am a mambo, Mister Leroy. I speak to whomever I choose."
"Free woman doesn't mean free speech," he snarled.
She looked down at him. "I speak to what is eternal and powerful. Do you think you are either, Mister Leroy?"
"Get off my land. I will toss you out like that other crazy mambo jambo." Leroy was beet-red now, and Odile wondered if she could make his heart burst just by keeping speaking to him.
But there had been something interesting in his last statement, and Mister Rousseau was on it, smoothly. "The other one?"
"The tall black with the painted face. Crazy bastard hanging around. Told him I would shoot him next I saw him."
Remy. Figures.
"When was that?" Gabriel asked.
"Two days ago. He was in the hen house, chanting and rolling his eyes up and down for the 'ladies'."
"Did he say anything to you before he left?"
Leroy threw his arms wide. "Only that my time was coming. Some crap like that. All of us. What he meant by that I don't know."
Gabriel persisted, "And then he left?"
"Said some creepy stuff about unborn children born without souls. Then took off." Leroy snorted. "Why believe him?"
"Don't know if I do believe him. What happened to the body of the slave you killed?"
"It's in the pit," Leroy said. He was starting to calm down some, but he also was not looking at Odile. She almost smiled.
"And you haven't seen the practitioner since?"
"The black voodoo man? No, he is gone for awhile. He is probably over at Magie. Stephane Durand's place."
"Durand's rumored to see him," Gabriel said.
"Yep, his wife is a true believer." He mopped his forehead again. "Praise Satan, or whatever it is they shout about." Odile fought the urge to roll her eyes.
"Well. I'll let you know if any more of yours show up at my place," Gabriel said. Behind them, Odile could hear Benjamin moving, fussing with something under the carriage.
Leroy gave Gabriel an oily smile. "Thanks, I could use the money."
"Goodbye, Leroy," he said in a tone that held no pleasantness. He turned to her. "Odile? Shall we?"
She nodded, giving Leroy one last measuring look. Leroy laughed. "Have fun mounting that one, Mister Rousseau. She looks feisty."
Smoothly, Gabriel turned, crossing the distance between himself and Leroy surprisingly quickly for someone who limped as badly as he did. His cane was in his hand, and as Odile watched, he slid his hand down to the end and swung the heavy end into Leroy's groin, hard. Leroy collapsed with a scream. "Have fun fathering any more children, Mister Leroy," Gabriel told him. "Benjamin, if you would."
They climbed into the carriage as Leroy lay curled on the ground, moaning. They pulled away to the accompaniment of shouts of "Bastard! I'll kill you!"
Odile held her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the grin that kept on forcing its way to her lips. "That should have been done to him a long ways ago," she said, finally.
Gabriel chuckled. "Before he fathered any children. Piece of work, that one. But he's a good Christian. Goes to church on Sunday and everything."
The brougham lurched, and almost sent Odile banging into the wall. And when did I start thinking of Mister Rousseau as Gabriel? "There's some as sings hymns Sundays and thinks they're going to heaven for it," she said. "I don't think they are. But that opinion's not shared by many."
"I share it," Gabriel said. "Unfortunately, my temper probably got the best of me there. I am sure there will be repercussions. But it felt good."
She almost told him that she'd felt like cheering when she'd seen him hit Leroy, but decided against it. "Well, if he wasn't your enemy before, he surely is now."
"We were. Just more cordial. Besides, what is he going to do, really? I suppose he could come shoot me." The carriage lurched again, going over a rut, and Gabriel braced himself with his good leg. "Don't think he would live much past the gates. There are a lot of his ex-slaves that would love a minute with him. So as long as I stay off his plantation, I should be fine. Of course, we may find ourselves facing each other in New Orleans someday."
Odile nodded briefly. "I don't think he's the culprit here, for the bodies. And if you check, I'll bet some of the other plantations around saw the same thing we did."
"I think you are right."
"We can start with Magie," she said, thinking, "Remy might well be there. I hope Nicole actually got away, and isn't being used for something."
"Or what happened to the other guy." Gabriel moved to put his head out the window and call, "Benjamin, did you get it?"
"Sure did, Gabriel," Benjamin's rich voice called back. Gabriel sat back, looking satisfied.
"What?" Odile asked.
"The body he shot."
She smiled, despite herself. "Oh, good. I can take a look at it."
"I figured you might want to take a look," he said, and put his head out the window again. "Odile's house, Benjamin."
Gabriel's brother's voice was amused. "That's where I was going."
Odile had retreated into the shadows again, watching Gabriel lean out the window. She wondered, briefly, what accident or illness caused him to limp the way he did. She wondered about the relationship between the two brothers, that Benjamin had gone and gotten the body while Gabriel and she had distracted Leroy. Strange company she was keeping these days.
They fell into silence as Benjamin drove the carriage towards her house. Riding in a carriage with a white man who's pleasant to look at and who's treating me like one of his kind, and I can't think of a thing to say, she grumbled to herself. Yes, he was crazy. But it was a kind of crazy she was getting to like.
Don't like him too much, she reminded herself. That way lies nothing but trouble. She was sure her Maman and Grandmere would have something to say about Mister Gabriel Rousseau, and probably not much of it was going to be good. Odile'd had sweethearts when she was younger, before Maman died and her whole attention had turned to keeping up her practice, but they'd never worked out. A couple of them had been sold away. One had earned Maman's scathing disapproval in a speech so blistering that Odile was still smarting fourteen years later. She'd finally just given up, more or less. She dealt with power, and though people were happy to have her help, they were wary when it came to a more personal relationship with her.
Benjamin had been the closest thing to a friend she'd had in years. She'd been a bit disappointed when she'd learned he was married, but had gotten over it quickly. And now there was Gabriel, his brother, who she suspected had more than friendship on his mind, if the way he'd glance at her and then look away was any sign.
She'd just have to keep him at arm's reach. Once he saw her really work, she doubted he'd be interested any longer.
Odile's thoughts were interrupted by their arrival at her house. They unloaded the body, and Odile proceeded to take a look. The corpse was ripe but not badly decomposed yet, and offered all sorts of information.
If he was nothing else, Mister Leroy was a good shot; the fatal wound had been a bullet shot into his forehead from relatively close range, with another wound on the back of the head where the bullet had exited. He was older, and as Odile rolled him over to look at his back she saw that he had two familiar gardes, one on each shoulderblade. One was against pain, and the other illness. The gardes were her mother's, or had been; the illness garde was marred with shallow slashes with dirt ground into them, useless.
There was another, low on his back, obviously recent from the crust of blood that had been formed on the lines. Odile was silent as she read the lines, waited for the shapes to resolve into sense. It would draw fever out of the body and into vermin. It wasn't specific to mosquitoes, but it would have the effect that Odile had seen, if drawn by a powerful enough hand.
And this was a powerful hand. Odile knew Remy's gardes; they were fancy, intricate, with all kinds of little fripperies that weren't strictly necessary. This was different. This looked like Maman's work.
And there was one more mark, this one almost missed because of the blood that had sheeted on the man's head after he'd been shot and had dried to a tacky paste. It took a wet cloth to clean away the blood and find it, but there was the five-dot pattern on the back of the head, meant to keep the soul here instead of letting it go to its destination.
She straightened, stretched. To Benjamin and Gabriel, who was standing by and watching silently, she said, "His soul is being held here. I can talk to him." She pointed to the garde on the small of the man's back. "This doesn't belong to Remy, I think. Someone is trying to imitate my Maman's marks."
"Why?" Gabriel asked.
Odile looked down at the body of the man, lying facedown in her front yard. "If I hadn't been the one to lay eyes on him, they would likely have mistaken it for one of Maman's. Make it look old, like something he's had for years and was recently renewed. I took over the renewal of Maman's gardes when she died. Someone might be trying to point to me."
"So someone is trying to kill the plantation owners and their slaves, and blame it on you."
"Looks like." She twisted her mouth. "Now, I think I'm going to take this some personally." Her voice had gotten harder, more clipped.
"Same here," Gabriel said. "So what now?"
"Now I get to work," she said. "You can stay or not as you see fit. It'll take me a while to get this going."
"I'll stay," he said. "I'd like to hear what he has to say."
Odile nodded. "Benjamin, could you carry him into the front room? I'll go get a couple of chickens." The ritual itself was simple, as these things went; she wouldn't even have to speak with Ghede, as the soul was trapped in the places between the world of the living and the crossroads of the dead. It took her a few minutes to get a couple of black chickens from the pen and get them quieted down enough to carry into the house.
She painted a temporary garde on Gabriel's forehead, a sort of signpost to request that none of the loa who would be visiting would mount him. Some wouldn't respect that, but those shouldn't be at this proceeding. The corpse was set in a seated position, hands in his lap, and the smell of it was thick in the air inside the house.
Songs were sung, the chickens sacrificed, loa invited; Papa Legba first, as always, who gave way to others who lent their power to the truth-seeking and a spark of seeming life to the body. The first sign that it was working was that the mouth of the corpse began to move, working like he was trying to suck something. It was the first instinctive movement, the first thing a baby learned, and it was a good sign. "Ai, you speaking to me?" she inquired. The working of the mouth paused. "Did you willingly take the new garde, and who gave it to you?"
The voice sounded like brush bristles on metal, a tone that scraped the back of the neck and made the hair on Odile's arms try to prickle and rise. "I did. Antoinette."
Antoinette was a practitioner who lived in town, in the French Quarter. Odile had often been to her shop; she was an older woman, a light-skinned mulatto with a slow smile and shining eyes. "Why?"
"To punish the land owners."
"To punish them for something in particular, or in general?" There was chicken blood drying on Odile's cheeks. She resisted the urge to wipe it away.
"Leroy, Petit and Durand," the voice rasped, naming the owners of the plantations that bordered Barataria. "For their torture of us."
"How many of you were there sent?"
"Four, one for Rousseau, but only to keep the blame off of him."
"And you knew what the price would be?" she asked.
The rasp in the spirit's voice got louder. "We were dying anyway. Age was killing us. Soon Leroy would have killed us anyway, we would have been taken to the pit with all broken limbs but alive."
She shuddered. Such was spoken of, but only in whispers. "The garde looks like the work of a mambo years dead," she said. "Do you know if that was intended?"
The spirit did not laugh, though the rasp sounded as if it would like to. "Antoinette has the captured spirit of your mama. She uses it to do her rituals. The spirit was the same. The hand was different."
Odile's mouth dropped open, and she stared at the corpse for a moment, stunned. Antoinette had her Maman? It was possible, but it was abhorrent, especially if it was not by choice. Maman would never willingly participate in black magic. She must have been forced. "And the point of keeping your soul around after death?"
"To haunt Leroy, in case he lived."
"Well, I'm all for that," she said, her voice acid.
Benjamin and Gabriel had been watching silently. Now Gabriel asked, "Remy?"
She nodded. She asked the corpse, "Do you know why Remy was hanging around Leroy's plantation?"
"The girl," the voice rasped.
"Nicole. What about her?"
"She has power in the child."
Odile regarded the corpse with something akin to suspicion. "What's special about the child?"
"Loa born human."
"And so Remy's protecting her?"
Rasp, rasp. The corpse moved restlessly, twitching fingers and toes. "Wanting her. For power."
"Do you know where she's gone?" Odile asked.
"No."
It was time, past time to let this one go; Odile thanked the spirit assiduously and promised to remember him in her rituals. Satisfied, the spirit left, apparently to go start making Leroy's life miserable. Odile dropped down to her heels next to the corpse, putting her forehead in her hand, waiting for the feeling of ritual to dissipate.
"That was informative. How often do they tell the truth?" Gabriel asked once she'd straightened again.
Odile spread her hands, shrugging. "If they were truthful in life, they're truthful in death. If they were a liar, they lie. I think what he told us needs to be looked at."
"Who's Antoinette?"
She blinked, and then remembered what this man was. "A practitioner, she keeps a shop in the French quarter. I don't know her well, only in passing."
Gabriel looked down at the corpse. "She has your mother's spirit? To help her create gardes?"
"It's possible," she said, and contemplated the awful possibility. Maman was one of her best-beloved loa, Bon Mambo Marthe-Shows-The-Way. To have her held against her will was a terrible thing.
"Now we need the why," Gabriel said, watching her. "Where do you want to start?"
She took a sharp breath in through her nose. "Talking to Antoinette. Maman may be helping her, for some reason, it's hard to compel a loa to do what you want them to do without reward."
"Can they be forced?" he asked.
She shook her head, then blinked and thought. "It's very rare, but it happens. Usually not for long, though."
"So she is probably gone from her captivity," Gabriel concluded. "Can a loa be born human?"
Odile gave him a shrug. "That's a new one for me. The question is, why would one want to be born human? If they wanted to, they could arrange it, I'm sure. I could also see if Maman would talk to me."
"If you want. Is it taxing to do more than one per day? And does a loa born human retain its powers?"
She shrugged again; expected as always to have all the answers, she was finding none and feeling as though there were only air under her feet, as if she were standing on a very thin layer of leaves under which dark swamp moved, hungry. "Not really taxing, but it'll just take some more time. And materials. As for the loa born human, I don't know. If they kept their connection to the spirit realm, they would probably keep at least some of their power. If not, they would simply be another human."
"Remy is looking for the power. He must think it will retain something."
"I'd say that if he wants to retain its power, he'll be doing rituals before and during the birth, to keep the channels of power open after the baby takes its first breath." It could be done. There were rituals that were done when mambos had children, to keep them open to the power they had been swimming in for nine months. Her Maman had done it, and Grandmere before her.
Gabriel nodded. "Try to contact your mother. Benjamin and I will start on a grave while you talk. Then we will go to New Orleans. That all right with you?"
"I always look forward to talking with Maman." She chuckled, and stretched. "Even if she likes to scold me about things."
The white man had cocked an eyebrow at her. "What things could she possibly be scolding you for?"
Odile rolled her eyes. "Oh, she thinks it's about time I adopted a daughter or had one of my own. A girl to carry on the practice. She's gotten less patient with me over the last several years."
"You have plenty of time, and probably plenty of suitors," he said. Odile was abruptly conscious of Benjamin watching the two of them, and crossed her arms over her chest, shifting in place.
"I think not," she said with a snort. "Scary mambo, living off by herself in the swamp. I'll probably find a petit bebe that some girl wants raised free, sometime. Grand-grandmere was left on Grand-grand-grandmere's front porch, Maman told me once."
"I don't find you scary."
She raised an eyebrow. Was he serious? Looked like he was. "You're one of the few. People come to me for things, but they also know that I handle power, and that's might fearful."
Gabriel had a faint smile on his lips. "I remember days, long ago, of Benjamin's mother doing the same. It was frightening then."
"But not now?"
"No. I was scared of his mother. She was a strong woman with fast hand and an even bigger wooden spoon."
The practice made for women and men who were strong and dedicated; a scary thing for a young boy, she thought. Some liked to be more frightening than others. "Did you ever get over being scared of her?" she asked.
He shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think I ever did. But I was seventeen when she died, and I still remember her doing rituals and, worse, tattooing my body. That hurt worst of all."
Odile straightened, startled. Benjamin's mother had conferred a garde on Gabriel? He was so ignorant of the working of the loa that she hadn't even begun to suspect. "She set a garde in you?"
"I assume that's what they were," he said. "But, yes."
She wanted to see them, badly, but didn't want to seem like she was flirting. And why not? she thought, amused. Because you'd like to? "Well, the gardes hurt to get, but they're worth it," she commented, trying to relax.
"I am sure I have tested a few."
She chuckled. "As have we all. All right, you two, get if you're going to go. I have work to do." Benjamin and Gabriel left, and Odile took a moment to clear her mind before she started again.
To begin, she began to tidy the family kay myste, opening the intricately decorated doors of the house-shaped altar, brushing away what little dust there was, refreshing the bowls of water. Odile fetched her mother's favorite bracelet from its storage place, put together a small meal for Maman. All the time, she sang Maman's favorite songs, calling her from the crossroads into the room.
But no matter how much Odile sang, her mother could not or would not come. There was no answer to the call, not even the slightest feeling of presence. Frustrated, Odile changed the call. Clearing away the meal, she sprayed Grandmere's favorite perfume in the air and began to sweep the corners of the room with a boom, knowing that the smell of the perfume and kicked-up dust would bring Grandmere if she were willing to come.
The response was immediate, the feeling of Grandmere's presence filling the room. Grandmere had died when Odile was but five and Odile barely remembered her alive, except for the feel of her hands on her shoulders, filled with a bony strength. The strength was the feeling that Odile associated with her presence, and the air was fair humming with it.
The corpse in the middle of the room said, "Odile. What are you calling me for?" The voice wasn't raspy this time, somehow richer and deeper and a little feminine, the Creole informed with a hint of proper French around the edges. Grandmere had been a favorite of Erzulie Dantor, and she'd been book-educated somehow.
Odile bowed. "I was trying to talk to Maman, and she won't come. Is it possible to capture the spirit of a mambo as a loa and make them do things for you? I thought it was almost always willing."
"She has to willingly come. But you can trap one to do your bidding. Your maman is trapped just that way." Grandmere's voice was wry. "She let her temper get the best of her, she did."
Maman's temper had been legendary, though she had generally kept it under control with Odile. "There was bad blood between her and Antoinette? Or was she angry at the owners who were attacked?"
"Angry, wanting revenge on Leroy," Grandmere said.
"Revenge for what? There are so many things he's done."
Grandmere's voice was matter-of-fact. "He raped her. He's your father."
Odile stuttered, staring at the corpse, "He's what?"
"Your father."
That man, that loathsome little turd was half responsible for giving her life? Maman had never mentioned Odile's father; Odile had assumed that she'd had an encounter in town with one of the young white men known for their dangerous taste in women. She'd thought that if it had been rape, Maman would have told her. Surely. "I. Well. I can see why she'd want revenge," she said, reeling.
"Your Maman never wanted you to know. I argued with her, but now she is gone. I think you have the right to know," Grandmere said, sympathetically. The corpse's arms twitched, as if wanting to comfort her.
She stopped, closed her eyes, took a long breath. "That bastard," she said, with far less heat than she felt. "Well, at least I got to see him get hit in the balls this morning. I feel real good about that one right now."
"He came one night with a posse of men," Grandmere said. "Lafitte let them on. They accused us of killing livestock, making them sick. It doesn't do any good to argue with white men in a liquer. They took turns on us. But we lived. Most of them we got one way or another. I was too old to catch child, but your Maman did.
"And she chose to have me? Why? Not that I'm not grateful, but why?"
"She couldn't. You were a child. It's not your fault your father was an ass. It still happens. Fact of life for the blacks."
Odile nodded, though she'd liked to have argued. "So why's he still around? Would have thought Maman would have gotten him back, one way or another, and wouldn't have waited till she died."
"She was plotting and scheming for years. Watching Leroy's posse get cut down around him. Making him sweat. She waited too long. Two of them lived."
"Leroy and who else?" she asked, quietly.
"Jacquot Laurent."
The mayor of New Orleans. She narrowed her eyes. "And I suppose he's got something coming to him, as well."
"Only if you do something about it. Maybe your mother did. Might be why the mosquitoes turned, aiming for Laurent."
It was a hope, though a thin one. "Might be. I thought it was something to do with the black angel, but it could be Rousseau was never the target in the first place."
"The angel is a powerful garde. It could turn them, if it had a mind."
"Which it might have." Odile straightened, fussed with the clothing wrapping her hair. "I'd have to ask Maman about it."
"But your maman is caught and getting her out will be difficult," Grandmere's voice pointed out.
Odile felt like there was something pinching the bridge of her nose, something heavy. "Antoinette won't give her up, I suppose. So I'm going to have to break her out. Destroying the physical anchors would do it."
"Unknown waters, little one. I don't know if that will do it or not."
She raised an eyebrow; Grandmere rarely fessed to not knowing something. "Well, if it doesn't, I can find something that does. I didn't even know it was possible to trap a loa for more than a few minutes, much less for a long time. Antoinette's going begging for trouble, there. The loas can't like such things."
Grandmere's voice went dry. "They don't. They are might agitated on this side for it. And Ghede went and did something rash."
Ghede, the black man at the crossroads, the crude and crass and good-natured keeper of the door between this world and the next. Odile licked her lips. "Don't tell me. He decided to be born human?"
"Yes," Grandmere said, pleased. "Smart girl, I always said."
"Why would he want to go and do a thing like that?"
If the corpse could be rolling its eyes, it would be. Grandmere, just like Maman, had never suffered fools. "Teach the humans a lesson. Course, Ghede thinks with the second head mostly. He forgot how long it takes to grow up."
Odile did roll her eyes, partially on behalf of her grandmother. "Ya, he's going to be just a little bebe for years and years. And possibly in the hands of Remy, if Remy finds the girl or already has her. Remy's Ghede's favorite, so those two are a match. Remy's going to be one of the most powerful things this side of the crossroads."
"Yep, old white face will actually have real power to back up the things he can already do."
And Remy was no slouch when it came to power. As much as Odile disliked him, she respected what he was able to do. To be Ghede's favorite was no mean feat. "And he's never going to let the rest of us forget it," she said, ruefully. "Well, at least I have some help."
"Gabriel," the corpse said.
"Yes, and Benjamin. Don't know what I think about Mister Rousseau right at the moment. Seems to like me, though."
The deep voice went thoughtful. "You can trust him. Probably the only white man I would say that of. He was raised by a black mother, which is probably why. Question is, do you like him?"
Did she? Good question. "Don't know. He's a treat to look at, but not sure he's worth the risk."
"You don't like the risk on any guy, which is why you aren't pregnant already," Grandmere said. "Who is going to carry the line?"
It always came down to this with Maman and Grandmere. Odile sighed. "There's sure enough little girls whose mothers don't want them to be raised like they were. Thought I'd adopt one or two. But Maman and I have talked about this one, over and over," she said, warningly.
"Maybe, but a blood line makes a stronger mambo. And two bloodlines crossing. Girl would be powerful indeed."
Odile frowned. Two bloodlines? Gabriel had power in his line? Well, his mama had given him a garde or two, but that didn't really mean anything. "True enough. Still don't know, though."
"Make up your own mind," the corpse said, gently. "You always do."
"Isn't that the truth. Thank you, Grandmere, for everything."
"Any time." The body dropped limp, and ceased twitching. Odile dropped into a chair, held her head in her hands, and tried to quiet her reeling mind. It would be all right. She would get Maman back, somehow get Ghede to his proper place. The alternative was far too disturbing to contemplate. And for now she put away the knowledge of who her father had been. It didn't matter, except that she would need to finish Maman's job for her. Leroy didn't even know she was his, and with any luck, he would never find out.
And now, she needed to go tell Benjamin and Gabriel what she had found, and what kind of desperate trouble they were all in. Grandmere's speculation about Gabriel she tucked away, and all the rest.
But the thought lingered, staying with her as she went out the door into the swamp to find Benjamin and his white brother, the trouble that had arrived with the rain on her doorstep last night. Was it going to be good trouble, or bad, she wondered. Maybe it would be both. Seemed like all the best trouble was.
As she closed the door behind her, she was smiling.
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April 30th, 1832
South of New Orleans
"A mwen, Feray O!
Se pa jodi a yap lome nom mwen.
A mwen, Feray O!
Se pa jodi a yap lome nom mwen.
Depi aye yap lome nom mwen.
A mwen, Feray O!
Anko mwen danjere."
The voice paused in its singing, the hands stilled in their whisking around the kay myste in the middle of refilling a bowl of water. That sound had not been in the rhythm of the wind and rain and the thunder that had started at sunset and was still going strong now, two and a half hours after darkness had fallen in the swamp. The owner of the voice and the hands paused, listening. Yes, those were cypresses slapping the house, but then--another noise. Pounding on the door, insistent.
"Ki c'est?" There was no answer, probably whoever was knocking couldn't hear her voice. Who on earth could it be on a night like this? She crossed the front room, picking up her rifle and tucking it into her arm.
Odile opened the door to find a white man dripping on her porch. His fair hair was plastered to his skin with the rain, his hat having evidently been no impedance to a Louisiana thunderstorm. He lifted the soggy hat anyway. "Terrible evening, ma'am. Can we come in?"
Gabriel Rousseau, owner of the Barataria plantation just to the north, was standing on Odile's porch with his bodyguard Benjamin behind him. Benjamin had a body slung over his shoulder. "Of course." She stepped back and put down the rifle, motioning the two of them in. "What brings you out here on a night like tonight?"
She knew Benjamin; he was a regular visitor and participant in the ceremonies Odile held. Mister Rousseau was familiar as well, though she'd never spoken to him. He was distinctive with his suits and his limping walk, using a cane, and she often saw him in the mornings and evenings walking around the plantation. Odile had few complaints about him; he never sold any of his slaves, and took good care of them. Benjamin never had anything bad to say about him. "Benjamin, actually, and the person he is carrying," he said now, and motioned to Benjamin who had stepped into the house behind him.
Benjamin was tall and handsome, no less so with his dark skin soaked with water. For a brief, irrelevant moment, Odile envied his wife. The man he had slung over his shoulder was a black dressed in rags, shivering violently. "Who's this? And how long has he been ill?"
Mister Rousseau turned to her, caught scanning the room. She supposed it would be strange, the colorful hangings on the walls and the shelves of charms and such. "I don't know. He staggered onto the plantation house. I can tell he has yellow fever. His eyes give it away. I can also tell you he probably belongs to Oak Vale Plantation. Can Benjamin set him down somewhere?"
"In the center of the floor. I'll get blankets, for him and for both of you."
"Thank you, miss...? Benjamin, if you would please?"
She turned and gave the man a long look, grey eyes in a face the color of cream in coffee giving away her heritage. She was tall, all curves under her blouse and skirt. "My name is Odile. It's all right to use it, Mr. Rousseau." There was a chest of blankets in the corner, kept for guests on nights much like this one.
His voice, like Benjamin's, was English with a touch of French to it. "Gabriel, and Benjamin you know."
Odile nodded, and handed the dripping man a blanket. "Yes, I do. Benjamin, help me get this blanket under him. I've seen yellow fever before. This is going to take a bit." She'd turned and knelt next to the shivering body of the man. He was half-starved, a familiar look of slaves from Oak Vale, likely the property of Bertrand Leroy. She had congregants there, who she would visit under cover of night to help them with their many needs. She could not make their lives much less miserable, but she could do some.
Benjamin slid an arm under the man's shoulders and lifted him, and Odile slipped the blanket beneath him. Behind her, Gabriel said, "I would introduce you to the sick one there, but alas, I don't know his name. If it were simple yellow fever, I wouldn't have bothered. But something else is going on and Benjamin recommended you."
"All right, you'd better tell me the whole story." There was something unusual about this one. Odile couldn't decide what it was, but definitely something. She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed sweat away from his brow.
"Not a lot to tell, watch the left arm." He pointed to a small wound that looked like a much-scratched flea bite. A few seconds later, something wriggled in the wound, and then something small and black emerged from the skin. A mosquito. It rested for barely a second, and then flew away with a whine. "They are coming out more frequently."
This was some of the blackest of black magic, and instinctively, Odile recoiled. Then she reached forward, to roll the man on his side and see the scars on his back. He had been whipped many, many times, and more recently, by some sort of tool that probably had nails in it. His back was a mass of wound and infection. On his front, low on his chest, a mark; death and plague, inscribed into the skin. A bokor's work. The mosquitoes were coming quickly, their whine now audible over the crash of thunder outside.
This was more magic than she could deal with short-term; she turned to the shelves nearby and snatched up several charms against dark magic. She might be able to bind it temporarily--
But from behind her there was a scream. The man was convulsing, and more and more mosquitoes were coming out, almost hiding him in the cloud. Odile shoved the charms into Benjamin's and Mister Rousseau's hands, snapping out the chant that would attract the loa's attention to the charms. She dropped her own charm around her neck.
The flesh was peeling off of the man's bones and his screams faded into the whine of mosquitoes as his lungs failed, bursting open as the man's whole body seemed to dissolve into mosquitoes. "Hold the bag in your hand," Odile said, voice calm but urgent. "There's nothing I can do for him now, but with luck we can make the magic pass by us."
The insects gathered into a dense cloud near the ceiling. The mass of them made a deafening noise, and then they dove at the three people left in the room. Odile felt the magic in them push at the magic of her charms, and the cloud parted around them. It streamed by and then turned and headed out the door that was banging in the wind.
The feel of the magic was sickening as Odile stepped to the door and caught it, opening it wide. It headed north, towards Barataria. "You said he came from Oak Vale?" she asked.
Mister Rousseau answered, "Yes, based on direction and scarring, it's Mister Leroy's handiwork." The magic was heading for a statue that stood at the heart of the plantation, a monument in the shape of a black angel that was Mister Rousseau's testament to his dead wife. The magic abruptly turned, went upward, and streaked away towards New Orleans, fading from her perception. "I have seen yellow fever before, but never that type," Mister Rousseau said. His voice was fascinated and disgusted. "There is nothing left of him."
She turned to see he was right. Nothing remained, not a stitch of clothing or a shred of flesh. The blanket was lying there, empty. Mister Rousseau pulled his own blanket closer around himself, staring. "Blackest of black magic. A bokor's work. We will be seeing much yellow fever in town soon, I think." Her voice was harsh, accented with the hard consonants and high vowels of Creole. "You have a powerful guardian on your crossroads, Mr. Rousseau."
"Gabriel," he said, correcting her. He shifted, his cane thumping on the floor. "Crossroads? The angel, you mean?"
"Something. Perhaps the angel. Whatever it was, it scared the magic away north."
"Good to know. The charms that you make as well seem to guard you. My people will probably want some. Can I impose on you to make some more? I will pay, of course."
Odile gave this white man a measuring look. He knew how things were done, that mambos and houngans were paid for their work. "Of course. It will take me a few hours to make them. I will tell Benjamin how they're to be used."
"Thank you," he said. He shook his head. "Why here?" His eyes had gone distant, abstracted.
She turned away, towards the wall of shelves, and began to get down several boxes that had in them things she'd need. "Why the black magic, you mean?"
Gabriel blinked. "Yes, mostly I was pondering out loud. I was wondering if he was sent here deliberately to Barataria. Or to you, perhaps? Mister Leroy and I have no love lost between us. But whoever sent him would have known we would take him to you."
Odile lifted the lid of a box, took a deep sniff. Ah, the spurge root was still good. "I'd say that it was likely aimed at you. Or your plantation, more like. There are only a few bokors around who could work such a magic, and I would have to say that Remy is the one most likely to have done this." She wrinkled her nose. "Though he'd spit at me if he heard me call him a bokor. It does not change what he is."
"Remy? Ah, the colorful one in the French quarter," Mister Rousseau said. "He is a voodoo practitioner as well? Is he for hire?"
Colorful did not quite cover Remy. He claimed to be a favorite of Ghede, the guardian of the crossroads between life and death, and painted his face white and wore a black top hat to make sure everyone knew it. He was a black who claimed to have been freed, but popular scuttlebutt said that he had killed his master and forged his manumission papers. Nobody challenged him to his face on it, though. He was more than competent, and had a decided taste for black magic.
Odile snorted. "For hire? In a way. In the same way we are all for hire. Give him money and adulation, and he will make your enemies ill, give them boils, make their slaves die. Better if you're a pretty girl, he'll take it out in trade then. He claims to be something much larger than he is."
"Ah, I understand, so Mister Leroy could have hired him to do something like this, or given him something in order for him to cooperate."
"Might be. Might be someone else," she said, taking down another box. "I've never heard Mister Leroy a believer, and surely Remy would brag."
"I think in the morning, we should pay a visit to Mister Leroy and to Remy. What do you think, Benjamin?" Gabriel turned to his bodyguard with a questioning look.
Benjamin nodded. His deep voice was familiar and welcome. "I think so, Gabriel."
Nodding, Gabriel turned back to Odile. "Miss Odile. Would you like to join us? I think I could use your type of help, just in case."
Odile raised an eyebrow. This man thought that a mulatto vodou practitioner was going to help him with Mister Leroy? What sort of moun fou was she dealing with, here? She was curious, she had to admit. "I want to know who sent this. I'll come. Remy knows me, though, and he likes me not a bit," she warned.
"That's fine. I don't think he is going to like me, either. Can I send the carriage to you in the morning?"
She blinked. "If you have a driver who knows the swamp," she replied, slowly. "Too easy to get mired, out here. Otherwise, I can meet you on the road."
"Benjamin does," Mister Rousseau said.
Odile was frowning, lines appearing between her eyebrows. He had to be crazy. "Then I'll see you in the morning, Benjamin," she said, nodding to him.
Unexpectedly, Gabriel laughed. "Sorry, that frown was very cute," he said, keeping his smile. "Something wrong with that? The carriage, I mean?"
"Nobody 'sends a carriage' for the swamp witch like she's some kind of white lady," she said, rolling her eyes. What was this man, that he could be so ignorant?
"You are a free, beautiful woman and should be treated like such. Race makes no difference. Or at least, it shouldn't."
The statement was really too much to take. "Benjamin never told me you're crazy, Mister Rousseau."
"Gabriel, please. Maybe I am a bit off from everyone else, but somebody has to be," he said, giving her a smile. It was a nice smile, and now that he was dried off a bit Odile could see that he was probably handsome when he wasn't wet to the bone.
She gave him a dubious look. "Hunh. In the morning, then."
"Goodnight, Miss Odile," he said, touching the brim of his hat. "Benjamin, if you could wait for some of those charms, I will meet you at the house."
"Good night, Gabriel," Benjamin said, and for the first time Odile noticed that the two of them had nearly the same accent, both that English with an edge of French. Well-schooled, both of them. Gabriel nodded at them both and let himself out, closing the door behind him. She listened to the peculiar rhythm of his feet and his cane cross her porch and go down the stairs.
"Un moun fou," she muttered, then thumped the box she was holding down on the table.
"Indeed," he said, nodding. Benjamin spoke at least the basics of Creole; it was close enough to French that he was able to understand most of her mutterings. "Stranger than usual tonight, I have to agree."
"Well, have a seat," she said. "Water and rum's in the usual place if you want some. What exactly happened that had you and Gabriel showing up on my doorstep? I'd have thought he'd just have sent you."
Benjamin stepped over to the hearth that served as her kitchen, opening a door in the floor and hoisting up a bucket that held several bottles of rum. "The man showed up on doorstep, like you saw him but walking. He was like a zombie. He collapsed after I opened the door.
Gabriel took a look at him and said yellow fever. We took him inside and put him down. But the mosquitoes came popping out. I told him this was the work of a bokor and we needed a mambo in protection to fix this. He asked if I knew one, and I said you. He insisted that he come along. I told him I could deal with it, but he came anyway. Walking on that damn cane of his."
Odile fetched her mortar and pestle, the bowl of it bigger than her cupped hands. "Maybe the thunderstorm made him crazy. Why would he want to come along? Did he say?"
"He said that Mama wanted him to," Benjamin said. "He later said Noemi, as well."
The name was familiar--ah, yes, Mister Rousseau's dead wife, whose memory he held so close. "Noemi--oh, his wife. He speaks to her spirit?"
Benjamin shrugged. "He talks to the angel. Sometimes I think she answers."
"Strange that he would hear her. Or maybe not so strange. Some mouri can be loud," she said, thinking about her Maman and Grandmere. Both of them spoke to her, her mother more often than her grandmother.
"Not so strange," he said, and he grinned. "Our mama was a mambo. Like you." He'd pulled out a bottle from the cupboard as well as a glass. He motioned with the bottle at her, and she shook her head.
She cocked her hip, planting one hand on it, her other hand on the pestle. "Noemi's your sister?"
"No, Gabriel's my brother." He was still smiling, as if enjoying the stunned look on her face. "Step-brother, actually. Gabriel and I were born on the same day, same year. His mama was white and mine was black. Different fathers, too," he said, forestalling her next question. "His mama died right after the birth. My Mama wet nursed us both."
Very interesting. "Raised together then. And your mama being a mambo makes sense."
"Gabriel knows about vodou. He feigns disinterest," he said with a shrug. Rum splashed into the cracked glass. "It wasn't until we were twelve that we found out by walking in on my mama and his father that they were sleeping together. They told us they had been for awhile. They thought it would bother us somehow, but neither one of us cared. His father asked my mama to get married, when we were about seventeen." He grimaced. "You know how that went over when he tried to get papers for the marriage."
Brave, noble, and ultimately foolish. Sounded to Odile like the apple had fallen into the roots of the tree. "Pitchforks and torches, probably."
"They lynched them," he said, simple words for a brutally ugly truth. "Took the land, and Gabriel and I started over. Gabriel took it hard and never smiled much until Noemi, but she was taken too. Elisabeth and I married, privately, of course, and he built that angel for Noemi."
Benjamin had told Odile stories, during dark nights of drinking after rituals were done, of Noemi, how beautiful and ultimately how fragile she'd been. She had been a happy soul, he'd said, and Mister Rousseau had never been the same after she died. Unlucky, to lose his mama and papa and then his wife, and her so young and childless. "He knew right where to put the angel, too," Odile said, thinking of the place by the largest crossroads on Barataria that the angel presided over, one wing outstretched in a gesture of protection, the other held tightly to its body, eyes staring down at those who passed by. Crossroads were special places, where death and life yearned close to one another, where decisions were made.
"He knew," Benjamin said, and there was a depth of meaning in his tone that Odile didn't really want to go into at the moment.
"Well, I'd say that your Mama and Noemi definitely wanted him to come along. Mambos tend to stick around after they've died. Maman and Grandmere surely have."
"So, understand him better?" he asked. "Think he is crazy, yet?"
"Still deciding. But I do understand more about him, now," she said. Perhaps his offer of a carriage wasn't madness after all--at least, if it was, it was a madness she could almost understand.
Benjamin smiled. "Well. I think you will see more of him. I haven't seen him laugh in years, or even smile."
"He did both, here," she said, remembering him laughing at her frown, and calling it cute.
"Yes, yes, he did," he said with a chuckle that seemed to come from the lowest part of his chest. He lifted his glass to Odile in salute.
"Ai, drink up," she told him. "Let me get about my business."
The next two hours were taken up with carefully grinding herbs to a fine powder and making the herbs into charms, waved through the fire on the hearth, the correct prayers said over them, the correct songs sung. Odile called Papa Legba, keeper of the doorway, and Sobo, keeper of thunder and great protector, her favorite loa. He always came easy, on nights like this, brought by the thunder and her need. Benjamin was one of his favorite horses, and when Sobo mounted him he always seemed taller, blacker, taking up half the space in the room with his stern and fatherly presence.
When it was finished and Sobo departed, there were twenty-seven new charms ready to be given to those who needed them. Not enough to protect everyone, but more than there had been. Benjamin departed into the storm that seemed not nearly ready to finish venting itself, and Odile barred the door, tired to the bone.
Tomorrow, then, a visit to one Mister Leroy. But before then, some sleep. No matter how late she was up, she had to be up in the morning to take care of the goats and the chickens.
Morning came all too soon, and the fury of the storm had settled until a warm stillness. Mist curled between trees, making trunks and branches black silhouettes in the false dawn. Sleepy chickens muttered and grumbled, goats balked and butted as she woke and fed them and moved them out for the day. Larch the mule also needed seeing to, and by the time all the chores were done the chicory was finished boiling, and it was time to wash and put on some going to town clothes.
Odile was sitting on her porch drinking from a mug when she heard the jangle of harness and the thud of hooves coming her way. The horses and brougham threaded the road between the two cedars that marked the edge of the land she considered hers, and pulled up in her yard. The horses stamped and steamed, the near one stretching out its neck towards Odile, curious.
She dumped out the dregs of her mug and went to the carriage, considered her options briefly, and began to swing up into the seat next to Benjamin. "Morning," she said as she settled beside him.
Benjamin eyed her. "I think that he wanted you inside."
Like some fancy lady who never saw the sun? Ha. "Crazy man."
He laughed. "You can ride up here back to the house if you want, but I am pretty sure he will ask you to come inside for the trip to mister Leroy's."
"Too early in the morning to be cooped up inside. I'll ride up here as far as the house." Odile smoothed out her skirts, tucking her feet under a bit. Her house looked some different from up here, she decided. Smaller. And if she wasn't mistaken, she could see some shingles that wanted replacing near the edge of the roof.
She talked with Benjamin all the way back, asking after his wife and children. Anton was the eldest, and he was a strapping man of eighteen. The two younger children were Ines and Isabelle, both sixteen, twin girls. Elisabeth, Benjamin's wife, was quite rightly proud of them. Elisabeth wasn't much of a believer in vodou, but she was very tolerant of Benjamin's practice.
The ride to the plantation house was relatively brief, and Benjamin did know the best way through with the least risk of getting mired. The way was narrow and wound through tall trees with moss hanging from them. The morning mist was starting to fade, and the chorus of birdsong and insects was quieting down a little as the sun climbed higher.
It was less than a mile from her place to the edge of Barataria, the path opening out abruptly into cleared land. The road they followed now went straight between fields, rutted from years of wagon wheels brought out for planting and harvest. Odile held on to the side of the seat as the brougham bounced and juddered over the ruts.
As they rode, Odile could see people working in the fields, and Elisabeth sitting under a tree with the twins, evidently working on sewing. They waved as the brougham went by. Benjamin pulled up in the wide drive in front of the house, and got down to go get Mister Rousseau.
Odile stayed where she was, waiting. A few minutes later, Mister Rousseau appeared at the door. His limp was more pronounced today than usual, and he leaned heavily on his cane. He hobbled down the stairs and to the carriage, where he looked up at Odile with a strange expression on his face. "Coming down, Miss Odile?"
She looked down at him, regarding him with her eyes that were a stormcloud grey in the morning light. "Well, I suppose. If you're asking me to, that is."
He was silent for a moment, then held out a hand. "I am."
Odile shrugged and climbed down. Mister Rousseau insisted on helping her into the carriage, though she could have very well gotten in by herself. He got in after her, taking the seat that faced the rear, and settled himself. He rapped on the side of the brougham with his cane, and a moment later the horses began to pull. Mister Rousseau settled his cane across his lap; it was made of a dark reddish wood with a heavy-looking knob for grasping at one end. "Unpleasant night, about to be followed by an unpleasant morning. Except for the company," he added.
She gave him a small, enigmatic smile. "So what are you going to do, march in there and accuse Mister Leroy of sending black magic against you?"
"No, Mister Leroy loses a lot of slaves. I am going to tell him that we found one and ask about if he has lost any more."
"Think he'll tell you the truth?" Odile asked, curious.
Mister Rousseau gave a short bark of an unamused laugh. "Mister Leroy has a temper and if you can make him lose it, he will let things slip. And making him angry is very simple."
"So I've heard." Her expression darkened as she remembered the things she'd seen during her clandestine visits to Oak Vale. Men and women whipped to an inch of their lives. Girls hardly old enough to bleed with big bellies on them, bred either by Mister Leroy or their own fathers, a practice that was supposed to make the resulting children stupid and docile. "So I've seen the results of."
"So have I. I have paid a lot of money to that man over the last few years," Mister Rousseau said, and the sharpness in his voice surprised her, somehow.
The carriage lurched, and Odile watched Mister Rousseau shift to compensate. She hadn't noticed his eyes before. The light coming in through the brougham window revealed them to be a light green. "So some of your people have told me," she said. "Buying the ones that escape."
"There is no point in sending them back. He would beat them even harder and then kill them. I don't like unjustified deaths."
Unjustified. Interesting word for someone who, despite his brave words, still owned slaves. "Mister Leroy isn't worth the water wasted to spit on him."
Mister Rousseau shook his head. "I have to agree. A great many people, actually."
"I see the results of their handiwork. Mister Leroy is the worst of a bad lot."
"I am sorry that you have to see that. I wish it were different." He took a long breath. "Some day, maybe."
Odile inclined her head. "I serve the loa, and they have put me here. I like to think I make things easier for people, at least a little."
He was looking at her intently. "You do. I have seen the faith they put in you. And what that brings them."
She smiled gently. "I try. The loas love us and want to help us, after all. I simply help them."
"Passing out of Barataria, Mister R!" Benjamin called down.
Mister Rousseau leaned towards the window. "Thank you, Benjamin." After he settled back into his place, he said to Odile, "So you do, and sometimes so do we all."
Odile had pulled herself back a bit, into what shadows there were in the brougham. "Benjamin mentioned a few things, yes," she said quietly.
"He did? Telling all my secrets?" He cocked an eyebrow at her. "And I don't know a thing about you."
"I was curious about the strange man who'd shown up on my doorstep in the middle of a storm," she told him. "I don't know, what is there to know about me? I've lived in my little house all of my life."
"Always a mambo? How far back? And did you find out all you wanted about the strange man?"
"All I wanted to know, for the moment. I'm sure Benjamin didn't spill all of your secrets." She paused, considering. "Maman was a mambo, and Grandmere before her, and generations before her. It runs in the family. Maman served the loas and the people here as I do now."
"I am glad you do. Do you do readings and the like or just charms and the callings of the loa?" he asked.
"I do some readings, but nobody ever really wants to know their future," she said. Her voice was slow and measured. "They want hope, not the truth, and if they want truth they can go to someone else. Truth is that we're all food for the worms, some sooner than others."
"So you dispense hope mostly?" Something came across his expression briefly. "You and I are not so different. So, does that make us both crazy? Or just me still?"
Odile shifted as the brougham went across a particularly nasty bump in the road. "I don't know, I still think you might be a bit crazy."
"Why is that, exactly?"
She motioned at the carriage that surrounded them. "I am who I am. Not someone who usually rides inside carriages with white owners. And you claim race makes no difference." Her voice was blunt, and there was a good amount of suspicion in it. "I don't know why you're paying the respect to me you are, and it makes me uneasy."
His eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped low. "We bleed the same color. We all die in the same ways. Because your skin is darker, I don't have to treat you the same?" He shook his head. "I think that is crazy. I am sorry if it makes you uneasy. But if it helps, think of the discomfort that it will cause Mister Leroy."
"Oh yes, it will." She smiled, leaning forward a bit out of the shadows. "A good thought."
They passed the time with talk about the weather and the swamp until Benjamin called down, "Plantation house of Mister Leroy coming up." Then the two of them fell into silence, Mister Rousseau contemplating something, Odile watching out the window at a perspective on Oak Vale she had never seen before. It was a beautiful place, if you didn't know what the owner had done to it.
Slaves worked in the fields, many of them with halting movements that indicated unhealed wounds. Some of these were mulattos--Mister Leroy's children, most of them. Mister Leroy didn't consider them his children but his property, selling or keeping them as he saw fit. It was a legal practice, but one considered distasteful by many.
The brougham stopped, and Mister Rousseau opened the door and got out. They were in front of the plantation house, and as Odile moved to step out of the carriage, she could see Mister Bertrand Leroy himself coming over. His suit was crisply pressed, but his bowtie was a bit wilted, and the man himself was perspiring in the morning heat. He was round, balding, and to look at him Odile wouldn't think he was one of the most loathsome things to walk around on two legs in these parts. Know the man by his handiwork, she thought.
Mister Rousseau offered a hand to help her down. This time she didn't give him any argument. When she landed on the ground, her skirt settling around her feet, she looked up to see Mister Leroy's face go several shades redder and his frown deepen into an ugly scowl. "Christ, Rousseau," he blurted, evidently unable to keep his tongue still for a moment longer. "Have you lost your mind? What's that doing riding in the carriage with you?"
Odile drew herself to her full height. She was a tall woman, just like her mother had been, and she knew that tall and unsmiling she was an imposing sight. Mister Rousseau didn't turn a hair, replying calmly, "She is having a ride, same as I. Mister Leroy, this is Miss Odile."
Mister Leroy looked at her with one of those appraising stares, and blinked and almost stepped back when Odile calmly met his eyes. "She's a voodoo minister, or whatever they call them," he muttered.
Mister Rousseau ignored the comment. "We found a slave of yours on my property last night. Have you lost any others?"
"Five, well four, technically. Three from the one you found. Where is he, by the way? Or was it the female?"
"He passed last night, died of a fever it seems," Mister Rousseau said.
Mister Leroy snorted. "Mine had the same thing. I shot him before he got in the house."
"He was trying to get in your house?"
"Ya, crazy bastard was running at the door, slamming his whole body into it. 'Bout eight last night. I looked out the window and saw him. He changed course and tried to ram the window I was looking out of. I flung open the window and shot him. Died right there in the rose bushes." He pointed at some rose bushes under a big window. "You sure yours died or you just not wanting to pay this time?"
"He's dead," Mister Rousseau said calmly. "I've always paid you before. What's one more? Do you have yellow fever here, then?"
"Nope, so far nothing. I had the doc out from New Orleans. He didn't find any. New guy, too. Yank accent."
That was someone Odile had heard of, the Yank doctor just out of school with some funny new ideas. Adrien Thomas, if she remembered correctly. She wondered how he was finding New Orleans.
Words from Mister Rousseau brought her back to the conversation. "Heard of him. So what about the other three, then? Anything?"
He pulled out a handkerchief, mopping his forehead. "Nothing so far. I only want the female back. She was pregnant and getting close to birthing in a month or so."
Odile's eyes narrowed. She knew the slave he was referring to. Her name was Nicole. She was about fifteen, and she was currently Mister Leroy's favorite piece, even far gone in her pregnancy. Odile had gently offered her services when Nicole had found out she was pregnant, but Leroy had started being nicer to her after she'd caught a babe, and she'd refused.
Well, Mister Rousseau had said that part of the object was to make Leroy angry. She gave him a hard stare. "Maybe that one just got tired of warming your bed," she said in a disdainful voice.
Leroy snarled. "Who told you to talk?"
Mister Rousseau remarked mildly, "I think I hear an ass braying, don't you, Odile?"
It occurred to Odile to wonder where Benjamin had gone. She'd heard him climb down off the brougham, but he was nowhere in sight. She resisted the urge to look around, focusing her attention on Leroy. "I am a mambo, Mister Leroy. I speak to whomever I choose."
"Free woman doesn't mean free speech," he snarled.
She looked down at him. "I speak to what is eternal and powerful. Do you think you are either, Mister Leroy?"
"Get off my land. I will toss you out like that other crazy mambo jambo." Leroy was beet-red now, and Odile wondered if she could make his heart burst just by keeping speaking to him.
But there had been something interesting in his last statement, and Mister Rousseau was on it, smoothly. "The other one?"
"The tall black with the painted face. Crazy bastard hanging around. Told him I would shoot him next I saw him."
Remy. Figures.
"When was that?" Gabriel asked.
"Two days ago. He was in the hen house, chanting and rolling his eyes up and down for the 'ladies'."
"Did he say anything to you before he left?"
Leroy threw his arms wide. "Only that my time was coming. Some crap like that. All of us. What he meant by that I don't know."
Gabriel persisted, "And then he left?"
"Said some creepy stuff about unborn children born without souls. Then took off." Leroy snorted. "Why believe him?"
"Don't know if I do believe him. What happened to the body of the slave you killed?"
"It's in the pit," Leroy said. He was starting to calm down some, but he also was not looking at Odile. She almost smiled.
"And you haven't seen the practitioner since?"
"The black voodoo man? No, he is gone for awhile. He is probably over at Magie. Stephane Durand's place."
"Durand's rumored to see him," Gabriel said.
"Yep, his wife is a true believer." He mopped his forehead again. "Praise Satan, or whatever it is they shout about." Odile fought the urge to roll her eyes.
"Well. I'll let you know if any more of yours show up at my place," Gabriel said. Behind them, Odile could hear Benjamin moving, fussing with something under the carriage.
Leroy gave Gabriel an oily smile. "Thanks, I could use the money."
"Goodbye, Leroy," he said in a tone that held no pleasantness. He turned to her. "Odile? Shall we?"
She nodded, giving Leroy one last measuring look. Leroy laughed. "Have fun mounting that one, Mister Rousseau. She looks feisty."
Smoothly, Gabriel turned, crossing the distance between himself and Leroy surprisingly quickly for someone who limped as badly as he did. His cane was in his hand, and as Odile watched, he slid his hand down to the end and swung the heavy end into Leroy's groin, hard. Leroy collapsed with a scream. "Have fun fathering any more children, Mister Leroy," Gabriel told him. "Benjamin, if you would."
They climbed into the carriage as Leroy lay curled on the ground, moaning. They pulled away to the accompaniment of shouts of "Bastard! I'll kill you!"
Odile held her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the grin that kept on forcing its way to her lips. "That should have been done to him a long ways ago," she said, finally.
Gabriel chuckled. "Before he fathered any children. Piece of work, that one. But he's a good Christian. Goes to church on Sunday and everything."
The brougham lurched, and almost sent Odile banging into the wall. And when did I start thinking of Mister Rousseau as Gabriel? "There's some as sings hymns Sundays and thinks they're going to heaven for it," she said. "I don't think they are. But that opinion's not shared by many."
"I share it," Gabriel said. "Unfortunately, my temper probably got the best of me there. I am sure there will be repercussions. But it felt good."
She almost told him that she'd felt like cheering when she'd seen him hit Leroy, but decided against it. "Well, if he wasn't your enemy before, he surely is now."
"We were. Just more cordial. Besides, what is he going to do, really? I suppose he could come shoot me." The carriage lurched again, going over a rut, and Gabriel braced himself with his good leg. "Don't think he would live much past the gates. There are a lot of his ex-slaves that would love a minute with him. So as long as I stay off his plantation, I should be fine. Of course, we may find ourselves facing each other in New Orleans someday."
Odile nodded briefly. "I don't think he's the culprit here, for the bodies. And if you check, I'll bet some of the other plantations around saw the same thing we did."
"I think you are right."
"We can start with Magie," she said, thinking, "Remy might well be there. I hope Nicole actually got away, and isn't being used for something."
"Or what happened to the other guy." Gabriel moved to put his head out the window and call, "Benjamin, did you get it?"
"Sure did, Gabriel," Benjamin's rich voice called back. Gabriel sat back, looking satisfied.
"What?" Odile asked.
"The body he shot."
She smiled, despite herself. "Oh, good. I can take a look at it."
"I figured you might want to take a look," he said, and put his head out the window again. "Odile's house, Benjamin."
Gabriel's brother's voice was amused. "That's where I was going."
Odile had retreated into the shadows again, watching Gabriel lean out the window. She wondered, briefly, what accident or illness caused him to limp the way he did. She wondered about the relationship between the two brothers, that Benjamin had gone and gotten the body while Gabriel and she had distracted Leroy. Strange company she was keeping these days.
They fell into silence as Benjamin drove the carriage towards her house. Riding in a carriage with a white man who's pleasant to look at and who's treating me like one of his kind, and I can't think of a thing to say, she grumbled to herself. Yes, he was crazy. But it was a kind of crazy she was getting to like.
Don't like him too much, she reminded herself. That way lies nothing but trouble. She was sure her Maman and Grandmere would have something to say about Mister Gabriel Rousseau, and probably not much of it was going to be good. Odile'd had sweethearts when she was younger, before Maman died and her whole attention had turned to keeping up her practice, but they'd never worked out. A couple of them had been sold away. One had earned Maman's scathing disapproval in a speech so blistering that Odile was still smarting fourteen years later. She'd finally just given up, more or less. She dealt with power, and though people were happy to have her help, they were wary when it came to a more personal relationship with her.
Benjamin had been the closest thing to a friend she'd had in years. She'd been a bit disappointed when she'd learned he was married, but had gotten over it quickly. And now there was Gabriel, his brother, who she suspected had more than friendship on his mind, if the way he'd glance at her and then look away was any sign.
She'd just have to keep him at arm's reach. Once he saw her really work, she doubted he'd be interested any longer.
Odile's thoughts were interrupted by their arrival at her house. They unloaded the body, and Odile proceeded to take a look. The corpse was ripe but not badly decomposed yet, and offered all sorts of information.
If he was nothing else, Mister Leroy was a good shot; the fatal wound had been a bullet shot into his forehead from relatively close range, with another wound on the back of the head where the bullet had exited. He was older, and as Odile rolled him over to look at his back she saw that he had two familiar gardes, one on each shoulderblade. One was against pain, and the other illness. The gardes were her mother's, or had been; the illness garde was marred with shallow slashes with dirt ground into them, useless.
There was another, low on his back, obviously recent from the crust of blood that had been formed on the lines. Odile was silent as she read the lines, waited for the shapes to resolve into sense. It would draw fever out of the body and into vermin. It wasn't specific to mosquitoes, but it would have the effect that Odile had seen, if drawn by a powerful enough hand.
And this was a powerful hand. Odile knew Remy's gardes; they were fancy, intricate, with all kinds of little fripperies that weren't strictly necessary. This was different. This looked like Maman's work.
And there was one more mark, this one almost missed because of the blood that had sheeted on the man's head after he'd been shot and had dried to a tacky paste. It took a wet cloth to clean away the blood and find it, but there was the five-dot pattern on the back of the head, meant to keep the soul here instead of letting it go to its destination.
She straightened, stretched. To Benjamin and Gabriel, who was standing by and watching silently, she said, "His soul is being held here. I can talk to him." She pointed to the garde on the small of the man's back. "This doesn't belong to Remy, I think. Someone is trying to imitate my Maman's marks."
"Why?" Gabriel asked.
Odile looked down at the body of the man, lying facedown in her front yard. "If I hadn't been the one to lay eyes on him, they would likely have mistaken it for one of Maman's. Make it look old, like something he's had for years and was recently renewed. I took over the renewal of Maman's gardes when she died. Someone might be trying to point to me."
"So someone is trying to kill the plantation owners and their slaves, and blame it on you."
"Looks like." She twisted her mouth. "Now, I think I'm going to take this some personally." Her voice had gotten harder, more clipped.
"Same here," Gabriel said. "So what now?"
"Now I get to work," she said. "You can stay or not as you see fit. It'll take me a while to get this going."
"I'll stay," he said. "I'd like to hear what he has to say."
Odile nodded. "Benjamin, could you carry him into the front room? I'll go get a couple of chickens." The ritual itself was simple, as these things went; she wouldn't even have to speak with Ghede, as the soul was trapped in the places between the world of the living and the crossroads of the dead. It took her a few minutes to get a couple of black chickens from the pen and get them quieted down enough to carry into the house.
She painted a temporary garde on Gabriel's forehead, a sort of signpost to request that none of the loa who would be visiting would mount him. Some wouldn't respect that, but those shouldn't be at this proceeding. The corpse was set in a seated position, hands in his lap, and the smell of it was thick in the air inside the house.
Songs were sung, the chickens sacrificed, loa invited; Papa Legba first, as always, who gave way to others who lent their power to the truth-seeking and a spark of seeming life to the body. The first sign that it was working was that the mouth of the corpse began to move, working like he was trying to suck something. It was the first instinctive movement, the first thing a baby learned, and it was a good sign. "Ai, you speaking to me?" she inquired. The working of the mouth paused. "Did you willingly take the new garde, and who gave it to you?"
The voice sounded like brush bristles on metal, a tone that scraped the back of the neck and made the hair on Odile's arms try to prickle and rise. "I did. Antoinette."
Antoinette was a practitioner who lived in town, in the French Quarter. Odile had often been to her shop; she was an older woman, a light-skinned mulatto with a slow smile and shining eyes. "Why?"
"To punish the land owners."
"To punish them for something in particular, or in general?" There was chicken blood drying on Odile's cheeks. She resisted the urge to wipe it away.
"Leroy, Petit and Durand," the voice rasped, naming the owners of the plantations that bordered Barataria. "For their torture of us."
"How many of you were there sent?"
"Four, one for Rousseau, but only to keep the blame off of him."
"And you knew what the price would be?" she asked.
The rasp in the spirit's voice got louder. "We were dying anyway. Age was killing us. Soon Leroy would have killed us anyway, we would have been taken to the pit with all broken limbs but alive."
She shuddered. Such was spoken of, but only in whispers. "The garde looks like the work of a mambo years dead," she said. "Do you know if that was intended?"
The spirit did not laugh, though the rasp sounded as if it would like to. "Antoinette has the captured spirit of your mama. She uses it to do her rituals. The spirit was the same. The hand was different."
Odile's mouth dropped open, and she stared at the corpse for a moment, stunned. Antoinette had her Maman? It was possible, but it was abhorrent, especially if it was not by choice. Maman would never willingly participate in black magic. She must have been forced. "And the point of keeping your soul around after death?"
"To haunt Leroy, in case he lived."
"Well, I'm all for that," she said, her voice acid.
Benjamin and Gabriel had been watching silently. Now Gabriel asked, "Remy?"
She nodded. She asked the corpse, "Do you know why Remy was hanging around Leroy's plantation?"
"The girl," the voice rasped.
"Nicole. What about her?"
"She has power in the child."
Odile regarded the corpse with something akin to suspicion. "What's special about the child?"
"Loa born human."
"And so Remy's protecting her?"
Rasp, rasp. The corpse moved restlessly, twitching fingers and toes. "Wanting her. For power."
"Do you know where she's gone?" Odile asked.
"No."
It was time, past time to let this one go; Odile thanked the spirit assiduously and promised to remember him in her rituals. Satisfied, the spirit left, apparently to go start making Leroy's life miserable. Odile dropped down to her heels next to the corpse, putting her forehead in her hand, waiting for the feeling of ritual to dissipate.
"That was informative. How often do they tell the truth?" Gabriel asked once she'd straightened again.
Odile spread her hands, shrugging. "If they were truthful in life, they're truthful in death. If they were a liar, they lie. I think what he told us needs to be looked at."
"Who's Antoinette?"
She blinked, and then remembered what this man was. "A practitioner, she keeps a shop in the French quarter. I don't know her well, only in passing."
Gabriel looked down at the corpse. "She has your mother's spirit? To help her create gardes?"
"It's possible," she said, and contemplated the awful possibility. Maman was one of her best-beloved loa, Bon Mambo Marthe-Shows-The-Way. To have her held against her will was a terrible thing.
"Now we need the why," Gabriel said, watching her. "Where do you want to start?"
She took a sharp breath in through her nose. "Talking to Antoinette. Maman may be helping her, for some reason, it's hard to compel a loa to do what you want them to do without reward."
"Can they be forced?" he asked.
She shook her head, then blinked and thought. "It's very rare, but it happens. Usually not for long, though."
"So she is probably gone from her captivity," Gabriel concluded. "Can a loa be born human?"
Odile gave him a shrug. "That's a new one for me. The question is, why would one want to be born human? If they wanted to, they could arrange it, I'm sure. I could also see if Maman would talk to me."
"If you want. Is it taxing to do more than one per day? And does a loa born human retain its powers?"
She shrugged again; expected as always to have all the answers, she was finding none and feeling as though there were only air under her feet, as if she were standing on a very thin layer of leaves under which dark swamp moved, hungry. "Not really taxing, but it'll just take some more time. And materials. As for the loa born human, I don't know. If they kept their connection to the spirit realm, they would probably keep at least some of their power. If not, they would simply be another human."
"Remy is looking for the power. He must think it will retain something."
"I'd say that if he wants to retain its power, he'll be doing rituals before and during the birth, to keep the channels of power open after the baby takes its first breath." It could be done. There were rituals that were done when mambos had children, to keep them open to the power they had been swimming in for nine months. Her Maman had done it, and Grandmere before her.
Gabriel nodded. "Try to contact your mother. Benjamin and I will start on a grave while you talk. Then we will go to New Orleans. That all right with you?"
"I always look forward to talking with Maman." She chuckled, and stretched. "Even if she likes to scold me about things."
The white man had cocked an eyebrow at her. "What things could she possibly be scolding you for?"
Odile rolled her eyes. "Oh, she thinks it's about time I adopted a daughter or had one of my own. A girl to carry on the practice. She's gotten less patient with me over the last several years."
"You have plenty of time, and probably plenty of suitors," he said. Odile was abruptly conscious of Benjamin watching the two of them, and crossed her arms over her chest, shifting in place.
"I think not," she said with a snort. "Scary mambo, living off by herself in the swamp. I'll probably find a petit bebe that some girl wants raised free, sometime. Grand-grandmere was left on Grand-grand-grandmere's front porch, Maman told me once."
"I don't find you scary."
She raised an eyebrow. Was he serious? Looked like he was. "You're one of the few. People come to me for things, but they also know that I handle power, and that's might fearful."
Gabriel had a faint smile on his lips. "I remember days, long ago, of Benjamin's mother doing the same. It was frightening then."
"But not now?"
"No. I was scared of his mother. She was a strong woman with fast hand and an even bigger wooden spoon."
The practice made for women and men who were strong and dedicated; a scary thing for a young boy, she thought. Some liked to be more frightening than others. "Did you ever get over being scared of her?" she asked.
He shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think I ever did. But I was seventeen when she died, and I still remember her doing rituals and, worse, tattooing my body. That hurt worst of all."
Odile straightened, startled. Benjamin's mother had conferred a garde on Gabriel? He was so ignorant of the working of the loa that she hadn't even begun to suspect. "She set a garde in you?"
"I assume that's what they were," he said. "But, yes."
She wanted to see them, badly, but didn't want to seem like she was flirting. And why not? she thought, amused. Because you'd like to? "Well, the gardes hurt to get, but they're worth it," she commented, trying to relax.
"I am sure I have tested a few."
She chuckled. "As have we all. All right, you two, get if you're going to go. I have work to do." Benjamin and Gabriel left, and Odile took a moment to clear her mind before she started again.
To begin, she began to tidy the family kay myste, opening the intricately decorated doors of the house-shaped altar, brushing away what little dust there was, refreshing the bowls of water. Odile fetched her mother's favorite bracelet from its storage place, put together a small meal for Maman. All the time, she sang Maman's favorite songs, calling her from the crossroads into the room.
But no matter how much Odile sang, her mother could not or would not come. There was no answer to the call, not even the slightest feeling of presence. Frustrated, Odile changed the call. Clearing away the meal, she sprayed Grandmere's favorite perfume in the air and began to sweep the corners of the room with a boom, knowing that the smell of the perfume and kicked-up dust would bring Grandmere if she were willing to come.
The response was immediate, the feeling of Grandmere's presence filling the room. Grandmere had died when Odile was but five and Odile barely remembered her alive, except for the feel of her hands on her shoulders, filled with a bony strength. The strength was the feeling that Odile associated with her presence, and the air was fair humming with it.
The corpse in the middle of the room said, "Odile. What are you calling me for?" The voice wasn't raspy this time, somehow richer and deeper and a little feminine, the Creole informed with a hint of proper French around the edges. Grandmere had been a favorite of Erzulie Dantor, and she'd been book-educated somehow.
Odile bowed. "I was trying to talk to Maman, and she won't come. Is it possible to capture the spirit of a mambo as a loa and make them do things for you? I thought it was almost always willing."
"She has to willingly come. But you can trap one to do your bidding. Your maman is trapped just that way." Grandmere's voice was wry. "She let her temper get the best of her, she did."
Maman's temper had been legendary, though she had generally kept it under control with Odile. "There was bad blood between her and Antoinette? Or was she angry at the owners who were attacked?"
"Angry, wanting revenge on Leroy," Grandmere said.
"Revenge for what? There are so many things he's done."
Grandmere's voice was matter-of-fact. "He raped her. He's your father."
Odile stuttered, staring at the corpse, "He's what?"
"Your father."
That man, that loathsome little turd was half responsible for giving her life? Maman had never mentioned Odile's father; Odile had assumed that she'd had an encounter in town with one of the young white men known for their dangerous taste in women. She'd thought that if it had been rape, Maman would have told her. Surely. "I. Well. I can see why she'd want revenge," she said, reeling.
"Your Maman never wanted you to know. I argued with her, but now she is gone. I think you have the right to know," Grandmere said, sympathetically. The corpse's arms twitched, as if wanting to comfort her.
She stopped, closed her eyes, took a long breath. "That bastard," she said, with far less heat than she felt. "Well, at least I got to see him get hit in the balls this morning. I feel real good about that one right now."
"He came one night with a posse of men," Grandmere said. "Lafitte let them on. They accused us of killing livestock, making them sick. It doesn't do any good to argue with white men in a liquer. They took turns on us. But we lived. Most of them we got one way or another. I was too old to catch child, but your Maman did.
"And she chose to have me? Why? Not that I'm not grateful, but why?"
"She couldn't. You were a child. It's not your fault your father was an ass. It still happens. Fact of life for the blacks."
Odile nodded, though she'd liked to have argued. "So why's he still around? Would have thought Maman would have gotten him back, one way or another, and wouldn't have waited till she died."
"She was plotting and scheming for years. Watching Leroy's posse get cut down around him. Making him sweat. She waited too long. Two of them lived."
"Leroy and who else?" she asked, quietly.
"Jacquot Laurent."
The mayor of New Orleans. She narrowed her eyes. "And I suppose he's got something coming to him, as well."
"Only if you do something about it. Maybe your mother did. Might be why the mosquitoes turned, aiming for Laurent."
It was a hope, though a thin one. "Might be. I thought it was something to do with the black angel, but it could be Rousseau was never the target in the first place."
"The angel is a powerful garde. It could turn them, if it had a mind."
"Which it might have." Odile straightened, fussed with the clothing wrapping her hair. "I'd have to ask Maman about it."
"But your maman is caught and getting her out will be difficult," Grandmere's voice pointed out.
Odile felt like there was something pinching the bridge of her nose, something heavy. "Antoinette won't give her up, I suppose. So I'm going to have to break her out. Destroying the physical anchors would do it."
"Unknown waters, little one. I don't know if that will do it or not."
She raised an eyebrow; Grandmere rarely fessed to not knowing something. "Well, if it doesn't, I can find something that does. I didn't even know it was possible to trap a loa for more than a few minutes, much less for a long time. Antoinette's going begging for trouble, there. The loas can't like such things."
Grandmere's voice went dry. "They don't. They are might agitated on this side for it. And Ghede went and did something rash."
Ghede, the black man at the crossroads, the crude and crass and good-natured keeper of the door between this world and the next. Odile licked her lips. "Don't tell me. He decided to be born human?"
"Yes," Grandmere said, pleased. "Smart girl, I always said."
"Why would he want to go and do a thing like that?"
If the corpse could be rolling its eyes, it would be. Grandmere, just like Maman, had never suffered fools. "Teach the humans a lesson. Course, Ghede thinks with the second head mostly. He forgot how long it takes to grow up."
Odile did roll her eyes, partially on behalf of her grandmother. "Ya, he's going to be just a little bebe for years and years. And possibly in the hands of Remy, if Remy finds the girl or already has her. Remy's Ghede's favorite, so those two are a match. Remy's going to be one of the most powerful things this side of the crossroads."
"Yep, old white face will actually have real power to back up the things he can already do."
And Remy was no slouch when it came to power. As much as Odile disliked him, she respected what he was able to do. To be Ghede's favorite was no mean feat. "And he's never going to let the rest of us forget it," she said, ruefully. "Well, at least I have some help."
"Gabriel," the corpse said.
"Yes, and Benjamin. Don't know what I think about Mister Rousseau right at the moment. Seems to like me, though."
The deep voice went thoughtful. "You can trust him. Probably the only white man I would say that of. He was raised by a black mother, which is probably why. Question is, do you like him?"
Did she? Good question. "Don't know. He's a treat to look at, but not sure he's worth the risk."
"You don't like the risk on any guy, which is why you aren't pregnant already," Grandmere said. "Who is going to carry the line?"
It always came down to this with Maman and Grandmere. Odile sighed. "There's sure enough little girls whose mothers don't want them to be raised like they were. Thought I'd adopt one or two. But Maman and I have talked about this one, over and over," she said, warningly.
"Maybe, but a blood line makes a stronger mambo. And two bloodlines crossing. Girl would be powerful indeed."
Odile frowned. Two bloodlines? Gabriel had power in his line? Well, his mama had given him a garde or two, but that didn't really mean anything. "True enough. Still don't know, though."
"Make up your own mind," the corpse said, gently. "You always do."
"Isn't that the truth. Thank you, Grandmere, for everything."
"Any time." The body dropped limp, and ceased twitching. Odile dropped into a chair, held her head in her hands, and tried to quiet her reeling mind. It would be all right. She would get Maman back, somehow get Ghede to his proper place. The alternative was far too disturbing to contemplate. And for now she put away the knowledge of who her father had been. It didn't matter, except that she would need to finish Maman's job for her. Leroy didn't even know she was his, and with any luck, he would never find out.
And now, she needed to go tell Benjamin and Gabriel what she had found, and what kind of desperate trouble they were all in. Grandmere's speculation about Gabriel she tucked away, and all the rest.
But the thought lingered, staying with her as she went out the door into the swamp to find Benjamin and his white brother, the trouble that had arrived with the rain on her doorstep last night. Was it going to be good trouble, or bad, she wondered. Maybe it would be both. Seemed like all the best trouble was.
As she closed the door behind her, she was smiling.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-06 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-06 06:55 pm (UTC)** One small fix needed ** I fetched my mortar and pestle, the bowl of it bigger than my cupped hands.
You know who was evil when he made Leroy, Odile's father.
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Date: 2007-05-06 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-07 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-07 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-07 05:27 am (UTC)