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aithneFirst, a picture of the Black Angel, for those of you who never spent time in Iowa City:
Yes, it's a real statue, and it really is just about as creepy as the angel in this story. I lived about two blocks away from it for a while, and I spent some time with it. I could never shake the feeling that there was a guardian inside of it, but who or what it was guarding was never clear.
And now, on to the story!
[Usual disclaimers apply: 1832 Louisiana, difficult cultural history, certain realities of race relations and slavery that can't be avoided. Proceed with caution, if you're sensitive.]
"This is much better," Maman said, pleased.
There was no way that anyone would mistake the body Maman was in for a living thing; she was too slow, the power that gave her body movement unable to move muscles and bone in anything like a natural fashion. The process to transfer Maman's spirit into the new vessel had been tiring, but it was nothing an hour of rest couldn't cure, and Maman looked happy.
"Initiating that man of yours today?" Maman asked now, settling into the chair that Odile had fetched. Odile was bustling about her bedroom, setting up protections, activating others already resident. She didn't want someone else stealing Maman.
"He's not mine," she said. "But, yes, I'm going to get started on initiating him today."
"Good, Odile. He needs it. You about done there?"
Odile straightened. "Yes, and you know it. Trying to weave up some good shields for you."
The corpse's white eyes rolled. "Missed a spot."
"I was just getting there, Maman." She closed the circle, drawing a fillip with the feather she was using to trace in the marks. "All right, I'm going to go get Gabriel. Hopefully he's finished bathing by now."
"And you didn't share the bath? For shame, girl."
Odile's cheeks flamed. "Enough. Go to sleep, Maman. I'll talk to you later."
The corpse and the spirit inside of it laughed, but obeyed. Odile walked to the plantation house, listening to the insects and the birds in the undergrowth that surrounded her house. Then it was out into the fields, waving to the workers who were trying to beat the heat that was promised in the afternoon by getting the fieldwork done in the morning.
Gabriel was waiting for her at the house, freshly bathed and shaved and looking dapper. She led him away, back towards her own house, explaining about the ritual as she went. "I'll open the ritual like you've seen me do before. There's the ceremonial destruction of something that represents the person you were before this day--you have that, yes? Good--the sacrifice of a goat, and then the loa will be called and invited to stay."
"Which loa?" Gabriel asked.
"Legba, of course. Erzulie. Sobo. Dumballah. Gran Boa. A few others. The gentle loa, mostly." She smiled. "No Petro loa, none of the Ghede family."
Gabriel was silent for a moment, and then they reached a goat pen. Odile hopped the fence and went to seek out the goat she'd chosen for this initiation, looping a rope around its neck and bringing it out of the pen. The goat followed, more or less happily. Odile raised her goats from kids to make them biddable, as biddable as any creature with the nature of a goat might be. "So what happens after the loa are called?" Gabriel asked her as she shut the gate and they began walking again.
She looked away from him "I don't know," she admitted. "We'll see."
The ritual was performed both in her house and in the yard in front of the house, sacred ground both places. The destruction of the item--a handkerchief that Odile didn't ask what meaning it held--and the sacrifice of the goat were done outside. Then they moved inside, and called the loa.
Odile had expected Legba to come, and for politeness's sake she had invited some of the others. But after Gabriel started showing the signs of having been mounted by Legba, she felt that familiar pressure on the back of her head, the presence of Erzulie like the scent of flowers choking her lungs. The loa's heels dug into her sides with a hard and heavy pain. My horse, let me ride.
Let me speak, my favorite, my sweet, candy and sassafras you are, daughter of the swamp.
Odile surrendered, and opened her arms wide. Ride, mistress!
It was rare that Odile would remember much of a mounting, but this time was different from the rest. She kept on getting flashes of that Legba and Erzulie were doing together--making love and doing ritual in seemingly equal portion, sometimes both at the same time. For a long time, the two loa simply lay together, caressing each other's skin. It felt like Gabriel kept on throwing Legba, or Legba was leaving and re-mounting him on purpose. To Odile, it definitely felt as if Erzulie were dropping her purposefully.
She reached out for Gabriel. Give in.
Give in.
Follow me.
The world twisted, turned inside-out.
Odile was in the crossroads, the place that was neither life or death. There were blocks on it, held by a sure hand that Odile recognized. Remy. She might despise the man, but he did good work. There was something else there, something furry, like a rat but shaped wrong. It was gnawing at the blocks with yellow teeth, naked tail lashing, vaguely obscene.
Fix it.
She reached out her arms towards the blocks on the crossroad and stopped, turning her hands this way and that. One hand was hers (his). The other hand was Gabriel's (Odile's).
What who why?
"Gabriel?"
"This is damned strange."
"I thought--"
"We're somehow wrapped--"
"--up on each other. Can we--"
Yes.
The blocks on the crossroads coalesced, becoming thicker, growing spikes. The rat-thing yelped and tumbled back. The strange thing was that it crossed the crossroads, and fell back into their world. It shouldn't have done that. Not unless it came from our world.
Confused, they paused, looking down at themselves. Their body was a patchwork of skin tone, her chicory with cream, his pinkish tan paler than hers by so much. It wasn't even as if they were matched halves, they seemed to be all jumbled together. One wing was even her skin color, one wing his.
Wings?
Two great wings opened, and the air moved with the breeze from them. Odile could feel Gabriel, the edges of their thoughts overlapping, feeling his confusion. "What's happening?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Well, if we have wings, we might as well go flying and see what there is to be seen. Since I'm pretty sure that Legba and Erzulie will call us back once they're done with our bodies."
"You sure?"
"They've never forgotten before." Their wings snapped outward and they rose into the air, feeling the great power in those wings. Not lopsided for once, Gabriel thought. How strange.
They were flying in that place within the crossroads that was endless and yet so severely limited, the delicate place between the living and the dead. They flew by the stone angel, and paused to consider, fanning wings thoughtfully. Look, Odile thought. She fades. Curiosity, sorrow. Noemi was struggling, wrapped around with vines, sucked pale by tendrils from the mass that was the beast.
Another connection. Another line, this one split into individual threads. Kalfu. Kalfu was bleeding power from both Noemi and Gabriel. Odile felt the urge to get closer, bringing them in to see. See the tangle, we must undo that, she whispered. Watch, it feeds.
The beast was a cloud, a pulsing mass, and they watched it, fascinated. Never saw it from this side before. Look, it's--
Feeding. Yes.
The beast was feeding, grazing on living souls. It would drink quickly when blood was spilled. When it spilled too much to eat, it would bleed some along its links--some to Gabriel. Most to Kalfu.
Every time it kills, Kalfu grows stronger. Whose thought was that? Odile couldn't tell, didn't care. Because now she could see the trap that the beast was, and what would happen when Noemi was gone. Kalfu would move into the angel's body and the beast, evicted, would flee down the only path available to it, into Gabriel's body.
It would take his body, still servant to the malevolent loa, still belonging to him. Gabriel would be no more. Not dead, just eaten.
Odile tried an experiment, taking a loop of power, throwing it around the beast's link to Kalfu. She squeezed like a snake, trying to strange it. But the harder they squeezed, the more power the beast drew from Gabriel to fight it. Dismayed, they let go of the power, and turned to trying the other tactic, strengthening Noemi. The image of her flushed, colored in more strongly, and they withdrew.
The part of them that was Odile was sifting through the bond between Gabriel and the beast. How did it come apart? How to pick it open? The answer was dismaying.
Either Gabriel had to die, or the beast.
There was nothing they could do, not now, not without more thought and preparation. And now there was a pull, a draw, and they followed it, spreading their wings once again.
Odile opened her eyes.
Opened her eyes to discover that she was looking down into a pair of green eyes, straddling Gabriel, shivers shaking her body and him still deep inside of her. Her hair fell around the two of them, brushing the floor to either side of them. Things rattled around her mind, flashes of Gabriel's life on the streets of Atlanta, stealing to survive, working nasty jobs, all with Benjamin at his side. The light in Noemi's eyes, a love for her that seemed to eat the whole world, and that same emotion, now surrounding Odile.
There were other things too, her childhood and half-forgotten incidents, hungry days and nights when times had been lean, the way her grandmother had smelled near the end of her life, hiding in the swamp with the insects biting her face, listening her mother berate a white man who had come to call and trying not to cry, songs sung in French and Creole.
But there were those green eyes looking into hers, and the feel of his body beneath her, slick with sweat. "Well," she said, and for lack of words she kissed him, lowering herself until her breasts pressed against his chest. "That was...strange," she said, drawing herself up a bit.
"Very," he said, looking at her with either confusion or wonder in his eyes.
"We can talk about it later. For now..." She trailed off as she began a demanding rhythm with her hips, an ache deep inside of her demanding that it be satisfied. Gabriel cooperated with every evidence of complete willingness.
Afterwards, they lay entangled on the floor, replete for the moment. Sometime during the ritual, a blanket had been fetched and laid out, covering the floorboards. "How are you feeling?" Odile asked Gabriel.
"Good, strange but good," he answered. One of his hands was on her back, and the skin under it tingled pleasantly. "How are you?"
"Very well. That was a very strange ritual, in any number of ways. I got the feeling you were fighting Legba, at least at first."
"I wasn't, on purpose at least. But I got the feeling they were dropping us on purpose."
Odile nodded, turning her face into Gabriel's shoulder a bit, touching her lips to the skin there. "I think it probably was--I remember a lot more than I usually do, so Erzulie may have been dropping me on purpose. Maybe something to do with trying to get you farther into the initiation process."
"And all the symbology. Being in an angel body. Any idea what that means? And does that normally happen?" he asked, and she could feel a little dismay in his body; whatever he had been expecting out of the ritual, that hadn't been it.
"No, that's the first time that's happened to me. Usually, I don't remember anything, I don't go somewhere else," she told him, remembering the thousands of rituals she had been a part of over the years.
Gabriel shifted, lifted up his bad leg and set it down again, settling it more comfortably. "Were we on the other side?"
"Yes, we were. And that rat-thing--it seemed to come from this side, not the other."
"Remy?"
"I don't know, I don't think so." She arched her back a bit as Gabriel's hand moved across the skin there, almost purring. "He's got as much invested in holding the door as we do, at this point. There are other practitioners out there."
Thoughtful, Gabriel asked, "Antoinette, then? Or someone else?"
"No, not Antoinette, unless that was actually her soul. Antoinette, as far as I know, is gone and Kalfu has her body. There are others out there. That Leveau woman, for one."
"I have heard of her." Hadn't everyone, Odile thought, amused. Marie Leveau styled herself the Voodoo Queen, a title she only kept because nobody with real power cared to take it from her. "She's a part of this too, maybe."
Odile chuckled. "Maybe. She talks a good game, but she's all smoke and no fire."
"This looked more like someone knew what they were doing."
"I think so. Maybe Kalfu, then, or someone else." She stretched a bit. "That can be found out. Now I need to know what needs to be done about the beast. Just have to figure out ways, now."
Gabriel took a long breath. "I know you don't want to talk about this but if we can't kill the beast..."
She pressed her tongue behind her teeth for a moment. "What do you want me to do?" she asked, finally.
"The only other way is to kill me."
"You're right," she said flatly. "I don't want to talk about this. We'll kill the beast, somehow."
"Make Benjamin understand, if it comes to that," he said, ignoring her refusal.
She lifted herself up, sitting up. "And how am I supposed to do that? 'Sorry I killed your brother, but it was necessary.'"
Gabriel looked up at her, not moving to sit up himself. "No, make him do it."
"What?"
He sighed and sat up then. "I will talk to him and make him understand that it might be necessary and to only do it when you think I am gone anyway. If the beast wins, I will be gone anyway."
"But if there's even a chance we can bring you back..." She looked away, shook her head. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you."
"I know it's odd, but we can't let that out," he said. "I just want you to know that."
She looked at him for a moment, utterly lost for words. "If you can make Benjamin understand."
He nodded. "I will. We don't have to ever talk about it again."
"Good. Because we'll kill the thing, somehow," she said, her voice definite.
"We will." He reached out to her, snagged her hand. "I got most of the stuff. Any idea why we were squished together as one angel?"
Odile considered. "As for us being in one body, I think that's how we may end up working--one power, just like Legba and Erzulie are two manifestations of the same power. As for the shape of the angel, maybe it's something about your connection to that statue."
Gabriel nodded and lay back down, pulling her down with him. "Stronger together than apart, as I interpreted it."
"More or less. That's where this has been leading us, I think."
"This might be silly," he said, his voice slightly unsure. "But I felt like that was my form and when we got back here, I had a I'm in the wrong body type of feeling. Did you feel anything like that?"
The skin on her back was tingling just a bit, still, even with Gabriel's hand no longer on it. "Just a little bit, and it faded very quickly." She frowned, thinking. "I don't think it's silly at all. I wonder...hm. There are sometimes stories of things not human being born into human bodies. Probably not. Ghede into the baby's the first confirmed case I know of that happening."
"Thanks, I think," he said, his voice wry. "What would happen to the baby, really?"
"If Ghede's whole being and power went into the child, and part of it went into making the child's body be able to hold him, he would probably be immensely powerful, and very tough. There's limitations of maturity to consider, but Ghede's intelligence would probably start coming through before long." Odile propped herself up on one elbow. "Most of the problem for Ghede would probably be the waiting for his body to grow up enough to be able to call on his power."
"And when the body grew, it could take things that normal humans couldn't," he said thoughtfully.
"Yes, it surely would." She lifted her head, cocked it. "More gardes than usual, maybe?"
Gabriel was lying very still. "Something like that."
"You have anything strange happen to you when you were little that you haven't told me about?" she asked.
"Nothing that I can remember. My mother used me to do rituals and wiped my memory. But I begin to wonder. Who else brings stone to life? Or the dead back?"
Odile nodded. "Your power is so closely intertwined with Legba that they almost look the same. But Legba is still out there, and doing his job."
He pulled her close to him, a little awkwardly. "Could he have put part of himself there, like Kalfu is doing?"
"That's a possibility. So, maybe you're a part of a loa. Interesting."
"And Benjamin?"
"Benjamin's a favorite of Sobo. Maybe he's got a little bit of Sobo lodged in him somewhere," she said, thinking fondly of the rituals where Sobo had been called and he had mounted Benjamin, the demeanor of the loa so different and at the same time so fundamentally similar to Benjamin's.
Gabriel made a considering noise. "That explains more than you know, or maybe you do."
"I might have an idea, but why don't you tell me?" she said.
"In Atlanta, Benjamin and I were caught stealing. Me, I was put into a cell. They took Benjamin out to hang him. They strung him up and they couldn't hang him. He weighs a ton but his neck was so thick, they couldn't strangle him." He gave half a laugh. "They tried to quarter him with horses. He held them back. Finally they shot him and it left no wound. Stunned, they didn't stop him when he let me out and we left. We assumed it was the tough skin garde."
Shot and didn't bleed? Odile shook her head. "That's far more than a garde should be able to do, no matter how strong."
"Did our mother do this to us?" Gabriel sounded like he felt a little ill.
"That, I don't know. You said that the mother that bore you died in childbirth, yes? So your mama was a neighbor?"
He shook his head. "My real mother died. My father owned Benjamin's mother." Owned was a filthy word in his mouth, said with disgust.
"Who was Benjamin's natural father?" she asked. "I'm starting to wonder how you and Benjamin managed to be born on the same day."
"I don't know. I don't think he does, either."
"What about your father? He wasn't a practitioner of voodoo, was he?"
Gabriel shifted, pulled her a little closer. She draped a leg over his. "No, he knew nothing. My real mother was a believer."
Trying to untangle the story, Odile mused, "Let's see. Your mother was a believer, the mama that raised you was a practitioner. They might have tried to make their children powerful, when they found they were both pregnant. They might not have meant to do what they actually accomplished, though."
"Which was?" Gabriel asked.
"Sounds--and looks--like both of you were born with pieces of loa in you. Like Kalfu's trying to do with adult bodies, like Ghede did only he went overboard. You came to Barataria and it felt like home. Maybe that was the loa in you."
He nodded. "I have wondered something all my life. I don't look anything like my father."
Odile raised an eyebrow. "Serious? Well, that brings up another interesting possibility. Can the loa have children, if they choose? If Benjamin doesn't know who his father was, and your father possibly wasn't your father, then maybe your mother and your mama got pregnant the same night."
"Or were my mother and his mother impregnated in a ritual, by men chosen by Legba and Sobo?"
"Maybe, and that opened the door in the children that were sparked, and let Legba and Sobo leave some of themselves in you."
"It's an interesting ponder, I suppose," he said. "But I don't know if that helps."
"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Maybe you were meant all along to fight this fight. This might be what you were born for."
"To come here, find you and stop whatever this is," he said, his voice wondering.
She smiled, putting her head down on his shoulder. "Right. Makes me wonder about me, a little."
"No matter what, you are special to me," he said.
Odile chuckled. "I like you too, you know. Though I suspect you figured that out already."
He shifted, pulling her so that she was lying half on top of him. "I have. I hope you have too."
"I do believe I've picked up on a thing or two about that. In fact...ah." She stopped, blushing, remembering what she'd felt from him while the two of them had been together in the same body, the raw emotion that it seemed could swallow the world. "Yes, I do know."
"Good," he said. He raised his head, looking out the window. "I think more time has passed than I realized. Staying here tonight, or coming home with me?"
"I need to clean up a few things here, reset the protections on Maman. It'll take me about an hour. If you'd like to wait, I can do that and go home with you." She paused, smiling wryly. "I should probably bring some clothes to your house, shouldn't I?"
Gabriel sat up, and Odile followed suit. He smiled at her. "I would say all of them, but you might think I was pushing. So yes, you should bring some."
There was the fear again, fluttering in her in the beginning of panic. "A few things, at least," she said, trying not to think of all of her things being in the plantation house.
He gave her a speculative look. "Your sandals here or there?" he asked.
"I brought them here, why?"
"Just wanted to see you in them someday. Something besides your boots."
She made a face at him, though somewhere she was wondering, He cares what I put on my feet? "Mmm. Is that a request?"
"It is," he said, seriously.
"You're an odd man, Gabriel," she told him, as she got up off the floor to go find and pull on her clothing.
"Thank you, yes I am," he said with a grin. "One hour all you need or can we make it two?"
She turned, having found and pulled on her skirt, but not yet having located her blouse. "I'm sure I could find a reason to stay out here another hour. Why?"
He got to his feet, reached out to snag her hand, and pulled her close in answer. "Good," he said, his free hand busy with the ties of her skirt. As the garment slid off of her body, she claimed his lips again, pressing her body against his in the rising heat of desire.
They ended up on the floor once again, kissing and touching and rolling around together, laughing like children. When they managed to stop wrapping themselves around each other and clean up, they walked back to the house, taking the sacrificed goat to the workers to hang for tomorrow's dinner. Odile wore her sandals, feeling a little strange about it, and carried with her a bundle of clothes.
Gabriel had been right, time had passed strangely. It had been midafternoon when they began, and it was well after dark now, even the long spring twilight having passed. Odile would have sworn only three hours or so had gone by, but it had been more like six or seven. They were in time to have some supper that had been left for them by Maryse and say goodnight to Benjamin, Elisabeth, and the children, who were in the process of turning in for the night.
Odile and Gabriel turned in as well, and though Odile thought that perhaps there was enough time for another bout of lovemaking, sleep claimed them before they did much more than kiss that night. A short night of sleep the night before and two strenuous rituals that day had Odile asleep almost as soon as her eyes closed.
She woke the next morning, at first confused once again as to where she was, and then realizing as Gabriel snuggled up to her, sighing contentedly in his sleep. "Up," she said, wriggling out of his arms. "Things to do."
Gabriel grumbled, reached out for her. She playfully slapped his hands away. "I want to see how much progress we made yesterday," she told him. She slid out of bed and went looking for her clothing, while he propped himself up and watched her dress once more.
"So how do we tell?" he asked.
"Try to power a charm and see if it takes," she told him. "Come on, put some clothes on, you can't do this dressed in a sheet."
"And why not?" he asked, but complied. She set up a very small ritual in his bedroom, making up a simple good-luck charm and teaching him how to power it. The first charm disappeared in a flash of light, leaving a scorched mark on the floor. The second shattered into many tiny pieces. The third, though, was left humming with power.
She talked with him as they were cleaning up, and he said he had no lingering effects from yesterday except a strange tingling feeling on his back, where wings would be. "I'm going to go see how Ines is doing," she said. "See you at breakfast?"
"Wouldn't miss it," he told her, and caught her up in his arms for a kiss before turning her loose to go down the hall to the twins' room. Elisabeth and Ines were both in there.
"Morning, Ines," Odile said to the girl, who was sitting on her bed with one stocking on and one hanging limply from her hand. "How are you feeling?"
"She's physically fine," Elisabeth answered. "She's having nightmares and daymares both. Memories."
Odile gave Elisabeth a questioning glance and then looked at Ines, who nodded once and stated to pull on her other stocking. "Finish dressing, Ines, I'll bring you breakfast," Elisabeth told her in a kind voice.
"Can I speak to you, Elisabeth?" Odile asked.
"Sure, come into our room," Elisabeth said. She led the way out of the twins' room and into the room she shared with Benjamin, a room the same size as Gabriel's and comfortably furnished. "What did you need?"
"Have you ever noticed anything strange about Benjamin and Gabriel?" Odile asked.
Elisabeth rolled her eyes and made a gesture that seemed to enclose the whole world in it. "Yes, a lot of things. Which one are you talking about?"
"Well, I know about the angel and such. But neither of them will talk about the family they came from very much."
"What can I tell you?" Elisabeth sat down in a chair and waved to Odile to pull one of her own over. "Benjamin has told me a few things but they don't add up well in my mind either. I kind of gave up."
Odile nodded. "So he doesn't really talk to you about them much, either. Both of them are powerful, in different ways, and each of them connected to different loa. I don't know, I get the feeling there's something going on there, but Gabriel's pretty ignorant and Benjamin's not talking, if he knows anything."
"I know a few details. One that bothers me the most is, Gabriel's mother died in childbirth of a baby born that was too large. She was nearly ten months. Gabriel himself said he was a small baby. Only weighing about five pounds."
She frowned, trying to make that come out right. "I thought she died having him. Did that baby die, too?"
Elisabeth spread her hands. "I don't know. Either that baby died and Gabriel was taken or adopted or something else happened. I have a theory, but it's crazy."
"Crazy's all right, I think the rest of this is rather insane."
"Gabriel's mother was a big fractioned and so was Benjamin's. But Gabriel's mother was a Sobo favorite and Benjamin's Legba." She quirked her mouth, and Odile found herself thinking yet again what a beautiful woman Elisabeth was, long-necked and rounded in all the right places, with black eyes soft as velvet. "I think Gabriel's mother bore a black child named Benjamin, who weighed nearly fifteen pounds, and Benjamin's mother was really Gabriel's mother."
Odile tried to make sense of it, turned it on its head trying. "All right, on the face of it, that is insane. But....it might have happened. It's a stretch, but it's within the realm of possibility."
"I know it sounds crazy, but I can't think of another explanation."
"The loa can do a lot of things. They might have done this, and it would explain why both of them are so strongly connected to their patrons."
Elisabeth shook her head. "But what was the point?"
"Good question. And it sounds like Benjamin was late, and Gabriel was early, and they were born on the same day." Odile took a long breath. "Well, Gabriel's point is that race shouldn't matter, that we all bleed the same color and die in the same ways. Maybe the loa wanted to make that point very clear. Someone might have switched them, I suppose--bad things usually happens when a white woman births a dark-skinned baby."
The woman sitting across from her quirked her mouth. "Yes, they get killed. But Benjamin is so dark, I would say there could be no white in him. Our children are dark as dark can be."
That was the truth; Ines, Isabelle, and Anton all had their father's coloring. "And if Gabriel has black in him, it's a bunch of generations back. I'm not sure why the loa would want to switch them in the womb--maybe it had something to do with whatever rituals they were working."
"Or one of the others did."
Odile shook her head. "Might have been. Someone with a sense of humor and an interest in the situation--or someone who wanted Benjamin to be killed at birth."
Elisabeth nodded. "But he lived and without Benjamin, Gabriel would probably have died many times over by now."
"So I've gathered. Gabriel's got too much of a temper on him, he would have gotten into the wrong fight at the wrong time." Odile considered it, decided it was almost plausible. "So the two women gave birth on the same day, one died, and by the time Gabriel's father saw them he just assumed that his wife had given birth to Gabriel."
"Yes. That's the most interesting strangeness that I can tell. And maybe it went as they were told." Elisabeth dropped her voice low. "But I don't believe it for some reason."
Any answer Odile might have made was interrupted by the door banging open and Benjamin rushing in, pulling up short when he saw the two of them. "Odile. We need to talk."
Alarmed, Odile stood. "What's happened?"
"I don't want to explain here, but come with me to the barn," he said, and Odile bid Elisabeth a hasty goodbye and followed Benjamin outside, to the big barn that held the cows.
Benjamin's son Anton was standing guarding a stall door, and stepped aside when his father and Odile approached to reveal a white woman passed out or asleep in the straw, curled on her side. "Anton, you found her here?" Odile asked.
"Just like that, ma'am," the young man replied.
Odile dropped to her heels beside the woman, looking her over for injuries. She had poor clothing on, wet and muddy, and she was barefoot, cuts seeping blood. Her clothes were stained the distinctive tea color of swamp water. She looked like she hadn't eaten or drunk in a while, and she was exhausted, but she didn't have any real injuries that Odile could tell. It simply looked as if she'd come a long way through the swamp to get here. She might be pretty, cleaned up, but her dark hair was all a-snarl and there was mud on both her cheeks, and under the dirt her skin was pale white.
Behind her, Benjamin said, "Anton, go. Don't say anything to anyone, including Gabriel. Close the doors behind you."
Anton complied, and when he was gone Odile asked, "Why'd you tell him not to tell Gabriel?"
Benjamin was staring at the woman. "That's Noemi."
The words were a hammer-blow to the heart, and Odile looked and looked again, seeing the resemblance of this woman to the image of the ghost she had seen. It was. The features were identical. Odile dropped to her knees beside the woman, trying to move softly so to not awaken her, and started looking for marks on her skin. She was warm, and she had a heartbeat. She was alive.
"That looks like her but that's not her," Benjamin said. "It can't be."
Odile looked up at him, saw the shock on his face. "You saw her buried, yes?"
He nodded briefly. "I saw her die."
Questing, Odile found a cluster of marks on the woman's lower back after easing her blouse up a bit. There were symbols of recall, what one would use to call a spirit back from the other side, and alteration. This was not the first form of this body. "Hellfire and damnation," she whispered. "Benjamin, the marks. Like Remy's, but a woman's hand. Missus Durand, I'd bet. Well, this is Noemi, sort of. And this is trouble, because if Noemi's here, there's nobody to be a check on the angel. This isn't Noemi's original body, but it looks like her soul's been recalled."
"We need to check if she is really gone or if this is a trick. And whose body is it?"
She nodded. "We can find that out, but it'll take a little bit. Let me run and check on the angel."
Benjamin let her go and she took off out of the barn, closing the door again behind her. Scenario after scenario played itself in her mind. If this was Noemi and not some trick, this was Gabriel's wife alive again. The woman he was married to, who he had something of an obligation to take into his house and his bed.
There was no room for her in that picture. She had her pride; while she might sleep with Gabriel now, she wouldn't become an owner's bit on the side. If Gabriel was still in love with Noemi, he might not even want Odile any more. And if he tried to put Noemi aside, well, there were legal protections against that.
If this was Noemi, then what he had with Gabriel was over. And if it wasn't, if this was a trick or a trap meant to hurt or kill Gabriel, then they would face the consequences of dealing with that. How badly did Gabriel want to see his wife again? Would he accept her even if it was possible she was a trap?
Odile arrived at the angel, coming to a half at the foot of the pedestal. This was usually a very peaceful place, but today she could feel nothing. No beast, no Noemi, no link to Gabriel, not even when she put her hands on the stone and called.
Either the angel was suddenly completely inert, or someone was masking it somehow. Odile looked around the base of the angel. If she were doing the masking, she would have left an item here, buried somewhere in the dirt...ah, yes. A charm buried in the dirt, rocks wrapped around with leather, smelling of blood. Odile went to destroy it, but paused. there was something very much not right about the charm, and she could feel a line running from it away, over towards Durand's place.
Odile reburied it and headed back over to the barn. Noemi was awake now, crouched in a corner of a stall, shrinking away from Benjamin. There was no recognition in her terrified eyes. Gently, Odile asked, "Noemi? Is that you?"
The woman straightened. "Who are you? My name is Noemi, yes."
"My name is Odile. Do you remember coming here?"
The woman nodded. "I remember walking out of a swamp and fighting my way north. I passed a place that had no one in it and walked her past a black angel statue. It was cold there."
The empty place had to be Odile's. "You walked her past a black angel statue? Walked who?"
Noemi blinked, shook her head. "I walked, I meant. I am a bit disoriented."
"Do you remember how you got into the swamp?" Odile asked.
"I remember a cemetery, and people with white eyes. I was strapped to a table in this dress. I remember a knife coming down--" She clutched at her breast, over where her heart was, looking down, seeming amazed to find her hands coming away clean of blood, and no wound beneath. She looked up at Odile again. "Then I remember waking up, untied and no one around."
Odile tried to unclench her jaw. "Do you remember anything else about your life, before? Where you were born? If you were ever married?"
Noemi caught her breath in her throat. "Flashes, a plantation. Home, I think. A white lady. A black man. A dog growling. Flies or something. Hundreds and hundreds of flies."
"And your name. Or did the people tell you that?"
"Noemi, is what they repeated over and over again to me. I can hear it being chanted."
Odile nodded. "Stay here." To Benjamin, she said, "Can I talk to you?"
Benjamin nodded, and followed her to the other end of the barn. Quietly, Odile said, "There's something masking the angel from me. I can't tell if there's anything in the angel or not. I found the object that contains the mask, but it's connected somehow to the Durand place and I didn't want to destroy it right away. I don't think that's Noemi, though."
"Nor do I," Benjamin said. His deep voice was almost growling. "And I don't want to believe it either."
"Even if her mind of was little scrambled, she should have recognized you," she said.
"She should have, and she was scared of me."
Odile nodded. "And she said that the people were chanting Noemi. I think I need to take a real close look at the marks on her, see if I can figure out exactly what they did. Here's a question, though. What's this meant to distract us from? This feels like part of something bigger, and it makes me uneasy."
Benjamin spread his hands. "Could be about anything. Meant as a distraction to Gabriel to put him in emotional distress. Distract you from doing something or teaching Gabriel. Draw us to the Durand place, because it's a trap. Do something to the angel. Maybe they did pull Noemi from the angel and set her free or destroyed her, in preparation for using the angel against us."
"And the mask keeps the angel from being called--and it might even prevent Gabriel from communicating with it."
"Making us ripe for an attack we might not be able to defend against," he said.
Odile nodded. "I think I need to sit down and work on that mask. Can you hide whoever that is for a bit? You know Gabriel better than I do, but...I don't think he's going to react to this well."
"He won't. Your place all right? Gabriel is unlikely to go there."
It should be all right, for the moment. "Yes, but tell her not to go into the bedroom. That was where I left Maman. Stop by and tell her what's going on, though. Grandmere might have already told her, but it's just polite. Use the red broom and a Ghede chant to wake her."
"Good idea," Benjamin said. "I will do that." He stepped close to her, looking directly into her eyes. "He loves you, more than you are willing to admit, and you him. Even in the heady days of his love for Noemi, his mind was always on something else, money, surviving. He is lost without you. He will do anything for you. This girl, Noemi or not, would not be a threat to your relationship with him. I believe it, and so should you."
Odile's shoulders sagged, and she closed her eyes. "If it is Noemi, it's his wife. If we have to, we'll work something out." She took a shuddering breath. "I'm trying not to think too much on it."
"I will leave it in your hands, but trust him to make the decision I know he will."
She gave Benjamin a small smile. "Thank you, Benjamin. That helps."
"Let me take this thing to your house," he said. "And what do you want to do after you look some more at the angel?"
Odile considered. "I'll know after I take a better look at the mask. But I think we may need to go convince Missus Durand to talk to us."
"What kind of convincing?"
"Depends on how much she doesn't want to talk to us. I'm thinking we might need to get her alone, though."
There was a slight smile on Benjamin's lips. "I think you are right."
"Which means we need to get on and off the Durand place without being seen, and without Gabriel knowing. I'll think of something to tell him. He's going to get suspicious that something's going on if we just disappear. I can tell him the Durands are messing with the angel, without telling him about the girl."
"And that you are doing a ritual that can't be disturbed?"
"That was my thought," she said nodding. She didn't like the idea of lying to Gabriel, but if she had to, she had to. "I'll try to make it sound convincing."
Benjamin nodded. "You find out what you can, and don't worry too much."
"I'll try. Come find me after you have the girl settled," she said.
"I will." Benjamin took Noemi by the hand, though she still shrank away from him with a frightened mew. He led her away, and Odile went back to the statue, so strangely empty-seeming. She searched around more, finding wax drippings and a little blood on the base of the statue. A ritual had been done here, and recently. Odile settled down to do her own ritual, exploring the charm, evaluating it.
Missus Durand snuck out here in the middle of the night and did a ritual? That doesn't make a lot of sense. The charm itself held some sort of control. It might control the angel in general, the beast, or Noemi. It definitely was not controlling Gabriel. And there had to be a mind on the other end of the control, and another binding object.
Whoever had made this was good, and strong, with years of practice as a bokor. The easiest and best way for Odile to unravel the control was to get hold of the binding object on the other end. No matter how good this person was, and how strong, there was little chance they could actually break the link between Gabriel and the beast. It had to merely be a mask.
Yes, it's a real statue, and it really is just about as creepy as the angel in this story. I lived about two blocks away from it for a while, and I spent some time with it. I could never shake the feeling that there was a guardian inside of it, but who or what it was guarding was never clear.
And now, on to the story!
[Usual disclaimers apply: 1832 Louisiana, difficult cultural history, certain realities of race relations and slavery that can't be avoided. Proceed with caution, if you're sensitive.]
"This is much better," Maman said, pleased.
There was no way that anyone would mistake the body Maman was in for a living thing; she was too slow, the power that gave her body movement unable to move muscles and bone in anything like a natural fashion. The process to transfer Maman's spirit into the new vessel had been tiring, but it was nothing an hour of rest couldn't cure, and Maman looked happy.
"Initiating that man of yours today?" Maman asked now, settling into the chair that Odile had fetched. Odile was bustling about her bedroom, setting up protections, activating others already resident. She didn't want someone else stealing Maman.
"He's not mine," she said. "But, yes, I'm going to get started on initiating him today."
"Good, Odile. He needs it. You about done there?"
Odile straightened. "Yes, and you know it. Trying to weave up some good shields for you."
The corpse's white eyes rolled. "Missed a spot."
"I was just getting there, Maman." She closed the circle, drawing a fillip with the feather she was using to trace in the marks. "All right, I'm going to go get Gabriel. Hopefully he's finished bathing by now."
"And you didn't share the bath? For shame, girl."
Odile's cheeks flamed. "Enough. Go to sleep, Maman. I'll talk to you later."
The corpse and the spirit inside of it laughed, but obeyed. Odile walked to the plantation house, listening to the insects and the birds in the undergrowth that surrounded her house. Then it was out into the fields, waving to the workers who were trying to beat the heat that was promised in the afternoon by getting the fieldwork done in the morning.
Gabriel was waiting for her at the house, freshly bathed and shaved and looking dapper. She led him away, back towards her own house, explaining about the ritual as she went. "I'll open the ritual like you've seen me do before. There's the ceremonial destruction of something that represents the person you were before this day--you have that, yes? Good--the sacrifice of a goat, and then the loa will be called and invited to stay."
"Which loa?" Gabriel asked.
"Legba, of course. Erzulie. Sobo. Dumballah. Gran Boa. A few others. The gentle loa, mostly." She smiled. "No Petro loa, none of the Ghede family."
Gabriel was silent for a moment, and then they reached a goat pen. Odile hopped the fence and went to seek out the goat she'd chosen for this initiation, looping a rope around its neck and bringing it out of the pen. The goat followed, more or less happily. Odile raised her goats from kids to make them biddable, as biddable as any creature with the nature of a goat might be. "So what happens after the loa are called?" Gabriel asked her as she shut the gate and they began walking again.
She looked away from him "I don't know," she admitted. "We'll see."
The ritual was performed both in her house and in the yard in front of the house, sacred ground both places. The destruction of the item--a handkerchief that Odile didn't ask what meaning it held--and the sacrifice of the goat were done outside. Then they moved inside, and called the loa.
Odile had expected Legba to come, and for politeness's sake she had invited some of the others. But after Gabriel started showing the signs of having been mounted by Legba, she felt that familiar pressure on the back of her head, the presence of Erzulie like the scent of flowers choking her lungs. The loa's heels dug into her sides with a hard and heavy pain. My horse, let me ride.
Let me speak, my favorite, my sweet, candy and sassafras you are, daughter of the swamp.
Odile surrendered, and opened her arms wide. Ride, mistress!
It was rare that Odile would remember much of a mounting, but this time was different from the rest. She kept on getting flashes of that Legba and Erzulie were doing together--making love and doing ritual in seemingly equal portion, sometimes both at the same time. For a long time, the two loa simply lay together, caressing each other's skin. It felt like Gabriel kept on throwing Legba, or Legba was leaving and re-mounting him on purpose. To Odile, it definitely felt as if Erzulie were dropping her purposefully.
She reached out for Gabriel. Give in.
Give in.
Follow me.
The world twisted, turned inside-out.
Odile was in the crossroads, the place that was neither life or death. There were blocks on it, held by a sure hand that Odile recognized. Remy. She might despise the man, but he did good work. There was something else there, something furry, like a rat but shaped wrong. It was gnawing at the blocks with yellow teeth, naked tail lashing, vaguely obscene.
Fix it.
She reached out her arms towards the blocks on the crossroad and stopped, turning her hands this way and that. One hand was hers (his). The other hand was Gabriel's (Odile's).
What who why?
"Gabriel?"
"This is damned strange."
"I thought--"
"We're somehow wrapped--"
"--up on each other. Can we--"
Yes.
The blocks on the crossroads coalesced, becoming thicker, growing spikes. The rat-thing yelped and tumbled back. The strange thing was that it crossed the crossroads, and fell back into their world. It shouldn't have done that. Not unless it came from our world.
Confused, they paused, looking down at themselves. Their body was a patchwork of skin tone, her chicory with cream, his pinkish tan paler than hers by so much. It wasn't even as if they were matched halves, they seemed to be all jumbled together. One wing was even her skin color, one wing his.
Wings?
Two great wings opened, and the air moved with the breeze from them. Odile could feel Gabriel, the edges of their thoughts overlapping, feeling his confusion. "What's happening?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Well, if we have wings, we might as well go flying and see what there is to be seen. Since I'm pretty sure that Legba and Erzulie will call us back once they're done with our bodies."
"You sure?"
"They've never forgotten before." Their wings snapped outward and they rose into the air, feeling the great power in those wings. Not lopsided for once, Gabriel thought. How strange.
They were flying in that place within the crossroads that was endless and yet so severely limited, the delicate place between the living and the dead. They flew by the stone angel, and paused to consider, fanning wings thoughtfully. Look, Odile thought. She fades. Curiosity, sorrow. Noemi was struggling, wrapped around with vines, sucked pale by tendrils from the mass that was the beast.
Another connection. Another line, this one split into individual threads. Kalfu. Kalfu was bleeding power from both Noemi and Gabriel. Odile felt the urge to get closer, bringing them in to see. See the tangle, we must undo that, she whispered. Watch, it feeds.
The beast was a cloud, a pulsing mass, and they watched it, fascinated. Never saw it from this side before. Look, it's--
Feeding. Yes.
The beast was feeding, grazing on living souls. It would drink quickly when blood was spilled. When it spilled too much to eat, it would bleed some along its links--some to Gabriel. Most to Kalfu.
Every time it kills, Kalfu grows stronger. Whose thought was that? Odile couldn't tell, didn't care. Because now she could see the trap that the beast was, and what would happen when Noemi was gone. Kalfu would move into the angel's body and the beast, evicted, would flee down the only path available to it, into Gabriel's body.
It would take his body, still servant to the malevolent loa, still belonging to him. Gabriel would be no more. Not dead, just eaten.
Odile tried an experiment, taking a loop of power, throwing it around the beast's link to Kalfu. She squeezed like a snake, trying to strange it. But the harder they squeezed, the more power the beast drew from Gabriel to fight it. Dismayed, they let go of the power, and turned to trying the other tactic, strengthening Noemi. The image of her flushed, colored in more strongly, and they withdrew.
The part of them that was Odile was sifting through the bond between Gabriel and the beast. How did it come apart? How to pick it open? The answer was dismaying.
Either Gabriel had to die, or the beast.
There was nothing they could do, not now, not without more thought and preparation. And now there was a pull, a draw, and they followed it, spreading their wings once again.
Odile opened her eyes.
Opened her eyes to discover that she was looking down into a pair of green eyes, straddling Gabriel, shivers shaking her body and him still deep inside of her. Her hair fell around the two of them, brushing the floor to either side of them. Things rattled around her mind, flashes of Gabriel's life on the streets of Atlanta, stealing to survive, working nasty jobs, all with Benjamin at his side. The light in Noemi's eyes, a love for her that seemed to eat the whole world, and that same emotion, now surrounding Odile.
There were other things too, her childhood and half-forgotten incidents, hungry days and nights when times had been lean, the way her grandmother had smelled near the end of her life, hiding in the swamp with the insects biting her face, listening her mother berate a white man who had come to call and trying not to cry, songs sung in French and Creole.
But there were those green eyes looking into hers, and the feel of his body beneath her, slick with sweat. "Well," she said, and for lack of words she kissed him, lowering herself until her breasts pressed against his chest. "That was...strange," she said, drawing herself up a bit.
"Very," he said, looking at her with either confusion or wonder in his eyes.
"We can talk about it later. For now..." She trailed off as she began a demanding rhythm with her hips, an ache deep inside of her demanding that it be satisfied. Gabriel cooperated with every evidence of complete willingness.
Afterwards, they lay entangled on the floor, replete for the moment. Sometime during the ritual, a blanket had been fetched and laid out, covering the floorboards. "How are you feeling?" Odile asked Gabriel.
"Good, strange but good," he answered. One of his hands was on her back, and the skin under it tingled pleasantly. "How are you?"
"Very well. That was a very strange ritual, in any number of ways. I got the feeling you were fighting Legba, at least at first."
"I wasn't, on purpose at least. But I got the feeling they were dropping us on purpose."
Odile nodded, turning her face into Gabriel's shoulder a bit, touching her lips to the skin there. "I think it probably was--I remember a lot more than I usually do, so Erzulie may have been dropping me on purpose. Maybe something to do with trying to get you farther into the initiation process."
"And all the symbology. Being in an angel body. Any idea what that means? And does that normally happen?" he asked, and she could feel a little dismay in his body; whatever he had been expecting out of the ritual, that hadn't been it.
"No, that's the first time that's happened to me. Usually, I don't remember anything, I don't go somewhere else," she told him, remembering the thousands of rituals she had been a part of over the years.
Gabriel shifted, lifted up his bad leg and set it down again, settling it more comfortably. "Were we on the other side?"
"Yes, we were. And that rat-thing--it seemed to come from this side, not the other."
"Remy?"
"I don't know, I don't think so." She arched her back a bit as Gabriel's hand moved across the skin there, almost purring. "He's got as much invested in holding the door as we do, at this point. There are other practitioners out there."
Thoughtful, Gabriel asked, "Antoinette, then? Or someone else?"
"No, not Antoinette, unless that was actually her soul. Antoinette, as far as I know, is gone and Kalfu has her body. There are others out there. That Leveau woman, for one."
"I have heard of her." Hadn't everyone, Odile thought, amused. Marie Leveau styled herself the Voodoo Queen, a title she only kept because nobody with real power cared to take it from her. "She's a part of this too, maybe."
Odile chuckled. "Maybe. She talks a good game, but she's all smoke and no fire."
"This looked more like someone knew what they were doing."
"I think so. Maybe Kalfu, then, or someone else." She stretched a bit. "That can be found out. Now I need to know what needs to be done about the beast. Just have to figure out ways, now."
Gabriel took a long breath. "I know you don't want to talk about this but if we can't kill the beast..."
She pressed her tongue behind her teeth for a moment. "What do you want me to do?" she asked, finally.
"The only other way is to kill me."
"You're right," she said flatly. "I don't want to talk about this. We'll kill the beast, somehow."
"Make Benjamin understand, if it comes to that," he said, ignoring her refusal.
She lifted herself up, sitting up. "And how am I supposed to do that? 'Sorry I killed your brother, but it was necessary.'"
Gabriel looked up at her, not moving to sit up himself. "No, make him do it."
"What?"
He sighed and sat up then. "I will talk to him and make him understand that it might be necessary and to only do it when you think I am gone anyway. If the beast wins, I will be gone anyway."
"But if there's even a chance we can bring you back..." She looked away, shook her head. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you."
"I know it's odd, but we can't let that out," he said. "I just want you to know that."
She looked at him for a moment, utterly lost for words. "If you can make Benjamin understand."
He nodded. "I will. We don't have to ever talk about it again."
"Good. Because we'll kill the thing, somehow," she said, her voice definite.
"We will." He reached out to her, snagged her hand. "I got most of the stuff. Any idea why we were squished together as one angel?"
Odile considered. "As for us being in one body, I think that's how we may end up working--one power, just like Legba and Erzulie are two manifestations of the same power. As for the shape of the angel, maybe it's something about your connection to that statue."
Gabriel nodded and lay back down, pulling her down with him. "Stronger together than apart, as I interpreted it."
"More or less. That's where this has been leading us, I think."
"This might be silly," he said, his voice slightly unsure. "But I felt like that was my form and when we got back here, I had a I'm in the wrong body type of feeling. Did you feel anything like that?"
The skin on her back was tingling just a bit, still, even with Gabriel's hand no longer on it. "Just a little bit, and it faded very quickly." She frowned, thinking. "I don't think it's silly at all. I wonder...hm. There are sometimes stories of things not human being born into human bodies. Probably not. Ghede into the baby's the first confirmed case I know of that happening."
"Thanks, I think," he said, his voice wry. "What would happen to the baby, really?"
"If Ghede's whole being and power went into the child, and part of it went into making the child's body be able to hold him, he would probably be immensely powerful, and very tough. There's limitations of maturity to consider, but Ghede's intelligence would probably start coming through before long." Odile propped herself up on one elbow. "Most of the problem for Ghede would probably be the waiting for his body to grow up enough to be able to call on his power."
"And when the body grew, it could take things that normal humans couldn't," he said thoughtfully.
"Yes, it surely would." She lifted her head, cocked it. "More gardes than usual, maybe?"
Gabriel was lying very still. "Something like that."
"You have anything strange happen to you when you were little that you haven't told me about?" she asked.
"Nothing that I can remember. My mother used me to do rituals and wiped my memory. But I begin to wonder. Who else brings stone to life? Or the dead back?"
Odile nodded. "Your power is so closely intertwined with Legba that they almost look the same. But Legba is still out there, and doing his job."
He pulled her close to him, a little awkwardly. "Could he have put part of himself there, like Kalfu is doing?"
"That's a possibility. So, maybe you're a part of a loa. Interesting."
"And Benjamin?"
"Benjamin's a favorite of Sobo. Maybe he's got a little bit of Sobo lodged in him somewhere," she said, thinking fondly of the rituals where Sobo had been called and he had mounted Benjamin, the demeanor of the loa so different and at the same time so fundamentally similar to Benjamin's.
Gabriel made a considering noise. "That explains more than you know, or maybe you do."
"I might have an idea, but why don't you tell me?" she said.
"In Atlanta, Benjamin and I were caught stealing. Me, I was put into a cell. They took Benjamin out to hang him. They strung him up and they couldn't hang him. He weighs a ton but his neck was so thick, they couldn't strangle him." He gave half a laugh. "They tried to quarter him with horses. He held them back. Finally they shot him and it left no wound. Stunned, they didn't stop him when he let me out and we left. We assumed it was the tough skin garde."
Shot and didn't bleed? Odile shook her head. "That's far more than a garde should be able to do, no matter how strong."
"Did our mother do this to us?" Gabriel sounded like he felt a little ill.
"That, I don't know. You said that the mother that bore you died in childbirth, yes? So your mama was a neighbor?"
He shook his head. "My real mother died. My father owned Benjamin's mother." Owned was a filthy word in his mouth, said with disgust.
"Who was Benjamin's natural father?" she asked. "I'm starting to wonder how you and Benjamin managed to be born on the same day."
"I don't know. I don't think he does, either."
"What about your father? He wasn't a practitioner of voodoo, was he?"
Gabriel shifted, pulled her a little closer. She draped a leg over his. "No, he knew nothing. My real mother was a believer."
Trying to untangle the story, Odile mused, "Let's see. Your mother was a believer, the mama that raised you was a practitioner. They might have tried to make their children powerful, when they found they were both pregnant. They might not have meant to do what they actually accomplished, though."
"Which was?" Gabriel asked.
"Sounds--and looks--like both of you were born with pieces of loa in you. Like Kalfu's trying to do with adult bodies, like Ghede did only he went overboard. You came to Barataria and it felt like home. Maybe that was the loa in you."
He nodded. "I have wondered something all my life. I don't look anything like my father."
Odile raised an eyebrow. "Serious? Well, that brings up another interesting possibility. Can the loa have children, if they choose? If Benjamin doesn't know who his father was, and your father possibly wasn't your father, then maybe your mother and your mama got pregnant the same night."
"Or were my mother and his mother impregnated in a ritual, by men chosen by Legba and Sobo?"
"Maybe, and that opened the door in the children that were sparked, and let Legba and Sobo leave some of themselves in you."
"It's an interesting ponder, I suppose," he said. "But I don't know if that helps."
"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Maybe you were meant all along to fight this fight. This might be what you were born for."
"To come here, find you and stop whatever this is," he said, his voice wondering.
She smiled, putting her head down on his shoulder. "Right. Makes me wonder about me, a little."
"No matter what, you are special to me," he said.
Odile chuckled. "I like you too, you know. Though I suspect you figured that out already."
He shifted, pulling her so that she was lying half on top of him. "I have. I hope you have too."
"I do believe I've picked up on a thing or two about that. In fact...ah." She stopped, blushing, remembering what she'd felt from him while the two of them had been together in the same body, the raw emotion that it seemed could swallow the world. "Yes, I do know."
"Good," he said. He raised his head, looking out the window. "I think more time has passed than I realized. Staying here tonight, or coming home with me?"
"I need to clean up a few things here, reset the protections on Maman. It'll take me about an hour. If you'd like to wait, I can do that and go home with you." She paused, smiling wryly. "I should probably bring some clothes to your house, shouldn't I?"
Gabriel sat up, and Odile followed suit. He smiled at her. "I would say all of them, but you might think I was pushing. So yes, you should bring some."
There was the fear again, fluttering in her in the beginning of panic. "A few things, at least," she said, trying not to think of all of her things being in the plantation house.
He gave her a speculative look. "Your sandals here or there?" he asked.
"I brought them here, why?"
"Just wanted to see you in them someday. Something besides your boots."
She made a face at him, though somewhere she was wondering, He cares what I put on my feet? "Mmm. Is that a request?"
"It is," he said, seriously.
"You're an odd man, Gabriel," she told him, as she got up off the floor to go find and pull on her clothing.
"Thank you, yes I am," he said with a grin. "One hour all you need or can we make it two?"
She turned, having found and pulled on her skirt, but not yet having located her blouse. "I'm sure I could find a reason to stay out here another hour. Why?"
He got to his feet, reached out to snag her hand, and pulled her close in answer. "Good," he said, his free hand busy with the ties of her skirt. As the garment slid off of her body, she claimed his lips again, pressing her body against his in the rising heat of desire.
They ended up on the floor once again, kissing and touching and rolling around together, laughing like children. When they managed to stop wrapping themselves around each other and clean up, they walked back to the house, taking the sacrificed goat to the workers to hang for tomorrow's dinner. Odile wore her sandals, feeling a little strange about it, and carried with her a bundle of clothes.
Gabriel had been right, time had passed strangely. It had been midafternoon when they began, and it was well after dark now, even the long spring twilight having passed. Odile would have sworn only three hours or so had gone by, but it had been more like six or seven. They were in time to have some supper that had been left for them by Maryse and say goodnight to Benjamin, Elisabeth, and the children, who were in the process of turning in for the night.
Odile and Gabriel turned in as well, and though Odile thought that perhaps there was enough time for another bout of lovemaking, sleep claimed them before they did much more than kiss that night. A short night of sleep the night before and two strenuous rituals that day had Odile asleep almost as soon as her eyes closed.
She woke the next morning, at first confused once again as to where she was, and then realizing as Gabriel snuggled up to her, sighing contentedly in his sleep. "Up," she said, wriggling out of his arms. "Things to do."
Gabriel grumbled, reached out for her. She playfully slapped his hands away. "I want to see how much progress we made yesterday," she told him. She slid out of bed and went looking for her clothing, while he propped himself up and watched her dress once more.
"So how do we tell?" he asked.
"Try to power a charm and see if it takes," she told him. "Come on, put some clothes on, you can't do this dressed in a sheet."
"And why not?" he asked, but complied. She set up a very small ritual in his bedroom, making up a simple good-luck charm and teaching him how to power it. The first charm disappeared in a flash of light, leaving a scorched mark on the floor. The second shattered into many tiny pieces. The third, though, was left humming with power.
She talked with him as they were cleaning up, and he said he had no lingering effects from yesterday except a strange tingling feeling on his back, where wings would be. "I'm going to go see how Ines is doing," she said. "See you at breakfast?"
"Wouldn't miss it," he told her, and caught her up in his arms for a kiss before turning her loose to go down the hall to the twins' room. Elisabeth and Ines were both in there.
"Morning, Ines," Odile said to the girl, who was sitting on her bed with one stocking on and one hanging limply from her hand. "How are you feeling?"
"She's physically fine," Elisabeth answered. "She's having nightmares and daymares both. Memories."
Odile gave Elisabeth a questioning glance and then looked at Ines, who nodded once and stated to pull on her other stocking. "Finish dressing, Ines, I'll bring you breakfast," Elisabeth told her in a kind voice.
"Can I speak to you, Elisabeth?" Odile asked.
"Sure, come into our room," Elisabeth said. She led the way out of the twins' room and into the room she shared with Benjamin, a room the same size as Gabriel's and comfortably furnished. "What did you need?"
"Have you ever noticed anything strange about Benjamin and Gabriel?" Odile asked.
Elisabeth rolled her eyes and made a gesture that seemed to enclose the whole world in it. "Yes, a lot of things. Which one are you talking about?"
"Well, I know about the angel and such. But neither of them will talk about the family they came from very much."
"What can I tell you?" Elisabeth sat down in a chair and waved to Odile to pull one of her own over. "Benjamin has told me a few things but they don't add up well in my mind either. I kind of gave up."
Odile nodded. "So he doesn't really talk to you about them much, either. Both of them are powerful, in different ways, and each of them connected to different loa. I don't know, I get the feeling there's something going on there, but Gabriel's pretty ignorant and Benjamin's not talking, if he knows anything."
"I know a few details. One that bothers me the most is, Gabriel's mother died in childbirth of a baby born that was too large. She was nearly ten months. Gabriel himself said he was a small baby. Only weighing about five pounds."
She frowned, trying to make that come out right. "I thought she died having him. Did that baby die, too?"
Elisabeth spread her hands. "I don't know. Either that baby died and Gabriel was taken or adopted or something else happened. I have a theory, but it's crazy."
"Crazy's all right, I think the rest of this is rather insane."
"Gabriel's mother was a big fractioned and so was Benjamin's. But Gabriel's mother was a Sobo favorite and Benjamin's Legba." She quirked her mouth, and Odile found herself thinking yet again what a beautiful woman Elisabeth was, long-necked and rounded in all the right places, with black eyes soft as velvet. "I think Gabriel's mother bore a black child named Benjamin, who weighed nearly fifteen pounds, and Benjamin's mother was really Gabriel's mother."
Odile tried to make sense of it, turned it on its head trying. "All right, on the face of it, that is insane. But....it might have happened. It's a stretch, but it's within the realm of possibility."
"I know it sounds crazy, but I can't think of another explanation."
"The loa can do a lot of things. They might have done this, and it would explain why both of them are so strongly connected to their patrons."
Elisabeth shook her head. "But what was the point?"
"Good question. And it sounds like Benjamin was late, and Gabriel was early, and they were born on the same day." Odile took a long breath. "Well, Gabriel's point is that race shouldn't matter, that we all bleed the same color and die in the same ways. Maybe the loa wanted to make that point very clear. Someone might have switched them, I suppose--bad things usually happens when a white woman births a dark-skinned baby."
The woman sitting across from her quirked her mouth. "Yes, they get killed. But Benjamin is so dark, I would say there could be no white in him. Our children are dark as dark can be."
That was the truth; Ines, Isabelle, and Anton all had their father's coloring. "And if Gabriel has black in him, it's a bunch of generations back. I'm not sure why the loa would want to switch them in the womb--maybe it had something to do with whatever rituals they were working."
"Or one of the others did."
Odile shook her head. "Might have been. Someone with a sense of humor and an interest in the situation--or someone who wanted Benjamin to be killed at birth."
Elisabeth nodded. "But he lived and without Benjamin, Gabriel would probably have died many times over by now."
"So I've gathered. Gabriel's got too much of a temper on him, he would have gotten into the wrong fight at the wrong time." Odile considered it, decided it was almost plausible. "So the two women gave birth on the same day, one died, and by the time Gabriel's father saw them he just assumed that his wife had given birth to Gabriel."
"Yes. That's the most interesting strangeness that I can tell. And maybe it went as they were told." Elisabeth dropped her voice low. "But I don't believe it for some reason."
Any answer Odile might have made was interrupted by the door banging open and Benjamin rushing in, pulling up short when he saw the two of them. "Odile. We need to talk."
Alarmed, Odile stood. "What's happened?"
"I don't want to explain here, but come with me to the barn," he said, and Odile bid Elisabeth a hasty goodbye and followed Benjamin outside, to the big barn that held the cows.
Benjamin's son Anton was standing guarding a stall door, and stepped aside when his father and Odile approached to reveal a white woman passed out or asleep in the straw, curled on her side. "Anton, you found her here?" Odile asked.
"Just like that, ma'am," the young man replied.
Odile dropped to her heels beside the woman, looking her over for injuries. She had poor clothing on, wet and muddy, and she was barefoot, cuts seeping blood. Her clothes were stained the distinctive tea color of swamp water. She looked like she hadn't eaten or drunk in a while, and she was exhausted, but she didn't have any real injuries that Odile could tell. It simply looked as if she'd come a long way through the swamp to get here. She might be pretty, cleaned up, but her dark hair was all a-snarl and there was mud on both her cheeks, and under the dirt her skin was pale white.
Behind her, Benjamin said, "Anton, go. Don't say anything to anyone, including Gabriel. Close the doors behind you."
Anton complied, and when he was gone Odile asked, "Why'd you tell him not to tell Gabriel?"
Benjamin was staring at the woman. "That's Noemi."
The words were a hammer-blow to the heart, and Odile looked and looked again, seeing the resemblance of this woman to the image of the ghost she had seen. It was. The features were identical. Odile dropped to her knees beside the woman, trying to move softly so to not awaken her, and started looking for marks on her skin. She was warm, and she had a heartbeat. She was alive.
"That looks like her but that's not her," Benjamin said. "It can't be."
Odile looked up at him, saw the shock on his face. "You saw her buried, yes?"
He nodded briefly. "I saw her die."
Questing, Odile found a cluster of marks on the woman's lower back after easing her blouse up a bit. There were symbols of recall, what one would use to call a spirit back from the other side, and alteration. This was not the first form of this body. "Hellfire and damnation," she whispered. "Benjamin, the marks. Like Remy's, but a woman's hand. Missus Durand, I'd bet. Well, this is Noemi, sort of. And this is trouble, because if Noemi's here, there's nobody to be a check on the angel. This isn't Noemi's original body, but it looks like her soul's been recalled."
"We need to check if she is really gone or if this is a trick. And whose body is it?"
She nodded. "We can find that out, but it'll take a little bit. Let me run and check on the angel."
Benjamin let her go and she took off out of the barn, closing the door again behind her. Scenario after scenario played itself in her mind. If this was Noemi and not some trick, this was Gabriel's wife alive again. The woman he was married to, who he had something of an obligation to take into his house and his bed.
There was no room for her in that picture. She had her pride; while she might sleep with Gabriel now, she wouldn't become an owner's bit on the side. If Gabriel was still in love with Noemi, he might not even want Odile any more. And if he tried to put Noemi aside, well, there were legal protections against that.
If this was Noemi, then what he had with Gabriel was over. And if it wasn't, if this was a trick or a trap meant to hurt or kill Gabriel, then they would face the consequences of dealing with that. How badly did Gabriel want to see his wife again? Would he accept her even if it was possible she was a trap?
Odile arrived at the angel, coming to a half at the foot of the pedestal. This was usually a very peaceful place, but today she could feel nothing. No beast, no Noemi, no link to Gabriel, not even when she put her hands on the stone and called.
Either the angel was suddenly completely inert, or someone was masking it somehow. Odile looked around the base of the angel. If she were doing the masking, she would have left an item here, buried somewhere in the dirt...ah, yes. A charm buried in the dirt, rocks wrapped around with leather, smelling of blood. Odile went to destroy it, but paused. there was something very much not right about the charm, and she could feel a line running from it away, over towards Durand's place.
Odile reburied it and headed back over to the barn. Noemi was awake now, crouched in a corner of a stall, shrinking away from Benjamin. There was no recognition in her terrified eyes. Gently, Odile asked, "Noemi? Is that you?"
The woman straightened. "Who are you? My name is Noemi, yes."
"My name is Odile. Do you remember coming here?"
The woman nodded. "I remember walking out of a swamp and fighting my way north. I passed a place that had no one in it and walked her past a black angel statue. It was cold there."
The empty place had to be Odile's. "You walked her past a black angel statue? Walked who?"
Noemi blinked, shook her head. "I walked, I meant. I am a bit disoriented."
"Do you remember how you got into the swamp?" Odile asked.
"I remember a cemetery, and people with white eyes. I was strapped to a table in this dress. I remember a knife coming down--" She clutched at her breast, over where her heart was, looking down, seeming amazed to find her hands coming away clean of blood, and no wound beneath. She looked up at Odile again. "Then I remember waking up, untied and no one around."
Odile tried to unclench her jaw. "Do you remember anything else about your life, before? Where you were born? If you were ever married?"
Noemi caught her breath in her throat. "Flashes, a plantation. Home, I think. A white lady. A black man. A dog growling. Flies or something. Hundreds and hundreds of flies."
"And your name. Or did the people tell you that?"
"Noemi, is what they repeated over and over again to me. I can hear it being chanted."
Odile nodded. "Stay here." To Benjamin, she said, "Can I talk to you?"
Benjamin nodded, and followed her to the other end of the barn. Quietly, Odile said, "There's something masking the angel from me. I can't tell if there's anything in the angel or not. I found the object that contains the mask, but it's connected somehow to the Durand place and I didn't want to destroy it right away. I don't think that's Noemi, though."
"Nor do I," Benjamin said. His deep voice was almost growling. "And I don't want to believe it either."
"Even if her mind of was little scrambled, she should have recognized you," she said.
"She should have, and she was scared of me."
Odile nodded. "And she said that the people were chanting Noemi. I think I need to take a real close look at the marks on her, see if I can figure out exactly what they did. Here's a question, though. What's this meant to distract us from? This feels like part of something bigger, and it makes me uneasy."
Benjamin spread his hands. "Could be about anything. Meant as a distraction to Gabriel to put him in emotional distress. Distract you from doing something or teaching Gabriel. Draw us to the Durand place, because it's a trap. Do something to the angel. Maybe they did pull Noemi from the angel and set her free or destroyed her, in preparation for using the angel against us."
"And the mask keeps the angel from being called--and it might even prevent Gabriel from communicating with it."
"Making us ripe for an attack we might not be able to defend against," he said.
Odile nodded. "I think I need to sit down and work on that mask. Can you hide whoever that is for a bit? You know Gabriel better than I do, but...I don't think he's going to react to this well."
"He won't. Your place all right? Gabriel is unlikely to go there."
It should be all right, for the moment. "Yes, but tell her not to go into the bedroom. That was where I left Maman. Stop by and tell her what's going on, though. Grandmere might have already told her, but it's just polite. Use the red broom and a Ghede chant to wake her."
"Good idea," Benjamin said. "I will do that." He stepped close to her, looking directly into her eyes. "He loves you, more than you are willing to admit, and you him. Even in the heady days of his love for Noemi, his mind was always on something else, money, surviving. He is lost without you. He will do anything for you. This girl, Noemi or not, would not be a threat to your relationship with him. I believe it, and so should you."
Odile's shoulders sagged, and she closed her eyes. "If it is Noemi, it's his wife. If we have to, we'll work something out." She took a shuddering breath. "I'm trying not to think too much on it."
"I will leave it in your hands, but trust him to make the decision I know he will."
She gave Benjamin a small smile. "Thank you, Benjamin. That helps."
"Let me take this thing to your house," he said. "And what do you want to do after you look some more at the angel?"
Odile considered. "I'll know after I take a better look at the mask. But I think we may need to go convince Missus Durand to talk to us."
"What kind of convincing?"
"Depends on how much she doesn't want to talk to us. I'm thinking we might need to get her alone, though."
There was a slight smile on Benjamin's lips. "I think you are right."
"Which means we need to get on and off the Durand place without being seen, and without Gabriel knowing. I'll think of something to tell him. He's going to get suspicious that something's going on if we just disappear. I can tell him the Durands are messing with the angel, without telling him about the girl."
"And that you are doing a ritual that can't be disturbed?"
"That was my thought," she said nodding. She didn't like the idea of lying to Gabriel, but if she had to, she had to. "I'll try to make it sound convincing."
Benjamin nodded. "You find out what you can, and don't worry too much."
"I'll try. Come find me after you have the girl settled," she said.
"I will." Benjamin took Noemi by the hand, though she still shrank away from him with a frightened mew. He led her away, and Odile went back to the statue, so strangely empty-seeming. She searched around more, finding wax drippings and a little blood on the base of the statue. A ritual had been done here, and recently. Odile settled down to do her own ritual, exploring the charm, evaluating it.
Missus Durand snuck out here in the middle of the night and did a ritual? That doesn't make a lot of sense. The charm itself held some sort of control. It might control the angel in general, the beast, or Noemi. It definitely was not controlling Gabriel. And there had to be a mind on the other end of the control, and another binding object.
Whoever had made this was good, and strong, with years of practice as a bokor. The easiest and best way for Odile to unravel the control was to get hold of the binding object on the other end. No matter how good this person was, and how strong, there was little chance they could actually break the link between Gabriel and the beast. It had to merely be a mask.
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Date: 2007-06-12 02:34 am (UTC)That's rather more woo-woo than I usually get. Heh.
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Date: 2007-06-12 05:30 am (UTC)