What do you know about love? Isabelle asked.
I don’t think she meant it to sound as biting as it did. She had a point, but I really didn’t want to hear it.
“Enough to know that you aren’t going to be in love with someone after a chance encounter while he was half-possessed by a Loa, and a few training sessions in the gym.”
You don’t believe in love at first sight?
“No… I don’t. I believe in instant infatuation. I believe that a lot of girls mistake that for love. But no. Love at first sight is rom-com bullshit that doesn’t happen in the real world.”
I don’t believe you. I think you just don’t love others because you don’t think you’re worth loving.
What the fuck, Isabelle? I could almost feel the steam escape my ears and nostrils in response to her comment. I would have snapped at her if it wasn’t for the fact that her words only stung because they were true. I just didn’t want to hear it… and certainly not from the girl stuck in my head who actually thinks that Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore are real-world soul mates.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I said, sighing.
Of course not. Sorry…
I started up the spiral staircase heading to Papa Legba’s office. It provided a fine opportunity to change the subject.
“Any idea what he might want with me?” I asked.
No clue… hopefully he didn’t hear about the portal we made.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I admitted as I climbed the stairs, gripping the cold rail as tightly as possible. I could feel the whole staircase move a little as I went up it. I’m sure it was safe. It looked like it had been there for ages and was certainly well-traveled. Still, it felt like the whole staircase was going to crash to the ground at any moment. It’s not a debilitating fear, by any means, but I’ve never handled heights particularly well. If I didn’t have much anxiety about being summoned to see the headmaster already, the staircase saw to it that I did by the time I knocked on his door.
I don’t know what I’d expected. I sort of thought he’d have a secretary or something. Instead, the man who opened the door looked more like a farmer than an administrative assistant. He certainly didn’t strike me as the “headmaster” sort. He was a black man, his skin wrinkled and leathery, like a man who’d spent his life working under the sun. He wore a straw hat, a red plaid shirt, and denim overalls. He held a small stick in one hand. It looked as though it had recently been taken from the woods, though he was clearly purposing it as a kind of walking stick. He smelled of the fields, which… is just a kind way of saying that he carried on his person the odor of cow shit. Manure, though, doesn’t have an especially repulsive smell… not like human poop. Not a pleasant smell, but tolerable enough.
“Welcome, Miss Mulledy,” the man said, his voice soft and calming.
“You’re Papa Legba?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“You’re surprised by my appearance,” Legba said.
“Maybe a little,” I admitted, chuckling a bit. “I imagined you more like a bearded wizard.”
Papa Legba smiled widely, displaying a set of crooked teeth. It wasn’t an attractive smile by any means, but there was something endearing about it. “That’s a stereotype most students share. At least in the last twenty years or so, since those books came out.”
Papa Legba stepped aside as if to invite me in. His office, if you could call it that, was as quaint as his appearance. The floors were made from weathered wood. Three wooden doors lined the back wall, each of them padlocked shut. Like the door I’d walked though, two of them were made of old wood, probably oak. The one in the middle, though, was made of a dark metal. Iron, perhaps.
Papa Legba had no desk. Instead, two rocking chairs sat in the middle of the room. He sat in one and gestured toward the other, bidding me to sit.
“Be at ease, Miss Mulledy, you are not in any sort of trouble. It is customary that I meet with all new students, at least once during their initial term.”
I nodded. “Though my classmates have not received invitations.”
“Some of them I’ve met already, though not as students. I know their families well, and meeting them as headmaster is not at all urgent.”
“Nico and Sauron?” I asked.
Legba nodded. “Their ancestors were in our school’s very first class, and I’ve had the privilege to mentor each generation.”
“No wonder they act like they own this place.”
Legba tilted his head slightly. “It is not uncommon for new blood to find its way into the Academy, but I should say that you are the first to come from a lineage at all like yours.”
“I’m not proud of my ancestry,” I said. “I hope that won’t be held against me.”
Legba’s eyes widened. “I do not mean to shame you for it, Miss Mulledy. On the contrary, I wish to indicate how pleased I am to see that we have come so far… that the past should no longer be a barrier. That you might seek us out for knowledge and wisdom. I am very pleased. Your ancestry, alone, is not my concern.”
I cringed slightly. “But there is a concern…”
“As you may or may not know, Miss Mulledy, amongst the Loa, my knowledge of which Loa pass to and fro from Guinee to this world is absolute. While many Loa can and have bypassed my consent, largely on account of the Bokors in recent years, it is generally the case that I have the discretion to permit or forbid certain Loa from engaging in human affairs.”
I nodded, biting my bottom lip.
“Yet some years ago one of our own was summoned by a Caplata. It is my understanding that you were entangled, by no fault of your own, in this affair.”
I took a deep breath. “You’re talking about Baron Samedi?” I asked.
Papa Legba nodded. “He is not an evil Loa, though I’m sure your experience with him was unpleasant.”
I grimaced, recalling the nightmare that I’d relived for years. “You could say that.”
“When a Loa is harnessed by a Bokor or, in this case, a Caplata, it brings out the worst of our nature. Imagine for a moment if the worst thoughts, your most selfish inclinations, took over your entire being…”
“Sounds… awful. But I can’t change the past. I’m not sure what I can do about it now.”
“I have both a concern and a request,” Legba said. “My first concern is that your presence here is not on some kind of errand of revenge. If that is the case, I must warn you, your efforts will be misplaced and opposed.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I said. “I’m here because I want to understand. I want to know what happened, but more, I want to know how I can move forward with my life.”
Papa Legba smiled. “I cannot tell you how good it is to hear as much.”
“But you said you have a request?” I asked. “I have reason to believe that you might also hold the key to releasing Baron Samedi. I can understand if you are hesitant to do so, but I give you my word, your cooperation in this matter would go a long way toward both proving your intentions here and, dare I say, might also help you find what you seek.”
“You want me to help bring him back?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Papa Legba nodded. “The only way to move beyond your past is to take control of it. I am not asking you to merely free the Baron. I’m asking you to, by this action, free yourself as well.”
“From the chains of resentment?” I asked, unsure if I meant to inflect the question with a hint of sarcasm or if I was seriously considering the proposal.
“Precisely, Miss Mulledy.”
Something doesn’t feel right about this, Isabelle said. Something’s just off…
“It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Papa Legba, but you have to understand, what happened to me that night. My memory of Baron Samedi… he was pure evil.”
“As I think all of us would be if we were bound to the worst side of our nature, if we had no freedom to choose the good.”
“I understand your point,” I said. “But is
it too much to ask for proof that the Baron has a good side? I didn’t see it.”
“Years of resentment are more than I’d expect you to overcome after a single conversation,” Papa Legba said.
“And how do you think I could even help, if I were to decide I wanted to,” I said, scratching my chin.
“The Caplata’s sister, I believe, has the answer.”
“How do you know…”
“I’ve always known,” Papa Legba said. “Because I was there the night it happened.”
I almost choked on my own tongue. “Excuse me? I would remember if…”
“I was not there… corporeally. But wherever a summoned Loa engages a mortal, I am there. In most instances I can intervene, if he’d been summoned by a Mambo. But the way he was summoned, the dark magic… those summonings are beyond my purview.”
“From what I understand, Messalina turned on Baron Samedi herself. She didn’t want him to claim Isabelle, whose soul had already been fused to mine.”
“The magic she’d used to bind Baron Samedi, as I said, had brought out only his worst nature in his engagements with her. Once the bargain was concluded, he would have trained Isabelle in your body as an initiate. In the many years that Messalina stirred in the grave, in fact, Baron Samedi had established himself as the Loa for one of our Academy’s colleges.”
He wanted us to be students? Isabelle asked in disbelief.
I huffed. “So now you want me to help you get the Baron back?” I asked, thinking the matter over. “How do I know he will not still want me? If I was a part of the bargain he’d made with Messalina, wouldn’t he still want to collect?”
Papa Legba shrugged. “The cost of a broken bargain has already been exacted.”
“With Messalina’s death?” I asked.
Papa Legba nodded.
“Say I was to help. What would you need me to do?”
“It’s quite simple,” Papa Legba said. “We would summon Baron Samedi in the usual fashion. We’ve attempted it, many times, in fact. Only a barrier exists, a magical barrier that you should have the ability to penetrate.”
“So I’d need to release him, somehow, during the summoning rite?”
“I believe if you simply add your magica to the ritual, the rite will accomplish what is required.”
I’m not so sure about this…
“This is a lot to digest,” I said, taking a deep breath and standing from my seat. “Can I have some time to think about it?”
“Of course,” Papa Legba said. “Just remember, you would not merely be freeing the Baron. You’d be freeing yourself. I’m offering you a way forward, to put your past behind you.”
I nodded and turned to the door. “I don’t want to tell you no, but I hope you can understand.”
“Pain is a difficult thing to let go of,” Legba said, packing his pipe again with tobacco. “But try not to think about it for too long.”
“When I decide, should I just come back here?”
Papa Legba shook his head. “You may let me know, but if the opportunity comes, you have my permission to do what you must. I have it on good authority that your own classmate has planned an attempt to summon Baron Samedi.”
“Nico?” I asked.
Papa Legba nodded. “That will be our opportunity. If you can find a way to insert yourself into the rite, you can ensure his success.”
I didn’t really want to help Nico do anything, honestly. And frankly, I was pretty sure Nico wouldn’t want me to be involved, no matter what I told him. Though, I had promised I’d consider Papa Legba’s proposal. And I had no reason not to trust the headmaster. Still, something about the whole thing didn’t sit well in my stomach. Was it, perhaps, that I had become accustomed to my own pain? Was I more afraid of experiencing the freedom that Legba promised this opportunity afforded me than I was of continuing to relish in my own pain, my own resentment? I’d grown accustomed to being a victim… hiding behind my past wounds. Who would I be if I closed that chapter of my life? Perhaps it was selfish. But when so much of one’s life has been defined by pain, the only thing more scary than continuing to live with the pain is living without it.
Chapter Fifteen
I sewed together the last stitch on my “doll” as Mambo Hannigan approached my workstation.
“Is there a reason why your doll’s arms and legs are all extended downward?” the Mambo asked, clinging to the beads of bone that dangled from her neck. She was a pretty woman behind all her accoutrements—dark skin, her black hair straightened and at shoulder length. She dressed, though, in a way that fit every stereotype of Voodoo I’d ever seen in movies. A long, plain dress ornamented with various trinkets that looked as though they’d been carved from bone. Cow bone… I told myself. Maybe chicken bone, that would be even easier to manage. Somehow, I doubted that was the case.
“That’s because it’s not a person,” I said, beaming with pride over my work.
“The instructions were clear. You should attempt to fashion the image of someone whom you feel some kind of responsibility for.”
“My dog isn’t a someone?” I asked, scrunching my brow. I’d sewn together a doll that vaguely resembled Letty. With her having to spend the better part of each day in the dormitory kennel, I thought having a Voodoo doll of her might allow me to pet her throughout the day. After weeks of lectures about how dollcraft is meant to aid those in need, something of a healing art rather than one that should be exacted in vengeance, I thought stitching up a doll of my dog was a good place to start. Not to mention, acquiring her fur and nail clippings was much simpler than trying to ask a human being for those things. It might be easier if you were from a Voodoo family, since they were used to this kind of thing. Still, I didn’t know anyone who I could ask for their toenail clippings and a tuft of hair without coming across as some kind of weirdo. I mean, Ashley might have done it, but it just seemed odd making a Voodoo doll of my own sister. I know… it’s supposed to be meant for good things, for blessings. But the whole thing was a little creepy no matter how I looked at it.
“Well, Miss Mulledy,” Mambo Hannigan said, “your choice is unconventional but not altogether unacceptable. You must, nonetheless, present your doll to the class and explain why you saw fit to make your dog the benefactor of this assignment.”
I simply nodded as I returned my focus to my doggy doll. I admired my work. It didn’t look a thing like Letty. It resembled what might happen if geneticists ever decided to cross a rat with an armadillo. It was so damn ugly that it was cute.
“How exquisite!” Mambo Hannigan exclaimed, hovering over Nico’s workstation. I rolled my eyes.
“Who are you making, anyway,” I said, looking across the table at Pauli, who’d been hiding his work from view by propping his folder on edge.
“It’s personal,” Pauli whispered.
“You realize we have to show-and-tell these things when we’re done, right?”
Pauli’s eyes widened, as if he’d completely dozed off when the assignment was explained and hadn’t a clue. “We do?”
“Yeah,” I chucked. “Even have to explain how we went about acquiring all the raw materials.”
Pauli bit his lip. “Shit.”
“Didn’t think this one through?” I asked.
“You could say that,” Paul said, dropping his folder for the first time. What he showed me resembled something of a three-legged person… only the middle leg was just slightly shorter than the other two. I was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be a leg…
I covered my mouth to prevent my laughter from disturbing the entire class. “Is that what I think it is?”
“What do you mean?” Pauli said. “I don’t know how you could know my ex. You’ve never met him.”
I shook my head. “I mean, was it necessary to be so anatomically correct?”
“For the kinds of blessings I want to bestow upon him, damn straight!”
I cocked my head sideways. “But how did you get all the raw materials?”
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“Honey, I already had everything I needed.”
“You have your ex boyfriend’s toenails?” I asked, not believing him for a minute.
Pauli rolled his eyes. “Of course not. That would be weird. I had one of the alternatives…”
A combination of things like toenails and hair were most common when constructing Voodoo dolls. Though, while more difficult to acquire in most instances, there were a few particularly DNA-heavy fluids the body produces that are sufficient on their own. Blood is one of them, but I was pretty sure “blood” wasn’t the one Pauli was speaking about.
“You have his… semen?” I asked in disbelief.
“There’s a stain on my blue dress!” Pauli exclaimed. For some reason, I didn’t think he was actually making a Bill Clinton joke… he was serious. “I haven’t washed it in more than a year!”
“That’s so gross!” I said, chuckling through my words while shaking my head. Out of a combined sense of disgust and genuine amusement. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was disgusted or amused. Probably a combination of both.
“Mind your own,” Pauli said, propping his folder up on edge to deflect my view of his doll.
“You’re still going to have to present it to the class,” I said, grinning widely.
“I’ll just lie about it. It isn’t like they’re going to cut it open to see what I stuffed inside.”
“They aren’t exactly going to miss that third leg,” I said.
“Honey, I’m not ashamed of that! I’m proud!”
“Proud?” I asked. “There’s no way he’s that big.”
“Honey, when he was with me… he was at least this big.”
“The thing goes down past his knees,” I said, my jaw dropped.
“Mmmmmhmmmm,” Pauli said, nodding with a wide grin.
“I don’t believe you. No guy is that well-endowed.”
“You’re just running in the wrong circles, honey,” Pauli said. “All white boys at that Catholic school you went to?”
“It was an all-girls school,” I said. “And I’ve made out with my share, but never went all the way.”
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