by J. D. Horn
“Maybe,” Hugo said, the intonation of the word flat and humorless. Although her nephew made a habit of teasing her, hell, of teasing everyone, he had not spoken in jest. The Marin family had long been known to behave in a monstrous fashion. She sensed Hugo would be disappointed, though not surprised, to hear her confess to any crime. “For what?” he asked.
For the briefest moment, she considered speaking the truth, owning up to the heinous act only a monster or a desperate mother could have committed. Discretion had always proved her truest friend, so she swallowed her confession. Instead, she said, “For only caring that the relic’s power is fading much faster than I’d hoped.” She looked back to Hugo, who answered her with a shrug.
“For being capable of regarding my father’s head as a relic.” Her heart felt cool, her conscience clear. “For claiming anyone’s head as a relic.”
“Well, if that makes you a fiend, then you come by your wickedness naturally.”
This time Fleur was at a loss. “How so?”
“You mean Celestin never showed you the family history book? Musty. Crumbling. Looks old enough to be bound in dinosaur?” He pointed toward the opening to Celestin’s study. “Probably still in there.”
“No.” Fleur cast a resentful glance at the relic. “For Celestin, knowledge was the purview of the males in the family. We ‘girls’ were meant to be pretty, not smart, and certainly not educated. He was fond of telling me ‘La tête vide s’échappe des rides.’”
“You know I never really caught on to the French thing, right?”
“It means something along the lines of ‘An empty head eludes wrinkles.’”
“Charming. I have some sparkle paint left over if you’d like to give the old man a coat or two of it.”
“As tempting as the idea may be, perhaps you could skip the makeover and provide me with the salient points of our family history.”
“Salient? I’m starting to think I never really caught on to the English thing either . . .”
“Give me the highlights.”
“Oh, well, there’s a lot of history, so a lot of highlights, but I was thinking of the first bit.”
“The first bit . . . ,” Fleur prompted him.
“Yes. The origin of the illustrious, bloodthirsty Marin clan.” He bent over and rested the paintbrush sideways across the quart can. “You know the story of John the Baptist, right? I mean you must. And the woman who danced to get him beheaded.” He looked over at Celestin. “No offense to present company.”
“Salome, yes . . .”
“Well, our sweet Salome was a mere pawn. She was just doing what Mommy told her to. It was her mother who wanted John’s head as a paperweight. You remember Mommy Dearest’s name?”
Fleur didn’t really feel like racking her brain to pull up the trivia, but with all Hugo was doing for her, she felt she owed him the enjoyment of sharing his story as he saw fit. She pulled up the name Herod first. He was the king in the tale. His wife had a similar name. “Herodias,” she said, feeling a surprising rush from this minor victory.
Hugo repeated the name, stretching it out. “Herodias. Make you think of anything? Anything witchy, that is?”
Fleur ran the name through her mind a few times. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t ring any bells . . . or books or candles, for that matter.”
Hugo smiled, pleased, it seemed, she was getting into the spirit of the tale. “Well,” he said, his tone reminiscent of someone sharing a juicy bit of gossip, “when things went south for Herodias’s new man, Antipas, Caligula exiled the pair, the world’s most famous relic stashed in Mrs. Antipas’s overnight bag, to southern France—to the heart of what would become Cathar country.”
“The Cathar Heresy,” Fleur said. “They considered John the Baptist to be the true messiah.”
“Yes, or perhaps an emissary of the Devil. Sometimes both at the same time. Confusing and contradictory . . .”
“As religions tend to be.” An idea struck. “The Cathars. Theodosius. The monk who wrote The Book of the Unwinding. He was a Cathar, no?”
“Sort of, but no. You’re off a few centuries, even though you’re spot on when it comes to what Theodosius believed. He’s often referred to as a ‘Cathar apologist,’ but I’d say he was closer to being a neo-Cathar.”
“Are you saying the mad monk was our ancestor?”
“Colder. Colder.”
“Okay, smarty-pants, how do the Cathars fit into our family history? We were Cathars way back in the when?” she said, appropriating Lucy’s term for anything that had happened before 2005.
Hugo made a buzzing noise. “Oh, so wrong, but thanks for playing.”
“Listen, it’s hot. I didn’t sleep last night . . .”
“All right, all right,” Hugo said with mock pique. “Herodias. Her name evolved over time to one I’m sure you’ll recognize—Aradia. You know, from The Gospel of the Witches.”
Of course Fleur knew of Aradia. The first witch, Aradia was thought by some to be the goddess Diana’s daughter. Others considered her an aspect of the goddess herself. The Gospel of the Witches, a tract attributed to a coven of witches from Tuscany, was a dumbed-down contemporary rehashing of centuries-old lore.
“That’s how it fits into the Marin family history. Aradia, at least according to family legend, was our founding matriarch. The witches’ goddess, the Baptist’s head, and Theodosius and his Cathars. Would’ve made for a great family crest.” He snatched up his T-shirt from the floor and pulled it on. “Shall we?”
Fleur nodded her assent, her mind occupied with the questions prompted by Hugo’s story. She watched as he popped the lid back on the paint and put it and the brush back into the paper sack in which he’d brought them.
He winked and unplugged the lamp. The world around them went black, but in moments Fleur grew accustomed to the darkness. Hugo moved past her and opened the door to the study. The soft, gray light that filtered into the passage fell short of reaching Celestin.
Hugo, holding the door for her, turned back. “An interesting coincidence, isn’t it? Evangeline’s name. It means ‘good news,’ like the name of her club. But it also means ‘gospel.’”
The Gospel of the Witches. And there Fleur found it, the epiphany she had been waiting for. She’d only just begun to spin the thought around in her mind when the sunlight filtering in through the open windows—windows she had left shuttered—blinded her.
“Hello, ma chère,” Nicholas said. “Is it too early for a brandy?”
SEVEN
Lisette Perrault had no memory of it happening, but the Boudreau girl must have taken her into the employee shower to wash off the gore. Even though Lisette might never feel clean again, the waste of Michael—his dried blood, the flecks of gray matter, and the tiny fragments of bone that had landed on her—was gone. The clothes she’d worn the night before had been replaced by one of the spare uniforms Isadore kept on hand in his office.
She’d retained only a quick flash of the ride home: Nathalie turning the radio to one of the news stations, then snapping it off at the tinkling of jingle bells.
Before leaving, Nathalie brewed Lisette a cup of hot tea, which she spilled out and replaced with whisky the second the girl was out the door. She sipped the whisky as she waited for the sun to rise. Her father must have gone off on his own, because she’d been alone with Nathalie in the car.
When she jumped at a shadow—her own shadow—she pushed the rest of the whisky away.
Lisette dressed in slacks, blouse, and a cardigan. She studied herself in the mirror, trying first with her fingers, then with a wide-toothed comb to work through the tangles the harried shampooing had left behind. She gave up and wrapped a royal blue scarf over her hair, tying the cloth into a tignon turban. Lisette thought of the day her mother had taught her how to tie the tignon, how she’d explained that this form of headdress, intended as a mark of shame, had become a symbol of pride. She wished her mother were with her now, then realized there was only one
place where she might still feel Soulange Simeon’s presence.
She found her cane, propped up against the kitchen table, and took to the street, locking the door behind her.
She might not be—might never be—as she was before Michael triggered the stroke, but some justice had been done; his death had already accelerated her recovery. She could’ve managed without her cane, but she gripped its handle and made a great show of leaning on it as she made her way down Chartres Street to her shop. Vèvè. Those same people who’d been turning away as she struggled—some to hide their discomfort, others to hide their satisfaction at seeing the great mambo humiliated—would stare agog if they were to witness a too-quick improvement.
A chilling sense of déjà vu came over her as she flipped on the lights and stepped into the store. Shards of broken glass glinted on the floor, and the scent of spray paint filled the air. The main altar had been moved from near Vèvè’s entrance to the far wall. The familiar venerations of the loa were missing, replaced by now-extinguished pink and white candles and a single image.
This was not the work of some racist vandal, though. Lisette recognized in a flash Remy’s style in the filigree heart common to all the loa who shared the name Erzulie. The vèvè painted above the altar, with its three eight-pointed asterisms that resembled snowflakes more than stars, two banner-bearing staves, and opposing trefoils—one pointing up to the heavens, the other pointing to the earth—belonged to Erzulie Mapiangue, not to Erzulie Dantor, whose help Lisette had sought. Beneath it, Remy had painted the words “Notre Dame du Perpétuel Secours.” Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Mapiangue was the loa who eased the pain of labor and protected birthing mothers and newborns.
The altar was covered in red velveteen fabric bearing, at its center, the image of the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Czestochowa, a syncretism between Voodoo and Catholicism.
Lisette noticed a plastic sheath of red roses, the kind grocery stores sold, resting on top of a shelf at her side. The glass at her feet lay in a drying puddle of amber liquid, the remnants of the sacrifice of a dark spiced rum the underage Remy must have charmed some shopkeeper into allowing him to purchase.
Remy had done well, keeping the offering separate from the symbols of veneration. Most loa accepted the offerings on the altar, but Mapiangue required that the objects used to venerate her be kept apart from the offerings made to her.
“I should’ve burned this place to the ground.” Her father’s voice came from behind the counter. Lisette should have realized this was where he’d end up—the place where he felt closest to her mother. After all, that’s why she’d come here, too. “Years ago.” He stared at the vèvès in the window, his face hardening with hate. He’d aged at least a decade since last night. His eyes were tired, rimmed with red. “I should’ve known if they’d take her from me, they’d try to take you, too. Oh, I’m not talking about the Marins this time. I’m talking about these spirits of yours.” He pointed at the panes with a shaking finger. “They’ve got some kind of game going on. One that began before there were people like you and your mama to serve them. Hell, long before there were people, period.” He began clenching and loosening his fist, as if his hand craved something solid to strike out against.
“I don’t regret killing the boy.” He circled around the counter, then leaned back against it. “I only regret not killing him sooner. Maybe if I’d realized . . . if I’d acted . . .” He reached up and wiped away an errant tear with his sleeve. “I thought I could put an end to this. Protect you and Manon. She still talking about giving up the baby?”
“She is,” Lisette responded.
Lisette had received the news secondhand from her husband. “If the little one makes it.” Her heart throbbed as she said these words. Until now, she hadn’t acknowledged, even to herself, that her granddaughter—thirteen weeks premature, two pounds and twelve ounces—might never leave neonatal intensive care.
Manon wouldn’t see Lisette. Manon wouldn’t visit the baby either. Michael’s death had broken his hold over Manon, the snapping of the magical cords that had bound and controlled her alerting her to his demise and allowing her to know him for the monster he had been. With Michael no longer around, she had settled for blaming Lisette—and her own newborn daughter—for his sins.
“For the best, if it doesn’t live,” Alcide said. “Child’s only half us. It’s half them, too.”
Lisette felt a rush of heat claw up her spine. In that moment, she hated her father. “The hell you say.” She averted her gaze and poked at the broken glass with the toe of her shoe. She would phone Remy. Have him come and help her invoke yet another Erzulie, Erzulie Mansur—Erzulie the Blessed—and petition her to kindle a mother’s love in Manon’s heart.
“May not matter one way or the other soon,” Alcide said, drawing her attention back to him.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“She told me things,” her father said. “Your maman showed me things about this city, back when I still cared to listen. Things she thought you weren’t yet ready to understand. Things I hoped you would never have to learn.” He focused on her arm. “But you’re in too deep now, and the only way out is through . . .” His words trailed off as he scanned the glass-strewn floor. He turned back to the counter, gazing down at a brightly colored map laid out on the surface. “Come here, girl. I got something I need to show you.”
“Right now you have nothing I care to see.”
“You think, ma fille”—he looked up and nodded to the vèvè on the wall—“Remy acted completely on his own? You think I learned nothing from decades with your mother? I was willing to try anything. To do anything. I brought Remy here. He followed my instructions.”
She hesitated, angry, and realized she was looking to take her anger out on him much as Manon was taking hers out on her. Still, knowing what she was doing and being able to stop herself from doing it were two different lands divided by a wide gulf. She crossed to his side but avoided making eye contact. She focused instead on the map. It was similar to the one Papa Legba had used to demonstrate the connection between the environs of Jackson Square and his personal vèvè. This one, too, was glossy and covered with cartoon-style art. Still, it was one of the better tourist maps that went beyond the Vieux Carré to include the whole city. She gazed down at the symbol he’d added to the map with the thick black line of a permanent marker. Her father had drawn a different vèvè—Baron Samedi’s—superimposing the vertical bar of its cross over Canal Street.
“The Gates of Guinee,” she said. Anyone with more than a passing interest in the occult had heard the story that the gates to the spirit world could be found by aligning the center of Samedi’s vèvè with Canal Street. The vèvè’s seven stars were said to mark the locations of the gates.
Lisette had always considered the story nothing more than nonsense for tourists, but Papa Legba had shown her how his own vèvè aligned with the area around Jackson Square. She realized she’d be both stubborn and foolish not to hear her father out. “I always believed they were only a metaphor for the seven days after death.”
“That they might be, but your maman always swore to me they’re real, too, and spread out over the city, with the first gate in New Orleans’s first cemetery.”
She traced her finger over the map, pausing at each of the seven stars. She was willing to consider the possibility there was at least some truth to the story. Still, her common sense raised an objection. “But Daddy,” she said, surprised to find herself leaning into his shoulder for comfort, “if the gates were real—and that easy to find—they would have been located centuries ago.”
He slid the marked-up map aside to reveal a fresh one beneath it. He traced his finger up St. Peter Street. “The city used to end at a moat a bit beyond what is now Dauphine Street. On the other side of the water, that’s where they put the original cemetery, in the area between what is now Burgundy and Rampart.” He began to trace out the shape of Samedi’s cross. “It isn’t Canal Stree
t the gates center on—it’s Orleans.”
Lisette watched as he finished his quick sketch, the seven stars falling at points around Orleans Street. “The Gates of Guinee,” she said, feeling a sensation that lay between a vibration and a shiver pass through her. She sensed deep in her marrow her father was right.
“That’s right,” he said, “though your maman always said ‘gates’ wasn’t the right word. She always called them ‘the seven wounds.’” He looked down at her arm. “Show it to me,” he said, “the gad.”
Lisette hesitated, but then removed her cardigan and rolled up the sleeve of her blouse. She peeled away the bandages Nathalie had plastered over the wounds and was surprised to see the seven gashes of the gad were already scabbing over—the accelerated healing possibly due to the girl’s unexpected magic. Her father looked down at it, the pain in his eyes as intense as the pain in her mutilated flesh.
“Wounds. Gates. Either or both, the witches, like your friend Fleur Marin, want to open them wide.” He reached out and gingerly traced a finger along the deepest of the wounds. His tone was sharp, but his touch was gentle. He pulled the sleeve down over the cuts. “I’m afraid, ma fille, that gad might make you the key.”
“No, Daddy. This gad was meant to protect us. You interrupted before Dantor could intervene with Michael. Papa Legba was opening the way for her.”
“I never saw Legba,” he said, his voice low. “Not once in all my years with your maman. And I didn’t see your Legba last night either.”
A single word caught her attention. “My Legba?”
“I never saw Legba,” he repeated himself as if she hadn’t spoken. “But I felt him. That thing there with you last night, chou, was not Papa Legba.”
He tapped each of the stars with the tip of his marker. “This is where the gates were.”
“Were?” Lisette said, her head whirling. The night of the massacre at the ball for Celestin Marin, Legba had been present. Her mother had seemed certain of it. But Lisette had only witnessed his totem, a wiry-haired little mutt that looked very much like the dog that had accompanied her Legba . . . very much like. Not the same. Not upon reflection. Her Legba’s dog looked much better fed. “What happened to them, Daddy? What happened to the gates?”