Midnight Dolls

by Kiki Sullivan

  He takes a step closer and takes both of my hands. His touch is icy, and my whole body suddenly feels cold. “If you choose us,” he says, “everything can be different. I’ll expect your answer in forty-eight hours. Meet me here, in the cemetery. If you don’t show, I’ll take that as a no.”

  I nod, but before I can say anything else, he’s backing away. In seconds, the shadows swallow him, and he’s gone.

  23

  I fill Caleb in during our drive back to Carrefour, and then we call everyone in our sosyete, as well as Aunt Bea. Caleb insists I call home too, and although my dad is furious that I snuck out of town without telling him, he agrees to coordinate a meeting at our house.

  When we pull into my driveway, there are already several other cars there, including Aunt Bea’s and Bram’s. All of a sudden, I remember that I basically stole my grandfather’s Mercedes and left it by the gate.

  “Crap,” I say as we get out of the car.

  “What is it?” Caleb asks.

  “My grandfather’s car.”

  He cracks a small smile. “Yes, brilliant move. I’ll get it in the morning, okay?”

  I nod, and we hurry inside. My grandfather greets us at the front door with a stony look on his face. “I’m so sorry about your car,” I blurt out immediately.

  He looks perplexed. “You took my car to New Orleans?”

  “Not exactly. But I was going to. I promise, I’ll have it back by the morning.”

  “That’s the least of my concerns right now, Eveny,” he says, turning and striding away before I can say any more. I swallow hard and turn to Caleb, who just shrugs.

  We follow my grandfather into the parlor, where I’m surprised to see everyone already gathered. Peregrine and Chloe are perched on the love seat, looking like zombie versions of themselves. Aunt Bea is there too, sitting beside Boniface on the sofa. Pascal, Margaux, and Arelia are on the couch on the other side of the room, looking uneasy, and on two chairs beside them sit my grandfather and Bram. As we walk through the door, Bram’s eyes flick from me to Caleb, and his face falls.

  “As you all know,” my father says, entering the room behind us, “Eveny met with Main de Lumière a few hours ago without consulting any of us.” He pauses to glare at me. “Do you want to tell us what you learned, Eveny?”

  Everyone’s eyes shift to me, and I clear my throat. For the next ten minutes, I explain exactly what Jean-Luc Gerdeaux told me in the New Orleans cemetery. When I’m done, there’s stunned silence, and then everyone begins speaking at once.

  “Wait!” my father shouts, standing and holding his hands up until everyone quiets down. “Arguing and talking over each other isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s take turns.”

  My grandfather stands, and the room falls silent. He turns to look at me, and at first, I’m sure he’s going to take my side. But instead, he says, “We have no way of knowing that the faction Eveny met with is telling the truth. What if these supposed Les Jumeaux Noir fighters are actually the ones who are on our side?”

  “But then why would Gerdeaux meet with me?” I ask, hurt that my grandfather is acting like I’ve made a foolish mistake. “And if he was the evil one, wouldn’t he have just killed me right then and there?”

  “Not if he needed something from you,” my grandfather says. “Not if he hoped you’d come back here and try to persuade us to join with him. I think you’re being played.”

  “But to what end?” Aunt Bea speaks up, and I’m surprised that she seems to be agreeing with me for once. “I mean, what would Gerdeaux’s motive be? If we decide to back him, what could he possibly gain from it?”

  “Giving us a false sense of security, that’s what,” my grandfather says. “Making us feel like we’ve reached a truce when in reality, we’ve just gotten into bed with the enemy.”

  “So we keep our guard up,” I say. “We don’t let ourselves buy into everything he’s saying. But what if he’s right? What if by ignoring him, we’re effectively opening ourselves up to attack? He said that up until now, he’s been fighting for my survival. What if this changes his mind about me? About us?”

  “I think you’re very naive to be taking the word of a leader of a cult that has set out to destroy you,” my grandfather says, his eyes flashing. The anger in his voice surprises me.

  “But wasn’t it you who said we should think about working with them?” I ask.

  He stares at me in disbelief. “That was before they murdered your two best friends’ mothers.”

  “Gerdeaux said that wasn’t him!” I say. “It was Les Jumeaux Noir.”

  My grandfather laughs. “And you believe him?” He turns to Chloe and Peregrine. “Do you want to take that risk? Do you want to work with the man who might have ordered the murder of your mothers?”

  I look reluctantly at my two sister queens. They’re both looking down, avoiding my eyes. It’s Chloe who speaks first.

  “I trust Eveny,” she says, glancing at me. “But I . . . I think maybe the best move for now is to do nothing. Maybe Gerdeaux is being totally honest. But maybe this is another trick. I’m sorry, Eveny.”

  “I feel the same,” Peregrine says, looking at me for a second before turning to my grandfather. “I’m not ready to dismiss Gerdeaux, but I can’t agree to join forces with someone who might be connected to . . . what happened.” Her words trail off into a stifled sob.

  “But he said that if we didn’t join him, he’d consider us to be against him,” I say. “It might make things worse.”

  “I’m sorry,” Peregrine whispers. “I just can’t.”

  “I have to agree with Peregrine and Chloe,” my father says, turning to me. “I’m sorry, but this is war, and the only way to win is to wipe out Main de Lumière for good. Working hand in hand with some of them might be a short-term solution, but not a long-term one.”

  “Then maybe we should just agree to ally with them in the short term,” I say. “We don’t have to work with them forever. Just until we’re back on stable ground. What happened with the mothers weakened us.”

  “And we’ll get strong again,” Peregrine says. “But we have to do it on our own terms.”

  “In honor of our mothers,” Chloe adds. “They never would have condoned working with Main de Lumière.”

  “Maybe they would have been wrong,” I say softly.

  Pascal speaks up from the couch. “Am I the only one here who thinks this could be the perfect way to get revenge on Main de Lumière? Eveny pretends to be working with this Gerdeaux guy, and we use his trust to destroy them from the inside?”

  “No.” Bram speaks up instantly, his tone sharp. “That would put Eveny in even more danger than she’s already in. I can’t allow it.”

  Pascal gives him a look, but I can feel Caleb, who’s still standing beside me, tense up. “You can’t allow it?” he says. “Since when are you in charge of what Eveny does?”

  “I’m not in charge of her,” Bram says, staring back evenly. “But I care about her. Deeply. I never would have put her in danger the way you did by driving her to that meeting.”

  “It wasn’t my choice,” Caleb says. “The decision was Eveny’s, and I respected that.”

  The room erupts in argument again, and this time it’s me who shouts, “Stop!” I step to the middle of the room and wait until everyone’s eyes are on me. “For too long, we’ve done nothing,” I say. “For too long, we’ve sat here, feeling confident in our safety, despite the fact that Main de Lumière has been picking us off. For too long, we’ve assumed that our magic would trump all. But that’s not true, is it? Our magic isn’t protecting us anymore. So we can continue to be sitting ducks, or we can take control and do something!”

  “Why not a ceremony?” Peregrine says. “Why are we considering an alliance when we could be doing a protective ceremony instead?”

  “Peregrine, we’ve performed plenty of ceremonies, and Main de Lumière continues to get past us,” I say. “Something’s not working.”

  “But we
’ve never joined forces and done a protective ceremony with the sosyete from Caouanne Island,” she says. She looks at my dad. “What if we did a ceremony together? Called on our spirits at the same time you call on yours? There are enough of you here to make it work.”

  My father glances at me. “I’m not even sure that working with both forms of magic at once would be possible.”

  “It would be, I think,” I say. “I’ve tried. But I still don’t think it’s a solution.” My dad looks at me in disbelief, but before he can say anything Peregrine speaks up.

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” she says. “Who thinks we should try casting jointly before we even think about working with Main de Lumière?”

  Hands go up all over the room; the only people abstaining are Aunt Bea, Caleb, and Boniface, who exchanges a concerned look with me before getting up and walking out of the room.

  “Look,” I say to everyone. “I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s what I’m afraid of: The only way Main de Lumière could be getting past our magic is if they have some very powerful magic on their side already. I told you what Gerdeaux said about Les Jumeaux Noir trying to work with a king or queen. What if it’s already happened, and that person is pulling the strings right now? How else would Main de Lumière be getting through the protection of our gate?”

  “Maybe we didn’t cast well enough,” Peregrine says. “Or something was off in our charm.”

  “But . . . ,” I begin.

  “Eveny, casting together is worth a try,” Peregrine says. “It’s a better solution than working with someone who’s an enemy. So let’s do a ceremony after our mothers’ funeral. If we feel like it doesn’t work, then we can discuss what to do.”

  “I think that sounds like a wise plan, Peregrine,” my father says before I have a chance to reply. “Now, why doesn’t everyone go home to get some sleep? We have a long, sad day ahead of us.”

  Everyone stands and filters toward the door. On the way out, Chloe and Peregrine both stop to give me hugs. Bram lingers and reaches for my hand, but I pull away, and he looks wounded. Aunt Bea is the last one out, and as she goes, she leans in to whisper, “Whatever you decide to do, I’m on your side. Remember that.”

  She follows the others out of the house. Finally, it’s just me, my father, my grandfather, and Caleb standing in the front hallway.

  “I’m exhausted,” my grandfather says, looking at my father and Caleb, but not at me. “Thanks for including me in this discussion, but this old man needs his rest. Good night.” He walks up the stairs without another word. I watch him go, surprised by how hurt I am by his obvious lack of support.

  My father turns to me. “I’m very disappointed that you went to New Orleans without saying anything to me.”

  “I was with her, sir,” Caleb says. “She was safe.”

  “It was still irresponsible,” my father says. “Eveny, you have to stop acting like a child.”

  The words cut me deep, and I stare after him as he walks to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. When I turn back to Caleb, there are tears in my eyes. “Is he right? Was I acting like a child?”

  “No,” he says right away. “I think you did the right thing. That’s why I stood up for you. What you did . . . it was brave, Eveny.”

  “Thanks.” But after we walk upstairs and part ways in the hall, I feel more confused than ever.

  The funeral is jam-packed; it seems that everyone in town has shown up to pay their respects. It makes sense, I suppose; Scarlett St. Pierre and Annabelle Marceau were arguably the two most well-known women in Carrefour, and even those who didn’t really know them must have been saddened by their deaths.

  On top of that, the town’s weekly newspaper was filled with speculation about their strange double murder, and the police force has been asking questions all over town. I suspect that some of the mourners clustered around the gravesite are as interested in being a part of the action as they are in grieving.

  “Don’t you see why we can’t trust Main de Lumière?” Peregrine says as we watch her mother’s coffin slide into the family crypt. She walks away before I can reply.

  The two sosyetes meet that night in the clearing in the cemetery’s crossroads, the most powerful place in all of Carrefour. It’s where the town’s founding ceremony took place and where our Stones of Carrefour were first imbued with power, so our abilities are always strengthened when we call to the spirits from this spot.

  Our entire sosyete plus the remaining members of the mothers’ sosyete are here, all quiet and dressed in somber colors. We’re joined in the clearing by my father, my grandfather, and Bram.

  “Eveny, you are the link between us,” my father says. “I think you’ll have to be the one to light the fire and to summon all of the spirits. It’s the best way for them to see, from the start, that we’re working together. Captain Cabrillo already knows that you’re proficient in both andaba and zandara. Perhaps it’s time to show your spirits too that we’re allied.”

  I nod and accept the matches my father hands me. Someone has already built a small fire pit in the middle of the clearing, filled with dry twigs and surrounded by a rough circle of stones. I ignite it quickly, then back up.

  “Now what?” Chloe asks.

  My father nods at me. I step back into the center of the circle and take a deep breath.

  From my pocket, I pull a cluster of devil’s shoestrings—a root from the honeysuckle family—and one of agrimony. The first is for keeping evildoers away, while the second is used to create protection from a curse and to get back at those who wish to harm you. I also pull out a few dozen basil leaves, which are for creating harmony within a family. I know this group isn’t the most ordinary family, but technically, that’s what it is, because I link everyone together.

  I hand some of each of the herbs to Peregrine and Chloe, and I keep a small amount for myself. “The zandara side is all set,” I tell my father. “Did you bring grave dirt and muerte dust?”

  He nods and passes me two small sachets.

  “You start the ceremony,” he says, “and Bram, my father, and I will take it from there since we have a bit more experience.”

  I nod and close my eyes. The others join hands, and I take a step closer to the fire.

  “Guardabarrera, ¿está usted ahí?” I chant, calling on Captain Cabrillo.

  My father, my grandfather, and Bram immediately chime in: “Dejarnos entrar, señor. Dejarnos entrar.” There’s a familiar gust of wind, and the air seems to thin out around us as my dad starts to chant.

  “Oh lonely warriors, spirits of the sea,

  Hear our cry, accept our plea.

  With grave dirt and muerte dust our passage fee;

  With the strength of our hearts, we call out to thee.

  I open the sachets my father gave me and throw most of the dirt and dust into the fire, then blow the rest into the flames, like my father did during the ceremony on Caouanne Island. I step back just as a cloud of sweet-smelling white smoke begins to rise in the center of our circle.

  “Quickly, now, call on your zandara spirits,” my father says. “Let’s see if we can get them all here at the same time.”

  I nod and glance at Peregrine and Chloe. “Ready?”

  Together, the three of us chant, “Come to us now, Eloi Oke, and open the gate. Come to us now, Eloi Oke, and open the gate. Come to us now, Eloi Oke, and open the gate.”

  I can feel the air pressure shift again, just as it always does when the gate to our spirit world opens, but this time, there’s a low rumble, like distant thunder. The sound gets louder, and the ground beneath us starts to shake. The two spiritual sides must be resisting each other.

  I think quickly. “Captain Cabrillo, if you can hear me, the other spirits you’re sensing have been invited here too!” I call out. “Please, don’t fight them.” I say the same thing to Eloi Oke, the gatekeeper of zandara.

  The rumbling grows louder for a second, there’s a sudden snapping sound, and then the air
goes still. I exhale in relief. From the strange thickness of the air—heavier than a typical zandara or andaba ceremony—I have the feeling that Captain Cabrillo and our zandara spirits are all still here.

  “Good job,” my father says.

  I take a deep breath and turn to the cloud. “Captain Cabrillo, commander of the Nuestra Mujer del Mar,” I say, “we reach out to you to ask for your protection and your intervention on our behalf.”

  “Evenyyyyyyy,” the voice hisses. I can see the lips of the foggy figure moving slowly. “We receive your súplica, your petición. On whose behalf do you make this plea?”

  “On behalf of both my sosyetes. Carrefour and Caouanne Island. Zandara and andaba.” I say the words as firmly as possible, and I hold my breath as the cloud swirls. Finally, Captain Cabrillo’s face becomes visible in the smoke, and I can see that he’s smiling.

  “Good girl,” he hisses. “Now, are you going to introduce me to your other spirits?”

  “Yes, sir.” I shakily turn back to Peregrine and Chloe. “Let’s go.”

  They begin to chant and dance, stomping on the ground. After a moment, Pascal, Caleb, Margaux, and Arelia join in too.

  I sway in time to their chanting, and after a moment, I call out, “Devil’s shoestrings and agrimony, I invoke your power. Spirits, we wish to keep evildoers away and to protect the town from those who wish us harm. Basil, I invoke your power. Spirits, we wish to create harmony among the groups from Carrefour and Caouanne Island. We are all in this together, and we have to trust each other. Help us to strive toward a common goal, and please reach across the spiritual divide to work hand in hand with our andaba brother, Captain Cabrillo, who also resides in the spirit world.”

  Peregrine’s and Chloe’s dancing has gotten more frenzied as they give themselves over to the spirits, which helps strengthen my requests. It’s the most I’ve ever directly asked for in the spirit world, and I know I’m on shaky ground. The protective charms should work, especially with so many sosyete members involved in this ceremony, but I’m not sure if they’ll honor my request to work with Cabrillo.