“Naughty bird!” she said crossly, and raising it to her mouth, bit it just behind the head.
I heard the soft crack of the neck bones and the little grunt of effort as she flung her head up, wrenching off the head of the hapless cock.
She clutched the gurgling, struggling trussed carcass tight against her bosom, crooning, “Now, then, now, then, it’s all right, darling,” as the blood spurted and sprayed into the teacup and all over her dress.
The crowd had cried out at first, but now was quite still, watching. The flute, too, had fallen silent, but the drum beat on, sounding much louder than before.
Margaret dropped the drained carcass carelessly to one side, where a boy darted out of the crowd to retrieve it. She brushed absently at the blood on her skirt, picking up the teacup with her red-swathed hand.
“Guests first,” she said politely. “Will you have one lump, Mrs. Malcolm, or two?”
I was fortunately saved from answering by Ishmael, who thrust a crude horn cup into my hands, indicating that I should drink from it. Considering the alternative, I raised it to my mouth without hesitation.
It was fresh-distilled rum, sharp and raw enough to strip the throat, and I choked, wheezing. The tang of some herb rose up the back of my throat and into my nose; something had been mixed with the liquor, or soaked in it. It was faintly tart, but not unpleasant.
Other cups like mine were making their way from hand to hand through the crowd. Ishmael made a sharp gesture, indicating that I should drink more. I obediently raised the cup to my lips, but let the fiery liquid lap against my mouth without swallowing. Whatever was happening here, I thought I might need such wits as I had.
Beside me, Miss Campbell was drinking from her teetotal cup with genteel sips. The feeling of expectancy among the crowd was rising; they were swaying now, and a woman had begun to sing, low and husky, her voice an offbeat counterpoint to the thump of the drum.
The shadow of Ishmael’s headdress fell across my face, and I looked up. He too was swaying slowly, back and forth. The collarless white shirt he wore was speckled over the shoulders with black dots of blood, and stuck to his breast with sweat. I thought suddenly that the raw crocodile’s head must weigh thirty pounds at least, a terrible weight to support; the muscles of his neck and shoulders were taut with effort.
He raised his hands and began to sing as well. I felt a shiver run down my back and coil at the base of my spine, where my tail would have been. With his face masked, the voice could have been Joe’s; deep and honeyed, with a power that commanded attention. If I closed my eyes, it was Joe, with the light glinting off his spectacles, and catching the gold tooth far back as he smiled.
Then I opened my eyes again, half-shocked to see instead the crocodile’s sinister yawn, and the fire gold-green in the cold, cruel eyes. My mouth was dry and there was a faint buzzing in my ears, weaving around the strong, sweet words.
He was getting attention, all right; the night by the fire was full of eyes, black-wide and shiny, and small moans and shouts marked the pauses in the song.
I closed my eyes and shook my head hard. I grabbed the edge of the wooden bench, clinging to its rough reality. I wasn’t drunk, I knew; whatever herb had been mixed with the rum was potent. I could feel it creeping snakelike through my blood, and kept my eyes tight closed, fighting its progress.
I couldn’t block my ears, though, or the sound of that voice, rising and falling.
I didn’t know how much time had passed. I came back to myself with a start, suddenly aware that the drum and the singing had stopped.
There was an absolute silence around the fire. I could hear the small rush of flame, and the rustle of cane leaves in the night wind; the quick darting scuttle of a rat in the palm-frond roof of the hut behind me.
The drug was still in my bloodstream, but the effects were dying; I could feel clarity coming back to my thoughts. Not so for the crowd; the eyes were fixed in a single, unblinking stare, like a wall of mirrors, and I thought suddenly of the voodoo legends of my time—of zombies and the houngans who made them. What had Geilie said? Every legend has one foot on the truth.
Ishmael spoke. He had taken off the crocodile’s head. It lay on the ground at our feet, eyes gone dark in the shadow.
“Ils sont arrivées,” Ishmael said quietly. They have come. He lifted his wet face, lined with exhaustion, and turned to the crowd.
“Who asks?”
As though in response, a young woman in a turban moved out of the crowd, still swaying, half-dazed, and sank down on the ground before the dais. She put her hand on one of the carved images, a crude wooden icon in the shape of a pregnant woman.
Her eyes looked up with hope, and while I didn’t recognize the words she spoke, it was clear what she asked.
“Aya, gado.” The voice spoke from beside me, but it wasn’t Margaret Campbell’s. It was the voice of an old woman, cracked and high, but confident, answering in the affirmative.
The young woman gasped with joy, and prostrated herself on the ground. Ishmael nudged her gently with a foot; she got up quickly and backed into the crowd, clutching the small image and bobbing her head, murmuring “Mana, mana,” over and over.
Next was a young man, by his face the brother of the first young woman, who squatted respectfully upon his haunches, touching his head before he spoke.
“Grandmère,” he began, in high, nasal French. Grandmother? I thought.
He asked his question looking shyly down at the ground. “Does the woman I love return my love?” His was the jasmine spray; he held it so that it brushed the top of a bare, dusty foot.
The woman beside me laughed, her ancient voice ironic but not unkind. “Certainement,” she answered. “She returns it; and that of three other men, besides. Find another; less generous, but more worthy.”
The young man retired, crestfallen, to be replaced by an older man. This one spoke in an African language I did not know, a tone of bitterness in his voice as he touched one of the clay figures.
“Setato hoye,” said—who? The voice had changed. The voice of a man this time, full-grown but not elderly, answering in the same language with an angry tone.
I stole a look to the side, and despite the heat of the fire, felt the chill ripple up my forearms. It was Margaret’s face no longer. The outlines were the same, but the eyes were bright, alert and focused on the petitioner, the mouth set in grim command, and the pale throat swelled like a frog’s with the effort of strong speech as whoever-it-was argued with the man.
“They are here,” Ishmael had said. “They,” indeed. He stood to one side, silent but watchful, and I saw his eyes rest on me for a second before coming back to Margaret. Or whatever had been Margaret.
“They.” One by one the people came forward, to kneel and ask. Some spoke in English, some French, or the slave patois, some in the African speech of their vanished homes. I couldn’t understand all that was said, but when the questions were in French or English, they were often prefaced by a respectful “Grandfather,” or “Grandmother,” once by “Aunt.”
Both the face and the voice of the oracle beside me changed, as “they” came to answer their call; male and female, mostly middle-aged or old, their shadows dancing on her face with the flicker of the fire.
Do you not sometimes imagine that you see things in the fire? The echo of her own small voice came back to me, thin and childish.
Listening, I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck, and understood for the first time what had brought Ishmael back to this place, risking recapture and renewed slavery. Not friendship, not love, nor any loyalty to his fellow slaves, but power.
What price is there for the power to tell the future? Any price, was the answer I saw, looking out at the rapt faces of the congregation. He had come back for Margaret.
It went on for some time. I didn’t know how long the drug would last, but I saw people here and there sink down to the ground, and nod to sleep; others melted silently back to the darkness of the h
uts, and after a time, we were almost alone. Only a few remained around the fire, all men.
They were all husky and confident, and from their attitude, accustomed to command some respect, among slaves at least. They had hung back, together as a group, watching the proceedings, until at last one, clearly the leader, stepped forward.
“They be done, mon,” he said to Ishmael, with a jerk of his head toward the sleeping forms around the fire. “Now you ask.”
Ishmael’s face showed nothing but a slight smile, yet he seemed suddenly nervous. Perhaps it was the closing in of the other men. There was nothing overtly menacing about them, but they seemed both serious and intent—not upon Margaret, for a change, but upon Ishmael.
At last he nodded, and turned to face Margaret. During the hiatus, her face had gone blank; no one at home.
“Bouassa,” he said to her. “Come you, Bouassa.”
I shrank involuntarily away, as far as I could get on the bench without falling into the fire. Whoever Bouassa was, he had come promptly.
“I be hearin’.” It was a voice as deep as Ishmael’s, and should have been as pleasant. It wasn’t. One of the men took an involuntary step backward.
Ishmael stood alone; the other men seemed to shrink away from him, as though he suffered some contamination.
“Tell me what I want to know, you Bouassa,” he said.
Margaret’s head tilted slightly, a light of amusement in the pale blue eyes.
“What you want to know?” the deep voice said, with mild scorn. “For why, mon? You be goin’, I tell you anything or not.”
The small smile on Ishmael’s face echoed that on Bouassa’s.
“You say true,” he said softly. “But these—” He jerked his head toward his companions, not taking his eyes from the face. “They be goin’ with me?”
“Might as well,” the deep voice said. It chuckled, rather unpleasantly. “The Maggot dies in three days. Won’t be nothin’ for them here. That all you be wantin’ with me?” Not waiting for an answer, Bouassa yawned widely, and a loud belch erupted from Margaret’s dainty mouth.
Her mouth closed, and her eyes resumed their vacant stare, but the men weren’t noticing. An excited chatter erupted from them, to be hushed by Ishmael, with a significant glance at me. Abruptly quiet, they moved away, still muttering, glancing at me as they went.
Ishmael closed his eyes as the last man left the clearing, and his shoulders sagged. I felt a trifle drained myself.
“What—” I began, and then stopped. Across the fire, a man had stepped from the shelter of the sugarcane. Jamie, tall as the cane itself, with the dying fire staining shirt and face as red as his hair.
He raised a finger to his lips, and I nodded. I gathered my feet cautiously beneath me, picking up my stained skirt in one hand. I could be up, past the fire, and into the cane with him before Ishmael could reach me. But Margaret?
I hesitated, turned to look at her, and saw that her face had come alive once again. It was lifted, eager, lips parted and shining eyes narrowed so that they seemed slightly slanted, as she stared across the fire.
“Daddy?” said Brianna’s voice beside me.
* * *
The hairs rippled softly erect on my forearms. It was Brianna’s voice, Brianna’s face, blue eyes dark and slanting with eagerness.
“Bree?” I whispered, and the face turned to me.
“Mama,” said my daughter’s voice, from the throat of the oracle.
“Brianna,” said Jamie, and she turned her head sharply to look at him.
“Daddy,” she said, with great certainty. “I knew it was you. I’ve been dreaming about you.”
Jamie’s face was white with shock. I saw his lips form the word “Jesus,” without sound, and his hand moved instinctively to cross himself.
“Don’t let Mama go alone,” said the voice with great certainty. “You go with her. I’ll keep you safe.”
There was no sound save the crackling of the fire. Ishmael stood transfixed, staring at the woman beside me. Then she spoke again, in Brianna’s soft, husky tones.
“I love you, Daddy. You too, Mama.” She leaned toward me, and I smelled the fresh blood. Then her lips touched mine, and I screamed.
I was not conscious of leaping to my feet, or of crossing the clearing. All I knew was that I was clinging to Jamie, my face buried in the cloth of his coat, shaking.
His heart was pounding under my cheek, and I thought that he was shaking, too. I felt his hand trace the sign of the cross upon my back, and his arm lock tight about my shoulders.
“It’s all right,” he said, and I could feel his ribs swell and brace with the effort of keeping his voice steady. “She’s gone.”
I didn’t want to look, but forced myself to turn my head toward the fire.
It was a peaceful scene. Margaret Campbell sat quietly on her bench, humming to herself, twiddling a long black tailfeather upon her knee. Ishmael stood behind her, one hand smoothing her hair in what looked like tenderness. He murmured something to her in a low, liquid tongue—a question—and she smiled placidly.
“Oh, I’m not a scrap tired!” she assured him, turning to look fondly up into the scarred face that hovered in the darkness above her. “Such a nice party, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, bébé,” he said gently. “But you rest now, eh?” He turned and clicked his tongue loudly. Suddenly two of the turbaned women materialized out of the night; they must have been waiting, just within call. Ishmael said something to them, and they came at once to tend Margaret, lifting her to her feet and leading her away between them, murmuring soft endearments in African and French.
Ishmael remained, watching us across the fire. He was still as one of Geilie’s idols, carved out of night.
“I did not come alone,” Jamie said. He gestured casually over his shoulder toward the cane field behind him, implying armed regiments.
“Oh, you be alone, mon,” Ishmael said, with a slight smile. “No matter. The loa speak to you; you be safe from me.” He glanced back and forth between us, appraising.
“Huh,” he said, in a tone of interest. “Never did hear a loa speak to buckra.” He shook his head then, dismissing the matter.
“You be going now,” he said, quietly but with considerable authority.
“Not yet.” Jamie’s arm dropped from my shoulder, and he straightened up beside me. “I have come for the boy Ian; I will not go without him.”
Ishmael’s brows went up, compressing the three vertical scars between them.
“Huh,” he said again. “You forget that boy; he be gone.”
“Gone where?” Jamie asked sharply.
The narrow head tilted to one side, as Ishmael looked him over carefully.
“Gone with the Maggot, mon,” he said. “And where she go, you don’ be going. That boy gone, mon,” he said again, with finality. “You leave too, you a wise man.” He paused, listening. A drum was talking, somewhere far away, the pulse of it little more than a disturbance of the night air.
“The rest be comin’ soon,” he remarked. “You safe from me, mon, not from them.”
“Who are the rest?” I asked. The terror of the encounter with the loa was ebbing, and I was able to talk once more, though my spine still rippled with fear of the dark cane field at my back.
“Maroons, I expect,” Jamie said. He raised a brow at Ishmael. “Or ye will be?”
The priest nodded, one formal bob of the head.
“That be true,” he said. “You hear Bouassa speak? His loa bless us, we go.” He gestured toward the huts and the dark hills behind them. “The drum callin’ them down from the hills, those strong enough to go.”
He turned away, the conversation obviously at an end.
“Wait!” Jamie said. “Tell us where she has gone—Mrs. Abernathy and the boy!”
Ishmael turned back, shoulders mantled in the crocodile’s blood.
“To Abandawe,” he said.
“And where’s that?” Jamie demanded impatientl
y. I put a hand on his arm.
“I know where it is,” I said, and Ishmael’s eyes widened in astonishment. “At least—I know it’s on Hispaniola. Lawrence told me. That was what Geilie wanted from him—to find out where it was.”
“What is it? A town, a village? Where?” I could feel Jamie’s arm tense under my hand, vibrating with the urgency to be gone.
“It’s a cave,” I said, feeling cold in spite of the balmy air and the nearness of the fire. “An old cave.”
“Abandawe a magic place,” Ishmael put in, deep voice soft, as though he feared to speak of it out loud. He looked at me hard, reassessing. “Clotilda say the Maggot take you to the room upstairs. You maybe be knowin’ what she do there?”
“A little.” My mouth felt dry. I remembered Geilie’s hands, soft and plump and white, laying out the gems in their patterns, talking lightly of blood.
As though he caught the echo of this thought, Ishmael took a sudden step toward me.
“I ask you, woman—you still bleed?”
Jamie jerked under my hand, but I squeezed his arm to be still.
“Yes,” I said. “Why? What has that to do with it?”
The oniseegun was plainly uneasy; he glanced from me back toward the huts. A stir was perceptible in the dark behind him; many bodies were moving to and fro, with a mutter of voices like the whisper of the cane fields. They were getting ready to go.
“A woman bleeds, she kill magic. You bleed, got your woman-power, the magic don’t work for you. It the old women do magic; witch someone, call the loas, make sick, make well.” He gave me a long, appraising look, and shook his head.
“You ain’ gone do the magic, what the Maggot do. That magic kill her, sure, but it kill you, too.” He gestured behind him, toward the empty bench. “You hear Bouassa speak? He say the Maggot die, three days. She taken the boy, he die. You go follow them, mon, you die, too, sure.”
He stared at Jamie, and raised his hands in front of him, wrists crossed as though bound together. “I tell you, amiki,” he said. He let his hands fall, jerking them apart, breaking the invisible bond. He turned abruptly, and vanished into the darkness, where the shuffle of feet was growing louder, punctuated with bumps as heavy objects were shifted.
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