I brushed my hair until it gleamed, even applied a little makeup. And as I stared in the mirror, I once again thought I must be staring at a stranger. My hair glowed like a golden halo around my head, and the jade color of my dress made my eyes glitter like green gems. I hardly recognized myself. I had changed, so much so that my thoughts, as well as my appearance, seemed unfamiliar to me.
I rode down the mountain with Rachel again that morning, then used her car to drive into Port Royale. I browsed for a while in the shops, made a few purchases and a few inquiries about where I might find Mama Vinnia’s house. Even though I didn’t know her last name, many of the shop owners knew immediately who I was talking about. The directions, however, all varied to some extent, but I got a general idea of where I was going.
I had to walk and realized almost immediately the sandals had been a mistake. They kept filling up with dirt and pebbles, slowing my progress. It was hot outside, too. The tropical sun beat down on my bare shoulders until I could feel my skin tingling in protest.
But I kept walking. I wouldn’t give up.
Mama Vinnia’s house was located in an area of Port Royale that was a labyrinth of narrow streets crowded with rundown, wooden shacks. The air was filled with the sounds of squalor—crying babies, barking dogs and flapping laundry on sagging clotheslines. The sea seemed a million miles away here. The poverty appalled me, and brought to mind the grandeur of the St. Pierre. It was a disquieting image.
A grubby little boy playing in the dirt gave me the final directions. He pointed one grimy finger to the tumbledown shack at the end of the street. I crossed the road and pushed open the rickety wooden gate.
No one answered when I knocked, but the door opened with a squeak.
“Hello? Anyone home?”
Silence. Then, through the thin walls of the house, I heard Mama Vinnia calling to me. “Come in, child. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Shades of my dream, I thought with a grimace.
The tiny room I entered was shabby, but neat as a pin. She called to me again, and I let her voice guide me down a tiny hallway, through a kitchen that smelled of basil and peppercorns, to a windowless room in the back of the house.
The room was lit with candles. Mama Vinnia sat on the floor before a low, wooden table as she watched me enter. Crude shelves displayed jars and bottles of colored liquids that sparkled like a pirate’s jewels in the candlelight. Herbs and spices hung from the bare rafters, and on another shelf, a pile of bones gathered dust.
I shivered, my gaze going back to Mama Vinnia. On the wall behind her, a crude, wooden crucifix hung.
“Have you come for a coup poudre?” she asked in her lyrical voice. “A coup l’aire?”
“I don’t even know what that is,” I admitted. “But in a way, that’s exactly why I’m here.”
She motioned with one hand toward the floor, and I sat down on the opposite side of the table from her.
“I need your help,” I said, curling my legs behind me. “I need to know what’s happening to me.”
She looked down at the table in front of her and began pouring powders from various jars into a shallow, porcelain dish, then touched it with a match. The powders exploded in flame. The sharp, acrid smell of sulfur permeated the tiny room. My hand went automatically to cover my nose and mouth.
“Danger,” she said. “I see danger and blood and fire.”
“You see that in the flame?” I asked with skepticism.
“I see that in your eyes,” she said. “The eyes are a mirror to your soul.”
“And you see danger for me?”
She didn’t say anything, merely waved her hand over the fire. The flame turned from amber to bloodred. I stared at it in shock, then lifted my gaze to hers.
“Can you look into my eyes and tell me what’s happening to me?” I asked, almost desperately. “Why am I having such strange dreams?”
The black eyes glistened. “The dreams tell you what you need to know. Listen to them.”
“But they make no sense! And I…I see things, even when I’m awake. At least, I think I’m awake. Sometimes I’m not even sure anymore. Do you know what’s wrong with me?”
“Someone has put a spell on you, child.”
“A spell? But how—”
“Many ways. Something deeply personal to you can be used. A lock of hair. A drop of blood. A likeness, such as a photograph, is especially powerful. Powders can be put in your drinks, in your food, even blown into your face while you sleep.”
That notion was particularly chilling. “What about a cut?” I asked fearfully. “I cut my foot on a sliver of glass last night, and then I had the oddest dream. It seemed so real.”
“Was the glass on the threshold of a door?”
My heart slammed against my chest. I think at that moment, I almost began to believe her. “How did you know? How could you possibly know that?”
“Ground glass mixed with powder and sprinkled on the threshold of a door in the shape of a cross will bring ill fortune to whoever walks through the door first. The glass pricks the skin, and the powder spell slips inside.”
I listened to her with growing horror. “You mean you think someone is drugging me? But I had the dreams even before I came here.”
“A bokor with enough power can work the magic on someone thousands of miles away.”
“That’s ridiculous. Voodoo is a mind game, nothing more.”
“Then why are you here?”
Good question. I stared helplessly at her candle-lit face “I don’t know. I’m seeing things. Feeling things I can’t explain. I’m…not sure of anything anymore.”
“Confusion is a powerful weapon of the bokor’s. So is fear. Are you wearing the gris-gris? Do you keep it under your bed at night?”
“No. In fact, I looked for it this morning. I wanted to return it to you, but I couldn’t find it. Someone must have thrown it away.”
“Someone…in that house,” she murmured obscurely.
“Look, you told me yesterday my father is alive. How do you know?”
“Because it’s not yet time for him to die,” she said, so calmly that my skin crawled.
“What do you mean?”
“Seven days must pass before he can die. On the Seventh Night, the bokor can capture his soul, add it to his power. Until then, your father lives in the White Darkness. His spirit roams the night, searching for peace, begging for help.”
“You mean—” Dear God, the figure in the white robe. But it couldn’t be. What she said made no sense at all. Seven days? The Seventh Night? This was the fourth day of his disappearance. Three more days…
“Your father’s enemy is powerful, my child, and growing stronger every day. You must find your father before the Seventh Night.”
I felt hot and cold, shivering all over. I didn’t want to believe, couldn’t believe her, but suddenly I had never been more frightened. “Who is it?” I whispered. “Who is my father’s enemy? You must know.”
“I suspect,” she said, taking a vial of blue powder and pouring it into the dish. The tiny blaze erupted again. The cobalt flames licked at her hand, but she didn’t flinch. “Someone close to you night and day. Someone who knows your weaknesses and will use them against you. Guard yourself well, child. If my suspicions are true, only God can help us. The loa have already chosen.”
* * *
I staggered into the sunlight, reeling from Vinnia’s strange presage.
“Someone close to you night and day. Someone who knows your weaknesses and will use them against you.”
Who knew better my greatest weakness than the person who was its source? Reid St. Pierre.
Who would profit most from my father’s disappearance? Reid.
Who had been with me each time, just before I had the dreams?
Reid. Always Reid.
My hands flew to my face, momentarily blocking the light. When I closed my eyes, I could see only darkness, a hopeless void and a foolish woman’s shattered dream
s.
* * *
I don’t know how long I’d been wandering around in that impossible maze of streets when I finally realized I was lost. I had no idea how to get back to the main street and Rachel’s car. As I glanced around me now, I began to grow uneasy. The tumbledown shacks had been replaced by seedy bars and restaurants, their interiors dark and menacing, and the gutters of the street were strewn with trash and broken bottles. The smell of rotting fish spoiled the air.
Up and down the street, men stood in the doorways or squatted on the cracked sidewalks, leaning back against the peeling facades of the buildings. Their dark eyes followed my every move. I began to feel panicky.
A woman stood in a doorway across the street. I started to cross the pavement toward her, but the sound of a car engine stopped me. A cab? Could I be that lucky?
But as I watched the car approach, panic mushroomed inside me. This was no dilapidated island taxi. In the morning sunlight, the black Jaguar looked as dangerous, as sleek and powerful as the cat it was named for.
The car pulled to the curb beside me, and the tinted window lowered. Beneath the gleaming hood, the engine throbbed and hummed. Behind the wheel, Reid glared at me.
“Need a ride?”
“Someone close to you night and day. Someone who knows your weaknesses and will use them against you.”
My heart started to pound. The sunlight was blinding. I closed my eyes for one brief second against the glare. “I…” Oh, God, did I want to ride with him? Did I dare? Did I want to be anywhere near him after what Mama Vinnia had just told me? After the dream I’d had last night?
“The dreams tell you what you need to know. Listen to them.”
But how could I believe anything so farfetched? So irrational? This was the twentieth century! Nothing she’d said had made any sense, and yet, how else could I explain all the things that had happened to me since coming to Columbé? How could I explain the changes inside me, the way I felt about Reid?
“Someone has put a spell on you, child.”
“Get in the car, Christine,” Reid commanded, his voice snapping me out of my reverie. The imperious tone immediately raised my defenses.
Good.
Something needed to.
“I’m perfectly capable of walking back to town,” I said.
One dark brow rose. “Oh, really? And which direction is it in?”
I hesitated, then said, “That way,” as I pointed vaguely toward the east.
“Wrong. Just get in the car.”
Any amusement he might have had earlier over the situation had long since vanished. I could see the annoyance in his eyes, in the rigid set of his mouth. I took one last look at the seedy street, the darkened doorways, the unfriendly eyes…and then I did as Reid told me.
I climbed in, slammed the door and settled back against the leather upholstery, my eyes glued to the street in front of me.
Reid gunned the engine, shifted into first, and then, surprisingly enough, slowly ambled down the street. The eyes were still on us, but the tinted windows gave me a false sense of anonymity.
“Just what the hell did you think you were doing, wandering around in a neighborhood like that?” Reid finally asked, his tone more exasperated than angry.
I shrugged. “I made a wrong turn,” I confessed. “But it is broad daylight. I would have eventually found my way home.”
“I wonder,” he murmured, and when I glanced at him, he was scowling at the road.
“How did you happen to find me, anyway? What were you doing in that neighborhood?” An idea struck me, and my eyes narrowed on him. “You weren’t following me, were you?”
He gave me an aggravated glance. “Someone obviously needs to. I saw Rachel’s car in town, and when I asked around, several of the shopkeepers told me you’d been asking about Vinnia. So I came to find you…” His voice trailed off, but the words left unspoken clung to the air. So I came to find you…before it was too late.
I was almost sure now that he’d been trying to find me before I saw Mama Vinnia.
But why?
“Christine, I’d like to give you a bit of warning about Vinnia.”
He had the most uncanny way of picking up my thoughts. It was downright frightening. “What is it?”
“Vinnia, or Mama Vinnia, as she likes to be called, is not exactly on the best of terms with the St. Pierres. She may try to fill your head with all sorts of nonsense, but consider the source. She used to work for us at the house a long time ago, but when Christopher brought in Mrs. DuPrae, Vinnia caused all kinds of trouble. She kept the rest of the staff in a state of turmoil, trying to turn them against Mrs. DuPrae with all sorts of wild stories and accusations that were utterly ridiculous. Mrs. DuPrae never said a word about it, not even when Vinnia began working on Rachel. But Christopher finally got fed up and dismissed Vinnia. That was another bone of contention between he and Angelique. She adored Mama Vinnia.”
“Do they still see each other?” I asked, as a cold blanket of dread settled over me.
“Not that I know of. At any rate, I don’t think you should see her anymore.”
“You said that about Lawrence Crawford. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to keep me from the people who seem most interested in helping me find my father.”
Reid shot me an exasperated look. “Think what you want, Christine. But let me handle this. I don’t like the idea of you being alone with that old woman.”
“You think she holds a grudge against me because my father fired her?”
His tone was grim. “You never know. As I’ve said before, old grudges die hard.”
Could I believe him? What he said made so much more sense than what Mama Vinnia had told me, and yet I couldn’t help thinking that there were things, important things, that neither of them had told me. Was there no one on the island I could trust?
“True believers are everywhere.”
“Christine.” Reid’s voice was softer now, like liquid silk, pouring over me, drowning me, dissolving my doubts. “I just want you to be careful. Walking the streets in a neighborhood like this can be dangerous, even in broad daylight. Next time, at least tell me where you’re going.”
“I’m not a child, Reid. You can’t expect me to account my every move to you.” I tried to whip up a little anger to combat that subtle coercion, but deep down, I think I welcomed his concern, real or not. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had worried about me, cared about what I did.
“I’ve never thought of you as a child, Christine.”
In the restricting confines of the car, his presence, as always, was overwhelming, awesome. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything but how black his hair seemed this morning. Blue-black with just the barest hint of a wave. In profile, his lashes looked even longer and thicker, hooding the blue eyes so that he seemed brooding and intense.
I’d never known a man as handsome as Reid, but his looks were not his only breathtaking feature. He had a kind of basic charisma that sent my pulse racing with awareness.
He sensed my eyes on him and turned, giving me a shielded look that left me wondering. What was he thinking? What did he see when he looked at me?
Tracking my exact thoughts yet again, his gaze swept over me, warming me with his brief scrutiny. He turned his attention back to the road, but not before I’d seen a little enigmatic flare of light in his eyes.
* * *
“Has anyone told you about the ball?”
I glanced up to catch Reid’s gaze as we sat across the table from one another at a little outdoor café not far from where I’d left Rachel’s car. It was nearly noon, and Reid had suggested lunch before I made my next stop—the police station.
I might even have thought it a delaying tactic on his part, had I not been enjoying his company so much.
“Like a dance you mean?” I asked.
He grinned. “The granddaddy of all dances. It’s a St. Pierre tradition, started by Claude St. Pierre when he founded
the hotel over fifty years ago. The hotel hosts the charity gala every year, and people from all over the globe jet in for the occasion. It’s quite a spectacle.”
“When is it?”
“Tomorrow night.
I looked at him in astonishment. “Tomorrow night? But don’t you think it’s a little…insensitive to be having a celebration when my father is still missing? We don’t even know what might have happened to him.”
“Exactly. We don’t know. He’s probably perfectly fine, for all we know, off somewhere enjoying his solitude.” Reid deliberately stirred sugar into his tea, avoiding my stare. “At any rate, this event has been planned—and financed—months in advance. The St. Pierre is filled with guests who have come here specifically for the ball. It would be very bad business to let them down.”
How could he be so cool? So calculating? And how could I still find him so alarmingly attractive?
Because you’re crazy, a little voice told me.
So mote it be, I answered back, borrowing a line from Mama Vinnia.
“The reason I brought it up,” Reid continued, “is because I think you should plan to attend.”
My fork paused in midair. “Oh, I couldn’t. Not under the circumstances.” Besides, I’d never been to a ball. I hadn’t even been allowed to attend my senior prom. I didn’t know how to dance. I didn’t know how to dress or act or…
“We could present a united front, you see. Dispel some of the rumors that Christopher’s absence is bound to create. What do you say, Christine? I’d consider it a personal favor.”
An image had suddenly popped into my head and wouldn’t go away. Moonlight and flowers and me, dancing with Reid….
“Will you come?” he asked, in a voice that sent shivers of anticipation down my bare arms.
“I’ll think about it,” I hedged.
“Danger,” Mama Vinnia had said. “I see danger and blood and fire.”
But even with her warning ringing in my ears, I knew that nothing would keep me away from that ball.
CHAPTER TEN
The Fourth Night
When I sat down to dinner with the family that night, all I could think about was my conversation with Mama Vinnia. Reid was working late, and as soon as he’d left me after lunch, all of the old mambo’s dire predictions had descended on my shoulders once again.
The Seventh Night Page 13