“A bit out of your league for tomorrow’s trial? Mikah was first in our class in Candles and Oils. Makes sense you’d be looking for him. In fact, I was expecting it.”
I shook my head. “You’re College Samedi. You aren’t a fortune teller. You couldn’t have known…”
Dudley smiled. “It’s common sense, Mulledy. Nico always said you were a slouch. Relied on Isabelle for your power. Relied on her again to pass your tests.”
“He didn’t say that to you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Of course I do. When he was a student here, he thought I was possessed by Kalfu. It was his attempt to force an exorcism on me to begin with that started all of this shit.”
Dudley’s eyes filled with rage. “Do not speak lies about the dead!”
I shook my head. “No lies. It’s the truth. But he had been tricked like the rest of us. And he also saved us in the end. Don’t get me wrong, I never liked him. When he was a vampire he was an even bigger asshole than when he’d been human. But in the end, he just wanted to rest.”
“And you think competing in the Trials called in his name honors him? When you’re the one who abandoned him?”
“I was trying to give him what he wanted! Even though he hated me and I didn’t care at all for him. I helped him get his soul back. I made him human again.”
“And you let him die.”
“I didn’t know Kalfu had taken over Pauli at that point.”
Dudley shook his head. “You and Pauli have always been hooked at the hip. How didn’t you know?”
I stared at Dudley blankly. “After Mercy accused Pauli, he was taken away. Locked up somewhere. I had no idea what was happening.”
Dudley huffed. “Well either way, there are only two of us who were Nico’s friends. I couldn’t care less about becoming High Hougan. But I do intend to ensure that Nico’s memory is honored by the Trials.”
“So you want Sauron to win?”
“That would be acceptable. Though don’t mistake me. I intend to win no less. The winner will have the privilege to shatter the vessel and to see Nico’s spirit pass to the afterlife.”
“That’s what’s motivating you? We could bust into Erzulie’s office right now and bust that pot.”
Dudley shook his head. “You’re a crass one, Mulledy. And foolish. That would not be honorable.”
“So doing what’s honorable, that’s what motivates you.”
“In College Samedi, honor is the highest virtue. We trifle in matters of death. It is crucial we honor the traditions.”
“Nico didn’t see it that way,” I said.
Dudley shook his head. “He was barely a first-year student before he was taken away from us. He was like a baby viper.”
I rolled my eyes. “A viper?”
“Any venomous snake, really. The venom they produce is powerful and deadly. But they cannot control their bite. When they bite, they don’t hold back. They inject every drop of venom they have into their victim. Nico was like that—he was strong, but he was young. He hadn’t learned to honor or appreciate his art.”
“Because he wanted to be College Ogoun from the start. He settled for Samedi.”
“Be that as it may, he was one of us.”
“Well, I still need to go see Mikah.”
Dudley shook his head. “Why would I allow that?”
“It isn’t up to you. And you can’t stop me.”
“Perhaps not. But how would it look if you forced your way past me in our dorms? There are cameras everywhere, you know. All Erzulie would have to do to have grounds to expel you would be to examine the recording.”
“Cameras? Where?”
“They’re up there.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Dudley shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. I’m telling you the truth. Do you want to test it?”
I sighed. “Fine, I’ll leave.”
Dudley turned off his phone and disappeared in the darkness. I shook my head. How could he see in this place? After my eyes adjusted to the little bit of light his phone gave us, the room seemed even darker now.
“What the hell,” I said out loud. “I’ve already been caught.” I pulled out my phone and turned on my light. I couldn’t see it before, since Dudley had kept the light shining squarely on his face, like a dad trying to scare his children with a flashlight under his chin. Muahaha! But this place was a regular pig sty. And Dudley was nowhere to be found.
How did he disappear so quickly?
“No clue,” I replied.
Make a mad dash for Mikah’s room?
I chuckled. “For some reason I suspect Dudley sees us, even if we can’t see him. Besides, I told him I’d go. I’m not going to go back on my word.”
How are we going to handle this trial without his help?
“Plan B,” I said.
Isabelle giggled with excitement. The library!
“No one should be so happy about going to a library.”
You don’t understand. When I grew up it was illegal for us to read. Going to a library… no matter how long I’m removed from that world, it still feels so rebellious to me!
I chuckled as I closed the door to the second-year common room and headed down the hall. “I guess I can see why you might feel that way. Isabelle—the notorious book reader of New Orleans!”
Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta’!
“I can’t believe you just said that.”
Chapter Ten
The Academy Library was probably the only thing Erzulie hadn’t updated when she took over. Though, even if she had, I doubt she would have given the library the kinds of updates it needed. There’s no internet access in Vilokan, but at least a computerized catalogue would be helpful. I’d learned the Dewey Decimal System and how card catalogues worked when I was in school. It was one of those obligatory things that grown-ups thought we’d need to learn, like doing math without calculators, or cursive, just because they’d had to learn it and they couldn’t imagine a world where people graduated school without such essential knowledge.
I might be the only one from my elementary school class who now had any reason at all to put that knowledge to use. I didn’t remember much, but I was able to recall enough that I could find where the books I needed were filed. You’d think a library at a Voodoo Academy would be filled with tomes on the Arts. In truth, most of the books here were like books you would have found at any library in the 1800s. There was one section, though, that had books specifically devoted to the practice of Voodoo.
Libraries are creepy places. Especially at night. When you’re alone. I located the section where the books on Voodoo were supposed to be. It was really quite impressive that they’d managed to print books down here at all. But the Academy had been formed originally as a place where, under the protection of Voodoo, slaves could get a basic education. It wasn’t originally a school primarily devoted to learning Voodoo itself. Thus, there were books here spanning a variety of subjects. Most of them were quite dated and obsolete, but it was an impressive collection given the circumstances under which this place was originally constructed. I half imagined slaves—people Isabelle could have known—walking into this now neglected room with wide-eyed wonder. Isabelle was right. There was something a little bit gangsta’, a little bit rebellious, about this place.
Most of the books were worn, pages missing and the bindings broken. The books dealing with subjects specifically related to Voodoo were even worse. And I doubted they’d be selling new editions on Amazon anytime soon. In Catholic school we had our sacred texts—our Bibles, the Catechism. Mormons have the Book of Mormon. Muslims have the Quran. Jewish people have the Torah and rabbinic writings. Even witches have grimoires. But in the world of Voodoo, especially since it was mostly practiced by a people who were struggling and had to learn to read and write in secret, there were very few books. What I found was a single shelf of volumes specifically devoted to Voodoo. Most of the books
looked as though they’d been so well used that the pages would fall from the spine if I attempted to open them. But there was one book that stood out from the rest.
Death Rites by Marie Laveau.
Unlike the other books on the shelf, this one was in pristine condition. It was old—at least as old as the rest—but it looked as though no one had ever read it.
“How strange,” I said as I reached up to grab the book from the shelf. I opened it, and the spine snapped and popped like a hardcover almost always does the first few times it’s opened.
It’s as if it has barely been read…
“As if it was placed here just so we could find it…” I whispered.
Why are you whispering? There’s no one here.
“Because we’re in a library, duh. If we talk out loud, the library gods will smite us with a fury.”
Chapter Eleven
Death rites… that’s what Erzulie called it. The whole thing involving Nico’s soul.
“That’s right,” I said as I fingered through the book. The pages were thin and crisp. Hand-drawn sketches filled them. In fact, the book was more pictures than words. But the words that were there, scribbled in the margins, were flourished and difficult to read. There’s something about handwriting that communicates more than typed text. I could sense the care, but also the fury, with which the words were written. It was as though Marie Laveau wrote this under duress, with urgency. But when did she write it? It wasn’t anytime recently—this book had been around somewhere, somehow undiscovered and unopened, for decades, maybe a century or longer. And now I was given a chance to read it.
What’s that? Isabelle asked.
“What’s what?”
The right margin, right page. Focus on it for a second so I can read it.
I couldn’t help but read aloud, even though I knew Isabelle was reading it herself. “Might these words be reserved for she who is two and the two who be one.”
I scrunched my brow.
She’s talking about us. Don’t you think?
I shrugged. “Maybe. I mean it could be a coincidence. And I’m pretty sure this was written before I was born.”
Still, look at the drawing below it. That’s the locket…
“Fuck me sideways,” I blurted out. That was how Isabelle’s soul had been transferred into me. Isabelle’s Caplata sister, Messalina, had come back from the dead and intended to bring her back to life, too. Only she needed a host, and I guess she thought it would be poetic justice to use the host of her former master’s great-great-granddaughter. Shit went south on her and Messalina never completed the spell, leaving Isabelle and me soul-fused. But it was a locket—a locket that looked exactly like the one Marie Laveau had drawn—that had held Isabelle’s soul, that passed her soul on to me once I put it on. I hadn’t worn the locket since. I still had it back at the plantation, stuck in a drawer underneath a bunch of socks. I didn’t look at it often—it still gave me the heebie-jeebies. But I’d recognize it anywhere. It was unique—a one-of-a-kind piece. That it should be drawn in this book so perfectly, so exactly… that couldn’t be a coincidence.
I think Marie Laveau knew about us…
Shivers coursed down my spine. “I don’t get how this is possible.”
She’s powerful, Annabelle. Very powerful. And it is not unheard of for an accomplished Mambo to be skilled in divination.
I flipped another page.
“Check this shit out,” I said as I pointed at what looked like a candle, engraved with a veve.
It’s a spell… something she foresaw we would use in the first trial.
“I think you might be right,” I said. I pulled out a chair and set the book down on the table, sending a small cloud of dust into the air that had collected on the surface. Clearly, it had been a while since anyone at the Academy had used the library at all.
I stared at the veve.
“It looks familiar.”
That’s because it’s Erzulie’s veve. She wants us to summon the headmistress in the middle of the trial…
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t understand. How would that—”
Unless it’s not her that you’d evoke, but her aspect.
“She wants us to target Tressa. Not exactly low-hanging fruit.”
There aren’t any low-hanging fruit in this competition. Aside from us, Sauron is the only first-year in the competition, and she’s not going to go quietly.
“We still have to dress the candle. I think she’s explaining the process here, just below the picture, but I can’t make out the letters.”
I learned how to read on stuff like this. Not at your family’s plantation, but at the next one we went to. The next master we had, Asburry Campbell. He had a library with books like this all over. Taught me to read and then gave me full access. If he’d ever been caught teaching me to read, God knows what would’ve happened.
“I never knew that. So you can read it?”
I think so… but the ink is blotted. I’m pretty sure it’s a combination of oils that we’re supposed to use to dress the candle. I think it says honeysuckle, patchouli, and rose, with a dash of cinnamon.
“And I suppose all these ingredients will be available in the trial?”
I don’t know. Maybe. But probably not. If we can find Mikah in the morning, before the trial starts, he should be able to get us anything we need.
“Brilliant,” I declared. “I just wish I had some kind of clue what this spell would do. Did you see anything in the book that I missed that might explain it?”
Not really…
I nodded. Actually, for some reason, Marie Laveau had drawn several pictures of a man—muscular and posed naked like some kind of Greek god. Images of this man, based on a few flips through the text, seemed scattered throughout. Probably someone she loved at the time. This book felt less like something that had been published and more like a journal of sorts, the diary of a Mambo who was so far beyond any of her contemporaries that the only way she could advance further was through experimentation, trial and error. Still, almost everything seemed to be written in riddles. If only I knew some way to track her down. The Voodoo queen was something of an enigma. She had no palace. No headquarters. No one seemed to know where she lived. She appeared from time to time when issues at hand demanded her attention. Somehow she just knew she was needed and would show up. But so far as I knew, or anyone else for that matter, there was no way to petition her. If I could ask her about this book, what it all meant, she could tell me. But I suspected she’d left this book for me to find. She had no intention of translating her riddles—she wanted me, and Isabelle, to sort them out.
Well, I guess we have something to try tomorrow at least. Maybe the rest of this will make more sense when we move on to the next trail.
I yawned. “You’re probably right. Trying to read this handwriting, much less sort out what it means, is exhausting.”
I stood up, tucked the book under my arm, and headed down the hall toward the elevator that led to the first-year dorms.
The elevator dinged. The doors opened.
And Mikah stood there, staring back at me. I’d never been so happy to see someone in cargo pants and an early-nineties button-down silk shirt in my life.
Isabelle screeched in my head out of excitement.
“Mikah! Thank God!”
“Sorry about Dudley. I was asleep. But Ellie heard it all.”
“Ellie?” I cocked my head sideways.
“She had just moved in to her apartment.”
My eyes widened. “That’s right. Erzulie advanced her to second year. I just didn’t realize she’d moved out so quickly.”
Mikah shrugged. “Truth be told I was going to come find you tonight anyway. Been looking for you for hours.”
“I’ve been in the library,” I said as I showed him the book I’d found.
“Death Rites? How creepy.”
“You think that’s creepy? Check this out.” I opened the book to the relevant page that
seemed to speak about Isabelle and me.
Mikah pressed his fingers to his lips. “I can’t believe it… I wonder if…”
“You wonder what?”
“No one ever knew for sure what Marie Laveau did with Dumballah’s blessing after she won the Trials. But thereafter she seemed to possess a wisdom, an instinct and foreknowledge, that gave her the ability to lead Vilokan out of slavery and prepare its people for the challenges of the next century.”
“Foreknowledge? Like crystal-ball type shit?”
Mikah nodded. “After the end of slavery, many thought Vilokan itself had outlived its purpose. But she saw it all. The lynchings. Jim Crow. She predicted it all.”
“She could have guessed most of those things.”
“I agree. But the specificity of what she predicted… Those closest to her said she had a special quill. When she wrote with it, her eyes would turn black. She’d fall into a trance. When she came to, she’d see what she’d written and then spend days, sometimes weeks, alone poring over it, trying to discern the meaning. Most believe it was this quill that gave her insight into the future.”
“And you think she might have written this with her magic pen?”
“Can I see it?”
I handed Mikah the book.
“The title is curious,” Mikah said, tracing the letters with his finger. He opened the book and carefully skimmed the pages. “This man here, the one drawn. Do you know who that is?”
I shook my head. “No clue. Isabelle doesn’t know either. Didn’t even see a face in most of them. It’s like his face is turned away.”
Mikah nodded and flipped a few more pages. “Or his long hair is covering his face. I can’t tell either. Whoever it is must be important.”
“Flip back two pages. The page that I showed you before.”
Mikah bit his lip. “It has to be you she’s speaking of. To think she predicted this so long ago.”
“And the candle drawn below. I think she’s showing me what I’m supposed to do in the first trial.”
Mikah squinted. “The veve of Erzulie? And these oils… This is a love ritual. I’m not sure how…”
Death Rites Page 6