by Ariella Moon
Except it hadn't worked out that way.
"We should go someplace else for breakfast." Mamá rubbed her nose as she glanced about the parking lot. "Probably everyone knows you here, right? We don't want some nosy jerk calling the school and ratting on you for skipping."
"Okay. As long as I am back by second period so I don't miss Math."
Papá ruffled my hair. "Our daughter the brain. What are you now? A sixth-grader?"
"Seventh."
Before I knew it, I was in the back seat of their patched-up hatchback and Lamorinda disappeared in the rearview mirror. My skin grafts started itching. Papá maneuvered the car onto the freeway. We passed the neighboring town, then the one after it. Worry clenched my stomach. "Don't forget I have to get back to school."
Papá's fingers tightened on the steering wheel, bleaching his knuckles to the color of garbanzo beans. Mamá leaned forward in the front seat and stared out the windshield. "Sure, Sophia Maria. Don't worry. You always worried too much. Even as a toddler."
Her words hit me like a slap. "Where are we going?"
Mamá glanced over her shoulder. "To a little pancake place we heard about." She returned her gaze to the road ahead.
Too late, I realized we had taken the junction toward Livermore and Tracy. No way would we make it back before lunch. I leaned forward and gripped the back of Mamá's seat. "Please take me back. I've changed my mind."
"Relax, Sophia. We're just going out for breakfast." Papá checked the car mirrors. His right shoulder twitched the way it always did before a drug deal went down.
No, things hadn't gone as I had planned.
After three days of sorting out my thoughts on the footbridge, I had strode back into Mam'zelle's house and asked her to teach me magic.
Mam'zelle's cornrows had been wrapped up in a bright orange-and-purple scarf. It added nearly a foot to her petite height. She had crossed her arms over her chest.
"Why do you want to learn voodoo?"
"So I can have some control over my life." Maybe my parents had intended to stay clean. Find legal employment. Become model parents. Maybe they'd had no idea their former meth distributor, a man with pitted skin and hair like an oil slick, would be sitting in the red corner booth of the pancake house.
Maybe the path to Hell is lined with lies, good intentions, and lousy luck.
"Not to control ot'ers?" Mam'zelle had asked. "Or seek revenge?"
"For protection." I held her gaze for a second, then stared down at the candle wax on the scuffed floorboards.
Mam'zelle wheezed, bringing me back to the present. Her bony chest rose, then fell. "You got cords as well?"
I nodded. My stomach grew queasy at the thought of binding and controlling someone through magic. It reeked of bad karma, even if it was intended to prevent someone from causing harm.
"Good. Remember, in t'eir current state the poppets could represent anyone. For the magic to work on your parents or t'eir boss—"
"I'll need to add their DNA." I said. "Strands of their hair, fingernail clippings, drops of their blood—"
"Or dust from their footprints," Mam'zelle added. "Or their signature."
"Yes, ma'am. And invoke the Hermetic Law of Similarity, where an object can embody the characteristics of another object or being."
"You've been a good student." Mam'zelle's eyes grew watery. "I've sent for Breaux. He'll guide you out after I'm gone."
My heart dipped, then took flight like mosquitoes on the water. "Breaux is coming here? How did you—?"
Mam'zelle's eyelids fluttered. "Child, do you t'ink I need a phone or a computer to contact my grandson?"
"No, ma'am." You probably got inside his head and kept your face in front of his third eye until he had no choice but to—
Mam'zelle chuckled, a surprising sound like a baby cheetah chirping. "T'at's exactly what I did. I sent him a message I knew he wouldn't refuse." Her brow furrowed and her gaze swung to the front door. "I should have sent for him sooner. He being all t’e way in California now."
A familiar pang stabbed my chest. None of us had expected Breaux to leave Louisiana for college.
Mam'zelle's chest rose and fell with a sigh. "You could do what Breaux did. Win a heap of scholarships and land a job on campus."
Yeah, right. I turned away and blinked back the tears. A former foster girl with a seventh grade education and parents who were ex-felons would never be offered a scholarship. How could she imply such a thing?
When I faced Mam'zelle again, pride flared in her eyes. "Breaux has shining potential. Did you know he decided after Hurricane Isaac to become a lawyer and politician? You tell him not to squander his good luck and brains."
"I'll tell him."
"Or his hard-earned money. He's too generous. A virtue can become a fault, you know."
"Yes, ma'am." Guilt knifed me. Someone must have paid for the textbooks Breaux had given me. What had he been thinking? And what about now? Would Breaux's college be on winter break already? He shouldn't walk away from a new job. Crap, Breaux. Don't let my problem mess you up.
Mam'zelle pinched my sweater cuff. I had dressed in white to keep Death away. A wild look entered her eyes and her voice grew urgent. "T'e gators will warn you if trouble is coming. When you hear t'em, get out as quickly as you can, Breaux or no Breaux."
"I will." Gators in winter? Won't they be dormant and hiding in the mud to stay warm? Maybe the wasting disease played tricks on Mam'zelle's brain. Or maybe the gators would be bewitched, summoned by one of her chanting spells.
I must remember everything she taught me. I pulled back and glanced at the nkondi on the nightstand. When the hex illness had crept in on trickster paws, Mam'zelle had driven a nail into the spirit doll and burned a reversing candle. "Send this dread disease back to its spell caster!"
"Who do you think hexed you?" I implored. "My parents? Maybe they traced me here." I clawed at the scarf around my neck.
"I don't think t'ey have tracked you this far. Your ancestors in Mexico protect you."
"But my parents and I share the same ancestors. What if they petitioned them first?"
"For t'em, only the shadow side would have come forth. You got Right and Light."
"Great. They get the guy who made human sacrifices atop the pyramid."
Mam'zelle choked on a cough. Stop pressing her. Your fear is making her worse. I had to be certain of one last thing. "Say my parents did somehow obtain magic or appeal to our ancestors. They would have hexed me, not you. Right?"
Mam'zelle didn't answer. Her ears seemed pricked to a sound or presence outside the stilt house. "She's coming."
I glanced at the door. "Who is coming?"
"Oya-Yansa, Queen of the Winds of Change." Mam'zelle began to sing in a reedy voice. Napoleonic French and African dialects flowed from her mouth. I snatched the African bell from the nightstand and placed it in her feeble hand. She managed a single ring, then resumed singing.
Three songs for every spirit.
Fear prickled my skin. Thud, thud, thud, thud… Dozens of dragonflies hurled themselves against the windows. The painted chicken feet swayed on their strings. My scarf flew off my neck and landed on the rattan chair in the sitting room. I forced back the scream rising in my throat. Thud, thud, thud, thud…The window over the kitchen sink splintered. Mam'zelle writhed on the bed, involuntarily flipping onto her stomach. Her legs, rigid and kicking, displaced the white sheet. I quickly covered her and flicked perfume from the nightstand onto the bedcover. The framed image of Saint Theresa fell from the altar and clattered onto the floor. The glass shattered, tearing the halo around the saint's head. Every candle in the hut extinguished, plunging the home into semidarkness. Smoke seared my nostrils then the back of my throat. The door banged shut. The wind stopped. The dragonflies ceased their assault.
My hands trembled as I searched for a match. My other senses heightened. The hut stopped creaking. The bayou ceased flowing. My fingers closed around the matches. As I scratched a flam
e to life, I flashed on the noisome combination of red phosphorous, acetone, and ammonia. The memory transported me back to the desert, to the undeveloped cul-de-sac, and the toxic smoke rising behind my parents' pink-and-white camper.
The mandrake pouch for prosperity and protection tumbled from its cord and plummeted to the floor. My body jerked.
"Mam'zelle?" Terror cycled through me. The match scorched my finger. I blew out the flame, sank to the bed, and clutched her lifeless hand. My eyes burned from unspent tears. No phone. No Internet. No way to contact the police about a dead body or vengeful drug dealers. No way to tell Ainslie how sorry I am I didn't listen to her. No way to tell anyone how Mam'zelle had rescued me from my parents.
And now — may the Merciful Mother help me — she was dead.
Chapter Two
A warning Mam’zelle had once given me shifted to the front burner of my brain as her spirit rose from her body.
"Never show affinity for a spirit lest it slips into you slick as melted butter on shrimp. It'll seep right into one your vortexes."
"Vortexes?" I had asked, pressing my knees together.
"Chakras, child." Mam'zelle had shaken her head. "Didn't your foster maman teach you anything?" She had whistled through her teeth. "And you being born and raised in California."
Fear spiked my blood. I slid from the bed as silent as a serpent. My bottom found the throw rug and I pressed my chin to my knees and wrapped my arms around my legs. I envisioned a silver egg-shaped shield enveloping me. I forced myself not to dwell on how grateful I was to Mam'zelle or how much her kindness had meant to me. Show no empathy, no connection.
Mam'zelle's spirit waited, testing me.
Well, kick it. I swiped away the tears trickling down my cheeks. "I know you have people to see on the other side." The house swayed and creaked as I stood. I sidestepped to keep my balance. Show strength. Spirits behold weakness as an invitation.
"Don't stay on my account. I'll be fine." The bayou gurgled to life three feet beneath the floorboards. My heart stuttered. I strained, listening for alligators. Nothing. "I'll make my way back to California." Somehow. "I'll find my friend Ainslie. She'll take me in."
A star spiral appeared around Mam'zelle's spirit and her soul ascended another foot toward the ceiling. The star path brightened, bathing me in wondrous light. My skin tingled. I tipped my chin up and my heels rose off the floor. My lungs inflated. Part of me wanted to float upward to join Mam'zelle in a place without pain or struggle or parents who dismissed child endangerment as a cost of doing business.
Just let go.
A golden beam of light angled down. My chest lifted to embrace it. My toes left the throw rug. I rose an inch, then two. Joy awaits me. No one will miss me — no one but Ainslie.
Ainslie. As soon as her name entered my thoughts, a montage of her played like a movie inside my head. But she appeared older, hollow-eyed, and broken. This isn't how I remember her. The vignettes made no sense. Why was Ainslie pleading with my foster mom? And why was Ainslie dirty-haired and curled up on a hospital bed?
Another scene flew past. Ainslie appeared healthier, but her aura was jagged and jittery. She walked to class at what appeared to be a small private school, not rowdy Jefferson High. This wasn't what we had planned. It's all wrong.
I must find her.
Weight returned to my body. I thudded onto the throw rug, my worn-out sneakers barely cushioning my fall. The beam of golden light, Mam'zelle's spirit, and the star path vanished.
I gaped at the dark room and patted my torso. It didn't feel as though Mam'zelle had breached my magical shield. I hugged myself. I think she passed into the light. A fresh worry hit me. What happened to Ainslie?
My stomach whirled again. A puzzling new scene played before me. An audience sat in folding chairs, their collective gaze fixated on a teen boy and an elderly couple on a makeshift stage. Off to one side of the audience, Ainslie chased after a large book that appeared to propel forward of its own accord. She wasn't quick enough. The tome splintered, morphing into handwritten letters and faded postcards, all flying toward the stage. The air in front of the stage rippled like a protection spell. I had a bad feeling the letters and cards were about to knife through the magical ward.
Acting on instinct, I ducked and covered my head and face with my arms. With a whoosh, the dozens of candles in the hut ignited. I rose from my crouch, encircled by flames. My stomach lurched. The room rushed upward and I shrank. I shrieked — an otherworldly, hyena-like sound. The ring of flames intensified. My skin heated. My hand flew to the skin graft on my throat. For a terrible moment I was three again, standing in the kitchen my parents had converted into a makeshift lab, and unbearable pain seared my throat and arm.
No, no, no. I calmed my younger self. You're okay. This is now. That was then. We're not on fire. The hut isn't on fire. This is a vision or weird dream. Wake up!
My muscles remained rigid; my feet rooted to the floorboards. A glass dome shimmered above me. Startled, distorted faces — the elderly couple from the stage —stared down at me as though I were a tiny figure trapped inside a fiery snow globe. Without thinking I yelled, "Find me!"
The old woman's jaw dropped. The elderly man gawked, then retreated. The dome vanished, sounding like a spacecraft whisking off into the clouds. The candles extinguished as abruptly as they had flared.
"Oya-Yansa?" With another lurch my body shot up to its full five feet, two inches. My hand flew to my speeding heart and my fingers fanned over my breastbone. Disoriented, I blinked into the darkness. The three-year-old still shaking within me wondered where we could hide.
Merciful Mary! My heart sounded like a train click-clacking over tracks. Find me? Why hadn't I screamed, "Help! I'm trapped in a Louisiana bayou!
I stooped and groped until my fingers closed over the matchbox. Fumbling, I removed a match and ignited it. Acrid sulfur seared the air. My hand trembled as I tilted the nearest jam jar and thrust the flame at the candlewick. On the second shaky jab the wick flared. "Ow!" I dropped the match and withdrew my hand. I sucked on my burned finger while the flame consumed the match. The jam jar warmed as I raised it. I dropped my gaze to the bed and fear bumps tingled my arms.
Mam'zelle's body had vanished. In its place, a snake coiled among a scattering of magnolia leaves.
Chapter Three
Please don't swarm at night. My prayer to the alligators replayed in an endless loop in my mind. I packed just in case. Mentally, the act hurled me back to foster care when each knock on the door had set the fine hairs on my forearms standing on end. Why is my caseworker here? Am I going to have to move again? At least this time I had been warned change was coming. Having my backpack and Breaux's old valise instead of a plastic garbage bag didn't make my stomach less queasy. I was still headed for the unknown.
Please hurry, Breaux. I need your help. I'd never be able to navigate the maze of back channels on my own — day or night. And getting lost was not an option. The tide could strand me. My provisions could run out. My skin prickled just thinking about the diamondbacks and gators slithering in the water. Part of me argued, they'll be hibernating; you don't have to worry. Well, I wasn't going to bank on anything in voodoo country.
I knew the land route, but only because there was so little of it. The footbridge was tethered to a small island. On the far side, a rowboat waited. We usually kept the boat tied to a small dock near the footbridge. But Mam'zelle's wasting disease had birthed flashes of paranoia and she had insisted I move it.
Moonlight slid through the windows, illuminating the smudges left by the dragonfly assault. I huddled on the sofa in the sitting room. Say I got away. Then what? I couldn't go to the police and tell them my parents had kidnapped me. Mamá would say I had contacted them. I had willingly entered the car.
I had stolen their drug money.
I had lit the match.
The hut swayed and creaked. I clutched the faded floral quilt to my chin and prayed Oya-Yansa wouldn't blow away the
salt I had spread across the thresholds and windowsills to ward against evil. I had coated a candle with cinnamon and cayenne pepper. It burned low, but having grown up in earthquake country, I had a strict rule against falling asleep with a candle lit. I compromised and placed the votive in the kitchen sink near the plaster statue of Black Mary.
I drifted into an uneasy slumber and dreamt the police arrived by airboat and questioned me about Mam'zelle's disappearance. What did you do with her body? Feed it to the gators? I awoke at daybreak, sopping with sweat and terrified Breaux would believe I had done in his grand-mère.
"Mam'zelle? Are you still here?" Not sensing her spirit, a wave of grief and abandonment washed over me. I released a ragged breath, then moved her photo to the altar. "Be at peace with the ancestors, Mam'zelle." I struck a match and the white candle sizzled and flared.
Stay busy. If I stop, I'll cry. If I cry, my heart chakra might open. If my heart chakra opens, Mam'zelle's spirit might sneak in. Then whatever hex got her will get me too.
I fetched a bucket and vinegar from the side of the stilt hut and dried yarrow and rosemary from Mam'zelle's magic room. I knew she would have wanted the hut to be spiritually and physically cleansed. Though I wasn't sure what to do about her bedding. The serpent had slithered off during the night, but fear and worry prevented me from washing the sheets. I left them undisturbed, smelling of floral perfume and illness, and scattered with magnolia leaves. Evidence. I needed Breaux to see the bed just as Mam'zelle had left it. Maybe if he passed his hand over it and read Mam'zelle's energy residue and her thoughtforms, he'd believe me.
If the police showed up, surely the blood on the bandana would raise suspicion. I left the orange cloth for the moment, lifting it only long enough to scrub the nightstand with a flannel cloth from the rag bin. Mam'zelle would have been anxious about the dried stain. An enemy could use it to hex her past or her future. I'd have to dispose of bandana at some point. Maybe when the alligators swarmed.