by Ariella Moon
My pulse rocketed. "Which runaway?"
Bayou paused. "The Mexican."
"Do you mean Sophia?"
Bayou hesitated as though she awaited input from the Great Beyond. "Yes."
"Do you know where they are?" I asked.
"New Orleans, but not New Orleans." A lock of Bayou's black hair detached from her head, hovered just beyond her shoulder, then disintegrated.
"What do you mean—?"
"Enough!" Yemaya cut me off. "She's deteriorating. Bayou, hail and farewell!"
"Hail and farewell!" Salem echoed, drawing a pentagram in the air. "Blessed be."
Bayou's eyes rolled within their sockets until her irises came into view. She clutched her hands together, splattering swamp water. Then with a grateful look, she vanished.
I gaped at the spot where Bayou had stood.
"Is she gone?" Evie asked.
"Yes." I scowled at Yemaya.
"Thank the goddess." Salem sank down in her chair.
Aidan's gaze flicked from Salem to me to Yemaya. "I hope she makes it back in time."
Yemaya sniffed. "She had better."
“I’m sorry I got carried away.” My gaze circled from Yemaya to Evie. “She only lost a lock of hair. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
"Did she say anything helpful?" Aidan asked.
I repeated everything Bayou had said.
"I wonder what she meant. 'New Orleans but not New Orleans?'" Evie said.
Aidan rubbed the back of his neck. "Or 'afloat on the River of Time'?"
Yemaya shrugged.
"Maybe Sophia is between worlds," Salem said. "Maybe the River of Time took her to New Orleans, but not to present day New Orleans."
Yemaya drew her fingertip across her eyebrow. "Let's hope they went forward in time, not backward."
My mind played catch-up. "Because Shiloh is related to Bayou, so he's probably African-American and—"
"New Orleans was once a slave town. Cotton. Sugar cane." Yemaya rubbed her forehead.
A sick feeling twisted my gut and the panic I had held at bay roped around me. Sophia is Mexican-American. She has some Caucasian blood, but no way could she pass as white.
"Does Bayou have a sigil? I mean a veve?" Salem asked. "Maybe you saw it in the spell book."
"She's never mentioned one." Yemaya fingered her cameo necklace.
My upper body rocked forward and back. She's evading the question. ]
My Stone Age flip phone rang, startling me. I dug it out of my handbag. Mom. The woman is psychic. "Excuse me," I said to the group, then crossed to the small living room as I flipped the phone open. "Hi Mom."
"Ten minute warning," she said without preamble.
"Already?"
"You must be having fun." Mom sounded happy.
Hardly. "We ran into some friends. Do you mind picking me up in front of the Lamorinda Elementary School? There was an electrical fire in the Teen Room at the library."
"Oh no! Is everyone okay?"
"Yes. The fire department got right on it. We cleared out so they could check the room." I glanced at the others. Yemaya's features had settled into a thoughtful expression while she slid the grimoire inside the tote. The book bellowed, sounding almost like a disgruntled lion. Yemaya quickly zipped the tote, muffling the sound. "We wanted some fresh air, so we walked to the school."
"Oh? Good idea. Okay. I'll see you in a few minutes. Bye." Mom hung up and I flipped the phone shut.
Evie had opened her laptop. She typed something and stared at the screen. "Well?" Salem asked.
"None." She dropped her gaze to the monitor. "Unfortunately, the only city named New Orleans in the United States is the one in Louisiana." She closed the laptop.
"One theory shot." Aidan glanced at me. "We thought Bayou might have meant another New Orleans."
"There is one way to find out what Bayou meant," Yemaya said as I approached the table.
I lifted my jacket from the seatback. "What do we have to do?"
"Not 'we,' me. I'll have to go on a shamanic journey and search for Sophia and Shiloh Breaux Martine."
"Thanks, but I know you don't want to get involved." I faced Evie. "Thor might be able to help us." I slipped one arm into my shearling-lined jacket sleeve.
"If Sophia is with someone from Bayou's bloodline, then I have a better chance of finding her than anyone. Bayou and I have worked together before." Yemaya lowered her gaze as if the memory of her last job with Bayou had left psychic scars.
"Does this mean you've changed your mind about helping us?" I asked.
Yemaya's shoulders heaved up then down. "Yes. But it will cost you. Big time."
The dragon, which had been so quiet I had forgotten it was present, nudged my shoulder. I glanced at Aidan. His expression reminded me of Thor's. I was sure he was gauging Yemaya's energy. He glanced at me and nodded.
"What's your price?" I asked.
"It's confidential." Yemaya edged closer and dropped her voice. "Only you and Aidan can know about it."
"Hey!" Salem protested.
Aidan cast Salem a trust-me look. "Could you and Evie hang out here while I walk Ainslie and Yemaya down to the school? I'll be right back."
"Fine." Salem crossed her arms over her chest.
"Sure," Evie agreed.
"Thanks."
I slipped into my jacket and slid the strap to my crossbody handbag over my head.
"Wait." Evie stood and slid the black tote toward me. "Take the spell book. It might help Yemaya connect with Bayou again."
"Thanks." I shouldered the tote. The spell book pressed against the black material separating us. A chill penetrated my hip. A small, muffled roar trailed off into a quiet splash.
Salem's eyebrows elevated. "I think it likes you."
Great. First I attract a dragon, and now an alligator-like spell book. I retrieved my gloves from the table and fell into step behind Aidan and Yemaya. Aidan held open the front door and gestured for me to precede him on the stairs. "You first," I said, pretending to search for something in my purse.
"Okay."
I recounted the steps, calibrating which foot had to lead so my right foot would hit the ground first. Left foot, right, left, right… I sensed the dragon behind me, bending low to snuffle the tote as I descended. Once I reached the pavement — right foot — the dragon energy faded away. I caught up with Aidan and Yemaya. The wind had picked up and grey clouds threatened rain. I spotted the Mercedes waiting at the light.
"My mom is here. We have to hustle."
"So what's the secret price?" Aidan asked as we jogged to the corner.
"On top of the boots you owe me—"
"Yes," I said.
"I need you to go with me tomorrow to find and then pay for a new door for Bugsy."
"Bugsy?" I said.
"My vintage VW Beetle. And by vintage, I mean embarrassingly ancient and decrepit, so I don't want anyone to know about it."
"Aren't classic car parts super expensive and difficult to find?" Aidan asked.
"We'll avoid the corporate yards. I did a shamanic journey and it directed me to a small, private junkyard. But I don't want to go alone."
Ahead, Mom waved behind the windshield. The light changed and she maneuvered the Mercedes into the school parking lot. The traffic Walk sign came on, indicating we could cross the street. While we strode to the car, Mom twisted in the front seat and watched us.
"Can't it wait?" I muttered. "Sophia is in danger."
"The junkyard owner is leaving town on Monday. We have to go tomorrow."
"What if we can't find a door?" I asked.
"Then you'll know I'm not as good a shaman as I think I am, and you'll find another way to find your friend."
Mom stepped out of the car and gave me a warning look.
"Okay, I'm in if you are," I said to Aidan.
"I'm in." Aidan jammed his hands into his jeans pocket.
Relief and excitement brightened Yemaya's expression. "Great. Let's meet
here at ten tomorrow morning."
"Can you drive us, or should I ask my parents to give us a lift?"
Yemaya's cheeks flushed to a warm bronze. "I can drive. But no laughing, no photographs, and no posting about it on social media."
"Works for me." Aidan glanced up at the sky. "Hope it doesn't rain."
"Awesome," Yemaya said. "It'll be muddy, so dress accordingly."
"Won't we need tools?" Aidan asked.
"A friend is going to loan me his." Yemaya extracted a pen from her hippie purse. "Ainslie, bring cash. Now give me your hand."
"Why?"
"So I can give you my number in case anything comes up."
"I'll just plug it into my phone."
"You better hustle. Your mom looks like she's going to lose it," Yemaya warned.
I could practically feel Mom tapping her fingers against the car door. The mounting pressure rose like steam building in a teapot. I yearned for my parents to stay together and not divorce. If we didn't blast out of here, Mom would have to cancel her date with Dad.
The leather from my glove caught in the handbag latch, jamming it. Not now! I unsheathed my hands and worked the leather loose from the turn clasp. It finally yielded and I stuffed my gloves into my jacket pocket. "Hang on a sec."
"For Pete's sake! I won't bite." Yemaya grabbed my hand. My obsessive-compulsive disorder screamed, No! But Yemaya inked her phone number across my palm. I angled my head away and cringed. "Call me if you can't make it," she said.
Mom strode up as though she were a bodyguard on a rescue mission. Her loosely tied trench coat flapped open, revealing a body-hugging knit tunic over wintry leggings ending in ankle-high boots. I'd never been happier to see her. She glanced at my hand and linked her arm through mine. "Hi. I'm Ainslie's mother. I hate to break up the party, but Ainslie, your father and I will miss the movie if we don't leave now."
"Bye," Aidan said.
"Bye," I managed.
Mom steered me toward the car. Maybe Yemaya said goodbye too. If she did, I didn't hear her. A tidal wave of anxiety surged through me, deafening me to everything but the howl of mounting panic. As soon as my back faced Yemaya and Aidan, I held my wrist away from me as though maggots, not blue ink, covered my palm. I just hoped Mom could get me into the car before the insanity hit.
Chapter Eleven
Two blocks from the elementary school, at the corner of Moraga Road and Moraga Drive, I lost it.
"Was that Evie? Were those kids hassling you?" Mom asked.
"No," I wailed between hysterical sobs. "They didn't know…" Stop. Stop. Stop. Mom can't see me like this. She and Dad fight every time I have a panic attack. My cries yielded to gasps. Anxiety and panic constricted my throat. I can't breathe. I'm going to die.
At the next red light, Mom reached across the dashboard and opened the glove compartment. The registration and proof of insurance papers escaped and glided against the tote in my lap before swan-diving to the vacuumed floor mat. Mom snagged a plastic packet of baby wipes and placed it in my lap. With a pang I realized she had gone to the nail salon without me. She bore a slick new manicure — short, blunt, and dark gray. I wasn't sure what the nail color signaled about her frame of mind. Or our relationship.
The green light illuminated. Mom stepped on the accelerator. "Can you tell me what happened?"
I gulped air into my lungs and swiped at my tears with the back of my hand. "Evie and I met up with her friend Salem and Salem's boyfriend, Aidan."
"The couple in the parking lot?"
"No. Well, it was Aidan." My breath came in shallow gasps again as the anxiety cranked up. "The girl was Yemaya. She's a junior at Jefferson. They all go to Jefferson."
Mom braked the car as the traffic ahead of us slowed. I dug my fingernails into my arm, hoping the pain would short-circuit my anxiety. Mom noticed and frowned.
"Why did she write her phone number on your hand?"
Brown mascara tears splashed my camel shearling jacket. I yowled at the inevitable stain.
"Why didn't you just punch her number into your phone?" Mom sounded exasperated.
"I couldn't get to it! My glove caught in my handbag latch." I reached into my pocket and fished out my gloves. "I tried to hurry so you wouldn't miss your date with Dad."
"Oh, sweetie." Mom pulled into a bank parking lot, swung into a space away from the watchful guard, cut the engine, and unbuckled her seatbelt. With her thumb she popped open the baby wipe packet.
"Wait! I need her number."
"Okay." Mom's features hardened into a controlled mask. She extracted a pen from her designer handbag and copied Yemaya's phone number onto the back of the nail salon credit card receipt. "There. Saved. You can add it to your phone later." She proceeded to scrub the offending ink from my palm.
Air inflated my lungs. My anxiety ebbed as the cool wipe cleansed my hand.
"Do you have a paper bag in your purse?"
I sniffed, then nodded. Get control of yourself or she'll cancel their date.
"Do you need it?" Mom balled up the ink-stained wipe and deposited it into the cup holder.
I forced air into my lungs. Stop hyperventilating. "No. I'm okay." I searched my handbag for a tissue to dab my eyes. "I'm sorry, Mom."
"Nothing to be sorry about." She paused, then added, "I'm sorry you…"
"Went crazy again?"
"It breaks my heart to see you suffer."
"Thanks." You too. I glanced out the window. "The guard is watching us. I think he's going to come over here." The grimoire snarled. I clutched my stomach as though my stomach had just rumbled.
Mom switched on the ignition. "Guess we'll have to find another bank to rob."
"And better disguises."
"Definitely. At least we have a decent getaway car." Mom started the Mercedes and steered it through the parking lot, and then made a right onto Happy Valley Road. "Your new friends look interesting."
I snorted. You mean less than affluent. "Yemaya is a shaman. I think Aidan is a gypsy."
"Your Aunt Terra and Uncle Esmun would totally approve."
"Seriously, right?" Considering they are both dragon shamans and own a metaphysical store and mystery school. "Aidan and Yemaya are going to help me search for Sophia."
Mom stiffened. "Help you how?"
I wasn't sure if Aunt Terra had told Mom about the spell book, so I said, "You know, go on a shamanic journey or something."
Mom pressed her lips together. Her gaze shifted from the road to me and then back to the road. "You don't know these kids or what kind of magic they are into. So be careful, okay? If anything doesn't feel right, don't do it. Call Terra and Esmun."
"Promise."
A few minutes later, the Mercedes swung onto our private drive and approached the wrought-iron gate at a crawl. Mom depressed a button on one of the remote controls clipped to her sun visor. The gate whirred to life with a series of clicks and glided open. Mom drove forward onto the interlocking gray and white pavers and the gate closed behind us. The mansion came into view, still decked out like a scene from a Christmas card. Designer wreaths graced the double front doors. Golden reindeer and red-leafed poinsettias flanked the five garages. In a few hours when night descended, white fairy lights would illuminate the three-story façade.
Mom depressed a button on a second remote control and Bay One, the garage door closest to the house, rumbled upward. Mom twisted in her seat, straining against her seatbelt.
I clutched the tote strap and steeled myself for a lecture. "What?"
"Remember what Aunt Terra and Uncle Esmun taught you. Magic always has a price."
I squirmed in my seat. "I know."
"And never summon anything you can't control or banish."
"I got it, Mom. I'll be careful." Sheesh.
"Good."
I willed her to pull forward and park so I could escape. But she kept her foot on the brake and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. I could almost hear the gears churning in her head.
<
br /> "Three years is a long time."
Anger did a slow burn across my cheeks. I jutted my chin. "And your point is?"
Mom sighed over the idling engine. "Sophia's disappearance changed you. Drastically."
Memories of the locked mental ward flashed in my mind.
"So imagine," Mom continued, "the impact Sophia's ordeal has had on her. She won't be the girl you knew in seventh grade. You aren't the same, and she won't be either."
I crossed my arms over my chest and stared ahead. Of course neither of us are the girls we were back then. But if we can find each other again, even if I'm a mental case and she's a… I hated to think what Sophia might be after three years with her bio-parents. A drug addict? A victim of human trafficking?
It doesn't matter, because we were like sisters. If we can find each other again, then maybe we'll find the missing pieces of ourselves. Maybe we'll become whole again.
Chapter Twelve
"You're kidding me." My gaze wandered from the rain-splattered bird poop on Bugsy's roof to the broken driver's door fastened to the car with dull silver wire. "Is this thing highway safe?"
"We'll be taking back roads," Yemaya said, not answering my question.
"How do you get in to drive?" Aidan asked.
"Dude, I crawl in from the passenger's side. Duh."
I stooped and peered through the streaked windows. "What's with the wire wrapped around the ashtray knob?"
"It's my throttle. I did it myself."
"Sounds like something Sophia would concoct. You should both join the Athenian Academy’s robotics team."
"Hey, give me a full scholarship to your fancy school and Bugsy and I will be there." Yemaya opened the passenger door and gestured to the back seat. "Your chariot awaits you."
Aidan and I exchanged a quick look. I could either squeeze into the back next to a toolbox, or sit in the front where I could watch the road whiz by through the sizeable hole in the floorboard.
"Your legs are longer. I'll take the back," I said.
"Thanks." Aidan held the door open.
Before crawling into the back, I handed Yemaya the recycled shopping bag I had brought. "Present. And yes, I still owe you a pair of leather boots."