Sweet Unrest

by Maxwell, Lisa

  “You a hard one, Lucy-girl, but I think you gonna do just fine, honey.” She smiled. “What I see here is that you in for big changes, child. Scary at times, transformative always, but you be all right in the end.”

  “Mama Legba’s always right, Lucy,” Chloe said in hushed, reverent tones. “She’s got the gift.”

  I looked between the two women, trying to keep my face from broadcasting my doubts.

  “You don’t need to believe me. What is, is, honey.” Mama Legba smiled warmly, as though confirming she had read my thoughts clearly. “You too full of doubt for someone so young.”

  “Yeah, well … ” Of course I was full of doubt. Didn’t my dad always teach me to look for the evidence that proves what’s true? How could I possibly look for evidence that proved magic and make-believe?

  “Lucy-girl, not all magic is make-believe,” Mama Legba said, cutting into my thoughts with an unsettling accuracy. “Love is a powerful magic, and it’s as real as anything you can touch.”

  “You know that’s the honest truth,” Chloe exclaimed, buzzing with delight. “Didn’t I tell you she was the real thing? Read me, Mama, please?”

  Mama Legba shook her head. “You ain’t ready yet, Chloe-girl. You got some more work to do before I read your cards.”

  I didn’t understand why I had been ready when Chloe wasn’t, and I could tell Chloe felt the same way. Disappointment, and maybe also a hint of anger, crashed trough her expression, but she masked it quickly. “Then if you won’t read me, can we have our lesson?”

  “You were awful late, Chloe-girl. There ain’t much time left.”

  “Please, Mama.”

  Mama Legba huffed out a sigh that was both irritated and good-natured. “Fine. Fine. Let’s see,” she mumbled to herself, looking closely at me. “What you know about Voodoo, Lucy?”

  That it was a hoax, a sham. Nothing more.

  I couldn’t say that, not with one hopeful and one perceptive set of eyes on me. “It’s, like … witchcraft?” I ventured instead.

  Mama Legba sucked her teeth and shot me a look that made me feel like wilting.

  “Witchcraft? You think this is some kind of dark art? Some kind of hocus-pocus?” She thumped her hand on the table as she denied it. “No, no, no. Voodoo is a belief. It’s a way of understanding the big powers out there.” She shook her head. “Listen here, girl. Voodoo is a way of interacting with what’s beyond us. We got a Supreme Being, no doubt about it, but he mostly stay out of the way. He got bigger worries than us. But the lesser spirits—we call them the Loa—they do get involved in our lives. Voodoo helps us speak to them—to ask them to intercede for us. It’s more like praying than any kind of hocus-pocus you thinking about.”

  She turned to Chloe, like a teacher drilling a student. “What is the world made of, Chloe-girl?”

  “It’s made of energy, Mama. Energy that moves and changes,” Chloe dutifully recited.

  Mama made a sound of approval and turned back to me. “You know it, Chloe-girl. Those fancy scientists in those fancy colleges took years to figure out what my people knew for ages. We all just energy. Energy don’t end. It changes. Transforms.”

  Energy. Proof. Science. These were things I understood. I leaned forward in my chair and listened more closely to what Mama Legba was saying.

  “A person is many things, but at the base, at the very root, we energy. And that energy is real. Tangible. You see, Lucy-girl, those of us who practice see that each human life is made up of a body and a spirit. One can’t exist without the other. Our body, now that’s our form in this here world, but it ain’t just flesh. It takes a lot of energy to locomote a body, and that energy come from the life force all living things share. That energy is a thing itself, but it’s a part of the body—separate from the soul.

  “But Lucy-girl, a body—even with all its energy and life—ain’t really nothing without a soul. Our soul is who we has always been. It connects our pasts to our present, and it defines who we is gonna become. When our body dies, our soul goes back to the source of where everything come from until it’s ready to start again. Maybe it changes a bit from life to life, but it don’t end. You believe in a soul that persists, don’t you, Lucy-girl?”

  “Sure,” I told her honestly. “But what about heaven? Why would any soul want to be reborn if it could just stay there?”

  “We ain’t nothing but a dream unless we got a body, child. To be the same forever and ever—to never change? That ain’t no kind of heaven.”

  She drummed her finger against the table as though she were working something out. “But I can see what you’re saying. And you ain’t completely wrong. The life of the body be a trial for the soul, no doubt about it. But that trial is everything, because the lessons the soul learns in this life shapes the next.” She paused again before continuing. “And the soul—it does get a break sometimes from that trial, when it walk free in the dreaming.”

  “What’s the dreaming?” Chloe asked, breaking into the conversation.

  “It’s the part of life that lets our souls be what they always been. When we sleep, Chloe-girl, we let go our mind—all our hates, all our worries—and our soul can be free.”

  “So if someone has a reoccurring dream,” I said carefully, picking my words like dangerous fruit, “it might mean something?”

  I should have let it be, but part of me wanted to know too badly to stay silent. The Dream was back, and I was at the point where I’d listen to pretty much anyone’s ideas about what it meant.

  Mama Legba seemed vaguely amused at my question. “Sure enough, Lucy-girl. I told you, dreams let our souls walk free. We might re-remember something that happened to us before. Maybe see our future in them.”

  I thought about the card—Death’s skeletal hand reaching for the bleeding young woman, the dark water of a river in the background. “But isn’t there some way to tell?” I asked, more urgently than I meant to. “I mean, whether a dream’s about the past or the future?”

  The past, I could handle. That was over and gone. The future, though? Considering what the Dream was about, that was more than a little worrisome.

  Mama Legba paused and studied me for a moment, her eyes sharp as knives, before getting up suddenly. “Our time’s up, Chloe-girl. We’ll pick up again next week. And don’t you be late.” She wagged a finger at her.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But about the dreams?” I asked again, interrupting their goodbye.

  Mama Legba stopped my words with the sharpness of her gaze. “Your time’s up for now too. You want to know more, Chloe knows where to find me. Maybe you come back with her next week.”

  With that dismissal, Mama Legba gave Chloe a quick hug before disappearing through the doorway leading to the back of her shop.

  “Come on, Lucy. That’s all we get for today,” Chloe said as she tugged me out the door.

  After the coolness of the Voodoo woman’s shop, stepping into the steamy day was a shock to my system. But even that wasn’t enough to distract me from what the old woman had said.

  I didn’t believe in hoodoo, voodoo, juju, or any other type of mumbo jumbo. Whatever my cards might have been, my parents hadn’t raised a fool. But I hated the Dream. I hated what it did to me, how it made me shake, made me feel beyond lost when I woke tangled in my sheets. I glanced back over my shoulder and wondered, just for a moment, if maybe I could find answers in a place I’d least expected them to be.

  Six

  After a few days on the job at Le Ciel, I was starting to understand that holding up my end of the deal I’d made with my parents was going to be a lot harder than I’d thought. It turned out that being an intern to the onsite preservation expert consisted less of actually taking pictures and more of fetching coffee and adjusting items in the light box “a little to the left, no to the right.” All. Day. Long. In fact, on the first day, Byron, my boss, told me not to bother bringing my equipment with me.

  As if I’d go anywhere without my camera.
<
br />   By the middle of the fourth day, I was exhausted, probably more from boredom than anything else. We were working in one of the big tents that had been erected on the grounds to handle the cataloging and inspection of objects from the estate. One of the research historians was sorting through a giant box of junk someone found in the attic, and Byron was deciding what artifacts merited documentation. He didn’t seem to trust anyone to just do their job.

  I refilled the coffee when necessary.

  When Byron said I could have the afternoon off, he didn’t have to tell me twice. With all the coffee I’d been lugging, I hadn’t had many chances to take any real pictures, and I was itching to continue documenting the house and the grounds for my senior project. I was in the mood for nature, so I took the gravel pathway that wound from our cottage, through some gardens, to a thin line of trees that bordered a clearing with a small pond.

  The second I saw the pond, I knew I should have walked in a different direction, maybe out toward the river. At the far end of the clearing, one of the plantation’s trademark oaks dripped its Spanish moss over a bit of land that interrupted the otherwise perfect oval of the lake. It was picturesque, sure, but it was too perfect to be interesting. I walked down to the water’s edge anyway, hoping maybe I could find something in the scene worth capturing.

  I was about to turn around and head back to our cottage when a warm breeze came up from behind me and cut through the stillness of the day, stirring the trees that surrounded the pond and rustling their leaves against one another. The current rippled through my hair, grazing me with an unwelcome warmth, and sent a skittering warning across my skin.

  Suddenly nervous, I scanned the tree line across the pond for danger, but I didn’t see anything that would explain my sudden unease. When the feeling didn’t subside, I turned slowly to scan the trees behind me.

  That’s when I saw him.

  In the shade thrown by the trees I’d just come through was the guy I’d seen at that first morning meeting. In my determination to make it to the pond, I must have walked right past him. He was lying on the ground, his chest bare. His head was propped up on what must have been his shirt, and his face was covered by a well-muscled arm. And he was completely unaware I’d happened upon him.

  I couldn’t quite bring myself to look away. For a second, I wondered if I could get away with taking a picture of him, but I dismissed the thought almost as quickly as I had it.

  When the breeze finally stilled, the clearing went silent once again, and I couldn’t help but notice how completely peaceful it was. Everything about the space—from the position of the large oak to the way the pond had been so meticulously carved into the land—had been designed to create a sense of restful perfection. It seemed somehow natural for him to be a part of the scene—like he was meant to fit just so, there under the tree he was resting beneath. Or perhaps it was the other way around—the diamond-clear water of the pond and the spread of wildflowers around its edge could have just as easily been designed to serve as a backdrop for his beauty.

  Either way, I was the one who felt out of place there.

  I started to leave, but when I took a step, a twig snapped under my foot. The sound caused him to sit up with a quick, graceful movement. It took a moment for him to find the source of the noise, but once he did, he stared at me.

  In that moment, I felt the same shift I’d felt the first time I saw him, lounging against the great oak. This time, though, the feeling was stronger, like something deep inside me recognized him. Knew him.

  “You came,” he said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him. But the melodic rumble of his voice resonated somewhere deep inside me, rubbing at some long-forgotten memory like the bow of a violin. Neither of us seemed to be able to say anything else, and in the almost-comfortable silence, I wondered if he felt the same.

  Then I realized he wasn’t feeling what I was feeling—he was examining me again. The intensity of his scrutiny made me wonder what the heat and humidity of the day had done to me. I wanted to run my fingers through my curls and tug at my sweat-dampened T-shirt, but I resisted. From the strange way he considered me, I wasn’t sure any amount of preening was going to improve his impression.

  Uneasy at the intensity of his attention, I began to wonder if I should have stayed closer to the big house or our cottage. Closer to where someone could hear me if I screamed.

  Before my thoughts could turn too dark, he turned suddenly to grab his shirt and with quick, efficient movements put it on and started to button it. I should have turned away, but I didn’t. When he looked up and saw me still watching, I swallowed my embarrassment and forced myself to meet his stare. He didn’t comment on my rudeness—he just continued to silently appraise me.

  It wasn’t long before the silence between us grew awkward. I thought about walking back toward our little house on the other side of the trees, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to leave. “I’ve seen you around,” I ventured instead.

  He nodded but didn’t reply. His eyes were still sharp, and I got the distinct feeling he was calculating something. I didn’t have a clue what it could be.

  Finally he spoke again. “I was beginning to think you would not come.” He spoke formally, and his voice was smooth and warm with a hint of an accent—maybe French?

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I told him, confused by his strange statement.

  “No?” He smiled softly, then, but the expression in his eyes seemed to go flat.

  “No.” This close, I could see that his eyes weren’t simply green. The irises glinted with different shades, and the combination gave the effect of surprising depth.

  Another gust of warm air coursed around us, setting the trees in motion and lifting his honey-colored hair from his brow. As we continued to inspect each other uneasily, I had the sense that an energy was building or growing in the heavy air—one that seemed to almost crackle between us. The way the sun glinted off the stone-smooth surface of the water and the breeze rustled up the dappled underbellies of the leaves made the moment feel strangely familiar. Even if it didn’t quite feel safe.

  “Have you been here long?” I asked, trying to break the tension.

  “I have.” He didn’t offer anything else, and the silence stretched on again.

  I tried again. “You were at the meeting a couple of days ago,” I said, thinking that maybe I should have retreated when I had the chance.

  He shrugged. “I like to see what is happening when a new overseer appears.”

  His choice of words struck me as odd. If he wasn’t a college intern after all, I thought maybe he was one of the employees the previous owner had hired to give tours. The university had kept some of them on.

  “He’s not an overseer, really. More like a director,” I told him.

  The boy finished buttoning his shirt and leaned back again, confident and at ease. “As you wish, ma chère.” His voice was intriguing in the way it softened the harshness of each word’s consonants and rounded the vowels.

  I still couldn’t completely place his accent, and I wasn’t sure I liked the overly familiar endearment. “Are you from around here?” I asked, wondering if he was Cajun. “Your accent. It’s different.” And could I sound more banal? This was not going well at all.

  “I have been in this country quite a while, but originally, I am from France.”

  “So. French?” I cringed as the words left my mouth.

  “Oui.” He must have sensed my discomfort, because he suddenly flashed me a wicked grin that I felt clear to my toes. But he didn’t venture anything else. The silence continued to crackle.

  “I’m Lucy.”

  His face softened. “Ah, so you are the light.”

  “Huh?” Clearly I was not meant to win him over with witty conversation.

  “Your name, it means light.” He gestured to the sky. “Like the sun.”

  “Really? Actually, I was named for some suffragette. Lucy Stone,” I blurted without thinking.


  He gave me a blank look. Expectant—like he was waiting for me to explain.

  “My parents. They’re history nuts, and this woman, Lucy Stone, she was a big deal back in the 1800s. She was a suffragette and she was really into women’s rights and liberation and all that, and one of her friends said she had a soul as free as the air.” And I was officially babbling. But, oddly enough, he looked intrigued.

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Have a soul as free as the air?”

  “Oh.” I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know about that. Right now my soul is stuck here.”

  “As is mine.” He grimaced, his eyes shuttering as securely as a house preparing for a storm. He looked up at me then with that painfully blank expression. “If you were free, where would you go?”

  The pained intensity of his gaze threw me off for a moment. It was like he was waiting for something, like I had the power to wipe that grief from his face if I just gave the right answer.

  “Back home. To our house in Chicago.” Disappointment flashed across his face, and I felt the burn of failure. “Where would you?” I asked him, my voice scarcely more than a whisper.

  “I’m not sure anymore,” he said, his voice as distant as the focus of his gaze. “I thought I knew once.” There was more he wasn’t saying, but the regret in his tone was clear.

  “It didn’t work out so well, huh?”

  “No,” he said, infusing the single syllable with an impressive amount of contempt. Emotion potent enough to have me taking a step back appeared in his eyes. “It did not.” He was silent for a moment, like nothing else could be said about the matter. But then he let out a soft breath and the anger left his face. “I am Alexandre, by the way.”

  The rolling cadence of his soft accent gave the name a sophisticated edge that pulled at a memory in a dark corner of my mind. “Just a coincidence,” I whispered to myself, dismissing the thought.

  “What is?”

  “What is what?” I asked.

  “What is it you call a coincidence?”