Sweet Unrest

by Maxwell, Lisa

  He thought about it. “Even if you are correct, even if she is not merely setting another trap for you, she will not give you the picture freely, Lucy. She was lying.”

  “I know that, Alex. So we’ll just have to be smarter. Lie better. And be a whole lot luckier.”

  When we passed the turn for Le Ciel, Alex looked over at me in confusion. “Where are we headed?”

  “We need a fake charm, and I only know one person who can get us one.”

  Thirty-Three

  During the drive into the city, Alex made clear his unhappiness about having to visit the Voodoo Queen on her own turf. But after what had happened at Chloe’s, I knew we didn’t have much time to waste.

  When we walked into the shop, Mama Legba was rearranging the glass jars on the shelves.

  “I been expecting you, Lucy-girl,” she said before we were even completely through the door. Her easy manner as she glanced up at us before returning to finish her task told me she was completely unsurprised by our arrival.

  “Did you tell her we were coming?” Alex whispered.

  “No,” I said, confused myself by Mama Legba’s greeting.

  “Well, come on back,” she told us, putting the last jar in place.

  We followed her down the narrow hallway and seated ourselves on the deep couch while she finished brewing more of her fragrant tea.

  “We need to talk to you, Mama,” I told her.

  “I figured that much, Lucy-girl.” She handed me a brightly colored mug. This time I took a sip and was surprised to find that the flowery-smelling liquid was sweet. “Well, go on then. I been waiting all morning, child. No sense making me wait no longer.” She motioned for me to speak.

  I told her about Chloe and about the trade I’d set up with whatever was in her skin. “We have to have be back by sunset. Can you help us?”

  “Sure enough,” Mama Legba said. “But that’s only solving the smallest part of your problem.”

  “We could save T.J.—”

  “Then what?” Mama Legba interrupted. “So you set your brother free, but whatever has hold of Chloe—this Thisbe—she still loose. How you planning on stopping her? And what about this boy here?”

  “My situation is not important,” Alex said. “Only Lucy’s safety is.”

  Mama Legba looked squarely at him. “You tied up in this, boy. Why you think you still in this world?”

  “Because of Thisbe,” I said, realizing how right Mama Legba was. It wasn’t enough to free T.J. from Thisbe’s grasp. I needed to free Alex, too.

  So I started at the beginning this time and told Mama Legba everything. I told her about the Dream I’d had since I was a child and the dreams that started when I arrived at Le Ciel. I told her about my most recent dream—the one where I’d stepped away from Armantine’s body.

  When I finished, she had a pleased look on her face and slapped her leg in delight. “I knew you was gonna be one to watch, Lucy-girl, and boy if I wasn’t right.” She seemed entirely too pleased with the whole situation, and I couldn’t begin to guess what there was for her to be pleased about.

  “But I don’t understand what any of it means, Mama. And I don’t know how it can help us stop Thisbe once and for all.”

  She leaned forward in her chair and rested her hand on my knee. “It takes a powerful soul to separate they self from they body, Lucy-girl. Just like it gonna take a powerful soul to put a stop to this Thisbe. You one of those, child,” she told me solemnly.

  “Because I was Armantine.”

  “Sure enough, sure enough. But she was probably just one stop on your journey, just like this body you in now is another stop. There’s old souls and there’s young souls, child. I told you before, every time we take a body, we grow and change. Every time we come back to this place, we have inside of us all that we ever was before.” She took a long sip from her mug and considered me. “Most people don’t never know what they got inside of them.”

  “But I’ve been dreaming about it,” I murmured.

  Mama Legba nodded. “Dreams are powerful parts of our lives, Lucy-girl. Even the newest souls use dreams to get free—just for a minute or two—from they human condition. They get to dance free from they worries, from all of the pressures and expectations holdin’ them down in this world. Because when we dream”—she made a rumble of approval deep in her throat—“we can move beyond, see the bigger picture stretching out before us.

  “Most people wake,” she continued. “And they don’t remember a thing. Other people, they forget they dreams and then, in sudden flashes—” She snapped her fingers. “That’s when they realize they’ve been somewhere before. Done something already.” She glanced at me. “Some people call that déjà vu. They even got all sorts of scientists trying to figure it out.” She’d settled back into the softness of the plush, plum-colored chair and seemed to be enjoying the thought of the poor misdirected scientists trying to logically explain phenomena that defied logic.

  Then she grew serious. Leaning forward, she placed a warm hand on my bare knee again. “But for some, Lucy-girl, dreams are more than just a playground. For some, like you, dreams are an opening to the past. Those kind of dreams show you what was. But you something else, child.” She patted my leg approvingly. “You a powerful-enough soul to break free and walk in your dreams of your own free will. What happened to you last night—to pull free of your past self and walk alone?” She paused as though she were weighing her next words carefully. “It’s a great gift you been given, but it’s also a dangerous power to have.”

  “But I couldn’t do anything,” I moaned, miserable and more confused by the minute.

  “Lucy-girl, just knowing the past gives you power. Ain’t that what your father do everyday? Why you suppose he so interested in that kind of knowledge?”

  “I don’t really know,” I told her. “I always just assumed he liked old stuff.” But what was it my dad always said? That we had to understand our past to shape our future. That not having all of the facts could result in making mistakes and missteps.

  “He know, deep deep down where it matters, our history, our past—it shape us all,” she said, echoing my thoughts. “It can change our present, direct our future. Think of this, Lucy-girl. Without the dreams you been having, you wouldn’t be in a position to help your brother now. Even if this boy here tell you somebody done snatched your brother’s soul, you wouldn’t have believed it. You wouldn’t have understood all that led us to this moment right here. You’d be like your parents, sitting in that there hospital confused and afraid, instead of asking the questions that can give you real answers. You might have the answers you need already, child.”

  “I don’t see how,” I told her doubtfully.

  “You ain’t listening to what I’m saying, Lucy-girl,” she said impatiently. “What you did last night? You ain’t chained to your past no more. Think about it.”

  “Because she can separate herself from Armantine in the dreams?” Alex asked.

  “Sure enough,” Mama Legba confirmed, pleased that someone was finally catching on.

  “It might work,” Alex said to himself. “If you could follow my attackers instead of following Armantine’s fate, you may be able to find out what Thisbe did to me. If you can do that, perhaps we can discover her weakness.” He looked up at me, hopeful. “We may be able to finish this.”

  “You really think it’s as easy as that?” I asked them both. The pieces were growing closer together, but I still wasn’t sure they fit. It seemed almost too simple to just dream up a solution.

  “Ain’t nothing easy about it, Lucy-girl. It might even be dangerous, but it’s possible.”

  I ignored Mama Legba’s talk of danger. Difficulty I could deal with, and I could definitely work with possible. But then a thought struck me that made my hope crumble to ash. “But you said this is all dependant on me dreaming. What if I never have that dream again? Or what if I don’t have that dream for another three weeks? We don’t have that kind of time.�
�� I slumped back into the couch as possible seemed farther and father away. “It’s not like I can control what I dream about.”

  Mama Legba smiled at me gently. “Can’t you, child?”

  “No, I—” And then I remembered all those days without Alex. I remembered how much I’d thought about wanting to see him throughout the day, and how much my dreams took on a life of my own at night.

  “You seeing the light?” Mama asked wryly.

  “Maybe.” I chewed on my bottom lip and worked through the logic of it. “It’s about concentration, isn’t it?” That’s what she meant by it being difficult.

  She nodded. “You ain’t trained, but you’ve already done more than you should be able to on your own. You more powerful than you realize, Lucy-girl.” She patted my knee affectionately.

  Suddenly Alex stiffened. “You said it could be dangerous. When she separates herself during the dream, what could harm her there?”

  Mama Legba glanced at him. “’Bout as much as anything can hurt you, boy.”

  “That does not signify at all,” he told Mama Legba in clipped tones. “She is not in the same condition I am.”

  Mama Legba didn’t say anything. She just stared at Alex for a minute before letting out a heavy breath. “Ain’t nothing can hurt a ghost in a dream, boy. What you gotta worry about is the sleeping body that’s waiting behind. We gonna make sure nothing happens to her.” She looked at him with the kind of stare my mom gives me when she knows I’m not telling her everything I should. “But what you know about your own self?”

  Alex’s jaw tensed at the sudden attention.

  “You the missing piece in a lot of this, boy,” Mama Legba told him. “You want Lucy safe, you better tell her whatever you know. Any little piece of this might be the one we missing.”

  He remained rigid for a few seconds longer, then sighed. “After whatever Thisbe did, I woke up by the pond. At first, I did not realize that I was not myself, and then once I did, I realized I was trapped there.”

  “That was when, hundred-fifty years ago or so?” She shook her head. “No, there’s something else going on. No body should be able to last that long, dead or alive. Not naturally, at least.” Mama Legba thought for a moment. “It’d take more than a simple binding charm to keep you here for this long. To keep any body here for so long. Only way I ever heard of to do work that dark is through sacrifice.”

  “They sacrificed him?” I asked, confused again.

  “No, Lucy-girl. I don’t think that’s it at all.” She glanced at Alex. “Innocent blood would be the only thing that could fuel this kind of evil.”

  “The girl,” Alex whispered.

  “What girl?” Mama Legba asked.

  “Before this all happened to me, there was a slave girl found dead on Roman’s land.”

  “Lila,” I told them, remembering Armantine’s small friend. I shuddered at the thought of her blank eyes and the thick blood clotted at her neck. “The markings on her chest.”

  Alex nodded. “Her death was not natural.”

  “Ain’t no slave death during those days natural, boy.”

  “You don’t understand—when we found her body—” He swallowed hard. “It had been practically drained. And there were markings over most of her torso. Carved into her skin.”

  “Her skin, you say?” Mama Legba’s eyes went wide. “That might be part of this sure enough.” She glanced at us both, clearly nervous. “It don’t calm me none to know that girls be dying again ’round here lately. That one—Chloe’s friend—her body was all marked up, too.”

  I’d heard the rumors, but the police hadn’t released those details. “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “When things go wrong in the Quarter, sometimes the police brings me in to consult.” She looked to Alex. “Those markings you saw, what did they look like?”

  He furrowed his brow, trying to remember. “They were strange. Like writing, but not like any writing I’d ever seen before.”

  “Sounds like too many similarities, if you ask me.” She thought for a moment. “We missing some pieces all right, but I’m thinking somehow they’s all connected together. We gonna have to find those pieces.” She looked at me with an unwavering gaze. “You gonna have to find them for us.”

  I shook my head. “We have to get back out to Le Ciel. Thisbe will be waiting at her cabin to make the trade. Maybe tonight, when I dream—”

  “You don’t need no nighttime to dream, Lucy-girl,” Mama Legba told me gently.

  “That’s true, love,” Alex agreed.

  “I don’t know if there’s time,” I hedged. It was already after noon. If we were late or didn’t show up with the fake charm, there was no telling what Thisbe would do.

  “The sooner we discover Thisbe’s weakness, the safer your brother—your entire family—will be,” Alex said.

  “And I could free you, too,” I murmured.

  “Only if we knows Thisbe’s weakness,” Mama Legba told me.

  I looked at him, but Alex’s expression was unreadable. Maybe there was more hope for our future than I’d let myself believe. “If you’re sure we can get back to Le Ciel by sunset, I’ll try,” I said, giving Alex a small smile.

  He didn’t return it as I’d expected him to.

  I snuggled down into the pillows on Mama Legba’s couch as she filled the air with a sharp-smelling incense that made me drowsy with its thick headiness. Alex settled in next to me, his back propped against one of the bright pillows as well. “It won’t bother you that I’m here?” he asked.

  “No, I need you here,” I told him. “You’ll help me focus on where I need to go.” And I felt safer knowing he was watching over me.

  “Then sleep, my love, and dream of me.”

  I closed my eyes and focused. I thought of the last dream. I imagined Armantine’s excitement as she carefully folded her best gowns for the long journey. I remembered the delight in Alex’s eyes as he led her on board the ship. I imagined the way their laughter and joy rang through the small cabin as they ate their dinner sitting on the narrow bed. For a while, I thought it wouldn’t work, and then all at once, I was there.

  Alex was across the room from me, watching me with those dancing green eyes of his, and Armantine was about to put the potion into his wine.

  I focused on that. On trying to stop her. With every atom of my being I tried to pull her back, tried to stay her hand. Suddenly we were apart, and I watched as she handed him the deadly cup.

  I couldn’t stop her as she signaled to Thisbe out the porthole window, or as she let the woman and the two large men into the room. When Armantine realized the plan had changed, she panicked. She tried pushing the men out of the room. When that didn’t work, she threw herself across Alex’s unconscious body, shielding him. The men were stronger, and pulled her off easily.

  This time, I didn’t wake.

  This time, I watched as Thisbe turned to Armantine. After letting the girl struggle a little longer against the two men, Thisbe laughed and ripped the locket from her neck. She opened it and removed the love charm, then broke open the wax and took out the intertwined locks of hair, tossing the wax aside. She turned her attention back to Alex.

  “I can’t have you leaving before I get what I need from you,” she murmured to his unconscious form.

  “I’ll give you whatever you want,” Armantine told her desperately.

  “What do you have that I want?” Thisbe asked, turning to Armantine viciously. “You don’t have anything at all, girl. You aren’t anything—not until you marry this one. Even then.” She made a disgusted harrumph. “Now usually, that bit of hair you gave me would’ve been more than enough for me to take my payment when I was ready for it, but you didn’t tell me you were leaving so fast. Putting all that water between me and what I am owed. How was I supposed to take my payment then? How were you going to make your payment when you were far across the waters?” She turned back to Alex. “You were going to break our little deal, so I think I’ll
just be taking my payment right now.”

  Armantine struggled again to break free of the arms holding her. At the commotion, Thisbe turned back and watched for a moment, unimpressed. Then she moved close enough to hold the girl’s face in her craggy old hands. She hissed into Armantine’s ear, “I don’t think I need you after all.”

  With a movement so sharp I couldn’t have predicted it, the old woman drove a knife into Armantine’s stomach and gave it a vicious twist. The girl lurched with a sickening groan, staring at Thisbe in surprised horror as blood seeped from the wound.

  “Take this one out and dump her.” Thisbe’s voice rang out from behind me. “She isn’t worth anything to me anymore.”

  The pull I felt toward Armantine was so strong—I wanted to be with her, to follow her slow decent into the depths of the harbor. The effort it took to resist, to stay separate from Armantine’s body, was draining, and it took every ounce of energy I had to let her go and follow Alex’s body instead.

  When the group arrived back at the cabin, the two men dropped Alex’s limp form onto the low bed in the back room. Thisbe ordered them to wait outside.

  She bent over Alex and poked. “You can’t imagine how happy it made old Thisbe when that girl of yours came to me for a love charm,” she told him as she scuttled around the room making preparations for whatever came next. “A charm like that on a rich man like yourself? I thought to myself, yessir, that was gonna be worth something. I knew I could take all kinds of payments for that one. But then I heard you were taking her away, and I just couldn’t let that happen.” She shook her head. “No, no. So I’ll have my payment now. Turns out you’re just what I’ve been needing. You’re exactly what I’ve been looking for.” She cackled in delight. “You’re gonna give me more time. You’re gonna give me everything.”

  I watched as she opened the locked cabinet and brought out a small, gnarled figure—the doll we’d destroyed. Using the still-bloody knife, she sliced into Alex’s hand and watched his blood well slowly out of the open wound. When it began to pool, she smeared the doll in it and then wrapped it carefully with the remaining red string, letting Alex’s blood saturate the fibers as she chanted strange syllables. When that was done, she held it up and examined her handiwork.