The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Reneaux leaned forward. “DuLac says love is the real healer.”

  “Is that your pickup line? I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She grabbed his hand, wishing she could erase the hurt from his face. “Don’t go. I’ve been eaten up ever since the baby’s been gone.” Ever since her mother died. The baby was pain twice over. Losses were mounting up.

  Reneaux’s face was a hair’s breadth from hers. She could feel his uneven breath, feel the tenseness radiating down his back.

  Kind Dog started whimpering.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She pressed Reneaux’s head to her heart.

  “I murdered him.” Reneaux whispered. Then she could feel the whirlwind gathering in his belly, coiling through his lungs, until it was a shrill howl flowing from his mouth.

  She felt buffeted by his pain, pulled in by the undertow.

  She tugged Reneaux, shifting his weight, pulling him up off his knees to lie upon her. The two of them pressed into the sofa. Tight, cocooned together, shifting their weight against the cushions.

  She understood the ferocity of pain. Understood how someone could howl like an animal. Then subside, hiding pain in sinews, bones, and blood. Year after year after year.

  She felt the soft currents from his exhalations. She buried her face against his neck, kissed the soft flesh . . . then kissed again. She stroked his lower back, buttocks, the concavity between his waist and pelvis. She opened her mouth, biting into his shoulder. Teasing through cotton, nipping to get at skin. His breath more ragged; his body expressing its need, and hers, too, her inside, opening, unfolding, preparing for him.

  Reneaux’s head drew back. A question.

  “Love heals. Isn’t that what DuLac says?”

  Love. As in solace, comfort, forgiveness. Christ’s charity. All she’d ever had, all she ever thought she needed was sex.

  Reneaux stood. She cried out, thinking he was leaving her. He neither wanted nor needed her. Then his arms slid under her shoulder and knees, and he lifted her like a babe. Lifted her and carried her to his bed.

  “Love me,” she pleaded, and he did.

  * * *

  Sweet, gentle loving. He gathered up the pieces of her and focused her on feeling. Slowly, a southern gentlemen, exploring her secrets—the skin behind her knees, the sensitivity of her nipples and breasts, the slope between her thighs. She wasn’t sure he came. But she did, awash with feeling, her back arching, her entire being exalting.

  She lifted her head to see Kind Dog sleeping, stretched full-length on the couch. She sighed, drifting in a haze of satiety, feeling for the first time that she’d found the path home.

  Reneaux clutched her hands, stretching her arms outward, his fingertips opening her hands like she was pinioned to a cross. His head was beside her head, his body’s weight pressing her deeper into the bed. His knees separated her legs, and he entered her body.

  This time he took her down, deeper into herself. Aggressive. Intense. Working out his pain. Seeking forgiveness, pleasure-pain. She followed him. Matched his strokes. Let her loneliness touch his.

  His arms encircled her. She rose; he shifted his weight onto his knees and heels. She rode him, quick, hard, her hands clasping his face, her tongue exploring his mouth. Then they were rocking together, moaning, matching each other’s rhythm. On and on they rode, like they were being chased; their bodies locked, they were rushing to safety.

  Their kiss, their rhythm, deepened. Her womb contracting, his penis thrusting, they swallowed each other’s screams. His embrace hurt, her nails dug into his skin. They were both holding on for dear life. Holding, holding, riding to a horizon where they both gasped, their bodies shuddered, and feeling became light, turning into a spray of rainbows.

  Their kisses became gentle. Eyes, nose, mouth, cheekbones, the hollow at the base of each other’s throat, they kissed. Reneaux helped lower her onto the bed, his hands supporting her back. He stayed inside her. Their bodies were wet, sticky from semen and sweat. He murmured her name over and over. “Marie, Marie, Marie. I adore, Marie.” His teeth and tongue teased, nibbled her ear. She kept rubbing his shoulders, buttocks, and back.

  Sweet yet not sweet.

  Eyes closed, she didn’t want to break the spell. Didn’t want to see only fading lust in his eyes. Or denigrating manly triumph. Didn’t want him to see how special his loving had been to her.

  “Dream of me,” he murmured.

  She opened her eyes.

  He was watching her. Lovingly. She hadn’t known what that word meant between a man and a woman. Lovingly—how a parent watched a child. But between two consenting adults? Lovingly. That was how he was watching her and how she was watching him.

  He drew out of her. She shifted sideways, one arm across his abdomen, his arm embracing her. She heard the slowing of his breath and heart, inhaled his scent mixed with hers. She sighed, closing her eyes, knowing he was watching over her.

  Lovingly.

  * * *

  All day she slept, wrapped in a cocoon. Sheets twisted about her, sunshine warming her spirit.

  She heard Reneaux tiptoeing, heard him take Kind Dog outside, heard him sitting by the edge of the bed, turning pages in a book.

  She slept until evening matins, until the cacophony of bells began calling Catholics to prayer.

  She could see the church. Same as in the painting. Allez was framed in the church door. Waiting for her.

  She woke; Reneaux was sitting on the corner of the bed.

  “It’s Allez. He’s behind everything.”

  “You sure?”

  Holding the sheet to her breasts, she leaned forward and kissed Reneaux. “We should see DuLac.”

  “Sure?”

  She laughed.

  His palm cupped her face. Their eyes conveyed, if not exactly a vow of love, then a willingness to commit. “Sure?” he whispered.

  His eyes somber, Reneaux was worried. Not about her, for her.

  “Oui. Certainement.”

  His brows lifted. “You know French? Creole?”

  “I’m discovering I know more than I think.”

  “That’s good,” he said, exaggerating his drawl.

  She kissed his brow, nose, lips. “I’ve been hiding. Time to grow up. Discover who I am.”

  “Me, too,” whispered Reneaux as he stroked her hair; they embraced and made love again.

  ANOTHER BEGINNING

  Two Thousand and Five

  The only protection is . . . to see the self as other. Immortal.

  Grandmère, my mother, my daughter, and myself—we were all named Marie.

  This story is all of us.

  Voodoo is worth passing on.

  —Marie Laveau, June 12, 1881, early evening

  (From Louis DeLavier’s journal)

  ou know me.”

  DuLac was slumped in a claw-footed chair, his head back and mouth half-open. Marie had asked Reneaux not to knock. Instead, they let themselves in, walking into the vestibule, its walls covered with velvet flocking. Marie was assailed by the home’s hothouse scent, like entering another world, layered with incense, sweet flowers, and a hint of cinnamon. Excessive decadence. Eighty-eight degrees outside and the fireplace roared, flames licking the air.

  An empty brandy glass, turned upside down, was next to DuLac’s bare feet. He smelled of alcohol and dirty sweat. Shirt messed; belt buckle undone. Marie knew he hadn’t been to work. There must’ve been comments in the ER today: “DuLac tied another one on”; “Drowned himself in the bottle”; “Gave himself an overdose.” While she and Reneaux had found space to make love, DuLac had drunken himself into a stupor. And El? Knowing her, she’d be at work, fussing over patients, saying prayers to the Virgin and to wakeful spirits.

  “You know me,” Marie repeated.

  “I knew your mother. And your mother’s mother before.”

  Kind Dog nudged DuLac’s knee.

  DuLac stroked Dog’s ears, then looked up at Marie, smiling, his face beatific. “You came back.”
/>   In that moment, Marie forgave him everything. She moved forward, watching his smile widen, his arms spreading wide. She fell to her knees, her head on his thighs, and he wrapped his torso over hers and held her, cradled her . . . and hummed.

  “You?” she asked.

  “Oui, I came to see you. In Chicago.”

  She looked at him, wistful.

  “Non. I’m not your father. Just a man who tried to persuade your Maman to come home.”

  “You read my mind.”

  He smiled. “Non. Just your face. You’d the same look when you were a child. I don’t think anyone knows who your father be. All I know is he terrified your Maman enough to run her off. Or, maybe, that’s not right. Maybe someone terrified them both. She was so frightened.”

  “Too frightened.”

  “And what about you? Are you too frightened?”

  “I’m scared but I feel as though I belong here. In New Orleans.”

  “Oui. You made it on your own. Found your way home. Eh, yé, yé, Maman Marie.”

  “Why do you call me that?”

  “You think she’s the one?” asked Reneaux, his voice overlapping Marie’s.

  DuLac laughed, high-pitched. “I need either an Aspirin or a drink.”

  “You’d better drink,” said Reneaux. “Aspirin might kill you.”

  DuLac shrugged. He rubbed Kind Dog’s head. Clutching the brandy bottle, his fat-bellied glass, he said, “Come with me,” and led them down the hall.

  “My chapel,” he said, opening the door.

  The room was dim, candles flickered, and incense, heady and sweet, burned in a gold cup. There was a statue of the Virgin, dressed in blue and white, a crucifix, and a charcoal drawing of an old man, back bent, with a walking stick.

  “The Virgin, you know. Christ is always Christ. The old man is Legba. He’s like St. Peter. He opens the gate to heaven, to the spirit world.”

  Marie stood on the threshold. DuLac was inside, before her; Reneaux, outside, behind her. Her breath came in quick bursts. If she stepped inside the chapel again, everything she knew would be transformed.

  DuLac held out his hand.

  Marie couldn’t help thinking: “Why should I trust you?” But it wasn’t really a matter of trust. She needed to go where DuLac could lead. She needed to be other than who she was—she hadn’t been happy. Not since her mother died.

  Still, she held back.

  Reneaux whispered, “I’m here.”

  DuLac murmured, “I shouldn’t have tricked you.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  “I’m sorry.” He edged closer. “I have loved you—always have. Je t’adore. I have loved you as a companion, a friend to the gods, my spirit adviser, my salvation, as my queen, down through the generations.”

  DuLac’s fingers traced her cheekbones. “When you were a child, I loved you. Even when it was clear you had no idea of your legacy. I prayed for this day.”

  Love. As in charity? Christian charity? Or some perversion meant to steal away her soul? Did it matter?

  She whose faith was untested, who prayed and believed in God because her mother had told her she ought to. But it’d been years since she’d been to Mass, never once in New Orleans, even though daily, the bells caroled and called. DuLac was encouraging blasphemy; yet, why did she feel such yearning? She didn’t believe she was evil; rather, she was interested in love: Reneaux’s love—she looked back at his clear, black face; DuLac’s love—he believed in her when she didn’t believe in herself.

  A breath caressed her ear. Mother?

  “She’s here,” said DuLac.

  Marie stepped across the threshold.

  “You’ll find her in the painting.”

  Transfixed, Marie stepped closer and closer, smelling honeysuckle rising from the canvas.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s always a history. See.” He pointed at the painting. “That’s you.”

  “Me?”

  “Your Maman, too. Blood ancestors.”

  “You’re frightening me.”

  “Non, ma petite. Don’t you feel memories? Snakes stirring in your blood?”

  Marie felt awe. The scent was strong, buried in canvas and oil.

  “Eh, yé, yé, Maman Marie. Eh, yé, yé,” DuLac chanted. “Back through time. Twentieth century. Nineteenth. Eighteenth, seventeenth. For centuries, slaves were carted across the Atlantic. White Americans said, ‘Slaves were blank slates.’ They could write upon their souls.

  “Not so. Slaves brought West African faiths. A belief in the power of the ancestors. In deities. A belief that the entire world was alive with spirits. Meaning—everyone and everything—needed respect, blessings. Here, in Louisiana, many of the slaves traveled from Africa to Haiti to here. The Code Noir required all slaves to be baptized Catholic. But their faith was Voudon. Voodoo, it was called in the New World. Their faith went underground, mixing and blending with Christianity. The Virgin Mary sometimes became Mistress Ezili. Or Aido-Wedo, a rainbow. Christ became kin to Damballah, the father to all the gods.

  “Slaves went to church, confessed to priests for intercession with God. But they also kept alive their belief that if they called the gods themselves, the spirits would come. Despite distance, human cruelty, and suffering.

  “Always a history, Marie. Look at the painting. A ceremony. Whites called it ‘night dancing.’ They thought blacks’ dances were primitive, sensual, and barbaric. But these were the qualities of the masters. Pinched souls who couldn’t see or understand a darker beauty. Who didn’t understand that ‘night dancing’ was a ritual, a ceremony where humanity touched the divine.

  “Always a history. Look, Marie.”

  It was her face.

  “Women hand sight down through the generations.”

  “It isn’t real.”

  “It is. The drug I gave you encouraged visions, but you’ve always had them.”

  “I’m not myself.”

  “You’re more yourself than you’ve ever been.”

  Features shifted. “Mother?”

  The face shimmered, changed again. It was her, yet not her. Mother, yet not. The eyes were black, penetrating. The small painted figure seemed suddenly larger than life. Her spirit overflowing the boundaries of canvas, dimension, time, and space.

  “Generations of priestesses. All named Marie. Mixed bloods.”

  Marie swayed. Reneaux steadied her, and gave her a fleeting kiss. She looked at him in wonder. She wasn’t used to men helping her, being touched by their goodwill. DuLac was shining with almost paternal pride. “Your gift takes many forms. Intuition—”

  “Dreams?”

  “Oui. Sometimes foresight. Prophecy. Sometimes, hindsight, mainly healing—”

  “Then why couldn’t I heal my mother?”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to be healed?”

  “No.” She looked at DuLac, then relented. “Yes, maybe.” She didn’t remember her mother’s smiles or laughter, just her hard labor, tired body, and a depressed spirit.

  “Your Maman ran from herself. Her history. Can’t escape sight. Women hand sight down through the generations. See.” His hand poked at the canvas. “See. Don’t matter who the father be—sad but true. One, two, three Maries . . . never dying, circling, circling like the snake eating itself.”

  The dancers swayed. The snake twisted down Marie’s arm.

  “I know this place. Cathedral Square.”

  “Yes. If you call, the faithful will come again.”

  “2005—you’ll have to get a permit,” said Reneaux.

  DuLac laughed. “Let’s begin small. A ceremony here.”

  “When?”

  “Now?”

  “Tonight.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Search your heart. Tell me what you know.”

  Since she stepped on New Orleans soil, she’d been haunted. In her heart and soul, she knew more than she could account for—knew her dreaming was connected to the M
aries. Baby made four. Knew she was connected to the women dying.

  She peered closely at the world caught within the frame.

  Where was the man?

  * * *

  Past midnight, the moon was high. Two matrons silently dressed her in white.

  DuLac instructed: “We all wear white. For purity, cleansing. On white, the spirits paint their own colors. They paint the colors of the universe.”

  El arrived. Marie opened her arms and the two of them held on to each other for dear life.

  “I’m sorry,” moaned El. She looked as if she’d aged a dozen years.

  “No need for sorry.” Marie patted her back. “Ssssh.” And as she had with her Maman, Marie felt, for a moment, that she was the mother and El, the child.

  “Time to begin,” chortled DuLac.

  Marie sat on a straight-back chair, her ankles and hands crossed. DuLac moved with the grace of a king. Through the front door, but mostly through the back, DuLac’s small band of followers arrived. No more than a dozen. Marie wondered how many of them went to Mass on Sunday? But they were here now. “True believers,” DuLac said. Mainly, they were old men and women—some gap-toothed, some rail-thin, some graying, others with hair white as cotton. One woman, Madame Yvonne, she’d seen for hypertension. She was lonely. Her children all lived North. She recognized “Petey,” known for his binge drinking, sleeping on sidewalks. Erma, at least eighty, was called “Auntie” by everyone. Healed bone fractures were everywhere in her body—her arms, her legs, her ribs, her face. “Auntie” had been abused when she was young.

  Another man, whom Marie didn’t recognize, carried a flapping chicken. He stuffed the hen, squawking, into a wooden cage.

  “Sacrifice,” said DuLac. “The followers expect it. Afterward, I make gumbo.”

  It was surreal. A bad B movie.

  Reneaux stood next to her, his hand on her shoulder, soothing.

  Lastly, a boy entered, a buttery brown boy with thick black lashes and curly hair. A drum almost as tall as him hung from his shoulder. Marie thought he couldn’t have been more than fourteen. He should’ve been in bed, making ready for a day of school.

  “Without him, it wouldn’t be complete,” said DuLac. “He makes the call.”