by T. A. Foster
“I can’t believe you just agreed to help him, Ivy, without even talking to me about it.” He was angry with me, and was the first to break the silence.
I turned the radio down. “You act like you don’t make plans without consulting me. How did we even end up at the plantation?” I crossed my arms and glared out the window at the sugar cane fields racing past my view.
“A voodoo queen? You realize we are going on a hunt for a crazy damn voodoo queen?”
I seldom saw Finn get angry. He was too cool and calm for anger. If things were ever too intense, he usually left, but now he was trapped in this mission with me and I had forced him into helping Meyers. Unwillingly, he had accepted the jasper, and it wasn’t something he could return like a library book. I understood why he was a little peeved.
“Come on, Finn. We can find Emmy. It’s not even a hunt; we have an address. Don’t you want to find her?”
If everything Meyers had told us was true, Emmy Harper was alive and well. However, her captor, Consul Henri, was a demented man who had evaded time with the help of an infamous New Orleans voodoo queen, Madame Chantilly. What a name for a queen.
He huffed. “I do. Of course I want to find her. It’s my job. I just don’t like being committed to do extra things. Breaking curses,” he muttered. “How did you know Meyers was telling the truth anyway? What if this is some kind of trap? What if there is another Proxy and is way to steal our magic?”
Would he believe me if I said it was a gut instinct? I did have the added bonus of seeing Meyers in 1945. I hated he was so skeptical. I probably should be after Vegas.
“I wish we could have talked before I agreed to help him, but it happened so fast. The night Josette ran away with Luke, I saw how Meyers worried about her and how much he wanted her to escape. He helped her. He was more like a father should be instead of how the consul treated her. Now, he wants Emmy to escape. We can do this for him. We can help.”
“Yeah, but I’m not interested in bag-of-bones Meyers. That guy sealed his fate when he signed up with Madame Chantilly. I want to find Emmy so I can get back to…” His words trailed off. I thought he stopped himself before he uttered “Shadow Quest.” “You, babe, I want to get back to you and me and last night. Not some ancient evil who has problems.”
“I don’t know if that’s exactly fair. Meyers isn’t evil. You heard what he said. The only way he could protect Josette was to make sure he was around to keep her father from getting to her first. Really, Finn, he’s not a bad guy.”
“Whatever you say, gorgeous. Whatever you say.”
He zipped the rental car through the winding back roads of Louisiana that carried us into the heart of New Orleans’s black magic district.
Finn pulled the car along the curb and put it in park. He looked at the brown building wedged between a deli and a tax office. A neon sign blinked in the small window. Fortunes. Next to the glowing red letters was the picture of a hand with all fingers spread. Somehow, this was not what I pictured when Meyers told us Lady Chantilly had the mystical answers to this evil. This place could belong to any chintzy fortune-teller in the city.
“Really, this is seriously the place?” I could tell Finn doubted Meyers more by the second.
“At least let’s try it. What’s the worst thing that can happen—we get a bad palm reading?” I grabbed my bag and jumped out of the car.
“Hey, slow down. You’re not going in there without me.” Finn was next to me, pulling on my arm. His hand wrapped around my waist. “We’re doing this together, Ivy.”
I smiled. I thought I felt one of the threads knotting us back together. “Ok, let’s go meet the reigning voodoo queen of New Orleans.”
Finn separated a curtain of dangling beads, and I ducked under his arm to enter the waiting room of Lady Chantilly’s fortune-telling establishment. Wafting clouds of incense filled the room. A poster describing the good fortunes of card reading was tacked behind a desk. Tea light candles flickered from all corners of the room, keeping our attention away from the burgundy, threadbare carpet under our feet.
“Huh? And you still think Meyers knows what he’s talking about? What if this is some kind of trap?”
Finn eyed the voodoo hovel, and I shoved an elbow into his ribs as the main attraction entered the room.
Her hair was coiled beneath a bright pink turban, and both of her arms were draped in gold, silver, and black bangle bracelets. A white tunic hung loosely on her heavy frame, and stopped short of her knees. I was surprised to see she was wearing jeans with her ensemble.
“Welcome, guests. I’m Madame Chantilly. Please, sit.” She motioned to us to sit in front of the desk. “Fortunes today?”
Finn dismissed the pleasantries and cut right to the gut of our visit. “You know someone named Meyers?”
Madame Chantilly bristled at his tone. “I’m sorry. Is there something I can help you with? Maybe a reading of your love lines?” She plastered a tight smile across her face.
He jumped into the reason for our unscheduled visit. “Look, we’re not here for fortunes or love spells. Meyers sent us. He told us you would know what it was about.”
“Did he send you for a reading, perhaps? Readings are half off today.”
She pointed at another poster with a listing of the prices for services. I couldn’t believe people actually paid $100 for a palm reading.
“We’re not leaving until you give us what we came for. Am I clear?” Finn’s hands were on the shabby desk, and Madame Chantilly sat back in the rolling chair. I put my hand on his arm as if that would calm him. I could feel his muscles tensing under his jacket.
“Come on, Finn. Isn’t it obvious that Madame Chantilly doesn’t know Meyers? He must have been wrong. She’s not for real. This is just a tourist shop. Beads? Candles? It’s all for show. We have the wrong lady here. She doesn’t have any magic.” I tugged on his elbow.
Finn turned to face me with a puzzled look. I hoped he was picking up on my good-cop, bad-cop cues. I’d have to keep winging it until he figured it out.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re probably right. Why would he send us here? Look at this place. That old guy must be crazier than we thought. Sorry we bothered you, ma’am. We’ll let you get back to your card reading and crystal ball polishing.”
Finn guided me by the shoulders, and he was pulling the beaded curtain to the side when the woman finally spoke.
“Stop.” We spun on our heels in her direction. “You were right. You’re in the right place.” She glared at both of us. “Follow me.”
Obediently, we followed her past the desk, through the narrow doorway, and into a musty, dark hall. The walls were lined with pictures of zodiac symbols and celestial landscapes. I stuck close to Finn, unsure of what was ahead of us.
“In here.” She pointed to a red door.
Finn and I crossed the threshold into an icy cold room bathed in white furnishings. Unlike the touristy reception area, this room was clean and barely decorated. None of the knickknack charms or incense sticks was here. In the center of the room were four white chairs facing each other in a square.
“Sit.” She urged us into the seats. Finn and I dutifully sat next to each other and watched as Madame Chantilly sat across from us. “So, Meyers has finally found someone to help him break the immortal curse bond.”
“Is that what you call it?” My voice sounded scratchy. I realized I needed water. I was suddenly parched and a bit nervous.
“There is a name for the actual spell. He is bound by an Everlasting Spell.” She nodded almost in slow motion.
“Why in the hell did you give him an Everlasting Spell?” Finn attacked the woman with hostile words.
She paused and turned her head. “It was my mother, the previous Lady Chantilly, who bound him to the spell. I’m only the gatekeeper of the magic she performed.”
“Then why don’t you drop the gatekeeping and release the bond?” Finn demanded.
I could tell Madame Chantilly was not used to being
challenged. “Listen to me, witch!” Her eyes were beady and hot with anger. “I can’t pick and choose which magic to keep for her. It’s all or nothing. If I break that bond, I also break important spells that need to continue. As I said, I’m only the gatekeeper. I don’t have the same kind of power my mother did.”
Before Finn threw out more accusations, I posed my most pressing question to the voodoo queen—the only answer I needed to hear from her. “But can you help us? Can we defeat him?”
She exhaled. “He has eyes all over the city. For the past seventy years, he has amassed a fortune, and he spares no expense to pay for security, for information, and for control. The only way you can rescue Miss Harper is to separate him from those shielding him. Once you have him alone, you will have to eliminate the magic running through him. It won’t be easy to defeat him, but I feel great power in this room.” She searched Finn’s face, then mine. My eyes locked with her dark brown stare. “You.” She smiled at me. “You will be able to defeat him.”
Finn looked at me, and then Madame Chantilly.
“This is a package deal, lady. Ivy’s not doing anything without me. Meyers told us you could give us the answers. We just want to take him out, whatever you call him, get the movie star back, and leave New Orleans.”
She stared directly at Finn and kept talking. “But you, you have unfinished business here.” She smiled again. “This is part of your quest.”
I thought I saw her eyeing his pocket where the jasper was hidden. It seemed like everyone knew about Finn’s Shadow Quest.
“Ok, lady. Enough.” Finn jumped from the chair. “Ivy, let’s go. She is obviously not going to help us, and she’s just ranting. Let’s go find the old consul on our own.”
“Sit! You will sit!” Madame Chantilly’s voice rang out from her sturdy frame, and the white room echoed with her annoyance at Finn.
“This isn’t some joke, witch. This is the darkest, deepest magic there is. You’re dealing with a force who has learned how to elude death. He’s been living for over a hundred years, and his power has only grown. He takes people down his path. He steals, he tortures, he kidnaps. You think this is some kind of fancy, little spell? Something you can just hocus-pocus into submission? No. He is strong and he is protected.”
Her eyes were beady, and I thought I saw little flickers of white flames dancing within her stare. “He will be waiting for you, and in one snap of his finger, you will be but a pile of witchy glitter dusting the tops of his shoes.”
I could tell Finn did not appreciate the lecture or the scare tactics, and he leaned down into the voodoo queen’s face. “Aren’t you the one who’s been helping him? If you’re the one who knows the secret to taking him out, why haven’t you done it? Why wait until now?”
I held my breath. The mutual dislike between the pair was tangible and clouding the otherwise soothing atmosphere of the perfectly white room. They were locked in a glaring battle. I was starting to think that visiting Madame Chantilly was a mistake. We weren’t getting any information, and she was only adding to Finn’s frustration.
I jumped when the fortune-teller broke the silence. I wasn’t expecting what she said next.
“Because of her.” She pointed at me. “I’ve been waiting for her.”
I shook my head. What was everyone’s deal today?
“You don’t even know who you are, dear. Did you think all witches could extinguish power?”
My inability to speak answered Madame Chantilly’s question.
“Well, they can’t. But you can. You’re a Laurel.”
My Early Teen Years
“WHY CAN’T I just sleep over at Beth’s house? All of the girls in my class are going, Mama. I’ll be the only one.” I knew I was pouting and whining, but I didn’t care. This was totally unfair. It seemed like my parents were always telling me no, and I was tired of it.
“Honey, I know you want to go and be with the other girls, but it’s not a good idea.” My mother sat on my bed, watching me stomp around my room.
“You and Daddy never let me go out with my friends. You say you’re worried what people will think, but you don’t even realize you’re making me be the class freak. They don’t know anything except that my parents are ridiculous.” I turned my back to her and flipped through a stack of CDs on the floor next to my stereo.
“Oh, Ivy, you’ll understand when you get a little older. This is a temporary situation. In a few months, definitely by next year, when you have your magic more under control, you can go and do things with other girls. But, overnight, all night, is too risky. What if you did a spell by accident?”
My mother’s voice was calm and sweet, but I didn’t want any of her pity or comfort. I wanted to go to Beth Lancaster’s sleepover. This was so unfair! I wasn’t going to give anyone warts or turn the girls’ hair blue.
“Fine, Mama. I just won’t do any magic, ever again.”
The words came out before I could fully understand what I said, but it felt good. The idea of being a regular girl, not dealing with flying or practicing spells or studying the family history of special talents, felt free and liberating. It was exhausting being a teen witch.
I don’t think she meant to giggle, but a small bit of laughter escaped my mother’s lips.
“I’m sorry, Ivy. I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just I remember saying the same thing when I was your age. This is a tough time for you. But, it will pass and you’ll embrace who you are.” She smiled.
“No. No, I won’t. I don’t want to be a witch. I’m not going to be a witch and I’m not going to do any more spells. No more studying, no more practicing. I’m done.”
My mother pushed herself off my bed and walked over to my door. “Honey, if you change your mind and want to talk, let me know.” She quietly closed the door behind her.
Tiny surges of adrenaline pulsed through my veins. I felt strong and in control. No magic. I could make myself be normal. I could be a regular girl. I pushed the eject button on my stereo and loaded a new disc. I hit play and turned up U2 as loudly as I could.
My parents always said I was a special girl, but don’t all parents say that to their daughters? They loved me, they nurtured me, they taught me everything they could about our family’s heritage, but there was always an unspoken understanding that there was more for me to do and to learn. They just never told me what it was.
My anti-magic phase lasted six months. I was more surprised than my parents were that I could go so long without so much as a quick night flight, a sky spell, or spelling my way out of a bad hair day. I didn’t practice with Ian, I left the kitchen anytime Daddy was cooking, and I refused to listen to Mama babble on in her herb garden. My parents didn’t pester or push me. They let me work through my personal struggle with magic. I blocked every ounce of it from my early teen existence. Then the Foresight happened.
Like a cold wave hitting me when my back was turned to the ocean, the dream washed over me in the middle of the night. I awoke shaking, breathing hard, and doused in trickles of perspiration all over my body.
The house was quiet. My room was dark. I fought the urge to call out to my parents. It didn’t feel like a dream; it was too real. The cloudy aura that usually enveloped my dreams wasn’t there. I could touch and talk, and they talked back. It had to be a dream, because I wasn’t using magic, I told myself.
The next morning I tried my best to act unaffected by the nightmare. I brushed my teeth, took a shower, and sat in my usual corner spot at the kitchen table. It was Saturday, and Daddy was making French toast.
“Ivy, you don’t seem like your usual sunshiny self. Everything ok?” Daddy flipped the toast over in the skillet. For my benefit, he used a spatula instead of a spell.
I wanted to tell someone, but I felt silly. I was too old to be upset by a dream, and it was only a dream. “No, Daddy, just sleepy. I’m fine.” I poured orange juice for everyone and waited for my toast.
After breakfast, I decided to take my bike out for a ride a
round the neighborhood. Fresh air and a change of scenery would fade out the memory of the dream. Usually by now I wouldn’t even be able to tell someone what I had dreamed the night before, much less remember every detail.
A thirty-minute bike ride, reading two chapters of The Awakening, and watching The Matrix with Ian did nothing to ease the nagging misery swirling around me from the Foresight.
I was in my room, listening to music and flipping through the pages of Seventeen magazine, when I heard a light tapping on my door.
“Come in,” I called.
I picked up the remote for my stereo and muted it. I was surprised to see both of my parents huddled in the doorway.
My mother crossed the room and sat next to me on the bed. Her eyes were puffy and her makeup had been wiped away. “Honey, I’m afraid we have some sad news to tell you.” My father was standing next to her with his arm on her shoulder. Before the words were uttered, I knew exactly what she was going to say.
“I just got a call from Nora Brooks.” Nora was our neighborhood know-it-all. “Tommy Nichols was in a terrible accident this afternoon. He’s in the hospital, and they just don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
I felt heavy tears sliding down my face, and the dam holding back the sickening pit that lingered in my stomach all day broke in a million pieces. I raced to the bathroom, threw open the toilet lid, and heaved into it. My parents rushed in after me, and my mother grabbed a handful of my hair at the nape of my neck.
“Ivy? Ivy, what’s wrong?” She patted my back.
I sat on the cool tile floor and looked up at my parents. “I knew. I knew all day. I-I had a Foresight last night.”
My parents exchanged concerned looks. One of them probably wanted to say, “There was nothing you could do about it” or “How could you have known,” but that wouldn’t be true. Because, I did know. I knew all day that Tommy Nichols, the boy I sat behind in Algebra, the boy I hoped would take me to homecoming, the boy I swapped notes with at lunch was lying in a hospital bed, fighting for his life, because of me.