I sensed the caul as if I myself were sitting in Henri’s pocket.
Henri took it out and shook it at us. It pushed me, like a wind in my face, like a lake of mud about my knees. This time, I didn’t struggle with it. According to Mme Vulcaine, it contained my own force, my own strength. I must own it—or let it defeat me.
Samedi had said, You stayed a little while, just long enough to put down roots. And it was true. I looked down at my feet. Those roots spread like a spiderweb of the senses, crackling away in all directions toward every box car, every flophouse, every hollow under a patch of trees behind a vacant factory—and toward Montmorency, the center of my heart.
The force of Henri’s will sucked at mine like a whirlpool in the river.
I relaxed against the force, thinking, I own you, I love you, I am you. And the force split like a river around a boulder, rushing harmlessly past me.
Sophie went still.
I said, “No. You won’t harm Sophie. I am charged with defending my bois and my people. She is one of mine.”
I was born where you were born, I thought. Samedi gave me this power. Montmorency flows in me like water through the marsh. Sophie gave it to me with her love.
The river stopped passing me by and began to empty into me. Thirstily, I drank it up.
My power.
“I am one of yours!” Henri roared. “And I command you!”
I shook my head. “You won’t command me in this.” With every word, strength returned to me. “Sophie’s marrying me.”
Sophie squeaked, ran to me, and threw her arms around me. I smelled the clover of the marais in her hair, and my strength grew tenfold.
“I am the vicomte. She is my woman. You also are one of mine, and your power derives from me—unless I withhold it. Now. Give that to me.” I held out my hand for the caul.
He only laughed.
I reached into my private marais and called upon my place, my roots in my place, and my power in my place. I saw clearly now how he was bound to me by his own roots in Montmorency. “Give it to me.”
Sophie let go of me and stood back. I heard her breath hiss in.
Henri shivered. He raised the caul over his head. “Take it if you can!” he cackled.
I put my hand out.
The caul caught fire.
Henri screamed and dropped it.
Sophie darted forward. I put out the fire with a thought. She snatched up the caul and handed it to me.
Her father wept with rage, nursing his burned hand.
“That’s one,” I said, putting the caul in my pocket. “Two.” I pointed a finger like a pistol at the lights he had erected around the circle. I brought my thumb down, bang, bang, bang, and three of his four lights went out with a pop and a puff of smoke. Darkness fell on the limestone circle. Only the fourth light shone, casting long shadows behind us. “Three.” I looked around on the ground for the document I had signed. I pointed at it, and it burst into flames.
Sophie’s father tried to stamp out the fire, until his trouser leg began to burn.
I said, “Do you want me to destroy the camera?”
Henri backed away and wrapped his arms around it. In the light of the one remaining lamp, the whites of his eyes showed. “You are like him. That Baron.”
“The way a mouse is like an elephant,” I panted. My heart beat fiercely. “I can take care of my own.”
“You want to make me ordinary,” he accused. The poor man. If only he knew what contact with me and mine was likely to cost him!
“No one can do that,” I said.
He lifted the camera. “I have proof!”
“What’s done is done. I should know.” I turned to Sophie. “You saw.”
“We are witnesses, Papa,” she said, as coolly as if he hadn’t tried to choke her twenty minutes ago. “It really happened.”
Sophie’s father pulled himself together. He lifted his head to the sultry night air. Slowly he scanned the bulk of the theater building behind us, the distant highway with its bright lights and rushing traffic, the immensity of the lake, and the silent, black trees around us. He stiffened. “Who’s that?”
I turned my head. “That’s my witness.”
“What?” Instantly Henri was suspicious. “What do you hope to prove?”
I drew in a long breath. “That I am worthy of my position.” Straightening, I called out, “Well, Madame?”
“I conceded nothing!” Henri began, but he fell silent, as Mme Vulcaine walked out of the darkness under the trees.
No one spoke.
Her eyes were small with judgment. For once I didn’t fear her. Now, also, I saw her own fear, because it was leaving her as she examined me. In spite of all the powers Samedi had raised in me and Jake had fostered in me, I wished I knew one hundredth of what she knew. I’d made a lot of promises to the lwa. Now I would need her help.
She looked at the circle of white stones, all a little tumbled after Samedi’s casual handling.
She looked at the veve spray-painted on the grass.
She inspected Henri impassively, toe to head and back, and grunted.
Her glance fell on Sophie, who swelled with obvious pride in the mambo’s regard, and flicked away, even as I flinched protectively.
Then she looked at me. “Li se konplé tout bon.” After a long moment she added with a smile, “Welcome back to the family.”
Sophie whooped and hugged me.
I let out the breath I’d been holding. My eyes closed with relief. “Thank you,” I whispered. She would help me! With her approval, I would be much less anxious going back to New Orleans to meet the descendants of the family I abandoned, to pray and tell stories over Jake’s body, and learn at last what vodou ways Jake had not taught me, backhanded, over the years.
“So,” Henri grumbled, “you’re convinced he’s our lost cousin?”
Our lost cousin? Was my heir admitting kinship with Mme Vulcaine? That gave me a mad idea. I murmured it to Sophie while Henri was busy.
Mme Vulcaine must have heard my thought. “Your cousin and mine?” She looked at Henri with amusement. “One little moment serving the Baron, and now we are cousins?”
He stammered, “I had—since we—I would make it worth your while.” He met the mambo’s eyes and then his gaze faltered and dropped to the camera in his hands.
“He wants to learn the vodou ways,” Sophie said. As usual she was ahead of me.
Henri looked the mambo in the eye. “Well, Madame?”
“Do you understand that you do not control the spirits? They possess you. You are only the vessel. It will be a long time before you can call on their help.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” Henri said impatiently.
“He doesn’t, you know,” Sophie told her. “He has been maddened by power.”
Mme Vulcaine said indulgently, “He will come to no harm. We specialize in balancing what is unbalanced, in vodou.”
“And I also will study with you,” Sophie added.
Madame rolled her eyes. “That would be wise.” To Henri she said, “The teaching is expensive.”
“I have an excess of funds,” Henri said proudly.
She glanced at me. “You must give up more than that.”
I put my finger to my lips. I wanted my title, but I didn’t want her to take it from him.
But she said it. “You must concede your claim in Clarence’s favor.”
As I’d expected, Henri bridled. “Why?”
“Because that’s my price for teaching you,” the mambo said flatly. “I suppose you could seek instruction in another house. You could show them your little moment.” Her gaze flickered contemptuously to the camera in his hand. “But they would ask you, what was the occasion of this moment? And what will you say? ‘I was busy robbing a jam bois and kinsman of his birthright when Baron Samedi possessed me.’” She shrugged.
Henri’s face fell.
“Clarence can give you my number when you are ready to bargain,” she said kindly. She looked at me as if to say, Over to you. “I must go home to complete Jacob Pierre’s funeral rites.” Her tone reminded me that I would be expected to attend those ceremonies as well.
I had my hands full, here and now. But I bowed.
She gave me another little smile and walked away through the shadows under the trees.