Chapter 21

 

 

We’d been walking through green fields and grasses for miles. It was a truly beautiful place. The air was clean and pure. It was pristine. But it wasn’t home. It wasn’t the Academy… and now, it seemed that Legba had a dirty secret. He had a dark side—Kalfu was a part of him. He was the one who’d threatened us on the road that night. He was the one who saw Ashley’s memories—no wonder he knew so much. And he was the one, clearly, who’d set this up with Nico. Whatever Messalina’s powers had done to him, it seemed to lock Legba away and held Kalfu in permanent form. Again, all a plan that Kalfu must’ve worked through Legba.

“I don’t think Legba is Kalfu,” I said out loud.

I don’t either, Isabelle replied. I think Legba really wanted you to summon the Baron.

I paused and stared off into the distance. “But why would he want the Baron?” I asked.

We heard Legba struggling when we came to his door with Oggie last night. I think Legba was struggling to keep control. Kalfu was breaking through. What if Samedi was the key?

“But Baron Samedi… he’s basically the Grim Reaper, the Loa of death.”

And Kalfu was supposed to be bound in Samhuinn… in the realm of the dead.

“So if Baron Samedi was back, he could ensure that Kalfu stayed there, that he would stop breaking through into Legba’s consciousness. You realize what that means we have to do, right?”

I think so…

“We have to fulfill our original mission. We have to release Baron Samedi. If only we knew where to find him.”

I think I know… or at least I know someone here who might know.

“What are you talking about?”

You know I’ve been here… I received my powers at the Tree of Life. There’s a Dryad there. He’s the one who showed up when Messalina turned on Baron Samedi. He’s the one who carried him back here. If he is the one who bound Baron Samedi, he’ll know how we can release him.

“Sounds like as good a plan as any.” I had to admit, it sounded like a good plan. I tried to recall this Dryad from my memories, from my nightmares, even. But everything had happened so quickly, and I was so young.

“Any clue how we find this Dryad?” I asked.

None at all… I assume he’s at the Tree of Life, but I don’t know where that is from where we are.

I sighed. “Well, at least the weather is nice.”

The weather is always nice here.

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. We need to hurry either way. Pauli might still be alive.”

If we find a way back, it won’t matter how long it takes us here to find our way back. We’ll end up at whatever time the gateway brings us to.

“I suppose I could try making a gate,” I said. “I mean, what’s the harm in it?”

I reached out my hand and focused my will. I could feel the blade form… at least I thought I did. But staring at my hand, nothing happened.

“I don’t understand…”

Maybe you can’t summon the blade here?

“For fuck’s sake!” I shouted into the skies. I looked around desperately for something to throw. I ripped up a hunk of grass and heaved it into the sky, screaming so hard my lungs began to hurt.

Isabelle wisely gave me a good few seconds to cool off before she spoke. Feel better?

“No… I need something with more mass. Throwing grass is… dissatisfying.”

We’ll find a way home.

I shook my head. “That isn’t even what I’m pissed about.”

Then what is it?

“Pauli… he didn’t deserve that. All I did was ask him to help. This wasn’t his fight, but now he’s probably gone.”

We don’t know for sure that he’s dead.

“He was bit by Kalfu. I don’t know what that does to someone. I can’t imagine. If he’s only dead, it would be a fucking mercy.”

You can’t give up hope, Annabelle.

I shook my head. “If I had a reason to hope, maybe…”

It could be worse…

“We’re trapped in another world of endless fields of fucking grass. How much worse could it be?”

We could have ended up in Samhuinn, the land of the dead, the other side of Guinee.

“At least that place would be honest. This place looks like the Garden of fucking Eden, but there’s nothing here.”

Wait… what’s that?

“What’s what?”

Right in front of us, flying toward us!

I couldn’t believe I missed it. I was so wrapped up in self-pity I’d become blind. I heard a screech as something flew our direction. Quickly. Its wings were stretched wide as it sailed over our heads, gliding around us like a predator circling its prey.

“Shit! It’s a dragon!” I leapt to my feet, ready to run… as if running would do any good.

Isabelle laughed. Don’t run!

“What do you mean ‘don’t run’? The thing looks ready to make us a snack.”

That’s not just a dragon. It’s our dragon. It’s Beli.

I bit my lip. “I don’t understand…”

I think when you tried to summon your blade…

I grinned. That was it! My blade wasn’t really a blade, after all. It was a combination of elemental spirits… spirits that came together to form this dragon. I thought my blade summons didn’t work here. I had no idea how well it had worked.

Beli continued spiraling around us, flying closer. As he flapped his giant wings, the air he pushed away from himself struck me in the face, blowing my hair around as if I were starring in an eighties music video. I’d never seen so much power in a living creature. His body was thick but lean. And more than that, I could sense his power, his magic.

For a creature his size I was impressed how gracefully he landed, his talons gently grazing across the grass before he lowered himself to the ground. His head alone was about three times my size, and his tail extended beyond his body a good fifty feet or more. I’ve never been good with judging distances, but believe me when I say he was huge… larger than he’d even appeared when I’d first seen him in the ethereal realm.

“Can you help us?” I asked, speaking as loudly as possible.

Beli lowered his head toward me, keeping enough distance that he could still see me around his elongated snout. I thought I saw the dragon nod.

“You can understand me?” I asked.

I expected another nod. Instead, the dragon opened its mouth. “I can,” he said in a booming voice.

My jaw dropped as I heard and felt him speak. His voice was so loud, so intense that the sound waves of his words rattled my whole body.

“Isabelle thinks we need to get to the Tree of Life. We need to find some Dryad…”

The dragon cocked his head a little.

“You do know where the Tree of Life is?”

“I do,” Beli said calmly.

“And will you be able to take us back home once we’re ready?”

“I am the original gatekeeper of the immortal realms… the creation of Bondye, the All-Father, Yahweh. I know no limits in time or space, for I alone was created to traverse the void between.”

The void… Does he mean between worlds? Isabelle asked.

I almost reiterated her words.

“Yes,” Beli replied. “The very fabric of space and time itself is my domain.”

“You can hear her?” I asked.

“I am of you and her combined. It is you and she together who call me out of the void.”

I scratched my head. “Then you can take us back before… before I summoned you, summoned my blade in the gym, before Pauli was…”

“I cannot,” Beli said. “My only constraint is that I cannot bring you to a time or place where your body or soul already dwells.”

“So once we have what we need here, you can at least bring us back to the moment we left?”

“To the moment immediately after…”

But we aren’t ready. We can’t stand up to Kalfu unless we have an advantage. And if Legba was really giving us the answer, we need the Baron.

“But, Isabelle, are you sure we can trust Legba? I mean, Kalfu was a part of him.”

The first time he called you to his office, his aura was different. When we saw him last night, all out of sorts. And again, in the veve. He was different, he was compromised. What he told us that first time, I’m pretty sure that was just Legba. He was telling us what we had to do.

“Do you know where the Baron is, Beli?”

“I do not,” Beli said, his voice dropping at least an octave. “The ways of the Loa are not my domain, and it has been so long since I’ve been here… so long…”

A part of me wanted to probe Beli for more information. There was a fascinating story to hear, but it was one we’d have to content ourselves to consider at another time. I had a singular focus—to get out of here, find a way to defeat Kalfu, deal with Nico, and hopefully save Pauli, if he was even still alive.

“For now, we need to get to the Tree of Life. Can you take us there?”

Beli simply lowered his head. Was I really going to ride this beast? If Legba’s staircase made me a little woozy, how in the world would I be able to handle riding on the back of a dragon?

I gulped.

Think of it like riding the Treants… once the thrill takes over, you forget about the distance between the top of the tree and the ground.

I nodded and leapt, barely able to pull myself up over Beli’s neck. Straddling him required some flexibility—thank God I’d done my share of yoga through the years.

I looked around, and short of hugging his neck for dear life, there really wasn’t anything I could grip. “Excuse me, Beli…”

“Yes, madam?”

“What should I hold on to?”

“Press your hands under my scales.”

“Won’t that hurt?”

Beli laughed. “My hide is several layers thick. I won’t even feel it.”

“All right…” I hesitated a moment before slipping my hands beneath Beli’s scales. It was warm underneath, and not at all slimy or sticky as I’d suspected it might be.

“Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever—”

Before I could finish speaking, Beli’s wings extended and with a single thrust we were in the air. Our ascent was so quick I felt the pressure immediately build in my ears. Looking around, I was struck by how gorgeous the land was. Nothing was barren, nothing brown or dead. The whole place was full of life… except in the distance, to my left, it was as though all life ceased suddenly in one spot. A border between the land of life and someplace else.

The land of the dead, Isabelle said.

Samhuinn… it was basically hell. At least that’s what I’d come to understand about it. Roger had been taken there once, but his experience was super traumatic. He didn’t like to talk about it. Any time Ashley or I would bring it up, he’d invariably change the subject. Some places, some memories, are so horrible that even talking about them is terrifying. I could certainly relate.

I turned to my right. Several bodies of water—small pools or springs—flooded across the land. The light of the sky glistened off them, but it struck me as I looked around that there wasn’t a sun here. Something like sunlight filled the sky, but it didn’t seem to be coming from any specific celestial body. The light felt warm, even as the cool breeze struck my face as Beli picked up this pace.

Riding this high on a dragon… it was thrilling, but also peaceful. Beli was strong. He flew with such confidence and stability that I almost forgot how high I really was.

I think that’s it, Isabelle said.

The Tree of Life was unlike any tree I’d ever seen. It had the majesty of an oak, its branches spread wide. The sheer girth of its trunk was like one of those California redwoods. The foliage was thick, its leaves broad and full of color.

From a distance it was difficult to tell exactly how large the Tree of Life might be, but as we flew nearer and Beli descended toward its base, it was beyond question the largest tree I’d ever seen.

Beli landed so gracefully I could barely feel it when his talons hit the ground. Lifting one leg over the arch of his neck, I slid down the best I could to the ground below.

Something about this tree, beyond its impressive size and appearance, drew me in. I felt myself walking toward it with the sort of care a two-year-old just learning to walk might exercise when taking his first steps into his mother’s arms. My feet quaked as I desperately reached for the tree’s trunk.

There was a warmth about the tree. It was magical—but more than that. It was life itself. With a single touch it felt as though every worry, every pain, every insecurity and fear I’d ever felt melted away, siphoned from my soul into the tree’s essence.

“It’s incredible…”

I almost forgot how much it felt like home.

I nodded, drawing in a deep breath of the pure air that surrounded the tree. “How do we reach this Dryad?”

I’m not sure…

“But you know he’s here?”

I think so… I mean, yes. He has to be. I don’t know where else…

I gnawed on my cheek a little before lifting my hand and knocking on the tree’s trunk.

My knock had no resonance—the tree was solid. “Anyone home?”

I heard a grunt. It was Beli, who’d been watching my attempt to speak to the tree with some amusement.

“Do you have an idea?” I asked.

“Let Isabelle try,” Beli said, speaking calmly but surely.

I ran my fingers through my hair, taking a deep breath. “I suppose it’s worth a try…”

All I could think about was the inevitable headache that would follow. There wasn’t any guarantee this would work—but who was I to question an ancient dragon?

Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought any of Mikah’s magic chill pills. Those things seemed to do the trick in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. I’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.

“You ready, Isabelle?”

I am…

I lowered my body beside the tree, assuming a cross-legged pose. Criss-cross applesauce. That’s what I called it as a girl. Turning my palms upward, I rested my arms on my knees and took a deep breath. Typically, I suck at meditating… and this approach was never a guarantee to work. It usually didn’t. Not unless I was pretty tired. This time, though, it seemed to happen naturally. I simply felt Isabelle gently take over, her will now exerting itself through my body.

This place, I thought. Everything just seems so natural, so easy…

“This is incredible,” Isabelle said as she stood. I could feel the warmth of the tree, just as I had before, as she reached out and touched it.

This time, I felt the magica course through my body. I couldn’t tell if the magica was going out of my body, if Isabelle was casting it, or if the tree itself was sending magica into us.

A green glow illuminated the tree’s trunk in front of us—our eyes, filled with the magica of life, shining upon it.

“Lugh…” Isabelle said. “I come in need of your aid.”

I heard a crack, and the ground beneath my feet shifted. Isabelle instinctively stepped away from the unsettled ground beneath us. A creature emerged from the broken soil. I couldn’t tell if he had been under there all the while or if he was literally taking shape in front of us, growing up as if he were a tree himself. He looked something like one. He was distinctly human in shape, but his whole body was covered in bark and moss—the kind that one often sees on trees on Earth. Most of his proportions were typically human—except for his head. His skull was narrow and probably twice the length of a typical head.

“Isabelle and Annabelle,” the Dryad said, his voice rich in tenor, with a subtle hint of gravel.

“We are both here,” Isabelle said. “But Annabelle has given me control so that we might contact you.”

“I did not expect to see you, not here… not until you were ready to become one of us.”

Ready? I thought. What does he mean by ready?

“He means when you die,” Isabelle said. “When our souls are untangled.”

Lugh offered a slight nod. “So I presume what brings you to us is a matter of some importance.”

“It is,” Isabelle said. “There’s a Loa… Kalfu.”

Lugh’s eyes narrowed. “How did you end up tangled with such an insidious one as he?”

“Purely by accident,” Isabelle said. “But he possessed Annabelle’s sister, learned about me. He’s come after some of our friends. He intends to claim my spirit, says he can separate us.”

“He wants your power,” Lugh said. “It would unrestrain him.”

Isabelle nodded.

“It cannot happen,” Lugh said. “If he acquires your spirit, he might cross into the garden groves from Samhuinn.”

“He already has, in a way,” Isabelle said. “It’s like he possessed another Loa… Papa Legba.”

Lugh cocked his head. “He does not possess Legba… not strictly speaking. He is and always has been Legba’s opposite. When one rests, the other emerges. One by day, the other by night.”

“So when Legba speaks, he isn’t deceiving us?”

“Legba is as trustworthy as any decent Loa might be,” Lugh said. “But Kalfu, not a word of his can be believed. He has never exacted a bargain without a catch, one that did not work disproportionately to his advantage.”

“That’s what we thought. Another boy at the school tried to summon Legba…”

“The school?” Lugh asked.

“A Voodoo Academy.”

“Whatever is your business at that place?” Lugh asked.

“We were invited… a Loa named Ogoun.”

“I see,” Lugh said. “Never mind that. You said a boy attempted to summon Legba but he evoked Kalfu instead?”

I felt Isabelle’s head nod. “Mikah is the boy’s name. He’s become a friend.”

“And you are certain he evoked Kalfu by accident?” Lugh asked.

“I trust him.”

Lugh nodded. “It may not have been the boy’s intention, but it was not an accident.”

“What do you mean?” Isabelle asked.

“One does not evoke one like Kalfu in the same way that one might call upon Legba. They are two sides of one Loa—or two Loa in one—but they are appealed to in quite different ways. The boy either intended to evoke Kalfu, or he was deceived into doing it.”

Isabelle shook our head. “He is kind… a good-hearted boy. He wouldn’t…”

“As I said,” Lugh continued. “He could have been deceived.”

“Then what do we do? How can we get rid of Kalfu?”

“When the boy summoned him, it gave Kalfu a foothold in the material realm. Legba knows to bind himself when he rests. If Kalfu has come forth, however, as the dominant one, it means that Legba has lost the ability to suppress Kalfu even when he is awake.”

“Legba had called on Annabelle—both of us, really—when we first got to the Academy. He asked us to help free Baron Samedi.”

Lugh folded his arms. “And that is why you’ve come to me?”

“It is… not that we want him free, but is there any other way?”

“I fear not,” Lugh said. “Baron Samedi is the Loa who not only rules the realm of the dead—or at least he did—but he was the one whom the All-Father appointed to divide life from death itself. Here, the divide is manifest between the blighted land of the dead, Samhuinn, and these garden groves of life. But this divide is not merely a boundary in this immortal realm. In humans, the divide is writ into the will. The inclination to do good and the consumption with evil. Amongst the Loa, a single Loa governs that divide, manages it…”

“Papa Legba? The Loa of the crossroads?”

Lugh nodded. “A Loa of dual aspects… the divide between the two established by Baron Samedi.”

“And he needs Baron Samedi to restore the divide?”

“If Kalfu has encroached upon Legba, then the divide is threatened. If not restored, Kalfu will take over completely. And once he does, all the Loa will be consumed with his nature, his evil.”

“They’ll all become… like demons.”

Lugh nodded.

“If this is true, why have you held the Baron all this time?”

“I haven’t,” Lugh said. “I simply freed him from the Caplata’s summons and returned him to his place.”

“His place?”

“He inhabits the border between both sides of this realm. If he has not returned to Earth, even in his true form, it is not because I’ve prevented it.”

“So he’s just letting this happen…”

“I do not know his reasons. You will have to speak to him yourselves.”

I wanted to take a deep breath—but I wasn’t in charge of our lungs at the moment. Speak to… Baron Samedi? The Grim Reaper. The motherfucker who has haunted my nightmares since childhood. Just speak to him?

Isabelle nodded.

Lugh raised one of his crooked fingers. “But you must be sure you are ready before you approach the Baron.”

“Ready in what way?” Isabelle asked.

“You must speak to him single of purpose, with no divided motives or intentions. Such would be a challenge for anyone. All human beings have mixed motives. Still more, he already knows and will sense both of you. Your motives must be individually pure, but also united. You must speak to him as one.”

And if we don’t? I asked, expecting Isabelle to relay my question.

Lugh seemed to hear my words nonetheless. “If you do not, he may very well decide that your time has come.”

“Our time?” Isabelle said.

“He is the Reaper,” Lugh indicated. “He may decide that your lives… have expired.”

So this is literally a life or death conversation…

“Do not take it lightly, and if there be any animosity between you, see it settled before you approach him.”

Isabelle smiled. “Thank you, Lugh, for all your help.”

“Always, my future apprentice. Your time will come, then you will be the one granting sage wisdom to the rare traveler who ventures into our world.”

“I’d say I’ll look forward to it, but… that wouldn’t be fair to Annabelle.”

“Understood,” Lugh said with a tone that made it sound like he would have smiled if he could. If his face wasn’t rigid and seemingly constructed of bark. His body collapsed back into the ground, absorbed again by the soil at the base of the Tree of Life.

“I suppose we should talk some things through,” Isabelle said. “Would you like to take back the reins?”

My thoughts halted for a moment. Would I like to? There was something more fluid, more pure about our union here than when we were back on Earth. I was happy, whether I was in control or not. I felt no envy, no worry about how Isabelle might be using my body.

I’m actually fine with it, either way…

“I think you are better suited to do the talking. Aside from talking inside your head, I don’t have a lot of experience talking to people… not recently anyway.”

Yet you have more wisdom that I do, most of the time.

“That depends on the situation. With boys…”

You’re impulsive?

“Yes… I still can’t believe I kissed Mikah like that.”

Worse things have happened to me… and it’s not rocket science why you did it. You like him.

“Still, it was not appropriate. After all the times I’ve told you how dirty it felt when you were with boys and I had no consent in the matter.”

Well, I appreciate the apology. But it really isn’t needed. It may be that you have better taste in men than I do, after all.

Isabelle giggled. “You mean you’ve finally come around to the idea that hooking up with a married Loa might not be in your long-term best interest?”

Something like that…

“I’m sorry, Annabelle. I know you liked him.”

I still do… I can’t help it. But I’m not going to get involved in a marriage between two Loa. That’s just asking for it.

“On the other hand…” Isabelle paused a moment, as if thinking carefully through her words. “Have you considered how unhappy he must be? He has to share a wife with two other men.”

I laughed to myself. I really can’t imagine. I mean, men are really territorial about their women.

“And women aren’t that way? I mean, look at us!”

You have a point, I guess. Giving someone your heart… that’s kind of like when a dog pisses on something.

“Marking one’s territory. Could you think of a cruder analogy next time?”

I’ll try… I really will.

“But we are going to have to get over that… the whole territorial thing… if either of us is ever going to be happy. If either of us stands a chance at love.”

Do you think we could love the same person, without becoming jealous?

“Do you think we have a better chance at loving two different people, forcing each of them to have us only half of the time? That wouldn’t be fair to anyone we’d want to be with.”

I’ll tell you what… if we get through this—

“When we get through this, you mean…”

Yes, when we get through this, I’ll try to have an open mind about Mikah. And one more thing too…

“What’s that?”

I think it’s time we start looking for a remedy for these headaches, because it’s high time I let you have your share of the time in charge.

I could feel our eyes welling up… Isabelle was about to cry.

Please don’t cry…

“You don’t understand how hard it has been, to die so young—as a slave no less—to be sent back as a ghost, to have my spirit manipulated by my sister… then to have to sit back and watch a whole other life unfold that isn’t my own.”

You’ve never really had a chance to live.

“I’ve only existed. For almost two centuries I’ve existed… but no, I never lived.”

Well, that ends now. Once we get through this.

“Do you promise? Because if you’re joking, if you’re going to just take it back… I mean, that’s fine. It’s your life. I have no right to demand.”

I promise.

Isabelle rubbed our eyes. “I think we’re ready to talk to Baron Samedi.”

But you should do the talking.

Isabelle shook our head. “You are still afraid of him, aren’t you?”

I sighed. He terrifies me…

“Then that’s exactly why you need to be the one to do it.”

How does that make a fuck’s worth of any sense?

“Because if Baron Samedi really comes back, how are you going to go to that school every day, knowing he’s around the corner, if you haven’t faced your fear?”

I don’t know…

“Which is why you are doing the talking.”

With that, I felt Isabelle simply let go of the reins. How the hell did she do that so easily? I usually had to work myself in to a state of artificial calm.

I felt my consciousness resume control of my body. My fingers tingled. They always did when I took over again, but I usually didn’t give the sensation a second thought on account of the migraine that usually struck me at the same time. But this time, I felt totally fine. No headache. No pain at all.

“Isabelle! My head…”

If you need to lie down—

“No, my head… it doesn’t hurt at all!”

Do you think it’s this place?

“I don’t know. Honestly I don’t think that’s it at all.”

Then what is it, do you think?

“I think it’s because we are at peace… together. I mean, you never felt it when you took the reins before.”

I just figured it worked different…

“It’s because I couldn’t accept it. I think it was my distress, the feeling of helplessness. It’s like when you took over, I craved control again. I was like an addict going through withdrawal.”

But the headache came afterwards?

“The hangover always comes the next day.”

Let’s hope that’s what this is. If so, it will make everything we talked about before so much easier when we get back.

“Yeah, I wasn’t really looking forward to popping a bunch of Mikah’s homemade pills every time we exchanged reins…”

Isabelle laughed. I know what you mean. That stuff gives us gas anyway.

I almost choked on my tongue. “Well I guess you would know…”

Mounting Beli was a little easier the second go-round. And the flight was even more freeing. But I still had a lot on my mind. I was angry. I was also worried. Pauli was my only real friend at this school. If he didn’t make it… if he was dead.

I couldn’t allow my mind to go there. We were not going back to his funeral. We were going back to save him… to save everyone. That was what I had to tell myself, but deep down, I suspected and feared the worst. And it tore me apart. Now, I was putting all my hope on the very same Loa who’d destroyed my family, who I’d dreaded for nine long years. I’d have to put my big girl panties on for this one… for Pauli’s sake.