Eleven

Panic raced through me. “What do you mean, ‘a demon’?” I looked at Mama Legba. “You were trying to summon a demon?”

“Of course not.” Mama Legba frowned. “I was making the ointment for a ceremony, because it can help channel the energy to help figure out what might be coming next.”

“That’s one use, all right. It works to channel energy because of the power it has to summon,” Odeana explained. “But if it cures for the right amount of time, and someone who knew what they were doing had enough power, that person might could call forth a demon.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Mama Legba murmured, leaning back in her chair.

“What kind of demon?” Lucy asked.

Mama Legba looked at me, her face registering her worry before she glanced back at Lucy. “She don’t exactly be meaning the horned, pits-of-hell type of demon.”

“Is there really more than one kind?” I asked.

Odeana lifted one eyebrow. “You can be calling a demon any old thing that don’t come from the light,” she explained. “We’re all just energy, but some of us channel it for and through the darkness.”

“That doesn’t really tell us anything,” I said, hating the way she was talking around it.

“You add the right things and know the right words,” Odeana explained, “and you could use an ointment like that to summon Cimitière.”

“Cimitière?” I asked. Something about the word felt familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“Oh, he goes by other names—La Croix, Samedi—”

“Samedi.” Now that was a name I knew. “You mean, like Baron Samedi?” He was the Loa, or spirit, who had power over death and life and served as guardian of the cemetery. Trickster and cheat, he wasn’t a spirit to trust or make deals with.

The memory of my momma’s voice sifted through my head: Truth is something that lies buried. Like a body in a grave. You want the truth, baby girl? You’re gonna have to dig. I tried not to shudder at the memory of the cold certainty in that voice.

Is this what she’d been hinting at? When I’d heard that voice before, I didn’t think to take the words literally. But if my momma was messing with Baron Samedi, maybe I’d been wrong.

“Samedi, sure enough. Different names, all the same energy,” Mama Legba replied, her voice dark as the mood that had settled over the room.

“Dark energy,” Odeana added.

“Who is this Samedi?” Lucy asked.

Mama Legba turned to her. “He’s the spirit who stands guard at the gate to the world of the dead. He accepts those who pass over and keeps the living out.”

“But there have been plenty enough people foolish enough to believe they could make a deal with him to get back the person they lost,” Odeana finished.

“Could he really bring a person back?” Lucy said, and I didn’t like the curiosity in her voice, not one little bit.

Neither did Mama Legba. “Don’t you even think on it, Lucy-girl. A soul ain’t meant to go backward in their journey. Souls is only meant to move on. You bring someone back, you doing him a serious harm. You making them something unnatural and breaking the journey they supposed to be on.”

Lucy shifted a bit in her seat, her face a little red from what might have been embarrassment.

“Usually, when someone summons Cimitière, they want to raise a soul,” Odeana added. She glanced at me. “The question is, which soul does she want to bring back, and why?”

“I don’t remember my momma even talking about anyone she knew who had died.”

“That don’t mean she doesn’t have someone she misses,” Odeana said. “Cain’t never tell what a person has stored up in her heart. Sometimes the most painful, most important things are the ones we never speak a word of. Parents certainly don’t speak every truth to their children.”

Odane’s eyes flew to his mother, but she kept her gaze steady on me. Like she didn’t want to look at her son in that moment, and I couldn’t help but wonder what truths she hadn’t yet spoken to him.

And then I thought of the girl in the dream, and of the longing in the voice that called out for Augustine. I thought of my vision, and the desperation she’d felt to keep the sleeping man safe, and I wasn’t sure what other truths my momma had kept from me.

“You need more than just the aloe to summon, though, and even then, if you leave it to cure less days or more, the ointment could be used for something else. For healing a wound or giving a blessing. But if this is your mother’s doing, I doubt she’s wanting it for any sort of kindness,” Odeana said. “From what you told me of this Thisbe, I don’t think she’s got no blessings in mind.” She paused a moment, considering. “You know who might could help you with this? Ikenna.”

Mama Legba’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Ain’t no way we’re bringing that good for nothing—”

“I won’t have you speaking ill of my son’s father,” Odeana warned, cutting Mama Legba off before she could really get started.

“My mom’s right, Auntie,” Odane said. “I hate to admit it, but if we’re talking about someone summoning Cimitière, you know as well as I that he’s one of the only people who might be able to help you.”

“No.” Mama Legba stood up in a motion so swift and sure there was no mistaking it for anything but a final pronunciation.

“Do you even know the other ingredients you’d need for the summoning?” Odeana asked.

Mama Legba frowned. “I don’t play with no darkness,” she told her sister carefully. “You know that.”

“You sure remind me often enough. But you don’t need to play with no darkness to understand the game,” Odeana said.

Mama Legba shook her head. “I understand enough to know that evil’s a sticky sort of thing.”

“Is that why you still pushing me away and trying to protect me?” Odeana asked, amusement tingeing her voice.

“Do you get the sense that they’re talking about something else?” Lucy whispered to me.

I nodded, though I didn’t know what. But the intensity in the sisters’ words made it clear that there was something else between them that none of us understood.

“Auntie … ” Odane started, but Mama Legba waved him off.

“I’m not making no deals with that devil,” Mama Legba added before Odane could interject anything. “Y’all know his price would be too high for any of us to pay.”

An uncomfortable silence descended around us. No one seemed ready to argue with Mama Legba’s assessment of the situation, and no one seemed interested in explaining anything more than that. Lucy looked at me, uncertain.

“Then let me help,” Odeana said.

Mama Legba shook her head, her expression grim. “I can’t risk wrapping you up in any more of this.”

“I can take care of myself well enough,” Odeana said.

“You think I don’t know that?” Mama Legba smiled softly then. “You probably could take care of us all well enough, but y’all mean too much to me.”

“Now, Odette … ”

But all I heard was a roaring in my ears. I couldn’t help but feel tainted somehow, like my blood was a stain that I couldn’t be rid of. The idea that I was part of the darkness that Mama Legba didn’t want rubbing off on her family had something lurching inside me in fury—and agreement.

The lights in the room flickered, not enough to snap off, but enough that Odeana went still, stopping mid-thought. “What the … ?” she murmured, her eyes warily considering the lamp.

I took a breath and ignored the something deep inside me that practically purred at the sight of the wavering lights.

“My mind’s made up,” Mama Legba cut in, as though she hadn’t noticed what had just happened

I forced myself to unclench my hands, and as I did, the lights burned brighter and the air conditioner hummed steadily again. It took everything I had to force myself to breathe even and slow so that no one else noticed. But when I glanced up, Odane was watching me thoughtfully.

“Seems like you already let it touch us, Auntie,” Odane said. “Another person’s dead, there’s something powerful out there killing them, and you brought that something’s flesh and blood up into our home.”

“Hey—” I said, the anger and the hurt spiking all at once.

The lights flickered again.

“Chloe’s okay,” Mama Legba told him before I could say anything else. “Just because you have someone’s blood, don’t mean you have to become them. You of all people should know that, Odane.” She sent the boy a chastising look.

Odane frowned as though her words had hit a nerve, and he didn’t say anything else.

“Y’all ready?” Mama Legba asked us. “It’s past time
we go.”

“Don’t be going off mad,” her sister said.

“Come on, girls,” Mama Legba announced, ignoring Odeana. This time she didn’t sound like she was asking.

“At least let me drive you back,” Odane offered.

Mama Legba looked like she wanted to refuse, but it had been a long walk and already the day was hot and sticky. “Okay, then,” she said. “But that’s all. Just take us back.”

So he did. We wedged ourselves into the too-small cab of his rusted pickup truck, Lucy perched almost on my lap and my side pressed up against the warmth of Odane.

Odane managed the traffic, and I tried to manage my thoughts.

“How many days?” I asked.

“What?” Lucy said.

“Your sister said that if the aloe cured for a certain number of days, it could be used to summon Cimitière,” I told Mama Legba. “How many?”

“Five days,” she said, her expression grim. “Sundown on day one to sunup on the fifth day.”

“So if we’re right and Thisbe is the one who took it, we have a little less than a week to stop her?”

“Less than that, Chloe-girl. That aloe has been in the black cat oil for a day already.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. None of us were, it seemed, because as Odane drove us the rest of the way through the narrow streets of the Quarter, the interior of the truck’s cab was silent, like none of us wanted to say a word.