Four

Outside, we found Lucy waiting for us on the deep-set front porch, but then T.J. bounded up to us and wouldn’t be shooed. We couldn’t get rid of him without being mean, and we couldn’t talk about curses and dark magic in front of him, so Piers ended up leaving before I found a way to tell him what had happened when I touched the charm.

I didn’t feel like hiding anything else that night, so I made up an excuse about being tired and turned in early. After I washed up, I ran my fingers along my scalp, scratching it a bit as I studied myself. I might look just fine with my hair so short, but I didn’t think I’d ever get used to feeling so naked and exposed. For as long as I could remember, I’d looked out at the world through the dark frame of my curtain of hair, but now, everything seemed a little off. The whole world seemed a little too close.

Studying my profile in the mirror, I searched my face for I don’t know what. Some hint of my mother’s features? Or maybe I was looking for some hint of my mother’s evil? But the only face that looked back at me was my own.

I didn’t have any more doubts that my mother was powerful, and I knew enough about what had happened to understand she was most likely evil. But I couldn’t shake the idea that evil doesn’t sing you to sleep when you’re up with worry or keep you alive when you’re burning with fever. I’d always believed that evil doesn’t know how to love.

But when I thought about the vision—the way I’d felt drawn to the sleeping man on the bed, the warmth that had flooded through me when my lips touched his—I wasn’t sure I understood what evil was at all anymore.

I raised my hands to my own mouth and tried to rub the feeling of that man’s lips from my skin, but it didn’t work. The memory of the soft warmth of his mouth against my own clung to me like a spiderweb.

Even after I’d climbed under the covers and tried to fall sleep, I couldn’t shake the memory of the vision. The vivid reality of it. I knew almost instinctively that what I’d seen had something to do with Thisbe. She’d been working some sort of spell to bind the sleeping man to her, but I couldn’t quite let go of the idea that I hadn’t sensed any malice when she sliced through the man’s lifeline, only calm certainty and affection. I didn’t know what to make of that either.

She’d thought of her mother, too. The hurt and anger that had throbbed through her heart when she thought of being left behind still made my throat feel tight and my eyes ache. Or maybe that was my own hurt, my own understanding.

Finally, I found sleep, but it wasn’t restful. All night, I dozed on and off, plagued by strange dreams of a lonely grove of pines. The cool night air was filled with the sharp bite of resin, and the world was still and completely silent. No insects buzzed in the trees. No breeze could be heard rustling the branches. And no matter how far I walked, I never found the end of the grove.

Above, the endless pines towered into the sky like the roof of a cathedral. They were so thick, so dense I could barely make out the stars above. Moonlight found its way down to the ground below in narrow shafts, like dim spotlights revealing a path through the forest. But the path never led anywhere.

After wandering for days or weeks or lifetimes, I stopped, settling myself against the base of a pine, and waited. And as I waited, something stirred in the trees beyond. I couldn’t hear it, but I sensed it and I knew that something was out there. Pacing. Hunting.

I stood, bracing myself against the rough bark of the tree behind me. Waiting. I didn’t even breathe.

You really think I would ever leave you behind?

The voice came out of the darkness, soft and low, and it echoed through my mind. Flesh and blood. Heart and soul, baby girl. Then softer, like a promise or a prayer. Soon, baby girl. Very soon. You’re meant for great things.

I knew that voice as well as I knew my own. “Momma,” I screamed, looking around the dark grove for the source of the sound, wanting an answer. But not even my own words came back to me. The pines were silent, and I was alone.

Or maybe I wasn’t, because right before I woke up, I felt something in the darkness smile.

Sometime after dawn, I pulled on some clothes and eased myself out of the house into the hazy morning air. At first, I sat on the front steps trying to shake the unsettled feeling my dreams had given me, but I was too restless and needed to move. Before I’d really consciously decided where to go, I found myself walking down the path that led out, away from the big house, to the fields beyond.

Even once I realized where my feet were headed, I didn’t turn back. Resolute, I made my way through the tall grass on the far side of the plantation’s property, through the wooded area surrounding the pond, and out toward the abandoned cabin they all said my momma used to call home so many years ago, when she still called herself Thisbe.

The cabin was small and low to the ground. Spindly pines partially hid the ancient-looking structure from view. Some of the trees still had the remnants of faded, rust-colored string hanging from their branches. Someone had cut the bottles down that had hung there, and now the wisps of thread, like forgotten webs, were all that remained.

I hesitated as I studied a burned-out spot a few yards away from the cabin, but I’d come this far. I wasn’t going to turn back now.

As I stepped a little closer, into the copse of trees, I kept expecting something to stop me, like it had at my own house. I waited, holding myself steady against the crushing defeat of being pushed away and held back from understanding once again. But as I took tentative steps toward the cabin, nothing seemed to be blocking my way.

Near about everyone in the area had heard tell of the lonely cabin just beyond Le Ciel Doux. Most people heard stories about the ghosts that supposedly haunted the woods and swamps around it and stayed away. I’d never been out to the cabin myself, not even after the university managed to buy the property. At least, I didn’t remember going out there, which in my case doesn’t really amount to the same thing.

But standing a few steps from the front door, I wasn’t in no hurry to face whatever it was I’d come to face. So I waited in the lacey shade and tried to imagine what the place must have looked like way back when an ex-slave named Thisbe lived there. I tried to see the ramshackle structure through her eyes—what had that rusted-out roof been made of back then? What would that wide front porch have meant to a woman in her position? And why had she decided to stay once her owner—and father—had freed her, when she could have left that life behind?

I stepped toward the house and ran my finger along the uneven boards of the porch, closing my eyes as an image of the past rose up softly in my mind, the colors burned-out and faded like an old photograph. The cabin with its walls washed white in the heat of a summer day with its doors open and welcoming.

She must have been powerful even then to rise so far for someone in her position. I could almost see her, a little older than I remembered my mother ever being, but not quite old, sitting in the shade of that porch and never alone. Always surrounded by people who believed in her power and feared her because of it, but who knew she’d care for their needs just the same. As I imagined it, a warmth that felt like fingers began stroking down the tense cords of my neck. Easing out the knots that stress and sleepless nights had put there.

When I opened my eyes, the fingers disappeared. The cabin was gray and worn, the doors shuttered now instead of open.

Stupid. I was imagining what I wanted to feel. After the rooster and the curse on my house, I shouldn’t have had any illusions that my momma wanted anything to do with me, or at least nothing good. Giving myself a mental shake, I mounted the steps before I could change my mind. It took a bit of time to wrench open one of the French doors at the front of the house, but once I did, it was easy enough to step into the closed-up warmth of the interior.

Inside was dim and smelled strongly of new plaster and something damp and old beneath it. I detected another scent, too—something earthy and heavy—an almost oily smell that reminded me of the jars sitting on Mama Legba’s shelves. Maybe some herb I wasn’t familiar with? But I couldn’t tell if it was the ghost of a scent from years past or something more recent.

The interior of the cabin was mostly empty. The floors were worn in certain places where furniture might have once stood, and everything was covered with a layer of dust from the restoration the university was doing. But small as it was, it was a comfortable space, and the way the rooms flowed one into the next reminded me of my own house.

I took my time walking around, wondering what it would have been like to live there a hundred years ago. Imagining the furniture that must have stood against the walls.

The walls would have been washed white, I knew, to protect against the diseases that ran so rampant in the slave quarters. Like a little whitewash could stop cholera. And there would have been some furniture, maybe even a picture or two on the walls.

I ran my fingers along one of the jointed boards of the wall.

A finely wrought chest stood there, its wood gleaming darkly. Opposite, a velvet-covered settee …

I shook my head, disrupting the image. No way would an ex-slave woman in Thisbe’s position have had anything so fine as what I was imagining. And yet, if I closed my eyes … I reached out and pressed my hand against the wall again. All at once, I could see it. All at once, an image rose up stronger than before, wiping away my present and pulling me back, back into a distant past …

Strangers filled the rooms—and friends, too. But all of them wanting something. All of them needing something. All they had to give me in return was a couple of limp chickens or a few handfuls of meal.

And they would give it.

They’d give the fish they stole from their master’s stream, and the scuppernong they pilfered from the wild vines in the forest. They’d give near anything for one of my charms. Anything for the hope of something more than the narrow lives they clung to. Some would trade their very own soul for some protection against the dangers of this world.

Always filling up my rooms and wanting and needing. And not one of them ever bringing what I really needed. What I’d been waiting for so long.

I pulled my hand away, startled at the thoughts that had tumbled through my mind. The image had been so vivid that I could have reached right out and run my hand across the velvet. Still, I could almost smell the bodies with three days of labor clinging to their skin and feel the pressure of the crowd pushing down on me with their need, when all I wanted to do was breathe free. When all I craved was the cool night air and something else that I’d been missing.

But it wasn’t me that was missing and craving something. Like yesterday, I was seeing through another pair of eyes, feeling another person’s thoughts.

Yesterday, I’d thought that the vision happened because the charm still contained some of Thisbe’s magic, and I wondered if that explained this vision, too—maybe the cabin itself still held a bit of her power. But I didn’t sense any power here, not like I’d sensed the almost spiteful energy that radiated off that charm. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

I followed the rooms until I reached the back of the house. The university had recently rebuilt the fireplace there, and the new brick stood out strikingly red against the blackened remains of the hearth. The furniture in that room had been pushed up against the wall—a low bed, a worn cabinet with an amazing number of doors and drawers.

That room felt strangely peaceful. The whole cabin was silent as a grave, but the back room was somehow even more so. It felt like a private place, but nothing there looked like the mother I knew. Nothing felt like her.

I sat carefully on the low, platform-like bed, and the moment my hands touched the worn slats, the room around me shifted, changed …

A fire was burning low in the hearth, the room dark except for its subtle glow. On the low-slung bed was the body of a younger man with sharp features and hair like spun gold. His face was slack with something stronger than sleep.

I bent over him, my mouth curving into a smile. “You’re going to give me more time,” my mouth said, moving on its own. “You’re gonna give me everything.”

I gasped, standing up and releasing my hold on the low bed, and when I did, the room came back to me as it truly was. But my heart was thundering in my chest, and my breathing was fast and anxious. It had seemed so real.

Forcing myself to take a slow, steady breath, I considered what had just happened. Slowly, because I wasn’t sure that I was making the right decision, I reached out and touched one of the small drawers in the cabinet next to the bed.

I pulled out the tiny man I’d made for that particular purpose, excitement coursing through my blood. Last time, it hadn’t worked. Augustine had left and he’d never come back. But this boy wouldn’t be going anywhere.

My other hand held a bloody knife, and I turned to the man lying still and barely breathing and I raised that blade …

When I pulled my hand back, the knife was gone. I was me again.

If I had any doubts about what was happening, that last vision erased them. The blond boy on the bed, the knife and the voodoo charm—Lucy had told me enough about her dreams for me to know that I was seeing what had happened in this place long ago. I was seeing Thisbe, but I wasn’t dreaming the way Lucy did when she learned about her own past life.

I looked at my hands in horror, not understanding what was happening or why. I’d never been able to see anything like that before, and I shouldn’t have been able to see anything like that at all, not when they’d taken my hair. That sacrifice was supposed to have stopped Thisbe from having any connection to me. I couldn’t let myself believe it had been for nothing.

But again, I felt the sensation of warm fingers stroking my neck.

My skin prickled, and the room felt suddenly too warm, like a fire was burning in the empty hearth. Every cell in my body said run, but I couldn’t.

Didn’t want to.

Because the truth was, part of me still wanted to find my mother before anyone else did. Even though I knew what she was, I wanted the chance to ask her, face-to-face, the one question that had been running through my mind for two weeks now—why?

A familiar chuckle rumbled through my brain, so deep and dark I felt like I was drowning in it. But familiar as that dark laugh was, as much as it sounded like the musical tones of my momma’s voice, I didn’t trust it.

“Momma?” I whispered, my voice barely breaking the uneasy silence that surrounded me.

You miss me, sweet girl? The voice that sounded so much like my mother’s echoed in my head. The fingers were still there, their ghostly rhythm soothing me. Rubbing away my doubts.

Of course, I wanted to say. Because I did miss the momma I had known once. But I didn’t say anything.

I might have wanted to believe the gentle hands stroking my neck belonged to her, but I was raised on enough tales of spirits and tricksters to know that not everything is what it appears to be.

“Give me a sign,” I whispered. “I miss my momma, sure enough, but you gotta show me that you are her before I’ll believe a thing you say.”

The warm fingers were gone and a grip like ice stole my breath.

Do I now? The dark chuckle echoed through my head again. You say you miss your momma, but you’re still running around with those who would end her. You don’t trust the very person who gave life to you.

I struggled to take a breath, but it was impossible. My throat ached from the strength of the invisible grip squeezing it, and my lungs had seized up.

You listen, baby girl. You think about which side you want to be on. You think about who you owe your loyalty to. And when you’re ready to be the dutiful child I raised you to be, you come on back to me and we’ll be together. We’ll be together always.

The icy fingers released me, and I gasped for air, but the lungful I got tasted heavy and dark.

Shaken, with my clothes stuck to me with sweat, I stood on unsteady legs. I loved my mother. I would always love the mother I had known, but I knew in that moment, my throat still aching from the pain of those invisible fingers, that I wouldn’t take the side of a monster. No matter how much part of me might want to if it meant having my mother back.

My vision swam a bit as I made my way back to the front of the cabin, and I wasn’t exactly sure on my feet as I walked toward the front door. I stumbled a bit and used the frame of the door to catch myself.

The man from that first vision—Augustine—looked up at me. He wouldn’t come in and he wouldn’t come any closer.

I’d give this all up, I told him. We could leave all this behind. I’d give it up now if you’d walk away with me.

But his eyes were dark with frustration and he wouldn’t answer me. He only turned away …

I pulled my hands back, like the door was on fire. I needed to get out of there. Needed to be away from the closeness in the air and the voice that echoed through my mind with its dark laughter.

I stepped onto the porch and then kept walking until I was down the steps and safe on the ground. I drew a deep breath into my lungs, trying to erase the memory of the cabin and the unsettled feeling I had. Trying to make myself breathe steady and easy.

That’s when I realized how late it was.

I’d come to the cabin right about the time the sun was barely warming up the horizon. By the time I came out, it had already climbed high into the sky. It had to be well on into late morning, which wasn’t possible. I hadn’t been inside the cabin for more than ten or fifteen minutes at most.

My hands shook as I took out my phone and checked the time. I’d lost hours. Whole hours that had felt like minutes.

Just like before, I thought with a sinking sense of dread. A whole morning gone, and I had no real memory of where all that time went. Or what I’d been doing during it.

The screen of the phone lit suddenly, and a list of texts greeted me, all from Lucy and Piers. As I scrolled through them, I saw that the messages had become more panicked with every one I hadn’t answered. I tried to text Lucy back, but the reception wasn’t strong enough for the message to get through.

As I walked, I shivered in the heat, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the icy dread that had settled over me. Last time I lost time, Thisbe—my momma—had taken over my body and used it to hurt innocent people. I examined my hands, my legs, but found no sign that I’d been anywhere but the cabin. Which didn’t make me feel much better. It’s not like I knew how to tell if Thisbe had possessed me again.

As I ran a hand over the close-cropped cap of what was left of my hair, tears burned in my eyes. Thisbe was still out there, and she maybe still had the ability to get hold of me.

“What do you want from me?” I said to the wide, lonely world around me. “I need the truth.”

Silence was the only answer I got.

Giving up, I made my way across the unplanted field, but as I reached the line of trees that would take me back to Le Ciel, I heard the dark chuckling again, right up close to my ear.

You make it sound like the truth is an easy thing, the voice that sounded so much like my momma told me. Like it’s a fruit you can pluck off a tree, whole and sweet for you and you alone.

I stopped, waited with my heart in my throat.

A wind rushed through the trees, brushing against my legs and arms, turning my sweat-damp clothes almost icy in its wake.

Truth is something that lies buried. Like a body in a grave. You want the truth, baby girl? You’re gonna have to dig.