Gathering Deep (16 page)

He handed it to me, and, ready for anything, I reached out. The second my fingers touched it, heat shot through me, so powerful and angry that I gasped as Mama Legba's shop fell away and I found myself standing alone on a road, with the scent of death so thick around me that my stomach clenched.

Sixteen

Bile rose in my throat, and before I could stop my insides from turning over, I stumbled over to retch onto the side of the road until I felt emptied out, body and soul.

Trying to catch my breath, I wiped the corner of my mouth with the hem of my apron. I wasn't even close yet and the stink was already so thick I could practically taste it. Not that I had any intention of turning back.

I'd known that something was coming. For months now, I could practically smell it in the air. But I hadn't realized how fast it would come, and I hadn't understood how much it would take.

My fault, I thought. Because I hadn't been strong enough to protect him.

I looked down that dusty road, the heat shimmering off the surface of it, and for a moment, I remembered another road. Another time.

The first time I saw him, the cane had already been boiling away in iron pots wide enough and deep enough to cook a man. I'd been walking down a road just like this one when Jean-Pierre Dutilette came driving around the bend with a wagon filled with a new crop of men to replace the ones his plantation had cut down.

Except that time, one of the dark heads didn't bow. That time, one figure sat straight and proud as the driver who held the whip.

Without a mother around to protect me, I'd been fighting off unwanted attention ever since I understood a smile wasn't always a welcome. But when I saw the man with the straight back and too-proud eyes, I knew I wanted him.

But not even magic as strong as mine had been enough to keep him.

So I walked on, ignoring the ache in my chest, and I didn't let myself stop again for anything—not for the heat licking at my skin. Not even to retch on the side of the road when the breeze brought with it the smell of death.

Ahead, I saw a row of poles that looked like crows were perching on the tops of them. But I knew that what I was seeing didn't have anything to do with feathers even before I came to the first pike.

As I approached it, the skin on the man's face seemed to be crawling alive, there were so many flies on it. All that was left of his eyes were dark, empty sockets staring sightlessly up at the sky. I don't know whether it was relief that I didn't recognize this face, or the horror that I'd have to keep on walking that made my legs go out from under me and a sob tear free from my chest.

I wanted to take the poor man's head and give it the proper ritual to protect the soul as it went on its way, but I knew I couldn't risk it. Not with everything that had happened. Not with the hate still spinning through the air and suspicion hanging in the breeze. Still, I took a moment there on the side of the road and, like my mother had taught me, I said the words to call for the spirits to reclaim the man's soul.

Then I moved on to the next pike, and the next man who didn't have Augustine's face. And as I walked, I thought about the other women who walked this same path, mothers and lovers who hoped for the best but found instead the beaten faces of the men they loved. But with each pike that didn't show me Augustine's features, I hoped a little more.

He'd been gone for fifteen days already. Fifteen days when I didn't know what had become of him. Fifteen days since I woke to find him no longer in my bed.

Ten days ago, the River Road had gone crazy with violence and death. Eight days ago, those who could went back to the ordinary dangers of the lives they'd been handed. Five days ago, they'd driven the first pike into the ground and severed the first soul.

Every night since, I'd gone to wait in our place, and every night I hadn't found anything
but the empty stars.

Another pike that isn't topped with a crow. Another face that isn't his. And each face I find is a fresh wound in the ragged thing that was once my soul.

Had I been stronger, Augustine never would have left me that night. He never would have been able. Had I been stronger, I wouldn't have to be searching for him here.

I vowed not to make that mistake again.

On and on I walked, until the sun was so hot beating down on me, I thought my own skin would peel like the corpses I met. The hot wind cut across my skin, searing me, forging me into something stronger than I'd ever been before. With each step, the rip in my soul grew a little wider, a little deeper. A little more impossible to ever be mended.

I walked all the way to the Quarter, following that road of death, all the while followed by the sightless eyes of the damned.

Seventeen

I heard somebody calling out, but the voice came from so far away I thought it was the wind itself calling to me. But the wind doesn't tear at your hands with claws. It doesn't tug at you and shake you.

“Let go of that now,” another voice said. “Give it here,” it commanded.

Suddenly, the sharp bite of something like vinegar burned through the stink in my nostrils, cutting through the vision. My chest ached, but when I took a shaking breath, all I could manage was a keening moan that sounded like it came from something more animal than human. Grief tore me in two and pinned my halves to different corners of the lonely world.

“They killed them,” I sobbed. Because even though I knew I was back in the safety of Mama Legba's rooms, the memory of those sightless eyes, like empty holes, was still burned into my vision. My nose was still filled with the sticky smell of flesh rotting in the sun.

“Chloe-girl,” Mama Legba said, her voice sharp as her hands held my arms steady. “Come on, child. You need to come on back to us.”

Slowly, the room swam back into focus and eventually I had enough hold on myself to realize that everyone was close by, watching me with wary eyes. All around me, the room was in shambles.

“What happened?” I asked, blinking up at them through my tears.

“That's what you need to be telling us,” Mama Legba said.

My skin felt feverish as I looked at the crumbled bits of paper that used to be the clipping. They'd destroyed it trying to get it away from me. The rest of the scraps from the box were scattered on the floor around the table.

“You said, ‘they killed them,'” Lucy said gently. “Who killed who?”

“I don't know,” I told her. And then I explained the heads on pikes that lined the River Road. I told them all about what I'd seen, and I told about the hate that had burned in me during the vision. But I didn't tell them that the hate still warmed some part of me, searing deep down like a fire banked by the memory of what I'd seen.

Mama Legba frowned. “Could be one of the rebellions that flared up 'round these parts way back when.”

“There were human heads staked like scarecrows all along the River Road, all the way from the plantations to the Place d'Armes in the Quarter,” I said, bile rising in my throat at the memory of the vision. “I don't remember learning anything like that.”

Mama Legba's mouth turned down. “That wouldn't exactly be a welcome tale in schools anywhere, but especially not 'round these parts, now would it?”

“But you didn't get anything else about Thisbe and Roman?” Lucy asked.

“No. But if it was only 1811, maybe that was too early for Thisbe to have known him? Let me try again,” I said, reaching for another scrap.

Mama Legba caught my hand before I could grab it. “Wait a minute, child. That wasn't just a vision you had there.”

“She's right, Chloe,” Lucy said. “The first time, I barely noticed anything had happened to you until it was over, but this time when you touched that clipping … ” She hesitated. Finally, looking almost embarrassed, she glanced away. “It was different this time.”

“It felt like a storm was blowing through,” Odane said, his voice tight and his eyes curious and assessing. “The second you touched that bit of paper, it was like you weren't even in there anymore. Then, a moment later, a wind kicked up that didn't stop until we ripped it out of your hand.”

“There's something more than visions happening,” Mama Legba said with a frown, “and I don't think we should play with it anymore until we know how much more.”

“What about the dreams?” I asked. “If these visions are connected to Thisbe, the dreams I've been having probably are, too.”

“You're having dreams, too?” Odane asked, his expression unreadable.

I gave him a tight nod and briefly explained what I'd seen in my dreams, then turned to Mama Legba. “If you help me dreamwalk, like you helped Lucy, maybe I could find out what Thisbe was doing back then, maybe find out what it has to do with what's going on now?”

Mama Legba studied me for a second, but then her mouth screwed up and she shook her head. “It might could be, child, but that maybe ain't enough for us to take that risk.”

“But you did it for Lucy—”

“You saw what happened to Lucy last time, and she knew more about her dreams than you do,” she said, stopping my argument. “When she came to me, she'd already been able to control parts of her dreaming. What you told me don't sound like you have no control at all.”

“But—”

“No.” Her voice was more forceful now. “Lucy was dreaming of her own past. But you're saying you dreaming of Thisbe's past? That still just don't seem likely to me, or at least it don't sound natural.” Mama Legba frowned. “Dreams maybe tell us our own lives, but we can't get into someone else's without some sort of violation.
If
these is even dreams about her actual life, to try breaking into them means breaking through into part of Thisbe. Our souls is meant to be our own, and it would take a darker magic than I know to do what you're asking. I don't want no part in that kind of magic,” she said.

“But we both know someone who wouldn't mind working that sort of magic,” Odane said thoughtfully.

“Don't even start,” Mama Legba said, pointing a finger at him threateningly.

He shrugged. “I'm just saying … You and I both know Ikenna could help with this. He knows more about darkness like this than anyone around. He might even be able to help keep her safe if she wants to see what all this is really about.”

“There ain't no safe with him,” Mama Legba snapped. “And there's no way I'm letting Chloe go messing around
with dreaming or these visions, not till we know for sure what's causing them.

“So that's it?” I asked, my stomach twisting. “You're giving up and shutting me out of this, too?”

Mama Legba pursed her lips. “It isn't about shutting you out,” she said. “It's about taking our time and making sure we don't misstep. There's too many parts to this to go jumping in feet-first without looking where we jumping. That wind you called up wasn't like nothing I've ever seen before, child. It was stronger than most people can conjure when they trying, and you weren't even trying.” She paused, frowning when she met my eyes. “At least let me think on it before we do anything else.”

“We don't have time for you to think,” I snapped. I knew it was only temper that had me lashing out, but after all that had happened that morning, I couldn't seem to stop myself.

“I'd rather take the time than rush in and lose you to this,” Mama Legba told me.

I stood up and turned to Lucy. “You ready to go?”

She studied me with a frown for a moment before she agreed.

“Now don't rush off in a huff,” Mama Legba said.

“I'm not in a huff,” I lied. “I just need to go. I want to try to call Piers again before it gets too late, and—”

Mama Legba touched my arm. “Wait a minute, child.” She stood and made her way back to the front of the shop. When she came back, the deck of tarot cards was in her hand. She drew one card from the top and then set the rest aside before coming over to me. Taking me by the wrist, she turned my hand palm up and slid the card into it.

The hanged man
.

“You can't hold so tight, child. Knowledge and power can't be forced. It's only going to come when you let go.”

I tried to hand the card back to her, but she wouldn't take it.

“I can do this,” I told her, one last plea. “Please. Let me try again.”

“Can and should are different things,” Mama Legba said.

But that wasn't how it felt to me. Can and should felt exactly the same. “So we're going to ignore what's right in front of us?”

“Chloe,” Mama Legba said gently. “That bit of magic you called up wasn't anything good. If Odane hadn't pulled that scrap out of your hand when he did, I don't have any doubt you'd have pulled this whole place down on our heads, and that wouldn't have helped anybody at all. We can try again, but not right now. I need to build up the protections and figure out a way to keep you safe if you gonna be purposely giving yourself over to something like these visions again.”

I shook my head, tired of arguing. “Let's go, Luce.”

“Chloe-girl,” Mama Legba pleaded.

“I get it,” I said before turning to Lucy. “You coming?”

She frowned and glanced at Mama Legba, but then she stood to come with me.

“Where are you parked?” Odane asked. “I'll walk
you out.”

“I don't need you—”

“Never said you did,” he said pleasantly, “but I can't let the chance to be with a couple pretty girls pass me by.” He gave me a too-charming smile that could've melted the Ice Queen herself. But it didn't melt me. Not much, anyway.

He walked next to me, his hands deep in his pockets, without saying a word, but there was something expectant about his body language. Like he was waiting for something. Lucy followed silently behind us, like she was still making up her mind about who was right and whose side to take.

Finally, we reached my car, and he kind of hung himself over the door when I slid in. I tucked the card Mama Legba had given me into the overhead visor, because it didn't seem right to throw it away. She'd want it back eventually.

Something about the way Odane looked at me made me feel uncomfortable, like he already knew everything there was to know about me and was still making up his mind about it.

“My aunt is wrong about this,” he said, looking down at me. “I know she's trying to protect you, but that's only because she's scared for you and that's clouding her judgment. If this Thisbe is really going to summon Samedi, we don't have time for people to sit around and wait.”

I didn't say anything at first. He was voicing everything I felt in my heart, but it seemed too much like a betrayal to speak against Mama Legba.

“I meant what I told Aunt Odette back there,” he said. “My father probably could help with all this if you want him to.”

“Mama Legba doesn't seem to trust him,” I said, remembering the conversation at Odeana's house and thinking of the almost visceral reaction Mama Legba had when Odane said his name.

“She doesn't,” Odane agreed.

“And you think I should?”

Odane shrugged. “My aunt has her reasons. See, she ba-sically controls the market on Voodoo in the Quarter. My father—at least in the biological sense—kind of runs things on the other side of the river, over in Algiers.” His dark eyes met mine. “He'd do just about anything—and has—to get a foothold on this side, which is why Auntie O doesn't want anything to do with him.”

“So, what, it's like some sort of turf war?” Lucy asked, peering across the car at Odane.

He didn't smile. “Something like that.”

“No, thanks,” I told him, because the way he looked at me told me there was more he wasn't saying. A lot more. I reached for my door, and he was forced to back off.

When I rolled down my window to let out the heat that had built up inside, Odane leaned down and rested his arms in the open space. “I don't know about this Thisbe person
y'all are worried about, but I know enough about Baron
Samedi to not want him anywhere around my part of the world. If you want it, you've got my help on this. Think about it,” he said, his face only a couple of inches from mine.

He smelled nice, I realized, like some sort of woodsy, clean scent with the hint of something darker, like incense.

I mentally shook myself—I didn't have any reason to be smelling some boy, no matter how he might have looked at me like we were at the beginning of something. “Nothing to think about,” I said, starting up the car. I gave the engine a little gas, just because I could, and when the Nova roared, I was glad I didn't have one of those eco-friendly cars.

But Odane didn't back up. His mouth lifted a little, like he was amused, but then the smile fell flat. “I'm not asking you to decide right this minute.” He looked so damn sincere that I almost thought about it. Almost. “But whenever you decide, I'm willing to help.”

“Or maybe you're willing to help your dad,” I said, watching him for some sign that he was playing me.

He shook his head. “I'd be doing it for you, not for him.” Something about the way his voice went all gravelly made me think he was telling the truth. Still …

“I'm not standing against Mama Legba. I wouldn't do that to her.”

“Even though she doesn't trust you?”

I didn't have an answer for that, so I gave him the sweetest smile I could and leaned my head closer, like I wanted to tell him a secret. He leaned in, like he wanted me to.

“Unless you want to lose that big, strong arm of yours, I'd suggest you get it off my car.”

His mouth did pull up into a grin then, and damn if it wasn't like a kick to my stomach. So I did what any self-respecting girl would do. I pulled away without saying another word.