Gathering Deep (27 page)

Her voice rang out in strange, foreign syllables as she sliced her palm with a knife and dripped three drops of blood into the flames. When the blood hit the blue flames, they rose up in a blinding flash that I couldn't turn away from or shut my eyes against.

All at once, darkness settled over the room, and the only light came from the blue glow of the circle around Thisbe and the strange bluish glow from Piers's still body.

A man stepped out of the darkness between those spots of light. Drawing himself up to his full height in the center of that darkness, I recognized him as the skeletal man from my dreams. Baron Samedi.

He was dressed in all black, and his purple top hat was tipped rakishly over one of his empty eyes. Although he had the face of a man, his fingers clacked as he moved the bones that made up his hand. The overpowering smell of cigars and unwashed bodies, of the sweetness of rum and the rot of the grave, swept over the room. And all at once, I felt a sense of such desperate desolation that I would have done anything to make it stop.

“Ikenna Gaillard? My faithful servant,” Baron Samedi said, in a voice filled with the emptiness of a forgotten grave and the wetness of rattling phlegm. “You dare call me?”

Ikenna cowered in the corner, his body thrown over
his son's.

“I called you,” Thisbe screeched, obviously displeased that Baron Samedi didn't realize who had summoned him.

He turned to her, his gaunt face scowling, and exam
ined her. As he looked her over, a millipede crawled out his empty eye and down into his black-as-night shirt. “And what are you to summon me?”

“I am Thisbe Bookman.”

Baron Samedi cocked his head, breathed her in. “But
what
are you? And why have you brought me here?”

Thisbe, visibly shaken, pulled herself upright. “I want to make a bargain.”

“With me?” Baron Samedi took a long draw off his cigar and blew a ring of smoke right into my mother's face. “You don't have leave to make deals with me.”

“I brought you a sacrifice,” she said, pointing at Piers. “A life for a life. I know how this works. You'll take my offering. You'll bring back my Augustine.”

Baron Samedi laughed. His voice was like metal dragging against cement as he laughed and laughed. “You know?
You
know?” He laughed again. Then, with a motion so fast and unexpected that all of us gasped, he flung out his arm and backhanded Thisbe. She tumbled out of her blue circle and hit her head against the marble end table as she tumbled to the floor.

“Momma?” I cried, suddenly free from whatever control she'd had over me. I ran over to her unconscious body and shook her. With her face slack, she looked more like an older version of the mother I knew. Her breath was shallow, though, barely there.

“Ikenna,” Baron Samedi said in his rattling voice. “I am not pleased you let this happen.”

“No,” Ikenna said, visibly shaking as he tried to block Samedi from Odane. “I didn't know.”

“A lie,” Samedi drawled, puffing again on his noxious cigar.

“I tried to stop it,” Ikenna pleaded.

“But you didn't,” Samedi growled. “And now I'm here. And I am hungry.”

Ikenna trembled, refusing to look at the skeletal man.

“You know my price, Ikenna. You call me to the living, you give me a life.”

“Take hers,” Ikenna said, pointing at Thisbe. “She called you. Take her with you when you go.”

“That?” Samedi puffed on his cigar again. “That is so far past a life that even I won't dig its grave. No, I need a real life. Young and fresh and full of power.”

“Then take her,” Ikenna said, pointing to me.

“No,” Odane rasped, but he couldn't do much more than try to stagger to his feet before his father stopped him by raising a single hand. Frozen in place, he looked up at me, his eyes wide with shock and anger.

“She's young and strong and drips with power. She'd make a welcome addition to your collection of souls.”

Samedi turned to me, his head cocked like he was trying to decide. “It doesn't look to me like she wants to be taken,” Samedi said. “A sacrifice has to be willing.”

Ikenna smiled. “I can help you with that … Chloe,” he whispered, and I felt an energy wrap around me as his dark voice filled the room. “Chloe,” he said again. “Don't you want to go with the good Baron?” he crooned.

No
, I wanted to say, but I found that I couldn't. Without me wanting it to, my right leg took a step forward.

“Chloe,” he crooned, calling to me again. His golden eyes practically glowed as he watched my other leg step forward.

Everything I was felt pulled toward Ikenna, toward Baron Samedi and his boney hands. I couldn't seem to stop myself from feeling the pull of his words, from following the command in his voice.

Sacrifice
, I thought.
Yes. To give myself as a sacrifice
.

It made a sudden, sick sort of sense in that moment. Perhaps this is what I was called to do all along. To give myself to stop a demon. To give myself over to save the ones I loved.

My leg took another step toward Samedi.

No
, another voice called, rocketing through my head and drowning out the call of Ikenna saying my name.
Chloe Sabourin, you are mine. Body and soul, baby girl, and no one else's
.

My feet went still and I felt pulled in two directions at once.

You weren't meant for that side of the grave,
the voice said. And then it called to me, until my own name sounded like a chant. Over and over, the syllables of my name rolled through my head, Ikenna's voice warring with my mother's. Over and over, until the soft chords of her voice began to drown out his.

I took a gasping breath and fell to my knees, Ikenna's hold broken.

Samedi's skeletal fingers scratched at the skin drawn taut against his sharp chin. “It don't seem like the girl is willing, Ikenna,” he growled, turning on Odane's father. “Are you so weak that you can't bring me what I require?”

“But I've been your faithful servant all these years,” Ikenna pleaded from his knees.

“You have, at that, haven't you?” Samedi said, examining Ikenna. “Maybe it's time you see another realm then,” he said, smiling around his cigar.

Ikenna's eyes widened. “No—” he started to say, but in a blinding flash of fire, they both were gone.

The blue flames died out completely then, leaving the room lit only by the light of the candles Thisbe had used while summoning Samedi.

“Odane,” I said, leaving my mother to go to him. “Are you okay?”

He sat up, dazed. “I think so. Ikenna—?”

“He's gone.”

“The Baron?” he asked, still looking more than a little dazed.

I nodded. “We have to get out of here,” I said, choking out the words. “Help Piers, and I'll get my mother.”

“Leave her. The police can deal with her later.” Odane pulled himself up, still rubbing at his throat, and then he walked over and struggled to get Piers upright. Straining, he managed to get Piers's arm looped over his own shoulders. Piers moaned like he was trying to come to, but his legs were unsteady.

Cursing, Odane tried again, this time struggling to sling Piers over his shoulder. Piers isn't a small guy, but Odane's days on the rig must have helped, because eventually he was staggering under Piers's weight. “Ready?” he asked, turning toward the door.

But when he turned, he knocked over one of Thisbe's candles, and flames licked at the carpet. I lunged for the flame, but it was too late. Before I could smother it, the fire flared up, crawling across the carpeting my mother was laying on, making a quick meal of the ancient fibers as it consumed them with its hungry glow.

“We have to go. Now!” Odane shouted, stumbling a bit under Piers.

I looked back at my mother. “I can't leave her here.”

“Now, Chloe!”

“Get Piers out,” I said, stepping back. “I've got to get my mom.”

“After all she's done?” Odane's eyes were wild.

“She stopped Ikenna,” I tried to explain. “And if I leave her here, I won't be any better than she was. I can't be like her, Odane.”

“You're
not
like her,” he shouted, stepping back from the heat of the growing blaze.

But I felt something stir inside of me, and I didn't know if I believed him.

Flames began to lick their way up the far wall. I knelt next to Thisbe and tried to slap at her face to wake her.

“Chloe!” Odane still hadn't left.

“Go! Get him out of here,” I told him as smoke started to fill the room. It was only a matter of time before the flames hit the gas-soaked hallway.

“I'll be back for you,” he said, straining under the weight of Piers's body.

And then it was just me and Thisbe.

I shook the still-unconscious body of the woman who was my mother. “Come on, Momma. We have to go.” I could already feel the heat from the flames as they engulfed the room. “I have to get you out of here,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Baby girl?” my momma mumbled, her eyes glassy and unclear as she blinked at me. “Chloe?”

It wasn't just the smoke stinging my eyes as I gasped and hugged her. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”

“What happened?” she asked, still looking like an older version of my momma.

“You summoned Baron Samedi.”

“Did it work? Where's Augustine?” she asked, struggling away from me.

“He's not here, Momma.” I tried to pull her upright. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

Her eyes went flat. “Leave me.”

“What?” I tugged at her. “No. You have to come with me. I can't leave you here.”
Not after the way you saved me.
But I couldn't make those words come out.

She pulled away, and then met my eyes. Hers were dull, dead, like a woman who had given up. “There's no reason to go out there. It's all over. Everything's over. I'll be with him now.”

“No!” I tugged at her again. “You'll be with
me
. What am I supposed to do all alone?”

She stared at me with those dead eyes. “You've always been alone, baby girl,” she said, pulling away from me. “I've only ever been living for him.”

I saw the truth of her words, then—the stark truth of what had always been my life.

“Go on,” she said. “Get out of here.”

I hesitated still, feeling the way the heat licked at my skin. In a moment, it would be too much to bear. In a moment, the halls would go up in flames and the smoke already hanging heavy in the air would be too much to breathe through. I couldn't leave her, not to that kind of death. Even with all she'd done, nobody deserved that.

Outside the room, the hall crackled with flames as the gas-soaked carpets began to ignite.

“Go!” she growled. “I don't want you here.”

I pulled away. She didn't want me. Maybe she never had. And I wouldn't die here for her.

Grabbing one of the side tables, I heaved it through the window, and then, my shirt covering my nose and mouth, I worked as quickly as I could to clear the rest of the glass away so I could climb out. Carefully, I hoisted myself over the low windowpane and eased myself outside, but a piece of glass sliced open my calf. Hissing at the pain, I looked back into the library in time to see the walls go up in flames completely, but the heat was so great that I had to turn away.

I staggered off the veranda and across the lawn to where a crowd of people had gathered. Odane was there, laying on his side and coughing up the smoke he'd inhaled. When he looked up and saw me, his eyes were full of the terrible relief that comes from having outsmarted death.

Dr. Aimes was kneeling over Piers, who was beginning to stir, and Mrs. Aimes had T.J. caught inside the circle of her arms, but her eyes were wild as she searched the crowd for Lucy. I staggered over to her and let her know that Lucy was safe at Mama Legba's. She sobbed her relieved thanks before she took T.J. off to the side and pulled out her phone, leaving me alone to watch in a daze as the mansion that had defined my childhood was engulfed in flames. As my mother burned right along with it.

I didn't realize I was sobbing until a voice said “
shhhh, shhhh,
” low and gentle near my ear. “It's okay, baby,” the voice murmured as strong arms wrapped around me.

“Piers?” I said, finally realizing who had me. I turned into the safety of his broad chest and I clung to him with all I had, with my very life.

By the time we heard the sirens sounding far out in the distance, it was too late. The orange flames had devoured the mansion, and black, sooty smoke was already pouring forth from every window.

I didn't leave when the screaming ambulance took Piers off to the hospital. We'd have time enough to figure out what was left between us now that he was safe, so instead I stayed where I was to make sure it was truly done. I watched the fire engulf Le Ciel Doux until the flames licked high up into the morning sky. Rooms collapsed and columns fell. As I watched the mansion burn, I thought I saw something move in those flames. Two figures reaching for each other in the bright heat of the cleansing fire.

Epilogue

Long after the fire had burned itself out, I sat on the gnarled roots of one of the massive live oaks and watched the smoke rise from the smoldering ash of what once had been the grandest house on River Road. Le Ciel Doux had burned for almost twenty-four hours before the flames were finally controlled.

Everyone was safe. Lucy had snapped to as soon as the charm Thisbe had bound her soul to had caught fire in
the house, and Odane didn't even need to be treated for the smoke he'd inhaled. Piers was still in the hospital for observation, but he was stable and he'd recover. I knew I needed to go see him. I knew staying away was probably cowardly. I knew that nothing that had happened between us had been his fault, not the call or the distance, but still, I felt different. I felt changed somehow, and I wasn't sure what that meant for us. We had things to say, but I wasn't ready to open all that up. Not quite yet.

A shadow fell over me, blocking the morning sun. “You gonna sit here all day?” Mama Legba asked.

I glanced up at her, but I didn't answer.

“You know, if she didn't love you somewhere down deep inside, she wouldn't never have let you go,” she said, taking a seat next to me. “She'd have made you stay and watched you burn right along with her, just for the spite of it.”

I wanted to believe those words, but I wasn't sure. I'd been thinking about this very thing for the past day. Maybe she'd let me go because I still carried a part of her with me. Maybe I
should
have burned up with her.

Mama Legba put her hand on my arm. “You ain't your mother, Chloe-girl. Whatever she told you, you ain't her at all. You never was. You was never gonna be.”

I didn't believe that either, because I could still feel something deep down inside of me. Something that reminded me of the young Thisbe, the hopeful girl who waited in the coolness of pines and whose eyes lit up when Augustine had come for her.

“She wasn't all bad, you know,” I said, finally squinting over at Mama Legba. “She did what she because she loved him.”

Mama Legba shook her head. “What Thisbe did those many years ago didn't have nothing to do with love, Chloe-girl.” She tilted my chin up gently so I was forced to look her in the eye. “What that girl did way back when, what she kept on doing, only had to do with fear.”

I pulled away from her, swallowing hard.

“I don't even know who I am,” I said softly. “It's like my whole life's been nothing but a lie.”

Mama Legba patted me on the knee. “It don't matter what has been as much as what's gonna be, Chloe-girl. You gonna let your fear rule your future or is you gonna let go of that worry and live? Choice is yours, and you get to do with it what you will.”

She stood then and gave my shorn head an affectionate pat before she sauntered off, leaving me to my thoughts.

Odane found me not too long after. “You okay?” he asked, settling down next to me on the root.

“No,” I told him honestly, and he wrapped an arm around me. I didn't pull away this time. Because in the circle of his arms, I knew at least that someone understood everything I'd just been through—without explanation or excuse.

“You will be, though,” he said. “You beat a demon and destroyed a witch. You're strong enough for anything, Chloe. You'll get through this, and you'll be okay.”

“Yeah,” I said, starting to feel the truth of Mama Legba's words. “Maybe one of these days.”

“Not one of these days,” he told me. “You need to start now.”

I pulled away from him. “How am I supposed to do that? People died because of her.” My voice got softer. “You could have died because of her, and I feel like there's still a part of her inside of me.”

“Maybe there is,” Odane said.

I looked up, surprised.

He smiled. “You have her blood in you. You're never going to be able to erase that.” He shrugged. “Maybe she was telling the truth and you have something more of hers in you, too. Maybe not. It doesn't matter.”

I shook my head, wanting to disagree. Because
of course
it mattered.

“It
doesn't
,” he insisted. “I got my father's blood in me, but you don't condemn me for it, do you?”

I shook my head, because he was right. I didn't blame him for being Ikenna's son. “How can you be so sure about me?” I asked, resting my head in my hands.

His mouth kicked up into a grin. “I'm not usually wrong about things.” Then his expression was soft, thoughtful. “Stop being afraid, Chloe. Aunt Odette can help you figure out what you are. You've been running for a while now. It's time to stop and claim whatever you might have inside of you as your own.”

“I don't know if I can.”

“You can,” he said, and he walked over to the edge of the charred remains and cupped his hands around some of the ash. He brought it to me, and I held out my hands to receive it. “Start with love and send her spirit on its way, Chloe.”

“I can't—” I started to say, moving to give him back the ash he'd given me. I didn't want any power.

But he wouldn't take it. “You can. Come on.”

He helped me up, and we walked together to the riverbank. Up over the levee until we could see the muddy breadth of the Mississippi glinting in the morning light.

A breeze rustled through the trees, like the land itself was waiting.

“Go on,” Odane said, urging me forward.

I walked, alone, to the shore, and then I walked a bit further, until the mud and muck of the river pulled at my shoes. Silently I called to Damballah, to all the spirits of the light, but I didn't feel anything.

I looked back at Odane, but his expression was calm, confident. He gave me a small nod, as though urging me to try again.

Closing my eyes, I drew on that part of me, that deep down part of me that I knew wanted to be set free. The part I'd been feeling ever since they'd cut my hair. I'd been too afraid to look at it before, but I looked at it now. I pulled it up from the depths of who I was and let it uncurl and stretch itself out. It warmed in response and practically purred its satisfaction, but to my surprise, it didn't feel anything like my mother. I staggered back at the unexpected welcome of it.

I couldn't stop the smile from curving at my mouth as I took a deep breath and raised my ash-filled hands to the sun, the stars, and the world wide. When my voice rang out, it chanted words I never realized I knew. Words that had always been deep, deep inside of me.

This time, the spirit answered
.

The End