by Kira Saito
That’s right, baby. Now you’re beginning to see things my way, aren’t you? He knows he deserves it, why can’t you admit that already and get on with your life? If it’s money you’re after, that poor sucker Tony has quite a stash. Give the poor dog a second chance. He ain’t so bad-looking either.
With those happy, positive thoughts floating around my overworked brain, I decided to step foot into the cemetery.
Chapter 7
Partying with Papa Ghede
Inside, I couldn’t feel the presence of a spirit, so I assumed that I had only been flattering myself by believing that Papa Ghede would be waiting at the slave cemetery. “I think it’s safe to enter,” I said cautiously, as I glanced around. “Sabrina!” I shouted. Where was she? I didn’t care if she was really angry at me as long as she was okay.
The air inside the cemetery was surprisingly cool and alluring. It was as if there was an actual physical barrier between the world outside the cemetery gate and the one inside of it.
I let go of Lucus’s hand and shouted out Sabrina’s name again. The last thing she probably wanted to see was us together.
A wicked wind blew through the majestic oaks and a pile of leaves started to swirl at a mad pace. A brilliant light flashed and the twinkling stars up above turned a dazzling shade of deep purple against the black sky. Black and purple were Papa Ghede’s colors. Great. That meant he was near. What would Father Death ask of me?
“Arelia, you look so sad, and so do your handsome companions. Surely life can’t be that horrible, can it?” asked a cheerful but unfamiliar voice, as the smell of cigar smoke hit me.
I looked around the graveyard anxiously and with an overwhelming feeling of dread. “Papa Ghede?” I called out. I was still a bit shy talking to spirits in front of Lucus. Even though by now the things I had said and done in front of him were beyond explanation or logic in the realm of sanity, I couldn’t help feeling the way I did.
“Who else?” responded the voice, as the smell of cigars grew thicker and the purple stars brighter.
“I don’t know…” After the whole Soussan Pannan incident, I was still a bit traumatized and didn’t want to make the same foolish mistake again. “I don’t want any trouble. I’m looking for my friend, Sabrina; have you seen her? Can you please help us?”
I was trying to be all calm and collected but shivers invaded my body. I never expected that I would be actually speaking to Father Death. To me, death had always been such an abstract concept. One that was distant and cold. I was almost reluctant to believe that death was actually a colorful shepherd with a top hat, cigar, and twisted sense of humor. What was so joyful about dying?
“Who the hell are you rambling to?” asked Ivan.
“Shh.” I hushed him. I couldn’t hear Ivan’s voice in my head, so that must have meant that he was too engrossed in what was happening to bother entering my head.
The spirit laughed cheerfully and the wind grew chillier. My hair lifted off my sticky back and billowed in the cool wind, while the overpowering smell of cigar smoke encased me.
“Hello, darling. You all look like such a miserable bunch. You know Papa Ghede refuses to help miserable people.”
I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was actually seeing what I thought I was. Papa Ghede appeared before me as an extremely dark, thin, skeletal man, dressed in black skinny jeans, a black tuxedo jacket, and a purple top hat, cane in hand and a big old cigar in his mouth. He wore black sunglasses with one lense missing, and his skin was so smooth that his face appeared to be carved out of polished obsidian.
He strutted up to me and stopped inches away from my face. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a deep drag from his cigar and blew a gigantic cloud of smoke right into my face. I let out a small cough as the smoke entered my nostrils and throat. What was it with these spirits and blowing smoke in my face? I scowled, but didn’t say anything. There was no way in hell I was going to argue with Papa Ghede, unless I had a death wish (no pun intended). So, I stood there like a star-struck idiot, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide with gruesome wonder, fear and outright admiration.
Papa Ghede looked me up and down and then started to laugh. It wasn’t a small laugh, but an enormous chuckle that vibrated through this whole body. His full lips stretched out into a smile that covered his entire face, as he clutched his stomach with his bony, claw-like fingers. I know I didn’t exactly look hot, with my frizzy hair, tragically smudged makeup and wrinkly lace dress, but was I that much of a joke?
“Hey, what’s so funny?” I asked unable to keep quiet any longer.
Papa Ghede continued to laugh. He put his bony arms around my shoulders and I could feel the laughter radiating from his belly. He rested his head on my shoulders. “Oh Arelia, why can’t you see the fun in anything?” he asked, as he handed me a colorful pepper.
I took the pepper and stood silent. I didn’t know how to respond to him or what I was supposed to do with the pepper. “I’m sorry, but I don’t exactly see the fun in dying.” I shrugged.
“Of course you don’t. You can’t even see the joy in living!” He proclaimed, as he released me and did a mad twirl. “Look, there are purple stars in the sky!” he said, as he pointed his cane at the sky. “And this handsome man loves you.” He pointed his cane at Lucus. “Only if he had the nerve to say those words.” He shook his head, as he grinned at Lucus and threw a pepper at him.
“What?” Lucus was confused as a large cayenne pepper manifested out of thin air and slapped him ruthlessly across the face.
“And this one. Well, this one is around to make life interesting.” He prodded Ivan’s bum with his cane.
“What the hell!” Ivan reacted to Papa Ghede’s cane pokes.
“Eat the pepper, drink some hot rum and dance with me!” he ordered.
“Dance with you? I don’t have time to dance; I have to look for my friend. Please help us,” I pleaded.
Papa Ghede started to laugh again and shoved a pepper into my mouth. I didn’t want to offend him so I chewed it. My body was on fire as its juices hit the pit of my stomach.
“Don’t you feel alive?” Papa Ghede asked, as he watched tears stream down my face. As much as I loved spicy food, the pepper was atrociously hot. I swore I was about to go blind. “Wash that down with some delightful rum and dance.” He shoved a bottle between my lips and poured some rum down my throat.
“Arelia, what is going on?” Lucus wiped away the stream of tears that flowed down my face.
“He wants to dance,” I said when I finally managed to speak. “We have to do what he says if we want to find Sabrina.”
“Oh no, you have it completely wrong, darling: we want to dance,” said Papa Ghede. “We want to dance.”
“We?” I asked.
“Yes- I can’t have a party without including the old wife and some close, personal friends, now can I?”
My only explanation for what happened next was that the combination of peppers and rum must have made me completely delusional. The sound of savage drums filled the air. Their rhythm mesmerized me and shook me to my very core. Soon, against my will or desire, my feet started to move. The silhouettes of tombs became more vivid and the shadows surrounding them came to life. Hundreds of cigar-smoking skeletons appeared from behind the tombs and danced with unbridled rapture to the sound of the drums. They linked arms and formed a gigantic circle that surrounded Ivan, Lucus and I. They moved around us at a dizzying pace. A month ago, I would have refused to believe that I was actually surrounded by dancing, cigar-smoking skeletons, but now, I realized that me not believing would have been idiotic.
Lucus’s eyes were wide and his mouth slightly agape.
“Do you see them?” I whispered.
He nodded, but his eyes remained fixed on the dancing skeletons.
Beside Papa Ghede appeared a skeletal woman dressed head-to-toe in black. Her waist-length blonde hair and alabaster skin glowed under the pale moonlight. Her green eyes had a mischievous gleam behind t
hem as she stood before me and chewed on peppers and sipped from a bottle of rum. “Maman Brigitte?” I gasped. Did Mother and Father Death really want to party with little old me?
She nodded. “I’ve heard about you, Arelia. I’ve heard that you can be quite uptight sometimes.”
“Uptight? Me? No.”
“Yes. You. You should be more like him,” she said, as her attention focused on Ivan. Her large eyes filled with pleasure and longing as a wicked smile appeared on her face.
“Ivan, I think Mother Death wants to dance with you,” I said, as I glanced behind me.
Ivan uncrossed his arms and stepped away from the tombstone he was carelessly leaning against. Apparently, the sight of dancing, cigar smoking skeletons didn’t bother him at all.
“If Mother Death wants to dance with me, bring it on. Ma Cherie, how can I refuse?” He bowed and extended his hand even though he had no idea where Maman Brigitte was.
Maman Brigitte dropped her rum bottle and took Ivan’s hand. Having felt her presence, instinctively, Ivan placed his arms around her back and they started to move. Maman Brigitte placed her head on Ivan’s shoulder and buried her face into his neck. They madly danced in sync with the beat of the drums. Ivan spun Mother Death around and she let out a low, carefree laugh that was seductive yet threatening. She ran her bony fingers through Ivan’s hair and gently stoked his stubbly cheek. He laughed as he spun her around faster and faster. She took a pepper out of her mouth and shoved it into Ivan’s. Ivan laughed as he chewed the pepper and bent over to pick up a rum bottle from the ground. He continued to laugh as he took a sip from the bottle and then afterwards gave Mother Death a big old kiss on the mouth. Maman Brigitte continued to laugh and laugh like a maniac and the pair continued their odd dance.
Meanwhile, the sound of drums grew louder and the smell of cigars thicker. A skeleton separated its self from the crowd and approached Lucus. It extended its hand. Without question, Lucus took it and gave it a small kiss. I scratched my head as I watched Lucus dance with the skeleton without a hint of repulsion or hesitance. He turned to look at me and mouthed. For Sabrina. Be strong.
“Shall we?” asked Papa Ghede, as took my hand into his. At this point, all I could think of was Sabrina and how scared she probably was.
“Yes, but I need to know if my friend is okay. Can you tell me where she is?” I asked innocently. Around us, the drums grew louder and the skeletons started to dance faster.
Papa Ghede wrapped me in his stick-like arms and we started to move. “What if I say it’s too late for your friend?”
My heart stopped beating for a second and my blood froze, but I didn’t want to panic. So I took a deep breath. “With all due respect, Papa Ghede, I don’t believe you.”
Papa Ghede let out a deep laugh and flashed me a pair of rotting teeth. “So stubborn! How dare you challenge me? If I say it’s too late for your friend, then it’s too late.”
I sighed. “No. I’m not challenging you per se, I’m simply making sure that you have all of the facts right.” I tried to think really, really hard back to the LaRue spell book and tried to dig up some facts that would help me deal with Papa Ghede. Think, Arelia. Think.
As Papa Ghede continued to spin me around and drag me from one end of the cemetery to the other, I remembered that although he loved to party, Papa Ghede was also wise and protective. I figured that maybe I could play up to his emotional side and reason with him. Surely even Father Death was open to negotiation. “Sabrina’s innocent in all of this; whatever she’s gotten herself into is my fault. The whole thing. I should have been honest with her from the start. If you give me a chance to make it right, I promise I won’t disappoint you. I’ll do anything,” I said with the most sincerity and passion I could muster under the really odd circumstances.
He merely laughed. “I don’t want to talk about your friend; I want to talk about you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Now, tell me, why are you so afraid of dying? Why is everyone so afraid of dying?” he asked, as he popped another pepper into my mouth.
After forcing the pepper down my throat and slightly enjoying the slow, painful burn, I finally managed to speak. “I guess because no one really knows what happens on the other side. I don’t think anyone is afraid of dying, I think we’re all afraid of what we don’t understand.” I had no idea if that was what he wanted to hear, but it was the only answer that I had. The only answer that made any sense to me. I thought back to last summer when Grand-pere had died suddenly and unexpectedly. The thing that tormented me most about his death was the fact that I didn’t know if he was safe or not.
Papa Ghede laughed as he drank some more rum. Afterwards, he leaned dangerously close and whispered, “Are you afraid of me, Arelia?”
“Yes, I am,” I replied honestly. “But I know you’re not cruel. There has to be a greater meaning behind things, right?” I asked, maybe too hopefully.
“Would you accept that logic if I told you that your friend was dead?”
No. No. No. How could Sabrina be dead? A few hours ago we were getting ready for a party. She was deciding on what lingerie to wear and I felt like murdering her. This can’t be right. “She doesn’t deserve to die, I do,” I whispered.
Papa Ghede stopped dancing and we stood still. He eyed me in silence for a minute while sucking on a pepper and smoking his cigar. “You’d be willing to share the pain? Willing to ease the pain?”
“The pain?”
“Yes.”
I could have stood there and bombarded him with a thousand questions. That’s exactly what I felt like doing, but I knew the loa were a fickle bunch. Like me, they were prone to massive mood swings and that meant changing their mind at any second. There was no time for second-guessing, so I said the only thing I could: “Yes.”
“Are you willing to give her peace?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but something in my gut told me that Ivan was behind the whole mess. “Is he responsible for this?” I asked, furious. “Is he connected to this?” I pointed at Ivan.
Papa Ghede laughed again and then his expression turned severe. “Yes, if that’s the answer you’d like to hear. No, if it’s not.”
“What does that mean?”
His expression changed from severe to amused and he let out another deep laugh. Argh. More riddles and puzzles. “Give her peace,” he said again simply. “You need to give her peace, because she’s been waiting for it for an awfully long time. Dig her up- she’s on her way to six feet under- and give her peace.”
“Who?”
“Her.”
That didn’t help me much at all.
Papa Ghede released me, strutted over to where Ivan and Maman Brigitte were dancing, and pulled his wife away from Ivan. He gave her a soft kiss on the mouth. Afterwards, he turned to me. “Good luck, Arelia.” With those words he disappeared and the skeletons vanished with him. The drumming stopped and the cigar smoke was lifted.
Lucus immediately ran over to me and placed his arms around me. “Are you okay?” he asked, as he wiped away the thin sheen of sweat that had formed on my forehead from all the dancing.
I nodded.
I looked around the cemetery and realized that Sabrina was right here. Buried almost six feet under.
Chapter Eight
Princess, Where Art Thou?
I took a moment to catch my breath and to get over what had just happened. I eyed Ivan with outright rage and frustration. Every inch of me wanted to beat him to a pulp. He slumped against a tombstone and continued to sip from a rum bottle. He caught me staring and a large smug smile formed on his face. I knew this was part of his sick plan, but I couldn’t prove anything.
Wasn’t that fun, queen? All that wild dancing was invigorating, wasn’t it? Too bad we weren’t naked. Oh no, did Barbie get herself into some sort of trouble? More reason for you to get the hell out of here, isn’t it? Where is the little princess? Oh princess, where art thou?
I took a deep b
reath and marched up to him and grabbed the rum bottle out of his hand.
“Where is she?”
“What the hell, queen? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ivan shrugged.
“You’re useless!” I screamed. I wanted to scream, you can’t get rid of me. But the words didn’t come out. None of the goddamn words were coming out! I felt like a pitiful prisoner trapped in my own body.
As much as I wanted to beat the crap out of Ivan, I couldn’t risk standing around and wasting precious time arguing with a lunatic, so I smashed the bottle against a tombstone. It took a huge amount of restraint not to jab him the eye with the broken glass. I had to concentrate on the task at hand, and I knew I needed help. The cemetery was massive and there was no way we would be able to find Sabrina without help.
“Erzulie, I’m asking you out of pure desperation, please help me find Sabrina. I promise I’ll have more patience with that ass that calls himself Ivan but right now all I care about is making sure my friend is safe. Please.”
I brought a broken piece of glass to my palm and closed my eyes while I stabbed myself seven times and recited the chant that had become my mantra.
Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the dagger,
Lend me the basin so I can vomit my blood,
Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the dagger,
Lend me the basin so I can vomit my blood,
My blood is pouring down.
I fought back the bitter tears that were threatening to flow freely down my face. No matter how many times I made an offering to Erzulie, it never got any easier. The sting always felt like the first time. I guess that’s why it was called a sacrifice. Sacrifices were supposed to be hard and painful. Maybe spirits fed off of pain- it was such a childish conclusion, but it was the only way I could explain the inexplicable. It was the only way I could vaguely relate to the world of les mysteries.
