Remorse hadn’t hit me yet. Anger ruled my emotions.
Maggie moved by us demanding, “What happened here?”
Cringing, I waited for it…
“Well,” Ezra sighed, “we had a little battle of our own. Nice to see you all back.”
That was altruistic of her. Here she is, cleaning up after our families, and she’s welcoming us back. Our families could take a lesson from her.
Felix, however, wasn’t so understanding. “Little?” he said as his head appeared from around the corner. “I wouldn’t call this little.”
As we reached them, Rufus didn’t say a word, remaining expressionless as he picked up a picture frame and brushed the shattered glass from the photo with his bare hand.
“Who started-,” I said and cut myself off. “No, I don’t want to know.”
“Where are they?” Jocelyn asked, and I knew she was wondering if she was going to need to heal anyone.
“I split them up and kicked them out,” Ezra stated matter-of-factly, as if it were just another day in their household. “They’re fairly impressive, your families. They speak a few Latin phrases and things start flying.”
“Evidently,” Jocelyn said, stooping to collect a broken candle vase at her feet.
But I stopped her. “Where can I find another broom?”
Ezra directed me, and the next few minutes were spent scooping, sweeping, and dusting fragments of porcelain and glass from nearly every surface in the parlor room.
“Any challenges with Flavian?” Ezra asked, as she held a bag open for Jocelyn’s trash.
“Not really,” Maggie replied flatly, while Eran focused on brushing pieces out from beneath the couch.
It seemed like what they had done to Flavian they had done to others countless times before.
I stopped collecting pieces of glass from the mantel and stared at them.
“He was impaled and burned, and recovered from each one,” I pointed out. If that wasn’t a challenge, I didn’t know what was.
My gaze drifted out the window to the rain pouring from eaves over the porch. “Water was his weakness…just water.”
“What’s your point?” Eran asked.
“When you and Maggie stopped coming to school last winter,” I ventured, wondering if he’d actually tell me the truth. “Was this what you were doing? Taking down Sevens, or those like him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you happen to learn the rest of The Sevens’ vulnerabilities?”
“They’re all different,” Maggie said, plainly. “Every one of them.”
Jocelyn figured out where I was heading with my questions, and asked, “Then how do we know how to execute the rest?”
Maggie began explaining that she and Eran determined their weaknesses while in the middle of the conflict, which made it clear why she didn’t see a problem with how Flavian died. That didn’t work for me. I was going to need something more solid.
That’s when the pieces came together.
“There are others who have dealt with The Sevens before,” I declared.
Theleo’s focus shifted to me instantly, because he knew what I was referring to.
Felix, however, was stumped. “Who?”
“They stay on the periphery of our world, aware of its existence, but never entering unless absolutely necessary.”
“So they haven’t actually met The Sevens?” Felix countered.
“Let the lad speak,” Rufus grumbled, and Felix rolled his eyes dramatically but remained quiet.
“They watch The Sevens,” I clarified, “and they’ve been doing it for centuries. If anyone has learned about their weaknesses, it would be them.”
“You’re thinking of Miss Mabelle and Miss Celia,” Jocelyn speculated.
I smiled. She knew me better than anyone else, but she didn’t know this.
“There’s one in particular, a woman who plenty of people know about but not many have met. She’s someone you go to when you’re sick or hurt, if you can find her.”
“Is she a healer?” Jocelyn asked, intrigued.
“The opposite, she assesses what makes you weak.”
“And you think,” Eran contemplated, “that she can tell us what makes The Sevens weak.”
“She did it for me, when she identified me as the Nobilis.”
“She was the one who…,” Jocelyn let her voice diminish as the shock of what I said took over. She recovered and said, “She saw your faults?”
“Really, Jocelyn? You notice faults in me?” I asked, teasing.
She smiled at me through a glare. “I’d like to meet her.”
Foreseeing the problems that would create, I said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” she countered.
“Because you won’t like what she has to say.”
“I’m a tough girl,” she said with a smug sideways grin. “I think I can handle it.”
When my lips pinched closed in protest, she ignored my reaction. “I’m going,” she announced with enough resolve I knew she wouldn’t yield.
While every part of me wanted to keep her here, where she wouldn’t learn the truth about what made me weak, where she wouldn’t be hurt by it, the intrigue was too great for her. And I knew that I would only be throwing fuel on the fire by opposing her.
Ignoring the tension I felt, I did a sweeping evaluation of the room, finding that it was almost entirely clean of broken pieces and debris.
“It’s all right,” Ezra said, noticing. “Go, the cleanup is done.”
“Go where?” Felix asked, with a shrug, as if he’d missed the entire conversation.
Jocelyn had already started down the hallway, as determined as ever. Maggie, Eran, and Theleo followed. I hesitated, watching Jocelyn’s black hair disappear out the back door.
“Go where?” Felix pressed.
Sighing, I held back the urge to berate myself. I should have handled the situation better. I should have foreseen her interest in meeting the woman.
“GO WHERE?” Felix nearly shouted, obviously frustrated over being ignored.
It was loud enough to jar me out of my thoughts. “Sorry, Felix…we’re going to visit a voodoo priestess.”
12
VOODOO
THE DOWNPOUR OUTSIDE WAS BOTH A blessing and a curse.
It gave us cover from the ground but it also inhibited our view of it. I contemplated this after giving Jocelyn directions to a remote part of the bayou, untouched for decades and overgrown with kudzu. It was a place seemingly uninhabitable for its lack of contact with civilization, without any roads or manmade paths to it. In short, it was hard to find, and designed to be that way.
When I thought we might be close, I mentioned, “I was only here once and it wasn’t from the air, so it might take me a few minutes.”
“How did you come before?” she asked, studying me, and I knew that it was just the start of many questions, including the one I wanted to avoid.
“By boat.”
“Like that one?” she asked, pointing at something pink between the trees.
“Exactly like that one.”
Taking my hint, she lowered us through the scraggly tree branches of a living cypress grove. In the middle of it, jammed between the trunks, was an old, beaten up fishing boat, dented on both sides from passing storms and with paint peeling from the beams.
The deck where we landed was no better. Water rot had eaten away the wood, leaving gaping holes in some places. Dirt that had never been washed off found its way beneath the corroding pink wood, collecting there as if it were propping up the peeling paint.
Theleo, Eran and Maggie immediately surveyed the area.
“It’s safe,” I reassured them.
Proof came when the only sounds that could be heard were the flat pings of raindrops across the water.
“Someone lives all the way out here?” Jocelyn asked, mesmerized, not intending to be patronizing at all.
Unfortunately, that’s how it was
interpreted.
“Yes,” snapped a scratchy voice from a doorway leading inside. “Someone lives here.”
Jocelyn’s eyes widened at me. I took her hand, paused to enjoy the feel of it, and channeled, “Don’t worry. Her bark is worse than her bite.” Out loud, I greeted our host. “Mrs. LeClaire, your French accent has weakened.”
“There is nothing weak about me, Jameson Caldwell,” she said furtively before turning and walking inside.
She looked just like I remembered. Her head was wrapped in a scarf, placed far enough back that it exposed some of the wiry black hair she kept underneath. Despite living on a boat, she chose to wear a dress that covered her from chin to ankles. Countless pockets were poorly stitched into it, which she teased me with when I was younger, threatening to pull out a snake or a spider if I misbehaved. Her eyes were cat-like, always watching, and her lips remained permanently turned up at the ends as if she were making you aware that she knew what you didn’t want her to know.
Recalling that Mrs. LeClaire’s disappearance through the darkened doorway was her form of an invitation, I trailed her, hoping Jocelyn wouldn’t follow. Of course, she did. Eran and Maggie did the same, alert by instinct even if they didn’t need to be.
“Theleo?” I called out, already knowing he’d decline.
“I’ll remain at my post,” he replied, firmly.
Once a soldier, always a soldier.
Inside, I found that Mrs. LeClaire’s residence hadn’t changed, either. It was surreal, like being transported back in time. In the dim candlelight, everything still had a red tinge. The walls remained cluttered with shelves of various herbs, bowls, and the bones of long dead animals. The sparse furnishings were piled with pillows and colorful blankets. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere, but there was plenty of disorder. The only difference between when I saw it last and now was that this time she had guests.
Seated around Mrs. LeClaire’s cramped table, was a collection of the most powerful coven in our world: Ms. Veilleux, Ms. Boudreaux, Ms. Roquette and Mrs. DeVille. Mr. DeVille was sitting to his wife’s right, appearing humbled in their presence. They wore the black cloaks so common in our world, and seemed out of place on a voodoo priestess’s boat.
I was the only one not surprised, having been the person who sent them here when they went into hiding.
Ignoring the pleasantries, Ms. Veilleux declared, “You’ve been busy. Two Sevens dead….”
“You heard?” I asked, wondering how, given their distance to town.
“We read,” Ms. Veilleux clarified, with a gleam in her eye.
“Being teachers at Ms. Veilleux’s school,” said Ms. Boudreaux, motioning to herself and Ms. Roquette, “we tend to read every now and again.”
She was being snide, but I was used to it. As a teacher to the younger, newer students, I learned at an early age to avoid her as much as possible. That didn’t seem possible right now, unfortunately.
“I imagine you’ve come to speak with Mrs. LeClaire?” she asked, and for dramatic flair adjusted her pointy black hat and ended up tapping Mrs. DeVille in the forehead. In response, Mrs. DeVille quietly grumbled, “Always…always, you must wear that hat.”
Ms. Boudreaux ignored her.
“You’ve come to see Mrs. LeClaire?” she repeated, undeterred.
“Yes,” I said, glancing in the woman’s direction. She was currently sifting through the jars on one of her shelves.
“Believe she can tell you The Seven’s weaknesses, hmmm?” Ms. Boudreaux asserted.
Ms. Veilleux shot a look full of warning in her direction, as if she had said too much.
“Yes,” I uttered, suspiciously. “How did you know?”
“Oh, hmmm, yes, well…,” she replied, flustered, and settled on a vague answer. “Good guess.”
Jocelyn gave me a curious look, because we both believed Ms. Boudreaux knew more than she was admitting. I figured Maggie and Eran were doing the same.
I didn’t get a chance to press her on it, because Mrs. LeClaire had ended her search and was now approaching us. She paused, drew in a slow, deep breath and circled us, and I got the feeling we were being inspected.
“The Relicuum?” she murmured. And a few seconds passed before adding, “Yes, yes…Isadora was correct. They have found the one.” She hummed quietly to herself, finishing her rotation and coming to a stop in front of Jocelyn. “You fear the future. You fear what you believe will come to pass. You fear you cannot exist beyond it. That is your weakness, child. It burdens you, weighs on you. It degrades you. It is the source of what holds you back. But there is strength in you, even if it has been wasted.” She nearly spat out this last word in disgust and my instinct to protect Jocelyn ignited. Sensing this, Mrs. LeClaire turned on me. “Stop! This is her fight. She alone must learn to apply her power against the forces that corrupt.” Returning to Jocelyn, her voice softened, and that was the lone reason I allowed her to continue. “Love, Relicuum, love….”
“I love Jameson,” she declared, and my chest swelled.
Mrs. LeClaire appeared not to be impressed. Turning from Jocelyn, she replied indifferently, “And that is what will save you.”
Jocelyn appeared to be thrown by this vague reference to our love being the resolution she’d been seeking, but in typical Jocelyn fashion, she moved on to the more practical reasons for our visit. “Can you tell us how to defeat The Sevens?”
I waited for an “or not” to be added, and given her tone I thought it might. But she stopped herself and that was perceptive of her. I remembered Mrs. LeClaire not appreciating poor behavior, and wondered at one point when my mother brought me here what had happened to Mr. LeClaire.
She didn’t get her answer, in words anyways. Mrs. LeClaire collected the bowls, herbs, and bones she had been searching for earlier and gestured for us to move back.
Carefully, she lined the bowls up, all seven of them, in a single row, and then poured a mixture of herbs from several bags tucked underneath her armpit. Stowing the herbs on a shelf, she then took the bones and aligned them, each one positioned in front of a bowl, so that there was a bone pointing at each bowl.
We watched then as she began to shake, lifting each leg so that her knees came up to her chest. When she began to walk around the bowls this way, I peeked at Jocelyn, who was enthralled, and Maggie and Eran, who seemed inquisitive. Those sentiments only grew more intense when Mrs. LeClaire started to chant:
Papa Legba ouvre baye pou mwen, Ago eh!
Papa Legba Ouvre baye pou mwen,
Ouvre baye pou mwen, Papa
Pou mwen passe, Le’m tounnen map remesi Lwa yo!
She repeated these phrases three times, continuing her bizarre dance until the last word. Her body froze and she threw her hands out at the bowls as if she was tossing energy from her fingers. An unseen force caused the bones to slide wildly, scraping along the wooden floor and landing in front of their respective bowl Some were slammed hard enough that the bowls now sat askew from one another.
Mrs. LeClaire remained stationary, bent at the waist with her hands projected at the bowls for several seconds. Then she picked up the hem of her dress and shuffled forward for inspection. She murmured something to herself, apparently satisfied with the results, and stepped away as the rest of us leaned in and took her place.
The herbs had disappeared and each bowl now contained something different: a pool of water, shrapnel, shards of glass, a burnt surface, a splinter of bone, a small piece of ice, and then nothing at all.
“The last one,” Maggie remarked. “It’s empty.”
“Nothing is ever empty,” Mrs. LeClaire corrected in her strangely vague way. She leaned back and clasped her hands in front of her, conveying that we would need to decipher what her ceremony had told us on our own.
I stooped down for a closer look, the Vire pants still drenched from the rain stiffening my movement. I figure that’s what led me to understand the bowl of water.
“I get it. There are seven bowls,
each one representing a specific Seven’s vulnerability. This is Flavian,” I noted, pointing to the bowl containing the puddle.
“Ahh,” Jocelyn murmured. “He was affected by water.”
“Then this must be Sisera,” Maggie added, gesturing to the shrapnel. “Because he was killed by my blade.”
“Right,” I agreed and appraised the remaining bowls. “So the others are susceptible to glass, fire, blunt force, cold, and….” I got stuck at the last one.
“I think we’ll need to figure that one out as we go along,” Eran suggested.
I acknowledged him with a nod.
“How do we know which bowl represents which Seven?” Maggie asked with a shrug. “Anyone have any ideas?” She tilted her head to the women at the table. “Any at all?” she pressed, insinuating that a little help would be appreciated.
When they dropped their eyes to the table, it was clear they wouldn’t be helping us, either.
“Okay then…,” she muttered.
A few seconds of silence passed and someone shifted, prompting the rest of us to stand. Jocelyn drew in a deep breath, weighted with nervous tension, and thanked Mrs. LeClaire. I took her hand and channeled the feeling of peace to her until she looked at me and smiled.
As an unspoken acknowledgement that our visit was ending, Maggie, Eran, Jocelyn, and I said goodbye to the women and headed for the door, but Jocelyn slowed as a question drifted through her mind. Listening to it was an invasion of privacy on my part, but an unintentional one.
The truth was, I knew it was coming. It was the reason she had come with me in the first place, and it hadn’t been fulfilled yet. So when she turned back to the women, I tried to stop her. “Jocelyn, you don’t want to ask that question.”
“Yes, I do,” she replied, her focus pinned on Mrs. LeClaire. And before I could warn her again, she addressed the priestess. “You discovered Jameson’s weakness when he was younger. Is that accurate?”
Mrs. LeClaire assessed Jocelyn before responding, probably determining how Jocelyn would handle her answer. I took advantage of that pause.
“She doesn’t need to know, Mrs. LeClaire.”
Prophecy (Residue Series #4) Page 15
