Gathering Deep

by Lisa Maxwell

  “No,” he said. “I really don’t. What do you need her for anyway?”

  Mama Legba frowned. “I need to talk something over with her.”

  The boy’s brows went up. “It sure must be something if you came all this way just to talk,” he said. “But I don’t know when she’ll be back.”

  Mama Legba finally took a seat on the edge of the couch, her arms crossed over her ample bosom. “I can wait.”

  The guy—Odane—scooted to the edge of his chair, his forearms resting on his knees and his brows drawn together. “What’s this all about, Auntie?”

  “I bought up some aloe from Laveau’s this week, but somebody done come into my home and tore it up so they could steal it,” she said with a frown. “My dishes is broke all over the floor, my furniture is all torn to bits, and my back door’s been busted in. But nothing else is missing but that aloe.”

  The expression of doubt on Odane’s face didn’t change. “You came all the way over here because somebody stole some plants?”

  Mama Legba’s brows drew together. “They wasn’t just plants. They’d been curing already in black cat oil, and you know that ain’t easy to find neither.”

  Odane considered that information with a thoughtful frown. “What do you think my mom can do about it? She ain’t no police. Besides, you tear up a person’s house, you’re doing something personal. You’re trying to take a piece out of the person’s security and peace of mind. That’s nothing to brush aside.”

  Mama Legba shook her head as Lucy gave a told-you-so huff and elbowed me.

  “No,” Mama Legba told him. “I need to think this all through … ”

  “What is there to think through?” Odane asked. “Someone broke into your home.”

  “They sure enough did, but you don’t understand.” She ran her hand up over her cheek, like she was comforting herself and trying to think all at once. “I had all the protections set,” she told him.

  “Somebody got through your protections?” Odane’s shock was clear.

  Mama Legba nodded, her expression grave.

  “Who around here is strong enough to do something like that?” he asked.

  “Only one person I know of that would,” Mama Legba said, her dark eyes finding mine. “Question is, what she wants with that aloe.”

  Ten

  “I think you best come on back to the kitchen,” Odane said with a long-suffering kind of sigh. “I’m gonna need something to eat before I hear what you’re about to say. Something tells me I’m not going to like a word of it.”

  He got up without another word and headed back into the kitchen that opened onto the parlor we were sitting in. Instead of stopping there, he went on back through and disappeared through another door.

  A second later, the front door opened. “Odette?” the small woman said as she stepped through the door and saw Mama Legba sitting in the parlor. “What are you doing here?” The woman didn’t sound at all pleased to see Mama Legba, and then her eyes drifted to us and she seemed even less pleased.

  If I hadn’t already known we were in Mama Legba’s sister’s house, I might not have guessed the two women were even related. Where Mama Legba was broad and ample, this woman was small and slight, almost frail looking. Her hair was loose around her face in a short bob and didn’t have any of the gray that shot through Mama Legba’s. But there was something in the similar tilt of their eyes that marked them as family.

  The woman came in, but her steps were labored and uneven because of the crutch she clasped in one hand and the way her right foot didn’t exactly go straight.

  “Odeana, honey,” Mama Legba said with a nervous sort of smile. She stood to greet her sister.

  “Don’t honey me,” the woman told her without an ounce of warmth. “What are you doing in my house?”

  But before Mama Legba could reply, Odane came back through the kitchen, this time fully clothed. “Mom?”

  The scowl on the small woman’s face slid away and her entire expression brightened, like her argument with Mama Legba had never happened. She dismissed us completely and went to wrap her son—who towered above her—in a hug that made my throat go tight.

  My momma used to hug me like that. The thought was as sudden as it was awful. And I had the sudden realization that whatever happened next, I was never going to have that again. Even with everything that had happened, there was a small part of me that still craved my momma’s arms around me.

  Odeana made some more noises of delight over her son—how much she’d missed him, how good he looked, and how that sea air must have made him grow another three inches. He glanced up at us once, over his mother’s head, clearly embarrassed, but then he turned back to her preening approval.

  “You done yet?” he said, when it was clear he couldn’t take any more.

  “I’ll let you know,” his mother said. But then she glanced over at Mama Legba. “Just as soon as I find out what she’s doing here.”

  “Someone smashed up her house,” Odane said, taking the opportunity to get himself free of her arms.

  Odeana turned to Mama Legba, her face slack with shock. “They did what?” All at once, the anger and suspicion she’d worn like armor was gone.

  “Broke up my place,” Mama Legba said, still clearly uncomfortable. “Ripped up the furniture, smashed up my pottery, made a mess of every blessed thing. Not my shop. My home.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that straight off?”

  “You never gave me no chance,” Mama Legba said wryly.

  “But smashing up your home?” Odeana’s hand came up to her mouth. “Oh, that’s—well, that’s lowdown, ain’t it?”

  “It sure is,” Odane said, all sincerity.

  “What did the police say ’bout it?” Odeana asked.

  “I didn’t call no police,” Mama Legba said.

  “Why not?” Odeana’s eyes were wide with confusion.

  Odane frowned. “That’s what she was about to explain.”

  Odeana looked at her expectantly.

  “Because there ain’t nothing the police can do about it,” Mama Legba said. “Besides, calling them probably would cause more trouble than I already have … ”

  She gave Odane and his mother a very brief rundown of everything that happened earlier in the summer, only leaving out some of the details about how my own mother had possessed me.

  Watching them talk—finishing each other’s sentences, arguing over the finer points of Voodoo here and local history there—it was hard not to smile. They bickered pretty much constantly through the whole telling, but even I, a total stranger and outsider, could see that they were a family. Despite their differences, whatever they were, they seemed tightly knit, and I had the sense that each would have the other’s back when it counted.

  I’d only ever had my momma. We didn’t have any big extended clan like a lot of folks do. It had always been just her and me, through thick and thin. Or so I thought. Now, I wasn’t sure I’d ever had even that much.

  “You ’member when that little white girl up and got herself killed at St. John’s Eve?” Mama Legba was saying. “They called me in—to consult, you see.”

  Odeana’s mouth pulled down. “Does this story have a point, or did you come all the way over to my side of town to brag on yourself?” she drawled.

  “I’m getting there.” Mama Legba shot her a look. “See, the body they found yesterday had some particular similarities to the girl who was killed on St. John’s Eve. It wasn’t no copycat. Those cuts was in the same sort of pattern.”

  “So it’s the witch?” Odeana asked.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Mama Legba confirmed. “But for some reason, the police started looking at me. That’s why I haven’t called them about my house. Last thing I need is them getting up in my business while we’re trying to stop Thisbe before she does any more evil.”

  “You think they’ll be more victims,” Odane said.

  I glanced up at the anger I heard in his words, and
found him watching me like this was all my fault.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Mama Legba said. “But I would expect it.”

  “And you’re sure you trust her, Auntie?” Odane asked, gesturing in my direction.

  “I want to stop Thisbe as much as anyone does,” I said, finally speaking up for myself.

  Odane’s expression was clouded with suspicion. “She’s your mother,” he challenged. “You’d give up your own family? You’d really turn her in and let us put a stop to all this?”

  “There ain’t no us,” Mama Legba snapped. “I just need some information. I didn’t come here to drag you all into this.” She looked pointedly at Odeana and Odane.

  Odeana snorted, a sound of disdain that sounded so much like Mama Legba it startled me. “You always did think you could boss me around—always have, still trying to. Lot of good that’s done you over the years.” Odeana leaned forward. “You already dragged me into this when you brought it right up to my front door.”

  Mama Legba didn’t seem to have a response to that. The two women stared each other down, but it was Odeana who broke the silence by speaking again. “You know as well as I do that you might be good at telling what is, but what will be hasn’t never been your strength.”

  Mama Legba didn’t seem all that pleased to hear this appraisal.

  “You came to see me because the aloe is gone.” It wasn’t a question the way Odeana said it, but more a way of reminding everyone of the point.

  Mama Legba shared a look with her sister, and I couldn’t tell what that look meant.

  “What’s the deal with the aloe?” I asked.

  “If everything she told us here is the truth, there’s not much chance that witch stole it for a beauty treatment,” Odeana said.

  “What are you thinking she wanted it for?” Mama Legba asked.

  “Oh, well … you can use aloe for all sorts of reasons and things, of course, but if this Thisbe stole it, another use for aloe, ’specially aloe curing like it was, is to summon a demon.”

  Eleven

  Panic raced through me. “What do you mean, ‘a demon’?” I looked at Mama Legba. “You were trying to summon a demon?”

  “Of course not.” Mama Legba frowned. “I was making the ointment for a ceremony, because it can help channel the energy to help figure out what might be coming next.”

  “That’s one use, all right. It works to channel energy because of the power it has to summon,” Odeana explained. “But if it cures for the right amount of time, and someone who knew what they were doing had enough power, that person might could call forth a demon.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Mama Legba murmured, leaning back in her chair.

  “What kind of demon?” Lucy asked.

  Mama Legba looked at me, her face registering her worry before she glanced back at Lucy. “She don’t exactly be meaning the horned, pits-of-hell type of demon.”

  “Is there really more than one kind?” I asked.

  Odeana lifted one eyebrow. “You can be calling a demon any old thing that don’t come from the light,” she explained. “We’re all just energy, but some of us channel it for and through the darkness.”

  “That doesn’t really tell us anything,” I said, hating the way she was talking around it.

  “You add the right things and know the right words,” Odeana explained, “and you could use an ointment like that to summon Cimitière.”

  “Cimitière?” I asked. Something about the word felt familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Oh, he goes by other names—La Croix, Samedi—”

  “Samedi.” Now that was a name I knew. “You mean, like Baron Samedi?” He was the Loa, or spirit, who had power over death and life and served as guardian of the cemetery. Trickster and cheat, he wasn’t a spirit to trust or make deals with.

  The memory of my momma’s voice sifted through my head: Truth is something that lies buried. Like a body in a grave. You want the truth, baby girl? You’re gonna have to dig. I tried not to shudder at the memory of the cold certainty in that voice.

  Is this what she’d been hinting at? When I’d heard that voice before, I didn’t think to take the words literally. But if my momma was messing with Baron Samedi, maybe I’d been wrong.

  “Samedi, sure enough. Different names, all the same energy,” Mama Legba replied, her voice dark as the mood that had settled over the room.

  “Dark energy,” Odeana added.

  “Who is this Samedi?” Lucy asked.

  Mama Legba turned to her. “He’s the spirit who stands guard at the gate to the world of the dead. He accepts those who pass over and keeps the living out.”

  “But there have been plenty enough people foolish enough to believe they could make a deal with him to get back the person they lost,” Odeana finished.

  “Could he really bring a person back?” Lucy said, and I didn’t like the curiosity in her voice, not one little bit.

  Neither did Mama Legba. “Don’t you even think on it, Lucy-girl. A soul ain’t meant to go backward in their journey. Souls is only meant to move on. You bring someone back, you doing him a serious harm. You making them something unnatural and breaking the journey they supposed to be on.”

  Lucy shifted a bit in her seat, her face a little red from what might have been embarrassment.

  “Usually, when someone summons Cimitière, they want to raise a soul,” Odeana added. She glanced at me. “The question is, which soul does she want to bring back, and why?”

  “I don’t remember my momma even talking about anyone she knew who had died.”

  “That don’t mean she doesn’t have someone she misses,” Odeana said. “Cain’t never tell what a person has stored up in her heart. Sometimes the most painful, most important things are the ones we never speak a word of. Parents certainly don’t speak every truth to their children.”

  Odane’s eyes flew to his mother, but she kept her gaze steady on me. Like she didn’t want to look at her son in that moment, and I couldn’t help but wonder what truths she hadn’t yet spoken to him.

  And then I thought of the girl in the dream, and of the longing in the voice that called out for Augustine. I thought of my vision, and the desperation she’d felt to keep the sleeping man safe, and I wasn’t sure what other truths my momma had kept from me.

  “You need more than just the aloe to summon, though, and even then, if you leave it to cure less days or more, the ointment could be used for something else. For healing a wound or giving a blessing. But if this is your mother’s doing, I doubt she’s wanting it for any sort of kindness,” Odeana said. “From what you told me of this Thisbe, I don’t think she’s got no blessings in mind.” She paused a moment, considering. “You know who might could help you with this? Ikenna.”

  Mama Legba’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Ain’t no way we’re bringing that good for nothing—”

  “I won’t have you speaking ill of my son’s father,” Odeana warned, cutting Mama Legba off before she could really get started.

  “My mom’s right, Auntie,” Odane said. “I hate to admit it, but if we’re talking about someone summoning Cimitière, you know as well as I that he’s one of the only people who might be able to help you.”

  “No.” Mama Legba stood up in a motion so swift and sure there was no mistaking it for anything but a final pronunciation.

  “Do you even know the other ingredients you’d need for the summoning?” Odeana asked.

  Mama Legba frowned. “I don’t play with no darkness,” she told her sister carefully. “You know that.”

  “You sure remind me often enough. But you don’t need to play with no darkness to understand the game,” Odeana said.

  Mama Legba shook her head. “I understand enough to know that evil’s a sticky sort of thing.”

  “Is that why you still pushing me away and trying to protect me?” Odeana asked, amusement tingeing her voice.

  “Do you get the sense that they’re talking a
bout something else?” Lucy whispered to me.

  I nodded, though I didn’t know what. But the intensity in the sisters’ words made it clear that there was something else between them that none of us understood.

  “Auntie … ” Odane started, but Mama Legba waved him off.

  “I’m not making no deals with that devil,” Mama Legba added before Odane could interject anything. “Y’all know his price would be too high for any of us to pay.”

  An uncomfortable silence descended around us. No one seemed ready to argue with Mama Legba’s assessment of the situation, and no one seemed interested in explaining anything more than that. Lucy looked at me, uncertain.

  “Then let me help,” Odeana said.

  Mama Legba shook her head, her expression grim. “I can’t risk wrapping you up in any more of this.”

  “I can take care of myself well enough,” Odeana said.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Mama Legba smiled softly then. “You probably could take care of us all well enough, but y’all mean too much to me.”

  “Now, Odette … ”

  But all I heard was a roaring in my ears. I couldn’t help but feel tainted somehow, like my blood was a stain that I couldn’t be rid of. The idea that I was part of the darkness that Mama Legba didn’t want rubbing off on her family had something lurching inside me in fury—and agreement.

  The lights in the room flickered, not enough to snap off, but enough that Odeana went still, stopping mid-thought. “What the … ?” she murmured, her eyes warily considering the lamp.

  I took a breath and ignored the something deep inside me that practically purred at the sight of the wavering lights.

  “My mind’s made up,” Mama Legba cut in, as though she hadn’t noticed what had just happened

  I forced myself to unclench my hands, and as I did, the lights burned brighter and the air conditioner hummed steadily again. It took everything I had to force myself to breathe even and slow so that no one else noticed. But when I glanced up, Odane was watching me thoughtfully.

  “Seems like you already let it touch us, Auntie,” Odane said. “Another person’s dead, there’s something powerful out there killing them, and you brought that something’s flesh and blood up into our home.”