The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Marie shuddered. Without asking, DuLac, bending on one knee, poured more brandy into her glass.

  “He’s been known to hit women,” murmured El.

  “Who?” Marie asked.

  “Allez. No charges pressed. He’s clean,” said Reneaux.

  “‘Clean as dirt,’ my mother would say,” snapped El.

  “Let’s not get into what mamas would say—mine could outtalk you, outwit you any day,” said DuLac.

  “What she say?” cooed El.

  “She say—” DuLac whispered into El’s ear.

  El laughed. Harsh. DuLac joined her, and Marie thought, for a minute, they looked like drunken hyenas.

  DuLac poured more brandy into everyone’s glass.

  “Still I think it’s strange. Allez showing up today of all days.”

  DuLac’s finger drummed on the overstuffed chair. A simple tap of his index finger, then the beat became syncopated. Index finger alternating with thumb.

  The beat was soft. Marie wasn’t sure anyone else heard it.

  The fire hissed, twisting smoke into chords.

  “My mama used to say, ‘Bad men always good-looking. Evil likes a pretty face.’”

  “Then I must be Satan,” hiccuped Reneaux.

  “Hah,” DuLac laughed. “My mama say, ‘What goes around, comes around.’”

  “Your mama’s dead.” El stamped her white nurse’s shoe.

  They must be drunk, Marie thought. Me, too. Her head and limbs heavy, she felt like she was weighted, ready to slide to the ground. DuLac’s fingers tapped a rhythm and she felt her soul responding.

  “Marie.” Someone called her name. She looked up.

  Above the fireplace was a painting. Thick, dark colors: a brick church; night sky; black wrought iron. Even a flock of crows diving, swooping along the horizon. Black and brown figures were dressed in white. It was some kind of ceremony. A woman was in the center, a snake wrapped about her arm.

  She could hear her mother: “This is the snake. Damballahwedo.”

  She was young. Three, maybe four.

  The woman in the painting was dancing, her hips swaying.

  Mother was pointing at the crucifix. “Say, ‘Goodbye,’ Marie. Say, ‘Goodbye.’” Mother kissed Christ’s feet and the snake. She stuffed the crucifix with its dangling beads into a velvet bag.

  Marie shivered. She was drunk. They were all drunk. She looked above the fireplace.

  The painting’s colors seemed to brighten, then fade. Brighten, then fade.

  Think. Like a doctor. She’d been drunk before. Even with Jacques, she hadn’t felt this lethargy. She knew how to hold liquor. Tonight: two glasses of wine; two glasses of brandy. An overheated room. Yes. Drunk? Yes. Unsafe to drive? Yes. Her mobility impaired.

  But something else stirred in her blood.

  She felt hypersensitive. Preternaturally keen. She could smell sweet musk on Reneaux, see sweat rising along his brow. El scratched her neck, her nails causing small tremors of follicles and skin. DuLac’s heart beat—blood rushing in, blood rushing out—keeping time with his finger tapping out a rhythm with the strength of a bass drum.

  The painting was alive.

  She looked at DuLac. His lids heavy, she knew, nonetheless, he was watching her.

  El was humming, moaning, “Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.” Like they were in church. Marie could see capillaries pinking El’s cheeks, brightening her eyes. “My mama was the best.”

  Reneaux was pretending to play the sax.

  Think. She’d been drugged. They’d all been.

  Fear overwhelmed her. What did she really know about El, DuLac, and Reneaux?

  Her weight shifted, she leaned to the right, then, slowly, fell. Her head on the carpet, Kind Dog licked her face.

  Reneaux was shouting but she couldn’t hear him. Then, she heard, “Name? What’s your name?”

  Words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

  “Yes, Lord. Yes, yes, Lord.” El was on her feet, stamping a rhythm. DuLac’s hands were pounding the chair, his chest, thighs—everything had become a drum.

  Marie jerked toward the grate. The fire was singing, calling out her name. Marie. Flames leaped, expanding with air, licking the chimney sides, darting toward the room’s heart.

  “What’s your name?” Reneaux slurred. “Name?”

  “Je suis Marie.” But it wasn’t her voice. It was lower, more timbre.

  “Bathroom, I need to go. Get up.” Reneaux tried to steady her, but they both tripped. Kind Dog yelped, scooted up, his tail wagging.

  She felt like she was in the fun house. The floor rose, making waves, like a distorted carnival mirror. El was still shouting. She’d gone on to Jesus. Calling his name. “Lord. Precious Lord.”

  DuLac was chanting a work song: “Heh, yah, heh, yah. Lift that bale . . .”

  She felt scared. Panicked. She stumbled forward.

  “Turn left,” Reneaux called. “The other way. Other way.”

  El’s laughter wafted behind her.

  She inched down the hall. Her stomach roiling, her hands flat against the wall, feeling her way as if she was blind.

  On the left was a door. Painted with layers of red. Almost lacquered.

  Her hands touched the smooth grain. The door seemed alive, the air surrounding it, different, filled with the promise . . . of what?

  She looked, side to side. The hall seemed endless. A haunting infinity. The only escape was through the door. Her hand turned the knob.

  She stepped inside.

  * * *

  There was an altar, lit with candles, a tin plate filled with dried fruit (raisins, dates, pomegranates) and seeds (sunflower, corn, wheat). There was a rosary, a dried snakeskin, and a small drum (a djembe; she’d seen one in an African history book). Above the altar was a painting. The same painting she’d seen in the living room, but somehow different. More alive, she thought. But that didn’t make sense.

  She stepped closer.

  The world captured in the gilt frame invited her in.

  Night. A raging bonfire. Specks of crimson rose into the graymidnight -blue sky. Figures in white formed a circle, swaying. All watched the woman in the center, dressed in an indigo skirt streaked with gold. A snake curled about her arm, its head resting against her shoulder.

  Marie inched closer. On the far left were drummers: some, their hands poised above drums, others, their hands hitting against their bare chests. Everyone’s face seemed ecstatic; only the woman in the center seemed composed—cynical, her brows arched.

  Small groups of people stood, mingling, watching the dancers, swaying, circling. The lovely woman trapped in the middle.

  Church spirals peaked in the background. A gull hovered over the roof, distressed and off course. Rats skittered in the side alley, tearing at some kind of flesh. A lone carriage was rounding the bend.

  Marie knew this place—Cathedral Square. In the French Quarter off Pierre Antoine Alley. Right across from the Mississippi River and the Riverwalk where steamboats took tourists up and down the river. Every day of the week, the lawn in the middle of the square was filled with drunks, lovers, tarot card mystics, and trinket peddlers. Saturdays and Sundays, wedding parties posed for pictures, accompanied by musicians straight from Preservation Hall; other times, magicians did tricks, making doves appear and coins disappear for tourist dollars. Cathedral Square was always noisy, bustling, wide awake even on a Sunday dawn, with tourists gulping beer in plastic cups, hustlers trying to make a living on pity and souvenirs.

  Except, in the painting, it was Cathedral Square from long ago. The 1800s. A blend of cultures: African slaves, Spanish aristocrats, American sailors, and French nuns, the Sisters of Ursuline, dressed in black wool robes.

  Horse-drawn carriages still carted lovers about the square, but the carriage in the painting was no tourist contraption—instead, it was a regal closed carriage with a black-suited driver, and a gas lamp perched on the roof’s edge. Inside, Marie could see a man in a top hat; the veiled
face of a woman leaning out the window, craning to see the dancers.

  Many of the bystanders wore coarse cotton but others in the crowd of black, brown, and white people were dressed in silk and linen, with boots and satin shoes instead of bare feet. All watched the woman in the center of the circle, among the still swirl of dancers.

  Marie studied the bottom right corner. ML 1873. An artist’s scrawl.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Marie saw movement.

  She stared at the painting—great swashes of color, a crowd scene painted in detail, each character unique. Some, yearning, some mesmerized; some laughing; some, their faces wrinkled with outrage; some, making the sign of the cross; some, hands upraised, looking into the darkening sky. A dog nipped at a man’s boot; a pickpocket let his hand slide into a bystander’s pocket; a prostitute offered her body for coins. Rich and poor, young and old, black, white, and in between, had come to see the amber-colored woman in the square.

  Marie needed to get to the bathroom. She needed to rinse her mouth and face, stop her hallucinations.

  A dancer’s arm moved. Then another dancer’s arm, then another and another. Then an arm, a foot, the tilting of a head, the thrust of hips. The woman in the center swayed, then turned to the right, slowly at first, then faster and faster until she was a spinning whirl of brown, indigo, and gold.

  Marie shook herself. She was ill. She needed to go home, rest. Her hands clutched the gilt frame.

  She heard drums. The same rhythm DuLac had tapped on his chair. Men and women were echoing the rhythm with their feet, a syncopated, almost frenetic beat. Only the woman in the center seemed beyond rhythm, whirling with a passion—for what? Of what? Possession?

  Marie smelled fish, fire smoke, the Mississippi sluggish with algae. She smelled bodies, rank with sweat, curiosity, and fear.

  The carriage had moved across and out of the scene. The drummer’s hands were a flurry of pounding. A young boy was crying; a man had cracked his pipe flute.

  Upstage, in the far right, a tall man stepped into the scene. Kingly, dressed in a billowy white shirt and white pants; his left hand dangled a chicken, its neck twisted and snapped.

  The man walked forward, measured, stately, until he was slightly behind the dancers. Behind the woman. He glared at the scene—at her—with hatred.

  Down left, a small man held a drum between his knees. A bucket was beside him. The darkness inside the bucket began moving, distinct threads, garter snakes writhing over one another, over the bucket’s edge.

  The woman stopped spinning, her back toward the ground; her face, toward the man. The man stepped forward. The snake reared its head. The man stopped. The dancers stopped. Only the drums kept luring.

  The woman turned face forward, staring directly outward from the frame, at Marie, and smiled.

  Marie screamed.

  DuLac was holding her up, his arms about her waist, his mouth close to her ear.

  “You were there. Cathedral Square.”

  “No.”

  “1873. Marie Laveau, the height of her powers. You were there.”

  “No.”

  “Leave her alone, DuLac.” It was Reneaux. “You’ve done enough harm.”

  “Harm?”

  DuLac clutched her tighter and Marie could smell the same curiosity and fear, the same rancid sweat as in the painting.

  “Alors, she needs to know who she be.”

  “No,” Marie screamed, twisting from his grasp.

  “Let her be.” Reneaux was beside DuLac, his hand inside his jacket, on his gun.

  El was weeping in the corner. A pink rosary pressed to her lips.

  “It’s her,” said DuLac.

  “You’re out of your mind,” snapped Reneaux.

  “It’s you.”

  “No,” said Marie, stumbling. Her hand touched the paint. It was warm—the oil seemed liquid. But the figures were still—no movement, no sound, no smells.

  The woman in the center was in a new position. Hands folded, head bowed, she stood forlorn within the crowd’s heart. The snake was wrapped about her waist. A black pearl rosary dangled over her arm.

  The painting was no longer a replica of the painting in the living room, over the fireplace. This painting had changed from an exuberant ritual to a somber, sinister dance. The man was threatening; the woman waited for the blow.

  Allez. The man looked like Allez. The woman looked like her.

  The painting changed again. The woman was her mother. Her. Someone else. Then, her again. The man, always the same. Allez. Allez threatening her mother, her ancestor.

  Upstage, in the dark shadow of the cathedral, a wooden door opened. A girl, in a chignon, held hands with a younger girl. Both resembled her. The younger girl held a baby upside down.

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Calm. Marie needed to think . . . needed to understand the painting’s clues. Needed to know why she hallucinated, why she saw herself steeped in an outrageous world.

  Time slowed.

  Marie looked at El. Her mascara streaked, she was forlorn and ancient. Reneaux was intense, coiled, watching DuLac.

  DuLac, palms open, shrugged. “You were there, Marie,” he whispered. “Think. Didn’t your mother give you something? A reminder that you were there.”

  DuLac was no longer the world-weary doctor. He was certain, self-assured. “Remember? You were there.” He reached out, his hand transformed into a snake.

  Marie screamed, turned and ran. She heard Reneaux calling her. Still she ran, down the hall, through the living room.

  “Marie,” Reneaux shouted.

  She didn’t care about remembering. Didn’t care about ceremonies in Cathedral Square. Didn’t care about a painting that seemed to hold life within its frame. Still, she looked—at the painting above the fireplace. This painting was a celebration, an ecstatic dream.

  She ran.

  Kind Dog barked. “Stay,” she shouted. “Stay.”

  Onto the porch, down the front steps, she ran. Ran along darkened streets, ran and ran . . . until her lungs ached, until she was lost.

  She dodged into an alley, wandered into backyards, all the time hearing, “Marie!” El’s high-pitched screech, haunting. “Marie.” DuLac’s quiet voice wrapped inside her head.

  She kept running, her heart pounding, pumping blood, in and out, in and out. She ran and found herself inside her dream. A mist enveloping her.

  She was a child again. A runaway from foster care, knowing in a matter of seconds, she couldn’t stay where Social Services had left her. Couldn’t stay in a home without her mother. Couldn’t stay in a home that smelled of lye and alcohol, soiled diapers and Sloppy Joe’s. She’d been caught, beaten, locked in her room, but tonight, she’d outrace hell if she had to.

  Time to be hard again, not gullible, seduced by false kindness. El, DuLac, Reneaux were her enemies. Manipulating. Wanting something from her.

  Tough. She’d survived by being tough; she’d win the baby back by being tough. Then she wouldn’t be lonely. Alone again. “Dig down deep,” she thought. Find the hard little girl. The one whose mother was dead. The one who’d scrimped for college, ignoring those who’d said she’d fail. The one who made it through med school, traveled to New Orleans on her own.

  New Orleans—city of sin. City of Sin.

  She stopped. The upside-down baby. Goat without horns. She knew, without knowing how she knew, that the baby was intended as a sacrifice. Save the child and she’d save herself.

  But how were the murdered women connected?

  “Mother?”

  She felt a sweet wisp along her spine. She’d been lured to Orleans. It’d been her mother who’d kept her history hidden. It was her mother who now wanted her here.

  Beneath a lamppost was a man in black hat, tuxedo, and white gloves. A rose in his front pocket. He smiled. She walked past him only to see two others, standing behind him like mirror images. In unison, they lifted their hats and bowed their heads.

  Marie heard drums, like
a pied piper, luring her. The men in hat and tails followed. Menacing yet not. Human yet not. Alive, yet not alive.

  She shook her head. The chemical—herb? root? whatever it was—had been in her system, how long? An hour? Two? How long before it wore off? She knew she had to move forward, go on—do something. She’d come to New Orleans for some purpose. She followed the men in top hat and tails.

  Rats rattled trash cans. Men harmonized on street corners Some stared at her—some mocking, some grinning, salacious, at a woman alone.

  She’d turned south instead of north. She wanted to hail a cab, board a bus . . . but her feet kept moving, the streets growing more deserted, the moon rising higher, higher, then beginning its downward crest. Bright yellow. Stars like diamonds. She couldn’t stop if she wanted to.

  On and on she went, until she recognized Breezy’s. Low-slung shack. A squashed beetle. Music, bass-driven and raunchy. Cars parked everywhere. Men in jeans, women in tight skirts loitered outside. Inside, a mystery; nothing to see behind the closed door and blackened windows.

  Why was she here?

  The men in top hat and tails had disappeared. It was just her, hiding beneath the branches of a willow, her body leaning against bark to keep from sliding down to the ground. She kept staring at the building, thinking of the wizened woman inside who disowned her granddaughter and great-grandchild.

  Marie blinked.

  The building’s weathered lines faded, like a photo undeveloping itself, slipping back in time. The building was freshly whitewashed. Distinct on the dark horizon. Tea roses flourished beneath the windows. Women—black, yellow, and brown—were entering the front door, which was wood, not steel. Some wore flowers in their hair to match their silk pastel skirts; others wore head wraps, and aprons with wide sashes. Some carried lamps; some, buckets of water for the evening wash. Some walked stiffly; others dragged tired feet. Paler women, dusted with bronze, stepped delicately down from carriages, black menservants lighting their way.

  A white man from one of the carriages shouted, “Cher. Cher.”

  One of the women giggled and waved a fan. Another screamed, “Pig. Bastard,” while adjusting her bodice.