The Legend of Marie Laveau Mystery Trilogy

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  There were shout-outs, denials: “The boy’s out of his mind”; “The wrong was his”; “He’s upsetting our ceremony, our healing.” The words were like stones thrown at a once-favored son.

  If Nana were alive, she’d be appalled. Her beloved community had turned against her grandson.

  Gabriel hit the drums. Boudom. Boudom. Again and again.

  Marie looked at Gabriel. What was he doing? She hadn’t given notice for the ceremony to continue.

  Boudom.

  The other drummers mimicked Gabriel, creating rounds of syncopation, a transcendent, emotional call.

  The fire leapt higher, licking the sky.

  “What the hell’s going on?” asked K-Paul.

  Marie began to understand how she’d been tricked, used. This ceremony was never meant to be hers. The DeLaire residents, Gabriel, had intended to use her. As they’d used Nana.

  “I told you not to come, Maman Marie,” shouted Deet, pushing Tommy away. “All her life, Nana wanted to keep the community alive; but before she died, she said it was time for DeLaire to come to an end. Said Vivco and the DeLaires just kept slavery going, generation after generation.”

  Tommy shouted, “Shut up, boy.”

  “Go to hell,” answered Deet.

  Marie felt entranced. The rhythms were unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Drums were calling older and older spirits.

  “Do you see him? Her?” she asked K-Paul. “Do you see it?”

  “Are you all right, Marie?”

  Charyn carried Mami Wata in his arms, her glittering tail flicking upward. Her teal skin flushing red.

  Marie understood. The two ancient spirits were bound to each other in time and space. “Do you see, K-Paul? Two spirits that Nana and the first DeLaire slaves worshipped. Both embody duality. Charyn mimics both genders. Wata embodies human and animal characteristics. But these dualities only signify how ancient their powers, their beings are.”

  “Marie, what does this have to do with now?”

  “As much as Wata filled Nana, Charyn used her up.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “It’s horrible. Wata would’ve inspired roots, herbs, and organic cures. Charyn, a disease eater, would’ve encouraged Nana to consume ills.”

  “What?”

  “To take them into her body. Everyone here knew about it. Gabriel,” she looked at him, pounding his drums, “called Charyn.”

  Marie’s knees buckled.

  K-Paul held her. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  The drums urged, rising and falling like waves. Marie clung to K-Paul. Her lungs constricted; Wata and Charyn were delving inside.

  She wanted Aaron and Deet safe. Nana, who’d sacrificed so much, deserved that. “Help Deet and Aaron, please. Get them out of here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, go,” she gasped. Usually, only one spirit possessed at a time. The two spirits entering her felt like they were tearing her apart.

  K-Paul and Deet dragged Aaron, held beneath his arms. They’d almost made it to the car when suddenly, Aaron roared, pulling away, fists swinging, hitting K-Paul in the face.

  K-Paul dropped to his knees, his hand trying to stanch the blood from his lip and nose.

  K-Paul was furious. “Son of a bitch.” He ran, crawled toward the makeshift graves. Barehanded, he scraped the surface dirt from the L’Overture skulls. “Is this how you helped Nana? By murdering innocents? You disgusting son of a bitch.”

  She felt the chaos. Possessed, yet not. Felt Charyn asserting itself.

  Hands—seemingly disembodied—were pulling her back toward the bonfire, the ceremony’s center.

  Aaron screamed, “He was my friend. John L’Overture was my friend.”

  Hands plucked at her. “Heal us, Maman Marie. Heal.” She felt the evil in their clinging need. “What did you all do?” she demanded, her words garbled, catching in her throat.

  “Heal us,” they answered, demanding grace.

  She was drowning.

  Weeping, Aaron cradled the skulls.

  “I am Marie,” she murmured. She had to keep her mind clear.

  “I am Marie,” she murmured again; and though the power of her name wasn’t as strong as the loas’, she felt a modest retreat, a breath of clarity.

  Hands still held her, pulling her down onto the ground. Touching her body, trying to heal themselves.

  Between white dresses and grasping hands, she saw black threads sliding, covering the ground, rushing toward her faster than oil and water.

  She understood. The threads were pollutants infecting soil and water. Chemicals that caused tumors, cancers, misshapen bodies and souls.

  Inside her, Wata was retreating, Charyn, gaining power. She was hungry, ravenous.

  Drumbeats were urging her. Charyn became her. She became him.

  Ecstatic followers were howling, the Marie inside her couldn’t move. Instead, the black threads were covering her body, entwining her and the followers. Flowing from their bodies were threads of disease—cancerous cells, pus, inflammation—into her.

  She could feel the pain they felt . . . feel the disease, fluid, spreading.

  When Nana’s roots and prayers didn’t work, she took the disease into her body. In time, the disease in her birthed the malignant tumors that killed her.

  She heard K-Paul yelling, pulling bodies away from her. Then Deet was trying to save her. But as elders were pushed away, they came back, desperate, fighting for life, for survival.

  A shot was fired. “Leave her alone.”

  The drums stopped; whimpering, followers scampered back. Charyn flew.

  Aaron was standing, holding his gun high.

  K-Paul gathered her in his arms. She held on tight, shivering.

  Aaron’s gun barrel shifting, he shouted, “I can’t kill all of you. But enough.” He aimed at Tommy and Nate and, finally, Gabriel.

  “Why’d we try to hold on to this hell? Why’d we ever trust in Vivco, the DeLaire family? Dumping started again and we all just rolled over. Because we had Nana. Our land, our same old community. Never outgrew the slave mentality. Well, we don’t have Nana anymore.”

  Aaron looked at Deet. “Deet was the best of us. Too bad you came back. I wanted you to get away.”

  “I couldn’t leave you and Nana,” Deet answered simply.

  “Deet wouldn’t let Nana touch him. Did you know that?” Aaron’s voice slurred. “Wouldn’t let Nana sacrifice one bit of her self for him. Did you know that, Maman Marie?”

  “I could’ve guessed.”

  “You figured it out.”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay back,” Aaron warned Tommy, who’d tried to move forward. “I’m tired of lying. Tired of keeping my mouth shut.”

  A star fell, cutting across the sky.

  “John L’Overture wanted to settle in DeLaire with his wife and baby,” said Aaron, one hand pointing his gun, the other clasping his abdomen. “When his plants didn’t grow, John figured it out. He wanted to notify the EPA that Vivco was dumping again. But nobody—none of you,” Aaron screamed at the residents, “cared because we had Nana. Notify the EPA and we feared we’d be run off the land our ancestors tilled.

  “I told John he ought to leave—like the others. He didn’t have to stay. For those who did stay, it was a hellish bargain. Isn’t that right, Gabriel? You were the one who knew how to call the special god—the one without a name.

  “Oh, we convinced ourselves that all was well. Nana loved us. Nana had the power. Nana would live forever. A spirit could consume and survive, but Nana was taking it all inside her body, all the poison . . . each day she was dying . . .

  “Deet, you were a better man than me. Everything I did kept the status quo. Kept Nana, you, all of us chained here.”

  Aaron looked skyward. “Nana’s one of them stars. I know it. She is.” He stared at the DeLaire residents. “Leave. Die. I don’t care which.”

  Then he fired a bullet into his h
ead.

  Screams rent the air. Deet collapsed next to his brother.

  Through tears, Marie watched the followers scattering. Selfish, selfish. So much pain they’d caused. So much pain they’d endured.

  She stood, sweat draining from her, dirt, traces of polluted oil on her clothes and hair.

  In the bayou, she heard car engines starting, then saw flashes of headlights come to life and disappear. K-Paul was on the ground, doing CPR.

  Nate was as motionless as a statue. Tommy looked grim, Luella, dispassionate.

  K-Paul looked up, shaking his head. No hope for Aaron. He tried to comfort Deet.

  Marie turned toward the drummers. All, except for Gabriel, were leaving, their drums strapped on their backs.

  The ceremony was over.

  Gabriel, his eyes made yellow by the firelight, glared.

  His hand touched his necklace. The Charyn figurine, Marie knew. He had no remorse, no care for Aaron. He blew her a kiss.

  Religions were meant to be evolutions, too. What had happened in DeLaire that had trapped them in such a demanding past?

  Such sacrifice might have made sense in another time, another world.

  She saw Nana, Wata, and Charyn—an odd trilogy. Nana’s hands were outstretched, begging for understanding.

  Marie only knew that her faith, as she practiced it, had never required such self-destruction.

  TWELVE

  L’OVERTURE HOMESITE

  AFTER THE CEREMONY

  Aaron, bloodied, with half a face, was stretched in the backseat of the ex-police car. Deet sat sideways in the front-passenger seat, his feet planted in the dirt, sobbing. K-Paul bent forward, his arms around him, and whispered in his ear.

  Most of the followers had drifted away. Marie stood, alone, in the center of the ceremonial square. Adrenaline and energy had rushed out of her. She was exhausted. Pains radiated down her spine. Her stomach felt uneasy.

  “K-Paul,” she called, breathless, feeling faint.

  K-Paul didn’t hear.

  She tried to step toward him, but her knees buckled, as if she were a marionette whose strings had been cut. She couldn’t stay upright. Her torso leaned then fell sideways.

  “Marie!”

  Needlelike cramps rippled through her abdomen.

  K-Paul’s footsteps sounded like a rushing army.

  K-Paul cradled her head. Pain choked her throat. She could hear him talking to her, but she couldn’t see him.

  She saw life thriving in the dirt—small creatures, burgeoning grass, and silver-gray moss clinging to rock. She saw death, too, bits of fossil, decomposing leaves, and the L’Overtures’ bones.

  She tried to breathe through the pain. She gagged; something acrid rose in her throat.

  She saw El with sister-friends—ghosts who toiled as slaves, domestics, and prostitutes. Some pregnant, some not. Women who’d tried to make DeLaire home. Mimi L’Overture had tried; Nana, too. Both, in their own way, were heroic.

  She saw threads. No, not threads, tiny streams, arteries, and capillaries of the land bubbling black blood, like a blown oil well, widening, becoming a pool ready to swallow and drown her.

  Her stomach contracted. She felt the deep connection between the land’s health and her own.

  She vomited. Black, viscous oil, solvents mixed with blood.

  “Marie.” K-Paul held her head so she wouldn’t drown, fall face forward in her own vomit. Projectile vomiting.

  She vomited again. Over and over. Her stomach retching, her throat contracting.

  As if from a distance, she heard K-Paul insisting, “Hold on. Hold on.” She heard Deet muttering, “Like Nana. Just like Nana.”

  Granules floated in her unnatural vomit. Not food. Not bile. Something more toxic. Like black seeds. Cells.

  Inorganic oil and evil, there was no other way to describe it, mixed with her blood and being.

  K-Paul held her shoulders, balanced her to keep her from falling forward in the sick sea.

  “Do you see it?” she whispered.

  “See what?”

  “The threads, the streams of black waste.”

  “No.”

  Nana was rubbing her protruding abdomen.

  Marie buried her face against K-Paul’s chest. She felt the strength of him, his arms.

  She’d ingested Louisiana, and some of the damage done, to it, by greedy, oppressive people.

  “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

  “Wait.”

  “No, not this time.”

  “The pain’s lessening. Just get me home, K-Paul. To Marie-Claire. New Orleans.”

  She looked across the bayou—ferns; willow trees; and swaying, tingling marsh grass. She felt disease settling inside her like a stone. All kinds of illness—cancerous cells, blood clots, insulin mutations, and viruses flowed into her just as they had Nana. Given time, she, too, would become pregnant with it. Given time, she’d lose her sight, her health, and maybe even her mind.

  She could feel K-Paul’s heart beating, the air expanding through his lungs.

  Over K-Paul’s shoulder, she saw El and Nana. “The world can be hard on women.”

  “Every healing has a cost.”

  “K-Paul, get me out of here.”

  Aaron was dead, and folks were leaving, as if a picnic had come to an end.

  Brenda approached. “Nana said you’d care for me. Birth my baby.”

  “I will. But you’ve got to come to New Orleans. To Charity Hospital.”

  “No. My baby can’t be born there. Nana said you’d deliver it.”

  “Then Nana was wrong. Your body and the baby are filled with cancerous oils, cancerous waters. You need a hospital.” She turned away from Brenda’s distraught face.

  “Let’s go, Marie. Deet’s going to bury his brother here. With the L’Overtures.”

  She nodded. No investigation. No autopsy or bureaucratic burial requirements. She hugged Deet, kissing his cheek. “Come visit me, Marie-Claire, and Beau.”

  “I will,” he murmured.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise,” he said without looking at her. She knew he’d never come.

  K-Paul grabbed her hand. “I want to get you back to the city. Everything’s foul here.”

  “I know,” she answered. And I’ve ingested it, she thought, but didn’t say.

  “Take me home, K-Paul.”

  She wanted to hug her daughter and feel her sweet, healing love.

  She loved Louisiana, her adopted home. But Louisiana, she now understood, was also riddled with devastation. It was a land that for centuries had been raped and preyed upon. Still, she was part of it. Wed to it. She was the Voodoo Queen. Everything in her life had guided her to this moment, this place in time.

  But now it was time to go home.

  K-Paul clasped her hand, guiding her back to the Jeep.

  “Maman Marie.” The voice was soft, quiet, but she heard it like a shout.

  Marie turned.

  Brenda was clutching her abdomen. Water drained down her legs and pooled at her feet.

  “My baby’s coming. She’s coming.”

  Marie knew it was too soon. Brenda was seven, maybe eight months’ pregnant at best.

  She and K-Paul reached for Brenda.

  They were doctors called to heal. Two lives depended on them.

  THIRTEEN

  NANA’S HOUSE

  PAST MIDNIGHT

  Brenda’s contractions were still irregular, but she was beginning to dilate. She was in Nana’s bed, frightened, holding fast to K-Paul’s hand. No mother had come forward; nor father, nor lover. It was as if Brenda and her baby were alone in the whole wide world.

  The DeLaire neighbors were all in their homes, squirreled away.

  Marie rubbed Brenda’s back. She hoped the baby wasn’t stillborn, that it was thriving. But they had no medical equipment to monitor either the mother or the child. As a precaution, they hooked Brenda up to Nana’s IV. Fluids always helped.

&nb
sp; She looked at K-Paul; like her, he was exhausted. “You should take a break,” she said.

  “No, you. Brenda and I will be all right. Won’t we, Brenda?”

  Brenda moaned. “How much longer?”

  Marie didn’t want to tell Brenda she’d be in pain for hours. That a young teen’s body wasn’t meant to birth a child. Worse, there was nothing she could do to relieve the pain. Nana’s medicines were too strong, addicting.

  “Marie.” It was sweet, compelling. She knew it was Mami Wata.

  “Marie.”

  She squeezed Brenda’s hand. “You’re doing fine. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Go on,” said K-Paul. “Take your time.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, K-Paul.”

  “It’s not easy to get rid of Cajuns.” He winked and Marie felt more grateful than ever for his good humor.

  “Marie.”

  Her legs leaden, her body sore, she walked deeper into the marsh. Earth became less firm, became water-cushioned grass.

  Nana had been right. She was going to birth Brenda’s baby in DeLaire.

  Marie walked to the land’s edge. Gentle waves lapped against the shore.

  Wata lived in water.

  Hugging herself, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited. She was being called to serve the goddess.

  She smelled rot and sorrow. The waters were sluggish, choked with moss and kelp. She felt a heavy breeze stirring off shore.

  A storm was coming.

  The moon illuminated a path. It was stark, bright, stretching toward the horizon, where water met sky.

  “Marie.”

  Wata wanted her inside the water.

  She slipped off her shoes, stripped her clothes, and stepped into the warm Gulf waters, following the light.

  Water rose to her calves, to her knees and thighs. Then she dove, immersing herself beneath water, feeling Wata’s grace and touch.

  “Mami Wata,” she called inside her mind. “I am Marie Laveau’s descendant. Teach me, show me what I need to know.”

  She floated on her back. Waves kissed her. Her hair and body soaked, she felt wrapped in a watery womb.