Chapter Eight Marie
Chapter Eight
Marie
Marie awoke between worlds.
One minute she’d been standing in the middle of the Dreadwood, drinking of her ceremonial wine to begin her crossroads ritual, and the next she’d awoken here.
She’d seen this place before, only in glimpses, in fragmented dreams. The first time was in a vision after Jacques’s disappearance when she’d been bowled over in her grief, feverish and plastered to her bed.
The second time had been during the war with Jon, scarcely a glimpse before his banishment.
It was different now. She could see it fully: darkness that roiled and pressed in from all sides, as thick as sea mist, and a scattershot of whispers, too numerous to pick apart.
She pushed to her feet, heart quickening.
She might have thought she was in a bayou of some sort, but no bayou that she had ever seen before had shadow where there should have been water underfoot.
It was a world outside of time and all mortal sense.
Because, after all, this was the Veil. Cursed knowledge, Sanite Dede had hissed when Marie had dared ask. She hobbled forward. Darkness engulfed her like a night shawl. Despite herself, she shivered.
“Hello, Marie.”
Marie turned to see the shimmering outline of a figure approach.
There was only one man—no, being—that favored a withered cane in one hand and a set of copper scales in the other, with hooded eyes that blazed infernally red as hot coal.
Papa Legba, the loa of the crossroads himself.
Keeper of keys and opener of all roads. He Who Stands at the Beginning and the End.
Marie drew herself up to her full height, tried to steady her shaking nerves. It was no use. Papa only smiled. He liked the smell of her fear.
When Papa spoke, it was with a slow cadence, a dance of words. “Tell me, Marie Laveau. Why do you trouble yourself with ghosts?”
“Because unlike men, ghosts can’t hurt you,” Marie said.
“Can’t they?”
“Not in the ways that matter.” Marie stilled. “Hello, Papa.”
He’d visited her in the mortal plane before, once at the start of her initiation, and again after Jacques had died.
Both times had been to take measure of her power, as if she were no different from a jewel being appraised for value.
For all their endless power, loa were desperately curious about mortal affairs.
Why else would they entreat servants and acolytes to their altars?
She supposed their prayers and offerings, the deepest secrets of their hearts, were as delicious as freshly wrapped candy.
Impossible to resist, delightful to savor on the tongue.
But here, deep in his domain, Papa was different, his form much larger, the heat from his gaze as hot as the noonday sun.
The Veil was Papa Legba’s world, after all.
“You do not ask where you are,” he said. “I suppose you already know.”
“I know where. I must know why.”
Staring at him for too long made her eyes hurt. But Marie held his gaze. Her pride wouldn’t allow her much else. Papa smiled—this he knew and liked about her most.
“You know why. You drank of the poison,” he said simply.
“I had a vision. It was your voice that I heard, along with the Baron’s. So I knew that it must be followed. Without question. I need to know why.”
“There was a time when all that you longed for was to enter this realm, priestess. And look at you now, here at last.” Papa swept out his arms, copper scales tinkling. “Yet you do not rejoice. Mortals.” He sighed. “So fickle of heart. Never pleased.”
“I will be pleased when I know why.”
“You saw, didn’t you?” He smiled. “Last I checked, the gods blessed you with the gift of sight. Not as powerful as your predecessor, Sanite, but blessed all the same. Tell me, priestess, did we waste our power?”
Marie prickled. She was not Sanite, and did not have the strength of her foresight by any measure, but her spirit’s eye could see glimpses of the unknown.
She had seen but not understood, not completely.
The Conjurer Root, mixed into her ritual wine.
Conjurer Root, the herb Jon had sewn part of his soul into, his very essence.
She’d thought the last of it had been scorched from all of Louisiana.
She’d seen herself consume the poison, and flashes of what was to come: her comatose body, the convergence of her enemies crowding for the upper hand, and Ree, her foolishly capricious Ree, forced to rise to the occasion.
She had seen a long, dark road open before her, the work of the Lord of the Crossroads and the Lord of Death, and she had known their power was absolute and must be obeyed.
She must walk this new road. She had seen no other possibilities, no other recourse, but to drink the poison. To what end, she didn’t know.
“Jon,” Marie said at last. “This was Jon’s doing.”
Papa laughed, the force of it strong enough that Marie’s curls were flung backward from her face. “Did you think that banishment would stop him?”
“Stop, no. Cage? Yes.”
“Foolish child. You left him here, Marie.” Papa gestured out to this world of strange shadow and light, where flickers of souls winked in and out like stars.
“Here. You left him in a place of old magic. Did you not think his own might grow stronger here? Stronger”—he pointed his cane out at her—“than even yours?”
Marie froze. There had been so much to consider in those days, in that final moment with Jon, with hardly any time. She’d made the only choice that she could have, didn’t she?
“Does my plight amuse you, Papa?”
“Marie, my sweet, I must confess I do find your tiff amusing.” In many ways he lived up to his reputation, to his name.
Papa. He was a seasoned parent, bemused at the squabbling antics of his many offspring.
What did he care for the deep fissure between Marie and Jon?
He did not see with mortal eyes, nor care for mortal feelings.
He did not know the pain that Jon had caused her, the pain she’d caused him in turn.
To Papa, they were bickering children. “Jon the Conjurer has you in his grasp.”
Marie stilled herself, bracing for the worst. “What…does he want?”
“What he has always wanted.” He leaned in, hunched over that cane like an old man. But Marie knew better. He was no old man. No man at all, but an old god in need of a new mortal delight. “To teach you a lesson.”
Papa led Marie deeper into the Veil. The scales he held in his hand shone in the darkness, the reflection of copper brighter than any lantern.
Marie had no inkling of where he was leading her, but fear bubbled deep inside of her, and with every step it threatened to boil over like a potion unwatched.
As she walked on, hovering in Papa’s massive shadow, she found that her eyes had relaxed some, and more of the Veil revealed itself to her.
It was a world unlike any other, a world of two.
A world of two skies: the dark one overhead that glowed with silver moonlight, and the sunlit one beneath her feet.
Where there should have been dirt was only golden sky, the clouds passing beneath her toes like schools of fish.
This was the world of twilight, of those stranded between life and death.
It was a strange thing to do, to fall between worlds as simply as a stone might tumble into the sea, forever lost. Was that what she was now, forever lost?
“That will be up to you, child,” said Papa.
He’d scried her thoughts so quickly, so easily, her mortal mind leaf-thin to a being such as him.
For all her secrets—the pain, the losses so numerous she’d lost count, her envies and fears—she was laid bare before Papa Legba’s divinity. And that was what scared her most.
At last, they stopped. Papa pointed out into the darkness, his finger as gnarled and crooked as rotted wood.
She knew this place, knew it well. The Dreadwood.
An ancient place, even in the mortal realm.
It held gateway magic, a threshold between realms. It had always been a part of Voodoo—any initiate had to be willing to take their trial in the woods for three days’ time.
If they survived, the spirit world was pleased.
If they did not? Well, the Dreadwood claimed another soul.
“Let us be finished with these games, Papa. I want to go home.”
“But my dear, I am showing you the way. That”—he gestured out to the Dreadwood—“is the only way.”
It was a lie. It had to be. This was his domain, his kingdom. He was Lord of the Crossroads, keeper of keys. Papa could return her back to the mortal realm if he wished it so.
“When you banished Jon here, did we not strike a bargain?” He stared into Marie’s eyes, his gaze red-hot. She felt her cheeks flush with shame. “Did you not think I would come to my own with Jon too?”
So many, many things she had not considered after the Quarter Quarrel. She’d been foolish to think that sending Jon to the Veil was the end of her problems. No, Marie realized, that was only the beginning.
“What were your terms?”
He smiled, pleased. This was the talk all loa revered in the end. The talk of deals and bargains, of flesh and souls to be won and traded. “That if he could bring you here, as you kindly did him, you would undertake my Trial of Spirit.”
Trial of Spirit. Once upon a time, Sanite had warned her it would come. It was true.
Sanite had foreseen one final trial, that last rite of her initiation.
But then she’d died and Marie had become queen, the matter all but settled.
What need did she have for another initiation?
She was the Quarter Queen, her throne secure.
But Sanite’s warning had not been wrong, just far too early.
She hadn’t said who would deliver this final lesson, only that Marie must learn it.
And who better to teach her than Jon? After all, he had always been her best teacher.
“And what did you promise him in return?” she asked.
Papa’s eyes flared at her, the fiery glow of iron pulled from the forge. “Silly child. The only thing he’s ever wanted all these years: a way back.”
Of course. Had she thought the Veil would hold a man like Jon for eternity? She had hoped, foolishly. Desperately. Why, oh why, had she not simply killed him and been done with it?
Because you loved him, her traitorous heart whispered.
Marie found her voice smaller than she would have liked, dwarfed in the shadow of Papa’s power. “If I should fail?”
“Then you would remain here, in the twilight, where you would serve me for an eternity.”
Marie stared at him, unblinking, even as her heart quivered. “And if I should pass?”
His smile deepened, revealing crooked teeth. “Power beyond mortal comprehension. And I will, of course, return you on home.”
“This is the only way?”
“The only way, indeed. Do you accept the terms, Marie Laveau?”
“Yes,” Marie said. Something in the air stirred between them, and Marie felt some part of her spirit leave her and join Papa. His scale tipped a little, the deal as good as struck.
“Then you may begin.”
Marie jutted her chin higher and walked forward, resolute in her path.
The only way. Those words followed her, whispered in her ear over and over again.
The only way. Marie did not dare look back.
She couldn’t stand to see Papa’s smirking face, the veneer of humor she found impossible to read.
She would bear this alone, as she had always done in all things.
She entered the Dreadwood, the bramble and weeds underfoot snatching at her with cold hands.
Marie peered into the dark wood and gazed upon its true face. The woods were alive. The trees moved, each brush of wind a trembling breath, gnarled branches slowly opening to reveal a long road before her, where Marie was forced to gaze into the dark unknown of her own heart.
Come, the woods whispered. We have much to show you.
What could the spirit world show her that she had not already seen? Demons, monsters, and men with faces far more terrible than either—she had seen evils of all kinds, even her own.
The wind picked up. Come and behold your deepest fears, Marie Laveau. The trees swayed, laughing at her. Come and behold the past.