Chapter Twelve Marie
Chapter Twelve
Marie
“You’d do well to be on your best behavior tonight, Marie.” Sanite pulled the laces of Marie’s corset tighter, cinching her breath.
“But of course, my queen,” replied Marie. She was facing the looking glass in Sanite’s bedchamber while the older woman tied the last of her corset’s bindings.
Marie turned her gaze to Sanite’s four-poster bed, where countless frilly gowns lay strewn in waiting—a golden one poured over the side of the bed like melted butterscotch, another with violets and wildflowers sewn along the bosom.
Sanite had ordered only the best for her apprentice, but none were to Marie’s liking.
Instead, she’d chosen a gown of white silk taffeta with a delicate neckline trimmed in silver.
Sanite had pursed her lips at Marie’s choice but said nothing, appeased that Marie had agreed to attend the gala in her stead without much of a fight.
Marie turned placid eyes to the mirror, then froze at the sight of her reflection gowned in white.
It was her wedding day to Jacques all over again.
Marie swallowed the surge of mourning that swelled in her throat at the thought of her lost beloved.
Sanite would never understand her tears. None of them would.
“Aren’t you the picture of beauty?” Sanite Dede watched Marie in the looking glass, satisfied at her hard work.
If all eyes couldn’t be on Sanite tonight, then she’d just as gladly have them on Marie instead.
“That is power too, Marie.” She clicked her teeth.
“If only you’d understand how to wield it. ”
Marie caught her eyes in the mirror. “Would you have me wield it on Jon?”
“Dear child, I’d have you wield it on a fucking pissant if it meant gaining the advantage.
” Marie turned to the older woman, a smirk on her lips.
Well, no one could accuse Sanite Dede of being a subtle queen.
“But tonight, I would rather you, as my beloved apprentice, deliver him a message on my behalf: You are to tell him to leave this city at once, or risk my retribution. And this time, banishment will not be an option. Do you understand?”
Sanite handed her the final component of her costume—an owl-shaped mask the same silvery-white of her gown, with large feathers at the corners of the eyes.
As Marie reached for it, the older priestess’s hands curled around hers, digging in sharp like talons.
“Do you understand?” she repeated firmly.
“They do not call him the trickster for naught. What Jon lacks in pure magic, he makes up for with cunning. Keep your guard up, Marie.”
Sanite could not know that Marie had her own purposes for seeking out Jon tonight.
He would show her the magic Sanite would not, the possibility that lay beyond death’s door.
She would open the Veil. And she would come to know what had befallen Jacques, at last, and bring him back to her.
And maybe then she could find her own peace.
“You needn’t worry, my queen…” Marie slid the mask perfectly into place. “For it is never down.”
Though she would never admit it, a tremor of trepidation raced through her.
Marie had met Jon the Conjurer once before. She had been scarcely ten years old, capricious for her age but dutiful. Obedient. Always one to follow the rules.
“Fetch more water,” Grand-mère had all but snarled over her shoulder.
She didn’t mean to sound so vicious, Marie had told herself.
The work of a midwife was hard, often thankless work, even harder when the man who bought your services was accustomed to getting them for free.
Mayor Corbin used to own Grand-mère before she bought her freedom papers and he was forced to turn her loose with a stroke of his quill.
But the mayor still called on her from time to time when her rootwork was needed.
That day had been one such time. One of his slaves had gone into labor a month early, and the labor had already run the course of a day, yet no baby had been born.
She’d brought Marie along with her too. But Marie didn’t much like Grand-mère’s line of work—the buckets of blood, the sticky afterbirth, the screams that tore the air.
She didn’t want to see. But that didn’t matter to an old woman like Grand-mère, who would sooner claw Marie’s eyes open herself.
Open your eyes, Marie. See what your freedom gifts you.
So, Marie did as she was told and fetched the water.
As she made her way down the hill from the well, across the patches of blueberries underfoot, and back to the slave quarters, she heard a noise above her.
Like someone calling her name faintly on the wind.
She looked up. A circle of black birds darted through the orange twilight.
The crows were calling to her.
Marie followed, sloshing water from the tin pail in her hands, moving twisting branches out of her way until she came to a clearing where a carriage house sat in the distance, smoke curling from the chimney out into the sleepy dusk.
A man was chained to a wooden stake in the middle of the field. A flogging pole, Grand-mère had told her one day. Where they punished those slaves foolish enough to break the rules.
Marie slowly approached. The smell hit her first. The sharp tang of snakeroot mixed with something darker and much, much older.
It was the smell of his magic. The closer she got, the more she could see the bruises and gashes that marred his beautiful midnight skin.
A cotton-white shirt hung off him, all but tattered to shreds. Bile ran down the front.
Three crows landed on the wooden points of the flogging pole, peering down at her with unblinking dark eyes. Like they were keeping watch over him.
His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping before his overseer returned. He ought to drink, Marie had thought. If the wounds didn’t kill him, a Louisiana sun sure might.
She brought the pail to his sun-parched lips, forced them to part…
The man’s eyes flew open, finding hers immediately, as if he had known she was there all the while. As if he’d been expecting her.
She stopped dead in her tracks. His eyes were strangely golden, a color she couldn’t say was common for folks around these parts, even a place as strange as New Orleans.
She had heard that this was the mark of those exceptionally powerful.
High-Blooded. It was true. There were few among Les Magiques whose blood was not yet diluted.
That was still pure in heritage, in magic from the old land.
You can tell by the eyes, Grand-mère liked to say after she lit the altars at night.
Tell how much magic a man got in his blood.
He stared at her, as if his breath had been caught on his tongue.
She stared back, frozen, terrified at the thought of what he’d endured.
It was all too much. Marie started to cry.
She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t stop it.
Those chains rattled. And suddenly his hand was on her cheek, thumbing away a hot tear.
“Do not cry for me.” His calloused hand cradled her cheek. She felt a spark pass between their flesh, a heart-pulsing feeling of her magic recognizing his. “Cry for them.”
“Why?”
“Because the gods listen, Marie Laveau.” She didn’t recall ever telling this strangely beautiful man her name. “And let me tell you a secret. They do not only listen,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “They punish.”
It was all he could do to lift a bruised hand, chains rattling as he gestured toward the sky. Three crows were cawing above her, moving in a vicious black ring over the sun.
Their song was angry, Marie thought to herself. This song of three.
Marie arrived late at Chateau Corbin, the church bells tolling just past sundown.
The sky flushed a deep purple as dusk deepened overhead and the shadows grew long.
By the time Marie entered the courtyard, the gala was well under way, which meant almost everyone was too drunk to realize she’d come at all.
The recent onslaught of plagues had seen the streets of New Orleans emptied and barren of life.
But not tonight. The wicked fun of Mardi Gras was not a spell so easily broken, not even by the likes of Jon.
A sparkling fog filled the courtyard, swirling at their feet.
It was the simple work of a tide-turner, who’d no doubt been instructed to enchant the air with mist to fight the heat.
Flickering torchlight illuminated scores of colorfully masked faces.
Some bore the shape of fairy-folk, with glittering stones and silken flowers wreathed around the eyes, others of grotesque horned gods.
Marie searched the crowd, finding no sight of her intended target.
She knew the Brotherhood to be skulking about, no doubt on guard against any Voodoo mischief.
Every planter and master was on edge, worried that their own stock of slaves might be spreading the sickness.
Sanite Dede had been the only colored Les Magiques invited, and she’d of course sent Marie in her place.
A moist heat clung to the air, mingling with the sticky sweetness of magnolia trees that towered over the cobbled courtyard. Girls tossed petals and beads for luck from a terrace above; a flurry of gold and violet cascaded down into a laughing crowd below.
Marie could feel eyes on her. She adjusted her owl mask, taking some comfort behind the white-feathered disguise.
At every turn there was another jeering face, another glittering mask.
She made her way through the city’s bourgeoisie, pink-cheeked and tipsy as they engorged themselves on fat slices of king cake—big morsels of sweet blood-red loafs that dribbled from their laughing mouths.
Gilded goblets of wine and honeyed mead sloshed in their hands.