Chapter Thirteen Ree #2
“Aw hell!” she exclaimed when Ree dropped into a seat at the edge of the bar. “I don’t like y’all Laveaus up in here. Not one bit.” She flicked her eyes at Ree disdainfully. “ ’Specially you. At least your momma follows the rules when it suits her.”
Ree couldn’t blame her—she’d caused enough trouble to last Hattie-Jean through the year. But Hattie-Jean didn’t bother to ask Ree for her order, just went to pouring her a dark red lager into an oversized murky pint glass until it sloshed. “Get on with your drink and get the hell out.”
She plopped the drink down on the counter in front of Ree, who picked it up, turning it over in the dust mote–ridden air. The pint’s glass was as cloudy as sea mist.
“Not before I get what I came for. I need to meet with Claudette Duvalier.” Ree felt the pull of the older witch’s magic, now that she knew what to look for. “The one they call L’Enchanteresse.”
Miss Hattie-Jean kept her eyes on the wooden counter, shining circles into it with her rag. “No can do.”
“And why the hell not?”
“Because don’t no enchantresses live up in here. Only witch here is you. And I want you gone. You hear me?”
It was a lie. For whatever reason, Claudette was not like Marie Laveau. Whatever power she wielded she much preferred to do from the dark of the shadows.
“Get me Claudette Duvalier now, or I will make a scene.” Ree leaned in, eyes flashing. She found her gaze in the mirror along the back of the bar. Eyes as white as bone. “I promise you I’ll make enough trouble they’ll have this place shuttered for a week. You want that, Hattie-Jean?”
Miss Hattie-Jean recoiled at the sight of Ree’s eyes, the mark of her mother’s magic. Ree was only posturing. Just a few days ago, she might have thrown a similar tantrum to get her way. Now such a bargain brought her no pleasure. But she was running out of options.
Ree went to take a sip of her lager, silently calculating how far she would have to take this whole ordeal. Suddenly, a jeweled hand shot out and snatched the drink from Ree’s hand.
Ree looked up into the face of Claudette Duvalier.
She was a tad older than her mother, with smooth brown skin, long dark braids trailing to her hips, fox eyes, and full lips painted a deep mauve.
“I heard you were looking for me,” said L’Enchanteresse.
She downed the rest of Ree’s drink in one go, finishing with a smirk.
“Careful what you summon, little Laveau. It just might come calling back.”
Claudette’s gaze dropped to the L pendant on her throat, and Ree heard the spirits whisper in her ear, the soft tickle of a feather.
Careful. Careful. This woman was powerful, her bloodline old and well kept.
L’Enchanteresse was already moving to the back staircase.
Her invitation hung thick in the room like an unspoken spell for Ree to follow.
She would not ask twice.
Claudette showed Ree into the upper parlor.
The room was dim and moist, the air thick with trapped heat that rose from the alehouse below.
Rows of makeshift iron cots filled the room, the beds lined tidily from wall to wall.
On them rested a slew of black folks: some wore tattered shirts sticky with sweat and unwash; mothers cradled crying babies close; children absently tossed dice; others picked through bowls of sun-ripened fruit. Runaways, if Ree had to guess.
Ree glanced down, feeling something pawing at her leg. It was the dog from downstairs. A loping, shaggy thing, it had followed them up and was now pacing attentively at Ree’s side.
“Down, Petey! Get on!” Claudette snapped at the dog. But Petey remained, undeterred by his mistress’s foul mood. He galloped over to one of the children, who offered a piece of banana.
“What is this place?” Ree asked.
“Think of it as a tunnel of sorts,” explained Claudette as she walked. “Those who’d like to leave this godforsaken city pass through here on their way to Haiti. It takes more than a few pretty spells to get this many folks free passage.”
“…I had no idea this existed.” She would have never guessed such a place would be sitting just above the ordinary likes of the Pint to the south was Jacmel, wreathed in green mountainous ridges; and at its heart was Port-au-Prince, the crowned jewel, the seat of revolution and power.
Claudette showed Ree into a back room where an altar to Simbi Makaya still smoked.
She stood over a worktable spread with tarot cards and a heap of herbs: lemon balm that was cut and sifted, talc, sprigs of wormwood.
She picked up a cigarette from a dish, lit it with a spell, and used a mortar and pestle to crush the herbs to grit.
“Speak your piece and begone. You’ve caused enough trouble for us all.”
“You were there that day in Congo Square,” Ree said. “I saw you.”
“I knew I would regret getting involved in your messy little tiff.”
“Then why did you?”
Claudette looked up from her work, pestle still in hand. She didn’t seem angry, only vexed. “Presumptuous, aren’t we?” She sighed. “Sanite wouldn’t have wanted the other Voodoos hurt because of some sniveling little brat. Old woman been dead and still a fucking thorn in my side. Shit.”
“How noble of you.”
“You have your mother’s tongue. Tell me, how fares it living in Marie Laveau’s shadow?” Claudette made a tutting sound with her teeth as she turned back to the work of crushing her herbs. “Marie Laveau the Second, but never the First.”
“You say that to wound me. It doesn’t. I never set out to be my mother.”
“Spare me your questions, you little brat, and leave.” She waved a jeweled hand. “I don’t need the stink of your pity of a mutiny catching on to me.”
“I can’t leave. Not without answers for my mother.” Ree hesitated. “She’s in trouble, Claudette.”
The pestle stilled in the older witch’s hand. She slowly looked up at Ree, her green eyes alight. “What kind of trouble, per se?”
“Jon the Conjurer.”
“Yes, the conjurer of old,” Claudette said, lips pursed. “I am familiar with his power. The question is, are you, child?”
Ree reached into the satchel on her arm and pulled out the crushed dark blossoms of Conjurer Root. The forbidden fruit her mother had set the earth ablaze to destroy.
Claudette followed her gaze. “So, it is true. Jon is returning. Those flowers are from Haiti, child. They bring the magic of revolution and death. When Jon consumed them, he tied his soul to Baron Samedi, Lord of Death. He struck a bargain.” She stilled. “Have you consumed it?”
“…Yes.”
“Then you’ve made yourself a willing conduit to Jon.” She paused as if about to say something else but thinking better of it. “And so has your mother.”
“But I did not become like my mother. I’m not comatose. I didn’t—”
“Because you are not like your mother!” Claudette snapped.
“Not fully. Not completely. Your blood is well suited to Conjurer Root. To death magic.” She stopped herself from saying more.
“Go home, little Laveau. And if you want my advice: Pack your things and leave the city at once. From the talk I hear, things are going to hell quickly, in a matter of days. An Inquisitor walks among us.”
Oh, that Ree knew well enough. “My mother needs me.”
She balked. “Listen to me. Marie Laveau needs no one. Save yourself, little girl. While you still can. Now go, before I force you out.”
“What is it you aren’t telling me?”
Claudette stared at her for a long moment, green eyes blazing with contemplation. “You have always known you were different, didn’t you?” she whispered at last. “Wicked, they call you.” Her eyes flickered over Ree. “But I suppose no more wicked than your holy mother. At least you keep no mask.”
“I have no need. People know what I am well enough.”
At this, Claudette smiled. Begrudgingly. But a smile, nonetheless.
“The question is, do you?” She let the question hang between them, a suggestion that made Ree nervous. She took a long inhale from her cigarette, then stamped out the rest of it in the dish. “Your mother was a liar.”
She could be at times. They all could.
“She lied to me too,” Ree said. “But she was still our Quarter Queen. Which means”—Ree held her dark gaze—“we have a duty to protect her. Both of us. Which is why I am here. I can’t feel her anymore. I can’t channel her fully. It’s like our connection is…dying.”
“Do you know the true reason why you cannot fully channel your mother without interference?” Claudette waited, and Ree shook her head. “Because the connection to your father is only getting stronger.”
Father.
“Yes, child. The wicked conjurer is your father,” Claudette said. “There’s another influence over you, Marie Laveau the Second. Deep down, you’ve always known, haven’t you? Surely, you must have felt it? That dark thing living inside of you, the one your mother always tried to stamp back down.”
Haven’t you? What did the nuns whisper at her back? Marie Laveau the Second, the wicked, wicked daughter. But now she knew. It was Jon’s wickedness they saw when the city gazed upon her. Jon’s wickedness they remembered.
And yet, her mother had never told her. She’d shared everything else with Ree, every spell, every parlor trick, every long-lost ritual.
She divulged to her the secrets of the gods, the other women Baron Samedi had taken and bedded outside of his wife, Maman Brigitte.
The scores of children born from these little dalliances.
The deals Papa Legba might easily bestow upon those he favored, the swift punishment that would damn those he did not.
Marie had shared the fickle whims of the loa with her daughter, each secret sin.
But never her own. No, she’d kept those stowed away inside, and if she had any heart left, Ree supposed, she’d guard that too.
Her fierce mother, revered queen, Voodoo Priestess, and hypocrite.
“The truth is, I cannot help you. If Marie is consumed with Conjurer Root, then she is tied up with the likes of death magic beyond my abilities. Beyond everyone’s.
There are stories, whispers that say Marie Laveau banished Jon to the first realm of the dead, to the Veil.
If your mother consumed Conjurer Root, then Jon must be using it to hold part of Marie’s soul there with him as well.
And the only two people to have successfully practiced Veil magic in New Orleans are Marie”—she took a stilted breath—“and Jon.”
“Then how do I learn it?” asked Ree.
“By turning to the past, of course,” said Claudette. “If you harbor any hope of saving Marie, then you best learn the forbidden magic Jon taught her. And you must learn it quickly.”
Ree unfolded her hand, staring down at the strange, dark little flower.
She didn’t know the muddied history between her mother and Jon, only the bits and pieces she’d seen from her mother’s mind.
But now she knew that the only way forward was to go backward in time, that the answers she sought could be found only in Marie’s veiled past. Answers her mother had kept so carefully hidden all these years.
But one thing was for certain. She would stop at nothing to learn the truth.