Sweet Unrest (19 page)

Thirty
-
One

I’d never really believed before that a single moment could change you. That one minute you could be one person, and then something might happen that was so transformative you became someone completely different. But understanding my link to my dreams changed everything. Was I Armantine? Was I still Lucy? And how could I be Lucy, if this version of Lucy—the one who chased Voodoo curses and talked to ghosts—was so different from the one I’d been before? Only the knowledge that my brother needed help kept me going the rest of that day. Only the threat of his life hanging in the balance kept me grounded.

Nothing had changed at the hospital. T.J. was still stable, and the doctors were still confounded about what was causing the problem. My brother looked a little paler, though, and the change worried me. I knew it worried my parents, too, because the entire time we were there, T.J.’s room remained silent except for rare, hushed whispers. It was like the three of us thought that if we spoke too loudly we’d disrupt the delicate equilibrium that T.J.’s life depended upon.

Alex had stayed at the plantation to continue his search. I was grateful, but I also missed his presence. I was getting used to the way he’d send those skittering whispers of heat across my skin when he tried to touch me. I craved them in the sterile coolness of the hospital.

Eventually my dad sent me home. I made the drive alone, from the bright modern city to the timeless darkness of the land on the river’s banks. It would have been a harder drive if I didn’t know he would be waiting for me.

When I arrived, our cottage was bathed in shadows. No lights cast a welcoming glow from the windows, but the dark stillness of the exterior didn’t stop me. I knew I wouldn’t have to be alone that night, and I knew I’d walk through any amount of darkness to spend whatever time we had left together with Alex
.

Luckily, I didn’t have to walk through the darkness alone. He was waiting for me in the shadows of the porch. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to—I knew with a single glance that he’d made no progress in his search, and he seemed to know that T.J. hadn’t improved.

When we came to my room, he entered first, checking for hidden dangers. Even though I knew he was no more solid than air, he overwhelmed the space with his presence. He looked so out of place among the soft purple my mom had picked for the walls and the delicately carved furniture my parents had collected over the years for me.

My heart lodged in my throat as I watched him scan the room. Even after all I had done to him, he protected me. I vowed not to make the same mistakes I’d made before.
That Armantine made
, I corrected myself. Because I was determined not to let her past determine my future.

I dressed quickly for bed in the hall bathroom while Alex waited in my room. When I came back, my face freshly scrubbed and my hair tamed into a loose braid for the night, he was in the large closet I used as a darkroom.

It was lit only dimly from the light of the larger room, so his face was draped in shadows. “These are wonderful,” he told me, pointing to the pictures of my brother.

I swallowed back the tightness in my throat and walked over to join him. He was right. They
were
wonderful. There in brightness and shadows, T.J. lit up the images with his roguish grin. “He looks so alive,” I said, my voice shaking.

“He is alive, love, and we shall make sure he stays that way.”

I nodded, unable to say anything else, and focused on the pictures. In one, T.J. was holding up a crawfish. In another, he was laughing at the sky, his face streaked with mud. In another, he peeked over a log, his eyes impish with delight at the attention he was receiving.

I felt a shiver of unease creep up my spine as I counted the prints and then looked at the ledger I kept to record each one’s developing time. I counted again.

“One’s missing,” I said. “There should be more prints here. I developed nine prints, three of negative fourteen.” I pointed to the shot of T.J. with the crawfish. “But there are only two of those here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” I showed him my ledger. “If I don’t keep precise notes about my darkroom time, I end up wasting a lot of material. See, here’s where I record the negative number, the exposure time, and the results. Nine. But there are only eight pictures here.”

He crossed his arms and scrubbed at his chin as he considered the prints still hanging from their hooks. “Once, I was afraid to let Armantine make an image of my sister. I wonder if perhaps my fear was not so ridiculous after all.” He stepped closer to examine the prints. “Who would have had access to these?”

“No one. Just me and my parents.” But my parents wouldn’t have come into this room. “T.J., maybe, if I wasn’t around to stop him. No one else would be allowed in here.”

“Someone was, though, or you would have nine portraits here. Think, Lucy. Who else has been in here?”

Running back over the last few days in my mind, I realized who it had to have been.

“Chloe,” I said. “Chloe came the day I printed these, to take me into the city for dinner. She was alone in here for a few minutes while I got ready, so she would have had time to take one.”

Then I shook my head, striving desperately for another explanation. “She acted strange that day, but she wouldn’t—” I looked at Alex frantically. “He’s just a kid. She was always so nice to him. Why would she hurt him?”

“
She was the one who came to the cabin that day as well?”

I nodded numbly. She’d been at the bayou when Emaline was killed, as well. “But the Chloe I knew before could never do this,” I insisted. There had to be another explanation.

“Perhaps.” But Alex didn’t sound sure. He ran his fingertip gently across the back of my hand. I focused on the hint of warmth left in its wake. “I could go tonight. Tell me where this Chloe lives, and I shall find out if she was the one who did this.”

I considered his offer for less than a second before I refused. I didn’t know for sure what was going on, and I didn’t want to rush into anything again. “Tonight, we stay together, Alex. Tomorrow, we’ll go talk to Chloe, and then we’ll pay Mama Legba a visit.”

He studied me, and I thought he might argue, but he seemed to understand that there wouldn’t be any point to it. “If you’re sure?”

I nodded. I didn’t want Alex out in the darkness risking himself for me. And I didn’t want to be alone.

Thirty-Two

The next morning, Alex wasn’t pleased when he couldn’t talk me out of coming with him to Chloe’s house. He was even less pleased when I refused to wait in the car while he went to explore.

The clouds hung low in the sky, threatening to crush us beneath their weight. I hadn’t been to Mina and Chloe’s house since the day after Emaline’s body was found. That day, I’d thought the house was charming. Today, the bottles hanging from trees reminded me of hanged men waiting to be cut down.

As we walked up to the porch, the door opened and Chloe stepped out, blocking the doorway. She smiled at me, but it wasn’t Chloe’s smile that spread across her face. The surface of her face seemed to ripple, like her skin was trying to resist conforming to the smile being forced upon her.

Suddenly, it all made a horrible kind of sense. It wasn’t really Chloe.

“I knew you’d come,” she said in a voice as flat and lifeless as her eyes.

“Lucy, we need to leave. Now.” Alex’s voice was urgent in my ear.

I shook him off. I wasn’t leaving until we got back the picture.

Chloe was watching me. “Is he here?” she rasped, addressing the empty spaces around me. “Did you bring him with you, or is he tucked away safe somewhere?” The voice that came out definitely wasn’t hers, and I understood that Thisbe was behind this.

But I wasn’t sure how. Had Thisbe’s ghost somehow possessed my friend? Had my dreams somehow unleashed her, or had she always been around … waiting? Had Chloe always had this inside of her? I prayed silently that whatever the case might be, I could make it right.

I
had
to make it right. I drew strength from that thought and squared my shoulders to cover the terror climbing inside me.

“Who are you? What do you want from me?” I asked. I could sense Alex vibrating with tension beside me.

Chloe looked back at me, her head cocked at an odd angle. “What do I want?” She laughed. “I want what’s mine back. I want the charm. I want the boy.”

“What charm?” I already knew, but I needed to hear it for myself. Everything was too precarious to take any chances.

“The one that you took from my home,” she snapped, the anger in her tone making Chloe’s body tremble. “You want your brother whole again, you’ll give it back to me.”

It dawned on me that she wasn’t acting like she knew the doll had been destroyed. The thought was tiny pinpoint of hope. Maybe, just maybe, Thisbe wasn’t
that
powerful. Maybe she didn’t know who I was, or what I knew.

“I can do that,” I told her. I didn’t know how I would do it, but I knew I could buy us time.

“Lucy!” Alex hissed into my ear. “We need to leave now. You don’t bargain with the devil.”

I ignored him. “I want the picture of my brother that you stole.”

She smiled viciously. “A trade?”

I nodded. “You get your charm. I get the picture and you release my brother. Or the charm is gone. For good.”

The Chloe-thing hissed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

I tried to hide my relief.
She doesn’t know
. I was sure now. “I would do more than dare if you do anything else to hurt the people I love.” My voice was stronger now.

“Lucy!” Alex was frantic. Warmth pulled at my shoulders, and I knew he was trying to move me. But it wasn’t the calming warmth I was used to. His wisps of energy were charged with the cool burn of his desperation and fear. I silently willed him to trust me.

“Very well, child,” Chloe said, a devilish smile playing at her lips. “We’ll make your little trade.” She held out her hand, expectantly.

“I have to go get the charm,” I told her.

“Today,” she said. “It must be today. The boy doesn’t have that much longer anyway.”

Her words chilled me. “Where?”

“Come to my home at sunset. You’ll get your picture.”

“Sunset,” I repeated, knowing she meant the cabin in the grove of trees.

“Lucy. We need to leave
now
.”
Alex’s voice was firm now and I knew I’d finally exhausted his patience. But I kept myself composed. I didn’t want Thisbe to sense any weakness.

I turned and left, walking slowly and deliberately to my car. Somehow I managed to start it and get it into gear. My hands barely trembled as I backed out of the driveway and drove away from the house where Chloe still stood watching, but once we were a mile or so away, I pulled over to side of the road, no longer able to keep myself from shaking.

“Lucy, please love, you must calm yourself.” Alex’s voice was gentle but I could hear the worry in it. “Come on,
ma chère
.”

I took a few deep breaths that only helped a little. When my breathing finally eased back to a more normal rhythm, he roared at me. “How could you do that!”

I winced. “I knew what I was doing, Alex.”

“You couldn’t possibly know what you were dealing with there. The danger you were in!” His jaw was clenched.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “
I’m
okay.”

“That girl could have hurt you.” His voice cracked with tension and relief. “I would not have been able to stop her.”

“She didn’t, though.” I needed him to understand. “I don’t think it’s really Chloe, Alex. Thisbe’s involved somehow.”

“I know,
ma chère
. I was trying to tell you that when you insisted on talking with her.”

I looked at him. “You could see it too, couldn’t you?”

He nodded. “Your friend may be in there somewhere, but she is not in control. Perhaps she never has been.”

With unsteady hands, I put the car in gear again and drove us even farther away from the small home that had once seemed as welcoming as my own. I spared it only one glance in my rearview mirror. From far off, the house once again looked like any other home. Anyone else passing by would never guess that behind its cheerful blue shutters lurked darkness thicker than a nightmare.

“Why did you make that bargain, Lucy?” Alex asked. “We no longer have the charm.”

“I know that, and you know that, but she doesn’t seem to,” I said, glancing over at him. “If she knew we’d already destroyed it, she wouldn’t have asked for it. She definitely wouldn’t have bothered making a deal.”

He thought about it. “Even if you are correct, even if she is not merely setting another trap for you, she will not give you the picture freely, Lucy. She was lying.”

“I know that, Alex. So we’ll just have to be smarter. Lie better. And be a whole lot luckier.”

When we passed the turn for Le Ciel, Alex looked over at me in confusion. “Where are we headed?”

“We need a fake charm, and I only know one person who can get us one.”

Thirty-Three

During the drive into the city, Alex made clear his unhappiness about having to visit the Voodoo Queen on her own turf. But after what had happened at Chloe’s, I knew we didn’t have much time to waste.

When we walked into the shop, Mama Legba was rearranging the glass jars on the shelves.

“I been expecting you, Lucy-girl,” she said before we were even completely through the door. Her easy manner as she glanced up at us before returning to finish her task told me she was completely unsurprised by our arrival.

“Did you tell her we were coming?” Alex whispered.

“No,” I said, confused myself by Mama Legba’s greeting.

“Well, come on back,” she told us, putting the last jar in place.

We followed her down the narrow hallway and seated ourselves on the deep couch while she finished brewing more of her fragrant tea.

“We need to talk to you, Mama,” I told her.

“I figured that much, Lucy-girl.” She handed me a brightly colored mug. This time I took a sip and was surprised to find that the flowery-smelling liquid was sweet. “Well, go on then. I been waiting all morning, child. No sense making me wait no longer.” She motioned for me to speak.

I told her about Chloe and about the trade I’d set up with whatever was in her skin. “We have to have be back by sunset. Can you help us?”

“Sure enough,” Mama Legba said. “But that’s only solving the smallest part of your problem.”

“We could save T.J.—”

“Then what?” Mama Legba interrupted. “So you set your brother free, but whatever has hold of Chloe—this Thisbe—she still loose. How you planning on stopping her? And what about this boy here?”

“My situation is not important,” Alex said. “Only Lucy’s safety is.”

Mama Legba looked squarely at him. “You tied up in this, boy. Why you think you still in this world?”

“Because of Thisbe,” I said, realizing how right Mama Legba was. It wasn’t enough to free T.J. from Thisbe’s grasp. I needed to free Alex, too.

So I started at the beginning this time and told Mama Legba everything. I told her about the Dream I’d had since I was a child and the dreams that started when I arrived at Le Ciel. I told her about my most recent dream—the one where I’d stepped away from Armantine’s body.

When I finished, she had a pleased look on her face and slapped her leg in delight. “I
knew
you was gonna be one to watch, Lucy-girl, and boy if I wasn’t right.” She seemed entirely too pleased with the whole situation, and I couldn’t begin to guess what there was for her to be pleased about.

“But I don’t understand what any of it means, Mama. And I don’t know how it can help us stop Thisbe once and for all.”

She leaned forward in her chair and rested her hand on my knee. “It takes a powerful soul to separate they self from they body, Lucy-girl. Just like it gonna take a powerful soul to put a stop to this Thisbe. You one of those, child,” she told me solemnly.

“Because I was Armantine.”

“Sure enough, sure enough. But she was probably just one stop on your journey, just like this body you in now is another stop. There’s old souls and there’s young souls, child. I told you before, every time we take a body, we grow and change. Every time we come back to this place, we have inside of us all that we ever was before.” She took a long sip from her mug and considered me. “Most people don’t never know what they got inside of them.”

“But I’ve been dreaming about it,” I murmured.

Mama Legba nodded. “Dreams are powerful parts of our lives, Lucy-girl. Even the newest souls use dreams to get free—just for a minute or two—from they human condition. They get to dance free from they worries, from all of the pressures and expectations holdin’ them down in this world. Because when we dream”—she made a rumble of approval deep in her throat—“we can move beyond, see the bigger picture stretching out before us.

“Most people wake,” she continued. “And they don’t remember a thing. Other people, they forget they dreams and then, in sudden flashes—” She snapped her fingers. “That’s when they realize they’ve been somewhere before. Done something already.” She glanced at me. “Some people call that déjà vu. They even got all sorts of scientists trying to figure it out.” She’d settled back into the softness of the plush, plum-colored chair and seemed to be enjoying the thought of the poor misdirected scientists trying to logically explain phenomena that defied logic.

Then she grew serious. Leaning forward, she placed a warm hand on my bare knee again. “But for some, Lucy-girl, dreams are more than just a playground. For some, like you, dreams are an opening to the past. Those kind of dreams show you what was. But you something else, child.” She patted my leg approvingly. “You a powerful-enough soul to break free and walk in your dreams of your own free will. What happened to you last night—to pull free of your past self and walk alone?” She paused as though she were weighing her next words carefully. “It’s a great gift you been given, but it’s also a dangerous power to have.”

“But I couldn’t
do
anything,” I moaned, miserable and more confused by the minute.

“Lucy-girl, just knowing the past gives you power. Ain’t that what your father do everyday? Why you suppose he so interested in that kind of knowledge?”

“I don’t really know,” I told her. “I always just assumed he liked old stuff.” But what was it my dad always said? That we had to understand our past to shape our future. That not having all of the facts could result in making mistakes and missteps.

“He know, deep deep down where it matters, our history, our past—it shape us all,” she said, echoing my thoughts. “It can change our present, direct our future. Think of this, Lucy-girl. Without the dreams you been having, you wouldn’t be in a position to help your brother now. Even if this boy here tell you somebody done snatched your brother’s soul, you wouldn’t have believed it. You wouldn’t have understood all that led us to this moment right here. You’d be like your parents, sitting in that there hospital confused and afraid, instead of asking the questions that can give you real answers. You might have the answers you need already, child.”

“I don’t see how,” I told her doubtfully.

“You ain’t listening to what I’m saying, Lucy-girl,” she said impatiently. “What you did last night? You ain’t chained to your past no more. Think about it.”

“Because she can separate herself from Armantine in the dreams?” Alex asked.

“Sure enough,” Mama Legba confirmed, pleased that someone was finally catching on.

“It might work,” Alex said to himself. “If you could follow my attackers instead of following Armantine’s fate, you may be able to find out what Thisbe did to me. If you can do that, perhaps we can discover her weakness.” He looked up at me, hopeful. “We may be able to finish this.”

“You really think it’s as easy as that?” I asked them both. The pieces were growing closer together, but I still wasn’t sure they fit. It seemed almost too simple to just dream up a solution.

“Ain’t nothing easy about it, Lucy-girl. It might even be dangerous, but it’s possible.”

I ignored Mama Legba’s talk of danger. Difficulty I could deal with, and I could definitely work with possible. But then a thought struck me that made my hope crumble to ash. “But you said this is all dependant on me dreaming. What if I never have that dream again? Or what if I don’t have that dream for another three weeks? We don’t have that kind of time.” I slumped back into the couch as possible seemed farther and father away. “It’s not like I can control what I dream about.”

Mama Legba smiled at me gently. “Can’t you, child?”

“No, I—” And then I remembered all those days without Alex. I remembered how much I’d thought about wanting to see him throughout the day, and how much my dreams took on a life of my own at night.

“You seeing the light?” Mama asked wryly.

“Maybe.” I chewed on my bottom lip and worked through the logic of it. “It’s about concentration, isn’t it?” That’s what she meant by it being difficult.

She nodded. “You ain’t trained, but you’ve already done more than you should be able to on your own. You more powerful than you realize, Lucy-girl.” She patted my knee affectionately.

Suddenly Alex stiffened. “You said it could be dangerous. When she separates herself during the dream, what could harm her there?”

Mama Legba glanced at him. “’Bout as much as anything can hurt you, boy.”

“That does not signify at all,” he told Mama Legba in clipped tones. “She is not in the same condition I am.”

Mama Legba didn’t say anything. She just stared at Alex for a minute before letting out a heavy breath. “Ain’t nothing can hurt a ghost in a dream, boy. What you gotta worry about is the sleeping body that’s waiting behind. We gonna make sure nothing happens to her.” She looked at him with the kind of stare my mom gives me when she knows I’m not telling her everything I should. “But what you know about your own self?”

Alex’s jaw tensed at the sudden attention.

“You the missing piece in a lot of this, boy,” Mama Legba told him. “You want Lucy safe, you better tell her whatever you know. Any little piece of this might be the one we missing.”

He remained rigid for a few seconds longer, then sighed. “After whatever Thisbe did, I woke up by the pond. At first, I did not realize that I was not myself, and then once I did, I realized I was trapped there.”

“That was when, hundred-fifty years ago or so?” She shook her head. “No, there’s something else going on. No body should be able to last that long, dead or alive. Not naturally, at least.” Mama Legba thought for a moment. “It’d take more than a simple binding charm to keep you here for this long. To keep any body here for so long. Only way I ever heard of to do work that dark is through sacrifice.”

“They sacrificed him?” I asked, confused again.

“No, Lucy-girl. I don’t think that’s it at all.” She glanced at Alex. “Innocent blood would be the only thing that could fuel this kind of evil.”

“The girl,” Alex whispered.

“What girl?” Mama Legba asked.

“Before this all happened to me, there was a slave girl found dead on Roman’s land.”

“Lila,” I told them, remembering Armantine’s small friend. I shuddered at the thought of her blank eyes and the thick blood clotted at her neck. “The markings on her chest.”

Alex nodded. “Her death was not natural.”

“Ain’t no slave death during those days natural, boy.”

“You don’t understand—when we found her body—” He swallowed hard. “It had been practically drained. And there were markings over most of her torso. Carved into her skin.”

“Her skin, you say?” Mama Legba’s eyes went wide. “That might be part of this sure enough.” She glanced at us both, clearly nervous. “It don’t calm me none to know that girls be dying again ’round here lately. That one—Chloe’s friend—her body was all marked up, too.”

I’d heard the rumors, but the police hadn’t released those details. “How do you know that?” I asked.

“When things go wrong in the Quarter, sometimes the police brings me in to consult.” She looked to Alex. “Those markings you saw, what did they look like?”

He furrowed his brow, trying to remember. “They were strange. Like writing, but not like any writing I’d ever seen before.”

“Sounds like too many similarities, if you ask me.” She thought for a moment. “We missing some pieces all right, but I’m thinking somehow they’s all connected together. We gonna have to find those pieces.” She looked at me with an unwavering gaze. “
You
gonna have to find them for us.”

I shook my head. “We have to get back out to Le Ciel. Thisbe will be waiting at her cabin to make the trade. Maybe tonight, when I dream—”

“You don’t need no nighttime to dream, Lucy-girl,” Mama Legba told me gently.

“That’s true, love,” Alex agreed.

“I don’t know if there’s time,” I hedged. It was already after noon. If we were late or didn’t show up with the fake charm, there was no telling what Thisbe would do.

“The sooner we discover Thisbe’s weakness, the safer your brother—your entire family—will be,” Alex said.

“And I could free you, too,” I murmured.

“Only if we knows Thisbe’s weakness,” Mama Legba told me.

I looked at him, but Alex’s expression was unreadable. Maybe there was more hope for our future than I’d let myself believe. “If you’re sure we can get back to Le Ciel by sunset, I’ll try,” I said, giving Alex a small smile.

He didn’t return it as I’d expected him to.

I snuggled down into the pillows on Mama Legba’s couch as she filled the air with a sharp-smelling incense that made me drowsy with its thick headiness. Alex settled in next to me, his back propped against one of the bright pillows as well. “It won’t bother you that I’m here?” he asked.

“No, I need you here,” I told him. “You’ll help me focus on where I need to go.” And I felt safer knowing he was watching over me.

“Then sleep, my love, and dream of me.”

I closed my eyes and focused. I thought of the last dream. I imagined Armantine’s excitement as she carefully folded her best gowns for the long journey. I remembered the delight in Alex’s eyes as he led her on board the ship. I imagined the way their laughter and joy rang through the small cabin as they ate their dinner sitting on the narrow bed. For a while, I thought it wouldn’t work, and then all at once, I was there.

Alex was across the room from me, watching me with those dancing green eyes of his, and Armantine was about to put the potion into his wine.

I focused on that. On trying to stop her. With every atom of my being I tried to pull her back, tried to stay her hand. Suddenly we were apart, and I watched as she handed him the deadly cup.

I couldn’t stop her as she signaled to Thisbe out the porthole window, or as she let the woman and the two large men into the room. When Armantine realized the plan had changed, she panicked. She tried pushing the men out of the room. When that didn’t work, she threw herself across Alex’s unconscious body, shielding him. The men were stronger, and pulled her off easily.

This time, I didn’t wake.