The voice of the
“Peace to you, child. This thing is not your fault. You have acted on your pain. Actions born of loss can never be truly evil. You have never experienced the trials and joys of true motherhood, but have acted as a mother to many. Your soul is damaged but pure. Your luck has been bad, my child, but your intentions eversweet.”
Malvina watches as her own tears rise up through green water, tiny spheres of lilac, drifting upward.
Manman Brigitte smiles:
“Endure this night, then use what is left of your time on earth to heal the injured souls around you. Show your enemy the light of true pain and he will do right by you and yours of his own accord. The one you now hate will become your saving grace. Make him see, and let his work be done.
“This is your penance, for it will not be easy. You must leave here now, child. You can no longer breathe in this place.”
The
She is in a deep grave. There is no green water here; she is dry and alone. Far, far above her is a rectangle of blue sky and white cloud. The faces of long-dead ancestors peer down from the grave’s edge, watching her curiously, their expressions etched with concern. Their eyes meet Malvina’s as they sprinkle dried rose petals into the grave; the petals flutter, glide-and, finally, tickle the mambo’s face and hands.
She wants to speak, wants to stand, to reach up to them-but she cannot move. She lies flat on her back in the grave, looking up.
Her chest does not rise. Her eyes do not blink. Her heart does not beat.
Rose petals falling. There is a wetness at her back, water rising in the grave. It touches her ears, then fills her nose, covers her eyes. The water is neither green nor smooth. It is muddy and cold and not of the Spiritworld. It is good that her lungs do not crave it.
She watches the waterline rise quickly, but she does not float up. The water is corrupted with brown, but is just clear enough that she can still see the faces of her ancestors. Their features are distorted and grotesque through the water; abstract, monster-like.
She closes her eyes. Drifts off to sleep. Does not wish for death.
Through brown water she feels a breath on her cheek, an odor of sour swamp. She turns her head to see with eyes still closed, a dream within a dream. There is a man lying beside her, he is dressed in tatters, has long hair and a tangled beard, his body is trembling as if from intense cold. His face has no eyes.
She’s never seen him before but recognizes him as Coco Robicheaux, the bogeyman of children’s tales. He slowly lifts a hand towards her. Her heart is pounding, she wants to get away but cannot, she is frozen with fear. His massive fingers wrap around the thumb of her right hand. He lets out a wail as he squeezes, the sound of it high in pitch like a baby or a cat.
Her heart springs to life; beating fast, free from the second layer of dream but still trapped in the first. Her lungs pull in water; deadly, unbreathable.
The voice of Manman Brigitte
“
Malvina understands the
Her back no longer touches the muddy floor of the grave. She is rising. Hurtling towards rectangular light. Up, up, up.
Through misty brown the rectangle of blue and white expands above her. She sees silhouettes of heads lining the mouth of the grave, watching her approach. As she nears them, the faces become clearer. They are no longer the faces of her ancestors; they are the faces of Christian saints.
Her body shoots past them, and bursts into warm, waiting air.
Chapter twenty. Popcorn Ash
Malvina flew upwards from the pine casket and fell hard against the concrete floor of the coffee warehouse. She did not recall the words, face, or touch of
Resolutely, she pulled herself up on unsteady legs, crossed herself, and turned to face the
“Gerouge! Serpan dezef! Arete sek!” The thing in Rosalie grinned in amusement and
Placing the rooster’s head into Rosalie’s mouth, the demon bit down then jerked away. The stump of the bird’s neck shot white flame into its host’s unguarded face, scorching the girl’s lips, nose and chin with blackish purple blisters. Rosalie’s ruined face cracked in the heat of flame; blisters swelling, bursting, running down once-perfect cheeks like clear, thick honey.
Rosalie’s feet pounded the ground in relentless rhythm, the gunpowder no longer merely sparking beneath them but igniting into sharp, crisp flame; blackening the girl’s soles. Flames spread quickly across the floor, dried kernels burst into fluffy popcorn, popcorn reduced to fiery ash. Ash dipped and jetted through the air, touching and infecting all in its path with hungry bits of orange, yellow and red. Popcorn ash: Wafting downward, landing on the white linen dresses of the dancers, invading large sacks of coffee, catching everything alight. The skin of Rosalie’s feet blackened then peeled in the heat; tissue and muscle falling away in chunks to expose charred bone, cracking against hot concrete with sickeningly rhythmic smacks. The taut skins of the drums transformed with new color as the drummers beat on, undeterred, slapping at flame, hands oblivious, exposed finger bones whacking against the hard wood of the rims. The formerly rich, thumping drumbeat degenerated into ugly, hollow clacking:
…somehow circular to Malvina’s ear-
The warehouse filled with a sound like crackling gunfire as thousands of coffee beans exploded in the heat. The fleshless bones of the dancers whipped and writhed, drummers clacked ever on, and Rosalie’s black ashes mingled with those of the rooster on the dirty concrete floor. Without so much as a whimper they all burned to dust.
Running through flame, Malvina reached the door.
Upon touching the cool air outside, she discovered her own dress partially alight and so flung herself to the wet November grass, rolling herself in dewy moisture till the last of the embers had smothered. She sat up in the grass, hugging her knees and sobbing quietly as smoke poured from the single open door of the windowless warehouse.
She had done this thing. She had killed these children. Had thrown them into the arms of unknown evil. Her excuse was less than pitiful; she had done it because she had loved.
Flames failed to consume the building. Did not punch irregular holes through the walls of it, did not angle up to melt the tar of the flat roof. Billowing smoke quickly reduced to a trickle-then, finally, evacuated completely into a handful of snake-shaped wisps. There was no smoke at all now. The sky was clear and
