Marguerite also smiled, but where Frank's smile had bordered on condescension, Marguerite's was wise, the secrets in her eyes hidden in plain view. Frank felt oddly contrite.
'I'll get him,' the priestess offered.
Marguerite led a much calmer Hernandez to the front door. She and Darcy exchanged terse custody plans for the following weekend, then Frank paid her fifty dollars cash. Per their telephone conversation, Frank was to pay whatever she felt the service was worth. Frank had consulted with Darcy who'd explained mambos traditionally didn't charge for their work, accepting donations instead. Marguerite took the money without looking at it. She started to close the door.
'Wait,' she said, ducking inside. When she came back, she handed Frank her university business card. Her home phone was written on it.
'If you change your mind, call me. Anytime.'
28
Hours ago the neighbors had flipped 'Closed' signs and pulled iron gates across their doors. The halogens over head were all shot out and Saint Barbara's Spiritual Church of the Seven Powers crouched in the dark. Above it, a thin rind of moon curled against newly blackened sky. It was beautiful. Frank thought about forgetting this. Just showing up at Gail's and locking the door and holding her all night.
Voices spilled from across the street. Frank looked at the moon once more then followed a vague crack of light at the side of the church. She listened at the door, recognizing the Mother's sultry timbre.
'Who got Spirit wid' 'em?' she implored, and Frank stepped inside.
The church was dim with incense smoke and dull yellow lights. The Mother clapped next to the pulpit, exhorting the small congregation. Frank sat in a vacant pew, meeting the eyes she felt all over her. But even a lifetime on the streets couldn't prepare Frank for what she saw in the Mother's eyes. It hit her like a blow to the head, a flare of hatred, so pure and undisguised it was breathtaking. A perfect black-hole of hate.
Frank's bladder swelled. Bullets nor knives or angel-dusted behemoths had ever scared Frank as much as the tiny woman in front of her. No one could hate that much and not kill. Or worse.
Tommy Trujillo bounced into her head. He'd beaten her up on her way home from school one day. She was in third grade, he was in fifth. He wanted her Batman lunch box. He took it after bashing her ear bloody. When she told her father what had happened, he'd slapped her. Frank had been stunned.
'Do you know why I hit you?'
She'd backed away from him. He'd followed, slapping her again. It was a light slap, its unexpectedness more frightening than its sting. He slapped her again. And again, until Frank was furious. Until she slapped back. Then he'd grinned and pulled her to him. Kissed her tears.
'You know why I did that? To make you mad. You know why I wanted to make you mad?'
When Frank shook her head he'd said, 'Because mad is better than afraid. Anger you can use. You can fight with it. But fear'll just eat you up. You may as well lie down and die if you're afraid. I'm not always gonna be there to protect you. Your mom neither. You gotta learn to protect yourself. Next time somebody wants to fight you, get mad at 'em. Remember me slapping you, okay?'
The old memory came like a benediction, allowing Frank to rein her fear. She forced a cool smile. To her surprise the Mother bent double, erupting in laughter. She clapped gleefully and capered in circles. Her eyes flashed at Frank, hands cracking like a bullwhip.
'Who's got the Spirit here?'
She cocked an ear at the assembly. Frank looked around, hiding her shaking hands in her pockets. Maybe twenty-five, thirty people were scattered among the pews. About a third were black, the rest Latino. Roughly the same ratio of men to women. They all appeared expectant.
A hand shot up and a woman claimed, 'I got the Spirit, amen!'
'She say she got the Spirit! Ache!' the Mother clapped, her s's tangling in their hurry.
'Who else got the Spirit now?' she demanded.
'I do! Praise be, I
The clapping increased. Against the walls, toward the front of the church, Frank counted eight men sitting around an array of drums—round ones, cone-shaped, hour-glassed, congas. They sipped from glasses, nodding at the Mother. Frank watched one poke around in his nose then inspect his finger with great care. They were older men with more lines between them than a Rand McNally atlas. Blue incense drifted over their heads.
'Who
Souls cried they had the Spirit. The Mother's hands moved faster. Her flock followed the tempo, clapping, rocking, nodding in time. The Mother bellowed her queries in the same meter, but faster now. Testimonies rang out like rifle shots. The Mother praised each one, chanting a rhythmic sing-song.
'I call down the Spirit—ache!—of the god of the earth! Praise be! I call down the Spirit—yes sir!—of the Lord of the skies! Amen! I call down the Spirit—ache—of the god of all Spirits! Amen! Come down! I call the Spirit— praise God!—to fill our hearts. Come down! Fill us now! Ache!'
The hypnotic litany gained speed. Mother Love equally thanked the wind and sun and rain, ancestors, spirits and saints. Her followers joined in, shouting, 'Amen!' and 'Ache!'
Frank watched one of the old men touch his drum. He listened intently between pats, his eye following the Mother. He tapped to her rhythm, hesitant until he'd captured it, then he beat the skin firmly. Another man followed him, then one drummer after another picked up the beat. Deep boomings rolled under lighter, faster notes. It sounded like raindrops falling into puddles while thunder rumbled in from an ugly horizon.
The rhythm was hypnotic and Frank had to force her concentration. At the front of the church, the Mother whirled round and around. Ropes of beads on her neck whirled in the same orbit, dizzyingly red and white. The Mother chanted half in English, half in a foreign language. Like Spanish, but not quite, Frank thought. Maybe Portuguese. She whipped her crowd with the mysterious words. They knew the refrain, joyfully shouting it in time. Standing, clapping, they danced and twirled in the aisles. One old man pounded his cane to the beat. His wife wiggled next to him, her arms waving in the air like thick snakes. A young girl writhed in the aisle, her eyes white where there should have been pupils.
The Mother danced and Frank watched. Seeing but not believing. The Mother carried almost sixty years on her wiry frame, yet she whirled with the force of a small tornado. Her red and white skirt blurred to pink. She turned faster than Frank's eye could follow. Bending her head to her toes, the Mother hurled herself backward with inhuman force. Frank was certain bone must have bent and muscle snapped, but the Mother whirled on.
The hair rose on Frank's skin.
The drummers pounded in glassy-eyed fury. Their hands galloped like headless horsemen across the plains of their drums. The Mother twirled faster, arching brutally and impossibly. She leapt like a jungle cat, landing on hands and knees. Then she twisted and rose, continuing the dance, all the while calling down her dark gods.
The faithful fell about in fits. They screamed for Jesus or Saint Jerome to come into them. Some yelled names Frank didn't recognize. The din was mesmerizing. The drums sang an old song, as old as the first moon, and the crowd responded convulsively.
Frank sought Mother Love.
She stood at the pulpit, staring back. A grin twisted her sweating face. Recognition hit Frank like a sledgehammer. Memory replaced present time. She'd already been here. She relived the Mother's triumphal grin, the drums calling her to an ancient home, the rolling eyes and writhing bodies. The incense mingled with sweat, the leafy church, and cries to heaven—it all played in Frank's head with a familiarity that made her dizzy.
The chimera passed as quickly as it had come. Frank drew a hand over her face, unable to look at the Mother. It was enough to hear her keening in the crowd, a wolfish howling that made Frank's blood tingle. Frank stood, clutching the pew in front of her.
The drummers began to slow. The Mother walked among her followers making sure none had hurt themselves in the frenzy. Frank watched the Mother soothe her faithful, bringing them up, down, or wherever they needed to be. The drumming ebbed to a single instrument beating the time of a resting heart. The Mother worked her way to the back of the church.
After drying her tears, Frank's father had taught her how to place a chokehold and lay a chop at the back of the knees. How to roll and block and land a double chin shot. How to jab and hook. Watching the Mother come down the aisle, Frank doubted any of that would help her now.
'I knew you'd come,' the Mother said. Her voice was smoky and sweet. 'You couldn't resist. You're like a
