Bingo. The tea party, when China Black had told Mick Skinner that they weren’t looking for him, they were looking for his body. But in my apartment, China Black had asked… no, it wasn’t conclusive. She’d asked, more or less, to be allowed to speak to the previous occupant, and there was nothing to tell me for sure who she thought that might be. Then when she failed, and was so furious, she’d said, He wasn’t there.
If there was something about Mick that ought to be passed on, she or Mr. Lyle would do it. If it didn’t need to be passed on, I didn’t want to know it. After all, plenty of people around that tea table knew things about me I was glad they hadn’t said.
I lived on City time, staying up until dawn and sleeping through half the day to avoid fighting with the sun. So I was surprised when I woke to a mild blue morning sky in the window. I hadn’t remembered falling asleep, which I’d done in my clothes on top of the comforter. I really had to stop sleeping in my clothes. The hall was quiet. I thought of that bathtub suddenly, the one big enough to drown in. I dug my clean shirt out of my pack and headed for the bathroom.
If I’d been in Beauty and the Beast, the hot water would have been waiting for me. I found the sight of the empty tub reassuring. But there were towels in the cupboard, soap in the dish, and I didn’t even have to pump the water up by hand. Of course not — the inverter was fixed, the pump was running. There’d been a hand pump in the kitchen, so that even when the electric one was down, no one would have to haul water from outside. One cassette deck and the place would be a pretty supportable prison. I braided my wet hair and went downstairs.
The kitchen was deserted, but there were signs that someone, singular or plural, had already had breakfast. I found some leftover muffins and carried them with me as I wandered.
I wouldn’t explore the house; it would look as if I were hunting for company. I went outside again instead. Hidden in the gardens beyond the garage, I found the chicken yard, the rabbit cages, and the beehives. There was a wooden shed that I knew from the sweet hickory smell was the smokehouse. Past that, down a wooded trail, in the center of a broad ring of old trees, I found a circular one-story building that I couldn’t identify at all.
Half the building didn’t have walls; there were only the roof pillars, peeled trunks maybe six inches thick, to mark where the walls would be. The floor was dirt, packed smooth, and featureless as if swept. On one side, where the wall started, there was an empty raised platform. There was a center post for the roof, rising out of a cement footing. Beyond the center post, at the back of the circular room, it was dark; but I made out another platform, with a squarish bulk on it like a table or a chest, and irregular points of light. There was nothing to indicate that I ought not to go in.
The center post was painted. It reminded me of the stair railings in Sherrea’s apartment building, the colors twining one after another, yellow, red, black, green, and white. The walls were painted, too, with murals. They were simple and stylized, angular and almost abstract — the antithesis of Sherrea’s cards. A muscular young black man, smiling, wore a red cape and carried a curved sword, and seemed to be walking through fire. A naked woman, wide-hipped and heavy-breasted, her curly blue-black hair falling to her ankles, poured water from a jar under her arm. An old, fat black man sat cross-legged and grinning, as if his erect penis were the best joke in the world. Two snakes twined upward, facing each other, as if dancing on their tails. Between the figures, tying them together, explaining and keeping secrets, were the veves.
The square bulk was an altar, draped in scarlet and purple, and the changeable lights were candles. They reflected off the rest of the altar fittings: glass bottles, a mirror, strings of beads, a silver bowl, two tall vases with flowers in them.
I backed away and bumped into the center pole. The whole wide, unwalled space was closing in on me, pressing my skin against my muscles, muscles against protesting bones. I heard my breath entering and leaving in bursts. The back wall wavered under my eyes.
I heard a voice, not loud, but I didn’t see the speaker; I smelled ozone and a thick, watery odor, like the banks of a pond. My tongue was thick in my mouth. A ball of panic swelled in my chest.
A voice — the same one? Come with me. I felt an arm around me, guiding me. Then I was sitting on the grass under the trees, and a glass was pressed against my lips, holding something that gave off fierce fumes. I swallowed, almost prepared for it: rum.
The face above me belonged to China Black, as did the voice that said, “Well, cher, are you sickening for something?”
I took the glass of rum from her and had another sip. “What is that?” I said, nodding at the building.
“It’s the hounfor.” I must have looked blank, because she added, “Where we dance, and call the spirits.”
“I’m sorry. I suppose I shouldn’t have gone in.”
I thought, if she could have raised the silver eyebrows, she would have. “Why not? There’s nothing there to harm anyone, or do harm to. Were you afraid?”
“Not until… No.”
She studied me; then she took the glass out of my hand. “Hmh. Come along. Yes, back inside, nothing will happen to you.”
We came to the center pole, and she laid a hand on it. “This is the poteau-mitan. The spirits rise through it to us. The altar looks pretty, and we do our work there, but this is the source.” She stopped at the altar. “Kneel here. On the platform, yes.”
“Why?” I said.
Her dark face radiated tried patience. “Because it will make me happy. You do not believe in this. So what can it do to you?”
I knelt, which put everything on the altar at eye level.
China Black lit a new candle. “Legba,” she said, her voice peremptory, “are you listening to me? Here is one of your children, Papa Legba, a child of the crossroads. Are you watching out for this one, Papa?” She took a rough gray stone off the altar and handed it to me, along with the glass of rum. “Take a little and rinse your mouth with it,” she said. “Then spit it on the stone.” I did. She set the stone back on the altar. Then she handed me the mirror I’d noticed. “Do the same to this.” After I did, she took the mirror from me and set it on the altar to reflect my face. Distorted by the rum, the image reminded me of Frances’s catalog of my features, back in my apartment. I shivered and closed my eyes.
“Legba, you were thirsty, and we gave you rum. Now you see your child, Papa,” China Black said. “You will watch over this one, and play your tricks on the enemies of your servants. And we will make a meal for you, to show you we are glad that you have listened.” She tugged me to my feet, and led me out of the hounfor.
“Nothing’s free,” I said as we walked up the path. But I felt a nagging disappointment.
China Black stopped and stared at me. “Most things are free,” she said. “You have much to make up for, that is all.”
“What is Legba to me, or I to him?” I smiled when I said it, though.
“That is exactly what I mean.”
I made a gesture meant to include the hounfor, the gardens, the house. “Was most of this free?”
The look she gave me had irritation in it, and surprise, and a little of something else that I liked less. She shook her head and continued up the path. I followed her back to the house.
She put me to work. As long as I was there, she said, and knew about these things, I could look over their electrical system. I reminded myself that I was getting free room and board, whether I wanted it or not, and climbed up to the roof to look at the solar panels. If I hadn’t known better than to stay out in the sun that long, I would have found an excuse to be there all day. I could see the whole island, green and dotted with rooftops, and the silver-gray brilliance of the river around it. The suspension bridge looked like a fistful of streamers, tying the island to the City, and the City dozed upright, glossy and geometrical. I had locked the doors and covered my tracks; the archives were safe and would wait for me, as they always did.