The Grand Masquerade (The Bold Women Series Book 4) (2 page)

Margarite narrowed her eyes. She knew that Sydnee was lying. At fourteen, the girl was the most proficient diviner she had ever known.

“Well, I want you to try,” the old woman said, pursing her lips. She started to the back of the cabin toward the still. Sydnee knew that she was going to start drinking again.

After pinning the last of her father’s shirts onto the line, Sydnee picked up a bucket and a knife and started down The Trace into the woods. When the creatures tried to follow she commanded them to stay back.

She felt another tightening in her stomach as she trudged down the dirt road, bucket in hand, but she ignored the sensation. It was a fine summer morning, and she enjoyed her peaceful walk. Years ago, she would have met all sorts of people traveling this thoroughfare, but now it was unusual to see anyone. A meadow opened up on her right and Sydnee left the trail to cross the sun-drenched field of grass. She wiped the perspiration from her brow and slowly approached the hollow remains of an oak tree. Bees swarmed around the trunk, but Sydnee continued toward them.

As she walked, she began to chant. The words and their meaning were unknown to her, but the bees seemed to be charmed into submission. The chant came to her from the spirits one day years ago. Gradually the bees landed on the trunk of the tree, mesmerized as if asleep, allowing her access to the hive. They looked like a large fur coat on the oak.

Sydnee set the bucket down, still chanting, took the knife and shaved off a large hunk of honey comb. Dripping with liquid gold, she dropped the comb into the bucket. Leaning over and looking at the bees, she bowed once in gratitude and then backed away. She crossed the meadow, sucking the delicacy from her fingers.

The first few times Sydnee tried to harvest honey, Margarite told her to use smoke to subdue the bees. Although an ancient technique for bee charming, she found it ineffective. She believed if she simply approached the colony, chanted the incantation and asked for permission, the bees would share their honey with her.

Like with so many creatures, Sydnee had an uncanny ability to communicate with them. From an early age, Margarite taught her to respect and love all living things and to use the power of Hoodoo to do good deeds. Sydnee’s whole world revolved around this simple philosophy of living.

Before she left the meadow, she put the bucket of honey down and pulled a flat blade of grass from the ground. Pressing it between her fingers, she blew on it making a loud screeching noise. In a matter of moments, she could see the dogs running up The Trace with Vivian soaring above them.

As the group ambled back toward the cabin, they met Margarite on the road. She was carrying a basket of produce on her head. It was filled with onions, okra and plump red tomatoes which she had just picked from their garden. Sydnee reached up and carefully transferred the basket to her own head.

Margarite took the bucket of honey and limped along beside them. “I found the plant we need to ease your pain when the baby comes. It is over there near the indigo bush.” Well versed in the use of plants for Hoodoo potions and medicine, Margarite was frequently in the woods searching for flowers, barks, and herbs. “How do you feel today, my beauty?” the old woman asked.

Sydnee smiled. This time the words rolled quickly off her tongue. “I know this baby will live. It kicks more than my first one.”

“Any pains?”

“No, but I feel my stomach practicing.”

“Get your craw fishing done early, so you can rest this afternoon. Your father will be gone until late tonight.”

The dogs dragged along behind Margarite and Sydnee, panting. The air was steadily growing more humid in the green darkness along The Trace. Two redwing blackbirds darted in front of Sydnee, one chasing the other through the trees. The girl smiled. She loved the woods, the creek, the swamps and all of its creatures.

“Bon jour to you my little Cumptico,” said Margarite suddenly.

Sydnee looked down at a rattlesnake sunning himself on a rock along the side of the road.

“Thank you for your protection,” the old woman continued. “May your day be filled with peace and harmony.”

They continued past the snake with the dogs giving Cumptico a wide berth.

“You have taught me so many things,” Sydnee said. “Will you teach me how to be a mother?”

Margarite’s eyebrows shot up. She stopped walking and looked at the girl. Her wrinkled face looked like the head of an old apple doll. “You know that I have no children.”

Sydnee said, “You have me.”

Margarite brushed a lock of hair off the girl’s face affectionately and murmured. “You are right, leetle one. It is true that motherhood is not just about giving birth.
Oui
, I will help you.”

When they reached the cabin, Baloo crawled under the porch where it was cool, Atlantis waded in the creek lapping water, and Vivian flew to the shade of her favorite oak tree.

With a sigh of relief, Margarite sat down in the rocker on the porch, a mug of white lightning in her hand. She could never have rested if Victor Sauveterre was home. Sydnee went into the cabin to get some mint tea out of a jar. She came out and eased herself down onto the step, drinking out of a gourd.

Margarite rocked back and forth, fanning herself. “Your name has given you a good start at motherhood.”

Sydnee looked up at her quizzically.

“The name Sauveterre, did I never tell you, child?
En français
, it means safe haven.”

“That is what Papa’s name means?”

Margarite frowned. “The name belongs more to you. You live by it. He does not.”

Sydnee drained the ladle and pushed herself up. “I am going craw fishing now.”

“Good,” the old woman said draining her cup too and starting inside to make turtle soup. “Soap making tomorrow,” she called, but the girl did not hear her. She was already headed along the creek with Baloo.

Carrying her net and bucket, Sydnee found a slow back wash of water under a cypress tree and squatted down. The muddy creek bottom was alive with the creatures. Prodding them gently with a stick, scores of crayfish backed into Sydnee’s net. In no time, her job was complete.

She sat down on the bank and put her arm around Baloo’s big neck and kissed him. “Margarite does not like Papa very well, does she?”

The dog rolled his brown eyes up at the girl adoringly.

“He has never been very nice to her, but I think it is because he is lonely. I think he misses Mama.”

Baloo rested his chin in Sydnee’s lap while she scratched his head. She said nothing for a while, deep in thought. “This baby will make Papa feel better,” she declared, nodding.

Sydnee told Baloo everything. In fact, he was the first creature to ever hear Sydnee utter a word. The girl was seldom lonely but when she did see other children her age, she felt awkward. The Devil’s Backbone was very isolated, and when a customer brought youngsters to the stand, Sydnee was too busy cooking and doing chores to play.

“Let’s go,” she said to Baloo, picking up her bucket.

They rested that afternoon during the oppressive heat of the day. Sydnee was glad her father had not returned. She felt guilty thinking it, but things went more smoothly when he was not around. Everyone was on edge when he was home. She was also secretly grateful when no customers came to the stand. Inevitably her father would offer her body to the men, and when they accepted, she had to endure their heavy, sweating bodies upon her behind the hanging quilt in the cabin. Most of the time they did not look at her, but on occasion the customers wanted her to look into their eyes while they did vile things to her.

She had seen the animals of The Trace mating, and she found it a natural and functional way to procreate, but the customers of The Devil’s Backbone changed all that. They made the act filthy and depraved.

That evening after the sun set and their chores were complete, Margarite told Sydnee it was time for her egg divination. They went to the shed and lit one candle. Usually they burned strings in cups of grease for light, but a divination was special and called for a candle.

Sydnee felt sick to her stomach. She knew the reading would not be good. She felt it in her bones.

Before they sat down, she poured a ring of purifying salt onto the floor, around the table and sat down. Margarite sat across from Sydnee, holding the egg. Solemnly, she swept it around the outside of her body to cleanse her aura. She started over her head and then moved the egg down over her arms, legs, under her feet and then up the other side of her body. When she was finished, she handed it to Sydnee who quickly cracked the egg and let the white drip through her fingers into a clear glass bowl of water, discarding the yolk into a small crock at her feet.

Sydnee looked to the heavens first with her palms raised to thank the Lord for life and pray for guidance, and then she moved the bowl forward. They waited in silence as the egg white settled into the water. The sounds of night were all around them. Crickets were singing in the woods and toads called to one another in the swamps.

At last the divination began to unfold. The first thing Sydnee saw was a thin veil of translucent white that resembled a shroud, dropping gently over an oblong mass at the bottom of the bowl. She swallowed hard and clenched her teeth, staring at the bowl. Next long threads began to rise up like spires on a church. They were beautiful slender filaments, like the gates of heaven. Next she saw bubbles resembling the stars and the opaque form of a woman draped in white, her arms raised in welcome. Lovely as it was, this was not what she wanted to see.

She looked up at Margarite who was studying her.

“Oh, my dear one,” the old woman murmured. “I know what you are seeing. I have known for some time.” She shook her head. “I was wrong to have you divine this.
Peut-être
it was my way of telling you.”

Tears welled up in Sydnee’s eyes and rolled down her face. The girl sat rigidly, not looking up from the table. She did not want to admit that Margarite was dying.

Suddenly a crippling pain clutched Sydnee’s abdomen, and she cried out. Margarite grabbed her hand. When the pain passed at last, Sydnee looked up at her panting, with sweat drenching her brow.

When the chimes tinkled in the corner, a slow smile spread over Margarite’s face, and she said, “The spirits are speaking, my beauty, a life for a life. It is the way of it, and it is good.”

Chapter 3

The ancient oak tree above Sydnee’s head stretched over her like a canopy. She examined the heavy black branches with their verdant foliage and then looked down at the dappled sunlight at her feet. She felt warm and protected as if she was enfolded in the arms of a loving mother. She longed to stay but something compelled her to keep moving.

When Sydnee started down the paved walkway, she frightened away two song birds that were drinking from a stone basin on a pedestal. Walking closer she saw that the basin was filled with water. Something in her memory stirred. Margarite told her of such a decoration. She called it a bird bath.

What beautiful and peaceful place is this?

The grass felt soft and luxurious under her feet. She walked a little farther and paused by a small waterfall to watch water tumble over a staircase of rocks. A warm breeze moved her hair. Unsure whether this place was real, she reached down and stroked moss on the rocks. It was as soft as Vivian’s feathers.

Suddenly everything went black, and Sydnee was consumed with excruciating pain. She gasped for air and heard Margarite’s voice, but it was far away. She opened her eyes and saw a blurry light. When her vision cleared, she realized that she was looking at candles. She was on Margarite’s bed in the shed. She heard water splashing in a basin as if someone was wringing out a cloth. Then the pain came again. It started in her abdomen and swept up her back. She lurched forward and screamed.

The next time she opened her eyes, the pain was gone, and she was standing by a pond. But this was not like the wild marshy ponds of The Trace; this was a pristine and perfectly round basin with a rim around the edge. The rim was so large you could sit upon it. In the middle of this pond was a metal statue of a girl who was half human, half fish. She was holding a tall lily that spewed water high into the air which splashed back down into the pond.

Sydnee looked up realizing that she was surrounded on all sides by a white two-story home bordered with pillared walkways and lacy, iron railings. Tall palm trees rose majestically over her head. Bushes with large white flowers grew in the courtyard and wisteria vines encircled the pillars. This was a place Margarite told her about. She was standing in the courtyard of a Creole home in New Orleans.

Suddenly, without warning, red hot pain shot through her body again, and she was sick to her stomach. She was back in the shed again. She heard Margarite mumbling an incantation and shaking a rattle charm. She raised Sydnee’s head and gave her a sip of herb tea. “Take this. It will ease the pain and make you dream,” she said.

The pain subsided again, and Sydnee looked around. This time she was in a different garden bordered by tall arborvitaes and fragrant flowers. She looked down at the green grass and flowers at her feet. There were yellow daffodils planted in straight rows, dappled coleus, and bushes with pink roses, and purple phlox. Suddenly the colorful flowers grew taller and taller and changed into women dressed in vivid ball gowns. They were held by gentlemen in dark suits who danced them around and around a pool filled with lily pads and swans.

Sydnee watched spellbound as the guests whirled past her. She could smell lavender on the ladies, cedar and spice on the men.

Gradually the dancers melted away, and she found herself standing in front of a tall, white iron gate. It reminded Sydnee of the gate she had seen in the glass bowl during the divination. It was large and arched high over her head.

The wind moaned sadly in her ears. The sun was setting as she pulled the gate open. On the other side were rows of small stone houses set in straight lines. Eucalyptus trees shaded these tiny enclosures. When Sydnee came closer, she saw statues of angels and lambs adorning the doors with tiny marble crosses on the roofs.

She realized suddenly that this was a cemetery. Margarite had spoken of these Cities of the Dead, where they buried their deceased above ground in vaults.

Panic flooded her. She had to get out of this place. She did not want to be here. She did not want to think about death. She started to run but stopped abruptly, doubling over in agony. Pain shot through her belly again and began to wrap around to her back. She could not endure it. She dropped to her knees in a faint.

When she woke up she heard a baby crying, and Margarite was near. She cooed, “My leetle girl has a leetle girl.”

When Sydnee opened her eyes again, she was back under the sheltering arms of the oak tree. She was tired, but she felt safe. She leaned back against the trunk of the tree and rested.

Somewhere down by the swamp she heard a baby crying. Sydnee listened. The crying continued. She walked down to the marsh and waded into the water, parting the swamp grass, looking for the child. Her skirt plumed out around her in the water as she searched. Wading through the reeds, she remembered a story Margarite told her long ago, about a babe found in the bull rushes who grew up to become a great leader.

At last she found the baby in a basket floating among the cattails. The child stopped crying the moment she saw Sydnee. She was a beautiful little girl, with eyes the color of robin’s eggs. A thrill of wonder shot through Sydnee. Smiling, she reached down carefully and picked the baby up. She took her up the hill to the bird bath where she unwound the swaddling clothes and slipped the child into the basin to bathe her. As she scooped water over the child, they stared at each other in wonder.

“Give it to me goddamn it!” a voice roared.

Startled, Sydnee clutched the child to her breast. Dripping with water, the baby started to howl again. Sydnee scanned the woods desperately. All was quiet. With a sigh, she calmed the baby and lowered her again for her bath. Suddenly her jaw dropped. The bird bath changed into a font for divination and there before her eyes, in the water, a scene was unfolding.

Sydnee’s father was arguing with Margarite and shaking his fist at her. They were in the shed, and it was dark. “You stupid nigger!” he roared.

“Non!” Margarite screamed, backing up with a baby in her arms. “Not again!”

Victor Sauveterre scowled and with one swift movement, he covered Margarite’s face with his hand and sent her toppling backward into the wall of the shed. She stumbled and tried to remain standing but fell into the corner. In spite of the fall, she did not let go of the child.

Sauveterre reached down.

Margarite screamed “Non,” rolling away from him, holding fast to the baby.

Straddling the old woman, he jerked the child away from her and thrust the screaming infant under his arm. Throwing open the door of the shed, he strode out into the night.

*                      *                  *

Sydnee’s eyelids fluttered. She felt sick to her stomach and confused.
Where am I? What happened?
She recognized the shed at last, but something was banging. When she raised her head, she saw that the wind was slamming the shed door open and closed. She rubbed her eyes.
Where is Margarite?

With great effort she raised herself up on one elbow. Except for a cup of grease guttering on the altar, it was dark. The blankets of her bed were soaked, and she pushed them off, sitting up gingerly. She was sore all over but particularly between her legs. Then she remembered that she had just delivered a baby.

Pulling her dirty shift over her head to cover herself, Sydnee carefully stood up. Shuffling over to the altar, she lit some tapers and looked around. The bed was rumpled and soaked with blood. The wind continued to bang the door, making the flames jump and the wind chimes jangle.

As Sydnee pulled the door shut, something caught her eye, and she started. There in a rumpled heap in the corner was Margarite.

“
Ma mère
!” she cried.

Hanging onto the wall, she stumbled over and dropped to her knees, putting her hands on the woman’s face. “Wake up!” Sydnee cried, turning her head toward her. “Please wake up!” she begged. Margarite opened her eyes and mumbled something, but Sydnee did not understand.

Mustering her limited strength, she crawled behind Margarite and lifted her under the arms, pulling her over to the bed on the floor. Panting, she ran her eyes over her but found no injuries.

“Where is the baby?” Sydnee asked anxiously.

Gently she shook Margarite, and she opened her eyes.

“The baby?” Sydnee repeated, looking at her desperately.

Margarite stared at her. She grimaced and then murmured apologetically, “
Mort
.”

Sydnee blinked in disbelief, dropped back onto the blanket, covered her face and shook her head from side to side.
Another baby born without life
.
How can this be!

All night long and all through the next day, she stayed on the bed, stone faced and mute by Margarite. She bore her despair in silence, letting Margarite sleep. She knew that the woman was exhausted from helping her give birth, and it was not until the sun began to set that she turned and looked at her. Margarite was on her back, her breathing quick and shallow. Her cheeks were sunken, and her eyeballs were yellow when she turned to look at Sydnee. Moving her lips, she tried to speak, but no words would come.

Sydnee waited, afraid of what she was about to hear. At last Margarite whispered, “Pain. Help me, my leetle one
.
”

Sydnee squeezed her eyes shut. She did not want to do what she knew Margarite was asking.

“
S'il te plait
?” the old woman pleaded.

Reluctantly, Sydnee nodded and pushed herself up off the bed. Still weak and sore, it took great effort to rise. Her hair was matted and dried blood was caked over her legs. The heat in the shed was oppressive and the air thick with illness. When she stepped outside, the damp air of the swamps filled her lungs, and the dogs dashed out from under the porch to greet her. The sunset glowed red as it filtered through the tangled webs of Spanish moss.

The first thing she did was scan the yard for her father. All was quiet. She hung onto the shed, gathering strength to walk to the cabin. She took a deep breath, mustered her courage and walked up the path.

The cabin was empty, and she sighed with relief. Sydnee took a plate of hush puppies and scooped a bowl of nuts from a barrel and then ducked out back to the still where she filled a jug with whiskey. She returned to the shed as quickly as her legs would allow. She was afraid her father would appear at any moment and demand work from her.

The white lightning seemed to put new life into Margarite as Sydnee held her head and poured the alcohol into her mouth. Margarite dropped back onto the bed and sighed, much relieved. It seemed to warm her core and ease her pain.

Sydnee felt guilty giving whiskey to Margarite. It was the very substance that was killing her, but she knew that it was too late. It was all the woman had to dilute her pain for her last few hours on earth.

She gulped some from the jug herself, ate some hush puppies and then pulled back the greased paper on the window to look outside. Vivian was perched on a branch nearby. She cocked her head when she saw Sydnee and then went back to watching over the shed diligently.

When Sydnee eased back down, Margarite took her hand. It was difficult for her to speak, but the old woman whispered, “Leave here.”

“Leave you and Papa?”

“You are not listening to the spirits. They want both of us to leave. I am a slave. Passing to the other side is the only way for me.”

Biting her lip, Sydnee rolled her head away from Margarite. She had indeed heard a whispering in her ear lately, but she had not understood it.

Margarite is wrong. The spirits would never tell me to leave. Someone has to take care of Papa.

“
Saint-Christophe
appeared to me last night,” Margarite said hoarsely. She gasped for breath, licked her dry lips and said, “He is waiting to carry me across the big river. He waits to guide you away from here too.”

Ignoring the words, Sydnee stood up, poured fresh water into a basin and soaked a cloth. Kneeling down stiffly, she started to sponge Margarite’s face. When she finished, the old woman said, “Go now to the creek and wash the blood and dirt from your own body.”

Nodding, Sydnee retrieved a crock of soft soap and rags from the homemade wooden cupboard where Margarite kept her herbs. Before she stepped out the door, she looked back. Margarite was watching her with a faint smile on her lips.

Baloo and Atlantis accompanied Sydnee to a private spot on Plum Creek where the water ran deep and the trees joined overhead like a giant green umbrella. Vivian seemed to know that Sydnee was weak and did not try to land on her shoulder. Instead she flew from tree to tree as they walked along.

Sydnee took her shift off and waded in the running water, splashing her body and lathering her skin. It felt good to wash again. Atlantis hopped about chasing frogs, Baloo snapped at flies and Vivian stood guard in an oak tree overhead. The creatures were relieved to be near Sydnee once more. They were frantic all night, hearing her screaming in the shed, but when she emerged at last, they were overcome with joy. Content now just to be near her, they occupied themselves happily.