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CHAPTER 59
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2024-10-29 19:42:56When I awoke, the sun had already risen. It poured into my room, filling it with warmth.
I sat up but very slowly; my head was throbbing to the point of it being hard to concentrate on where I was. It took me a few moments to realize that I was in my bedroom, lying in my bed, in my mama's house.
The last thing I remembered from the night prior was Abraham threatening to kill Miss Aza. With this memory, I jumped out of bed in a panic, wondering if he had succeeded and oblivious to the events that preceded his threat.
I ran out of the room, through the quiet hall and downstairs, yelling her name. The longer the silence carried, the larger my fears grew, I imagined that everyone was at a service for Aza or burying her body in
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** I ran faster when I realized what they were, pumping my arms and lunging my legs with a speed I had never achieved before. The trees were blurs; Imani's figure was merely a blur of blue and black running by my side. I sprinted until I could feel my lungs and limbs burning. "This way!" Imani shouted at me. I followed her without losing momentum; I dropped my bat halfway through. When we saw the road and the small spec of gray that was my car, we ran faster until we collapsed on the goddamn vehicle. Then we were inside; the memories are patchy and blacked out from that night. Fear made me act sometimes unconsciously and out of instinct and the need to survive. It was like I was out of my body and inside it again, the cycle repeating. The world was spinning and I was sinking
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** When the day was over, I sat on my bed in my room, staring at the blank walls and listening to the insects make music outside in the night. I couldn't help but smile, and I was eager for the next day I would spend with Sajida. The entire day consisted of working on my meditative skills and reading spell books, but it made me want more. I needed more. When I was around Sajida, I saw a future for myself that I could never see when I was around the Coterie. And despite Sajida's claim that her cooking wouldn't be a daily occurrence, we ended up having gumbo for dinner; she admitted that she had begun prepping for it that morning before I woke up. I looked down at my hands as I sat on the bed. There was nothing interesting about them; they were normal hands. They were not Sajida's
Voodoo Queens of New Orleans CHAPTER 61
** I waited in the living room of Sajida's treehouse. Sasi One had directed me to a chair once I had come up the ladder; Sajida wasn't present. "Mere will be down shortly," she said to me, her skin even more sickly looking than before and her teeth seemingly moments away from falling out due to rot and decay. "Would you like a beverage? Perhaps a cup of tea? Water?" I nodded, "Water would be nice." Sasi One smiled even wider. "Be right back!" she said, pivoting and sashaying down a hallway to the kitchen. I sat alone with my backpack on my lap, looking around at my surroundings. The treehouse wasn't as frightening to me as it was before, and neither was the bayou. The journey here felt like a normality. Maybe it was because th
Voodoo Queens of New Orleans CHAPTER 60
I wanted to remember what it was like to be possessed by my djab, but it was an event that would not come back to me. But everyone else around me had seen what I became during my body's surrender to Marie Laveau, and they could not see me the same because of it. All of the priests and priestesses that attended the Council's party the night before were hounding the Coterie with questions about what happened to me. Word had spread that I was possessed by Marie Laveau's spirit, while other rumors consisted of me being a demon, a witch, an incarnate of a voodoo god. Regardless of the validity of these rumors, there was no denying that what everyone witnessed was an anomaly of sorts; Marie Laveau had been quiet since her death, so to now harness my body as her vessel raised a lot of questions about me. I was no longer just Madam Dumont's only daughter. People knew my name. And they w
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** When I awoke, the sun had already risen. It poured into my room, filling it with warmth. I sat up but very slowly; my head was throbbing to the point of it being hard to concentrate on where I was. It took me a few moments to realize that I was in my bedroom, lying in my bed, in my mama's house. The last thing I remembered from the night prior was Abraham threatening to kill Miss Aza. With this memory, I jumped out of bed in a panic, wondering if he had succeeded and oblivious to the events that preceded his threat. I ran out of the room, through the quiet hall and downstairs, yelling her name. The longer the silence carried, the larger my fears grew, I imagined that everyone was at a service for Aza or burying her body in
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I have tried with every fiber of my being to remember the rest of that night from my own account. I have gone through multiplelave tets, have spoken to my ancestors and to the loa, have channeled my djab, have convened with other mambos in an attempt to remember the events that preceded Abraham ordering Hezekiah to give Aza the Gift of Darkness, but it doesn't come to me. Some have told me it's common to black out after possession, so I have settled at that conclusion. I only remember the moment right before Marie Laveau possessed me and the moments after she abandoned my body. Everything between was told to me by others, so this account is stitched together by other witnesses; it is not my own, though I hope it will be one day. **
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** Abraham's hand was cold and lifeless, like the gradual shift of the air in the room. My hand looked small in his—puny. His fingers completely enveloped mine. The music, which was still playing, was a slow and almost melancholy piano number, however, Abraham wanted to dance to it, so we did. My left hand rested on his shoulder (which wasn't an easy feat; I had to stretch a bit) and his right hand rested directly underneath my arm. We started off slow; I followed his lead. My body was stiff out of extreme nervousness. I couldn't look at him; I looked at his bowtie, which was nearly eyelevel. He knew that I was overtaken with nerves; he could sense it. Smell it. We moved slowly in our little space, the entire world, it seemed, watching.
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** There were eyes on me from every corner of the room. All from different factions, and all for different reasons. Never would I think I would be at a level of such importance at a function such as this one—with vampires and witches and voodoo priestesses, all high and low in rank, but still more significant than me. However, I was more influential than I thought; I was more significant than I thought. And I was coming to terms with this newfound jump in rank. Yet it wasn't the time to bask in this new knowledge. I was here to find a different type of knowledge—from Abraham. It would be nearly impossible to find a good time to speak to Abraham and ask him what I wanted to know; there were people everywhere, and most of these people were infected with the disease that not only g
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** I had locked myself in the guest bedroom with the black box as my only form of company that night. No one came to me; I was left alone, which heightened my suspicions about the truth I had brought to them. I sat on the floor, still dressed in white and covered in dirt and dried sweat. The ball gown lied on the bed, staring back at me. I thought about trying it on; I didn't need to know how it fit, since Jeffrey assured me that the dress was correct to my measurements. But I wanted to see myself in this dress. Is this how Russell Van Doren remembered me one hundred and fifty years in the past—wearing this gown when it was common attire at the time? I expected Hezekiah to knock on the window and let himself in the room, trying to explain himself and his actions; his reasoning f
