The Dolls (11 page)

“It shall be done,” Chloe says solemnly. She pulls a cloth bag out of her pocket and sprinkles some sort of black powder in the shallow hole.

“It shall be done,” Pascal echoes, pulling a cloth bag from his own pocket and doing the same thing.

“It shall be done,” Peregrine says solemnly, sprinkling powder of her own into the hole.

They join hands again, and this time, while their chanting is louder, I can’t understand most of the words.

“
Fantom nan sot pase a, tande sa pledwaye nou an
,” they say together. “
Move lespri a sot pase a, tande sa pledwaye nou an
.”

There’s a sudden chill in the air, like the temperature has dropped twenty degrees. I shiver and begin to back away slowly, but I stop in my tracks when I hear them say a familiar name—Justin Cooper. I also hear them chant the name of a guy I don’t know, someone named Beau Fontenot. I squint into the darkness to see what they’re doing, and my eyes widen when I see each of the girls holding up a small rag doll.

They throw the dolls into the shallow hole, then kneel on the ground and smooth dirt back over the open space. When the ground is flat and the dolls have been buried, each of them spits on the earth. Once they’re standing again, Peregrine begins to chant: “Dandelion and mojo beans, sandalwood and lemon balm, we draw your power. Spirits, open the gates of Carrefour on Saturday night.” She holds up a handful of herbs to the sky, then she drops them on the ground, reaches for the stone that dangles around her neck, and joins hands with the others.

I hear them say twice in unison something that sounds like
“Mesi, zanset.”
But before they can say the words a third time, Chloe pulls away.

“We can’t do this,” she says. “It’s wrong.”

Peregrine rolls her eyes and tries to grab Chloe’s hand. “Oh come on, goody-two-shoes,” she says. “You don’t have a problem when we’re making boys fall in love with
you
, but now you don’t want to complete
my
charm?”

Goose bumps prickle up and down my arms as I try to process what they’re saying.

“This is different,” Chloe says in a small voice. “Especially after Glory . . .”

Peregrine laughs, and the sound cuts through the still night air like a knife. “Glory’s death had nothing to do with this.”

“But don’t you think we should be trying to figure out what happened to her instead of playing?” Chloe asks.

“You don’t think I’m doing that?” Peregrine demands. “I’m exhausted. There’s no harm in creating a teeny, tiny exception to the protection charm so that we can have a little fun as a reward for all our hard work.”

“I just really, really don’t think it’s a good idea,” Chloe replies.

Peregrine’s eyes narrow, and she says, “Well, I didn’t think it was a good idea to cast a charm on Hazel Arceneaux when she tried to hit on Justin, did I? But I did it because it was important to you.”

“That’s different,” Chloe mumbles. “Justin’s my soul mate.”

“You’re being a hypocrite,” Peregrine says calmly. “Now are you in, or am I going to have to throw this party all by myself?”

I wait for Chloe to fight back, but instead she says something under her breath, grabs the hands of Peregrine and Pascal, and says along with them in a low voice, “
Mesi, zanset
.”

“There,” Peregrine says, dropping Chloe’s hand. “Was that so bad?”

“I hate you sometimes,” Chloe says, but I can see a small smile on her face, and Peregrine begins to laugh.

Pascal is watching them with his arms crossed over his chest. “Are you sure it worked?”

Peregrine glares at him.

“I was really looking forward to the idea of hot sorority girls arriving on our doorstep like pizza delivery,” he says. “But usually we can feel it if a charm works, and I didn’t feel a damned thing this time.”

“Me neither,” Chloe agrees. She hesitates and adds in a small voice. “Maybe we’re running out of power.”

“You two are so tiresome.” Peregrine sighs.

“Don’t you think it’s maybe time we get Eveny involved?” Chloe asks.

What the . . .

“It’s not like we have a choice,” Peregrine mutters.

“So we’ll talk to her tomorrow?” Chloe asks.

“You better hope you’re right about her,” Pascal says, “or everything goes to hell around here.”

Without waiting for a reply, he stomps off into the darkness, away from where I’m standing.

“I don’t think she knows anything yet,” Chloe says stiffly after the sound of his footsteps has faded. “At all.”

Peregrine makes a noise. “Well, her hippie aunt is completely senseless. What do you expect?”

Chloe kicks at the dirt. “I don’t know. In a way, it must have been kind of nice to have a normal life all these years, don’t you think?”

“A normal life?” Peregrine repeats. “I can’t think of anything more pointless. Not when you have powers like ours.”

She grabs her bag from the ground, stomping off before Chloe can respond.

I stand still for a good five minutes to make absolutely sure Peregrine, Chloe, and Pascal are gone. Then I give in to the weakness in my knees and slowly slide down the tomb until I’m sitting in the dirt. I can’t understand why they’d mention Aunt Bea and me.

I knew the Dolls were odd, but is it possible they actually believe they have some sort of magical powers? Though as much as I want to dismiss what I just saw as some sort of sorority ritual, I can’t deny the way the air got deathly still the instant they began their ceremony, or how a breeze picked up as soon as they began to dance.

I struggle to my feet and creep into the clearing, which is bathed in lemon meringue moonlight. It appears to be a well-defined crossroads. Three of the four corners seem to be grave plots, filled with shadowy, aboveground tombs and mausoleums of all shapes and sizes. The fourth corner, where I saw them bury the dolls, sits entirely empty, except for the handful of herbs Peregrine threw to the ground. I bend to look at them and am startled to realize they’re an ashy, burned black. I could have sworn they were alive when she let them go.

I take a deep breath and begin digging with my left hand; my right is still throbbing from grabbing the parlor door. Side by side in the hole lie two dolls, each with a name written across it, a lock of hair glued to it, and a feather pinned to it. The one that says
Justin Cooper
has a pale pink feather, and the one that says
Beau Fontenot
sports a bright red feather. The dolls have crudely sewn
x
’s where their mouths and eyes should be. Like the real-life Justin, the miniature version has brown hair and is wearing pants and a shirt that vaguely resemble the Pointe Laveau uniform.

I can’t possibly piece together everything I just saw while squatting in the middle of a cemetery, so I shove the Justin doll in my pocket and push the dirt back over the other doll. I stand up, my legs shaking, and make a run for it toward my house, no longer caring if I make noise.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

A
few minutes before seven the next morning, I sit down across from Aunt Bea, who looks wideawake and cheerful after her successful opening. “Morning, hon,” she says through a mouthful of Cheerios. She’s reading the
New York Times
on her iPad
,
just like she does every day at the breakfast table. She looks up at me and the smile falls from her face. “What’s wrong?”

I take a deep breath. “Aunt Bea, there’s some seriously strange shit going on in this town, and I want to know what it is.”

She sets her iPad down. I can tell she’s trying to appear casual as she says, “What would make you say that, Eveny?”

“Drew said something about satanic rituals in town, and I thought he was just being dramatic until I saw Peregrine, Chloe, and Pascal perform a ceremony in the cemetery last night.”

“What were you doing in the cemetery?” she asks.

“You’re missing the point.”

“Okay.” She looks at the table. “Well, first of all, I can assure you that nothing like satanism is going on here. That’s just idle gossip.”

“Oh come on. This town is cut off from the outside world by a big, creepy gate! Everything’s in bloom, even though it’s January! But you drive a half mile away across the bayou, and it’s winter again.” I’m ticking things off on my fingers as I go. “I’ve been having bad dreams about the parlor, and last night I burned my hand trying to open the door. And now, the daughters of Mom’s best friends, who look and dress like supermodel gabillionaires, are sneaking around in cemeteries at night, casting spells on people! You’re going to tell me nothing’s going on?”

“Charms,” my aunt murmurs. “Not spells.” As she takes a bite of her Cheerios, her hand is shaking so hard I can hear her spoon clattering against her teeth. “Why are you so sure I’ll know the answers, anyhow?”

“Because I heard them mention you—and me. Not to mention the fact that you’ve been walking around since we got here saying cryptic things about how I have so much more in common with these girls than I realize. Am I supposed to be out there with them, dancing around with snakes and burying voodoo dolls?”

“They’re not voodoo dolls,” she says right away. When I continue to look at her, she sighs and says, “Look, before we get into an explanation, I need you to tell me that you won’t get sucked into all of this before you’ve had a chance to understand what it’s all about.”

“I’m not making you any promises until you start being honest with me,” I shoot back.

“Well, I guess that’s fair.” She studies her cereal for a moment. “Okay. To start with, I’m guessing that what you saw in the cemetery was a zandara ceremony.”

“A what?”

“Zandara. It’s a kind of magic only practiced here in Carrefour.”

She stands up from the table and takes her bowl to the sink. I stare at her in disbelief as she washes her leftover cereal down the drain then turns on the disposal. When the rumbling is over, the silence feels dead and all-encompassing.

“Aunt Bea?” I prompt.

“I don’t even know where to begin.”

“How about at the beginning?”

She nods slowly, and when she speaks again, her voice is firm and steady. “At one time our ancestors were very powerful practitioners of voodoo. But in 1863, they, along with Peregrine’s and Chloe’s ancestors, struck their own deal with the fates because they felt voodoo was getting too commercialized. The final straw was when your great-great-great-greatgrandmother learned that a Confederate general was purchasing potions and using them to defeat Union soldiers in battle.

“Our ancestors didn’t want any part of that,” she continues, “so they sought out a powerful spirit named Eloi Oke, who agreed to serve as a gatekeeper between this world and the world of the spirits, and—”

“That’s the name I heard them say in the cemetery,” I interrupt.

She nods. “He agreed to help in exchange for letting him and some of his friends possess them once a year on Mardi Gras so that they could experience life in human form again. A small price to pay for the power he opens them to.”

“Oh yes, being possessed by a ghost,” I mutter to myself. “Such a small price to pay.

Aunt Bea ignores me. “So zandara developed as a way to trade for what the queens wanted through communication with different spirits. All the magic centers around living things that grow from the soil, because they’re a direct link between life and death. Zandara queens just need to find a spirit who’s willing to help them channel the power of those plants, once Eloi Oike opens the gate to the nether.”

It feels like my head is spinning as I try to keep up. “What’s the nether?”

“The world between life and death, where some spirits are stranded for a while. It’s people who did something wrong in their lives and can’t move on to a peaceful death. They long for human comforts because they’re closer to the human world than most spirits. That’s how queens barter with them, by providing those things through occasional possession ceremonies.”

“And you’re saying zandara only exists here in Carrefour?”

“It’s where the queens decided to make their home, for their own protection.” Aunt Bea’s expression grows serious. “Just before the turn of the last century in New Orleans, seven French immigrants who believed the magical arts were evil founded a group called Main de Lumière. They zeroed in on zandara and began a ‘Crusade of Light.’ ”

Aunt Bea draws a deep breath before going on. “They started murdering practitioners who were part of your great-great-great-grandmother Eléonore’s group, claiming they were cleansing the world of evil.

“In early 1903, a Main de Lumière soldier killed Eléonore’s younger daughter, who was three years old at the time.” I gasp as Aunt Bea continues. “If he’d killed her firstborn, as he believed he was doing, he would have destroyed zandara forever. You see, only the firstborn daughter of each of the three queens inherits power, generation after generation, so that the balance of power will never change, so killing a future queen would have ended that family’s magical bloodline.

“Eléonore and the other zandara practitioners had to leave New Orleans immediately if they were to escape Main de Lumière’s bloodlust,” Aunt Bea continues. “They chose the land we’re on now because it was out in the middle of nowhere. Crossroads are very powerful in zandara—symbolic of the intersection between this world and the nether— so the queens built a crossroads in the cemetery and performed the founding ceremony of Carrefour there, imbuing the town with power and protection.

“Over the years, the queens and their descendants have let in a few thousand carefully screened outsiders to ward off suspicion,” she says. “If they had kept Carrefour to only themselves and their
sosyete
—the small group of trusted insiders they practiced their magic with—a town so tiny would have looked odd. But allowing the town to grow slowly in a very controlled manner has let Carrefour look from the outside like a typical small bayou town. Most of the families here have no idea that magic is keeping Carrefour afloat, so for a long time, the town existed without raising Main de Lumière’s suspicions.”