The Seventh Night (7 page)

If it hadn’t been for her, my life might have been so different. My mother might still be alive, my father—

“You never met my mother, did you?” Reid asked softly, breaking into my thoughts. He was staring at the picture in my hands. With a quick movement, I set it back down on the desk and turned away.

“I never had that pleasure.” If he noticed the sarcasm in my voice, he was big enough to ignore it. It made me ashamed of myself for being so small and petty, for hanging on to old memories that should have long since been abandoned.

“I met
your
mother once,” he said, and I looked at him in surprise.

“When?”

“It was shortly after Mother and Christopher married. We were still living in Chicago. She came to the house one day, and she and my mother talked for a long time. I never knew what about. She was very nice, very polite, but I remember thinking at the time that she seemed to be one of the saddest-looking people I’d ever seen. I felt very sorry for her.”

“She had good reason for being sad, wouldn’t you say? Her husband had just left her for another woman.”

“Do you still blame all that on my mother?” he asked. There was no resentment in his tone, no bitterness, just mild curiosity.

I turned away, not quite able to meet his gaze. I lifted
my shoulders. “What difference does it make now? They’re all dead—my mother, your mother and your father—all gone except my father and he’s…”

Reid hardly seemed to hear what I’d said. He was still staring at the picture of his mother. “It was a tragic time for both families.”

“It was a long time ago. I don’t see any point in dragging up the past.”

“Maybe there isn’t, unless, of course, the past still affects the present, and might affect the future, as well.”

“What do you mean?”

He hesitated, then said, “You’ve always seemed a bit…resentful of me. I’ve wondered if it was because of my mother, because of what our parents did or…something else.”

“I could hardly blame you for my father’s and your mother’s affair, could I?” The question was reasonable, but my tone, I feared, was a dead giveaway. I
had
resented him—resented him because he’d made me want something I’d known I could never have.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But family ties can be strong, binding. I know your grandmother hated us all. Barbarians, she called us. Unholy heathens who bewitched Christopher Greggory away from his beloved family in order to steal all his money.”

He was smiling, but I sensed he was far from amused. He’d been little more than a child himself when all this had happened with our parents. Had my grandmother’s cruel words hurt him? It was hard to believe that anything could hurt Reid St. Pierre. He seemed so formidable now, so distant.

He shrugged, as though dismissing the mood, and set aside the picture. “I think it’s time we headed back,”
he said. “Obviously Christopher’s not here and hasn’t been for some time.”

I agreed. The gathering darkness, the stroll down memory lane, had left me oddly depressed. I couldn’t wait to get out of the cabin. But as we stepped off the porch, I heard drums start up somewhere in the woods.

The sound echoed through the darkness, an eerie, hypnotic beat that seemed to beckon and call me.

My breath was frozen somewhere in my throat, but my heart was pumping ninety to nothing. Even Reid had stopped, and was listening intently to the darkness.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“A vodun ceremony.” He gave it the creole pronunciation, then flashed me a brief glance. “Voodoo, as Hollywood calls it. It’s nothing to worry about.”

I glanced at the dark purple sky. “Isn’t it a little early for that? It’s not midnight.”

“You’ve been reading too many books, Christine.” His tone was dry, annoyed. “Depending on the occasion, the ritual can take place anytime, even in broad daylight, believe it or not. Sometimes they last for days at a time.”

“So what
is
the occasion?”

“Maybe a celebration,” he suggested, then looked as though he regretted his words.

“What kind of a celebration?”

He looked just plain annoyed now. “I don’t know, Christine. Would you like to go ask them?”

“As a matter of fact, I would.”

That got his attention. “I hope you’re kidding.”

“No. Why can’t we go? Maybe someone’s seen my father around here. The voodoo ceremonies are harmless, right? At least, that’s what the travel brochures say.”

“It’s a matter of courtesy,” he explained, but there was an edge to his voice I couldn’t quite identify. “We weren’t invited.”

“Does that matter?”

“To some, yes.”

“But what if they
have
seen my father? What if they know where he is? Look, we’ve come this far. I don’t want to leave until we’ve explored every possibility. If you don’t want to seem impolite, I’ll go by myself.”

Those brave words might even have fooled me if I hadn’t felt the way my hands were trembling, my heart pounding. The last thing I wanted to do was go to that ceremony alone, and yet even as apprehensive as I was, I felt an almost insatiable curiosity about it.

How many times did one get the opportunity to witness a real vodun ceremony in person?

It would be something to share with my students when I got back. An adventure to pique their interest. And mine.

I turned and started toward the sound. Behind me I heard Reid mutter something under his breath, something dark and indistinguishable, but I got the gist of it, anyway. I couldn’t help smiling a little as he caught up with me, then passed me by.

He threw me a glance over his shoulder. “Keep out of sight if you can manage it,” he said between clenched teeth. “And let me do the talking.”

A reasonable request.

I
was
scared. But as we walked through those dark and oppressive woods with the sound of the voodoo drums growing louder, more frenzied, a strange excitement overtook me. I could feel that impossible beat thrumming through my body, drawing me into its
rhythm. The air seemed charged with energy. Even the trees overhead seemed to be swaying in time.

And then we were there, and I stood mesmerized by what I saw. Reid left me on the fringes of the woods as he went to join the others.

The gathering was small, no more than a dozen or so men and women, all dressed in red, grouped around a fire in the center of a wide clearing. At one edge of the clearing, a tall, three-sided structure stood open to the fire. It had a center post that had been intricately carved and painted with designs.

Later, I would learn that the markings were called
vévés
and were used to invoke the
loa
or spirits. Each spirit was represented by his or her own personal symbol. The center post of the structure, or peristyle, was used by the
loa
to descend earthward in order to mount their human hosts. Every movement, every sound, had special significance in the vodun ceremony.

But right now I was more interested in what Reid might be finding out about my father. He was still wearing the suit he’d had on earlier, and his polished appearance should have been completely incongruous with the primitive surroundings. But for some reason I couldn’t define, he didn’t look at all out of place. In fact, the ease with which he blended with the others made me slightly uneasy.

There was the sound of a rattle, and the participants drew together in a semicircle around the fire. Reid seemed to vanish into the shadows, and then I forgot about him as my attention was drawn to a white-robed figure walking out of the darkness of the woods. He placed a candle on the ground and lit it, then picked up a clay jar and scattered its contents on the ground to form a symbol that looked like a snake.

Libations were offered to the center post, the
poteau mitan,
of the peristyle and then to the drums. The priest led the assembled group into the peristyle and around the center post. They knelt, and the priest led them in prayer, an elaborate invocation that conjured up all the deep, dark mysteries of an ancient religion.

Then the drums started again. The priest’s voice ripped through the night, tearing away the last shreds of reality. Against the rising chants of his prayer, the drummers beat a relentless barrage of sound, a rhythm so forceful and focused I felt my senses reeling from the assault. The dance of the initiates was a powerful, almost brutal attack. But it was also a dance of endurance and resolution, a dance whose origin could be traced back to Africa, whose age could be measured in millennia, not mere years.

On and on the ceremony went. The drums pounded continuously. The dancers’ movements became more frenzied as they chanted one word over and over:
Damballah. Damballah. Damballah.

A goat was lead to the stone altar near the back of the peristyle. Its terrified bleating rose over the chanting, and for the first time that evening, I began to feel the horror of what was to come.

I looked around, frantic now to find Reid, but I couldn’t see him in the darkness.

The white-robed priest disappeared into the shadows of the peristyle, then returned with an intricately carved wooden box. He opened the lid, and a huge snake rose up from the depths of the box. The priest took the snake in both hands and held it up to the sky. In the glow of the fire, I could see the reptilian eyes shining like obsidian.

With dire purpose, the priest advanced toward the
goat. The drums ceased, and the quiet that followed was excruciatingly tense. The snake’s head was pointed toward the helpless animal, and the priest relaxed his grip.

Instantly the snake sprang forward, striking the goat just below the mouth. The creature screamed in pain and terror, trying to back away. The snake struck again, and then the priest withdrew it, holding it skyward in triumph. He returned it to the wooden box, and the snake coiled itself back into the shadows of its confinement.

Within minutes the goat had fallen as the poison invaded its bloodstream, but valiantly the poor animal continued to struggle. The priest withdrew a dagger from his robe, and in the blink of an eye, slashed the animal’s throat.

Blood spurted freely, spattering the priest’s white robe like globs of red paint on a pristine canvas. And then the drums started again, and my scream of protest was drowned out by the thunderous sound.

I felt stunned, sickened by what I’d witnessed. I think I tried to scream again, but a hand clamped over my mouth and all I could think was that I would be next! Soon my own blood would be running freely over the inscribed ground….

For just a split second, I struggled, and had almost managed to free myself, when I recognized the sleeve of Reid’s suit. I relaxed slightly, but apparently not enough to reassure him, for he kept his hand over my mouth as he bent and whispered in my ear, “Don’t scream. Understand?”

I nodded, still in shock. When he let me go I spun around, the horror, I was sure, still very much on my face. “Why didn’t you stop that? My God, what kind of place is this?” I was speaking in a sort of furious whisper,
my voice rising with each word. “Did you see what they did?”

“Will you shut up?” he said, just as furious, grabbing my arm as I tried to move away. “This is a private ceremony. We weren’t invited, and I’d just as soon not have to explain your presence here. Now, let’s try to leave here as quietly as we came.”

“But…will they do that again?” I asked desperately. “That poor animal! Isn’t there some way to stop them?”

“Not unless you want to change places with the next goat,” Reid said brutally, his grip tightening on my arm.

I gasped, not from pain but from what he’d said. “They wouldn’t…you can’t mean…
human sacrifices?
”

In the shadows his eyes glittered like sapphires. And they were just as cold, I thought, shivering, just as hard. “This country is still primitive in a lot of ways, Christine. I told you that a long time ago. These rituals have been around long before you and I were born, and they’ll be here long after we’re gone. If you can’t accept that, then you’d better get on the first plane back to Chicago.”

We were walking back through the woods now, toward the cabin. Reid still held my arm, and if it hadn’t grown so dark, if I hadn’t needed his guidance, I would never have tolerated his touch. As it was, even with his help, I was still tripping and stumbling over fallen tree limbs and exposed roots.

“What did you find out about my father? Has anyone seen him?”

“One of the women said she saw him last week at the cabin, but not since,” Reid said, his expression still dark.

I shuddered, unable to shake the bloody scene from my mind. “I can’t believe my father condones that…slaughter.”

“Even if he doesn’t, what do you think he could do? Vodun is a way of life in Columbé, Christine. It’s a religion, just as important as Catholicism. The two go hand in hand here. Christopher may have had a hard time dealing with some of the aspects of the island in the beginning, but he learned to accept it—or ignore it. I suggest you do the same while you’re here. And watch what you say. A lot of people on the island don’t take kindly to strangers meddling in their affairs.”

“Is that a warning?”

We’d come out of the woods, and were in the clearing next to the cabin. The moon was rising over the treetops, and I could see Reid’s face glaring down at me. He looked taller somehow. Taller and infinitely more forbidding.

His hand was still on my arm even though we’d stopped walking and were standing facing each other. I could feel the strength of his fingers through my sweater sleeve. Our gazes locked in the moonlight, and something stirred within me, a pulsing of tension that shortened my breath and weakened my knees. He moved closer, just barely, but enough to send my heart pumping like a piston.

“Well, is it?” My voice sounded far more breathless than the walk through the woods warranted.

Reid smiled. “Just call it a piece of brotherly advice,” he said softly.

“You’re not my brother,” I blurted out, then blushed when I saw his smile deepen. His fingers glided up my arm, a mere whisper of a touch, but I shivered in anticipation.

“Well, then,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “We’ll have to redefine our relationship, won’t we?”