Maman Brigitte was a loa, a goddess, the Queen of Graveyards and the wife of Baron Samedi, who was the King of Death. It was to summon her that Evangeline had swept the streets of one of Maman Brigitte’s domains today. This was the third time the lady had appeared to her.
“Bonjour, ma petite,” Maman Brigitte said. The beautiful loa spoke French even though she had originally come from Ireland. “How the fuck you doin’, Evangeline?”
Evangeline giggled in spite of everything. Maman Brigitte also swore a blue streak.
“I’m sad and scared, Maman, is how I’m doing,” Evangeline said, and Maman Brigitte pulled aside her veil to let Evangeline snuggle inside, then drew it back over her. She had turquoise eyelids and long black eyelashes, crimson lipstick on her bone lips. The crown of her wavy red hair was clustered with roses like a Day of the Dead sugar skull. “All I was doing was listening for my mother’s heartbeat. But then I heard the drums. They say a bad man is coming. They say the bayou is shaking.”
“How do you know the drum language?” Maman Brigitte asked, and Evangeline blinked, thinking the question over.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know it was a language. I thought it was just what they said.”
Maman Brigitte brushed springy coils of hair away from Evangeline’s forehead. She had cigarette breath. She said, “It’s a gift then, sha. You gotta a knowledge other living folks don’t.” Her teeth clacked. She had lots of them and they were very white. “The drums are right. He’s gonna show up in three nights. On Halloween night. And you can’t be anywhere around here when he does.”
Evangeline’s heart did a little leapfrog. “Why not? Who is he?”
“The Black Man.” Her words were a whisper of a whisper. “Old Pharaoh come out of Egypt’s land. He gonna turn the bayou red and the moon green, m’enfante. He’s bringing his army. You gotta steer clear. You gotta swear to me that you let us dead folk take care of it.”
“He’s got an army?” Evangeline cried.
“Ssh, ssh, Evangeline,” Maman Brigitte cautioned. “The Evil One has good ears. C’mere, sha.” She eased Evangeline out of her lap and stood. Then she took Evangeline’s hand and together they climbed off the pile of red bricks. Maman Brigitte’s black skirts flared out, a triangle, as she took Evangeline’s hand. Sometimes skin, sometimes bone.
Together they walked down the dead road toward the saddest part of the graveyard, where none of the graves were intact and weeds tangled one over the other over another like kudzu. Marble angels lay in mud with their wings broken off, bricks were sinking; a fragment that read ROBICHAUX was drowning in a rain puddle.
And Maman Brigitte’s husband Baron Samedi, King of the Dead, was sitting on a big chunk of plaster, legs crossed, top hat tilted, smoking a cigar. His skin was dark and his eyes were soulful and deep-set. His eyebrows and eyelashes were thick. His nose was hooked and elegant. He wore a black suit with narrow white stripes and a blood-red rose was pinned to his lapel. Or maybe it just grew there from out of his heart. Evangeline wasn’t sure. But she had seen him two times before, and that same rose was always there, but it was real.
“Bonjour, bell’enfante,” he said. “Ça va?”
“She knows,” Maman Brigitte cut in. “Knows the whole thing.”
“Not the whole thing,” Evangeline said, and Baron Samedi chuckled.
“I’m guessing she don’t know much.” He tapped his cigar; a chunk of ash fluttered toward the rain puddle. “There’s going to be a war between folks like us, sha. Dead folks. You need to stay outta the way.”
“I already fucking said that,” Maman Brigitte informed him.
“Who is the Black Man?” Evangeline asked. Most of the folks she knew were black.
The baron looked at his queen and she shook her head. “She’s too young for this,” Maman Brigitte said.
“From where I sit, she’s nearly grown up,” Baron Samedi replied.
“Tais toi. She’s a human,” Maman Brigitte said. King Death puffed smoke out of his cheeks and fished a piece of tobacco from between his teeth. “I’m telling you, little one. This is not your affair.”
“Affair,” Baron Samedi said. “Yes, an affair.” He gestured with his cigar. “Tell your little girl there, Brigitte. This living bebe who adores you. Tell her that’s why her precious new maman is bringing hell out our way.”
Maman Brigitte put her arm around Evangeline and squatted down, coming nose to nose with her. Her ghost eyes darted; she licked her lips. She gave Evangeline a little squeeze and said, “The Black Man is in love with me.”
“Oh,” Evangeline said. Her voice was very small. She was a little lost. Was Maman Brigitte her new maman now? A queen? Could she have more than mother? She didn’t really know what to say. “Do you love him?”
Baron Samedi broke into peals of laughter that clanged like church bells. He rocked back and forth like a bell, too. Maman Brigitte huffed.
“Of course I don’t. How could I, when I got a man like this?” She waved her fingerbones at the baron.
What about the two mothers, then? She loved her maman. She didn’t remember her very well, but if she didn’t love her, she wouldn’t be crying over her, right? Was it all right to get a new one?
“Well, it could be like children. My gramma has seven grandchildren but she loves each one of us the same,” Evangeline said. “And I think my old maman loved more than one man.”
The baron roared with glee and Maman Brigitte smiled and kissed Evangeline on the forehead. Maybe she had lips now but maybe they were still bone. Everything drifted in and out, then snapped into focus, then blurred again.
“This one understands the complexities of life, her,” Baron Samedi chortled. “Told you she was grown up.”
Maman Brigitte narrowed her eyes. “You stay away from my little girl. She ain’t got folk and she misses her human maman.”
“She got plenty of folk,” the baron said. “Some of ‘em here and some of ‘em down below with us.”
“Down below? Do you know my cousin Jimmy?” Evangeline asked. Jimmy had been shot in an alley last year. Folks said it was over a woman. There was a lot of that going around.
“Jimmy Chevalier? Oui, I do,” Baron Samedi informed her. “He’s in my army. He’s got a bazooka made of hexes. He gonna shoot it at Nyarlahotep. That’s my wife’s boyfriend’s name.”
Baron Samedi’s smile shifted as he looked over at Maman Brigitte and pulled the brim of his top hat even with his eyes. His cigar smoke rose lazily in the damp, gray air. Maybe it formed the shape of a skull.
“Are my other dead people in your army?” she asked, crossing her fingers behind her back for luck.
“Oui, sha, they sure are,” he said. “Got more cousins of yours. And they are gonna rise in three nights to kill that ol’ black man.”
Evangeline’s balloon-heart filled with more air. The air whooshed into her throat and made it impossible for her to swallow. Finally she ground out the words: “Is my real maman in your army?”