“I got something to keep you away,” she said, raising her chin. She was shaking so hard she thought she might throw up. This was Nyarlahotep, the devil-god who might kill Maman Brigitte and her husband and their army. And she was just one skinny little human girl.
And then all the blurriness was gone. She stared hard at him; at dark brows and heavy lashes, deep, dark-brown eyes and a pleasant smile. He was actually pretty good-looking, which was a shock, because he was evil.
“Why do you want to keep me away?” he asked and his voice lulled on a breeze, soft and gentle. He tilted his head. He couldn’t be more than eighteen.
Before she could answer, a tear spilled down his left cheek and spattered in the dust. He dropped to his knees and reached down, raised up his hand and showed her a single red rose petal—had to be one of Maman Brigitte’s.
“I love her,” he murmured. “I love that beautiful coffin queen.”
She stared at him. She didn’t know what to say. Another tear coursed down his face and he raised the petal to his lips. He kissed it. “She is my lady, my life.”
“She’s no one’s life,” Evangeline said. “She’s dead.”
“Where I come from, what I am, there are so many variations on that theme. There’s not just dead and alive. There are worlds…” he trailed off. Then he said, “You don’t need to worry about your mother, dear one. The only thing wrong with her is that she misses you.”
Evangeline’s mouth dropped open. He nodded. “Yes, she and I have talked.”
Her legs went out from underneath her. She fell hard onto the dusty ground and the hex burned into her thigh. She cried out.
He stayed where he was but knelt on one knee like a prince and reached one hand out to her. “Sha?”
“I’m fine,” she said, but tears coursed down her cheeks. “Can you make her come up? My maman?”
He paused. “Maybe.”
And then she remembered about the war. The Crawling Chaos. The tentacles. He wanted to kill Maman Brigitte.
“No,” he said. “I do not want to kill her. I love her.”
Her eyes widened. “Can you read my mind?”
She turned and ran all the way home, swearing to herself that she would stay away.
But the night of the war, the night, la nuit:
Beau took her to the Krewe of Boo Halloween parade because some girl he liked was jiggling her stuff on the Frankenstein float. Hundreds of people with skull faces danced and marched down the streets while thousands of people cheered, and the glowing floats towered into the sky like the Egyptian pyramids—mummies plus werewolves, ghosts, vampires, skeletons. Beau kept hold of her hand while he waved at his girl. The drums were screaming, shrieking, and she told Beau over and over that she was not a little kid and she wanted to go trick-or-treating, not stand there looking stupid in her witch costume. She had a pumpkin-shaped trick-or-treat bag. The hex was lying at the bottom of it and she could smell stinky burning felt. She wished she had made a costume to look like Maman Brigitte, but she hadn’t known the loa then, and anyway, Maman Brigitte was beautiful.
“I’ll come back and meet you here,” Evangeline told Beau, but he wasn’t even listening to her. The drums shouted and her ears pounded and her balloon-heart threatened to lift her up into the sky—up—
She gasped. The sky was pitch black; there were no stars. Not a one. She tugged at Beau’s hand until he looked down at her and said, “What?” in an irritated tone of voice. She pointed upward and he looked, huffed, and started back down at her again. “What?” he said again.
“There are no stars.” Her head was thundering with the drum-talk. Nyarlahotep, Nyarlahotep. Il arrive!
Beau scoffed. “What are you talking about, girl?’
He didn’t—couldn’t—see it. Didn’t understand the drums. Evangeline looked up again, looked hard, hoping that she had imagined it. In the bleak black sky, something blacker swirled and moved, crawling across a field of ebony; tentacles and talons pulsated in and out of existence. Something as big as the moon threw back its head and teeth towering at a height beyond her ability to understand dripped with blood.
“Beau, Beau!” she shouted.
But her cries were lost in the chaos of the parade, and Beau’s attention was riveted on the beautiful Frankenstein girl who sauntered toward him in a tiny black-and-red top and a spangly black skirt. Evangeline yanked his hand. He didn’t even notice. The girl was skakin’ her boobs and telling Beau that she had to be careful because Antoine might see them.
The drums were screaming, shrieking. It gange! He is winning! Nyarlahotep was going to kill Maman Brigitte!
“No!” Evangeline cried, and she dropped to the ground, breaking Beau’s grip. He might have shouted but she didn’t hear him; she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the crowd, arms failing, shouting, “Out of my way! Get out of my way!” She went wild, baring her teeth and hitting and pushing; she would have bitten someone to get them to move if she’d had to. Lots of folks were drunk and they laughed as they wobbled and stepped aside.
Someone shouted, “It’s all just pretend, honey!”
And then she was running for all she was worth to the graveyard, rolled by the drums—
La guerre Maman Brigitte Baron Samedi the war the war the war
—falling and struggling to get back up as the ground buckled. The entire world was pitch dark; green light blazed down from the sky, shoot-shoot-shoot like falling stars; a thousand skeletons charged forward, scrambling over the tombs in the city of the dead; the earth broke and spewed into the air, bringing bones and grinning skulls that assembled into skeletons as they plummeted back against the dirt. They charged forward; she gaped as her cousin Jimmy flew past. In their midst, Baron Samedi rode a sort of float drawn by skeletal horses with black plumes in their manes of smoke.
Then strange, luminous things shambled from the direction opposite the skeletons. They were human-shaped, their faces elongated; they sharpened and became people she could see through: ghosts. Phantoms. And carried on the shoulders of two of them, Maman Brigitte was urging the horde of boogies toward the skeletons.
“Maman Brigitte! Baron Samedi! I have a hex! I can help!” she shouted. She pulled it from her pumpkin-shaped trick-or-treat bag and lifted it up.
A roar exploded the tombs nearest her, blam-blam-blam; the sky broke apart and pieces careened and cartwheeled, slicing away more of the starless night. Skeletons and ghosts dervished and whirled; the Crawling Chaos blared out a sound that threw Evangeline to the ground and made her throw up. Darkness ground down on her like a falling marble angel. Then someone’s hand brushed hers, cold and hard and bony. Whoever it was took her hex. She tried to look up, but it was too much for her. Pain, swirling, vomiting, fainting.
Her eyes closed.
Heat.
Heat.
On her eyelids.
Evangeline groaned and opened her eyes. Golden dawn shone down on her. The air was still. Her witch costume was thick with red dirt.
She rose up on her elbows. All around her, blood-soaked bones were heaped like haystacks—legs, arms, spines, skulls. Crimson. Inert. And on the tallest heap, Baron Samedi was stretched out on his back, arms and legs spread-eagled, head tipped. His mouth was open; his eyes were closed. His suit was soaked in blood. His red rose was missing.