I remembered that I was supposed to pray, but the words and ritual prayers Aggie had instructed me were gone from my mind. Unbidden, other words came to my lips. "I seek wisdom and strength in battle, and purity of heart and mind and soul." With the words, I bent my knees and sank beneath the water. It closed over me, dark, moving sluggishly on my skin, cool and wet, the womb of the world.
Seven times I rose and sank into the bayou, each time asking my prayer. When I came up the last time, Aggie andLisi were on the bank, dressing. The sun had risen. And I was empty and light and so . . . free.
I walked through the deep mud, out of the water, and up the muddy, black clay bank. I shook both feet. Looking down, I was amazed that I didn't seem to have any mud on me. Or maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at all.
Quickly I dressed. Still silent, we put out the fire with bayou water, stirring the coals until it was cold. Together, in a short line of three, we walked back to the car and drove away.
Chapter 12
Would Little Evan go crunch?
I called a part-time cabdriver I used, catching Rinaldo just before he hit the sack after his third shift at a local plant. He showed up pretty quickly; I was only a mile or so from Aggie's street, trudging along in my flip-flops, hands in the pockets of the loose pants, and already sweating in the day's heat. He pulled his bright yellow Bluebird Cab over and hung halfway out the window. "You look like something the cat dragged in."
I was pretty sure the line didn't deserve the amount of laughter it got as I climbed into the front seat, but Rinaldo thought I was a party girl, always needing a ride home after a wild night out, so he probably assumed I was on a giggly high. I slammed the door and buckled in as he tire-crunched through a three-point turn and eased his way toward a paved street in the distance. With a sly grin, he slanted a look at me. "Hungry?"
"Starving. Where's the nearest fast food joint? I could eat a buffalo."
"If I ate like you, I'd be big as a house. There's a Bojangle's near here. Chicken okay?"
"Long as it's fried protein, I'll be happy." My stomach punctuated the statement with a growl. I ate as Rinaldo drove, putting away three Cajun filet biscuits, two egg and cheese biscuits, a sausage biscuit, and three servings of Potato Rounds, all washed down with a gallon of sweet iced tea. I treated Rinaldo to a biscuit and let him watch me eat, which always seemed to give him enormous pleasure and cost me next to nothing. It paid to keep my emergency transportation happy. The meal was wonderful. Half asleep, belly rounded out against the thin fabric of my T-shirt, I lolled all the way to my front door while Rinaldo listened to zydeco music on the radio, his fingers banging out the African rhythm on his steering wheel. I handed him thirty bucks, which was my standard payment, and made it inside just as Molly and the kids came downstairs, Angelina knuckling her eyes.
"Morning, Aunt Jane." She held her arms up, and though Molly had been telling her she was too big to be picked up all the time, I hoisted her to my hip and nuzzled her hair.
She smelled of sleep and pillow and safety. "Did you and the ladies have a nice swim?"
Molly met my eyes over Angie's head as we maneuvered the kids into the kitchen, and she took in my damp hair. I nodded. At this further demonstration of her daughter's rare and potent gift, a gift she was trying to keep under wraps from the human media and government, Molly's reply was carefully neutral. "Sweetheart, how did you know Aunt Jane went swimming?"
"Biscause she did. And they were all naked." Angie yawned, her mouth open wide, face scrunched. "Mama, we can't go home yet. Aunt Boadacia and Aunt Elizabeth is fighting a big bad ugly that showed up in their circle last night. It was purple and red and had big teeth and it wanted to eat them, and Aunt Boadacia says to stay gone, that it would eat Little Evan. Mama, would Little Evan go crunch? Like the deer bones Aunt Jane ate