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downstairs, fleeing to the cabins at the slightest suspicion of her presence. But to Jocundra's knowledge, Otille left her rooms only once between the day of Papa's death and the completion of the veve - a period of more than two weeks - and then it was to oversee the punishment of Clea, Simpkins and Downey. She had them tied to the porch railing of the main house and beaten with bamboo canes, the beating applied by a fat, swarthy man apparently imported especially for the occasion. Clea screeched and sobbed, Downey whimpered and begged, Simpkins - to Jocundra's surprise - howled like a dog with every stroke. The 'friends' huddled together in front of the porch, sullen and fearful, and in the manner of an evil plantation queen, Otille stood cold and aloof in the doorway. Her black mourning dress blended so absolutely with the boards that it seemed to Jocundra her porcelain face and hands were disembodied, inset, the antithesis of the ebony faces and limbs inside.
Without Otille's demands to contend with, Donnell relaxed and became less withdrawn, though he still would not talk about his thoughts or his days among the pets. But for a time it was as if they were back at Mr Brisbeau's. They walked and made love and explored the crannies of the house. They were free of pets and 'friends,' of everyone except the Baron, who continued to exercise the role of bodyguard. Yet as the veve's date of completion neared, Donnell grew edgy. 'What if it doesn't work?' he would ask, and she would answer, 'You believe it's going to, don't you?' He would nod, appear confident for a while, but the question always popped up again. 'If it doesn't,' she suggested, 'there's always the project.' He said he would have to think about that.
Jocundra had visited the construction site often, but because of the swarm of workmen and the veve's unfinished state, she had gained no real impression of how it would look. And so, on the night Donnell first used it, when she climbed to the top of the last conical hill and gazed down into the depression where it lay, she was taken aback by its appearance. Three tons of copper, seventy feet long and fifty wide, composed of welded strips and mounted on supports a couple of feet high driven into the ground. Surrounding the clearing was a jungly thickness of oaks, many of them dead and vine-shrouded, towered over by a lone cypress; the spot from which Jocundra, Otille and the Baron were to observe was arched over by two epiphyte-laden branches. Floodlights were hung in the trees, angled downward and rippling up the copper surfaces. Bats, dazed by the lights, skimmed low above the veve and thumped into the oak trunks. The ground below it had been bulldozed into a circle of black dirt, and this made the great design seem like a glowing brand poised to sear the earth.
'I certainly hope this works,' said Otille without emotion. She still wore her mourning dress for Papa, and Jocundra believed her grief was real. A cold, ritual grief, but deeply felt all the same. Beside her, the Baron settled a video camera on his shoulder.
'Good luck,' Jocundra whispered, hugging Donnell.
'The worse that can happen is that I fall off,' he said. He tried a smile but it didn't fit. Then he gave her another hug and went down the hill. He looked insignificant against the mass of copper, his jeans and shirt ridiculously modern in conjunction with its archaic pattern. She had the feeling it might suddenly uncoil, revealing itself to have been a copper serpent all along, and swallow him up, and she crossed her fingers behind her back, wishing she could come closer to a prayer than a child's charm, that like her mother she could find comfort at the feet of an idol, or that like Donnell she could shape her faith into the twists and turns of the veve.
If even he could.
What if it didn't work?
Shortly after he began walking atop the veve, a wind kicked up. Jocundra had been expecting it, but Otille became flustered. She darted her head from side to side as if hearing dread whispers, and she picked at the folds of her skirt. She started to say something to Jocundra, but instead took a deep breath and thinned her mouth. The Baron glued his eye to the viewfinder, unmindful of the wind, which now was circling the