someone else was looking out at me. I caught a whiff of citrus and basil, and knew I was in the presence of a second Loa who had possessed Lucinda.
The flames in the glass case surged higher. The paper figure and wooden chair should have been burning, but they weren’t. Marinette’s lips pulled back to bare her sharp, discolored teeth, and her gnarled hands scratched at the inside of the glass with yellowed nails. There was a reason ‘Marinette Bois Sech’ meant ‘Marinette of the dry arms’. As I watched, her body withered in the flames, skin stretching across her bones tight as a mummy, showing every rib and bone. Her fire-red gaze was fixed on me, and she reached toward me, closing her fist in a grasping gesture.
I could not breathe, and my stomach clenched. It was a struggle to stay standing, and I felt as if I were being squeezed by strong arms so tightly I feared my ribs might break.
That’s when I realized two more people were chanting, and saw that Lucinda’s assistants had come out of the meeting room. They stood against the wall, letting the mambo work, but their eyes were closed, faces uplifted and hands open, quietly reciting the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary, a reminder of Voudon’s long, interconnected relationship with Catholicism. I couldn’t speak aloud as I struggled for breath, but I silently started to chant along with them, hoping that it would help Lucinda gain the power she needed to repel the entity in that case before it broke free.
Flames filled the glass case, though I felt no heat. I thought that surely the sprinkler system would turn on, and I feared that the museum would catch fire. Marinette’s hold on me tightened, and I dropped to my knees, gasping, as the world spun around me. A new scent, pipe smoke, told me that Papa Legba was nearby, and I hoped it was not so that he could see my soul across to the afterlife. I gasped once more and fell face-down onto the museum floor. Everything went red as my air-starved body fought to stay conscious, and then black as I lost my fight.
“CASSIDY.” LUCINDA’S VOICE seemed far away, but I followed it, hoping to find my way out of the darkness. “Come to me.” I couldn’t see where I was going, but I held tight to Lucinda’s voice and the sound of chanting. Gradually, the darkness grew lighter, and with a gasp and a shiver, I came back to myself to find that I lay face-up on the cold tile of the exhibition room.
“I’m glad you found your way back,” Lucinda said. She was kneeling next to me, and from the worry in her eyes, I knew that what I had seen and felt had been real.
“Is she –” I turned toward the glass case, but the figure and the flames were once more just made of paper.
“Shh. Don’t say the name. She’s gone,” Lucinda said. Her white pantsuit and pink silk blouse were the perfect background for the large silver necklace she wore, a powerful protective amulet.
“I need to talk to you,” I managed.
Lucinda nodded. “I didn’t figure this was really a social call. But let’s get you off the floor and settled first, shall we?”
Lucinda helped me to my feet and one of her assistants brought a chair from the meeting room and another gave me a glass of cold sweet tea, then her staff went back to work without a word, sparing me more embarrassment. Lucinda waited until I had finished the tea and gotten my breath back before she spoke.
“Did you touch anything before the Loa manifested?” she asked. Lucinda knew my talent, so it was a reasonable place to start.
I shook my head. “No. I knew better. I walked around and looked at the displays and read the signs, but that’s it.”
She glanced toward the glass case again, but nothing had changed. I drew another deep breath and realized that I did not feel bruised or damaged, although in the middle of the attack, I could have sworn that Marinette was going to break a rib or two. Lucinda seemed to guess my thoughts.
“It was a psychic projection,” she answered my unspoken question. “Nasty stuff, and something that takes a lot of power to pull off. But not real. A warning – or a threat.”
I nodded. “And the spirits you called, where they really here?”
Lucinda laughed, a deep, smoky chuckle. “Oh yes child,