Barbara Hambly - 03 Graveyard Dust

Given the trouble his curiosity had caused him in the past, January reflected that he should know better. In any case, he had a good idea of what he would find in the darkness where the trees got thick. Though by this time, he told himself, if she'd been there-been part of it-she'd be gone. And what good would it do me to know? He didn't want to admit it, but the brought back memories.

Mats of leaves and pale shaggy curtains of moss quickly obscured the bright cool rectangles of the windows. Light glinted on puddles of standing water, and the ground gave squishily underfoot. Twenty feet from the house, January scented blood again and the heavy grit of drums had quenched smoke still hanging in the air. He listened, but all was still. Even so, he felt their eyes. Not those who'd risked a whipping to sneak out and follow the sound of the drums. Not those who'd sung the keening, eerie, driving rhythms of those songs in a half-forgotten tongue. The eyes he felt on his back were the eyes of those they'd come to see, to touch; to sing to and to give themselves to, flesh and hearts and souls. January knew them well.

Papa Legba, guardian of all gates and doors, warden of the crossroad. Beautiful Ezili, in all her many forms. Zombi-Damballah, the Serpent King. Ogu of the sword and the fire January quickly pushed the thought of that burning-eyed warrior from his mind. And the Baron Samedi, the Baron Cemetery, boneyard god grinning white through the darkness..

A hundred feet from the house, trees had been felled. Here new construction would begin with the first frost of autumn. Embers still glowed where a pit had been dug, quenched now with dirt.

From his pocket January took a box of lucifers, and scratched one on the paper. It showed him the rucked earth where the veves had been drawn, the dark spatters of spilt rum and the darker dribblings of blood. Near the pit a headless black chicken lay, feet still twitching, ringed by fragmented silver Spanish bits. Two plates also lay on the ground, each likewise surrounded by silver. One was heaped with rice and chickpeas. The other held a cigar and a glass of rum.

Those whose aid had been sought were known for liking tobacco, rum, and blood.

January lit another match and stepped closer, careful where he put his feet. The plates were white German porcelain, painted with yellow flowers. Around them, inside the ring of silver, dark against the paler dust of the ground, a line had been drawn in sprinkled earth.

If it had been salt, January knew, it would have been bad enough. Salt was the mark of curses and ill. But this wasn't salt.

It was graveyard dust, a cursing to the death.

There was nothing else, no sign to tell him who might have been here, who had done the rite.

She's probably home in bed. Nothing to do with this at all.

January crossed himself and walked swiftly back to the house. Though the drums had ceased, he seemed to hear them, knocking in the growl of the thunder, in the darkness at his back.

Colonel Pritchard was waiting for him on the gallery. "When I pay four men for five hours I don't expect to get only four hours and a half." The American studied January with light tan eyes that seemed too small for his head. As far as January knew, the man had never been a colonel of anything-there was certainly nothing of the military in his bearing-but he knew better than to omit the title in speaking to him.

"No, Colonel," he said, in his best London English. "I am most sorry, sir. I heard a noise, as if of an intruder, around..."

"I have servants to deal with noises if that's what you heard." The dust-colored eyes cut to Hannibal, who smiled sunnily under his graying mustache; Pritchard's mouth writhed with disgust. "And when I pay for four men for five hours I don't expect to get only three men and a half. And you a white man, too." He plucked the flask from the pocket of Hannibal's shabby, long-tailed black coat. Pulling the cork, the Colonel made another face. "Opium! I reckon that's what happens when you spend your days playing music with Negroes." He hurled the flask away, and January heard it smash against the brick of the kitchen wall.

"I suppose that means an end to the champagne as well," Hannibal noted philosophically as they followed the master of the house back up the stairs. He coughed heavily, January reaching out to catch him by the arm as he half-doubled over with the violence of the spasm. Pritchard glanced over his shoulder at them from the top of the stairs, impatience and disdain on his heavyfeatured face. "Just as well. I think we've seen the last of the chamber pot, too."

They remained in the ballroom, under the Colonel's sour eye, until two in the morning. Despite the open windows, the room only grew hotter, and the pain in January's back and shoulders increased until he thought he would prefer to die. Your back carries the music, he was always telling his pupils. Strong back, light hands. It surprised him that he was able to play at all.

At around eleven, after a particularly gay mazurka, Aeneas came to the dais with a tray of lemonade. "What's that?" Pritchard loomed at once from among the potted palms. "Who told you to give these men anything?"

"Mrs. Pritchard did, sir." The cook's English wasn't good, but he took great care with it, as if he feared the consequences of the smallest mistake.

"Mrs. Pritchard-" The Colonel turned to his wife, who, probably anticipating the objection, had positioned herself not far away. "I thought I made it abundantly clear that I'm paying these men in coin, after they have satisfactorily completed their duties, and not by permitting them to make themselves free with my substance."

"It's such a very hot night, Colonel," she said soothingly. Her English was just as awkward-and just as wary-as the cook's. "And, you understand, it is what is done..."

"It is not 'done' in this house..."

During their low-voiced altercation Aeneas stepped back beside the piano where January sat and whispered, "There's a boy back in the kitchen asking after you, Michie January. Says he's got to see you. Says he's your nephew."

"Gabriel?" January looked up, trying to cover the fact that his arms were too weak from the strain of playing to reach for the lemonade. It was far later than his sister Olympe would ever have permitted any child of hers to be on the streets.

Panic touched him at the recollection of the drums, the blood...

"That's what he says his name is, yes, sir. He says he has a message for you, but he wouldn't tell me what." January glanced at his employer. Pritchard was already looking over at him, clearly expecting the next dance to start up. "I don't think I'm going to be able to get over there until the end of this."

Equally impossible, of course, that the Colonel would consent to write out permission for any of his servants to escort the boy home.

"He's no trouble," Aeneas assured January. "I'll tell him he has to wait. He's already asked if he can help with the tarts and the negus."

That certainly sounded like Gabriel. But as he maneuvered his arms back to where the edge of the piano would take the weight of them and struck up the country dance "Mutual Promises," January felt his heart chill with dread. Something had happened. He felt sick inside.

Let me introduce you to Monsieur le Cholera, he had said to the drums that had mocked him for the hard-won security of his freedom, for the complex beauties of the music that was his life. January could still remember the first time he'd met St.-Denis Janvier, the sugar broker who had purchased his mother, himself, and his sister Olympe. Could still see in his mind the man's close-fitting coat of bottle-green satin and the fancy-knit patterns of his stockings, the eight gold fobs and seals that hung on his watch chain. Could still feel the rush of relief that went through him when that paunchy little man had told him, I have purchased your beautiful mother in order to set her free, and you, too, and your sister. Relief unspeakable. I'll be safe now.