M.L.N. HANOVER - Unclean Spirits

Aubrey came to my side, helping Sabine support me. I was getting a little light-headed.

“You don’t know,” Karen said. “You can’t. I

laughed. I killed them, and while they died, I laughed. They were my parents.”

“You were forced to laugh,” Mfume said as he slowly, painfully pulled off his own overcoat. “It wasn’t your true feeling. It wasn’t real. This. Now. These feelings are real.”

“I killed them. Oh God, and I killed Michael.”

“You did,” Mfume said, kneeling beside her and draping the dark, bloody coat over her bare shoulders. “Only it wasn’t you. It was the demon that had taken your body and your will. You have done none of this.”

“Kill me,” Karen said. “Please kill me. You don’t understand. If you don’t, I’ll want it. I’ll want it back.”

“You will. And then, later, you won’t. I have been through all of this, and I can guide you through it too. Stay with me,” Mfume said. “If you cannot find peace, I will kill you myself.”

The tears streaming down her cheeks looked like gratitude.

“Promise me,” she said.

“I promise you,” Mfume said.

Karen reached up to him, and he leaned carefully forward, putting his arm around her, cradling her. Her arms lifted up around him, white against the black of his skin and the deep, uncompromising red of his blood-soaked shirt. The rest of us stood silently around them as Karen Black sobbed.

TWENTY-FIVE

How does anyone put a world back together? How does anyone begin again? When everything changes—changes for the better, changes for the worse, a little of both—it isn’t just the world that’s called into question. It’s you too. Who you are, and what that means.

The eight of us sat at the same table Karen had brought us to the first day in New Orleans. The same waiters brought us three huge platters of bright red crawfish. The breeze that stirred the palm fronds was warm, the light pressing down through the hazy late spring sky was probably going to sunburn my

nose. If I hadn’t been quite so thoroughly bruised and abraded, I’d have been wearing shorts and a halter top. I wore slacks that went down to my ankles and a billowy cotton blouse with long sleeves and a high collar. Getting out of the hotel shower that morning, I’d looked like something from the unpleasant part of a David Lynch film.

Sabine, on the other hand, was wearing shorts and a halter top. She looked beautiful and serene and in command of the table in a way utterly unlike a sixteen-year-old orphan girl who’d lost her grandmother two days before. Daria, sitting to her left, fidgeted and frowned in what I thought of as school-uniform chic. The adults—Chogyi Jake, Aubrey, Ex, Dr. Inondé, and my lawyer—seemed like the disciples here; the city revolved around Sabine Glapion now.

“Well,” my lawyer said, scooping the papers out of the way as the third platter of crustacean floated down before her, “I think that puts it all in order. Actually filing will take some time, of course.”

“You’re sure no one’s going to object?” Dr. Inondé said. It turned out he’d grown up in a part of Brooklyn my lawyer knew.

“Emancipation proceedings at Sabine’s age aren’t at all unusual,” my lawyer said. “And with no surviving adult relatives, I can’t see anyone raising an objection.”

“But it does look awfully strange,” Dr. Inondé

said, wringing his hands, “an old man like me being a business partner with, well . . .”

“A little girl?” Sabine said with a grin. She scooped up one of the crawfish, snapped off the head, and sucked at it while Daria made a theatrical gagging sound.

“I’m just saying it looks odd from the outside,” Dr. Inondé said.

“However it looks, it will be legal and binding,” my lawyer said, “and Jayné here has put aside a little something to cover expenses if anything does come up. You have my number. Only call, and I’ll see it’s taken care of.”

Dr. Inondé nodded, but his brow didn’t lose its furrows.

“Something’s bothering you about it?” Aubrey asked.

“He doesn’t want to fold both businesses together,” Sabine said. “Thinks that the Voodoo Heart Temple and the Authentic New Orleans Voodoo Museum ought to stay separate, like two different . . . franchises.”

Her use of the last word was careful and not, I thought, entirely correct. For a moment, the persona slipped, and Sabine wasn’t the voodoo queen of New Orleans, but a kid thrown into an adult world and doing her best. It was temporary. The lost little girl would appear less and less over time, and before long she’d be gone forever, and some new,

still-forming Sabine Glapion would take her place, same as with anyone. Dr. Inondé waved his hands. I picked up a crawfish. Its shell was still hot from the boiler.

“I just think they pull in different types,” he said. “My museum’s a roadside attraction. Very touristy. The Temple is more local. Part of the community.”

“But if you combine those and cut overhead,” Ex said with a shrug.

“It will be better as one thing,” Daria said solemnly. “Believe me, I know.”

Dr. Inondé blinked, and Sabine slapped her sister smartly on the shoulder.

“Don’t go lying to him, or he’s not going to believe you when it’s important,” Sabine said, and Daria grinned impishly.

“There may be a middle path,” Chogyi Jake said, his voice abstracted and thoughtful. The conversation moved on to business planning and maximizing profit, building reputation and reaching out to the tourist trade, what to put on the Web site and whether to advertise outside of the city itself. I let the talk wash over me, a rush of sound and meaning like a wave tugging at the sand.

I was exhausted. My ribs hurt badly. The ACE bandage that I’d wrapped myself with helped some, but it was going to be several deeply uncomfortable weeks before I was whole again.

When our lunch was over, we all walked out to

the street together, Sabine and Dr. Inondé still wrangling about the structure of their new joint business. In truth, it was only the fine points. He would manage and oversee the day-to-day business and draw a salary. Sabine would shoulder the more abstract burden of being the living crossroads, the queen of New Orleans, the avatar of Legba. That and she was going back to finish high school. The combination made my head swim a little.

On the street, a thin white kid was leaning against the wall playing guitar, the case open on the sidewalk with a few crumpled dollars and coins there to confirm its function. Aubrey dropped in a five. We said our good-byes, and as we turned and walked away, Daria ran back, hugging me fiercely around the waist. I held her for a long moment, then let her go pelting after her sister through the narrow, sweating street. My lawyer fell into step beside me.

“That went much better than I’d expected,” she said. “I won’t lie to you, dear. When you said you were getting involved with the Glapions, I was concerned. They aren’t the sort of people you want to be on the wrong side of.”

“It took a while, but I figured that part out,” I said.

“Your uncle would have been proud,” she said. “And about the other matter?”

“I’d like to go too,” Ex said, breaking in.

“I said it was just going to be me,” I said. “I promised.”

Ex’s expression hardened, but he didn’t push back. Part of him was probably relieved.

I DROVE out alone. The lake was familiar by now, the water greenish-brown in the midafternoon sun. Traffic along I-10 was lighter than I expected, and I got off the highway a couple exits earlier than usual rather than get to Pearl River sooner than I’d meant to. I drove, aiming myself down residential streets, letting the time pass.