Gillian Anderson - The Sound of Seas

Leaving Anita in the apartment, Ben dashed up to the roof. Madame Langlois was now sitting on a lawn chair that was bolted to the roof and Enok was behind her. She was facing south. The smell of cigar smoke reached Ben as he approached.

“I thought you said you had no matches.”

“Someone had a birthday recently, there were matches in the kitchen,” she said.

Ben noticed them, now, in Enok’s hand. “It was Dr. O’Hara’s birthday,” he said absently, longingly. He had to admire the woman’s resourcefulness. “What made you come up here?”

“You never know where a habit may take you,” she said.

Ben eyed the woman. “Is that all?” he asked. “This is just a place to smoke?”

“Smoking is never just to smoke,” she replied. “It helps me think. And I think that Dr. O’Hara was up here.”

“Many times,” Ben replied.

“I say recently,” she said, raising her arm and pointing to the southeast while she puffed on her cigar. “Very recently. The snake flows there. It tells me of a death.”

“In the past or future?”

“It already happened,” she said.

Ben peered out. “That’s the direction of the park where Caitlin was found.”

“It is not she who is dead,” Madame Langlois said confidently.

“Do you know exactly when she was here?” Ben asked, approaching her under Enok’s watchful eye. “Or rather, was she here in body?”

“In body and soul,” Madame Langlois assured him.

Ben looked back at the woman, disapproval in his expression. “Madame, I’m sure you understand how frustrating this is for me.”

“You are in love.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. You say Dr. O’Hara is alive but in danger, yet that isn’t much to go on. Can you please tell me anything more?”

It was Enok who answered. His eyes were hard, his voice even harder.

“You must learn to listen,” he said as the smoke from his mother’s cigar swirled past his face. “You do that for your livelihood, I am told, yet you are lost in words and not meaning.”

“I don’t agree,” Ben said. “I struggle every minute with nuance and subtext—”

“You deconstruct, that is all you do,” Enok said. “Dr. O’Hara tried . She was fully committed. She heard. You talk about going to your job. You only hear your own voice.” He touched his own forehead, right between the eyebrows.

“The third eye?” Ben said. “That’s a Hindu concept, the seat of wisdom—”

“It is present in many cultures,” Enok told him. “I was with the doctor when she heard other voices. Heard, not just listened.”

“I was with her on one of those occasions as well,” Ben shot back, “and Dr. O’Hara—Caitlin—has now paid a price for ‘hearing’ without fully understanding.”

“She saved the child from the serpent,” Madame Langlois said pleasantly. “We here are not ready for it.”

“Are you talking about a cult?” Ben asked. “Snake worshippers?”

It sounded trivial as he said it. Not silly, but small. Madame Langlois confirmed this impression.

“Not worshippers,” she replied. “The most important loa himself.”

“The god?” Ben said, making sure he understood.

“It is so.”

“What is he doing?”

“You saw,” she replied. “Damballa, the serpent loa , the Sky Father, the creator of all that live—he sent his herald. His endless coils that fill the heavens— they are coming.”

“I saw lights inside the smoke,” Ben said. “I thought those were what you meant by ‘they.’”

“The loa ’s skin will be shed again, not to create the seas but to create new living things,” she continued as if she had not heard. She blew smoke at the sky. It formed a sinuous shape before dissipating to the southeast. She cackled low in her throat. “He is gone. He must go to his job too.”

Ben was more confused than ever. He did need to go to work, not just to work but also to clear his head. He turned to Enok.

“I have to leave and you cannot stay up here,” he said.

“Why not?” Enok asked.

“Because Dr. O’Hara’s father is coming and he will not understand. Would you agree to go somewhere else?”

Enok deferred to his mother. She shrugged. “Okay. Loa knows me. He will find me wherever I am.”

Ben didn’t like that, and now he wasn’t sure he wanted to take them to his apartment. He did not believe his renter’s insurance would cover the kind of damage a giant Damballa made of smoke could inflict. He also wasn’t sure his neighbors would understand. But he suddenly had another idea.

Motioning them to come along, Madame Langlois carefully extinguished her cigar on the roof then tucked it back in her pocket. Then the Langloises followed Ben down the stairs, Enok hovering attentively by his mother as she descended between the two men. Ben stopped by the apartment to let Anita know he had found the couple and was taking them somewhere else. Then he texted Eilifir and told him to meet them at the front door of the brownstone at once. When Eilifir asked why, Ben said he would let him know when they got there.

Ben walked ahead of the mother and son. A brisk wind had kicked up while they were still on the roof, and even the bright sunlight could not dampen the chill. Eilifir was waiting by a tree just west of the door to Caitlin’s building. He remained there, his smartphone in his left hand, his right hand in his pocket. He kept it there even after Ben had emerged, followed by his guests. Ben approached the man, watching Eilifir as he would watch a diplomat at the United Nations: with innate mistrust.

“Have you ever seen these people?” Ben asked.

Eilifir peered over his sunglasses. “Only photographs taken by the individual I relieved,” he said. “Who are they?”

“Vodou practitioners from Haiti,” Ben said.

“You have made some interesting friends,” Eilifir remarked as Enok and his mother walked up.

Ben introduced them. Eilifir acknowledged them with a slight dip of his head.

“Caitlin met them there while working on… this matter,” Ben went on. “They came here because, according to Madame Langlois, they knew she’d be in danger.”

“Great danger,” the woman corrected him.

Eilifir smiled. Ben did not.

“The woman has some kind of connection with Caitlin O’Hara,” Ben went on, “though I’m not sure how that works: snakes seem to be a key. This woman says a snake god is coming.”

“ Is coming,” she said with emphasis.

“Caitlin saw a snake in a vision,” Ben went on. “The madame invoked some kind of snake—a mirage, I guess you’d call it, upstairs.”

“A harbinger,” the woman gently corrected him again.

“That’s the foundation of—what word did you use? A ‘connection’?” Eilifir said mockingly.

Ben nodded. “I have to agree it’s not very impressive, except for one thing. The arm motions in Galderkhaani, the curlicue designs in their writing—they’re all very serpentine.”

“So are the movements of a ballet dancer, and the art form did not originate in Galderkhaan,” Eilifir remarked. “It is of fairly recent vintage. I have season tickets to the Kirov.”

“There’s more, but I can’t go into it now,” Ben said impatiently.

“I’m certain there is,” Eilifir remarked. “What would you suggest I do with this information—and them?”

“I can’t leave them here and I can’t take them with me to work,” Ben said. “I assume your people have a base somewhere, a headquarters.”

Eilifir regarded Ben. “Are you pumping me for information, Mr. Moss?”

“Jesus, no,” Ben said. “Friend, I don’t give a good damn about you and your associates. In fact, I’ve had it with cloak-and-dagger, and I certainly have no patience for it now.”