Chapter Twelve
Marie Paris-Glapion was a handsome woman. She arrived just a while after sunrise the next day, as Jeremy had predicted. Cinnamon saw her walking up the row of oaks that led the way to Eau d’Noir, her long black dress picking up the dust from the path, a red and gold fringed shawl over her shoulder and her hair tied up in a tall white turban with a red stripe. Jeremy had said that she was fifty years old, and if that was true she looked very well for her age. Her gate was strong, and she stood straight. She carried a rather large carpetbag at her side, and didn’t seem to mind the bulk.
Wanting to meet her at the door, Cinnamon quickly finished tying her hair into a braid, and stood with the slightest pain. She reluctantly reached for her cane, mentally promising herself that it would only be a few more days until she wouldn’t need it anymore.
The smells of bacon and eggs from downstairs told her that Evangeline was already awake and had a head start on the day.
Leaning lightly on her cane, and with Tybalt and Ajax at her heels, Cinnamon carefully descended the stairs and walked across the foyer, opening the front door just as Marie began ascending the front porch.
“Welcome to Eau d’Noir! You must be Marie Paris-Glapion! Won’t you please come in?”
Marie stopped a moment and surveyed the mansion, then stepped across the threshold.
“You ought not to invite a person in like that, child. It invites in bad spirits, too. Just say welcome and smile, hold open the door, but don’t be asking nobody inside,” Marie said, taking off her shawl and hanging it on the coatrack.
Cinnamon was about to object, but remembered that Jeremy had told her about Marie’s voodoo practices, and remembered also that she had promised to indulge it. So she bit her lip, and instead simply smiled.
“Whooooo!” exclaimed Marie, putting her hands on her hips and looking around the house, “You ladies sure have been busy. But some things you know you can’t clean out with a broom and a mop. Dark memories live here, I could feel them just walking up to this house. Dark shadows all over this home.”
And with that, Marie set her bag on the floor, rummaged through it a moment, and pulled out a dried herb, which she held aloft, and then set afire. She blew it out and began to walk through the house, wafting the smoke through the hallways and rooms, murmuring something in French while she did.
Evangeline came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, a quizzical look on her face. Cinnamon shrugged and looked curiously after their new guest.
“Jeremy kinda warned us she’d be a strange one.” Cinnamon said.
“What’s she doing?” asked Evangeline, leaning to one side to peer after Marie down the hallway.
“Voodoo, I reckon.” Cinnamon shrugged.
Whatever Marie was burning smelled good, and strange though she might be, her presence was somehow comforting.
A moment later Marie emerged from the hallway, produced another dried bundle, and proceeded to other parts of the house.
“I’ll want some breakfast when I’ve done purifying!” Marie’s voice echoed to the girls from the recesses of the mansion, “I can smell the bacon and I’ll want eggs and toast with butter. Don’t overcook those eggs, mind! I like to sop up the yolks with my toast!”
Marie’s voice died into the dim of the hallways.
“What’s that she’s burning?” asked Cinnamon, turning to Evangeline.
“I don’t know,” she turned to Cinnamon and made a face, “Magic, probably.”
Cinnamon stifled a giggle, feeling rude for the inclination at all, internally justifying herself because she had mostly laughed at Evangeline’s face, not her insinuations. She then took Evangeline’s arm and the girls walked back to the kitchen.
Cinnamon had never been able to decide definitively whether or not she really believed in magic or not. Sometimes she was in a practical, pragmatic kind of mood, and she didn’t believe at all, and sometimes she was pensive and alert; those were the times that she believed.
There had been a travelling carnival that came through her town when she was about fifteen; fire-eaters, jugglers, clowns and strongmen. She had gone with her siblings to see the elephants and spectacle- but she had gathered her courage to go someplace that she had always wanted to go but had never been allowed; the fortune-teller’s wagon. She had caught a glimpse of the old crone in the wagon as she had passed by. A blonde-haired, barely noticeably pregnant woman was just leaving, her eyes buried into a handkerchief as a burly gypsy man helped her down the stairs. It was odd, but Cinnamon was comforted by the sight of the crying, blonde woman. She’d been told before that fortune-tellers only told you what you wanted to hear; but this fortune-teller had clearly told the blonde woman something she did not want to hear. Cinnamon could usually tell when people were saying things just because it was what the listener wanted to hear, and it made her angry. It was like when she was about to jump off a high bridge into the river- nothing was more irritating than the reassurances of friends that ‘it wasn’t scary’. Liars. Why not tell her the truth? It was terrifying, yes. So prepare.
The burly gypsy man eyed her as she pattered quickly up the stairs into the travelers wagon. She stopped just in the doorway, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness, while making sure she was deep enough into the wagon so that her siblings would not spot her.
Fortune-tellers were witches and gypsies were thieves, she had been told. Both deserved to be stoned.
Cinnamon heard the old woman before she saw her. It took a little while for her eyes to adjust.
“Welcome, little girl.”
Still not quite seeing, Cinnamon rubbed her eyes, “I’m fifteen.”
The crone laughed, “Your body is fifteen, little girl. Your eyes are those of a frightened ten-year-old. They treat you roughly at home. Sit down.”
Cinnamon was about to defend her caretakers, but the old woman had cut her off, and so she just sat down as she was told.
“I’ve got just this silver chain to pay you with, fortune-teller,” Cinnamon said, taking the old silver chain from around her neck.
The gypsy woman reached out her hand, and as Cinnamon dropped the silver into the old woman’s hand, the woman wrapped a wrinkled and weathered old hand around Cinnamon’s white wrist. She was surprisingly strong.
The crone’s eyes were small and reminded Cinnamon very much of the elephant she had seen just a few minutes before slipping away from her party. The old woman’ s eyes narrowed as she opened Cinnamon’s palm and examined it.
“You will have a great deal of turmoil and pain in your heart and in your mind. There are those who will mistreat you and use you, and they will weaken your resolve. They will weaken your spirit; and without your spirit you will not survive what is to come. You must learn to be brave; but don’t confuse courage and stupidity. You are not as strong as those who would domineer you; and you cannot be a bear and throw them off. You must be a fox. Never forget to be a fox. You will not find a great deal of happiness in love, and if you do it will not be for a long while- you may never have children. Your feet will lead you to a lonely path, and a swampy path- to a very unexpected place where the past and the present will combine.”
The fortune-teller dropped Cinnamon’s wrist, and handed her a stack of cards.
“Shuffle them,” she instructed, “and when you feel you are done, set out four of them facing down.”
Cinnamon did so.
“Eight of swords,” said the old woman, “This card shows your near past. You are trapped. But take heart, little girl, this trap is greatly one of your own making, in your own mind.”
She turned over the next card, “The World. This is your present. You feel the world on your shoulders. Responsibility. Trouble.”
Cinnamon opened her mouth to ask a question, but a crooked finger from the gypsy woman shot up and silenced her.
“Card three,” she continued, “Is the near future. This is The Hanged Man; this is when you will reach the crossroads. When you will see how much strength you have preserved, you will see if you will escape your cage.”
She held the last card in her hands a moment before laying it on the candle-lit table.
“The Devil,” she revealed then murmured a moment in what sounded to Cinnamon like Russian.
She began to offer more explanation, but suddenly looked back down at the cards as if she had missed something before and had just noticed. She grabbed up Cinnamon’s hand again and looked at the palm.
Slowly, she lifted to old, wise eyes.
“Who are you?” She asked.
“What?” Cinnamon stood, suddenly alarmed, “No one. What’s going on?”
“Rasputin,” the woman said, her face filled with shock, fear, and admiration.
“No,” said Cinnamon, fumbling for her things, “Well, it’s Rassmussen.”
“Little girl, little girl. What terrors you will see in your life!”
The fortune-teller took the necklace chain Cinnamon had given her and put it back around Cinnamon’s neck.
“You’ll put it to better use than an old hag like me,” she smiled and kissed the tips of her fingers, transferring the kiss to Cinnamon’s forehead.
Cinnamon, now a bit startled, stumbled out the door with what was left of her wits.
“Eh!” called the old woman, and Cinnamon turned just as the woman threw a fistful of red dust into the air, which perfumed the campsite, and settled in her red hair. It was cinnamon.
“Cinnamon! Rasputin!” called the old woman after Cinnamon’s retreating back.
Cinnamon was jerked out of her memories and back into the present when she absent-mindedly placed a bare finger on the hot stovetop. She jerked her hand back and stuck the unfortunate finger in her mouth, cursing.
Evangeline laughed.
“Off in la-la land again? I can always tell. You get this look in your eyes. Like you’re on a mountain, overlooking an open valley.”
“Or a volcano, about to stick my finger in!” lamented Cinnamon, removing her finger long enough to assess the damage.
Evangeline already had a cool, wet washcloth, which Cinnamon accepted gratefully.
“That was awful stupid of me,” Cinnamon regretted, wrapping the rag around her hand.
Marie’s footsteps were heard once again, just a moment before she pushed open the kitchen door and came in. She looked over the two girls, then noticed the plate of breakfast Evangeline had made up sitting on the table. With a contented look on her face, she sat down and started eating.
“I’ve burned sage throughout the main hallways of your house, girls, but we’ll need to go into every room,” Marie said between bites.
“Yes, I saw that,” commented Evangeline, taking a sip of her black coffee, “What’s that all about again?”
“Cleansing the bad spirits from the house. Won’t get rid of the strong ones, but if there’s anything just waking up or passing through, it’ll quiet them up pretty good.”
“Bad spirits,” Cinnamon repeated, leaning on her cane and helping herself into a chair at the breakfast table, “Do you mean ghosts?”
Marie took a bite of bacon, washed it down with a gulp of coffee and replied, “Ghosts, yes. I reckon there might be a ghost flittering through these hallways.”
She took another sip of coffee and turned to Cinnamon, “Mr. Jeremy told me to watch out for you. That I’ll do. Mr. Jeremy and I have been close friends for many, many years, and God knows I owe him a favor. I’ll be watching over you, little redhead,” she turned briefly to Evangeline, “and you too girl, but I’ll not be doing it for you. I’m here on Mr. Jeremy’s behest. Now, Mr. Jeremy would have my head if I told you what really is creeping about your plantation at night, but I’ll tell you more than he will and this is truth; you obey everything I say and you might not end up with your throat ripped out.”
That announcement was unexpected. Marie had not said it in an unfriendly way, not as if she was issuing a threat, but in a matter-of-fact, need-to-know kind of way. She was not trying to frighten the girls, and she took no self-righteous, smug satisfaction in withholding information; she was much like military commander burdened with an unpleasant but necessary task. It wasn’t fear in the back of her eyes- it was resolve. The kind of resolve that was a certain fortification against a strong enemy, an enemy known intimately and extensively.
The three of them finished breakfast in relative silence, and afterwards Marie gave Evangeline and Cinnamon large flour sacks filled with finely ground brick dust, and instructions to place a double in of it across every window, every doorway, and every fireplace.
Evangeline and Cinnamon didn’t much feeling like joking about magic anymore.
Marie Paris-Glapion was a handsome woman. She arrived just a while after sunrise the next day, as Jeremy had predicted. Cinnamon saw her walking up the row of oaks that led the way to Eau d’Noir, her long black dress picking up the dust from the path, a red and gold fringed shawl over her shoulder and her hair tied up in a tall white turban with a red stripe. Jeremy had said that she was fifty years old, and if that was true she looked very well for her age. Her gate was strong, and she stood straight. She carried a rather large carpetbag at her side, and didn’t seem to mind the bulk.
Wanting to meet her at the door, Cinnamon quickly finished tying her hair into a braid, and stood with the slightest pain. She reluctantly reached for her cane, mentally promising herself that it would only be a few more days until she wouldn’t need it anymore.
The smells of bacon and eggs from downstairs told her that Evangeline was already awake and had a head start on the day.
Leaning lightly on her cane, and with Tybalt and Ajax at her heels, Cinnamon carefully descended the stairs and walked across the foyer, opening the front door just as Marie began ascending the front porch.
“Welcome to Eau d’Noir! You must be Marie Paris-Glapion! Won’t you please come in?”
Marie stopped a moment and surveyed the mansion, then stepped across the threshold.
“You ought not to invite a person in like that, child. It invites in bad spirits, too. Just say welcome and smile, hold open the door, but don’t be asking nobody inside,” Marie said, taking off her shawl and hanging it on the coatrack.
Cinnamon was about to object, but remembered that Jeremy had told her about Marie’s voodoo practices, and remembered also that she had promised to indulge it. So she bit her lip, and instead simply smiled.
“Whooooo!” exclaimed Marie, putting her hands on her hips and looking around the house, “You ladies sure have been busy. But some things you know you can’t clean out with a broom and a mop. Dark memories live here, I could feel them just walking up to this house. Dark shadows all over this home.”
And with that, Marie set her bag on the floor, rummaged through it a moment, and pulled out a dried herb, which she held aloft, and then set afire. She blew it out and began to walk through the house, wafting the smoke through the hallways and rooms, murmuring something in French while she did.
Evangeline came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, a quizzical look on her face. Cinnamon shrugged and looked curiously after their new guest.
“Jeremy kinda warned us she’d be a strange one.” Cinnamon said.
“What’s she doing?” asked Evangeline, leaning to one side to peer after Marie down the hallway.
“Voodoo, I reckon.” Cinnamon shrugged.
Whatever Marie was burning smelled good, and strange though she might be, her presence was somehow comforting.
A moment later Marie emerged from the hallway, produced another dried bundle, and proceeded to other parts of the house.
“I’ll want some breakfast when I’ve done purifying!” Marie’s voice echoed to the girls from the recesses of the mansion, “I can smell the bacon and I’ll want eggs and toast with butter. Don’t overcook those eggs, mind! I like to sop up the yolks with my toast!”
Marie’s voice died into the dim of the hallways.
“What’s that she’s burning?” asked Cinnamon, turning to Evangeline.
“I don’t know,” she turned to Cinnamon and made a face, “Magic, probably.”
Cinnamon stifled a giggle, feeling rude for the inclination at all, internally justifying herself because she had mostly laughed at Evangeline’s face, not her insinuations. She then took Evangeline’s arm and the girls walked back to the kitchen.
Cinnamon had never been able to decide definitively whether or not she really believed in magic or not. Sometimes she was in a practical, pragmatic kind of mood, and she didn’t believe at all, and sometimes she was pensive and alert; those were the times that she believed.
There had been a travelling carnival that came through her town when she was about fifteen; fire-eaters, jugglers, clowns and strongmen. She had gone with her siblings to see the elephants and spectacle- but she had gathered her courage to go someplace that she had always wanted to go but had never been allowed; the fortune-teller’s wagon. She had caught a glimpse of the old crone in the wagon as she had passed by. A blonde-haired, barely noticeably pregnant woman was just leaving, her eyes buried into a handkerchief as a burly gypsy man helped her down the stairs. It was odd, but Cinnamon was comforted by the sight of the crying, blonde woman. She’d been told before that fortune-tellers only told you what you wanted to hear; but this fortune-teller had clearly told the blonde woman something she did not want to hear. Cinnamon could usually tell when people were saying things just because it was what the listener wanted to hear, and it made her angry. It was like when she was about to jump off a high bridge into the river- nothing was more irritating than the reassurances of friends that ‘it wasn’t scary’. Liars. Why not tell her the truth? It was terrifying, yes. So prepare.
The burly gypsy man eyed her as she pattered quickly up the stairs into the travelers wagon. She stopped just in the doorway, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness, while making sure she was deep enough into the wagon so that her siblings would not spot her.
Fortune-tellers were witches and gypsies were thieves, she had been told. Both deserved to be stoned.
Cinnamon heard the old woman before she saw her. It took a little while for her eyes to adjust.
“Welcome, little girl.”
Still not quite seeing, Cinnamon rubbed her eyes, “I’m fifteen.”
The crone laughed, “Your body is fifteen, little girl. Your eyes are those of a frightened ten-year-old. They treat you roughly at home. Sit down.”
Cinnamon was about to defend her caretakers, but the old woman had cut her off, and so she just sat down as she was told.
“I’ve got just this silver chain to pay you with, fortune-teller,” Cinnamon said, taking the old silver chain from around her neck.
The gypsy woman reached out her hand, and as Cinnamon dropped the silver into the old woman’s hand, the woman wrapped a wrinkled and weathered old hand around Cinnamon’s white wrist. She was surprisingly strong.
The crone’s eyes were small and reminded Cinnamon very much of the elephant she had seen just a few minutes before slipping away from her party. The old woman’ s eyes narrowed as she opened Cinnamon’s palm and examined it.
“You will have a great deal of turmoil and pain in your heart and in your mind. There are those who will mistreat you and use you, and they will weaken your resolve. They will weaken your spirit; and without your spirit you will not survive what is to come. You must learn to be brave; but don’t confuse courage and stupidity. You are not as strong as those who would domineer you; and you cannot be a bear and throw them off. You must be a fox. Never forget to be a fox. You will not find a great deal of happiness in love, and if you do it will not be for a long while- you may never have children. Your feet will lead you to a lonely path, and a swampy path- to a very unexpected place where the past and the present will combine.”
The fortune-teller dropped Cinnamon’s wrist, and handed her a stack of cards.
“Shuffle them,” she instructed, “and when you feel you are done, set out four of them facing down.”
Cinnamon did so.
“Eight of swords,” said the old woman, “This card shows your near past. You are trapped. But take heart, little girl, this trap is greatly one of your own making, in your own mind.”
She turned over the next card, “The World. This is your present. You feel the world on your shoulders. Responsibility. Trouble.”
Cinnamon opened her mouth to ask a question, but a crooked finger from the gypsy woman shot up and silenced her.
“Card three,” she continued, “Is the near future. This is The Hanged Man; this is when you will reach the crossroads. When you will see how much strength you have preserved, you will see if you will escape your cage.”
She held the last card in her hands a moment before laying it on the candle-lit table.
“The Devil,” she revealed then murmured a moment in what sounded to Cinnamon like Russian.
She began to offer more explanation, but suddenly looked back down at the cards as if she had missed something before and had just noticed. She grabbed up Cinnamon’s hand again and looked at the palm.
Slowly, she lifted to old, wise eyes.
“Who are you?” She asked.
“What?” Cinnamon stood, suddenly alarmed, “No one. What’s going on?”
“Rasputin,” the woman said, her face filled with shock, fear, and admiration.
“No,” said Cinnamon, fumbling for her things, “Well, it’s Rassmussen.”
“Little girl, little girl. What terrors you will see in your life!”
The fortune-teller took the necklace chain Cinnamon had given her and put it back around Cinnamon’s neck.
“You’ll put it to better use than an old hag like me,” she smiled and kissed the tips of her fingers, transferring the kiss to Cinnamon’s forehead.
Cinnamon, now a bit startled, stumbled out the door with what was left of her wits.
“Eh!” called the old woman, and Cinnamon turned just as the woman threw a fistful of red dust into the air, which perfumed the campsite, and settled in her red hair. It was cinnamon.
“Cinnamon! Rasputin!” called the old woman after Cinnamon’s retreating back.
Cinnamon was jerked out of her memories and back into the present when she absent-mindedly placed a bare finger on the hot stovetop. She jerked her hand back and stuck the unfortunate finger in her mouth, cursing.
Evangeline laughed.
“Off in la-la land again? I can always tell. You get this look in your eyes. Like you’re on a mountain, overlooking an open valley.”
“Or a volcano, about to stick my finger in!” lamented Cinnamon, removing her finger long enough to assess the damage.
Evangeline already had a cool, wet washcloth, which Cinnamon accepted gratefully.
“That was awful stupid of me,” Cinnamon regretted, wrapping the rag around her hand.
Marie’s footsteps were heard once again, just a moment before she pushed open the kitchen door and came in. She looked over the two girls, then noticed the plate of breakfast Evangeline had made up sitting on the table. With a contented look on her face, she sat down and started eating.
“I’ve burned sage throughout the main hallways of your house, girls, but we’ll need to go into every room,” Marie said between bites.
“Yes, I saw that,” commented Evangeline, taking a sip of her black coffee, “What’s that all about again?”
“Cleansing the bad spirits from the house. Won’t get rid of the strong ones, but if there’s anything just waking up or passing through, it’ll quiet them up pretty good.”
“Bad spirits,” Cinnamon repeated, leaning on her cane and helping herself into a chair at the breakfast table, “Do you mean ghosts?”
Marie took a bite of bacon, washed it down with a gulp of coffee and replied, “Ghosts, yes. I reckon there might be a ghost flittering through these hallways.”
She took another sip of coffee and turned to Cinnamon, “Mr. Jeremy told me to watch out for you. That I’ll do. Mr. Jeremy and I have been close friends for many, many years, and God knows I owe him a favor. I’ll be watching over you, little redhead,” she turned briefly to Evangeline, “and you too girl, but I’ll not be doing it for you. I’m here on Mr. Jeremy’s behest. Now, Mr. Jeremy would have my head if I told you what really is creeping about your plantation at night, but I’ll tell you more than he will and this is truth; you obey everything I say and you might not end up with your throat ripped out.”
That announcement was unexpected. Marie had not said it in an unfriendly way, not as if she was issuing a threat, but in a matter-of-fact, need-to-know kind of way. She was not trying to frighten the girls, and she took no self-righteous, smug satisfaction in withholding information; she was much like military commander burdened with an unpleasant but necessary task. It wasn’t fear in the back of her eyes- it was resolve. The kind of resolve that was a certain fortification against a strong enemy, an enemy known intimately and extensively.
The three of them finished breakfast in relative silence, and afterwards Marie gave Evangeline and Cinnamon large flour sacks filled with finely ground brick dust, and instructions to place a double in of it across every window, every doorway, and every fireplace.
Evangeline and Cinnamon didn’t much feeling like joking about magic anymore.
