Laveau Devaroux's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Laveau Devaroux buried her third daughter on a Tuesday. She wore black silk and pearls to the grave, because a voodoo queen does not weep in cheap cloth. The curse had taken every firstborn woman in her line for four generations. Now it had taken her Simone. Laveau pressed her rings into the wet earth and swore she would end it. To break a curse, you must name the ancestor who first drew it. She did not know that name. And the family elders guarded old secrets like teeth. Back at the manor, she stood inside the iron gate hung with bones and beads. She had a choice to make. Her great-aunt Ophelia knew the family scandals. But Ophelia's mind slipped now, and a wrong question would seal her lips for good. Ask the wrong elder, and the trail died. Laveau needed proof before she asked anyone. She needed a voice that could not lie or forget. So she went to the exile. Esmeralda Nox read cards in a tent at the edge of the marsh, thrown out of her carnival years ago for telling truths people paid to hide. Laveau had never trusted her. The woman had once predicted Simone's death and smiled doing it. Now Laveau ducked under the flap and dropped a fat roll of bills on the table. "You remember my family's scandal," Laveau said. "The one nobody living will speak of." Esmeralda did not touch the money. She spread her cards, her silver-streaked hair falling forward. "I remember what your elders paid me to forget. That's a different price." "Name it." "Not coin." Esmeralda's purple eyes lifted. "You want the first name, you call the dead yourself. I only point the way." Laveau's jaw tightened. She had hoped to avoid this. But the woman was right. A living mouth might lie. A summoned spirit could not. From her bag she drew the ritual bundle: chalk marked with a red veve, black wax dripped across it, sage tied tight at the base. She set it burning and cut her palm. Blood struck the veve. The tent went cold. Esmeralda leaned close and whispered one instruction. "Ask who broke the vow. Not who died for it." Smoke gathered above the flame and took a shape. A woman. Laveau spoke the question exactly as told. The smoke-mouth moved. One word came through, thin and clear. "Celestine." Then the shape tore apart. Laveau sat back, breathing hard. Celestine. Her four-times great-grandmother. The one the family called a saint, whose portrait still hung above the parlor stairs. "There's your proof," Esmeralda said. She finally took the money. "But you should know something. The spirit didn't come easy. Something's still guarding that name." She tapped a card. On it crawled a beast with a gator's back and a rooster's head. "It knows you're digging now. And it will come to the manor before you do."