An unguiculate set of fingertips pressed on a thick Catalpa wood door and allowed the room to sigh outward into a cobblestone alley. The door appeared ancient and foreign even amongst the cultural orgy breeding in the streets, and the door in fact was. It had arrived with her family from Haiti four generations ago, but that was only a murmur of the historic relevance. What exuded from the door, both wicked and ethereal, was not one dimensional like the cookie cutter doors of the newly arriving French quartiers. It splayed itself to all of the senses willing to partake. The wood weaved in intricate patterns combined with metal that appeared to have a synergetic juxtaposition. She knew more stories about the door than she did about her own Grandfather, but that was expected in her matriarchal line.

Her lips pursed around some no bullshit rolled tobacco, inhaling smoke almost as thick as the humid New Orleans air. It crawled across skin and strangled the soul with thick putrid smell, sin and debauchery that tickled a sense of dread buried deep down in the average perception. Her perception wasn’t average so she physically cringed in the open space. Her head pounded a rhythm of penance for last night’s bottle and she contemplated stepping back inside, but it was the same feeling that had initially urged her outside and she hated second guessing herself. She leaned against the hard brick, allowing the sharp points to scratch the surface of her skin and prickle some awareness of her shell, a practice of grounding her spirit. As she leaned against the wall she pulled her eyes shut tight allowing the murmurs of the city to lap at her consciousness like waves on the harbor that fueled free form hand me down lore; a bunch of half-truths and outrageous claims lingered until brushed aside by a more exciting addition. All of this for a sunken ship? But she could feel it, and deep down, they could feel it to. Something wasn’t right. 

As if to confirm the utterly proven facts on her mind a small boy tugged at her loose lace shirt. She forced heavy lids to raise and find the child’s face; recognition clicked in and she offered the boy as dazzling a smile her listless body would part with, before her gaze wandered towards the skyline. Her eyes traced the edge of the alley for some frame of reference on time, but the sun was neither here nor there for her to gauge. That wasn’t an odd occurrence, not in this alley and not for her. She’d never been good at judging light and time, even before all the nicks and loses on her bound human form. Her attention returned to the boy. He was a radiating caramel color, much lighter than her own, and kissed with a million freckles that appeared like constellations swirling around the deepest blue eyes she’d ever seen. Initially the eyes has stunned her, and even now their overly giddy knowledge confounded her.

“Bi’ early fah summons?” Those sharpened nails flicked the glowing cigarette into an unlit corner that quickly devoured the light. She knelt down and picked up the boy; small? Yes. Young? Yes. But touching the boy gave no qualms to his spiritual resonance.

“Nah dat early Missus Marie. De calls, we go.” The boy didn’t seemed disturbed about being hoisted from his feet, but he was abuzz with energy and his squirming hinted at restless errands so she simply hugged him instead of getting him comfortable on her hip. He smelled strongly of lemongrass, red cedar, thyme and a few other herbs that had her raising an eyebrow.

“Newcomers?” A chirping oui, oui sound accompanied the boys nodding head as his bare feet were placed back on the ground, less vandalized with filth in the alley, but only the spirits knew what the boy carried with him on those soles.

“She tells it like de ‘ere to ‘elp, some of dem.” The boy smiled while he shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes were tracing the peripherals and she could tell he had other places to be.

“tcht, tcht,” Her hand pressed at his back as if she would push him into a quick pace jetting into the bowels of the city, “G’on witcha den. You watch dem crossroads, de breathin’ somethin’ toxic tonight.”

“Yes’m Missus Marie. We be seein’ you tonight.” Her eyes kept a close watch on the boy as he made his way down the alley, presumably to find the newcomers they were prepping for. Here to help hmmm? The three snakes barely worked with others, but most of the cult hunters kept to their own sections of the world, spiritually and geographically, so this must be something big. That was troubling. She needed her mind to be clearer than the fuzzy feeling prickling off the stale alcohol. She needed a drink, a fresh one. She lit up another cigarette and started to make her way to Café Bonswa. It would be a couple of hours more before she would need to start making her way into the bayou where the Mambo reigned and the lines of fate where sticky tricky webs that latched and released with a will of their own. Yes, she would definitely be needing a drink.