At that moment the door to the chickee hut opened, and the woman who had been taken from the dance area emerged wearing a bright red dress. It was difficult to recognize her as the same woman who had been writhing on the ground. Her face was made up, her lips bright red, her hair combed loose, and now she was leading the people who just moments before had been dragging her. She strode onto the dance floor, commanding the attention of all the men, and began a slow, seductive dance. Although she was more than fifty feet away from me on the far side of the yard, I was sure I could smell her perfume.

“That’s Erzulie. She is the spirit of love.”

“You said ‘Erzulie’?”

“Yes, she manifests herself in several different forms— from the gentle seductress to the fierce protective mother. This is Erzulie Danto, the mother. She may have come because of the child. You see that man with the cane? That is Legba.”

Martine continued to talk about many of the other lwa who had possessed the people who were dancing before us, but I ceased to hear as I tried to sort out what all this meant. Why had that woman in the boat told Solange she was Erzulie? Was that her real name? Did Solange think the woman on the boat was a spirit or possessed by one? I had told Racine I would keep an open mind, but it was growing more and more difficult.

My attention was jerked away from the dancers when the door opened and Racine Toussaint marched out and crossed the yard to the thatched hut. Who was with Solange?

“Martine, excuse me,” I interrupted her. “I have to get back to see how Solange is doing. I get worried when I can’t see her.”

“She’ll be fine. In fact, she will be very much better after this. You will see. There are not many children like her who get a lave tete." She took hold of my arm and held it fast.

I jerked out of her grasp. “What do you mean?”

She exhaled a puff of air. “Seychelle, she is a street child. A restavek. There are thousands of them in Haiti.” There was something about the way she said the word restavek, spitting it out, as though she despised even the word.

“So what? Is that supposed to make her less human?” Martine pursed her lips and turned to watch the dancers. “Martine, I’m going back inside.”

“Okay,” she said, and blew out air through her mouth in disgust. “Go on. And if you see that empty-headed niece of mine—Juliette—tell her to get out to the car and wait for me.”

For such a stocky woman, she was fast. She took off and disappeared into the dancing crowd, leaving me certain that I had offended her somehow.

Just as I reached the door with the black cross, I saw Juliette frantically waving me over.

“Juliette, your aunt wants you to go to the car.” I felt like an idiot talking to the ficus hedge.

“Please, come.”

I dropped my head and sighed. After a quick check to see if anyone was watching, I plunged into the bushes.

On the other side of the hedge, a chain-link fence bordered on an alley. We were standing next to Racine and Max’s plastic garbage cans, and it didn’t smell like Erzulie’s perfume anymore. “Okay, what is it, Juliette?”

“The boat Miss Agnes."

With that, she had my total attention. “What about it? Do you know someone who was on that boat?”

The girl appeared frightened. She kept tugging at her dress and glancing at the building next to us as though she were afraid she might see someone peering around one of the corners. “I know a girl,” she said in a stage whisper. “She is now restavek with friend of Madame.”

“She’s a restavek here? In the U.S.? But I thought that was only in Haiti?”

Juliette lowered her eyes and breathed deeply, her nostrils flaring. “Non.” She said it so softly I almost could not hear her over the drums. “Restaveks are here, too.”

As the realization settled in, I began to feel nauseated.

“Juliette, how can I find this girl? I must talk to her. Can you arrange for us to meet?”

She lifted her face and there was an eagerness in her eyes, as though she expected something from me.

“Tomorrow. In the Swap Shop. The booth is Paris Kids.”

“What time?”

“Anytime. She work all the time.”

“How will I know her? What’s her name?”

She shook her head. “You will know. Now I go. Madame waits.”

“Juliette.” I had to ask, even though I was fairly certain of the answer. “Martine ... she’s not your aunt, is she?”

She looked down again, refusing to meet my eyes.

“But where is your family?” She shrugged her shoulders very slightly but still did not look up.

“Does Martine let you go to school?”

The young girl raised her eyes slowly and smiled with her lips, but in those eyes there was something old and tired and angry. A fat tear pooled and slid down her smooth cheek.

“Juliette, I’m so sorry.”

I reached out to her, but before I could touch her, she turned and slipped through the hedge.

XVII

I had been leaning against the side of the building, deep in thought, when I heard a child’s scream.

A branch of the ficus hedge caught on a button of my shirt, ripping it. The door flew open as I came around the corner, and a huge man, dressed in black and wearing a black top hat, ran out, raised his left hand, and pushed me hard. My feet flew out from under me, and I fell to the ground, dazed. When I sat up, he was gone. I’d gotten only a brief glimpse of his face, his mustache and goatee. My eyes had been drawn to the sequined design that adorned his hat: a skull and crossbones.

I pushed myself up and ran into the dark room.

The chair was empty, the pots gone, but on the floor, glistening in the candlelight, was a pool of what looked like blood. There was no sign of the child.

I turned and ran out into the yard.

The drummers’ bodies were slick with sweat as their hands danced over the skins stretched taut across their drums. The pounding beats bounced inside my head, and the rhythm became almost painful. I wanted to yell at them to be quiet, but a part of me was afraid.

The dancers ignored me as I pushed through them, searching for Racine or Max. One man tipped back a bottle of rum, filling his cheeks, then sprayed out the liquid and lit it with a disposable lighter. The ball of fire jumped out of his mouth and seemed to come straight for my hair. I leaped away and fell backward into the arms of a man who was jerking and twitching, his eyes rolled back in his head. He kept in perfect beat with the drums. I pushed myself away from him only to feel something smack me on the backside. When I reached around, my fingers closed on the shaft of a cane. Holding the other end was a strange man dressed in raggedy clothes and dancing a silly jig. The other dancers were laughing and pointing as he mugged and joked in Creole. I let go of the cane when I felt a hand on my forearm. The lady in red, the one Martine had called Erzulie, was speaking to me in Creole. I couldn’t understand a word, but when I shouted Racine’s name, she stroked my hair and my face, then put her arm around my waist and led me out of the crowd of dancers. She pointed to the hut and said something in Creole, the only word of which I understood was Racine’s name. I ran across the dirt yard and burst through the door.

“Racine,” I shouted. The tall woman stood alone in the room before an altar with a painting of the Virgin Mary and dozens of candles, bottles of perfume and rum. The altar was decorated with garlands of Christmas tinsel, beaded flags, and pink silk roses. “She’s gone.”

Racine put her fingers to her lips, indicating quiet.

“There’s blood all over, and Solange is gone.”

She placed her hand on top of my head as though I were a little child. “Calm down. Solange is fine. She is resting.” Her gravelly voice was soft and quiet.