“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said. “In real life, even the wizard Merlin could not simply wiggle a finger and move a mountain. There’s far more to the equation than that. Both Mr. Boudreau and I should be sensitive enough in our own ways to detect any energy source strong enough to produce those spectacular results, but neither of us could pick up the faintest whiff of anything even fractionally powerful enough.”
“Well, let’s call a halt to the proceedin’s,” Boo said, glumly. “I want to thank y’all for comin’ today. I’d appreciate it if you’d try to think of anythin’ we haven’t covered. Y’all know how to reach me. And keep your eyes open for any display of energy that strikes you as new or unusual.”
“We’ll do what we can,” the café-au-lait woman said. She rose from the wing chair, laid a sympathetic hand on Boo’s arm, and shook hands with Elizabeth. Her grip was firm, dry and comforting.
“I’ll tell everyone I know to intensify their personal alertness,” said the other man in a business suit. “We’ll pin this thing down, Beauray.”
“Thanks, Bobby Lee,” Boo said. “Thank y’all for comin’.” The room cleared quickly, as the peace of the watering hole was broken, and lifelong rivals hurried to get out before the shadow of the others fell on them.
“I must say, that was a new experience for me,” Elizabeth said after the last of their guests had left. “Your friends were really quite helpful.”
“Not helpful enough,” Beauray said, almost to himself.
“Excuse me?”
“Hmm? Oh. Sorry about that, Elizabeth. I’m just a bit disappointed is all. For all the drinkin’ and talkin’, we still don’t have any clearer idea of what’s goin’ on than when we started. I guess we just have to stay on our toes and hope for the best.”
* * *
Lloyd Preston put his hand over the phone and turned to Fionna, who was sitting anxiously on the big bed on the upper floor of her suite.
“That was Kenny Lewis, wants to know when you’re coming back to finish rehearsal.”
“Not yet—not yet!” Fionna said, holding out her long-nailed hands. “I can’t face them. It’s been just too awful. I feel if I pull down one more disaster that it’ll kill all of us!”
Lloyd spoke to the phone. “Maybe later, Ken boy. She needs a break. We’re going to stay here for a while.”
Fee’s keen hearing picked up the tone of the grumble coming through the wire. She knew the others were upset with her, but she didn’t know what else to do. Blast that Elizabeth Mayfield! She was always right—always had been. Fee started pacing around the sitting room, its dimensions suddenly too small. She flung herself into a chair and reached for a cigarette. Lloyd automatically dug into his pocket for the lighter before he even hung up the phone. She smiled up at him as she blew out a plume of smoke. He was so good to her.
“They’re stopping for dinner, love,” Lloyd said. “Mr. High-and-Michael wants you there for the evening run-through even if you’re on your death bed.”
Fee shuddered and let her head drop back against the cushy damask of the armchair. “I wish he wouldn’t put it like that!”
She was too agitated to chant any of her spells of protection. How did she know they would do any good, anyhow? She had no way to tell. The books she’d bought from the occult antiquarian might be phonies. She hadn’t read Latin at school, and had to rely on the translations. Liz seemed to be another deep believer, though, and she’d nosed around in the suite. Fee ought to be safe here. She wished she felt that way.
When the knock came at the door, Fee was unaware how long she’d been sitting and staring up at the ceiling. She shot a nervous look at Lloyd, who got up from the table where he’d been reading a book. He returned with a couple of large paper bags in his arms, and Robbie Unterburger trailing behind him.
“Hi, Fionna,” Robbie said, timidly. Fee only raised an eyebrow at her.
“She brought us some dinner. Thank you, love. It was really thoughtful of you.”
Robbie simpered as Lloyd set the bags down on the table and began to take clear plastic containers out of it. Something crisp-fried. Something stewed—two stewed somethings. A chunk of bread in a waxed paper bag. A mass of slightly wilted salad. The unfamiliar yet savory smells wafted toward Fee’s nose, but couldn’t work their magic on her. She was too tense to enjoy them. Unable to bear the sight of food, or Robbie, Fee looked away and stared at the curtains, conscious that the girl was staring at her.
“Thanks,” she said. After a time, she heard the shuffle of footsteps. The girl was going away. Thank heaven.
Lloyd muttered something, and the hall door snicked shut. He came around Fee’s chair and stared down at her.
“What’s the matter with you? She just did you a favor!”
“I’m sorry,” Fee said, with sincere contrition. “I’m just too worried.”
“You could have sounded like you meant it when you said thanks,” Lloyd said, his dark brows lowering to his nose.
“The girl’s such a nosebleed,” Fee said, more snappishly than she meant. “She’s talented, but her personality . . .”
“She’s nice enough,” Lloyd said.
Fionna eyed him. “She’d be yours if you let her,” she said, shrewdly.
Lloyd, just as shrewd, knew better than to walk into that kind of emotional mine field. He shrugged noncommitally. “Who, her? You’re worth fifty of her.”
Fionna hugged herself. Though it was good to have Lloyd say so, she felt uncertain whether she was worth all the trouble and the compliments. She had used to be so confident, back when she and Liz Mayfield were at school. She was a superstar now. She ought to feel on top of the world. What had happened to her?
Lloyd was about to administer another scolding, when they heard a gentle rap on the door. Fee looked at the clock on the mantlepiece.
“Oh, that’s me appointment, darlin’. Will you let her in?”
The thin woman with a face like old, wrinkled leather in the hallway raised a bone rattle and shook it under Lloyd’s face. She waited until he stepped aside to cross the threshold, then shook it all around the perimeter of the door. Fee stood up and watched her with fascination and alarm, as the woman rattled in every corner of the room. She stopped, and suddenly pointed at the containers on the table.
“Did you eat any of that?” she demanded.
“No!” Fee said, alarmed.
“Good,” said the shamaness. “Fried food is bad for your aura.” She turned to eye Lloyd up and down. “You can eat it. Won’t do you no harm, and the donor is favorably disposed to you anyhow.”
Fee smiled. The old woman had his number. She was the real thing, just as Fee had been promised. There seemed to be nothing special about the healing priestess’s outward appearance. Her yellow dress looked just like those of the other ladies out in the street. Hanging over her left wrist was an ordinary-looking leather handbag with a gold clasp. “What should I be eating?”
“When is your birthday?”
“January. January twenty-seventh.”
“Fresh fruit and vegetables. Greens and bacon for security. Okra and black-eyed peas for luck. Alligator.”
“Alligator?” Fee asked. “For courage?”
“No’m,” said the shamaness, with a sly, dark-eyed look. “Tastes good. A little fatty, but you need some meat on them long bones of yours. Y’ought to try some jambalaya. Not that stuff,” she said, with a dismissive wave at the table. “There’s better in the Quarter. Ask Willie downstairs. He’ll steer you to the good places.”
Fee cleared her throat. “I didn’t ask you here for restaurant reviews, er, Madam Charmay.”
“I know,” the old woman said. “This curse. It’s still troubling you?” Fee nodded. “Whole cure takes maybe eight, maybe nine days. I’ve got to find me a black rooster and some other things. Won’t cost you too much for the components, but you ought to be generous to the spirits all the same. You’re lucky the full moon is coming, day after tomorrow. Otherwise it’d take a month and a week.”
“I don’t have eight or nine days! I’ve got to give a concert tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Madam Charmay said, cocking her head. “Then, you need the quick cure. All right. Stand you there. In the precise center. That’s it.”
For Fee to stand in the middle of the room, Lloyd had to move the table. Fee stared up at the ceiling as the old woman walked in ever-tightening circles until she could feel the slight heat of the other’s body. All the time Madam Charmay was chanting quietly to herself. Occasionally the rattles punctuated a sentence with their exclamation points. Fee concentrated, wishing she could feel something, anything, to prove that she was connected to the great beyond. But nothing stirred the atmosphere except the freezing blast of the air conditioning. There was another rap at the door, this one businesslike.