Walking With Coyote

Unlocking the door, Masha can't help the wry smile on her face at the the idea of locking her flat. The door was flimsy compared to the strength of most of those in Midian and if any of them ever decided to bash down her door, it wouldn't provide much of a barrier. Still, it was a good habit. Ironically, back home in the French Quarter, none of them had locked their doors, for who would bother those of any Societe? And in Haiti, well, most places had nothing but a cloth curtain covering the point of entry. It was enough.

Shaking her head, Masha locks the door behind her. The safe is in the corner, covered in the drapo of the Ghede nation, and it provided as much if not more comfort to her than then flimsy lock. She hops tidely over the sofa, her coyote blood obvious to the uncaring walls of her flat, and into the corner, entering the combination and opening the safe door. Masha surveys the contents: the crude bottle turned govi of the poor unknown soul from the night of Damian's "death". Her grandmere's books of regelmen, recently copied and handed down to her at her kanzo, where she was made manbo. A worn carved box of the darkest of woods. Various other pots and vials of the more dangerous ingredients used in making Vodou charms or protections. And her diary.

She sighs, her strange eyes moving first to the govi. She would release the mait tet within after a year had past, just as she would do for anyone soul entrusted to her care, but still, she wished she at least knew the name of the soul inside. A spurt of anger ripples along her spine, and Masha scowls, the dramatic events of that night flickering through her thoughts.

The horrifying burned corpse. Sol, working to get tissue samples. Nerio, seeming so much younger than herself, distraught and Masha, trying to comfort him with distractions of the religious kind, showing him the veve of Papa Loko, teaching him how to feed it. She remembered hearing them speak of their plan to reconstruct the body and mind of Damian and without thinking, drawing the veve of the Bawon Samedi, he who commands the realm of the dead and making honors to him. Then the whisper of Fu, from behind where she crouched, pointing out the folly of preserving body and mind without the soul. She'd murmured out loud about the lack of a govi and Sol had heard. They'd found an old bottle and given her a scrap of Damian's (for she had believed the corpse to be Damian's) bloody clothing, and driven by a feeling of urgency, Masha had worked upon impulse, basing her movements and ceremony on her life experience and her own creativity. In went the bloody cloth, bits of the burned skin still attached and in went one of Masha's own red feathers that she wore constantly in her hair. She prayed in the old language and she gave the new govi to O to keep safe, intending to release the mait tet if they ever regrew Damian's body with their scientific magics.

It wasn't until much later, when dear Snaps went missing and Damian was suddenly discovered alive, that Masha saw the bottle again. O casually returning it to her and when Masha asked who's soul was within, gave a careless shrug. No one knew. Just some poor victim, burned to death to make everyone believe Damian was gone.

Of course, since Haiti, she was a manbo in truth and she knew the danger she had risked. She stared at the govi with her own feather inside. She could, if she wished, call that soul and command it. She hadn't known any better, but now, now she did. By putting her feather in the govi, she had symbolically joined her will to the mait tet. It gave her power over it. Power used by what Vodouissants called Bokors, sorcerers who indulged in the full spectrum of Vodou magics without the tempering influence of Vodou faith, who ignored the lwa and arrogantly trafficked in the darkest of deeds. The zombie astral, a soul that was bound to the will of the Bokor, forced at his behest to enter the dreams of those who the Bokor chose, making them nightmares.

Now Masha had a govi of her own, without honors or name, some unknown soul not even entrusted to her, just randomly plucked from the spirits and preserved. Her own mait tet it was in a govi as was proper for a Vodouissant. To make way for the lwa to ride her, to keep her safe. That was the way of things among her people, as was knowing when to harm or bind, when to heal or protect. Regelman was the rules they lived by, what kept them from the way of the Bokor.

Masha's eyes moved to the stack of hand written books, a fond smile relaxing her cheeks, before moving to the worn wooden box. She stared at the carvings, remembering the exchange between herself and Grandmere standing at the rather ramshackle skyport, the Haitian sun bathing them both.

They stood waiting together, Masha straight like a lance, her big coyote tail waving gently behind her, Grandmere, bent but still strong, the hand resting on her carved cane a roadmap of veins and muscle against the dark dark skin, the other hand curled over Masha's strong young arm, the skin the same color. Their faces were the same across the generations save the nature of Masha's eyes which had once been the same hazel amber of her mother's but now glowed a true yellow and reflected the moonlight as well as any canine. They waited for the shuttle pilot to arrive, patient as always for in Haiti, time was fluid. Masha's colorful bag sat at their feet and Grandmere's skirts brushed against them.

"Child, I have something for you."

Masha turned to Grandmere, surprised. She smiled at the beloved face. "Grandmere, you already gave me precious things, eh?" She patted the asson at her waist as she referred to the books she had painstakingly copied as well as the woven box of precious herbs and powders.

Grandmere shook her head. "Non, child, there is one more thing. You listen now." Her old fingers moved to her pouch and opened it, removing a worn box of carved wood which looked to be ebony. She offered it to Masha. "We made these when we got to Port a Prince, child, to fight the Bokor. There are three left. You know them, you know what they are for, and may you never have to use them." Her aged face was firm, grim even. "A manbo, she makes the hard decisions, you see? And that place you go to, it mayput some hard decisions on you, child. But I know you. I know your soul. I know your heart. You take these."

Masha took the box curiously, her face reflecting a waterfall of emotions. Pleasure at her grandmere's words of faith, worry at the danger she had met with the Bokor, fear at the mention of difficult choices. She opened the box and stared at the three small vials, the glass a dark green that seemed even darker in the glare of the Haitian sun. By scent alone she knew what lay within. With great care, she slid the cover closed. "Zombie powder. Grandmere, so dangerous to make." Her eyes flew up to study Grandmere's face, noting the rail thinness that she had attributed to age. Briefly panicked, Masha hugged her carefully, the box clutched in one hand, the rough black pads on her palm and fingertips sensitive against the carvings. She buried her face against Grandmere's neck, an old gesture from her youth, inhaling her scent. "Please, Grandmere, promise you will not take such a risk again, eh? Promise."

She felt Grandmere's grip tighten as the old women hugged her back and Masha sank into the strength of the embrace. The sound of an air shuttle approaching made her draw back, her arms sliding back to cradles her grandmere's elbows with her own hands, tears shining in her eyes. "Promise me, please?"

Grandmere smiled and squeezed Masha's forearms. "Child, I promise. I am too old to do such things now." Her hand lifted and she traced Masha's features with a gentle hand. "Such a sweet face. You stay safe in that place. And by the good god, child, may you be blessed with the wisdom to make the hard choices." She placed a kiss on Masha's cheek then stood as straight as she could at her age, suddenly businesslike. "Now, you have a care and keep that box out of reach, child. I don' want some idiot dying from blowfish poison."

She lifted her cane in an imperious wave towards the lean dark man approaching from his landed shuttle and he nodded deferentially at Grandmere then Masha, who flushed, embarassed. Grandmere snorted. "And get used to such things, eh? You are manbo now. Peoples, they need to show respect. It makes them feel good to have an order about such things." She nodded and Masha flushed darker and she caught a quirk to the man's lips as he bent to pick up her bag, his dark eyes flashing with humor, the sun making his skin gleam a beautiful dark brown.

Masha's cheeks flushed for a different reason and she quickly turned back to Grandmere to bid her farewell, deliberately waving her big tail towards the pilot. "Adyeu, Grandmere, until we meet again." Formally taking her hands, Masha bent and kissed Grandmere's cheeks and felt her own cheeks kissed the same, the dry lips leaving tingles in their wake. "Adyeu, child." Masha waved to the honsis waiting a respectful distance away and two girls came forward to escort Grandmere back to the shaded cart which would take them back to the honfour. She waved again. "Until we meet again, grandmere." Still holding the old box, she turned to follow the handsome pilot to start the long trip back to Midian.

Masha reaches into the safe and withdraws the box sliding open the cleverly fitted cover. Three small vials of dark green glass nestled within, carefully sealed with wax and wrapped in protective charms. Some of the most poisonous toxin known to humanity was used to make the powder, along with many other things and all of it done with the strictest of regelman, taking many days and nights and steps along the way. And yet, at the end, it was so easy to do.

In New Orleans and more often in Haiti, there were people for hire or who worked for the Bokors. 'Take this straw of powder and you find this man or that woman,' they would be told. 'You make sure you have the right one, and then you seal his fate, you blow this powder right in their mouth, their nose, into the face. You come back then, you tell me what you saw in his eyes.' Then the man or the woman, they would fall down and die. And maybe there would be services or maybe there would not, but if they had not kept their mait tet safe in a govi, well, pretty soon, they would wake up under the ground. And the Bokor, he could command them if he could get past the pain and confusion of the poor soul.

Masha starts to shake and closes the box firmly, setting it back into the safe. She could not think of a situation so bad where she would need to use the powder and she prayed she never would. Finally, she removed her diary and closes the safe door, scrambling the combination and settling to write at her little desk. She gazes at the page for some time before picking up the pen:

"I have formally left the Sarcina but remain friend to them. I could not in good concious linger when I knew that I would need more time to think and meditate and do whatever is necessary to find my own knife bridge to walk. I pray for them all and O asked me to bless them which I did, making a pwen bottle for them with Ezili Danto's point within to provide protection. They have settled in the Twilight Zone club. I admit, I have never really liked that place. I found the Body Shop to be much more of a home to me. The Zone, it is garish and loud and everything is metal and sex.

"I have tried to go back to simple things for now, talking with those I respect and oddly, those I called enemy so recently. Marina and Jackson and I have begun to speak again although I do not believe I can or ever will trust them fully. How can I? How can I get past the sound of Jackson's voice when he pushed me into that backroom where Nerio waited and laughed that spoiled snigger of his, or the sound of Marina's almost sexual delight as she caused me pain in her own strange art?

"They took me to what they said was a space ship that talked. I read that and I still do not believe it. Jackson started to tell an odd tale of a man with a magic sword and his ward, who lusted for it, but it felt so surreal, even in this place that is so different from where I was raised. Magic swords and space ships. I had to leave, to get back to my little bit of safety here in Midian.

"I drift a bit, but am feeling more at peace I think? I know that the hearts of those I left behind in the Sarcina are largely good, and those that are committing acts of violence and pain against others, well, they will earn their due from the good god and Les Mysteres in time. I believe that. I believe that there is purpose for all of us, even those who are the causers of pain. But that does not mean that I must accept them and if I am able to do something to make change, that I must let them be.

"More later."

Masha closes the book, feeling too tired to try to capture everything. She restores it to its place in the safe, making sure the door is secure, before putting on her loose flannels and climbing into bed. Blowing out the candle, she stares at the veve of Ezili Freda Dahomey she had carved onto the headboard, seeing it easily by the reflection of the moon coming through the windows, her eyes seeming lit from within as they adjust to the night.

"Grant me your wisdom, maman. Grant me your patience for you know what it is to wait when something is of worth. Grant me insight, maman, and help me to be good judge of what I must or must not do. Aibobo."

Closing her eyes, Masha tumbles into dream, her sleeping lips curving as the face of the pilot takes shape before her, smiling at her with bright yellow coyote eyes.