‘There must be some kind of feedback system in operation,’ said Jocundra after the woman had clomped back to the counter. ‘I mean considering the way your abilities have increased since you began healing. I’d expect more of an increase while you’re on the veve. Even though you’ll be trimming back the colony, you’ll be routing them through the systems that control your abilities.’
‘Hmm.’ He rubbed her hip, disinterested. ‘It was really weird last night,’ he said. ‘Sort of like the way you could tell the Gulf was beyond the pines at Robichaux’s. Something about the air, the light. A thousand micro-changes. I knew where you were every second.’
The sun was reddening, ragged strings of birds crossed the horizon, and there were splashes from the marsh. A Paleozoic stillness. The scene touched off a sunset-colored dream in Jocundra’s head. How they sailed down one of the channels to the sea, followed the coast to a country of spiral towers and dingy portside bars, where an old man with a talking lizard on a leash and a map tattooed on his chest offered them sage advice. She went with the dream, preferring it to thinking about their actual destination.
‘That’s him,’ said Donnell.
A long maroon car was slowing; it pulled over on the shoulder and honked. They walked toward it without speaking. There were bouquet vases in the back windows, a white monogrammed R on the door. Jocundra reached out to open the rear door, but Papa Salvatino, his puffy face warped by a scowl, punched down the lock.
‘Get in front!’ he snapped. ‘I ain’t your damn chauffeur!’
‘You’re late,’ said Donnell as he slid in. Jocundra scrunched close to him, away from Papa.
‘Listen, brother. Don’t you be tellin’ me I’m late!’ Papa engaged the gears; the car shot forward. ‘Right now, right this second, you already at Otille’s.’ He shifted again, and they were pressed together by the acceleration. ‘We got us a peckin’ order at Maravillosa,’ Papa shouted over the wind. ‘And it’s somethin’ you better keep in mind, brother, ‘cause you the littlest chicken!’
He lit a cigarette, and the wind showered sparks over the front seat. Jocundra coughed as a plume of smoke enveloped her.
‘I just can’t sit behind the wheel ‘less I got a smoke,’ said Papa. ‘Sorry.’ He winked at Jocundra, then gave her an appraising stare. ‘My goodness, sister. I been so busy scoutin’ out Brother Harrison, I never noticed what a fine, fine-lookin’ woman you are. You get tired of shar-penin’ his pencil, give ‘ol Papa a shout.’
Jocundra edged farther away; Papa laughed and lead-footed the gas. The light crumbled, the grasses marshaled into ranks of shadows against the leaden dusk. They drove on in silence.
The house was painted black.
On first sight, a brief glimpse through a wild tangle of vines and trees, Donnell hadn’t been certain. By the time they arrived at the estate, clouds had swept across the moon and he could not even make out the roofline against the sky. A number of lighted windows hovered unsupported in the night, testifying to the great size of the place, and as they passed along the drive, the headlights revealed a hallucinatory vegetable decay: oleanders with nodding white blooms, shattered trunks enwebbed by vines, violet orchids drooling off a crooked branch, bright spears of bamboo, shrubs towering as high as trees, all crammed and woven together. Peeping between the leaves at the end of the drive was the pale androgynous face of a statue. Things crunched underfoot on the flagstone path, and nearing the porch Donnell saw that the boards were a dull black except for four silver-painted symbols which seemed to have fallen at random upon the house, adjusting their shapes to its contours like strange unmelting snowflakes: an Egyptian cross floating sideways on the wall, a swastika overlapping the lower half of the door and the floorboards, a crescent moon, a star. He assumed there were others hidden by the darkness.
Papa led them down a foul-smelling, unlit corridor reverberating with loud rock and roll. Several people ran past them, giggling. At the end of the corridor was a small room furnished as an office: metal desk, easy chairs, typewriter, file cabinets. The walls were of unadorned black wood.
‘Wait here,’ he said, switching on the desk lamp. ‘Don’t you go pokin’ around ‘til Otille gives you the say-so.’
The instant he left, Jocundra slumped into a chair. ‘God,’ she said; she opened her mouth to say something else, but let it pass.
Shrieks of laughter from the corridor, the tangy smell of cat shit and marijuana. Oppressed by the atmosphere himself, Donnell had no consolation to offer.
‘The ends of the earth,’ she said, and laughed despondently. ‘My high school yearbook said I’d travel to the ends of the earth to find adventure. This must be it.’
‘The ends of the earth are but the beginning of another world,’ someone intoned behind them.
The gray-haired usher from Papa Salvatino’s revival stood in the door; neither his beatific smile nor his shabby suit had changed. At his side was a crewcut, hawk-faced young man holding a guitar, and lounging beside him was a teenage girl, whose costume of a curly red wig and beige negligee did not disguise her mousiness.
‘This here’s Downey and Clea,’ said the usher. ‘I’m Simpkins. Delighted to have you back in the congregation.’
Downey laughed, whispered in Clea’s ear, and she grinned.
Jocundra was speechless, and Donnell, struck by a suspicion, shifted his visual field. Three black figures bloomed in the silver-limned door; the prismatic fires within them columned their legs, delineated the patterns of their musculature and nerves, and glowed at their fingertips. Simpkins and one of the other two, then, along with Papa, must have been the three figures Donnell had seen in Salt Harvest, and he thought he knew what their complex patterns indicated. He shifted back to normal sight and studied their faces. Clea and Downey were toadies and boot-lickers, but each with a secret, a trick, an ounce of distinction. Simpkins was hard to read.
‘So you’re Otille’s little band of mutants,’ said Donnell, walking over to stand behind Jocundra.
‘How’d you know that?’ asked Clea, her voice a nasal twang. ‘I bet Papa told you.’
‘Lucky guess,’ said Donnell. ‘Where’s the other one? There’s one more besides Papa, isn’t there?’
Simpkins maintained his God-conscious smile. ‘Right on all counts, brother,’ he said. ‘But if half what we been hearin’s true, we can’t hold a candle to you. Now Downey here’ - he gave Downey’s head a friendly rub - ‘he can move things around with his mind. Not big things. Ping-pong balls, feathers. And then only when he ain’t stoned, which ain’t too often. And Sister Clea…’
‘I sing,’ said Clea defiantly.
Downey snickered.
‘And when I do,’ she said, and stuck out her tongue at Downey, ‘strange things happen.’
‘Sometimes,’ said Downey. ‘Most times you just clear the room. Sounds like someone squeezin’ a rat.’
‘It’s true,’ said Simpkins. ‘Sister Clea’s talent is erratic, but wondrous things do happen when she lifts her voice in song. A gentle breeze will blow where none has blown before, insects will drop dead in midnight…’
‘She oughta hire out to Orkin,’ said Downey.
‘And,’ Simpkins continued, ‘only last week a canary fell from its perch, never more to charm the morning air.’
‘That was just a coincidence,’ said Downey sullenly.
‘You’re just jealous ‘cause Otille kicked you outta bed,’ said Clea.
‘Coincidence or not,’ said Simpkins, ‘Sister Clea’s stock has risen sharply since the death of poor Pavarotti.’