Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

CIX. Dark Moon On Bourbon Street

22
LA DAME BLANCHEʼS HUT
Lafayette
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bourbon Street
October 30th, 2014
___________________________

Here, you will die, and then, she sang:

Once upon a ravenʼs flight,
I wear the blood of those divine.
The night grows dark, drawing nigh,
In earthly shadows we left behind.
The rains wash oʼer head,
And in our graves we rest in bed.
In daring dreams, in sparrowsʼ dread,
Else purest dream leaves darkest death.
And so the war was lost; the treaties signed;
Once upon a ravenʼs flight.

    As New Orleans slept, Lafayette could feel the stench of Death, a familiar foe. A hangmanʼs noose that bled through the night, beckoning His mistresses closer. Where the chains of time bound Haitian spirits to the bloodlust of New Orleans, there sat Death, an invitation begging for a knifeʼs slit at his throat. There was a whiskey moon in the sky on this night, hissing its lullabies to Lafayette underneath the pale lamplights, broken and battered as he was. Above the whiskey moon, Adya Hounʼtò screamed "isit la, ou pral mouri" over-and-over, summoning the Iwas of the drums, that beautiful dead bride crowned with black roses, shouting:

Once upon a ravenʼs flight,
I wear the blood of those divine.
The night grows dark, drawing nigh,
In earthly shadows we left behind.
The rains wash oʼer head,
And in our graves we rest in bed.
In daring dreams, in sparrowsʼ dread,
Else purest dream leaves darkest death.
And so the war was lost; the treaties signed;
Once upon a ravenʼs flight.

    At the mouth of Bourbon Street, high above the heavens, la Dame Blancheʼs hut sat, a vulture sinking its nails into the asphalt and concrete. Where the rougarous where eaten alive, and the skinwalkers were chained until the silver bit into their skin, he could hear the shackled cries of his ancestors from that house. Where the "isit la, ou pral mouriʼs" were suffocated by the shrill cry of that white woman, and all of her kin who smoked her out. New Orleans was hell on earth, Anna Mae had told him, and hell was lookinʼ for him, searchinʼ for him, ʼcause the devil went down to Louisiana searching for his soul.

    Here, you will die.

    For twenty years, twenty days, twenty minutes, twenty seconds, the only warning to ever escape his lips.

    Where the black roses died, where La Dame Blanche waited...

Once upon a ravenʼs flight,
I wear the blood of those divine.
The night grows dark, drawing nigh,
In earthly shadows we left behind.
The rains wash oʼer head,
And in our graves we rest in bed.
In daring dreams, in sparrowsʼ dread,
Else purest dream leaves darkest death.
And so the war was lost; the treaties signed;
Once upon a ravenʼs flight.

    Here, you will die.

    Donʼt you remember me, Lafayette?