Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. I | ✓

Chapter 42: Our Fault

Once I finished reading the letter, I knew immediately what it meant.

"I deeply enjoy you in the color red." One might wonder how Russel Van Doren could know what I looked like in red. But once I put the pieces together, the theory proved itself as more concrete:

Russell Van Doren, the leader of the Council, knew me from the past.

The sweat from my palms began to seep through the parchment, making it damp. I stared at the words over and over again, rereading the letter, memorizing Russell's penmanship. I did this until Mama came into the kitchen and snatched the letter from my hand. I didn't try and take it back from her; I stared at the ground, deep in thought. I couldn't move from my post. My mind began making up these images - of Russell, of me, of the past. I imagined Russell as an older man with bright yellow eyes and pale skin, and I imagined myself in this red colored victorian gown. The significance, however, of us knowing each other? I couldn't figure it out. The real reason was too outlandish for me to even fathom at the time.

"Impossible," I heard Mama whisper to herself once she finished reading the letter. I looked up to find her eyes big and empty, like she was lost in thought, too. Aza took the letter from Mama's hands and began to read it herself. The entire Coterie was crowded in the doorway of the kitchen, waiting eagerly to read what the letter said. Once Aza read it herself, she looked at me. I will never forget the look in her eyes - she looked at me like I suddenly became someone completely different.

Aza held the letter up to Mama's face, "You still don't believe that tempus summatum is a possibility?" she asked her. "Russell wrote her a personal letter. Our letter isn't even handwritten!"

"Wait," Kizzy suddenly said, "Lisa achieves tempus summatum?"

The chatter commenced. No one could possibly understand how I was able to achieve a spell - a ritual - that can only be done successfully by someone of great power. The mere notion was unbelievable, but to Aza, Mama and I, it wasn't unbelievable - My djab, Hezekiah, Marie II, and now Russell Van Doren all strengthened the case of me having traveled back in time, strengthening the possibility that I would travel back in time in the near future via tempus summatum. We didn't know how, but we knew that it would happen. But Mama still refused to believe that I was capable of tempus summatum, regardless of the proof that was right in front of her eyes.

"We need to convene," Mama suddenly said. The Coterie began filing together, but she stopped them.

"No. With the others. The other priestesses."

Qadira laughed until she saw that Mama was serious, "Alize, are you serious? You know what happened the last time we tried to reason with them. They rejected us!"

"This time is different. This time, those bloodsuckers went after Doctor Ben, coming into our territory. There ain't no doubt in my mind that they're the reason some of their co-workers went missing, too. And now, we all get this dinner invitation, where the Council and Abraham are gonna be present? It's too goddamn convenient."

They knew she was right, but they were less than optimistic. The other priests and priestesses made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the Coterie - they saw the Coterie as a cult that abused Voodoo for their own pleasures, capitalizing off of the religion and discriminating against those that practiced it a different way. And when Mama became the head mambo of the Coterie, it only intensified their animosity towards the sisterhood. I remember the notoriety as a child - the news segments, the busy February days in the shop, everyone knowing who your mother was. But to the others, this wasn't what voodoo was. I know Aza felt the same way as the others, but she always kept quiet in fear of self-incriminating herself; she practiced witchcraft, and witchcraft was forbidden in the Coterie. However, I briefly thought back to Doctor Ben's house, when Mama helped Aza heal him. Did she dabble in witchcraft at one point in her life?