Or at least that’s the way it’s always been before.
“This is total bullshit.” The chitchat stops, and everyone turns to look at Sera. She gazes right back at us. Defiant. “Are we gonna talk about ’er or not?” She gives Sander a look that clearly says, Can you believe this?
Serafina and Lysander are basically carbon copies of each other. Folks around here call them the Gemini. Twins born in late May. Both of them mind-blowingly talented artists and smarter than the rest of us put together. I forget how many languages Sera speaks. Five, maybe? Sander doesn’t speak at all – never has – but he has plenty of other ways to communicate.
The twins come from an old Creole family. Home for them is out on Bowman Pond, about ten minutes away by airboat. But their mama, Delphine – they call her Manman – makes good luck gris-gris and love potions that she sells from a little card table she sets up on the dock most weekends. People swear by them. She tells tourists the charm magic was passed down from her great-great-great-granmè, who was a famous New Orleans voodoo queen. A friend of Marie Laveau’s.
Maybe that part’s true. And maybe it isn’t.
Sera spits her gum into the water. Her hair is the color of rich, wet river sand streaked with copper, and she wears it in a long braid down the middle of her back. Almost to her waist. The madder she is, the more that braid swings back and forth when she talks. And it is really swinging now.
“We gonna sit here all day dancin’ around her name?” she demands. “Not talkin’ about what happened won’t make things different.”
“Don’t be mad, Sera,” Mackey soothes. He’s a little guy. Not much bigger than me. Dark skin and soft brown eyes. An easy smile. He can’t stand for anybody to be upset. “We can talk about her.” He turns to look at me. “We talk about her all the time, Grey.”
“What’s the point?” Hart’s voice has an edge that I’m not used to hearing from him. “We’ve been over that night a million times.”
Sera doesn’t back down, though. She never does. “Not with Grey, we haven’t.”
Evie bites at her lip and glances over at Hart. “Grey doesn’t have the gift,” she pipes up. Then she looks embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Grey. You know what I mean. It’s just . . .” She shrugs. “You don’t. Right?”
I feel Hart’s eyes on me. I feel all their eyes on me.
“Grey deserves to hear us speak Elora’s name out loud,” Sera argues. “It’s a sign of respect. She was her twin flame, after all.”
Her was isn’t lost on me.
There were three sets of twins in the beginning. Serafina and Lysander. And Ember and Orli.
But also Elora and me.
Elora and I were born to different families, but on the very same day at the very same hour. Almost the exact same time, down to the minute. There’s an old story that tells how human beings originally had two faces, four arms, and four legs. But God was afraid of being overpowered, so he split them all in half. That’s why we all have one twin soul out there in the world.
People say the moment you meet your twin flame is the moment the earth beneath your feet begins to shift. There’s one midwife down here to deliver all the bayou babies, so our mamas labored together in Honey’s big upstairs bedroom. They laid Elora and me side by side in the same bassinet. And I guess that’s when the earth shifted for both of us, when we were only minutes old.
“Go ahead, Mackey,” Sera prods. “Tell Grey what you told the rest of us. She’s tough. She can take it.”
Hart gets up and moves away from me. He stands at the front of the boat, his back to all of us, one boot up on the rusted railing. Then he pulls out that pack of cigarettes and lights another one up.
Mackey watches him for a few seconds, then he swallows hard and turns in my direction. And suddenly, I know exactly what he’s going to say.
“I had a death warning. That night. About Elora.”
Hearing him say it out loud is like a kick in the teeth.
Mackey’s family history here goes way back. Further back than anyone’s, probably. Cachette is a French word. It means “hiding place.” Back in the days before the Civil War, this area was a hideout for enslaved people who had escaped their captors.
Mackey’s family were some of the first ones who made their way here. They faced down venomous snakes and swarms of mosquitoes, plus ripping thorns and sucking mud – but they were free, so they stayed and made this inhospitable place their home. And to hear Mackey tell it, every single one of his ancestors could feel when death was about to come knocking, which it must have done pretty often in those days.