“He’s asleep?” said Bull. It was part question and part affirmation.
“No,” the traiteur replied. And without further explanation, he looked around at the fisherfolk and commanded them with a gesture to bring Médora into the houseboat.
Not one of them mirrored the pity and sympathy of the traiteur when they pulled back the sheet covering Médora. The odor of death spread through the air. Several cried out in horror and fear. They covered their mouths and noses with their hands or the fabric of their T-shirts. Some crossed themselves; others kissed charms or crucifixes.
Médora stood in the middle of the space, only half-aware of her surroundings. The six naked lightbulbs dangling from the rafters swung slightly, flickering to the generator’s low, uncertain rhythm and threatening to go out completely. The traiteur pushed her hair back to uncover her face, and Médora bowed her head to escape the feeble light. The brittle knots of her mass of hair hung before her face and hid the stiff, dry skin stretched over her skull.
The man’s voice was tender. “Who did this to you?”
Her answer was wordless. She released a faint hiss that sounded like air escaping from an inner tube.
The traiteur raised his hands ceremonially and placed them on her skeletal shoulders.
Médora jerked away and reeled back a couple of steps, throwing panic into those on that side of the room. The traiteur took two strides forward so he was again directly before her. He didn’t touch her this time, but he bowed his head and began incanting, utterly motionless except for his lips.
The woman began to sway. Forward and backward, as if a gentle swell were washing through her body, originating at her feet, rising to her knees, hips, shoulders, and neck. She hissed quietly. “Ssssh, ssssh, ssssh.”
Amaia watched, spellbound. Never in a million years would she have thought that a body so mistreated, desiccated, and covered with sores could move like this.
“Ssssh, ssssh, ssssh.”
She produced a sound that was sort of a hiss and sort of a hum.
“Ssssh, ssssh, ssssh, ssssh.”
Her arms swung at her side like dead branches, and the undulation extended upward to include her head, which tilted rhythmically to one side and then to the other, her face concealed by that mass of dry, matted hair.
A subtle modulation, a whistling sound, became audible.
“Ssssh, ssssh, ssssh.”
“That the snake,” said the woman who’d spoken to Amaia earlier.
Yes, of course it was, how had she failed to recognize it?
Médora hissed and moved as possessed by the snake. The faint warning sign Amaia had perceived earlier now became dire and sinister. Alarms went off in her head and evoked memories of the light in that little clearing deep in the forest, warning her that the gates of hell stood gaping wide. The unexpected vision was so violent and vivid that, without thinking, she started forward to warn the traiteur. The woman grabbed Amaia’s wrist with her strong fisherwoman’s grip and held her back.
The traiteur stepped closer to Médora, still murmuring his incomprehensible incantations, and suddenly, smoothly, he took her in his arms as if she were a little girl. The woman’s skull settled against his chest. He didn’t grip her or constrain her in any way; he embraced her with an intimate, filial motion of real love, of generous protection. Médora slumped in his arms as if all the energy that had sustained her had suddenly drained away. Her arms dangled limp at her sides, her knees doubled, and her feet gave way as her head fell back, revealing to everyone the cruel reality of the death engraved in her features.
The traiteur held her and lowered her to the floor with great care. He signaled to the others to cover her with a blanket.
Johnson, Amaia, and the New Orleans detectives approached the man.
“Your friend will be all right,” he said, gesturing to the motionless Dupree. “But for her I have no cure.”
Amaia gazed at him, unable to comprehend. What, then, had she just witnessed?
He turned to her as if he’d read her thoughts. “The Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is called the broken heart syndrome. That’s what happened to your friend. His heart was being squeezed to death in a vise of fear and doubt some evildoer had cursed him with. I can’t cure this woman, though, because the root of her disease is not within her.”
Bull and Johnson nodded, as if that made sense.
Charbou didn’t. “I don’t understand.”
“He can’t cure what she doesn’t have,” Amaia said. “Son petit bon ange, her soul. She said Samedi took it.”
Charbou turned to the traiteur. “But is that possible?” Even Charbou recognized the man’s authority, Amaia saw. Bill had scoffed and doubted right up to that moment, and now for the first time, he’d glimpsed a different reality, one in which other rules might apply.
“She believes it. That’s enough,” the traiteur replied. “Maybe he didn’t take it, but he’s certainly holding it prisoner. She’s his slave, and the place that held it is now empty. She’s like a house abandoned by its owner, open for anyone to enter.”
“I watched what you were doing,” Charbou said, looking down at the woman lying on the floor. “And she is starting to look a little better.”
“That is temporary, a momentary relief. The wolf will be back.”
Amaia darted a glance at him, feeling a stir of panic at that terrible phrase, and saw that the traiteur had noticed her. He was studying her closely.
“The doctors said she’s suffering from Cotard’s syndrome,” Amaia maintained.
“I agree with them,” the traiteur replied.
Charbou was looking for a reassuring explanation. “So you agree she’s mentally ill?”
“Of course. But she didn’t make herself sick. They made her sick, they induced it, the same as if they’d deliberately inoculated her with a contagious illness.”
“It’s always . . . okay, now just listen. I’m from New Orleans, I’ve heard about voodoo and zombies and curses and pincushion dolls for casting spells, all that stuff. But I always thought it was just stories. I never thought . . . And of course I never believed in any of it.”
“Whether you believe it or not, it exists. The bokor who did this is a priest of darkness, someone who calls on spirits to work evil. The world’s phony portrayal of voodoo does contain a grain of truth. It is a religion of spirits. That’s what the word ‘voodoo’ means: ‘the spirit who speaks.’ And when someone can speak to spirits, he can choose to speak either with the good ones or with the evil ones. Médora has an illness that makes her act and feel as if she were dead. I can’t imagine any greater anguish. But her mind won’t recover unless her soul is healed. Médora is ill because she believes. The ceremony of zombification is the bokor’s way of persuading his victim that she has died, the bokor stole her soul, and then he resurrected her dead body. That’s why the victim belongs to him.”
Amaia insisted, almost pleading, “Dupree said you’d help Médora!”
The traiteur pointed to Amaia’s abdomen. “I can help you, if you want, but we traiteurs have our limits. Taking an antibiotic might be a good idea. You ask Annabel.” He pointed to the woman who’d been next to Amaia. “These waters are full of microbes, and the women in the swamp are always getting cystitis.”