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Chapter 1 - The Queen

Carrefour, Port-au-Prince Arrondissement, Haiti

“Madam, you wished to see us urgently?”

“I did. Enter.”

He was a hard-faced, burly man who moved with cat-like grace into Vanessa’s study, followed by three other men who also moved with watchful purpose, showing that they too possessed similar skills of advanced martial arts.

“Malory is delayed, my lady. He’ll be here in an hour or thereabouts.”

“It is well, Vincent. I don’t entirely trust Malory; he does too much of, well, I’d call it ‘freelance’ work. Too much of his collateral damage can affect my goals. Please give Malory the instructions I shall give you gentlemen and impress on him that he must be discreet. None of his brutality! And for the rest of you, too. Do not call attention to my project by being brutal in your work. Remember!”

The men all nodded obediently.

“I called you here because I have an urgent mission. If it is fulfilled, I will be able to advance my project by several years, so your success will be greatly rewarded. But know that I will not tolerate failure.”

She spoke for several minutes more about her vision. Then she continued.

“Last night I was communing with my patron lwa. Lord Kalfou, and he showed me that a strong power is newly arisen. I have had several faint hints of this power during the past few years, but those hints have been feeble and fleeting. Now, Kalfou has helped me to sense that our long-missing manbo may indeed be alive, yet very distant from here. If she is alive, I want her back here to serve me and to help me get our chosen monarch placed as Haiti’s leader. My missing manbo has grown strong in her power; yet I am stronger; with Kalfou’s guidance, I can overcome any resistance she might present and have her serve me.”

“Who is this of whom you speak, my queen?” asked Vincent, the spokesman for the group.

“You knew of her as Cassandra Bernard, the manbo at Aubry, but if she faked her death, she may have changed her name. Official records showed that she perished, but it is her power which I have sensed,” Vanessa said, and gave them a few more details.

“Even though I do not know where she currently may be, I expect that with her abilities, she will feel compelled to continue as a manbo.”

Vanessa gave them some further directions and then finished her instructions.

“I want her found and brought here. But I again stress to you to use no methods which will call the attention of authorities to us. We cannot allow errors which would result in revealing my plans, now that we are so close to their fulfillment. Now come close, all of you, and look deeply into my eyes, and I shall seal these instructions to your souls.”

They did, and after a minute, they again became aware of their surroundings.

“We shall do as you command and shall succeed, my lady, have no doubt,” Vincent assured her, and with bows, they departed.

By herself now, Vanessa mused, It would be good—no, really essential, to have Cassandra here to serve me. If I could control her abilities, I will become the queen of the manbos in reality instead of having to hide here on my compound.

About an hour passed and then several women tapped at the door for permission to enter the room.

“Enter!” Vanessa called.

Three women entered.

“Ah, good. Helene, you three are here to report. How go your studies?” Vanessa said.

“We are progressing. We are getting stronger every day. We are now able to compel the slaves to do our bidding almost every time,” Helene told her.

“That is good, but you need to be sure that they are being compelled, not that they are doing your bidding out of fear.”

Another woman answered, “My queen, we are giving their directions only using the methods and the amulets you taught us to use.”

“That is good, then. You three are to be my closest aides when your full training is done. You already know my ambition to be queen over all of the manbos, the priestesses of our Vodou religion, here in Haiti. Now I shall tell you more of the plan, as you are making satisfactory progress.

“You know that we have assembled a group of talented manbos who have shown the ability to persuade others, either directly or by coercion, using the skills I have learned from Kalfou, and have instructed them about their use. My ambition is this: With these manbos, and with those of the oungans who have joined our enterprise, we will be able to achieve the restoration of the Duvalier regime in the name of... no, that part is yet secret. But I, as queen, will be the power behind the regime, and you manbos will be beside me for support and strength. This is my vision.”

“And we shall help you in reaching your goals,” the third woman assured her.

“That is good. Return to your duties now,” Vanessa dismissed them.

Aubry, Arcahaie Arrondissement, Haiti: four years earlier

Cassandra Bernard entered the little concrete block building next to her home and looked around its interior appraisingly. This room was her ounfò, her temple, and she was the manbo, the priestess, there. She would be initiating a new priestess that evening and was expecting a crowd.

“I need you to help me move some tables and chairs for Meriama’s fourth kanzo rite this evening,” she told her husband, speaking in French.

Her husband Jonas, who had followed her in, asked, “Do you expect a crowd?”

“She has a large family and many friends coming. You do remember that this is her final konesans to be recognized a new manbo?” she asked him.

“Of course. You must be excited, your first manbo confirmation,” Jonas said. “She’s been advancing through her konesans for what, three years?”

“Yes. She wants to help in a larger ounfò in Gonaives. Part of her family lives there.”

They began moving tables when a small voice piped up, “I guess I need to move, huh?”

“Mon Dieu!” Cassandra yelped. “Fabienne! Don’t scare me like that.”

Jonas was also startled at what looked like the sudden appearance of his eight-year-old daughter, who was sitting at a table in the middle of the room, smiling brightly at them.

“I can’t help that you don’t see me, Manman,” Fabienne smirked. “I was just making myself be ‘little,’” she went on, referring to her uncanny ability to be invisible while apparently being in plain sight. “I just do that when it needs to be quiet for me.”

She gestured to a number of textbooks scattered on the table in front of her. She had one open and was writing in a notebook next to that book.

“Okay, sweetheart, please pack up the books and help us set up the chairs for a service,” Jonas told her.

While Fabienne was helping to carry the chairs, she asked about the evening’s service.

“Manman, I only know about what you do from watching you, but I don’t know why you do those things,” Fabienne told her.

“Well, I guess you’re old enough, so when we finish here, we’ll sit and I’ll tell you. We have some time before dinner.”

Jonas broke in, “Let me finish making the meal so you two can talk.”

“Thank you, renmen anpil,” Cassandra replied.

“You know,” Jonas remarked, “we’ve been married some nine years now and I still haven’t gotten used to Kreyòl. I know it’s the official language, and what you said means chérie, or ‘dear’ in English, but we always try to speak French or English, not Kreyòl. I spoke French with my mom growing up.”

Cassandra sighed. “But your parents were from the Haitian upper crust. My manman wasn’t. I know I promised that I’d try to use only French, but I slip sometimes. I like that you teach me and Fabienne to speak better English too.”

When they finished setting up the room, Cassandra had Fabienne sit next to her and began.

“You know, my darling, that I’m a priestess, a manbo; priests are called oungans, and our religion, which came with our ancestors from west Africa, is called Vodou?”

“Sure, and this room is an ounfò and Meriama is a kanzo, it’s like apprentice, and the konesans are the learning she has to do to be a priestess, a manbo, like you. Right?”

“Exactly. And the main area in here, the sacred space in the ounfò, is called the peristil. So let me tell you a little about Vodou beliefs—vodou is an old word, it’s a Fon language word from Dahomey in Africa—that part of the old country where our ancestors came from is now called Benin—the word ‘vodou’ means ‘spirit’ or ‘deity.’ Let me know if you don’t understand something, bien? First, we believe that there’s a single and supreme spiritual One, an unknowable creator of everything, who is sovereign over all of the universe. We call the Supreme One ‘Bondye.’ Do you know where the name comes from?”

“Sure. It’s bon Dieu, the good God. Isn’t he the Gran Mèt?”

“That’s the Kreyòl name, but the same God, dear. The Grand Master. Now then, we who practice Vodou believe in just one God, but we also believe in spirits, called lwa, and I guess your Catholic friends would think of them kind of like angels or saints as they relate to Bondye. We, that is, the way I learned, have a chief lwa, Atibon Legba or Papa Legba. He’s the ‘guardian of the spiritual crossroads’ and is a benevolent lwa who goes between the lwa and people where he permits or denies to people the permission to speak with the other lwa. We believe he speaks all human languages and for us, that is, in my own nanchon or nation, the Rada, which originated in Africa, he is the greatest speaker. We call to him at the beginning of all of our ceremonies.”

“So you mean that Vodou is like the Catholics? We have the lwa and they have the saints? Is that why lots of the churches around have ‘saint’ in their names? My school too?”

“You could look at it that way. Vodou is a folk religion from Africa and has a lot of things added to it from the Christians. We both believe in one God; but they have a Trinity and saints and we have the lwa. Maybe they are really both the same thing, only with different names.

“We believe that the lwa populate the spirit world—the unseen world—the lwa are also known as mystè, ‘mysteries’ or anvizib, ‘invisibles’ and we believe that the spirit world is where the souls of our ancestors reside and where those who recently died go. We call the land Ginen, it’s the ‘African heaven’ and it’s also inhabited by the zanj; those are the angels.

“Anyway, here’s what Vodou teaches. We believe that all existence is one single unity and not separate worlds. Our sacred and our common existence—that’s our spiritual and material worlds—are one. We believe that both the world of the departed and the world of the lwa, Ginen, are one with the world of the living. The worlds exist side-by-side, so to speak, and our souls can move between them when we venerate the lwa. And we also believe in a strong moral system—you know what that is?”

“Um, maybe... doing right and wrong stuff?”

“That’s as good as we need. So our Vodou beliefs regulate the behavior between people, how we work together socially and as a community. We have a very strong commitment to service and justice, treatment of those who need help, respect for elders, and forgiving wrongdoing where the offender shows true repentance. That’s just the same as other religions. Understand so far?”

“Uh huh, but I don’t understand the ceremonies you do. People look like they are in pain sometimes.”

“Ah. I guess I didn’t realize how perceptive you can be. We connect with our lwa using things like dance, music, and chanting. Each manbo—or oungan—has a personal lwa who he or she venerates most strongly and has the greatest affinity for. And the manbo or oungan tries to help the serviteurs—those are the devotees or adherents—to become people who sèvi lwa, or serve the lwa. When that happens, they can feel all kinds of emotions, and that can look like they’re in pain. What you saw during our rites was people trying to get into a mental state where their own lwa, their own personal spirit, can enter them. Some people think of this as a ‘possession’; it’s not really, but achieving that state of mind is an important part of Vodou worship and it’s the least understood part of our religion. I’ve learned that some Christians do kind of the same things and can get into similar emotional states during worship, so that happening isn’t unique for Vodou.”

“So the spirits can take over someone then?” Fabienne asked nervously.

“Well, I’m of a more liberal belief than others about that. Conservatives, especially those from the more intense Petwo nanchon, which started up here in Haiti, believe they do, but I feel it’s more of a connection to the spirit than a possession. In our formal ritual worship groups, called sosyete, or congregations, the worshipers are known as the pititt-caye, which means ‘children of the house,’ and the leaders are the manbo or oungan. In larger congregations, there are under-leaders, the ounsi, these are people who have made a lifelong commitment to serve the lwa and help the manbo or oungan, particularly during the parts where ‘possessions’ occur. Ounsi is Fon and means the ‘spouse of the lwa.’

“In possessions, we think of the serviteur as the chwal, the horse, and the lwa as ‘mounting’ their serviteurs to communicate with them and to answer questions which the serviteur may have which causes them to feel bad about themselves or their lives. When we’re in touch that way, the lwa will praise us, chastise us, and guide us. If we really feel like we’re one with the lwa, they can help with healing and energy flow in the body. If someone has an unbalanced energy flow in their body, it’s called being ‘blocked’ or ‘tied,’ and the lwa helps to remove those blocks. The people of east Asia have some beliefs just like that, helping the energy flow in the body by meditating and using other ancient techniques. The ‘mounting’ of the lwa for a person might be along the same idea. Do you see how that can work—letting a spirit help you feel better?”

“Yep. Oh, then no one is taking me over. Good. But when I don’t feel good about something, I try to think about good things and that helps me feel better. Maybe a spirit helps me do that. Is that what you mean?”

“That’s wonderful, darling, that’s kind of like what we try to teach.”

“Yeah, that’s where I think I learned it.”

Cassandra smiled. “I wondered how much you soaked up, sitting in your corner during our rituals. Now you need to tell me something, miss. I’ve noticed that when you’re here during our ceremonies, most of the serviteurs are extremely receptive to being mounted and they have an excellent experience; it’s much less so when you’re not here. Can you explain this?”

Fabienne wrinkled her nose. “I... um... you won’t be angry? ‘Cause you don’t like when I make myself ‘little.’ It’s like when I do that, but... different somehow. When I’m ‘little,’ I don’t want to be bothered, so I’m thinking ‘don’t see me.’ But it goes the other way too; people give out something I can ... um... not feel or see... there aren’t words...”

Cassandra looked at her sharply. “Do you know the word ‘aura’?”

“Um, no...”

“It’s an invisible energy field that supposedly surrounds everything—living things, that is. Some people can sense them. Manman—my mother—could. She had a very strong sense of auras.”

Fabienne nodded slowly. “Maybe that’s it. People’s feelings have a kind of... um, taste... to me. Bad feelings are bitter and good ones are sweet. Happy and sad ... they’re all different tastes. Sometimes I taste a rotten flavor, so maybe that’s a very bad person. I don’t even need to see the person to know how they feel. But sometimes I can turn some of the tastes around and send them back to a person too, and when I’m here, I try to make people feel good.”

“Amazing,” Cassandra sighed. “Fabienne, you must have a pwen—perhaps you are the embodiment of one.”

“What’s that?”

“Pwen is a kind of spiritual or magical focus. The initiation rite, the kanzo, which we will finish doing later, is the biggest pwen. Pwen can also be the personal power of non-initiates, like you might have. You seem to have a strong spiritual focus, my dear. I can sense something in you, a kind of spiritual strength. Listen, it’s almost meal time. Go get ready. We’ll need to talk some more about this, okay? And no, I’m not angry about your ability; I’m just in awe. Go wash up, I need to help your father now.”

They hugged and Fabienne ran off to wash up and Cassandra went to the kitchen. She had a lot to think about and a lot to discuss with Jonas.

~~~~

Later, after dinner and the ritual, and Fabienne had gone to bed, Cassandra and Jonas began talking about their daughter.

“Jonas, let me tell you what Fabienne told me. I was stunned...”

Jonas interrupted. “Wait, before I forget. Did you see the books she was reading? I looked. She was using a frikkin’ high school physics book. And she was working the problems in it.”

Cassandra sighed. “Okay, let’s talk about her books first, then. You’re not home a lot so you don’t see what she does. She always has a book and her nose is in it. The teacher in her school, not the college—her grade school, Institution Saint Dominique, told me that Fabienne’s just about gone through their entire library so they got permission for her to use the one at the college, the Universite GOC. She’s over there at least twice a week now, and I don’t even understand the names of most of the subjects she likes to read about. They’re mostly sciences but she reads fiction stories too, literature. The fiction ‘classics.’ Her school just lets her go at her own pace since that lets the teacher work with kids who need more help.”

“I’ve seen her with all the books, Cass. I didn’t know she was so far ahead of kids her age. But how is she socially?”

“Well, the other kids call her a nerd, but it’s in fun. She’s okay socially and has a few girls who get together to do whatever the girls here like to do. I find them here doing schoolwork together pretty frequently, but there’s a lot of giggling going on too.”

“That’s good, then. She’s not being a hermit.”

“No. But let me tell you about our conversation. You know how she suddenly seems to appear when we thought nobody was around?”

“Yeah. She did that again today. She called it ‘making myself little’; so she does that a lot?”

“Yes. Seems to pop out of nowhere. And that’s only the beginning. I thought about that trick of hers a lot this afternoon and I’m both excited and worried for her—because that trick is only part of what it seems she can do.”

“This sounds serious.”

“It is, especially if she uses her ability improperly or other people find out about it. Let me back up. Manman, my mom, as you know, was a very powerful manbo, and influential people frequently sought her because she could persuade just about anyone to come to her point of view. Myself, I could never get away with anything when I was growing up; Manman always seemed to know what I tried to hide. She also could see people’s auras; she said that they were like colors around people and I got the feeling, as she was training me as her kanzo, that she could influence those people’s auras in some way.

“Then, before I became a manbo and went out on my own to set up my own little ounfò—this was several years before we met and I was in school—I heard that another manbo, a caplata actually, had visited Manman and shortly after that, she disappeared.”

“What’s a caplata?” Jonas asked. “I haven’t heard that term.”

Cassandra sighed. “This is part of the evil side of Vodou; it’s the part that gives our religion such a bad reputation among people who don’t know about us very well. A caplata is a witch, basically. This is a woman who uses her manbo status to influence the lwa to harm others. A magician or sorcerer is called a choché. These are people who we say travaillant—ou sert—des deux mains—that is, ‘they work, or serve, with both hands.’

“The lwa they serve are called baka, these are bad spirits that are typically thought of as taking animal form. These magicians or witches are called bòkò and the lwa they summon are known as lwa acheté or ‘bought lwa,’ and are called that because they’ve been spurned by the good lwa. What I learned about the bòkò is that they can try to get the dead to act against someone to cause their illness or death. A deceased human who is summoned by a bòkò is known as a zonbi, or zombie. The bòkò may also make an object which they claim contains supernatural properties; that’s called a wanga and it’s supposed to cause bad luck and illness. A number of these bòkò are known to curse people so that they can extort them to pay for an exorcism of the bad lwa.

“One of the ... um... services I learned to provide during my kanzo is to reverse the curse of a bòkò by working with the person through invocations for the intervention of the protective lwa. I learned to do baths and massages of the person who was cursed to remove the curse.”

Jonas nodded. “Yeah, I hear my shop customers talk about their fear of getting on the bad side of a vodouist. The idea that a magician can make a zombie terrifies them. Some say they bury their hair cuttings and nail clippings too. What’s that about?”

“Most of the conservatives in the religion, and most common people too, believe in the supernatural—not just the lwa, but also the bad part. They believe that supernatural forces—like zombies, for example—can be used to cause harm or to make a person’s problems worse. So by appealing to the evil lwa, many common folks believe that the bòkò can harm them or force them to do things, if the bòkò can get access to their hair cuttings or nail clippings. I’m not an ignorant country manbo; you know that. I was well trained by my manman; I took many courses at university too, and Manman had me read about many other cultures during my time as a kanzo. Belief in such supernatural things and how they can affect a person is called ‘sympathetic magic’ by anthropologists.

“You know that my guardian lwa is Papa Legba, the guardian of the crossroads. Well, twinned with Papa Legba, his Petwo nanchon opposite, is Kalfou, who also controls the crossroads. But his is not the center, the heavily-traveled parts of the crosswalks. Kalfou is associated with the edges of the crossroads, those parts that are off-center or in between the well-traveled ones. In my beliefs, Papa Legba brings the benevolent spirits of the daytime, while Kalfou is said to control the malevolent spirits of the night. So, by calling to Kalfou in Vodou rites, it can allow the crossing into our world of deliberate destruction, misfortune, bad luck, and injustice.

“Enough talk of evil. Just thinking about it and the manbos or ougans who call to that lwa and his ilk, makes my skin crawl. We really need to talk about Fabienne. We got off that topic.”

“Right. You said her abilities concerned you.”

“Very concerned. I later learned that the caplata who visited my manman was named Vanessa. She only uses that single name; I never heard her last name. The area where she has her greatest influence is around Carrefour—oh my goodness...” she stopped in shock.

“What... what is it?” Jonas asked.

“Kalfou... another name that lwa is called by is ... Carrefour! That’s where Vanessa’s home is located, I’ve heard.”

“As a Marine, I learned that there are no coincidences,” Jonas told her. “Just different ways that reality manifests itself.”

“I would definitely agree with that idea. And from what I’ve heard about her, I think she has an ambition to be some kind of queen of the manbo. I also heard rumors that she’s supporting some kind of opposition to the government.

“I believe she learned of my manman’s abilities and was either afraid of them or wanted to use Manman for her own purposes; anyway, since Manman’s been gone for more than twelve years, she must be dead. I think Vanessa had her killed because she refused to help in whatever that witch planned.

“That’s why I’m so afraid for Fabienne. I inherited a bit of Manman’s abilities. I know that I can project my aura a little; it’s enough that it helps me during our ceremonies. But Fabienne must have all of Manman’s abilities and maybe even more. Having such manbo skills isn’t uncommon, but having them to Fabienne’s extent is rare. They do tend to run on the female side, mostly skipping generations.”

“What is it that Fabienne can do? Apart from becoming invisible, that is.”

Cassandra told him the details of what she had said to Fabienne at the end of their earlier conversation.

Then, “So I think her ‘invisibility’ is a result of her projecting a kind of ‘negative aura’ which suggests to people near her that they shouldn’t notice her. She told me that she projects what she called ‘good feelings’ at my rites when she’s in the room and I’ve noticed a positive difference in people when she’s there. Having those abilities, if that becomes known, she’d be in danger, like Manman was.”

Jonas sighed. “That’s ... ugh. Not what I want to hear. We ... maybe you should ... talk to her; try not to scare her. She’s only eight, for God’s sake. Tell her not to talk about what she does and maybe tone it down some.”

“I plan on doing exactly that, mon chéri. I need to be alone now to get these bad thoughts out of my head before I can sleep. I’ll go to the ounfò and be back soon.”

Both Cassandra and Jonas spent a restless night after their discussion.

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