A Woman of the Swamp

3. Power

It wasn’t Marie’s first time fleeing from the authorities. Even if she hadn’t been guilty of breaking and entering, she still would have run. Getting caught out, late at night, alone, by a police force that wanted nothing more than to see her in chains was not her idea of a good time. There was no time to think, she put one foot in front of the other and went in the opposite direction of the flashing lights. With each subsequent step, she was surprised there wasn’t a bullet in her back.

Unfortunately, her path of escape led down Bourbon Street, one of the most populated areas in the city. Even at the late hour, groups of drunk tourists packed close together, pretending they were at their own personal Mardi Gras. Pushing her way through the throng of booze-soaked bodies, Marie felt thankful. For the first time, she had a use for the stumbling idiots. Ordinarily, she couldn’t stand tourists, shattering glass all over the French Quarter and generally acting like they owned the place. When she needed to hide, a bunch of rowdy twenty-somethings were exactly the cover she wanted.

“Hey, cool outfit, bro,” slurred a man in an open Hawaiian shirt with a yard-long drink in both hands. “Can you tell my fortune or something?”

Marie smiled at him, mustering politeness, and said: “You will find ever-lasting wealth because you deserve it.” And likely die of a heart attack.

“Woah, for real?”

Marie nodded. “For real.” Fortune telling was a bunch of bullshit anyway. She was saving him twenty bucks that he could spend on a graphic t-shirt instead.

“Incredible.” The man’s eyes glazed over, perhaps imagining the wealth, perhaps fighting off a strong wave of nausea. Whatever came in a yard-long glass was poison to the human body in the extreme and almost always ended in a gutter.

An amplified voice crackled from the end of the street. “Attention, there is an armed suspect fleeing down Bourbon. Please disperse.” There was a brief whoop as the cop bumped his siren, but the crowd hardly noticed.

Armed? Marie looked down at the staff in her hand and decided the descriptor was technically accurate, but the police had no way of knowing. Lucky for her, cars couldn’t drive down Bourbon at night, meaning the cops would have to pursue on foot. She kept waiting for the adrenaline spike pushing her to flee but felt pulsing waves of calm instead. Heat radiated from where her palm gripped the staff. The smart thing to do was put it away and try to blend but wielding it in front of her felt like a guiding light. Despite the sweat, stench, and chaos, Marie knew exactly where she was going.

A young woman to her left got up on a man’s shoulders. With a lopsided grin that only a drunk could truly master, she shouted: ‘Fuck the police!’ and took her top off. There was a chorus of woos and the clack of beads being thrown from a balcony. Marie rolled her eyes. Any port in a storm. Nothing was better for drawing the attention of a testosterone-fueled crowd than female nudity. She glanced toward the officers. One was out of the car and making his way down the street, but the thick crowd wasn’t helping. He wouldn’t catch her, but she had no doubt other units would be closing off her exits.

Think, where is safe? Where can’t they find you? There were plenty of underground bars and residential buildings to hide in, but none felt right. An invisible force pulled her forward, moving her quietly through the bustling crowd. Marie looked up and a flash of divine providence presented itself. Ahead, Bourbon Street crossed St. Anne. If she turned right, she would be two blocks from Louis Armstrong Park, and Congo Square. The area wouldn’t provide much cover, but a tingling in the back of Marie’s brain told her there was no other option.

Over a hundred years earlier, her namesake used Congo Square as a place to practice voodoo among the bustling population of jazz musicians, artisans, and others looking for an escape. Marie had never been one for fiction or poetry, but the square felt right. She moved through the drunken crowd, being quick, but careful. She approached the corner, just one body in a stinking throng of drunks.

Marie stepped off the main thoroughfare and into a dark alley. The din and bustle of Bourbon died away. Above, shuttered stained white windows looked down in silent judgment. The few streetlights cast pale yellow halos on the sidewalk. Marie stuck to the shadows feeling like one of the city’s many feral cats.

Why didn’t I just duck into a bar? There were plenty and no one would have ratted her out. The smart play would have been to find a place to lay low in the crowd, but something had pulled her away. As if in answer, the freshly renovated staff in her right hand jerked down the street, pulling her along for the ride. That’s new. Marie pulled back, resisting the power, but cold dread sloughed over her at the mere idea.

Some distance behind her, a police officer rounded the corner and shone a light in her direction. Marie ducked into an alcove, pressing as thin as she could against the brick siding of an old building. By some stroke of luck, the light passed over her hiding spot and arched to the other side of the street.

The cop pulled a radio off his vest. “No movement down here. Keep looking.” He turned away, heading back to Bourbon.

Marie held the staff out in front of her, feeling an affection for its persistent tug. “I might be starting to like you.”

The staff gave a small jitter in what almost felt like appreciation before pulling her forward again. Suddenly, the night air was warm and welcoming rather than damp and depressive. Marie felt like she was exactly where she needed to be. She continued toward Congo Square, keeping to the shadows, but feeling less hunted with every footstep.

The French Quarter ended abruptly with its older buildings giving way to a wide paved street. On the other side was a green fence, built to stop people from getting into the park at night. Without it, the grounds would be full of tents in a matter of days. Congo Square was just beyond in the middle of what had become Louis Armstrong Park.

Marie crossed the street and made her way along the fence and quickly came to a gate bearing Louis Armstrong’s name in darkened lights. To Marie’s surprise, the gate was open. Ordinarily, there would have been a double set of locks, but they were gone. She never put much stock in coincidence, preferring to believe that the divine didn’t take an interest in the lives of those below, but all the same, she was suspicious.

Flashing blue lights lit up the edge of the French Quarter, followed by a blaring siren as a cruiser rounded the corner a block away. Once again, there was no time to argue with providence. Marie slipped through the open gate. Inside, trees swayed over green water in the evening breeze. Statues stood as foreboding shadows in the gloom, keeping watch throughout the park. There was more cover if Marie ran along the water, but her staff jumped to the left, pointing insistently at Congo Square.

“Really?” Marie looked into the eyes of the skull as they blazed momentarily with purple flame. What had been inert wood topped with pilfered bones hours earlier was something completely different now. The eyes of the skull were alive, and Marie felt kinship radiate from them. Intrinsically, she trusted those eyes.

“Alright, your choice. But I’m telling you, Marie Laveau didn’t care for necromancy. Doesn’t jive with the whole voodoo vibe.” Marie picked her way along the park’s path and found her way toward the square. As her foot touched the first cobblestone making up the area’s boundary, she heard the all-encompassing fervor of a brass band. Every instrument cried out in joyous noise, filling the world with its sound for an instant, and then growing silent as she crossed the threshold.

Marie swayed on the spot, one foot on the cobbles, one out. Her body rang with electricity like the anticipatory moments before a cataclysmic lightning strike. The world faded to blue glass and she felt invisible bodies moving past her, through her. In that single instant, every shred of skepticism and doubt about where the dead went after life disappeared. They shared the same space as the living, and she could feel them.

“What the hell is going on?” Marie couldn’t decide whether she felt sick or exhilarated. Her stomach flipped and the world wavered before her eyes, struggling to find a happy medium between the past and present. She nearly fell but caught herself as a bright light shone directly into her eyes.

“Put your hands where I can see them and drop the staff!”

Reality snapped back into place and Marie was standing in the middle of the empty square. The blue glass and fabled world of old was gone, replaced by the cold black barrel of a service revolver. Behind it was a pudgy, pale man with a sweat-beaded brow and a killer’s shake in his trigger finger. Oh providence, you bitch.

“Right now!” There was an audible click as the officer thumbed the safety off.

Marie knew she should have put her hands up. Yes, she knew the spirits had a place to go, but that didn’t mean she was eager to join them. Her hands raised, but she knew it wasn’t a gesture of surrender. “You should turn around.” The voice was hers, but the words weren’t. Did I just say that. Oh god, we’re going to die. Wait, WE’RE?!

“That a threat?” With a free hand, the officer reached for his radio. “Suspect is hostile, be advised.” He grinned at her. “See? Now I have permission.”

Shit, shit, shit. Get down on the ground, do something. But Marie was no longer at the wheel of her own body. She was a passenger and suspected she was one of many. A light breeze blew across her skin. She felt it but from a few inches behind her skin. Her muscles moved but on someone else’s accord. The skull topping the staff glowed purple. “Good for you,” she whispered.

The officer licked his lips. “What the hell?” Marie watched his finger itch for the trigger, but it was unable to fire.

The world turned blue once more and Marie saw them. Hundreds of the dead, watching the confrontation play out from a plane just beyond hers. A young woman held the officer’s finger and inched it away from the trigger while a crooked man grabbed his arm and bent it upward. Marie tried to speak to them but only a dry rasp of air escaped her lips.

The officer watched in horror as his arm tilted backward, bringing the barrel of the gun to his chin. “No, no, no,” he whimpered. “What is this?”

“Self-defense,” replied Marie, once more in a voice she didn’t recognize. No! Stop this, this isn’t how we do things.

A deafening concussion split the square and the officer’s head snapped upward.