She smiled for the first time. Her smile cracked the powder on her cheeks. Placing both hands on the table, she pushed herself to her feet. “I see you are thinking about my story.”
I nodded. “Yes. It’s . . . frightening.”
Her smile faded. “Not that frightening, dear. I died ten years ago, but I’m doing pretty well. Can I bring you another cup of tea?”
My mouth dropped open.
A dry laugh, more like a cough, escaped her throat. “I’m only teasing you. I see your ride is outside. Enjoy your stay on our beautiful island.”
2
Lea sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing her hands over the tropical-colored, flowery quilt, letting the warm sea breezes tickle her face. The lace curtains fluttered at the open window of the rooming house. White and yellow daisies floated in a glass bowl of water on the bed table beside her.
The small, second-floor room was bright with afternoon sunlight spreading across the blond-wood floor, and spotlessly crisp and clean with a vague aroma of coconut in the air. Red and blue starfish dotted the wallpapered walls, appropriate since the place was called Starfish House.
The two-story, shingled house with a sloping red-tile roof stood on a low, grassy dune overlooking the Eastern shore beach and a row of white fishing huts along the water.
Is this the calm before the storm? Lea wondered. Or has Hurricane Ernesto changed its course?
She didn’t want to check. She didn’t want to spoil her first day.
She could hear the hushed voices of her hosts drift upstairs from the front desk. An hour before, when the jeep-taxi dropped her off at the front door, they had both come bursting out, clapping their hands and speaking rapidly and excitedly in French, almost dancing around Lea and her two bags.
Maybe they are just warm, excitable people, she thought. But they’re really acting as if I’m their first guest.
Macaw Henders and her husband, Pierre. They owned the six-room inn. She was a big woman, Spanish-looking, with cocoa skin, round, black eyes and straight black bangs across a broad forehead.
She wore an expansive red-and-fuchsia housedress with feathery sleeves and collar and a red bandanna over her hair. Lea had to suppress a laugh since it really did look like bird plumage.
In contrast, Pierre was as thin as a pencil, balding, with brown eyes deep-set in a serious face. One of those people who always looks worried, Lea figured. No way to determine how old he was. He could be thirty or fifty.
A soft knock at the doorway startled Lea from her thoughts. She stood up as Macaw appeared, holding a tray with a white china cup. She handed the cup to Lea. Lea gazed down at a foamy, dark brown drink. She expected the cup to be hot, but it was cold.
Macaw smiled, revealing a gold cap on one front tooth. “Go ahead, Madame Sutter. A welcome drink. Take a small sip to start.” She spoke in a lilting singsong.
Lea took a small sip, then another. Coffee with vodka? No. But definitely potent and sour. She could feel the warmth slide down her throat, into her chest.
“Macaw, what is this drink called?”
The woman hesitated. She ruffled her feathery housedress, much like a preening macaw. “Kill-Devil,” she said finally, lowering her eyes.
Lea laughed and gazed into the cup. “Kill-Devil? Do you know why?”
“Because it’s powerful enough to kill the Devil?”
Lea took another sip. She was starting to like the bitter taste. “This is a lovely room,” she said, gesturing with her free hand. And then blurted out without really thinking about it, “Am I the only one staying here?”
The woman nodded.
“But, why?”
Macaw’s smile faded. She pretended to be interested in something on the tray. “I guess they have their reasons, Madame Sutter.”
3
BLOG POST
BY LEA HARMON SUTTER
Travel_Adventures.com
(April 11) The bad news is that Ernesto still has its sights on Le Chat Noir. The hurricane is slow-moving, about fourteen miles per hour, which is even more bad news, because the longer it stays in one place, the more damage it does.
The only good news is that it gives me a little time to find some kind of adventure to write about before I have to duck and hide.
I’m writing this post on my iPad. I can feel the emergency vibes. People are boarding up their windows and pulling their boats onshore. The sky has turned an ugly lead color, and the wind feels heavy and damp.
My hosts, Macaw and Pierre, were reluctant to let me leave the house. I’m not sure they understood that my job is to go out and do risky things so I can write about them.
I’d been in touch (by email) with a woman who lives on Le Chat Noir, named Martha Swann. Martha told me about an island ceremony called Revenir, which is French for “to come back.” She explained that the Revenir ritual is part of a practice called Mains Magiques—Magic Hands. She believed the French traders picked it up somewhere and brought it here with them. Martha wrote that it is a must-see.
I told my hosts I wanted to attend a Revenir ceremony, and they reacted not with horror but with definite disapproval. They both started shaking their heads, as if it would persuade me to drop the idea.
“It’s all a fake,” Macaw insisted. “They put on a show. The priest—he performs it every week.”
“It’s bad for the island,” Pierre agreed. His eyes took on a sadness. “These magic rituals, they make us look foolish. Primitive.”
“Why scare the people away?” Macaw said. “Why not talk about the beauty here? The natural beauty. Not the unnatural.”
“I know it isn’t real,” I said. “I’m not going to write that it’s real. But I think my readers will find it interesting. You know. It’s all about life and death, right? It’s been practiced for hundreds of years. It’s so . . . colorful.”
“We don’t want to be colorful,” Macaw said in her red-and-fuchsia dress.
After a lot of begging and pleading and explaining, they finally agreed to find a guide to take me to the ceremony.
He turned out to be a sandy-haired, boyish, tanned young man in khaki cargo shorts and safari jacket, who seemed so shy and spoke so softly I never did figure out what language he was using. I believe his name was Jean-Carl. He always looked away when he spoke to me, as if he was ashamed of his job or where he was taking me.
He drove me in an open jeep over the one single-lane paved road that leads to the center of the island. The road was lined on both sides by amazing cabbage palmettos. Their clusters of long leaves gleamed, even in the darkening light of the sky. Talk about magic! The trees were flowering, the yellow-white blossoms flashing by like tiny lights.
I didn’t see any other car traffic. Jean-Carl parked the jeep in the shade of a clump of palms at the edge of a sandy path, and we began to walk, the soft sand tickling my feet as it flowed over my open sandals.
I tried to ask Jean-Carl questions about what I could expect to see. But again, he seemed embarrassed or else just painfully unsuited to his job. He kept repeating the word scary and shaking his head.
Of course, that only heightened my anticipation. And when we reached a small crowd of people—men and women of indeterminate age in colorful beach caftans and robes—I was ready for my Mains Magiques adventure.
4
Lea estimated twenty people in the crowd, mostly men. They stood at the edge of the thick rain forest, inside a circle of the strangest palm trees she’d ever seen. “What are those trees called?” she asked Jean-Carl.
He gazed at them, blinking a few times. He didn’t answer.
What a great guide. I don’t think he speaks English.
A well-dressed, middle-aged woman with pink cheeks, short blond hair, and pale blue eyes turned to Lea. “They are called jelly palms, dear.”
Lea studied the very fat trunks topped by long, delicate leaves that looked like feathers. “Y’all can make jelly from the dates,” the woman said. She had a definite Southern accent. “The date
s are big and juicy and very sweet.” Then her eyes went wide. “Are you Lea? From Long Island? I’m Martha Swann.”
Lea gasped. “Martha? Really? Hi. How did you recognize me?”
“From your Facebook photo. I feel like we’re old friends.”
“Wow! I mean, wow. How nice to meet you. See? I took your advice. I’m here. I always think these rituals are a hoot, don’t you? They’re almost always like from a bad horror movie. Hope I don’t burst out laughing.”
Martha pursed her lips. “I don’t think y’all will laugh at this one.” She glanced around. “My husband, James, and I come often. It’s . . . really miraculous. We’ve even gotten to know the priest.” She raised a finger to her lips. “Look. I think it’s starting.”
Lea turned and stepped forward, into the circle of people. They had gathered around a fallen log, smooth-barked, about ten feet long. A sun-bleached skull was placed in the center. A human skull. No. It’s an animal head. A goat, maybe.
She turned to Jean-Carl to ask, but he had moved away to the other end of the log. She mopped her forehead with the back of one hand. The center of the island felt much steamier than the outer beach areas. She suddenly found it hard to breathe.
These weird ceremonies make me giddy.
She listened to the buzz of quiet conversations. Two older men in white robes and sandals appeared to be having an argument. A woman in a blue chiffon caftan stepped between them.
The crowd grew larger. Now there were maybe forty people standing in the circle around the log. Lea hadn’t seen them approaching. They seemed to have emerged from the trees.
She turned and saw five people striding quickly on the path. Four of them were obviously American tourists. The two men were paunchy and pale and wore blue-and-red Chicago Cubs baseball caps. One wore a Budweiser T-shirt with a beer can emblazoned across the front.
The two women with them were slender and dressed in shorts and flowery tank tops. They had cameras hanging around their necks and were being led by a tall, serious-looking guide, dressed in khaki cargo shorts and safari jacket, like Jean-Carl.
Lea was startled. Actual tourists on Cape Le Chat Noir! She had the urge to say hello. To interview them and ask how they came to be on the island and if they knew what this ritual was about. But their guide led them to the other side of the circle.
People talked quietly, but the conversations ended when the priest—a tall, bald man wearing a long red robe tied with a yellow sash—stepped out from behind a fat-trunked jelly palm. He had a red face and shocking white-blond eyebrows that moved up and down on his broad forehead like furry caterpillars. His eyes were silvery gray, metallic. He had a tattoo of a blue five-cornered star on the crown of his bald head, almost big enough to be a skullcap.
Weird-looking dude.
He stepped into the circle, carrying a long wooden tray. On the tray were coconut halves, flat side up. Without uttering a word, he stepped up to people and raised the tray to them, offering a coconut half. Lea quickly realized that he was approaching only the men in the circle.
He handed coconut halves to six men. She could see that the insides had been carved to form a cup, and each cup contained a dark liquid. It looked a lot like the Kill-Devil drink Macaw had given her when she arrived the day before.
Lea felt a chill as the priest eyed her for a long moment. She couldn’t read his expression. He flashed her an almost imperceptible smile. Then he moved to the center of the circle and gazed at the men holding the coconut cups.
“It’s the Black Drink,” Martha murmured in her ear. She leaned close and whispered surreptitiously, as if she was breaking a rule. “The Black Drink. Be grateful, dear. In the ceremony, the priest gives it only to the men.”
“Why?” Lea whispered back.
Again, Martha raised a finger to her lips. Her eyes flashed in the gray afternoon light. She returned her gaze to the priest.
Lea glanced down the line to the tourists. All four of them were busily snapping photos with their cameras and phones.
The red-robed priest gave a signal, and the six men raised their coconut cups high above their heads, as if offering them to the sun. They all chanted something . . . in French?
Lea struggled to understand. She had studied French for two years at Northwestern. But this didn’t sound like any French she’d ever heard.
When the six men finished, the priest chanted for a long time, mumbling to himself and moving his hands slowly in a strange sign language. The sleeves of his robe swayed beneath his bone-slender arms.
Lea kept her eyes on his hands. They appeared to take on a life of their own, like small, pale animals floating in the air.
Birds uttered harsh cries in the rainforest behind them. A gust of hot wind made the feathery palm leaves slap and scrape.
We need pounding drums here. Ominous background music.
She scolded herself for being so cynical.
The skin on her arms tingled. She wiped sweat off the back of her neck.
The air is so heavy and wet. Perhaps we are feeling the first winds of the hurricane.
She crossed her arms tightly on her chest to steady her heartbeat. I certainly don’t want to be out here in the middle of the island if the damned hurricane hits.
The priest finally finished his low chant. He nodded. The six men lowered the cups to their mouths and drank the dark liquid down.
Lea heard soft cries in the crowd. Muttered words.
The men stood silently, swallowing even after lowering the cups to their sides. Palm leaves slapped loudly above their heads, as if clapping.
The sky darkened from pale gray to charcoal. The wind picked up, fluttering robes and skirts, lifting Lea’s hair behind her head, making a howling moan as it swirled through the shivering trees.
Special effects, Lea thought. The priest chants and the wind starts to howl. Very dramatic.
But she wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
As she squinted into the fading light, the six men all began to groan. They coughed and rolled their eyes. Their faces reddened. They bent their knees and knelt.
Bending low, faces purple, they uttered hideous choking sounds. Then rasping moans from deep in their throats. Their stomachs bubbled and heaved.
And they all began to vomit at once.
5
Groaning, moaning, bleating like sick sheep, all six men heaved together. At first they spewed a dark liquid and then the chunky orange and yellow of their undigested lunches.
Hands on their knees, heads bowed as if praying, they puked their guts out in a chorus of animal groans and splashing liquid.
Lea grabbed her throat. She felt her breakfast rise. Her stomach churned. She held her breath, swallowing hard, swallowing, struggling not to heave along with them.
This was no act. They weren’t faking it. No one could fake those ugly sounds, those horrified expressions. She covered her ears from their choked gasps and bleats and retching moans.
The sour smell rose into the humid air and swept over her. She stared at the thick piles of yellow-green vomit, spreading puddles on the sand. Still holding her breath, Lea started to turn away.
But Martha held her by the shoulders. “It isn’t over. It just started.”
Just started?
A shudder ran down Lea’s body. Her legs suddenly felt rubbery, weak. She forced herself to watch. The six men bleated and choked. They grabbed their throats. Their eyes bulged in panic. Their faces darkened from red to purple to a sick blue.
She cried out as the men collapsed to the ground. One by one, they folded up, coiling into themselves. Uttering strangled sighs, they dropped facedown into their own vomit. They sprawled awkwardly on the ground, eyes bulging, gazing blankly. Their arms and legs twitched, as if they were getting electrical shocks; twitched like grotesque puppets that had lost their strings. Then stopped.
No one moved.
Swaying in the gusting wind, the feathery palm trees slapped and applauded. The birds had stopped the
ir shrill symphony.
The red-robed priest knelt beside one of the fallen men. The star tattoo on his scalp appeared to wriggle, alive, like a blue octopus. He placed two fingers on the man’s throat. Minutes went by.
“Il est mort.” Announced in a whisper.
“Oh my God,” Lea murmured. She suddenly realized she had been hugging herself tightly for some time. Down by the tight circle of onlookers, she heard the startled cries of the four tourists. No one else made a sound.
The priest moved to the next victim sprawled facedown on the sand, a young man with short red hair and a boyish, freckled face. He rolled the man onto his back. After a brief examination, the priest repeated the words. “Il est mort.” Flat. No emotion at all.
Lea turned and saw the two men tourists snapping photos with their phones. The women had their hands over their faces, blocking out the death scene.
“Is this for real?” the man in the Budweiser shirt boomed. “Hey—are they really dead?”
No one replied. All eyes were on the tall, bald priest until he knelt over the last of the six victims.
“Tous sont morts.”
Lea forced herself to breathe. She suddenly felt dizzy, the blood pulsing at her temples. She had hoped to write about travel adventures people would find exciting. But no way she wanted to watch six men drink poison and vomit themselves to death.
Squinting into the graying light, she could see clearly that the six men weren’t breathing. Their chests showed no movement. No rise and fall. No movement at all. Their eyes bulged, gazing blankly like glass doll eyes. Their mouths hung open, frozen in their final gasps for breath.
Still, no one on the island moved or made a sound. She glimpsed Jean-Carl across from her in the circle. He had his head down, hands jammed into the pockets of his cargo shorts.
The tourists had stopped their picture-taking. One of the women was crying. Budweiser Man wrapped her in an awkward hug.
The priest, still expressionless, turned to face the crowd. His blond caterpillar eyebrows had gone stiff and still.