"What?" Lucy asked, turning to me in surprise. "Why not?"

"I'm not stupid enough to ignore what Mama Legba said. There's a good chance that Thisbe has more of a link to me than we thought. I could still be dangerous, Lucy." And there was one other thing I couldn't quite make myself say out loudif Thisbe had worried about her old skin not being enough, maybe she would be looking for a new skin. She'd already tried mine on for size once, and I wasn't sure anything would stop her from doing it again.

I could feel Lucy staring at me, but I wasn't brave enough to take my eyes off the road and see what she was thinking.

After a long minute, she reached out and touched my shoulder. Her voice was steady and full of conviction when she finally spoke. "I don't believe that, Chloe. I think if Thisbe wanted to use you to get to me or my family, she would have by now."

"Lucy, you saw what happened in Mama Legba's shop. That's not the first time I've felt like I rustled up some sort of power, and I didn't have any control over whatever was happening. And what about what happened the other day to you, when you tried to dreamwalk?" I pressed. "You're saying that wasn't something to worry about?"

"I don't know," Lucy admitted weakly, and I knew she could see my point. "Where would you even go?"

"I could move back into Piers's place," I told her, shrugging off the unease I felt when I thought about letting myself into his apartment after the way he'd sounded on the phone. I wasn't sure how he'd react to coming home and finding me there.

"You can't stay there alone!" Lucy huffed. "What if that's what Thisbe wants? Maybe these visions are her way of pushing you away from the people who want to protect you and help you?"

"He'll be back in a couple of days," I said.

"No way," Lucy told me, crossing her arms. "If you want to move into his place once he's back, fine, but until then you're staying with someone. If you don't want to stay with me, move in with Mama Legba."

But that was the last thing I wanted to do.

When we finally began to approach the heavy gates that welcomed visitors to Le Ciel, I realized something was wrong. The road, usually empty except for an occasional tour bus or car, was littered with vehiclespolice cars with their lights flashing and news vans with their doors open. People buzzed around like carrion birds looking for dinner.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I pulled up slowly to the place where an unmarked car blocked the drive. Like a good responsible driver, I stopped to wait for clearance to pass.

"What do you think's going on?" Lucy asked as she leaned forward, as though getting closer to the windshield would help her see.

"I don't know," I said.

The thickset deputy who was blocking the main gate motioned for me to pull over. Leading with his stomach and taking his good old time about it, the deputy swaggered over to my car. Mirrored lenses covered his eyes when he leaned down and rested his elbow on my open window. My stomach went tight, but I made sure to keep my hands on the steering wheelright where he could see them.

"Sorry, folks. Grounds are closed today. You're going to have to turn around and head home."

"I live here," Lucy said, leaning over to speak across me.

His caterpillar eyebrows raised above the mirrored lenses. "That so?" He turned to me. "What about you?"

"She's staying with us right now," Lucy said, before I could even answer.

With those mirrored glasses, I couldn't tell what he was looking atme, the interior of the car, or something else. He didn't seem to be in any hurry to talk. "I'm going to need to you to step out of the car."

"What?" Lucy asked, clearly confused.

"Out of the car, please. Both of you." He stepped back to let me out. "Turn it off, first, and put the keys on the hood."

By now, my hands were shaking, but I did what he asked and got out, slowly and carefully. Lucy met my eyes over the roof of the car, and I could tell she was just as uneasy as I was. Maybe more so. She'd probably never been through a traffic stop like this.

"Stand over there," he drawled without so much as a "please."

Lucy looked like she wanted to argue, but I snagged her arm and pulled her over to the spot where he'd pointed. The last thing I needed was her getting us arrested. We watched in silence as the officer went around the car, opening the doors and using my keys to open the trunk. After tossing my purse out onto the road, he bent down to look under the seats and then wedged himself into the car to examine the cluttered glove compartment. Finally, apparently satisfied that I wasn't hiding anythingor maybe not satisfied at allhe grabbed a clipboard from his car and came over to where I was standing. He didn't give me back my keys.

He looked at me. "Name?"

"Chloe Sabourin."

"Address?"

I gave him the number to my own house and said a silent prayer to any well-meaning spirits who might have been listening that he didn't go check it out. Somehow I didn't think the dead rooster and piles of beetles would go over well.

"Your name?" he asked Lucy, and she gave it to him. "You got some ID on you?" he asked us.

"In my bag," I said while Lucy fished hers out of her pocket.

He sauntered back over, grabbed my bag from where he'd tossed it, and pawed through it with his sausage-like fingers. When a tampon fell out, he didn't bother to pick it up. Finally, he located my ID and came back over to me.

"You say she's staying here?" he asked Lucy. Again with the brows and the scowling.

"Yeah. She's staying with my family while her mom is out of town," Lucy told him, peering over his shoulder like she was trying to see something, anything, in the distance. But the house was still a ways off, and trees blocked our view. "Can you tell me what's going on? My family should be back there."

The officer looked up from what he was writing, and this time he slid his glasses down his nose a bit so I could see his eyes. Ice blue and without a hint of warmth. But he never answered her question.

After a few minutes of writing down my information and calling it in to the station, he handed me back my ID.

"So can we go?" Lucy glanced past him again, to the house.

"I'll get you an escort to your house," the officer said.

Relief washed over her features "But your friend here's going to have to wait until the unit's done with the scene."

"The scene?" My knees went weak as overcooked noodles.

"What scene?" Lucy asked.

"Not at liberty to say," he told us, motioning for another deputy to come over. "Take this young lady home." Then to me, "You'll need to be behind the yellow line with the rest of them until everything's sorted out."

"Miss? If you're ready?" the second deputy said.

"But" Lucy started, but when the deputy's brows went up again, it was enough of a warning for me to speak up.

"It's okay, Luce. I'll wait here." She still looked like she wanted to argue, but I shook my head. "Go find out what's happening. I'll be fine," I said, trying not to let her see how upset I was.

"You're going to need to move that," the officer grunted, gesturing toward my Nova. "Can't have you blocking the road."

As Lucy walked up the long drive, looking back like she wasn't sure she should leave me, I did what he asked and moved the car out of the drive and off to the side of the road with the news vans. The second I parked and cut the engine again, one of the plastic-haired reporters came over and leaned down into the window. He was youngnot all that much older than meand he was basically vibrating with eagerness.

"Could I ask you a few questions?"

I looked up at him. I'd never seen anybody with teeth that straight and white in real life. "I don't know any answers," I said, resting my forehead on the steering wheel and trying to remember how to breathe.

Apparently, my abruptness didn't dissuade him. "Did the police give any details about the victim?"

"Victim?" I lifted my head, my heart in my throat. I'd been trying to hope that the scene had something to do with vandalism, maybe.

The news guy looked disappointed. "Did the police mention anything at all?"

"Who's the victim?" I said, ignoring his question.

He frowned. "Maybe he mentioned where the body was found?"

"What body?" I was getting angry now. Or rather, terrified, but it came out like angry.

"The rumor is that a body was found in the mansion. Can you confirm that?"

"I can't even get back there. How could I confirm anything?"

The fake smile fell from the guy's face. "Well, if you hear anything ... " He handed me a card that I tossed on the floor of the car the second he walked away.

Another body. Another murder. I had to let Mama Legba know. I reached for my bag and dug around for my phone, but ... nothing. I swore I'd grabbed it on the way out the door that morning, but after digging for a few minutes, I came up empty.

I could always drive back to the city to tell her, but it was a good twenty minutes each way. If I left, I might miss my chance to make sure that Lucy and her family were safe.

Pounding my fists against the worn steering wheel, I let out a string of curses. Usually that would've been enough to make me feel better, but this time it didn't. Not when I was stuck on the outside of everything, again. Not when I didn't know if my friend's family was hurt, or worse. Not when the thing blocking my path was a fat-ass policeman who looked at me like I wasn't worth his time.

I was stuck, alone. And all I could do was wait.

Twenty.

The afternoon had grown thick and sultry by the time a silent ambulance made its way out of the gate. The news vans weren't giving up, though. Not with the yellow police tape still up, blocking the entrance to the property, and Officer Eyebrows still standing guard. Eventually, I slid into the backseat, where the sun wasn't hitting. The old, cracked vinyl was stiff and sticky against my skin, but I was too nervous, wiped out, and just plain scared to care.

I closed my eyes and tried to think of something besides the heat beating down on me or the fear that was twisting my insides into knots, but the only thing I could seem to think about was the coolness of that pine grove from my dreams. The empty darkness of the night, the silence of the stars, and the girl with cheekbones that could cut and a mouth that reminded me of my mother's.

And then, the heat of the day was gone. The constant chatter of the reporters in their vans dwindled until it was nothing but a far-off murmur, and then silence. All at once, I was no longer just imagining the grove of treesI was there.

So was the girl.

She was a little older than the last time I'd seen her, closer now to my own age. She sat alone, her back against the base of a thick tree, her arms wrapped around her knees, like she was protecting herself from the night. Her mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. Maybe she was talking to herself, but from the way she rocked, maybe she was singing.

After a while, the girl looked up, found the moon high in the sky, and frowned. Her eyes tracked the darkness, searching. She looked right through me, like she didn't see me. She must not have seen what she'd been looking for either, because a moment later, she stood, brushing the pine needles from her skirts as she gathered her things, and started walking. She never looked back.

I didn't hesitate to follow her.

On and on we walked, the girl a little ways ahead of me, picking her way between the trees confidently, even though the night was dark and thick, like she knew exactly where she was going. She didn't stumble once, which is more than I could say for myself.

This time wasn't like before, when I had run and run and never got past the same bit of wooded land. This time, the trees eventually grew farther apart, and with each step we took, the pines gave way and moonlight began to find its way to us, lighting up the land so I didn't have to stumble through the darkness as much.

Eventually, we found the end of the grove of pines and stepped out into a clearing lit up by a heavy moon and a canopy of stars so thick I'd never seen the like. There, I could make out the features of the landthe broad expanse of a field thick with cane. The shadow of some low building off in the distance with lights flickering in its open windows. I looked back once, but the grove of pines I'd just escaped looked so much like a dark, empty mouth that I didn't look back again.

The girl walked on, rubbing her arms like she was trying to warm them with her hands now and then, but mostly she walked with the determined gait of someone who had somewhere to be. In the distance ahead, strange shadowy shapes rose from the land, but we were too far away to make out what they were. As we got closer to them, I understood at once what I was seeingtwo straight lines of sturdy-looking trees formed an alley of sorts, leading out into darkness. On the other side, I knew, would be the river. On this side, where we were walking, should have been Le Ciel.

But there was no house.

My steps slowed so much as we neared the property that I almost lost track of the girl. She continued walking, on and on, but I came to a stop. Those giant live oaks that dripped with Spanish moss and made tourists trek from the Quarter just for a picture in their shade looked exactly the same. There was no mistaking where we werethere's nowhere else in all of the delta region with trees planted in just that waypurposefully, like someone wanted them to lead up to the river. But the mansion wasn't there yet. So when were we?

The girl was far ahead now, and if I hesitated any longer I was going to lose her. I wanted to know where she was going, so I left the comfortingand unsettlingfamiliarity of the oaks behind and ran to catch up.

On she walked, past the place where the big house would someday stand. Past a row of small shacks dotting the dark horizonprobably slave quarters for the plantation that would someday become Le Ciel Doux. The original slave quarters hadn't made it through the years when it was unfashionable to have any reminders of the less-than-pristine parts of the area's history sitting around. But they were here now, in whatever time this was.

The girl didn't turn toward them, though, and she didn't stop walking. She went past the area that would one day hold a small, picturesque pond, through another line of trees, and to the clearing that held Thisbe's cabin.

Her steps slowed as she approached it, and when I looked beyond her to the shaded porch of the ghostly white structure, I realized it was because someone was waiting for hera shadowy figure who held a narrow cigar between his teeth. Its tip flickered a deeper orange as he took a long drag on it.

I couldn't feel anythingnot the cool of the air or the breeze rustling the treesbut I could feel the frustration and anger radiating off the girl when she saw the man on her porch. She squared her shoulders and took the last few steps toward the cabin, toward her cabin. The man sitting on the porch didn't so much as stand to acknowledge her arrival, but as we got closer, I realized he was younger than I'd expected. But there was something familiar about him.

It took me a second to place him, but when his mouth turned down at something the girl said, it clicked into place. Roman.

Once I recognized him, there was no way not to see the Roman Dutilette I was familiar with in the man's features. But he was younger here than he was in that daguerreotype Dr. Aimes had showed us. Younger than in any of the portraits that hung on the walls in the big house. His hooded eyes seemed to look right through the girl, like he didn't believe she was worth seeing, and his smile was more a sneer than anything else.

The girl was clearly agitated. I couldn't hear a thing she was saying, but from the way she held her body, she was strung tight. Angry.

Roman listened with disinterest to whatever it was the girl told him, blowing streams of smoke from his thin mouth. When she was finished, her hand pointing toward the land we'd walked through as though to direct him on his way, he threw his head back and laughed. Then he got up from the porch and stepped up to her, his eyes cold, his skin dusky in the moonlight. He was still sneering, his light eyes glinting with expectation as he reached for her, brushed her cheek with his hand.

She jerked her head away, a look of disgust and hate filling her eyes, but he took her by the arm with one hand and, flicking his still-lit cigar aside, roughly grabbed her chin with the other, forcing her to look at him. She struggled but couldn't free herself.

I moved closer, wanting to help her get away from him.

But my hand passed clean through them both, like I was nothing more than a ghost. There was nothing I could do. Not as he pulled her against him. Not as he forced his cruel mouth against hers.

He kissed her long and hard and without any affection at all, his hands groping her roughly as she struggled against him, and when we was done, he sneered at her again.

Then he looked up at me, a mocking smile wiped across his mouth, and said my name.

Twenty-One.