"Oh my god," Lucy whispered.

"Mama Legba," I said, taking a step toward her. "Are you hurt?"

Mama Legba raised her head then, like someone had just shaken her awake. I was relieved to see that the look in her eyes was as much anger as it was fear and uncertainty. "I ain't been harmed," she said.

"Have you called the police?" Lucy asked, pulling out her phone.

"No, and don't you be calling the police into this now, neither. I've had about enough of them for today." She stood and made her way through the mess toward the kitchen-side of the room. "That's where I was when all this happened."

"You were with the police again?" I asked, still trying to take in the mess that someone had made of her home.

"Was it another body?" Lucy asked in a strangled-sounding whisper.

Mama Legba shook her head. "No, just more questions about the markings on that poor soul they found the other day. I told them before that I didn't have no clue about what those were. Those marks ain't nothing to do with Voodoo, but they didn't want to be hearing that then, and they wanted to hear it even less this morning. Somehow they got the idea in their heads now that I might have had something to do with the killings. Thank the spirits for customers giving me an alibi, or I doubt they'd have let me go at all. And then I come home to this mess?"

She crouched down to look under the sink. The piece of fabric that usually served as an apron beneath the basin had been torn away, exposing the ancient plumbing beneath. After rustling around for a moment, Mama Legba let out a muffled curse as she righted herself.

"I really think we should call the cops," Lucy said again.

"Put your phone away," Mama Legba told her with a voice that meant business. "Ain't nothing they can do about this. What are you girls doing here anyway?"

"We came to see if you found out anything from looking at the charm last night," Lucy said.

"I didn't look at no charm last night."

"Didn't Piers bring it over?"

Mama Legba frowned. "Was he supposed to?"

"I thought that's what he was going to do," I told her. But I'd been so angry, I hadn't really asked him. Maybe I'd assumed wrong. "Maybe he meant to bring it by on his way back from Nashville instead." I pulled out my phone and sent him a quick message to confirm.

"I don't know," said Mama Legba. "But we got other things to worry about now." She gestured to the room, and then she grabbed her large, patchwork bag and was out the door in a matter of seconds.

"Should we follow her?" Lucy asked, looking more than a little shell-shocked.

I frowned. "I don't think we should let her go off alone right now. Not with all this," I said, gesturing to the mess all around us.

So we took off after Mama Legba, through the back alley that led to a larger street and then east through the Quarter. She didn't bother to pause at any intersections or pay any mind to the cars that almost ran her down. Marching on with her shoulders set and her arms swinging like a determined soldier, she crossed each street and let the traffic stop for her. Amazingly, it did.

Lucy and I were a little more careful as we tromped along, following the determined path Mama Legba cut through the heart of the Quarter.

The farther we got from Jackson Square, the quieter the streets became. Even with the humidity of the day pressing in on us, even with the worry clinging to my back, walking those lonely streets wasn't all bad. Walking through the Quarter never is.

Some places in this world might be well loved despite the grit and grime and age, but people come to the French Quarter because of it. Like a worn-out madam who still has enough sparkle to keep the fellows knocking on her door, there's something beautiful about the way this part of the city has stood, steadfast and sure, over the centuries. Even with the usual smell of the puke and piss from the night before's carousing, it's a place people can't help but want to be.

But Mama Legba didn't stop, and the farther east you go, the more the neighborhoods change. On the other side of Elysian Fields Avenue, things get a little more hit or missthere might be a cute little shotgun house next to a building covered in graffiti. Or there might only be a row of run-down shacks. Once you pass the quaint homes in the wedge of streets that make up Marigny, you're in Bywater, and then just beyond Bywater is the Lower Ninth Ward, which still hasn't come back all the way from Katrina.

They don't bother marking those parts of town on any of the fancy tourist maps, but those places are home for a lot of people, even if the streets there have their problems. Still, I was starting to worry that Mama Legba might not ever stop walking.

"Are you going to tell us where we're going?" I asked when we made it as far as Bywater.

She didn't bother to answer, just shot me an impatient look and kept on walking. But after a few more turns, she slowed to a stop in front of a cream-colored house on Desire Street.

It seemed like a nice enough place, but nothing fancy. It had an air conditioning unit drooping out the front window, the motor clicking away and dripping condensation on the ground, and one of the shutters was tilted off its top hinge, hanging like it was trying to decide if it wanted to fall down or to climb back up. In the window was a hand-lettered sign that said READINGS with a picture of something that might have been a cat beneath it and a phone number.

Mama Legba didn't hesitate. She marched straight up the steps and rapped a rapid-fire cadence on the door as she called, "Odeana! I need to talk with you!"

"Who's Odeana?" Lucy whispered.

"Hell if I know," I told her.

Even though it sometimes felt like I'd known Mama Legba forever, I realized then that none of us had really known her long enough to have any idea who the other people in her life might be. She'd always seemed like this solitary figure to me, and I guess I'd sort of felt like Piers and I were adopting her rather than the other way around. But maybe I'd been wrong about that.

After a couple of seconds, the curtains rustled and then, a moment after that, the door opened.

"That you, Auntie Odette?" A boy who was a year or two older than me stepped out with a confused and then an almost pleased look on his face.

"Odette?" Lucy whispered, her voice kind of high and strangled. She was still staring at the guy.

I shrugged. I didn't know what was going on, but I couldn't blame Lucy for sounding the way she didthe boy was something to see. He knew it, too, if the swagger in his shoulders was any indication.

He stood at the top of the steps with his hands on his hips and grinned at Mama Legba before he noticed Lucy and me waiting on the sidewalk below. His smile barely faltered as he took his time looking us over. When he caught me looking right back, he winked. That wink was so unexpected that I had to remind myself to scowl at him. Which, of course, made the teasing glint in his eye all the worse.

I hated that he knew I'd been looking, but to be honest, it was kind of hard not to. The guy wasn't wearing much besides some low-slung basketball shorts and a necklace around the base of his throat made from smooth wooden beads and bits of sharp shell. A blind woman would've agreed that his chest looked it was designed by someone who knew what a man's chest should look like.

"Don't Auntie Odette me," Mama Legba told the boy, poking at his bare chest to punctuate her words. "Where's your mama?"

The guy gave a lazy shrug, the kind that's all attitude without saying a word. His eyes lighted on Lucy and me again, and his full mouth kicked up into a grin.

"Don't even, boy," Mama Legba said.

The grin turned into a full-on smile, and I knew he was only playing. "Aw, Auntie. Don't be like that."

"I'm not in the mood for your sass today," Mama Legba said, but she looked like she was holding back a smile of her own. "Now, is you gonna let me in to talk to your mama, or do I have to make you?" She narrowed her eyes, but her mouth was definitely twitching with something like amusement by then.

He laughed at that, a rich, rolling laugh filled with the same teasing humor that sparked in his dark eyes when he looked at me. I made myself meet his gaze without flinching and did my best to scowl some more.

"I'd like to see you go on and try, but you best come on in," he told her, stepping aside. "I don't need you hurting yourself, Auntie."

Mama Legba smacked his bare chest as she brushed past. "Go put on some clothes. Like your mama didn't teach you nothing at all, answering the door without a stitch on."

"I got more than a stitch on," he said, running his thumb along the elastic waistband of his shorts, causing them to dip enough that I could make out the dark band of his boxer briefs. When I looked up, his teasing eyes were on me again.

It took everything I had not to look away and let him know exactly how much that laughter in his eyes felt like a tickling in my gut. I gave him another purposeful scowl that seemed to make him smile even more, his eyes lighting with a challenge.

"Y'all coming, too?" he asked.

We weren't going to stand there on the sidewalk all day, so we followed Mama Legba into the house. It had a welcoming, lived-in feeling, and it smelled like someone had been cooking something heavy with spices the day before. The air conditioner was whirring and rattling in the window, but it wasn't doing much for the closeness in the air.

"Where's your mama, boy?" Mama Legba asked again as she looked around the house and seemed to realize it was empty. She ignored the boy's indication that she should have a seat.

"Don't know," he told her, slouching into a well-worn easy chair and ignoring her order to put on some clothes. "I got back from the rig late last night, and I haven't seen her yet today. But I'd 'preciate it if you would stop calling me boy, Auntie. In case you haven't noticed, I outgrew that some years back," he said, waggling his eyebrows playfully.

Mama Legba glared at him. "You sure do seem to want everyone to know," she said, gesturing to his still-bare chest. "You worried somebody's gonna miss you, strutting around like that?"

The guy laughed and ignored the question. "How you doing, Auntie O? It's been too long since I seen you."

"That's only 'cause you never come visit. Out there living in the middle of that water. You think you some sort of fish? A body's meant for the dry land." Mama Legba's eyes softened a little then, and despite her blustering, the affection she felt for him was clear as day on her face.

"Working on the rig is a good enough job," he said. "Had to do something with myself."

"You could've taken yourself off to school, like your mama wanted."

The boy shook his head, his carefree expression faltering. "That wasn't for me, Auntie, and you know it. I can't stand being cooped up in a classroom just to someday be cooped up in an office. The rig suits me fine for now."

Mama Legba seemed to be examining him. "That's true enough, I guess. You too wild for four walls to hold you in." She smiled softly. "But what about for someday? You been practicing any?"

"Some," he said, but he made the word sound like "not at all."

Mama Legba nodded. "That's what I thought. Well, as you said, you ain't a boy now, so soon enough the question gonna be what you want to do about what you've been given."

The boy frowned. "I got time."

"Maybe you do and maybe you don't ... " She paused for a moment, and something passed between the two of them that made the room buzz with tension. Then, all at once, Mama Legba seemed to let it go. " You really don't know where your mother got off to, Odane?"

"No," he said. "I really don't. What do you need her for anyway?"

Mama Legba frowned. "I need to talk something over with her."

The boy's brows went up. "It sure must be something if you came all this way just to talk," he said. "But I don't know when she'll be back."

Mama Legba finally took a seat on the edge of the couch, her arms crossed over her ample bosom. "I can wait."

The guyOdanescooted to the edge of his chair, his forearms resting on his knees and his brows drawn together. "What's this all about, Auntie?"

"I bought up some aloe from Laveau's this week, but somebody done come into my home and tore it up so they could steal it," she said with a frown. "My dishes is broke all over the floor, my furniture is all torn to bits, and my back door's been busted in. But nothing else is missing but that aloe."

The expression of doubt on Odane's face didn't change. "You came all the way over here because somebody stole some plants?"

Mama Legba's brows drew together. "They wasn't just plants. They'd been curing already in black cat oil, and you know that ain't easy to find neither."

Odane considered that information with a thoughtful frown. "What do you think my mom can do about it? She ain't no police. Besides, you tear up a person's house, you're doing something personal. You're trying to take a piece out of the person's security and peace of mind. That's nothing to brush aside."

Mama Legba shook her head as Lucy gave a told-you-so huff and elbowed me.

"No," Mama Legba told him. "I need to think this all through ... "

"What is there to think through?" Odane asked. "Someone broke into your home."

"They sure enough did, but you don't understand." She ran her hand up over her cheek, like she was comforting herself and trying to think all at once. "I had all the protections set," she told him.

"Somebody got through your protections?" Odane's shock was clear.

Mama Legba nodded, her expression grave.

"Who around here is strong enough to do something like that?" he asked.

"Only one person I know of that would," Mama Legba said, her dark eyes finding mine. "Question is, what she wants with that aloe."

Ten.

"I think you best come on back to the kitchen," Odane said with a long-suffering kind of sigh. "I'm gonna need something to eat before I hear what you're about to say. Something tells me I'm not going to like a word of it."

He got up without another word and headed back into the kitchen that opened onto the parlor we were sitting in. Instead of stopping there, he went on back through and disappeared through another door.

A second later, the front door opened. "Odette?" the small woman said as she stepped through the door and saw Mama Legba sitting in the parlor. "What are you doing here?" The woman didn't sound at all pleased to see Mama Legba, and then her eyes drifted to us and she seemed even less pleased.

If I hadn't already known we were in Mama Legba's sister's house, I might not have guessed the two women were even related. Where Mama Legba was broad and ample, this woman was small and slight, almost frail looking. Her hair was loose around her face in a short bob and didn't have any of the gray that shot through Mama Legba's. But there was something in the similar tilt of their eyes that marked them as family.

The woman came in, but her steps were labored and uneven because of the crutch she clasped in one hand and the way her right foot didn't exactly go straight.

"Odeana, honey," Mama Legba said with a nervous sort of smile. She stood to greet her sister.

"Don't honey me," the woman told her without an ounce of warmth. "What are you doing in my house?"

But before Mama Legba could reply, Odane came back through the kitchen, this time fully clothed. "Mom?"

The scowl on the small woman's face slid away and her entire expression brightened, like her argument with Mama Legba had never happened. She dismissed us completely and went to wrap her sonwho towered above herin a hug that made my throat go tight.

My momma used to hug me like that. The thought was as sudden as it was awful. And I had the sudden realization that whatever happened next, I was never going to have that again. Even with everything that had happened, there was a small part of me that still craved my momma's arms around me.

Odeana made some more noises of delight over her sonhow much she'd missed him, how good he looked, and how that sea air must have made him grow another three inches. He glanced up at us once, over his mother's head, clearly embarrassed, but then he turned back to her preening approval.

"You done yet?" he said, when it was clear he couldn't take any more.

"I'll let you know," his mother said. But then she glanced over at Mama Legba. "Just as soon as I find out what she's doing here."

"Someone smashed up her house," Odane said, taking the opportunity to get himself free of her arms.

Odeana turned to Mama Legba, her face slack with shock. "They did what?" All at once, the anger and suspicion she'd worn like armor was gone.