Page 5

U rsulines Avenue was known for its antique shops, art galleries, hotels, and restaurants. The vibe was calmer and the crowds thinner here than on Frenchman Street, and the smells of boudin and crawfish boil spiced the air.

Our driver, clutching a muffaletta the size of his head in one hand and gripping the wheel in the other, put us out on a corner where Josie and Pedro waited for us. We milled around, searching for signs of Matty but finding no indication where his soul had gone.

“That Pierre guy said to wait, right?” Josie posted up under a flickering streetlamp. “For how long?”

Impatience and frustration warred in her voice, barely covering her fear for our brother, but we didn’t have a lot of options. This was the only lead we had to follow. “As long as it takes.”

Anticipation flavored the first thirty minutes, but it faded to an aftertaste past the first hour.

The four of us stood our ground, scanning for any sign of Matty, but we began to lose our collective faith after the second hour passed with no sign of him. Or Vi. Or any spirits. Not one. Which was odd in and of itself. The city was usually bustling with souls going about their business this time of night.

Yet another reason our canvassing hadn’t turned up any useful information—a lack of informants.

Bargaining with Pierre hadn’t been ideal, but we hadn’t had many better options, and at least I knew his information was good.

Ten minutes before midnight, I heard the rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum and straightened from my lean.

“What is it?” Josie peered around, her hand clutching mine. “Do you see him?”

“No.” I checked with Kierce and Pedro, who both nodded. “Can you hear that?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Her nails dug into my skin. “That guy playing sax a street over?”

Trombone slides slowed down the drums, and trumpets struck up a lazy march.

But Josie heard none of it.

And that was proof enough.

“A parade is coming.” I stepped up to the curb. “I can’t see them yet, but I can hear them.”

“Damn it.” She noticed her crushing grip on me and let go with a grimace. “I wish I could help.”

With the rest of us craning our necks and straining our ears, it was little wonder she got caught up in the moment. “I’m sorry, Mary.” I jostled her arm. “When I see him, you’ll be the first to know.”

Stepping out into the street, Kierce called back, “I’ll go search for Vi.”

Funerals in New Orleans weren’t somber graveside affairs. Not entirely, anyway. Some families opted for jazz funerals, processions accompanied by a brass band, to celebrate the lives of those who had been lost. Music played, mourners danced, and some even sang hymns.

I had been swept into one or two, the participants’ joy infectious. Tears of sadness and happiness mingled until you couldn’t tell one from the other. It was beautiful. It was soulful. And it was damn strange when the spectral musicians came into view because I had never seen spirits reenact funerary rites. Most souls wanted to cling to the echoes of life, not the trappings of death.

For a moment, I thought I must be wrong. That this was a residual haunting left over from some Mardi Gras parade. I kept scanning for floats or spirits tossing beads, coins, or candy. But as they drew nearer, and I got an eyeful of their somber attire, I knew I had been right all along.

We kept to the curb, allowing the soft-blue glowing mourners to march past us. Dressed in their Sunday best, they were a sight.

“This must be it.” I willed myself to believe it. “This must be what Pierre wanted us to see.”

The music swelled as the outliers drew even with us, and I scanned every face for Matty.

Midway through the revelers, I was rewarded with a glimpse of a face I would recognize anywhere.

“I see him.” I broke away from Josie. “I’m going after him.”

“Me too.” She growled her frustration. “I can’t stand here and watch, even if I can’t see a damn thing.”

“You’re not going in there.” I slowed, fear coasting down my spine, and she smacked into my back. “We don’t know how people become afflicted, and we’re not going to risk you to figure it out.”

“Frankie—”

“No.” I shut her down fast. “I’m not losing my sister too.”

“Take Pedro at least.” Tears threatened in her voice. “Just in case you can swap them out.”

Instinct screamed at me not to risk Pedro for the reasons I didn’t want Josie anywhere near a dangerous source of magic we didn’t understand, but from the look on his face, they were united in overruling me.

“This is why I’m here, mija .” Pedro gentled his tone. “I want to help.”

“There’s no time to argue with either of you.” I lifted my hands in defeat. “Let’s do this, Pedro.” I broke into a sprint, Pedro on my heels, waving a hand overhead and yelling, “Matty.”

He noticed me, and his face lit up as he stuck out his elbow for me to slide my arm in. I focused to grant his soul enough substance I could hook him, but my arm passed right through his. Again and again, I tried with the same result. Finally, he shrugged and walked on, shuffling his feet to the beat and eyeing the woman ahead of him with the flare of interest he had shown me.

“Matty.” I ran to catch up, each swipe of my hand failing to connect with him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Hey, pretty girl.” His stare was glazed where it fell on me. “Want to dance?”

“I’m not a pretty girl.” I struggled against the pinch in my chest. “I’m your sister.”

Humming along, he sidestepped me in pursuit of the woman again.

A growl in my throat, I circled in front of him, my hands clawing through him without purchase.

“Pedro?” I tamped down the frantic thread about to snap in my tone. “You’re up next.”

Two souls could occupy the same body, and Matty was an old pro at cohabitation. But this wasn’t how it was done back home. I couldn’t exorcise Pedro without Matty’s body dropping like a ton of bricks.

Pedro could only grasp at him, his fingers slicing through air. “Mija?”

“Get in front of him.” I yanked him front and center. “Let him pass through you.”

Wrong choice of words because that was exactly what Matty did—danced through him without a hitch in his stride. As if his own body hadn’t been standing there. As if he hadn’t recognized himself.

“Matty.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat, refusing to give up yet. “You need to listen to me?—”

“Hey, pretty girl.” His attention landed on me, his eyes duller than before. “Want to dance?”

Understanding really and truly dawned then, that the light in his eyes hadn’t been recognition. He would have given the same greeting to any girl who walked up to him. I had seen what I wanted to see the first time and not the reality.

“You just said that,” I whispered, chin wobbling, my arms falling limp at my sides.

“I couldn’t feel him.” Pedro turned sorrowful eyes on me. “It was like he wasn’t even there.”

“It’s not your fault.” I gripped his forearm, contenting myself with this one small piece of my brother. “We’ll figure it out. We’re not out of time or options yet. We’re going to fix this.”

This time, I let Matty go. Let him dance his way to the woman and ask her his question. She turned to him, smiled, and they began a slow waltz that spanned the width of Ursulines Avenue.

He never looked back.

Not even when I called his name.

A ruckus drew my attention from Matty toward the rear of the procession.

Though I couldn’t stomach giving up on him altogether, I couldn’t ignore the shouting either.

“Kierce,” I cried out, racing for the scuffle. “Try to break Matty out.”

“I’ll go with him,” Pedro told me. “See if I can help.”

Maybe they would have better luck together than he had with me.

The voice spouting profanities caused my throat to tighten, and I ran toward it. I found Vi with two strapping young spirits walking arm in arm with her. They were walking, anyway. Vi was swinging in their grip, hissing and spitting vile curses that made my ears burn.

“Vi?” A whisper wasn’t going to get the job done, so I tried again. “Vi?”

“Frankie?” She quit struggling and hung between them. “Thank God you’re here.”

“You know who I am?” I couldn’t stop my head from turning toward Matty. “You remember yourself?”

“For now, I do.” She snarled her lip at the men to either side of her. “For how much longer, I can’t say.” Her eyes softened on me. “You saw Matty?”

“He didn’t know me.” Hot tears poured down my cheeks, sadness and joy mingling. “I was worried you wouldn’t recognize me either.”

“The magic nibbles on me. On all of us. Feels like tiny ants biting.”

Sure enough, as I scanned the parade, I spotted a few of the more subdued revelers scratching their arms, but they didn’t miss a step. “This spell, or whatever it is, is feeding on you?”

“The headaches…” she hissed through her teeth, “…they come on when I think about it too hard.”

That could explain the revelers’ laissez-faire attitude when it came to going through the motions on autopilot. “Do you think that’s what’s causing the memory loss?”

“That would be my guess, but it’s like pouring water through a sieve to hold on to my thoughts.”

“How did you end up here?” I pressed my luck, hoping she could recall any details, no matter how small. “Rollo couldn’t tell us much.”

“A patron had me searching Ursulines Avenue for a missing soul.” She frowned. “His wife?” Her pause sent a chill racing down my arms. “Yes. His wife. She’s in a coma.” Her relief to share that much was short-lived as a wave of pain rocked her in place. “He’s an oungan and sensed there was more to her condition than simple illness. He called me in to consult, as a favor, and sure enough. He was right to worry.” I held my breath as hers steadied. “Her symptoms matched…your brother. Mathew?”

“Yeah,” I said, voice thick. “Matty.”

“That’s when I lucked up on the Midnight Parade.” Her pupils expanded and then retracted, her focus shifting beyond me. “I hope I’m not late for supper.”

This whole conversation contracted my heart like a closed fist within my chest.

No, no, no.

This wasn’t happening. She was going to be fine. I wouldn’t let her be anything else.

Walking backward, I tried latching on to her arm without any luck. “How do I get you out of here?”

Impact sent me stumbling to one side, and I realized I had bumped into a parked car.

The parade marched on, and before I could pivot after Vi, they evaporated into whirls of blue mist.

“Well, we found them.” I gritted my teeth as Kierce ran to me. “Fat lot of good it did us.”

Gently, he helped me test my hip where I had smacked it on a non-folding car mirror. It might bruise, but I would be fine. I couldn’t say the same for Vi if we didn’t prioritize freeing her. Matty might be too far gone to realize he needed saving, since he couldn’t recognize me. Breaking through to him, and breaking him out, were looking more and more like two separate but equal tasks.

“We knew this wouldn’t be easy,” he soothed me. “This is only the first step.”

“It would have been nice if Pierre mentioned whether this is a nightly occurrence. And if it is, does it always happen here? On this street? At this time? Or do they pop up all over the city?”

“We can go back, see if he’ll tell us more.”

Worry that Kierce might end up the one in debt, for his own reasons, left a sour taste in my mouth.

“If I had anything he wanted, he would have bargained with me instead of bargaining through me to get to Vi.” I massaged my hip. “I’ve already run up her tab. I can’t keep adding to it without knowing the cost.”

“Then we wait,” he decided. “See if they circle back.”

Searching behind him for Pedro, I was relieved to find he had left to comfort Josie. “And if they don’t?”

“Then we come back tomorrow, same time, same place, and we wait.”

“I don’t understand.” I stared in the direction my brother had gone. “I couldn’t put hands on him.”

“Neither could I.” Kierce rubbed his fingers together as if the attempt had left behind a residue. “There’s magic chaining him to the others. They’re all connected.” He grew pensive. “There’s one more oddity. As far as I could tell, none of them are dead.”

“That makes sense.” In my mind’s eye, I saw Vi’s still form beneath her velvet bedspread. “Their bodies are still alive.”

“The spell must be weaving a collective bond between the spirits.”

Had Matty tuned out what was happening to avoid the magic nipping at his mind? Pain could trigger a Pavlovian response if he fought against the spell. Maybe he had given up when no help came. Or maybe blissful dissociation was how the magic worked, almost a reward for its victims going with the flow.

“Vi stumbled across the parade while she was investigating a patron’s wife’s illness.”

“Do you think the magic somehow trapped her?”

“Neither of us got stuck, but we’re both god adjacent. Our divinity might have protected us.”

“Perhaps,” he allowed, his expression going distant, “but we can’t be certain without a broader sampling of the afflicted factions.”

Thoughts veering back to Kierce’s interaction with Matty, I asked, “Did he say anything to you?”

“He introduced me to a woman in front of him who told me I was handsome and asked me to dance.”

“It’s like he’s reading from a script. He didn’t recognize me. There was just this…generic happiness…I guess? He didn’t understand what I was saying enough to engage with me. He repeated the same words on a loop, but that was it.”

“They must have a set number of phrases, though I don’t see why they would require the presets only to interact with one another.” Kierce mulled over his impressions. “Unless the victims are programmed to sweep others into the procession with them. That could be how the affliction was spread.”

“Not a bad theory, but it doesn’t account for how Matty was exposed when he was all the way in Thunderbolt.” I sounded like a broken record, but it kept needling me. “We’re no closer to knowing who—or what—is causing the affliction either. Let alone why they conjured it or what they stand to gain from it spreading.”

Still.

Matty aside, I had to consider it might explain how Vi was ensnared while out searching for her friend.

Had she struck out with Matty too? Had she tried to find someone more responsive to question? Had she given up on the stock answers and accepted the offer of a dance to check and see if that helped?

Clearly, once they got their hands on her, they didn’t intend to let Vi go until she had integrated into the collective, which made extracting her our top priority. Any detail she could share with us could make the difference between saving Matty and reuniting his soul with his body or…

Nope.

Not going there.

A text chime drew my attention to my phone and a message from Harrow.

Leyna Reynolds.

As in friend of a friend Leyna? You found her? What about SCAD Grad?

No luck on SCAD Grad, but Leyna Reynolds was admitted at Candler Hospital on the same night Matty was afflicted. I saw her not five minutes ago, but she won’t be answering any questions for us. She’s comatose.

You vetted her in person?

Yeah.

I figured I owed you.

Warmth ignited in my chest, warning me that my anger at Harrow was close to reaching a melting point.

First loves really screwed with your head. And your heart. I thought I could cut him out of my life, but he was making it hard to paint him as my enemy when he kept brushing aside my animosity to help Matty.

Send me her picture. I’ll keep an eye out for her too.

Will do. Thanks.

After giving me a moment to gather my thoughts, Kierce raised his eyebrows and waited for me to share.

“Harrow identified Leyna.” I shut my eyes, accepting I had lost yet another lead. “She’s comatose too.” I pocketed my phone then sought out Josie. “Let’s go update my sister before she comes unglued.”

The only thing holding her in place was Pedro’s grip on her wrist, anchoring her to the spot to give Kierce space to check me over before she swarmed me with questions. I was grateful for the moment to gather my thoughts before facing her.

Seeing for himself I was fine, he released her with an apology she brushed aside. As soon as I reached Josie, I saw what standing idly by had cost her in the smear of blood where she had bitten her bottom lip.

“Pedro hit the high notes,” she rushed out. “What else can you tell me?”

“I spoke to him. It was Matty. Not an illusion.” I started her off easy. “But he doesn’t know who he is and can’t help us figure out what’s going on.” Her chin trembled, and I brought her in for a hug. “I found Vi in the crowd.” I blinked back frustrated tears. “Whatever swept them up, a spell or an enchantment, it’s eroding her memories too.” I made myself believe the words as I spoke them. “But she’s not gone yet.”

“We need to free her before it’s too late.” Josie sniffled against my shoulder. “In case Matty can’t…”

“Come on, Mary.” I rubbed her back in soothing circles. “None of that.”

“We’re going to get Matty back,” Kierce swore. “No matter what it costs.”

I was onboard until that last bit. Not that I wouldn’t give anything to help my family. I just worried what he had in mind. More specifically, that he was considering a bargain with Pierre. Plenty of people had hinted at Kierce’s forgotten memories, claiming to know his secrets, but he must have known better than to trust them to deliver. With Pierre a temptation so close at hand, I feared Kierce might fall victim easier.

For some reason, the one thing I wanted no part of—my past—made those around me desperate to find their own answers. Which made me question if they saw something lacking in me that compelled them to fill the answering gaps within themselves.

I didn’t want to watch Kierce go down the same road of self-discovery Harrow had once walked with no way to pull him back from the brink of whatever he might learn there on the edge of his known world. I didn’t want to lose him.

“We have a few hours until dawn.” Josie pulled back with damp cheeks. “What do we do now?”

“You and Pedro head back to where you left off,” I decided, hating to send her out in this condition.

With a firm nod, Pedro promised me, “I’ll take good care of her, mija .”

Tears staining her cheeks, Josie blotted her face on her shirt. “What about you and Kierce?”

“I’m going to sit right here.” I sank onto the curb. “And wait to see if this Midnight Parade is literal.”

“You think they might circle back?” Pedro’s brow pinched. “Like a residual haunting?”

Until we grasped how cyclical this event truly was, we couldn’t begin to plot our next move. Pierre found them for us once, yes, but it didn’t guarantee they would come this way again. To move forward, we had to be sure that Ursulines Avenue at midnight was always the where and the when in order to prepare.

“Residual,” Josie repeated after him. “That’s a ghost that keeps reenacting its death, right?”

“Residuals repeat a set of actions at the same time, in the same place. Death, or other events with strong emotion, are most common, but there are no hard-and-fast rules.” I made room for her to sink next to me. “None of the revelers are dead, so it’s not quite the same.”

“What’s the point then?” She rested her forehead on her knees. “Why trap them in a loop?”

“I don’t know.” I wrapped an arm around her slumped shoulders. “But we’re going to find out.”