Angel’s Promise by Aleatha Romig

Emma

Jezebel and I hurried into the house, the screen door slamming as we both came to a halt at the bottom of the staircase. Lying on the last steps and onto the wood floor was Edmée. I scanned her, searching for injuries. Her arms and legs appeared intact, bent at the correct angles. There was no blood or sign of trauma. She was simply splayed on the final steps.

“Do you think she fell?” I asked, my hands trembling from the scream and scene.

Jezebel shook her head. “We need to help her.”

Together, we wrapped our arms under hers, not unlike the way Edmée and I had helped Jezebel upon my arrival. Her head wobbled on her neck as we lifted. Edmée couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, yet in her current unconscious state, she wasn’t easy to maneuver.

“It’s the spirits,” Jezebel said. “Sometimes, they’re too much. Tonight, they’re louder than I’ve ever heard.”

“So she fainted?” I asked, trying to make sense of...well...anything.

Jezebel nodded.

Finally, we were able to get Edmée to the sofa in the front sitting room, the same room where we’d found the blankets.

Jezebel crouched in front of her and laid her palms on each side of Edmée’s face, framing the other woman’s cheeks as she spoke. The language wasn’t English, not what she and I had been using. It reminded me of the couple on the back porch. As I listened, I recognized the French influence, but the meanings of the words were lost on me.

Edmée’s eyelids fluttered as she woke and concentrated on Jezebel.

There was a moment of silence between the two of them as if they spoke to one another without words. Maybe they were speaking or maybe it was the spirits talking to them. I took a step back, my arms around my midsection and watched. Tears filled Edmée’s eyes as she nodded.

And then Jezebel released her friend’s face and they both turned their focus my direction.

It was as if I were watching them from another realm, unable to understand what was happening between them. Yet they saw me, all of me. It wasn’t the way Rett looked at me. No, Jezebel and Edmée were looking at me in a way I could feel more than see. I closed my eyes as if to hide, but that didn’t help. When my eyes opened, they were both still focused on me.

Jezebel shook her head and lowered her chin.

In that second, she appeared defeated, and yet I couldn’t imagine what had happened.

Finally, she inhaled and stood.

There was no question that Jezebel had a natural beauty about her, poise and stature. Isaiah Boudreau may have tried to defeat, demean, and humiliate her, but she’d overcome. With her chin high, she turned to me.

“I didn’t fully respect the city.” She smiled. “I thought I could keep you” —she swallowed as tears came to her eyes— “for at least a little while. They love you.”

“What?” I shook my head. “Who is they?”

Edmée sat up, pulling herself higher. “Child, you have everyone talking, live and dead.”

A chill settled over my arms as I rubbed my hands over each one. It was impossible to be in this house in the middle of the bayou and not be affected by the talk of those who had passed on before us.

Edmée spoke to Jezebel as her expression turned somber. “Do you hear what they’re saying?”

Jezebel nodded, her expression also darkening.

“Miss Betsy, it’s time.”

My mother’s mask of indifference shattered before me as tears leaked from her blue eyes. “I want more, Edmée. I deserve more.”

“You did your part.” Edmée stood and walked to Jezebel. “And, baby, you did it right.”

Hearing Edmée call my mother baby was odd, and yet the years showed on Edmée, in her wrinkled skin and white hair. Even her hands showed the signs that come with time. And while Jezebel had given birth to me and Kyle, she’d said that when she did, she was younger than I was now. Without a change in my birthdate, I was twenty-six on my last birthday.

Jezebel was probably near fifty.

Suddenly, she appeared younger and sad.

“Mother.” The term I hadn’t wanted to use less than twenty-four hours ago now came much easier.

Edmée continued to speak, holding Jezebel’s hands. “We can’t control time. Ain’t nobody who can. Even the spirits. They teach us to respect it, to use it for good. You did that, Betsy.”

Jezebel clung to Edmée’s hands as her face fell forward and her shoulders quaked. “I made mistakes.”

“You stop.”

Jezebel looked up at Edmée.

“Miss Betsy, you are a proud woman; that isn’t going to end. We all make mistakes. It’s what happens when we try. If you don’t try, if you did nothing, moved away and lived a different life, things would be different, but there’d still be mistakes.”

Jezebel’s nostrils flared as her lips tucked between her teeth. It was something I knew I did from time to time. Seeing the woman who bore me have the same mannerism gave me a sense of peace.

“I’m not ready,” Jezebel said.

Edmée’s head shook from side to side. “Ain’t your call, baby. The spirits are woke. The city’s bustling. You know what we have to do.”

“Together, we believed.”

Edmée nodded. “The city’s spoke. If we don’t move fast...” She shook her head. “I ain’t heard this kind of warning since before your babies come into this world. The danger is real.”

Jezebel turned to me. The whites of her eyes were littered with red lines. “I’m sorry, Emma. I’m so sorry.”

My hands dropped to my side. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

Jezebel turned to Edmée. “I don’t know if I can go back. The spirits are loud here. In the city...”

“You going to send Emma out there alone?”

Jezebel shook her head. “No. Get Daniel.” She inhaled. “I need messages sent.”

Edmée nodded.

As Edmée walked back toward the kitchen, Jezebel sat on the edge of the sofa and sighed.

I couldn’t stop the pull I had as I went closer, crouched, and laid my hand on her knee. “What is happening?”

She covered my hand. “I wanted so much.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The prophecy told me that I carried within me a leader for New Orleans. It warned of destruction that would come and lives lost. It said to protect my offspring and help him understand.”

“Him? You mean Kyle?”

“No, child. The spirits are blind to gender, unlike most of us. A leader isn’t based on the chromosomes within their genetic makeup. I wanted to believe that the spirits were also blind to sibling rivalry. That both of my children would take their rightful place.” She exhaled. “If I hadn’t done what I did, that might have happened.”

“What did you do?”