Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. II | In Progress

Chapter Six: When I Awake

LISA

It's me that I was looking at.

The same face. The same nose. The same hair and the same fingers and toes, all twenty of them accounted for. It's the same person, but even in the reflection, I didn't feel so. I was looking at her—at Lisa—and seeing someone completely different. I was stripped of myself, of my identity, and now I was looking at a shell of what once was. No more Lisa—no more Alisande. This woman didn't have a name yet.

These bright, ivory eyes stared back at me and beckoned for a woman that was no longer there. Or, they beckoned for the woman I had become. Either way, they were inhuman and not mine. The eyes are the window to the soul, and apparently this statement was literal in this sense. My soul belonged to the Bayou, saturated in the soil that Sajida had power over. And what was left was this shell of myself; these white eyes that were not mine. These white eyes belonged to this Bayou.

The pain was as bad as Kira had warned me. As the sun came up that morning, it lit the mirrors that surrounded me by the water's edge. The reflective light burned into me, a searing pain that felt like I had been doused in a wave of fire. I could barely hear Sajida's chants above my own screaming, but it was then that Sajida began the ceremony to possess control over my soul, ripping it from my body until the only thing that was left was this vessel of my body.

And then, everything went quiet.

I had been in dark room, isolated from everyone and everything, for a day. There was one mirror close to the dim lantern in the corner; Sajida wanted me to see myself. She wanted me to become familiar with the fact that my soul was hers, and with it, she controlled who I was.

My wounds weakened me. I awaited Sylvia to come and heal me as she said she would. But I knew that there were other things she wanted to do with me besides heal my wounds. I was a product of Maison Blanche now. I was a worker bee, like the rest of the women in those cages. My gut filled with dread when I put two and two together on what they were. I didn't want that to be me.

Light poured into my small little cell, burning my eyes. Two tall figures, men, came into the room, and lifted me from my seated position; I was too weak to fight back. In too much pain. One of them put a sack over my head, like last time, and I was carried down the hall, like last time. It was like a replay in my head of the events that had occurred prior; being dragged to that circle, and seeing my reflection in those mirrors as the sun arose; seeing my soul in them.

I felt the hot, relentless heat on my skin as we went outside. I felt the soil on my feet, but couldn't see anything with the cloth on my head. I relied on my other senses to guide me; we were near the water. I could smell the algae, I could hear the insects and other animals. I felt the water on my feet before I was lifted into a boat. I groaned in pain, but these henchmen didn't care. I was laid down on the boat, surrounded in darkness still. They had their hands on my arms, as if I would have any smart idea of escaping; the shadows in the water would devour me if I tried to escape into the swamp somehow, like the girls told me.

It was a horrible time to think of how starving I was. I was thirsty, too; I would kill for something to drink. But I didn't speak; the words weren't there. I couldn't formulate them. And even if I tried, I had a feeling they would not be mine. I had to adjust to part of me being gone. I had to rebuild my spirit while part of said spirit was someone else's possession. I believed all of me was gone. But I wasn't. She was still there—Alisande was still there, hidden in the depths of trauma.

She was still there.

I felt the gentle sway of the boat coasting smoothly down the waterway, whichever way we were going. I kept quiet. I kept still. I had no idea where we were headed. I assumed I was being transported to wherever Sylvia Lange was. Or maybe I was being taken to Sajida's treehouse. I had no idea. But what I did know was that the journey was going to be long. And it was. I lost perception of time; it felt like days, but it was most likely hours; being kept in the darkness of the sack over my head made me lose this perception. I did have a lot of time to think, even though being consumed by my thoughts was the last thing I should have done. But they seemed to corner me, these thoughts. You would think I would be planning my escape, or perhaps devising a plan to bribe the henchmen in the boat with me, if that would even work. But no. I thought over none of these things. I thought of my mother. Was she looking for me? Was she dead already? I thought of all the things Sajida said to her, and I wondered if my mother truly believed Sajida's words. My mother was emotionally driven; if Sajida came to her with any news of me being in danger, mama would investigate it without question. The rest after this was even easier; pinning my disappearance on Abraham and his clan. As if mama needed even more of a reason to hate him. To want him dead.