Music and Malice in Hurricane Town, page 23
Enid’s face contorted into a frozen mask of outrage.
“No!” she hissed. Jude realized she was talking to Ivory when she said, “You promised the crown would be mine!”
She reached out towards Jude, as if half thinking of simply taking the snakes from her shoulders, but both pythons immediately reared up, hissing ferociously, exposing their fangs, which were dripping with cajou venom.
Enid snatched her hand back and an object soared through the sky from the crowd, landing at Jude’s feet. She looked down and saw it was the Phantom’s mask, and a thrill of excitement raced through her. She hadn’t even had to ask this time. She scooped it up from the floor and passed it wordlessly to the Phantom, who pressed it back to his face with trembling hands.
“You lying bitch!” Enid exclaimed up on the stage, still having some kind of argument with Ivory that they could only hear one side of.
Jude looked up and saw that she’d been joined by another person on the stage, someone that only she could see. It was Baron Lukah, leaning against the podium in a casual position, one hand in his pocket and the other holding the stopwatch in front of him.
“Any minute now, I’d say,” he murmured.
“I don’t care if you meant to trick me or not!” Enid exclaimed. “You’ve broken our agreement. The only reason I agreed to have you in the first place was for the crown. Without that you’re worth nothing to me!”
And then, before everyone’s eyes, Enid pushed Ivory’s spirit right out of her body. From the gasps around her, Jude realized that everyone else could see Ivory’s ghost too. She looked just as she had whenever Jude had glimpsed her in a mirror – an old woman, dressed in her finery, with blood running down her face in lines from her sliced scalp and gaping throat. To think that she had willingly allowed this to happen to herself made the sight even more horrible and Jude shuddered.
“You!” the cajou queen snarled, glaring at Jude with such a look of hatred that she had to force herself not to take a step back. “You stupid girl! You don’t know what you’ve done!”
Through Ivory’s transparent form, Jude saw Enid scramble from the stage and disappear into the crowd. The Phantom must have noticed too, because he took a step in her direction but then paused, seeming to hesitate.
“You think being queen is easy?” Ivory went on. Her ghost already seemed a little paler and thinner than it had before. “You think it’ll make you happy and solve your problems? Just you wait!” She let out a cruel laugh. “Just you wait!”
“Excuse me, madam.”
Ivory whirled round to see Baron Lukah standing behind her. The legba smiled at her. “You are late for our appointment,” he said in a soft voice.
Ivory recoiled from him. “No!” she cried. “I’m not… I’m not ready to go with you!”
“And yet you must,” Baron Lukah replied. “Just the same. No one escapes from me a second time.”
He wrapped his hand round Ivory’s wrist and although she struggled in his grip she didn’t seem to have any effect on the legba, and the effort only made her ghost fade even faster.
Finally she gave a dry sob, then her head snapped up and there was venom in her eyes as she looked at Jude.
“Very well,” she gasped. “If I must go then so be it. But with my last dead breath, I curse you, Jude Lomax!”
Her hand disappeared inside her own chest and when it came back out it was filled with a sticky black mass that seemed to writhe and wriggle in her hand like a pile of snakes. Before Jude could take in what was happening, Ivory threw this straight at her.
A large body curled round her as the Phantom yanked her back, putting himself between her and the dead cajou queen. The wriggling black mass hit him right between the shoulder blades and Jude felt his body shudder with the impact.
Icy air rushed past them and there was a noise, close by and yet out of sight, a clip-clop that sounded a bit like the sound of goat’s hooves on the cobbles as cajou priestesses shepherded them off for sacrifice. Only it was a bigger, louder sound than that, like the noise Jude expected a horse’s shoes might make. Then there was a warm snort of exhaled air on the back of her neck and she whipped her head round, fully expecting to see a horse standing right behind her. But there was nothing.
“Enough,” Baron Lukah said. “Time to go.”
He dragged Ivory Monette into the spirit world, impervious to the fact that she screamed the entire way, leaving the stage empty and everything quiet. Jude wriggled free of the Phantom’s grip and twisted him round on the spot, thinking there would be a bloody wound in his back, but there wasn’t a mark on him.
“What what was that?” she said. The snakes shifted restlessly on her shoulders. Jude could sense their disquiet and suddenly had a very bad feeling about what had just happened. She came back round to face the Phantom. “What did she do? Are you hurt?”
“I am fine,” he said, but his voice came out in a gasp.
“You’re lying,” Jude said.
And then she heard it – the soft, shivering beat-beat-beat of a heart that shouldn’t be there. The Phantom tried to draw his hands away but Jude tightened her grip and pulled off his gloves, and the cold shock of seeing what she had known all along she would see hit her like a blow.
The little black heart on the Phantom’s palm was misshapen, twisted and toxic, and they both knew what it meant: this was a fright hex, destined to one day bring about the victim’s greatest fear. Others in the nearby crowd saw it too, and there was more murmuring and whispering, an air of thrilled excitement and horrified fascination from the people around them. Jude hated them, absolutely hated them all for enjoying watching their lives get smashed into pieces.
She looked up as the Phantom yanked his gloves back on and she found herself suddenly meeting Etienne’s gaze across the crowd. There was an odd look in his blue eyes – something strange that she couldn’t quite place as he gazed at them. Then he was turning away from her, putting his top hat on his head and walking out of the square with his head down.
She realized that the Mayor was back on the stage, now that it was safe and Enid and Ivory had both gone. He was saying something about continuing with the celebrations of Cajou Night, but Jude had no interest in any of that.
“Let’s go,” she said to the Phantom.
“Your highness!” the Mayor’s voice rang after them. “Forgive me but you must stay for the celebration. It’s the custom—”
“I don’t care!” Jude cut him off. “Party all night if you want, but know that tomorrow a whole load of things are going to change around here.”
The next day Jude stood in her pa’s kitchen trying to calm herself down, but she could feel her temper fraying and unravelling inside her. She’d returned home with a sense of excitement. After all, even if Ivory had said she couldn’t help her pa, Jude knew that cajou included healing magic and she was already making plans to use this to ease some of his physical pain. Somehow, she had thought he might be pleased she was queen. It would mean a freedom from bills, respect from people and a mansion in the Fountain District – the chance of a better life. But he didn’t see it that way. He didn’t see it that way at all.
“You’re the enemy now!” he hissed at her. “Worthless cajou scum!”
Jude had spent so much time worrying about her pa, missing him or trying to work out what else she might possibly do to help him. Now, though, she didn’t feel any of that. She just felt furious right down to her bones.
“Do you have any IDEA what I’ve been through the last few days?” she shouted at him, her anger bursting its banks like a flooded dam. “I’ve been to hell and back! And it was all for you, you ungrateful bastard!”
“Don’t you DARE blame me for your wickedness!” he roared straight back at her. “You’re no daughter of mine. Get out of this goddamn house, and don’t you ever come back!”
“YOU WON’T LAST A WEEK!” Jude screamed at him as loud as she could, revelling in the vicious horribleness of it all. After so long of trying to keep everything together, it was almost a relief to have it unravel around her. “You need me!”
“Get! Out!” He snatched up a mug and threw it at her. Jude ducked and it smashed harmlessly against the wall above her head.
With a great effort, Jude finally bit down on her tongue. She suddenly sensed that they would destroy each other if they could and she really didn’t want that, despite all the things she was saying. She realized she should go before any further harm was done, so she turned and marched towards the door.
She grabbed the handle and hesitated. Even through her rage, some other part of her was aching to turn round and tell her pa that she loved him, that he was all she had left and that all of this had been for him. Only what was the point? It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make her into the daughter he wanted.
She was still hesitating when her pa snatched up a plate and threw this at her too. His aim was off and it hit the wall beside her but Jude could see he was in no mood for talking right now, and that no possible good could come of her staying. So she left, promising herself she would be back once they’d both had a chance to calm down. Surely he’d see reason eventually? Life would be better for both of them.
She knew she could go to the cajou queen’s mansion in the Fountain District where she was now supposed to live. It had already been cleared out and made ready for her, and Charity had been taken away to an asylum, which seemed to be the only place for her now that Enid’s key had broken her mind. Of Enid herself, there was no sign, though the police were still searching for her. But Jude didn’t want to go to the mansion just yet so she made for Praline Street, where the Phantom’s townhouse was.
As Moonfleet had been taken over by the cajou tree, Jude and the Phantom had stayed at the Majstro’s townhouse on Cajou Night, collapsing into exhausted heaps on the beds almost as soon as they arrived.
But when Jude returned to the house after the disastrous meeting with her pa, she was hit by another blow.
“I’m leaving,” the Phantom told her.
“This house?” Jude asked, trying to understand.
“No. Baton Noir.”
“You can’t,” Jude said. She told him what had happened with her pa. “I need you,” she said. “And we have to find some way of undoing the fright hex.”
The Phantom shook his head and Jude realized that there were packed bags by the front door. He must have been out buying the things he needed while she was gone.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can’t stay. It wouldn’t be safe. For you or for anyone. My boat leaves in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll walk to the pier with you,” Jude said quickly. That would give her a bit more time to think. To work out how to stop him from leaving.
A few minutes later they were on the sunny street outside, making their way towards Paradise Pier.
“What is it?” Jude asked again, falling into step beside the Phantom. “Your greatest fear? If you’d just tell me then perhaps we can find some way of avoiding it.”
“There is no way of avoiding it,” the Phantom replied.
“So you’re not even going to try?” She felt suddenly furious. “You’re really just going to go off and leave me?”
“You don’t understand.” He gazed at the sidewalk in front of him rather than at her. “I have to go.”
They carried on walking in silence for a while and soon enough they reached the salt-stained planks of the pier. There was a paddle steamer moored nearby loading passengers and their luggage, and Jude guessed this was the one the Phantom meant to board as he stopped beside the gangplank.
“All those things you said outside the hospital,” she said. “Did you mean any of them?”
He paused then said, “Every word.”
“Then you won’t leave me like this.”
It was the wrong thing to say. The Phantom’s reply came out hard and sharp. “You’ve seen what happens to those I love.”
Unbidden, an image of Violetta flashed into Jude’s mind – the anguished half girl, half tree spirit she had become. She shook her head impatiently.
“I don’t know how to be a cajou queen,” she tried. “I could use a friend in the city.”
“You have friends,” the Phantom replied. “That boy Sharkey sent a congratulations telegram from the hospital. It went to the mansion but someone brought it round here this morning. I almost forgot.” He took it from his jacket and handed it to her, but Jude stuffed it straight in her dungarees pocket without looking at it. “Then there’s the witch doctor you told me about, Sofia,” the Phantom went on. “Besides, no one knows how to be a cajou queen to begin with. You just have to find your own way. Which I’m sure you will.”
Jude caught hold of his wrist. Although his glove covered the mark, she could feel the boom-boom of the black heart beneath.
“That fright hex was meant for me,” she said. “You should never have taken it for yourself like you did. I will not let you leave with it.”
“You don’t have a choice,” the Phantom returned. “I don’t regret taking the hex in the slightest. I would do it again in a moment.” He looked out at the water. “It is the one purely good thing I have ever done.”
“But … but where will you go?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Jude swore. She knew her emotions were in danger of getting away from her, like runaway horses, and she took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to steady herself. She could feel a terrible sense of frustration tangling itself up into knots in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t saying the right words, wasn’t communicating what she wanted to, wasn’t even sure herself what it was she needed to say or how she was feeling.
“Please listen to me,” she finally said. “It … it isn’t just because I don’t know how to be a cajou queen. I’m also … I’m trying to say that I care about you.”
She felt the Phantom stiffen. “Do not be absurd,” he said in a dismissive tone that made Jude bristle.
“Don’t tell me how to feel,” she shot back. “Look, I’m not saying I’m in love with you. How can I be? I don’t really know you. And you don’t really know me either. But … I like you. And … I think something in your soul calls out to something in mine. And I would like to have the chance to know you better.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” the Phantom said. “You’re not thinking straight. You’ve seen my face. After that, how can you possibly want to… How can you even think of… We both know there can never be anything between us.”
Jude flinched. She felt as if he’d struck her, and to her dismay she felt tears prickle the back of her eyes. “You don’t know me at all if you honestly believe that.”
“It is not a question of knowing you,” he replied impatiently. Then, a little more quietly, “It is simply that no one ever chooses the monster.”
The word hung in the air between them. It had been all over the headlines of the papers this morning – that ugly word printed over and over again alongside photos of the Phantom from last night.
“How dare you call yourself that?” Jude said. She thought of the food parcels, the music and the silver owl that had chased away Leeroy, and said, “All my life, you’ve been like an angel to me.”
“I already told you,” the Phantom returned. “There are no angels in Baton Noir. Only devils. Perhaps you can change that, in time. But Jude, I meant what I said before. I am tired. This isn’t my fight any more. I’m done with this city.”
The paddle steamer gave two loud blasts on its whistle, signalling that it was the last chance to board.
“I have to go. Goodbye, Jude. Good luck to you. I am glad I had the chance to—”
But that was as far as he got before Jude gripped him by the front of his shirt, pulled him towards her and without thinking or hesitating pressed her lips to his. He gasped and she thought he might push her away. But then his hand curled round to the small of her back, his lips responded to hers and he was kissing her back.
Electricity seemed to spark and tingle between them and Jude wasn’t sure whether he was trembling or she was, but she could almost feel part of her soul, that part she had just spoken of, reaching out to the Phantom, yearning for him with a longing she couldn’t really understand.
Finally the Phantom broke the kiss and pulled back, staggering slightly on the boards.
“I am leaving,” he gasped. “I’m leaving right now.”
It occurred to Jude that she could find some way on board the boat. That she could follow the Phantom in secret, not allow him to run away like this. But that would mean leaving her pa. She had to believe that he would forgive her eventually, and she wouldn’t give up on finding a way to help him. And if she left with the Phantom then it would also mean leaving Baton Noir, which was something she couldn’t do. The city was in her soul. It was the whole point of becoming cajou queen in the first place – to fix things. She had a year to reign before the next Cajou Night, a year to try to convince everyone that they should bring Ollin back into power next time. She couldn’t give up everyone and everything she loved simply because her treacherous heart was making her feel some flickering start of something for the Phantom. She had to stay in Baton Noir and make things right.
André picked up his case. “There’s just one final thing I must say to you,” he said, turning back to her. “You were wrong. I do know you. I’ve watched you grow up from a small, scared, stubborn little girl into an extraordinary woman. I know who you truly are when you’re all alone and think no one is watching. You will be a far greater cajou queen than this city deserves but … don’t forget to carve out some corner of happiness for yourself along the way. And if another Leeroy ever slithers into your life I hope you will crush him like the cowardly, despicable, worthless piece of shit that he is.” He reached out to lightly touch her arm. “Will you please do that for me, Jude?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. Over the last weeks and months, she had felt some new core of strength she had never known she possessed hardening inside her. And when the two cajou snakes rested on her shoulders she felt more alive, more herself and more able to face all the daily struggles of life than she ever had before. She knew she wouldn’t fall into the trap of allowing anyone else to treat her the way Leeroy had – to get inside her soul and make her love them, only to unravel her sense of self in the cruellest way possible. It was good to feel strong for a change.
