Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. I | ✓

Chapter 33: Who We Come From

**

I stayed quiet, though there were more than enough questions floating about in my head.

I watched silently as Mama tried to patch up my wound. It was sunrise, which alieved only a portion of our anxiety.

"There," Mama said, tightening the bandage around my arm. "That should hold you off until we can get you stitched up."

I barely heard these words coming out of her mouth. I gazed out of the window, looking at the sunrise. Somehow, I wondered if those vampires were burning; if they were caught outside when the sun rays broke the horizon, burning to a definite death. I thought of this, over and over again the higher the sun rose in the lavender sky. Perhaps I didn't wish this death upon all of them; I couldn't help but imagine Abraham burning by himself. Him and only him.

"Lisa."

Mama's voice snapped me back into the reality of the destroyed house - the living room with its misplaced furniture and broken vases, the turned over chairs and scattered books. Mama looked around, too. She looked around and sighed, then went back to making sure the bandage around my arm was tight enough; it was already bleeding through.

"Lisa," she said again. "You burned those papers. Did you?"

I just stared at her. I didn't lie, because she would know if I was. Slowly, she became upset.

"How?" she asked me. "How, if you lit that fire and burned the altar?!"

"I didn't light that fire," I said. "Mama, I tried burning the papers, I did. But something stopped me."

"Who?" she asked.

"I don't know what or who it was. They were in my head, telling me not to burn the parchments. And when I kept trying to light the match underneath them, it threw the match onto the fire and made it burst into flames. It - she - was speaking to me."

"She?" Mama's eyebrows furrowed, then suddenly, they relaxed. Her eyes became big and wide like she saw something horrid outside. But there was no one there. It was a memory overtaking her. A memory or realization or something she knew would come back to haunt her. And I knew she wasn't going to tell me; Mama was still in denial, thinking that keeping information from me would help protect me. But after the outburst I gave her in front of everyone in the meeting room, she didn't know how long this would last.

"Who know who it was, don't you?" I asked her. She looked at me, wondering if it would have been a good idea to tell me, but by the irate and frustrated look on my face, she knew she didn't have a choice.

Mama inhaled, taking my hand and bringing me into the dining room. We sat at the dining room table, staring at each other silently as the birds sang outside.

"I do," she answered. "At least, I-I think I do."

"Who was it?" I pleaded with her. "Who was in my head? Why was she in my head?"

Mama took a moment to get her words together, simplifying them in a way I would understand. "In Vodou, there are what we call Lwa met tet. It's similar to a 'guardian angel' in a sense. It's a personal guardian or spirit. Everyone got one. Not all of us know exactly who our lwa met tet is. If you were to go to a mambo or a houngan they might be able to tell you, but it's best not to have nobody else know who your met tet is; it's a personal bond.

"Lwa got different identities; Rada lwa, Petro lwa, Ghede Lwa - spirits with ties to the Motherland, dark counterparts of Rada lwa or lwa who are associated with the dead. Any of these lwa can be anybody's met tet." Mama paused, clearly pained by something. "I've known who my met tet was since I was young. Around the time I had you. But I think of them more as a Djab."