Miles was confused on the bus ride home from Valva Dubois' shop. She had the feeling that something had traveled with her from the time she stepped out of the dim shop, onto the bustling street back to her bus stop. She didn't know what it was but she felt different. It felt like she was carrying a weight on her back as she walked to the nearest stop and waited to board the 6:30pm bus. As she sat on the bus watching the alleyways, the joviality of passersby as they readied for a night of partying, she still felt confused about what she'd learned at the Dubois shop and anxious about what the vial in her pocket would do. She hadn't stolen it necessarily, since Valva had given it to her and told her to take a drop on her tongue. She hadn't asked for it back, Miles offered to quiet her thoughts. She wished Sydney was with her, he'd always had a realistic approach to these things and it worried her that she was thinking about spirits, ghosts and some insane idea of an all powerful, wish granting, Papa Legba. She didn't know what she would wish for if Papa Legba could grant anything. She feared that the inhuman being would likely want something in return. Miles had grown up in New Orleans so she knew that voodoo was a real thing and was always cautioned not to get caught up in dark arts. Her mother just said it was the Devil but Miles' friends from school just called it 'Voodoo'. She hadn't believed either story when she was younger but something felt strange at the Dubois shop. Something felt like it was lurking in the room with them and watching their conversation. Had Valva Dubois seemed scared to talk about it? Miles couldn't remember if what she saw on Dubois' face was actually sadness or something else entirely.
As she exited at her stop and started the short walk to her home, she felt the small bottle tight in her pocket. She needed to know what it was and why Valva wanted her to take it. Could it be what Rosemary had taken? Had it made her crazy enough to kill her daughter?
The light of the day had faded to a dusk orange and blanketed the city streets in the yellow glow of street lights. She saw her home in the distance, the living room curtain drawn back to expose the view of her brother, mother and father sitting for dinner without her. She didn't have any reason to be jealous, she told herself, she didn't want to be there with them anyway. Ever since Dino had returned, her life had been tossed upside down. She couldn't understand how easily her brother and mother let him back into the home. She stepped down from the curb, just as she felt a tug around her waist, pulling her back onto the curb as the blare of a horn wailed at her from a passing car. Miles spun on her heels, chest heaving from the closeness of her idle thinking almost getting her struck by a car but most importantly, she wanted to know who had saved her. She didn't recall seeing anyone walking behind her. But as she spun on her heels, she could see no one. The street was empty and quiet. The lights of the car faded in the distance.
She scanned the opening to alleyways, the homes that butted up to the street to find nothing amiss. She felt the deafening silence descend on her and a chill ran down her spine. Who had pulled her back from the street? She wrapped a hand around her waist, wondering if she'd feel some left behind trace of the person. She felt nothing but the beating of her heart in her chest and her breathe rushing in and out.
"You're safe, Miles. You're tripping but you're safe." She mumbled to herself as she looked both ways before crossing the street.
She saw Sydney's house out the corner of her eye, its windows lit behind drawn blinds and detoured in his direction. She needed to apologize to him face to face and waiting just made her feel worse. She knocked on his door firmly and waited until it cracked open.
Sydney looked at her through the cracked door a second, then opened it wider and rested his shoulder against the door frame.
"You've come to apologize?" He said matter-of-factly.
As much as Miles hated apologizing and admitting when she was wrong, she had to admit that the few days without Sydney made her existence infinitely less entertaining.
"I came to tell you what I found out at Valva Dubois' shop..."
Sydney pushed out his breath in an exasperated sigh and started to close the door, "Wait! Okay, I also came to apologize for not telling you the truth and keeping things from you. I'm sorry."
"And?"
"Annnndddd...I won't do it again. We're a team and I realize that you have every right to not be apart of this as I have to keep going with it." Miles said, her eyes searching the ground.
Sydney stood in the doorway silently appraising Miles as she sulked.
"Sydney, you better let that girl in." His mother's voice rang out in the background.
Sydney turned to look over his shoulder to an area that must have been where his mother stood but Miles could not see past his tall, slender frame into the house. He turned back slowly as if pondering whether to defy his mother, then said, "Come in before the bugs get in the house."
***
After Sydney's mother hugged Miles and smiled strangely between the two teens, she proclaimed she needed to do laundry and she'd check on them later. So Miles and Sydney went to their location of ground operations, his bedroom. He sat on the edge of his bed while Miles took the swivel chair from his desk and rolled it to the center of the room before plopping down.
"Are you going to make me gravel?" Miles said, staring lazily at Sydney as he feigned disinterest.
"Gravel? Of course not. But I will not let you keep me out the loop and expect me to help you. Trust you. I was all in from the beginning and that's pretty messed up that you wouldn't even come clean before you had me at the yellow house on Rampert...alone."
Miles felt an embarrassed flush to her face because Sydney was right. She had put him in danger by not being honest and not letting him decide if he wanted to be a part of her search for the truth. She didn't know if this was a killer targeting kids or someone who lived at Rampert Street. All the unknowns made them uniquely vulnerable.
"You're right. I was...not thinking. I got too caught up in this whole thing and I didn't think of you. I won't make that mistake again. I promise." Miles held her hand out, then eased it through her hair in a "too slow" gesture. Sydney smiled and shook his head.
"So what did you find out Valva Dubois' shop?"
Miles turned full circle in the chair, "It was definitely a strange place. Lots of skulls and candles. Freaky voodoo props. Definitely a vibe meant to snag the tarot card tourists." She smiled back.
"So it was another dead end?" Sydney said, leaning back onto his elbows across the bed.
"Not necessarily. When I asked about Rosemary, she got this weird look on her face and was talking in circles."
"In circles?"
"She said that she was not cautious and made a deal with Papa Legba or something like that."
Sydney sat up abruptly, "She said that name? Are you sure?"
Miles stopped her slow spin in the chair, "Yeah. I'm sure. It's just some voodoo, hocus pocus stuff meant to scare me off, I think."
Sydney's hand started trembling and he found the edge of his pillow and began threading it between his fingers. "You haven't heard the story of Papa Legba?"
Miles steadied, "No. What do you know about it?"
"The voodoo High Priestess is the only one who can summon him with a request. She's usually a powerful voodoo conjurer but my grandmother thinks its a tortured soul stuck in this spirit realm. I don't know. These stories have always haunted me." Sydney pulled the pillow to his lap and began vigorously twisting the cloth. "The stories always claim that he makes these tricky deals where he is the only one who wins. It's like wishing for water in the desert then he drops you into the ocean to drown. These are the stories I heard growing up from my family."
"But that's impossible." Miles stressed. She felt the tension from Sydney as his demeanor changed. Heat rose within her stomach and up to her chest, the feeling reminded her of how she felt leaving Dubois' shop. Within seconds, she remembered the vial she had been given.
"Valva gave me this." She pulled the bottle out of her pocket and held it in her open palm.
"No no no no..." Sydney closed his eyes tightly and hit the side of his head three times.
"Wait. Stop that. Don't do..." Miles grabbed Sydney's wrist to stop him from hitting himself and his scream filled the room. A deafening, heart-wrenching scream she would never wish to hear, racked her body. She dropped his wrist as his mother pushed through the bedroom door, breathless. It took her only a moment to see Sydney hitting his head to wrap herself around him in a bear hug and begin rocking him slowly, whispering in his ear something Miles could not hear.
"You should leave." His mother's sad eyes fell on her without judgement or malice.
Miles left feeling like she'd failed Sydney again but she felt like his fear was raw and real. She needed to find out about Papa Legba and the vial that warmed her pocket.