"That be Marie Laveau," Nina told me when she saw I was looking at the picture, "Voodoo Queen."

Nina had a small bed, a nightstand, and a rattan dresser.

"Sit," she said, pointing to the one and only chair. I did so, slowly. She went to her shelves, found something she wanted, and turned to me. She put a small ceramic jar in my hands and told me to hold it. I smelled the contents.

"Brimstone," she said when I grimaced. Then she lit a white candle and mumbled a prayer. She fixed her eyes on me and said, "Someone put a spell on you for sure. You need to keep the evil spirits away." She brought the candle to the ceramic jar and dipped the flame toward the contents so the brimstone would burn. A small stream of smoke twisted its way up. The stench was unpleasant, but Nina looked relieved that I held onto the jar anyway.

"Close your eyes and lean over so the smoke touches your face," she prescribed. I did so. After a moment, she said,

"Okay, good." Then she took the jar from me and smothered the fire. "Now you'll be fine. It's good you do what I say and don't laugh at me.

"But I remember you said your Grandmère was a Traiteur woman, right?"

"Yes."

"That's good for you, but remember," she warned, "the evil spirits look to go into holy folk first. That is more of a victory." I nodded.

"Has anyone else ever heard sobbing upstairs, Nina?" I asked.

"It is no good to talk about it. Speak of the devil and he'll come through your door smiling and smoking a long, thin black cigar.

"Now we go back. Madame will come down soon for her breakfast," she told me.

I followed her out again and sure enough, when I re-entered the dining room, I found Daphne dressed and seated at the table.

"Did you have your breakfast?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Where's Gisselle?"

"I guess she's still upstairs," I said. Daphne grimaced.

"This is ridiculous. Why isn't she up and about like the rest of us?" she said, even though she had just risen herself. "Go up and tell her I want her down here immediately, please."

"Yes, madame," I said and hurried up the stairs. I knocked softly on Gisselle's door and then opened it to find her on her side, still asleep and still dressed in the clothes she had worn last night.

"Gisselle, Daphne wants you to wake up and come down," I said, but she didn't move. "Gisselle." I nudged her shoulder. She moaned and turned over, quickly closing her eyes again. "Gisselle."

"Go away," she cried.

"Daphne wants you to—"

"Leave me alone. I feel horrible. My head is killing me and my stomach feels raw inside."

"I told you this would happen. You drank too much too fast," I said.

"Goody for you," she said, her eyes still shut tight.

"What should I tell Daphne?" She didn't respond. "Gisselle?"

"I don't care. Tell her I died," she said, and pulled the pillow over her head. I stared at her for a moment and saw she wasn't going to budge.

Daphne didn't like my report.

"What do you mean she won't get up?" She slapped the coffee cup down so hard on the saucer, I thought it would shatter. "What did you two do last night?" she demanded, her eyes burning with suspicion.

"We just . . . talked to Beau and his friend Martin," I said. "Out by the pool"

"Just talked?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Call me Mother or call me Daphne, but don't call me ma'am. It makes me sound years older than I am," she snapped.

"I'm sorry . . . Mother."

She stared at me furiously a moment and then got up and marched out of the dining room, leaving me standing there with my heart thumping. I didn't lie exactly, I thought. I just didn't tell the whole truth, but if I had, I would have gotten Gisselle into trouble. Even so, I felt bad about it. I wasn't happy about being sneaky and deceptive. Daphne was so upset she pounded her way upstairs.

I wondered what I should do and decided to go to the library to pick out a book and spend the day reading until my art instructor arrived. I was flipping through the pages of a book when I heard Daphne scream from the top of the stairs.

"Ruby!"

I put the book back and hurried to the doorway. "RUBY!"

"Yes?"

"Get up here this instant," she demanded.

Oh, no, I thought, she's discovered Gisselle's condition and wants to hear the whole story. What was I going to do? How would I protect Gisselle and not lie? When I reached the top of the stairway, I looked across the hallway and saw that the door to my room was wide open and Daphne was standing in my room and not in Gisselle's. I approached slowly.

"Get in here," she commanded. I stepped through the doorway. She was standing with her arms folded tightly under her bosom, her back straight, and her shoulders up. The skin around her chin was so taut, it looked like it might tear. "I know why Gisselle can't get up," she said. "You two were just talking last night?"

I didn't reply.

"Humph," she said, and then extended her right arm and pointed at my closet. "What is that in your closet on the floor? What is it?" she shrieked when I didn't respond quickly enough.

"A bottle of rum."

"A bottle of rum," she said, nodding, "that you took from our liquor cabinet."

I looked up quickly and started to shake my head.

"Don't deny it. Gisselle has confessed everything . . . how you talked her into taking the rum outside and showed her how to mix it with Coke."

My mouth gaped open.

"What else went on? What did you do with Martin Fowler?" she demanded.

"Nothing," I said. Her eyes grew smaller and she kept nodding as if she heard a string of sentences in her own mind that confirmed some horrible suspicions.

"I told Pierre last night that you had different values, that you grew up in a world so unlike ours, it would be difficult, if not next to impossible, and I told him you could corrupt Gisselle and influence her more than she would influence you. Don't try to deny anything," she snapped when my lips opened. "I was a young girl once. I know the temptations and how easy it is for someone to influence you and get you to do forbidden things."

She shook her head at me.

"And after we were so nice to you, welcoming you into our home, accepting you, with me devoting so much of my time to setting you up properly. . why is it you people have no sense of decency, no sense of responsibility? Is it in your blood?"

"That's not true. None of this is true," I wailed.

"Please," she said, closing and opening her eyes. "You're cunning. You've been brought up to be shrewd, just like gypsies. Now take this bottle of rum back down to the liquor cabinet."

"I don't even know where that is," I said.

"I'm not going to waste any more of my time on this. It's upset my breakfast and my day as it is. Do it and don't ever do this again. Your father will hear about this, I assure you," she added, and marched past me.

The tears that were burning behind my eyelids broke free and zigzagged down my cheeks to my chin. I went to the closet and picked up the basket. Then / went next door, barging into Gisselle's room. She was taking a shower and singing. I stomped into the bathroom and screamed at her through the glass door.

"What?" she back, pretending she couldn't hear me. "What?"

"How could you lie and put the blame on me?"

"Wait a minute," she cried, and rinsed her hair before shutting off the water. "Hand me my towel, please," she said. I put the basket down on the counter and got her her towel. "Now, what is it?"

"You told Daphne I was the one who took the bottle of rum," I said. "How could you?"

"Oh, I had to, Ruby. Please don't be mad. I got into trouble about a month ago when I came home very late with whiskey on my breath. I was almost grounded then. She surely would have grounded me now."

"But you blamed me! Now she thinks terrible things about me!"

"You've just arrived. Daddy is still infatuated with you. You can afford to be blamed a little. They won't do anything to you," she explained. "I'm sorry," she said, scrubbing her hair with the towel. "I couldn't think of anything else to do and it worked. It got her off my back."

I sighed.

"We're sisters," she said, smiling. "We've got to help each other out sometimes."

"Not like this, Gisselle, not by lying," I protested.

"Of course by lying. How else? They're just little lies anyway," she said. I looked up sharply. That was just the way Daphne had put things too, little lies. Was this the foundation upon which the Dumas built their happiness and contentment: little lies?

"Don't worry," she said, "I'll smooth it out with Daddy if he seems too upset with you. I'll make it seem as if I encouraged you to encourage me and he'll just be so confused, he won't do anything to either of us. I've done that sort of thing before," she confessed with an oily and evil smile.

"Relax," she said, wrapping her towel around her nude body. "After you have your art lesson, we'll meet Beau and Martin and go down to the French Quarter. We'll have fun, I promise."

"But . . . what am I to do with this? I don't know where the liquor cabinet is."

"It's in the study. I'll show you," she said. "Come help me pick out something to wear."

I shook my head and sighed.

"What a morning this has been already. I told Nina about the sobbing I heard and she hurried me off into her room to burn brimstone and then this?'

"The sobbing?"

"Yes," I said, following her out to her closet. "I thought it came from the room that was Jean's."

"Oh," she said as if it were nothing.

"Have you heard it, too?"

"Of course I have," she said. "What about this skirt?" she asked, plucking one off its hanger and holding it against her. "It's not as short as your skirts, but I like the way it fits my hips. And so does Beau," she added, smiling licentiously.