“That is fine. The next time I see you, I’d like to pass the gift on to you.”
“Already?” She was both terrified and excited by the idea. Shestill needed to figure out how she was going to use her gift, but shewouldfigure it out. She had to.
“Yes, well, I need to pass it on soon, so you can fully practice under my guidance. Unfortunately, the process of passing the gift on is not easy.”
“What do you mean?” Ophelia asked hesitantly.
“I’ll have another Traiteur come over to help next time. Well, he was a Traiteur but passed the gift to his grandson a couple years ago. So I’ll get them both to come help with your Passing.”
“Cool. I’d love to meet more Traiteurs. What does ‘the Passing’entail?”
“Well, I will pass my gift to you, and in doing so, you will feel the world’s pain. I’m talking all-consuming pain from head to toe. Internal, external, mind-bending pain, but the Passing lasts for a second.” Mawmaw paused to examine Ophelia’s reaction. She tried to keep her face neutral, but a frisson of fear ran through her. “However,” Mawmaw continued, “because it is such an intense second, the aftershocks are brutal. Like vomiting, the shakes, muscle spasms, fainting, the occasional diarrhea. The works.”
“Okayyyy…”
“Which is why Brutus and his grandson will be here. They will treat your aftershock symptoms, so the effects are minimal. Understand?”
“Yes... But I’m not going to lie and say I’m not nervous. It sounds violent.”
“It can be. Everyone responds differently, but the good thing is that we will have a Traiteur here to help you. I will no longer be able to treat once I pass the gift on.”
“And are you sure you are ready for that? To give it up?”
“I’m tired, darlin’,” she said with a sigh. “I wanna spend the rest of my days listening to the cicadas, drinking sweet tea, and visiting with my friends and family. It’s time.”
Ophelia leaned across the rocking chair and held her grandmother’s hand. They continued to slowly rock and gaze out onto the land, listening to the soothing sounds of birds and bugs.
On the ridehome with Jack, Ophelia combed through a tangle of feelings as she watched the cypress trees pass by over the Atchafalaya Basin. She was so grateful to her grandmother, yet incredibly saddened that she would be taking away her gift. This community was going to lose their Traiteur. Was she truly the right person to take the gift?
Ophelia did not tell Jack about what she had learned over the weekend, and she had no plans to. He had made up his mind already about Mawmaw. To challenge his prejudice seemed too taxing on her emotions, so they sat in silence on the drive back to New Orleans. At some point, the warmth from the sun beaming through the car window and the hum of the engine lulled her to sleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Returning home from such a surreal and eye-opening weekend at her grandmother’s left Ophelia feeling disoriented. The car nap didn’t help either. She felt like all that had transpired was a fever dream, and when she walked into her home, she dropped her bags and immediately began writing in her journal. Journaling, list making, and running helped Ophelia organize her mind and focus on the task at hand—wrapping her mind around an unknown yet established magical world. As she wrote, she imagined that her pen was a comb, detangling the mess in her hair leftover from a boat ride on Lake Pontchartrain.
With her thoughts fully on the page, she stood with a jittery feeling in her chest and pressed her hand over her heart, attempting to calm it. But it wouldn’t calm. Not now. The feeling was growing outward, straining to reach the tips of her toes. She needed a run.
It was close to nightfall, and Ophelia didn’t want to be out when the sun set, so she rushed through her warmup routine and made her way onto Carrollton Ave. Her first couple of strides felt immaculate and right. The sun’s descending rays tickled through the Spanish moss on the grand oaks. The smell of potent jasmine and Mississippi mud hung heavy in the air, andOphelia breathed it in and swallowed it down. The world felt different. Alive with detail, with magic.
Instead of running to the levee, she turned onto St. Charles heading toward Audubon Park. Once in the park, Ophelia slowed to a walk and noted children playing in a nearby playground. And that’s when it clicked. Magic was the regaining of innocence. It was reshaping her mind like a river carves the land. Things weren’t as they seemed, but not in a bad way. It was potential. She felt childlike. Her body twitched to run and dance and sing without care. Instead, she cranked up her music and ran through the park with a goofy smile on her face and occasional laughter bubbling past her lips.
The restof her week was filled with work and non-stop research on magic…To which she found very little online, and what she did find was likely written by a deranged person. She also busied herself with preparations for hosting the pre-game party for Red Dress Run.
Red Dress Run was a New Orleans tradition where the entire city parties in red dresses, even the men, straight or otherwise, on Bourbon Street at the sunshine-y hour of eight in the morning. There was allegedly an actual race, but she’d never known anyone to attend it. Most people opted to dance and drink instead.
She was looking forward to Saturday morning, where she would host all her friends in her home. She wasn’t quite ready to tell Jade or Jolie about what happened at Mawmaw’s yet. She needed to figure out how all of it fit into her life and wanted to hold it close to her chest, at least for now.
It was six in the morning, and Ophelia was already up. She poured herself an iced coffee from the fridge, and as she sat on the countertop drinking, she savored her little wood-plankedcottage that she purchased a year ago. The front lawn was small but had just enough room for a stately magnolia tree and three white azalea bushes that lined the house. The front porch fit two hand-carved rocking chairs that Ophelia’s mom found at a gas station off Interstate 10, and in true New Orleans fashion, the ceiling of the front porch was painted sky blue.
Owning her home made her feel grounded and accomplished after working so hard in New York. She never realized how special her birthplace was until she moved away. New York was exciting and energizing, but New Orleans had actual magic seeping through the cracked pavement, literally.
She set her coffee down and began prepping biscuits; dough stuck to her hands as she wrangled it into the shape of a fluffy pillow. Once the biscuits were in the oven, she slipped on the red dress that sat in the back of her closet. She’d worn the same dress every year for the past five years. Jade had always convinced her to come home and attend Red Dress Run, even when she lived in New York. The invites were veiled attempts to get Ophelia to move back. It worked.
She had just pulled her hair back into a French braid and lathered on two handfuls of sunscreen when the doorbell rang, signaling her friends’ arrival.
Ophelia walked to the door as Jade, followed by Luke, busted through the front door singing, “Good morning! Happy Red Dress Run Day!”
“Oh my God, you’re chipper,” Ophelia said as she gave Jade a hug.
