“Look,” she said, trying to breathe evenly and not lose it, “I have, like, five minutes before I have to be home. And I need you to do something for me, right now. You need to meet my friend. To make yourself visible to her.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Frank said, backing away.
“You did it yesterday, with my cousin!” Please don’t disappear, Rebecca thought.
“That seemed like a life-and-death situation,” he said. His face was paler today, more sunken-in. “Making myself visible, it just puts more people at risk. He’ll see you all.”
“Who?”
“Gideon Mason. You said he’s threatening you, making your life miserable. Now he’s seen your cousin with me as well….”
“But you said no real harm could come to us, right?”
“I suppose.” He didn’t sound very sure of this now, but it was too late to worry about that at the moment.
“Please. My friend knows everything. She’s trying to help us find the locket. Ling!”
Ling came creeping around the corner. “Where do I stand?” she asked Rebecca.
“We should move closer to the building,” Frank said. “We’re too much out in the open here.”
“Just by the door,” Rebecca told Ling. “And don’t freak out, OK?”
She could tell by Ling’s saucer eyes and stunned expression that Frank was visible to her now as well. How did he do that? She’d ask him, but there wasn’t time.
“Oh my god!” Ling exclaimed. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle an excited giggle.
“Ling, Frank. Frank, this is Ling.”
“Sorry to be so … wow!” said Ling. “You just appearing like this, from invisible to — here in the blink of an eye. It’s like I Dream of Jeannie!”
“I think I know that song,” Frank told her. “A ghost down on the docks sings it.”
“I only know the TV show,” said Ling. Now they both looked confused.
“He doesn’t know about TV. Look, we don’t have much time.” Rebecca didn’t want them to get sidetracked. “Frank — any more information we could use?”
Instead of answering, Frank vanished.
“How does he do that?” Ling wanted to know. She grabbed Rebecca’s hand and they scampered back down Orleans Avenue. “By the way, you never told me he was so good-looking. Have you got some kind of thing for him?”
“Please. He’s been dead since 1873,” said Rebecca.
“Better not let Anton see him,” Ling advised. “He might get jealous.”
“I don’t want anyone else to see him,” said Rebecca. “He’s right about that. I wish Aurelia had never seen him.”
Sometimes Rebecca wished she had never seen him, but now it was too late. It was too late for everything. In forty-eight hours, they’d be on their way back to New York and if they didn’t come up with a plan fast, Degas’ locket would be smashed to smithereens. If they talked to Raf this afternoon and he was unable — or unwilling — to help, she’d have to work on Anton again. How could they manage this by themselves?
When they got back to the house, her father had finished his phone calls and was waiting for them in the courtyard.
“You just missed Anton,” he told Rebecca. “He dropped this off for you.”
He tossed her a small yellow package. Rebecca resisted the urge to rip it open on the spot. Ling stood dead still, staring at it as though it contained explosives.
“He said he and his friend’ll be over around seven to collect you two. Everything OK?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I get the feeling you’re up to something,” said her dad, but Rebecca could tell by the tone of his voice that he was joking around.
“Us? No. God, no,” said Ling. “Um, Rebecca, maybe we should leave that — upstairs? Before we go?”
“What is it?” her father wanted to know. He scraped his chair back from the metal table and stood up.
“Just something to wear tonight. A necklace, I think.” Rebecca was trying to sound nonchalant.
“Really? That’s kind of an expensive gift, isn’t it? Do you really think you should accept something like that from Anton?” Her father wasn’t joking around anymore. He was frowning.
“You’re so right,” Ling told him. She was already halfway up the stairs of the slave quarters. “Miss Manners says that you should never accept a personal gift like jewelry or clothing from a man unless you’re engaged to him.”
Rebecca looked up at Ling, willing her to shut up. How was this helping?
“But luckily,” Ling continued, beaming her widest smile, “this isn’t a gift. Is it, Becca? The necklace belongs to Anton’s mother. It’s just on loan for tonight. His mother thought it would look perfect with Rebecca’s dress.”
“Really?” Her father glanced from Ling to Rebecca. “How does his mother know what your dress looks like?”
“Um, she came out of the house last night,” Rebecca said. She wasn’t such a smooth liar as Ling. “You know, after dinner. When I was out on Sixth Street talking to Anton. And we had sort of a chat about it, and she mentioned this necklace that she thought would look nice and all.”
“Oh. Well.” Rebecca’s dad still looked puzzled. “That’s nice of her.”
“Super-nice!” Ling said, and bounced up the remaining stairs. Rebecca dashed up after her, eager to get away from her father before he came to his senses.
Ling was waiting inside, ready to pounce on the package.
“Why didn’t Anton just bring it over tonight?” she asked Rebecca. “Boys are not thinkers, are they?”
“I guess he didn’t realize Dad would be here,” said Rebecca, slitting the package open with her finger. There was no note inside, just a blue box that opened with a clunk. Inside the box lay a large silver locket attached to a long, heavy chain. Something that vaguely resembled the letter V was engraved on the outward-facing side of the locket, though the engraving was so fussy and ornate the letter was hard to make out. Lisette’s last name was Villieux. That was probably why Anton chose it.
“It’s kind of ugly.” Ling made a face. “And it’ll look weird with your dress. But you only have to wear it tonight. Just long enough to get mugged.”
“Don’t remind me,” Rebecca groaned. “Come on. Let’s go pull some more weeds.”
Mr. Boyd was on a rampage this afternoon. There was no way Rebecca was going to get the chance to speak to Raf. She couldn’t even speak to Ling. Rebecca was on painting duty, working on a breezeblock wall the far side of the yard. Her group was so far away from everyone else, “we’re almost in the Seventh Ward,” as one of her fellow painters said.
“Is this a work party or a talk party?” Mr. Boyd was roaring. “Kermit, you’re no more use to me than an actual frog!”
LeLe, the girl next to Rebecca, told her to paint faster.
“I want this finished today,” she said. “Tomorrow after school I’m going to Jazz Fest. All I dream of is crawfish bread.”
Rebecca slathered on paint, keeping a wary eye on the sky. If it started raining, all their work would be wasted. But it would mean work could stop for the day and there’d be time to talk to Raf before her father came back.
“It’s not gonna rain,” LeLe told her. “God loves Mr. Boyd too much. That’s why it only rains after we finish, and all weekend long.”
The rain wasn’t cooperating, but finally Mr. Boyd seemed to be. He strode over to inspect the wall, and seemed pleased, more or less. A little too much grass painted for his liking, he said, but he told Rebecca that she and Ling could finish up.
“You’ve done plenty,” he said. “Thanks for your help this week.”
“Thanks for … having us,” Rebecca said. Mr. Boyd, walking away, held up his clipboard in salutation.
Ling had finished her planting duties and was one step ahead of Rebecca, as usual.
“I told Raf I had a splinter,” she whispered, “and he said we can come back to his house to use s
ome tweezers. You can text your dad to meet us there.”
“Do you really have a splinter?”
“A little one. I could pull it out with my fingernails. But this is a good plan, right? Walk and talk, my friend. We can walk and talk.”
Rebecca had assumed they were going to his grandmother’s house farther down St. Philip, but Raf led them in a different direction, along Marais Street to his father’s house. Everyone was there this afternoon, he said, working.
“We need to ask you something,” Rebecca said, not wanting to waste any time. She was keeping an eye out for Gideon Mason, to make sure he wasn’t anywhere around, listening in. “We need your help. But you have to promise to keep it secret. Really, it’s top secret.”
“Can we rely on you?” Ling asked so seriously that Raf looked alarmed.
“Are you two undercover Feds or something?” he asked, stopping dead in his tracks. “I don’t wanna get involved in other people’s business. People who get involved in other people’s business around here end up shot dead on their own porch.”
“No, no! This is just our business,” Rebecca reassured him. And a ghost’s. She didn’t know how much to tell him. “It’s about one of the houses on St. Philip — the ones coming down next week. We need to get into it this weekend, to look for something.”
“Look for what?” Raf still sounded suspicious, but he started walking again.
“Something that — someone we know lost there.”
“Who do you know in Tremé?” Raf asked. “Is this something Junior told you? He always spinning lines to girls. Don’t listen to him.”
“No, it’s someone else. Someone — look, it’s just really hard to explain.” Rebecca looked over at Ling, flanking Raf on the other side. How much could they tell him? How much would he believe?
“It’s a sort of historical mystery,” Ling improvised. “We’ve been doing some research, and it seems as though something was hidden away in that house over a hundred years ago. Something of historic importance.”
“Hidden where?” Raf seemed skeptical. “Those houses have been empty a long time. If anybody left something in them, somebody else would have taken it by now, believe me.”
“It’s under the floorboards.” Rebecca wondered if it was a good idea to tell Raf any of this. If Anton didn’t want to know, why would Raf? He didn’t even seem to be listening anymore, shouting out to some friends of his cruising by on bicycles. But after they’d wheeled away around the corner, he asked Rebecca which house she was talking about.
“The one at the near end. The haunted one.”
“You want to break into that house and start pulling up floorboards? Even though that place might be falling down around your head?”
Rebecca and Ling both nodded.
“Tomorrow, early evening,” Ling told him. “When it gets dark, so people don’t see us. We really need your help getting in.”
“Will you help me when the police charge me with criminal trespass? Sorry — but no way.”
Rebecca and Ling looked at each other. Anton wouldn’t help them, Rebecca thought. Raf wouldn’t help them. They were going to have to manage the locket rescue on their own.
Let’s just forget it,” Rebecca said quickly. It was a lot to ask of someone else, she knew, especially someone who’d just met them. Maybe she should just tell her father about the whole thing and see if he could get the demolition halted. He knew about Lisette, so maybe he’d believe this ghost story. Maybe, maybe not.
“You won’t say anything about this to anyone, will you?” Ling asked Raf.
“I’ll say nothing,” Raf assured her. “I see nothing, I say nothing. This is it.”
He gestured to a white shotgun double, and turned to climb the stairs.
“I should warn you,” Raf said, grasping the door handle. “It’s gonna be crazy in here.”
Raf’s father’s house looked quiet and ordinary from the outside, but opening the front door revealed something like Aladdin’s cave. The small front parlor, crammed with people, was an explosion of color. Rebecca had never seen so much yellow in her life — yellow feathers, yellow satin, yellow sequins, all of it heaped on a table in the middle of the room.
Propped against one wall was a giant feathered headdress that spread into vast wings. It had to be seven feet tall, and almost as wide, studded with panels of gleaming fake jewels, pale as Easter eggs, and twinkling sequins. People were sewing, she realized, men as well as women, some sitting around the table and others perched wherever they could find a place. A little girl stood on a chair while a smaller headdress, fluffy with soft feathers, was tried on her head for size. She rolled out her lips in a pout and tried to push it off.
“Everyone, these are my friends Rebecca and Ling!” Raf shouted; the little girl was wailing now. “This is my father, my grandfather, my grandmother, my aunt Cissy, my aunt Angela, my cousin …”
“Can you sew?” Aunt Cissy called out. “Can you thread needles?”
“They’re from New York,” Raf announced. “They’ve never seen Indians before.”
“I can thread needles,” Ling offered, her splinter forgotten, and Raf’s cousin Jackie waved her over. Jackie was wearing a jeans and a Liuzza’s-By-The-Track T-shirt. Everyone was just in T-shirts and jeans, Rebecca noted, but the scene looked insanely glamorous to her, like an old-time Hollywood musical. Alongside the giant headdress, pieces of costumes sat propped against the wall: an intricately beaded sleeve, tall feathered boots, some kind of outsized feathered bib encrusted with jewels. She’d never seen anything like this in her life.
“Why you crying?” one of Raf’s aunts asked the little girl, tugging on one of her long braids. “You say you want to be a little queen tomorrow, and now you crying!”
“They fixing everything up for Jazz Fest tomorrow,” Raf told Rebecca. “Some of the suits got torn and messed up on St. Joseph’s, and then my aunt’s grandbabies decided they want to mask with the rest of the tribe at Jazz Fest, so everyone’s sewing.”
“I can’t sew but I can use a glue gun,” said Rebecca, and soon she was seated at the table, decorating staffs for the children to carry. This wouldn’t bring her any closer to rescuing the locket, but at least she could sit down for a while.
She didn’t want to ask a million questions, but Ling, sitting on the floor, wasn’t quite so shy. They spent all year working on new “suits,” Raf’s father said, in time for Mardi Gras, and then they wore them again on St. Joseph’s Day, otherwise known as Super Sunday.
“For some Indians, that’s all,” he told them. “A year of paying and sewing for two days of wearing. But you’ll see us tomorrow at Jazz Fest. Everyone looking real pretty.”
“So during Mardi Gras you have a big parade?” Ling asked. Raf’s father shook his head and grinned, looking just like Raf.
“We’re out on the backstreets,” he said. “You gotta come find us. You gotta come to our neighborhood.”
“I never go to parades.” Aunt Cissy bit on a pin.
“Sometimes I catch a bit of Zulu up on Broad,” said Aunt Angela. “But otherwise I’d never walk out to watch a Mardi Gras parade.”
“Why?” asked Ling, threading another needle and pinning it, yellow thread dangling, onto the cushioned back of an armchair.
“My daddy got himself beaten right out there on Canal Street,” Raf’s grandfather said, “for daring to stand and watch a parade. And people want to know why we make our own carnival?”
Rebecca couldn’t believe how quickly the time passed. She was concentrating so hard, it was impossible to think about anything but the task at hand — even if Aunt Cissy’s grandbaby looked profoundly unimpressed with Rebecca’s decoration of her staff. Before long her phone was buzzing; her father had pulled up outside in a cab, and it was time to say good-bye.
Raf’s father walked out with them, and Rebecca’s dad climbed out of the cab, which was stopped on the other side of the street. The two men stood in the road, talking. Raf had followed the
m out of the house as well, and he grabbed Rebecca’s arm at the bottom of the stairs.
“I really want to help you,” he said in a low voice. “But it just sounds too …” He shook his head.
“I understand,” Rebecca told him, though she wished he would change his mind.
“Can’t your dad help you? Doesn’t he know people who could stop the demolition?”
“Maybe,” Rebecca agreed.
“Because on the one hand you got an old white guy — no offense — who can talk to people at City Hall. And on the other you got a black kid from the Sixth Ward trying to smash his way into a house. Which you think is better?”
“Ready?” Rebecca’s father called to them, shaking Raf’s father’s hand. Ling was trotting along the sidewalk, chasing a drifting yellow feather.
“Well — see you,” Rebecca wished Raf would change his mind, but there wasn’t any time left to persuade him. She stepped into the road, waiting for Ling to catch up.
“Look for us at Jazz Fest tomorrow afternoon!” Raf called. “And wear some rain boots!”
Rebecca had turned back to smile at him when she heard the screech of a car. The sound came out of nowhere. One minute the street was quiet; the next she was deafened by the roar of someone accelerating toward them at top speed. Someone grabbed her arm and tugged, sending her staggering back onto the curb. She was conscious of a flash of silver metal, of Raf’s father shouting.
“Lunatic!” Ling was shrieking. “Becca, are you OK? That guy was parked just down there and then all of a sudden he swerves out and …”
“I think your dad got hit,” Raf said, and he took off across the road. A nauseous panic swirled through Rebecca: Her Dad? Hit? She couldn’t even see him.
“Dad!” she cried. Where was he? How could this all have happened so quickly?
“I’m OK!” called out a creaky voice, and she ran toward it blindly. Raf and his father were leaning over her own father’s prone form. He was sprawled on the ground, clutching his ankle, and looked white as a sheet.