The Arrival

[Etienne Mbane]

The beat up, rust orange 1957 Chevrolet pick-up truck pulled into the parking lot of Westbrook Academy. It's bed held all of the driver's worldly possessions, tied down with hemp rope and covered in oilcloth tarps. Etienne Mbane paused before he got out of the truck, remembering to take off the bracelet that would surely make others uncomfortable. He came to the school not as a warning, but as a student. At least he hoped so.

Stepping out of the vehicle, Etienne shivered at the chill autumn air, and pulled on his long, alligator skin coat that was made for him when the women of his village found out the school everyone pooled together to send him was so far north. The Jesuit told them it would snow in the winter, and only be warm for a month or so, at least as warm as Etienne was used to. No one had ventured from the village farther than New Orleans in four generations.

He walked into the administration building, and followed the signs to the admissions office. He waited patiently for the receptionist to finish her phone conversation, then said, "I am here to enroll, 'moiselle. I tink you got a letter, non?"

The receptionist blinked, startled by the deep, quiet voice, not having noticed Etienne come in. "Ah, you must be Etienne Mbane. There was a problem with your application."

"Everyting was filled out. My test scores met de level you require, yes?"

She nodded. "Yes, despite not having attended any formal school, you have no academic deficiencies. The problem is, Etienne, you don't exist."

[Etienne Mbane]

Etienne stared at the receptionist, not sure how to react. Then he slowly shook his head and chuckled to himself. "Of course I exist, 'moiselle. You can see me here, non? Hear me here, non? Here, you can even touch me. Look in de mirror, I cast a reflection."

The receptionist smiled, "No, I can see you exist, at least physically, Etienne. But there is no record of you. No social security number, no birth certificate, no medical or dental records, no school records."

Etienne nodded, understanding. "Ah. Back home we don' have need for dat kind of ting. You got de letter from de Jesuit, oui?"

"Yes, and we'll have to have you fill out some more paperwork so we can get you enrolled, and so you can get your security license."

Etienne sighed. It wasn't safe for his people to have too much of a paper trail, especially now. But he didn't have much of a choice. He had to learn how to buck a ride, and he needed to see the world through the alien eyes of the White Man.

"Can I at least bring my friends in from de truck? It not be a problem if I keep dem here, is it?"

"Friends? Wait, did you say truck? You drove up here?"

He nodded. "Of course. How else is I to bring the tings I going to need?"

The receptionist dug out the brochure on pet policy and added a drivers license to the list of documents for the tall boy.

[Etienne Mbane]

The receptionist waited quietly as Etienne filled out the rest of his paperwork, paling again as she glanced over at the cages sitting on her desk next to him. She tried to decide which bothered her more, the muddy brown rat sticking its nose between the bars to sniff at everything, or the coiled up constrictor snake she could swear was eyeing her hungrily.

Etienne finished by signing the affidavit saying he was born in the United States so he could get his social security card, which would let me get his security license and his driver's license. He reminded himself to ask the Houshga to send a Loa to remove them from the records when he was done in the White Man's world.

The receptionist took the paperwork, checked it over, and crossed the room to put it in the Dean's mail slot. She didn't need to do this now, but she couldn't stand being by Etienne's "friends." He picked up the cages, and asked where he would be staying. Glad for the boy to take the animals with him, she directed him to the room he was assigned in the dorms.

Etienne unlocked his door to find the room empty. The rooms had evidence of at least two other boys, probably three, living there already. He found the empty bunk in the room on the left, bottom bunk. One of the desks was empty save for a note left for him by his roommate:

Hey,

I heard I was getting a new roommate. Welcome to Westbrook, dude. I'll catch you at lunch, or after classes.

Etienne set the cages down and opened their doors. The constrictor was happy to stay put, but the rat immediately crept out, exploring the desk it had been set on.

"Well, I ici, non?" He spoke to his friend, more for the lack of company than because he thought they would answer. The constrictor lazily raised its head when he talked, as it always did. "I goin' va down et bring my tings up. Den we see what dis White Man's monde all about."

[Etienne Mbane]

Etienne shivered in his seat, the teacher having looked disapprovingly at him until he took off his gator skin coat. Ever since, the chill of being inside this building, heated to a level below even a bayou winter, had seeped into his bones. His stowaway friend, however, seemed to be very glad for it, curled up in the sleeve and enjoying the warmth.

Etienne returned his attention to the trigonometry lesson, trying hard to keep up with the teacher. He could see why this would be useful, but had a hard time taking the mathematics out of context. He followed in his textbook, how to calculate a tangent.

A chill shot down his spine. Suddenly, the room was full of whispering. The Loa called to him, chanting a warning, over and over.

"Black Papa Lagna, he comin'."

[Etienne Mbane]

Etienne woke in a cold sweat, shivering. The long constrictor snake was curled at his feet, happy for the warmth, and Etienne could hear the scrabbling of his rat in its cage. He could feel the Loa that he called to help fight off the gang punks earlier that night still clinging to him, refusing to leave. It sharpened his senses, feeding off the adrenaline that was the result of whatever woke him.

He sat up, and shook the sleep out of his head. The rat picked his nose up, sniffing at the air, then went back to scrabbling at the cage, looking for a way out.

Etienne heard footsteps in the hall outside his quad. Heavy, slow, ominous, they came closer and closer. The Loa within him started screaming for Etienne to do something to protect it. The footsteps stopped outside the door, and Etienne slid out of bed, shivering in the cold of the night, and quietly walked over to the door.

He could hear breathing on the other side, heavy, labored. A soft scratching, with the quiet shriek of metal on metal, as if one could hear thin strips being peeled off the door outside. Steeling himself, Etienne yanked open the door, ready to pounce on whatever was out there.

The dim lights of the empty hallway case a long shadow behind Etienne. He felt a tearing sensation within him as the Loa left, fleeing into the night. He looked up and down the hall. Not a soul was in sight, only the fluttering of some posters hanging from the walls.

[Etienne Mbane]

"So, yeah. If you let the snake out again, I'm going to have to complain, Etienne."

Simon tried to hide the fact that Etienne terrified him. Etienne nodded to his roommate. "No worries, mon ami. I did no mean to be a boder. I'll keep him in his cage."

"The rat's okay, I guess. I mean, he's a lot cleaner than I expected him to be. But only when you're around. He seems to listen to you, anyway, so unless he starts making a mess, or destroying things..."

Etienne smiled, his porcelain white teeth gleaming against his cappuccino skin. "He won' do dat. Like I said, I just want get along to get along, non?"

Simon nodded tentatively, clearly relieved that Etienne seemed to take it in stride. Then, he left, his pace showing how uncomfortable Simon was having to live with Etienne.

Etienne turned to the constrictor snake in the cage, starting an apology. The snake was coiled, seemingly ready to strike at something, staring intently over Etienne's left shoulder. He froze, listening carefully, wishing that he had the familiar sounds of the bayou around him to give him clues as to what was around. A chill ran down his spine as the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up. He reached out for a Loa to invite in, but they had all scattered. All but one. Quickly, he turned to find an empty room, the sense of all Loa gone for several nervous breaths.

Simon came back in the room at that point, startled by the look on Etienne's face. They looked at each other, no longer adversaries, but bonded over a sense of mutual threat. Finally, Simon shivered.

"I tell you what I will complain about. There never seems to be enough heat in this room."

[Etienne Mbane]

Inside, Etienne was screaming in terror. The Loa were supposed to wait for permission before they entered him. Normally, they did.

He took several centering breaths, and realized the terror wasn't his, but the Loa's. Something was after it, and it hid within Etienne. Instead of giving it a place to hide, Etienne gave it a weapon to fight back. And so, Etienne sprinted down the hall of the dormitory, grabbing the door frame to turn into the stairwell, his bare feet slapping on the wooden floors.

The Loa left a mark when they rode along inside Etienne. This one helped heal a broken heart. Etienne knew for the puckered scar that rose on his chest. It was an unusual Loa to be hunted. Whatever it feared had been haunting around Etienne since he arrived at Westbrook, however, and this was his best chance to find out what it was.

He burst onto the girls' floor, feeling more than seeing his quarry as it disappeared around a corner. A girl, Etienne didn't have time to identify her, squealed, throwing herself against the wall and dropping her shower kit to get out of his way.

He chased it as it disappeared into one of the rooms. Setting himself, he burst into the room. Looking around with the care of a predator, whatever he had been hunting no longer existed. He stood, out of breath, bare-footed, bare-chested, his eyes an eerie, solid black. The scar on his chest, pale and puckered, as if the wound never quite healed.

He looked around seeing four girls staring at him from their bedroom doors, only one he recognized. Cadence

"'Scuse me, 'moiselles. But I don' tink you should go witout dat tali'man I gived you no more."

[Cadence Calloway]

((Got the okay from Etienne to jump in and help co-write this.))

Cadence was feeling pretty good about herself, for the first time in a long while. She'd never been one to show off her powers...in fact, she usually tried not to show off if she could help it. Lorne had asked her to demonstrate the power room to a couple of new students though, and she'd received quite a few compliments at her fiery display. Her self confidence, which was most of the time non-existent, had been bolstered. Westbrook was...well, it was really beginning to feel like home. She was no longer the weird kid, the mutie, the freak. Most of the students seemed to be accepting her. Hell, she was even beginning to feel comfortable enough with some of them to joke around a little! It had taken her MONTHS to get to that point when she had been attending Evolution-X's Academy!

She probably should have been studying Trig, considering all the problems with the report cards. That A she'd gotten in that class was a total fluke..but she opted to curl up in her bunk with a comic book instead. Well, a digital copy of one anyway. She had a comfy pair of grey sweat pants on, and a loose fitting long sleeve tee, her feet clad in grey wool socks.

"Hey Cade, I'm heading to the showers," her roommate said, shower kit in hand.

Cadence glanced up from the battle unfolding between two rather buxom alien power houses. "Okay..." she replied, then her gaze went back to her laptop screen.

She was fully engrossed in the fight for the crown going on in her comic, that she barely registered the sound of her roommate's squeal. She wasn't so engrossed that she didn't catch the sound of someone bursting through the door. She flailed, nearly dropping her laptop before she managed to catch it. She set it aside, closed the lid, and went to her bedroom door to see what was up.

Cadence stood there a moment, her mouth agape as she stared at Etienne. What in the world was he doing on the girls' floor? And why had he burst in like he did? And she couldn't help but stare, since he was standing there shirtless and barefooted. Her amber eyes drifted to the puckered scar on his chest, then moved up to look him in the eye as he mentioned the talisman he'd given her.

The talisman? She reached up with a hand to where the boar bristle should have been. She'd taken to wearing it right along side the locket that Kyle had given her a couple years ago. Her fingers found the locket..but the bristle and the leather cord it was attached to were gone. Cadence turned around and started rummaging through her room, tearing through clothes that had been neatly folded, putting her desk in total chaos as she moved papers and books around.

"I was wearing it earlier!" she said out loud as she tore apart her room. When had she taken it off? She paused after a few moments of frantic searching had passed. "I must have taken it off when Lorne asked me to do a demo in the power room."

She turned back to look at Etienne, an apologetic look on her features. "I bet its in the locker room, with my costume...."

[Etienne Mbane]

Etienne nodded. "Always wear it, 'moiselle. Bad juju about. Tres bad. Black Papa Langa comin'."

Cadence blinked, obviously confused. "Black Papa Langa? Etienne, what are you talking about? Etienne?"

Without another word, he turned and calmly walked through the hall. The doors were cracked open, most with more than one pair of eyes peeking to see what it was. More than a few gasps came from behind those doors. Cadence stood there, her question unanswered, and watched as the strange boy departed. He got as far as the door to the stairway when the Loa inside him decided to leave.

He spun as he collapsed, landing face up on the floor, and started twitching violently. Cadence rushed forward, pushing past the girls gawking at the display. She hadn't a clue what was going on, and for all she knew Etienne was having a seizure of some sort! When she'd attended Evolution-X, there had been a training instructor who was prone to seizures, so she had a vague idea of what to do as a result. She was a nervous wreck, and her hands shook as a visible sign of this as she waved people away. He was lucky to have collapsed there, rather than on the stairs or in one of the rooms. A fall in either place could have done some serious damage. There weren't any objects right by the door to the stairway, so no danger of injury by hitting any of them.

What else, what else am I supposed to do? She felt herself starting to panic, which was one of the worst things she could do at this point. Was she supposed to hold him down? No, she wasn't supposed to do that.

His wide open eyes gradually regained their color and the puckered scar on his chest faded as if healing years in the course of a few seconds. When the Loa was gone, a soft groan escaped his lips and he dragged himself to his feet. Cadence felt relieved as she reached out and tried to help him up. In all the panic, she hadn't noticed the scar healing itself...but now that the crisis seemed averted, she noticed it was gone. She didn't ask about it...there were other things to worry about.

"Are...are you going to be okay? Do you need to see the nurse or something?" she asked.

He didn't seem to think so...and Cadence watched in concern as her friend opened the door to the stairway and continued on. Etienne climbed the stairs and went back to his room. His roommate sat at his desk, chair turned toward the door, waiting for Etienne to return.

"And just what the hell was that, Etienne? You totally freak me out, you know that?"

Etienne barely acknowledged him, walked over to his bed, and collapsed, exhaustion quickly dragging him into a deep sleep.

[Etienne Mbane]

***

Etienne walked the grounds, knowing he should be spending this time working on his math. His mind raced, trying to sort out what had happened. He had told a White Man, a non-believer, about how the Loa worked. He had even given her not one, but two charms to protect her. Perhaps this is what the houghan saw when she warned him that the world would change because of him, and he would change because of the world. Perhaps the Jesuit's wisdom, that the White Man was more willing to believe than Etienne's village gave them credit for, was more true that he wanted to admit.

Regardless, he had not only spilled out a number of fundamental truths about how the universe really worked, but had made a poppet, blessing her with nkisi, or the magic of his people. He knew it would cause him problems in the future. He also knew that she was vulnerable to the Black Papa, so she needed all the help she could get. At least until she got her feet back under her.

In his musings, he missed the stirring in the shadows of the gardens as he turned back toward the dorms and the incomprehensible wall of mathematics awaiting there. Two steps later, there was a sharp pain at the back of his skull as a blinding light flashed before his eyes before he collapsed, unconscious.