The Trinity Game

very colorfully, but now she was wearing a simple white dress and white head-wrap. Her feet were bare. She led them beside the house to a gate in the privacy fence surrounding the backyard.
    “Welcome to our peristyle,” she said.
    Inside was a courtyard, covered by a corrugated tin roof on stilts. The inside walls of the fence were painted green with red and yellow trim, and black drawings of the
veve
symbols of various
loa
, alongside snakes and roosters and crosses and coffins, and a large portrait of Marie Laveau, the nineteenth-century Queen of Voodoo. About a dozen tiki torches provided the lighting, augmented by twice as many flickering red and white candles scattered about the place.
    In the center of it all stood a striped pole, surrounded by an altar that would give Ory’s store altar an inferiority complex. A magnificent collection of fetishes and offerings, bottles of rum and perfume and sarsaparilla, plates and bowls overflowing with yams, plantain, apples, peppers, nuts, figs, and hard candy. Two framed portraits—Saint Peter and Saint Barbara—were propped up against the altar, behind the offerings.
    Priestess Ory brought a couple of mugs to Daniel and Trinity. “Legba and Shango both love rum. We drink to honor them.”
    Trinity winked at her, said, “L’Chaim,” and downed his in one swallow.
    “Oy vey,” Daniel deadpanned.
    Priestess Ory let out a good-humored laugh, then took Daniel’s hand in hers and turned serious. “You have a skeptical mind, and I respect that,” she said. “I’m not asking you to believe anything, I simply ask that you clear your mind of preconceptions and be open to your feelings. You may not believe in the
loa
, but pleasedo not disrespect them.” She smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. “They can turn ugly if they feel mocked.”
    Daniel felt the ghost of an ice cube slide down his spine. “I’ll behave myself. Promise.” He drank the rum.
    “Thank you,” she said. “This is a
Rada
gathering—the invisibles we’re working with tonight are very benevolent and not aggressive. They won’t take possession unless you give them permission. So be sure that you don’t, unless you’re willing to be mounted. Just stand over here and relax. And if you get the urge to dance or sing along with us, feel free.”
    “My peppermint twist is a little rusty,” said Trinity, “but you should see my watusi.”
    “He’s just nervous,” said Daniel.
    “I know,” said Priestess Ory. She turned to the back door of the house, and called,
“Tambours!”
    The screen door opened and a white man and two black men stepped into the courtyard. All three were shirtless and shoeless, wore white pants, and each carried an African drum. They set the drums up along the east wall, sat behind them on stools.
    The drummers began beating out a compelling rhythm with their hands. The screen door opened again and an older black man came out, carrying a wicker basket, followed by five black women and two white women, all dressed like Ory, the youngest about twenty-five, the oldest in her sixties. Three of the women carried colorful sequined flags.
    The drumming grew, both in complexity and volume. The old man put the basket down, picked a conch shell off the altar, lifted it to his mouth, and blew a long note through it.
    Priestess Ory called out,
“Annonce, annonce, annonce!”
and the group sang out the same in response. She poured a thin lineof Florida Water cologne from the back door to the center pole, then from side to side, creating a crossroads. The old man faced Ory, and they made three formal pirouettes and then exchanged a double-handshake, making crossroads with their forearms. The other women did the same, and then swayed with the drums as the old man took two handfuls of cornmeal from the altar and used the cornmeal to “paint” a
veve
on the ground. He leaned forward and kissed the
veve
three times.
    Priestess Ory reached into the wicker basket as the group sang,
“Damballah Wedo, Damballah Wedo, Damballah Wedo…”
She lifted a young boa constrictor, about four feet in length, from the basket, held it above her head, and danced backwards around the center pole, pausing so each participant could touch the snake. Ory sang,
“Damballah Wedo…Nous sommes les sevite…Ti Ginen.”
She returned the snake gently to the basket and closed the lid, then danced with a beaded gourd in her hands as the intensity of the drumming climbed ever higher, growing into a