Mick leaned forward to set his cup down; the angle and a sudden sweep of little braids hid his face from me. He didn’t answer. Frances said, “Since I didn’t understand much of it, no, not really.”

“The marassa are twins,” I said. “Real-world ones, and spirit-world ones; you have to figure out which by context, I guess. Their hoodoo is unity and polarization, innocence and malice both at once. They share one soul. The dossou-dossa is the child born after twins. Actually, it’s dossou or dossa, depending on what sex the kid is. And in the spirit world, it’s the neuter principle, the third point on the hoodoo triangle that connects the male and female points.” I looked at Frances and thought, Don’t say a thing.

She might have understood, or not; her face didn’t change. “My, that was encyclopedic. Do you believe? I’m forgiven because of my great age, it seems, but what about you?”

After a moment I shook my head. It seemed rude to deny the operating system of our — hostess? Who owned this house, anyway? — in her own parlor. I was annoyed at Frances for making me do it. “Knowing it is a survival skill. She’s right. If you mention any of those names on the street, the people you’re talking to might tell you they use a different name, but that’s the most denial you’ll get.”

Frances pressed her lips together — to keep from smiling? “This must be a hard town for atheists.”

China Black said, “But I told you, they aren’t gods. You don’t believe,” she added, and looking up, I found she was now talking to me. “But you have sworn by Chango, haven’t you?”

“Me?” I shrugged. “It’s swearing, not invocation. You pick up habits from your neighbors.”

“If you were hoodoo, maybe you would swear by somebody else. Chango is not the master of your head. That’s Legba’s symbol around your neck, you know.”

My hand went to my throat before I thought about it. Sherrea’s pendant was lying outside my shirt. “No, I didn’t know.”

China Black nodded. “It is always in Legba’s veves: the figure for androgyny and metamorphosis. It is why Legba and all his cousin spirits keep the gates and the crossroads. Do you like practical jokes? Legba is a trickster.”

She seemed to want a response, but I couldn’t think of one. The gates I worked had to do with semiconductor technology, and in the last few days I’d discovered I had a positive distaste for change. As for practical jokes, it could be suggested that I was one. I certainly wasn’t going to take up the matter of androgyny with her.

“So your information was that three people — or maybe four — would appear, join forces, and raise whatever passes for hell in this pantheon,” said Frances thoughtfully. “You think we might be them. Pigs might get pilot’s licenses, too, but I don’t think so.”

China Black didn’t seem insulted. “How so?”