Louisa looked at her in terror, then quickly grasped her hand. She hooked their little fingers and pressed Ellen's hand to her brow.

Ellen heard her murmur something: "Au nom Monsieur Damballah-wedo..."

For a long while Louisa held her hand to her brow, and then the coldness passed, and she felt warm and deeply loved. She looked into the woman's eyes.

"What—" she began.

Louisa pressed a finger to her lips. "Shh," she whispered, nodding toward Michael and Jake. "They only laugh at me. But the cold has left your soul, n'est-ce pas?"

Ellen nodded, stunned. "Yes, but—"

"Eh bien, it may not come again." She scooped up the cards on the table.

"But how—"

Louisa shrugged. "My mother was a mambo."

"Mambo?"

"You would say… a witch? White witch, though not so white in color—darker, much, than I." She shrugged. "She did much good in Port-au-Prince." She slipped her cards into her purse. "Me? An amateur, one would say. With Jake always laughing at me so, how can I ever know? Jake?" she called. "I feel our Cadillac is here."

"Not yet, it's way too early," the black man said, scoffing. "Romeo on time? Not even for his half-assed funerals."

In a moment Romeo appeared at the door. "Your wheels, mon, as you ordered."

Jake looked startled. He got up, moved to the chart table, and looked at Louisa.

"You want to tell me how you do that someday, girl?"

"No. Because you never believe a single thing I say."

When the two left, Michael showed her their laboratory. The equipment, though old, seemed expensive. Ellen did not understand. All for conches? "Conks," as they pronounced it.

A conch, as far as she knew, was just another shell; elaborate, pretty, but hardly worth all this.

She had to ask why. She looked into Michael's face. She had never been able to show false enthusiasm. When he or Sean had brought home an essay from English or an ashtray from shop class that she didn't understand or like, she'd told them. She was always the one who had to strip the emperor of his clothes.

She sighed and asked, "But, Michael, what does a conch do? I mean, to make it worth all this?"

He looked uncomfortable. "Well, some people think it's a fascinating animal."

"That's not the point. Do you?"

He reached into an aquarium tank and took out a live eight-inch conch. The shell was a buff-colored specimen with a pagoda-shaped tower and a lovely pink hue where it entered the interior.

"Strombus gigas," he announced. "Every bit of him is usable. Bahamians make roadbeds from his shell. The French make cameos. Hawaiians toot on it when they want to go to war. Europeans use it in porcelain." He put the shell down on the chart table and touched a finger to his lips. "Shh... or he won't come out. They hear everything...."