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Back The Lollipop Shoes
Chapters (96)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. The Lollipop Shoes
  4. Dedication
  5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  6. PART ONE
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. PART TWO
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. 6
  19. 7
  20. 8
  21. PART THREE
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. PART FOUR
  29. 1
  30. 2
  31. 3
  32. 4
  33. 5
  34. 6
  35. 7
  36. 8
  37. 9
  38. PART FIVE
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. PART SIX
  52. 1
  53. 2
  54. 3
  55. 4
  56. 5
  57. 6
  58. 7
  59. 8
  60. 9
  61. 10
  62. 11
  63. 12
  64. PART SEVEN
  65. 1
  66. 2
  67. 3
  68. 4
  69. 5
  70. 6
  71. 7
  72. 8
  73. 9
  74. PART EIGHT
  75. 1
  76. 2
  77. 3
  78. 4
  79. 5
  80. 6
  81. 7
  82. 8
  83. 9
  84. 10
  85. 11
  86. 12
  87. 13
  88. 14
  89. 15
  90. 16
  91. 17
  92. 18
  93. 19
  94. Epilogue
  95. About the Author
  96. Also by Joanne Harris

For the third time, I said in my clearest voice: ‘What was in the black piñata?’

16

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Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 11.30 p.m.

I CAN SEE it all so clearly now, like pictures on a tarot card. The darkened shop; skulls on the shelves; the little girl; the great-great-grandmother standing by with a look of appalling greed on her ancient face.

I know that Anouk sees it too. Even Zozie sees it now, and her face keeps changing, going from old to young, from Zozie to the Queen of Hearts, mouth twisting from contempt to indecision and finally to naked fear. And now she’s only nine years old, a little girl in her carnival dress with a silver bracelet round her wrist.

‘You want to know what was inside? You really want to know?’ she says.

17

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Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 11.30 p.m.

SO YOU REALLY want to know, Anouk?

Shall I tell you what I saw?

What was I expecting, you ask? Sweets, perhaps, or lollipops; chocolate skulls; necklaces of sugar teeth; all the tawdry Day of the Dead merchandise ready to explode out of the black piñata like a shower of dark confetti?

Or something else, some occult revelation: a glimpse of God; a hint of beyond; some assurance, perhaps, that the dead are still here, guests at our table; unquiet sleepers; custodians of some essential mystery that will one day be imparted to the rest of us?

Isn’t that what we all want? To believe that Christ arose from the dead; that angels guard us; that fish on a Friday is sometimes holy and at other times a mortal sin; that it somehow matters if a sparrow falls, or a tower or two, or even an entire race, annihilated in the name of some specious deity or other, barely distinguishable from a whole series of One True Gods – ha! – Lord, what fools these mortals be, and the joke of it is that we’re all fools, even to the gods themselves, because for all the millions who were slaughtered in their name, for all the prayers and sacrifices and wars and revelations, who really remembers the Old Ones now – Tlaloc and Coatlicue and Quetzalcoatl and even greedy old Mictecacihuatl herself – their temples made into ‘heritage sites’, their stones toppled, their pyramids overgrown, all lost in time like blood in the sand?