A black woman walked out from the back, about six-and-a-half feet tall in her boots. She had a half-shaved head, and she wore trousers and a no-sleeved shirt. Her arms were all muscled and covered with tattoos—symbols and words in languages I didn’t know and pictures of all kinds of stuff, trees and flowers and daggers and pages from old books—like there was some great history of everything scribbled on her skin.

“Were y’all just gonna sit there yapping or were you going to introduce me to our guests?” she said.

“Aye, sorry Miss Marina,” said Johnson. “We were distracted by this magnificent oinker here.” He peered at me, adjusting his glasses. “I didn’t catch your name, lad.”

“I’m Buddy,” I said. “And this here’s Tally. There’s folks after us. We’re in serious danger.”

“Hear that, Miss Marina?” said Lawrence. “These little fellows are wanted.”

“Positively felons!” said Johnson.

“Not only wanted, these two,” said Marina. “Something smells a bit off about them.”

“Well I ain’t bathed in a few days,” I said. “Except in swamp water.”

“I ain’t talking about your body odor,” said Marina. “What say you, Harlen?”

The dog-seeming man on the cushion lifted his head and howled, long and mournful.

“That’s what I thought.” Marina walked toward me, her boots clomping on the hardwood floor. “There’s a tinge around you, like crushed flowers, like the month after a funeral. A sad smell. Melancholy. Boy, I daresay there is magic afoot here. You’re hexed, you are. And there’s something particular about her.” Marina pointed to Tally. “But no, that’s not what I’m smelling. That’s not it at all.”

She grabbed my knapsack.

“There are cards in here,” she said. “Parsnit cards.” The lanterns in the room dimmed, the candles flickered, and a cool wind seemed to sweep across the floor. “You’ve brought Parsnit cards into Marina’s Place?”

The tables began to shake, spilling drink all over the two old men. They hollered, grabbing onto the pork so as it wouldn’t slop off on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We didn’t know. We didn’t mean anything by it.”

“There will be no apologies,” said Marina, her voice low and booming, her eyes gone black and empty, her hair standing on end as if lightning struck. “Those infernal cards are not allowed here, and that is well known. Who would dare to bring a Parsnit deck in my house?”

Fire flashed inside the room and smoke billowed up from beneath the floorboards, like it was rising from the swamp, like Hell itself had gathered about us and was seeping in through the floor.

“It’s okay, Marina,” said a man’s voice. “Those cards are mine.”

A silhouette leaned against the piano in the back of the room, lingering in the shadows a little bit. He seemed tired, grizzled, a few days’ beard growth on his cheeks, a little slouch to him. But when he walked toward me he had that same strut I recognized, the one I tried to imitate my whole life, and when he smiled that big gold-toothed smile at me, there wasn’t any doubt who I was looking at.