The mirror was heavier now. Not in weight, but in presence.
Elias felt it from the moment he crossed the threshold of the hut. The relic no longer hid passively beneath the woven mat where he had buried it. It pulsed. Faintly, like the throb of a buried heart. Like something waiting.
Outside, the drums had not stopped since the ceremony. Marise's followers were cleansing the land, chanting the names of the spirits, burning herbs until the air turned thick with vision and memory. Papa Louvier's hut was quieter, but not untouched. Symbols chalked in red and black curved across the walls, vevé he hadn't drawn.
A thin voice rode the wind:"Ghede waits where every road ends, child."
He turned and the mirror caught his reflection.
But it wasn't just him.
Behind his reflection stood another figure. Wide-brimmed hat. Bone-white face. Grinning lips stained purple-black. The glass rippled like water.
"Papa Legba?" Elias whispered.
"No," said the figure inside the mirror. "But close. Baron. Trickster. Ferryman. Watcher. Names are only shells. I am who opens doors and who laughs when you beg them shut."
The air inside the hut shifted. A scent of rum, tobacco, and fresh earth rose. The figure stepped through the mirror, not shattering it, not breaking rules, but simply unfolding into the space.
Baron Samedi stood before him in black tails and sunglasses that reflected no light. The air trembled as though caught between life and death.
"You're not real," Elias said. "You're another vision. A memory. A trick of the relic."
"You're catching on, sugar cane. But you still don't know the trick."The Baron tapped Elias's chest. "That thump-thump in there? That's my drum, too. You're standing at the crossroads now. Not just between past and future, but between truth and the stories you think are true."
Elias tried to speak, but the words crumbled before they left his tongue.
The Baron leaned closer. "Let me make it plain. You have a choice. You always did. But now the mirror wants to know: will you stay a ghost watching other people bleed? Or will you plant your feet and bleed with them?"
Outside, a child screamed, then silence.
Elias's heart thundered.
"I'm not supposed to interfere," Elias said. "I'm only supposed to observe."
"Wrong ritual," the Baron laughed. "You've been interfering since your first breath here. You healed the sick. You spoke in tongues you don't remember learning. You carved the word 'cipher' into the dirt of this dying world. You're already writing the story, boy."
The Baron removed his sunglasses, revealing not eyes but twin spirals, black and gold, moving in opposite directions.
"You already made your choice. This is just the part where you realize it."
The drums outside rose to a peak. Then, silence.
The Baron snapped his fingers.
The hut vanished. Elias stood now in a clearing, at a four-way crossroad lit by fireflies and candle stubs. In each direction, a different version of himself waited.
One wore the healer's robes.One wore chains.One wore a warlord's coat stained in blood.One wore a mirror where his face should be.
"Pick," the Baron said, suddenly behind him again. "You can't walk all four. Not yet."
Elias stepped forward, toward the one in chains.
The others nodded and stepped back, fading.
Baron Samedi grinned wider. "Good. You're ready for pain."
Then the world cracked. The mirror inside Elias's satchel pulsed white-hot.
He screamed.
And the Watcher whispered through the fire:"History does not need witnesses. It needs participants."