The Rain That Would Not End

Port-au-Prince, Haiti — Seven Days Later

It had rained without pause since the hour Maman Odetta took her final breath.

Seven days. Seven nights.

The kind of rain that drowns candles on altars, floods the cracks in ancient tombs, and turns even the strongest prayers into whispers swallowed by thunder.

Lightning danced like angry spirits across the sky, splitting the heavens in streaks of silver. No birds sang. No dogs barked. Even the rats and stray cats, creatures born of shadow and stubborn survival, vanished from sight.

Something greater than grief loomed over the land.

The Silence of Mourning

The remaining members of the Toussaint family—sons, daughters, cousins, and neighbors who had once laughed under Odetta's roof—prepared for her burial with heavy hearts and trembling hands.

No drums were played.

No songs were sung.

Only weeping, hushed like confessionals, filled the rooms of her home.

They dressed her body in white and gold, as tradition demanded—bones cleaned, wrapped in silks embroidered with the vevé of Erzulie, Ayizan, and Papa Legba.

"She ain't just dead," whispered old Aunt Cici, voice cracked like dried corn husk. "The spirits mourn her like she was one of them."

The Gods Refuse Comfort

Above the island, the Lwa were restless.

Even Baron Samedi—normally laughing at funerals and sipping rum from broken skulls—refused to dance. He stood at the edge of his crypt in the Ghede realm, hat held to his chest.

"I warned y'all," he muttered. "When she go, the world gon' feel it."

Erzulie Freda wept openly. Her tears became summer storms.

Ogou Feray beat his blade against iron, but it sparked not with fury—only sorrow.

Ayizan burned incense by the thousand, but her visions returned void.

Even Papa Legba stood alone at the Crossroads, cane planted, unmoving.

No Lwa wanted to carry this burden.

And none dared bring their anger down on a world too fragile to survive it.

The Unclean Scatter

All that was twisted, evil, and born of shadow—fled.

Witches in the north buried their mirrors.

A Bokor in the south begged his spirits to flee before they were pulled into the storm.

Demons that walked in borrowed skin threw themselves into salt pits, hoping to vanish from sight.

Even the beast gods hiding across the dimensions turned their gaze away from Haiti, unwilling to meet the eyes of a grieving pantheon.

"Not today," one whispered. "Not while the rain still falls for her."

The Toussaint Funeral

On the seventh night, as thunder cracked the sky wide open, the family carried Odetta's body to her ancestral resting place—a tomb older than most buildings still standing in the city.

The streets were empty. But behind every curtain, eyes watched in reverence and fear.

Candles flickered despite the rain.

The pallbearers moved as if carried by unseen hands.

And when they lowered her down, the rain finally stopped.

No one spoke for a full minute.

Then, the clouds parted just enough for moonlight to fall upon her grave. A single rose bloomed beside it—blood red and dripping silver dew.

"She made it home," Aunt Cici whispered.