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Mrs Pleasant squinted into the roiling mass.
'Someone's going to be eatin' shrimp?' she said helpfully.
'Ye see that bit of okra?' said Mrs Gogol. 'Ye see the way the crab legs keep coming up just there?'
'You never were one to stint the crab meat,' said Mrs Pleasant.
'See the way the bubbles is so thick by the okuh leaves? See the way it all spirals around that purple onion?'
'I see it! I see it!' said Mrs Pleasant.
'And you know what that means?'
'Means it's going to taste real/me[?]!'
'Sure,' said Mrs Gogol, kindly. 'And it means some people's coming.'
'Wow! How many?'
Mrs Gogol dipped a spoon into the seething mass and tasted it.
'Three people,' she said. She smacked her lips thoughtfully. 'Women.'
She dipped the spoon again.
'Have a taste,' she said. 'There's a cat, too. Ye can tell by the sassafras.' She smacked her lips. 'Grey. One eye.'
She explored the cavity of a tooth with her tongue. 'The ... left one.'
Mrs Pleasant's jaw dropped.
'They'll find you before they find me,' said Mrs Gogol. 'You lead 'em here.'
Mrs Pleasant stared at Mrs Gogol's grim smile and then back down at the mixture in the pot.
'They coming all this way for a taste?' she said.
'Sure.' Mrs Gogol sat back. 'You been to see the girl in the white house?'
Mrs Pleasant nodded. 'Young Embers,' shesaid. 'Yeah. When I can. When the Sisters are out at the palace. They got her real scared, Mrs Gogol.'
She looked down at the pot again, and back up to Mrs Gogol.
'Can you really see - ?'
'I expect you've got things to marinate?' said Mrs Gogol.
'Yeah. Yeah.' Mrs Pleasant backed out, but with reluctance. Then she halted. Mrs Pleasant, at rest, was not easily moved again until she wanted to be.
'That Lilith woman says she can see the whole world in mirrors,' she said, in slightly accusing tones.
Mrs Gogol shook her head.
'All anyone gets in a mirror is themselves,' she said. 'But what you gets in a good gumbo is everything.'
Mrs Pleasant nodded. This was a well-known fact. She couldn't dispute it.
Mrs Gogol shook her head sadly when the cook had gone. A voodoo woman was reduced to all sorts of stratagems in order to appear knowing, but she felt slightly ashamed of letting an honest woman believe that she could see the future in a pot of gumbo. Because all you could see in a pot of Mrs Gogol's gumbo was that the future certainly contained a very good meal.
