He told Cece everything. He sat at her kitchen table with red beans and rice and Madame Moreau's hibiscus tea and he told her all of it in order: the divine heritage (she had known this), the training (she had suspected this), the approaching events (she had not known this), the transmigration (she had not known this at all).
He had told no one about the transmigration before. Not even Theron, not fully — Theron knew he was 'unusual' and had 'prior knowledge' but not the full scope of it. He had been saving it for his parents, for the right time, for the conversation he had been planning for two years. And then the hellhound had happened and Cece had looked at him with those direct eyes and said 'everything' and he had thought: she has been here with me for five years and she has never once betrayed the things I've told her and she deserves the same honesty I'm giving my parents.
He told her about Jason Park. Atlanta, Georgia, 1987 to 2013. The mythology obsession. The Hapkido. The gaming. The car accident on I-285 on a Tuesday in April. The between-space, the Chaos that had noticed him passing through and offered the framework. The rebirth. The memories arriving in fragments.
Cece listened to all of it. She did not interrupt. She had the absolute quality of attention that real listeners have — not the waiting-to-speak quality, but the genuine receiving quality.
When he finished, she was quiet for a moment. She looked at her red beans. She looked at Theron, who was sitting in the corner of the kitchen eating a very large portion of greens and pretending not to be listening. She looked at her mother, who was at the stove and whose stillness indicated that she was listening to every word.
Then she looked at Kael.
'So you're basically,' she said, 'a reincarnated nerd who grew up in Atlanta and liked anime and mythology.'
'That's — yes. That's essentially accurate.'
'And you've been carrying this for ten years by yourself.'
'More or less.'
'And you knew about Percy Jackson the character before Percy Jackson the actual person existed in your life.'
'I knew he was going to exist. I knew the broad outline. Yes.'
She nodded slowly, with the gravity of someone assembling a complete picture from many pieces she had collected over years. 'That's why you never act surprised by things,' she said. 'That's why you always seem like you're three steps ahead. That's why you talk about mythology like you have strong personal opinions about it rather than like it's something you read in a book.'
'Yes.'
'Kael,' she said, 'I love you. You're my best friend. But you have been carrying way too much by yourself and I'm mad it took a hellhound for you to tell me this.'
'I know,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'
'You don't have to be sorry. Just — I'm here. I've been here. You can give me more.'
He felt something release in his chest that he had not known was held. The specific tension of carrying a weight alone for a long time and then setting it down not because it was gone but because someone else had put their hand under it too.
'Thank you,' he said.
Madame Moreau turned from the stove. She looked at Kael with her full, direct attention. 'I knew something like this,' she said. 'The Baron told me you had been somewhere else first. I did not know the details.' She brought fresh cornbread to the table and sat down. 'What I know now: you are a child of the old Greek goddess and the sun god's blood, you carry a soul that has seen more than one world, and you are planning to walk into a war that is coming.' She looked at him steadily. 'And you are ten years old.'
'Yes ma'am.'
'What can we do to help?'
He looked at her, then at Cece. He had planned this part. 'You're already helping. Cece knowing — that's the biggest thing. Having someone here who I can tell the truth to.' He paused. 'And if the Loa — if Baron Samedi has been watching — I would like to pay my respects. Properly. Not ask for anything. Just acknowledge the watching and say thank you.'
Madame Moreau looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded. 'Saturday,' she said. 'We'll set up the altar and I'll introduce you. You bring something of value that you're willing to give.'
'What does the Baron value?'
A hint of a smile. 'Honesty,' she said. 'He has very little patience for pretense. You should be fine.'
✦ ✦ ✦
On Saturday he stood at the Moreau family altar in the back room — photographs and offerings and the specific vibrant quality of a space that had been regularly attended for many years — and he said, simply and directly, to the presence he could feel in the room the way you feel weather before it arrives:
'Baron Samedi. You've been watching me since before I was born and you've been kind. I want to thank you for that. I know who you are and I take you seriously and I'm not here asking for anything. I'm just here to say: I see you seeing me, and I'm grateful.'
The room was still for a moment. Then something shifted — a warmth in the quality of the light, a sense of attention that was amused and appraising and genuinely pleased.
He felt, faintly and clearly, the Codex register a new notation.
[ LOAS ACKNOWLEDGMENT REGISTERED ]
BARON SAMEDI — Loa of Death & Crossroads
Haitian Vodou / Louisiana Voodoo tradition
Acknowledgment accepted.
Status: FAVORABLE ATTENTION
[Not a blessing — an open door.]
[A blessing requires relationship over time.]
Codex note: This is how cross-tradition relationships
are built. Acknowledgment first.
Respect before request.
Time and consistency before trust.
Baron Samedi has noted your honesty.
He considers it appropriately unusual in someone
who knows as much as you do.
The door is open. What you do with it is yours.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━