Summary

Chapter 4 narrates close to the perspective of Augusta, the matriarch of the family in Black Candle Women, who feels fatigued and at war with gravity. Brown tells more of Augusta’s backstory in this chapter, revealing that the matriarch learned her magic as a 17-year-old girl in New Orleans after she met her mentor, Bela Nova, in a jazz club called the Dew Drop Inn. Bela Nova spotted Augusta in the club and already knew her. “You weren’t born to live your own life,” Bela Nova tells her (39). “Your life, like mine, belongs to the people. For the right price, yes. But doing work for people, our people, who deserve to get a splinter of happiness in this dreadful place we call a world, you hear? Your life will be dedicated to helping them.”

In Chapter 5 Victoria wakes up with a headache...