(Especially not when her dreams are all telling her that Aunt’s spirit isn’t where she’s supposed to be, that it’s somehow been trapped after death. She can’t figure out anything further. She wasn’t ready to be thrust into her Aunt’s place, not yet.)
Gathering their fugitives has been easy. The store’s always been crowded these past two months; everyone’s still looking for any kind of guidance or power they can find. Of course, plenty of customers looking for having their fortunes told or similar have been put out to hear Evita’s completely booked today. One or two of them even side-eyed the people who did get to go through the curtains. But she doubts anyone’s noticed that none of them came back out.
It’s late in the day when the last of eleven people finally arrives in the back rooms. Evita knows the names of six of them, and that five of them are active Inhumans, one of them has her daughter with her, who probably also has the genes, and one of them has powers from another source. She isn’t asking anyone any questions. They haven’t asked her all that much either. She was reading to do some fortune telling if they wanted that, but she supposes they’re all afraid of what they’d hear.
They’ve all happily accepted gris-gris, though. Even Mona Benoit, whom Evita feared would refuse. She bound and fed twelve bags last night, as soon as they got a final count.
Last of the fugitives to receive his is a middle-aged black man Evita knows only as Georges, though she also knows he’s one of the Inhumans. “It’s nearly closing time,” she tells them. “Your conductor will arrive as soon as he can after that. I’ll warm up some dinner for everyone, and he’ll take you out once it really starts to get dark.”
They thank her, and she takes hold of the final gris-gris as she heads out to shoo the last of the customers away. She ends up standing around with one last white woman with a German accent who takes an eternity to decide between two talismans. By the time she finally buys one and leaves, Evita suspects Ty has already arrived. Even after losing his teleportation ability, he’s learned all the ways to slip in and out of the store and the back rooms.
Yet Evita has become aware their current relationship isn’t going to last. Even if they could somehow clear his name, it’ll take him longer to get completely over Tandy Bowen than she’s willing to wait.
(It's said Bobo Smith lived alone for the rest of his life, though there's little factual record. There's too litte information all together on what the surviving halves of the Divine Pairings did with themselves afterwards. That irritates Evita nowadays.)
Still when she sees the taletell movement near the front, she steps forward and greets him with a kiss, one that surprises them both with its intensity. She's done her best to stay calm, cool and collected from time she first got in contact with the guy from Memphis, but there’s something in her threatening to break.
“I put the lock of your hair in it,” she tells Ty as she tucks the bag into his pocket. She’s not the only one to gift him lately, though; that backpack looks new. “Mrs. Bowen?” she asks.
“I told her I was going to be gone for at least a couple of days, maybe longer. I think she believes I’m off on some journey to find myself or something.” He sighs as he pulls away. “The truck’s ready on the outskirts.”
“Good. We got everyone here. Come on.”
The singing becomes audible two seconds after they step through the curtain; loud enough they ought to have heard it out in the store. When they turn the corner and see it’s Georges, Evita smiles and says, “How far can you project that?”
“Exactly as far as I want it to go,” he answers. “Don’t worry, no one will hear me tonight who shouldn’t.”
“It’s beautiful,” Ty tells him, and he’s right; it is. As superpowers go, it might not seem all that impressive, but for a group of people with hard days on the run and an uncertain future after that ahead of them, it might prove just what they need.
“Everybody," Evita says, "this is Cloak. He’ll be taking you out of the city and as far as Memphis, where he’ll deliver you to someone else.” This is literally all she knows, of course.
Several people here actually know exactly who their conductor is. Others may also figure out who he’s been; by the time of her death his and Tandy’s activities hadn’t gone unnoticed by everyone. Those that have heard about and believed in the stories of the Divine Pairing, because that got out after she died, may even feel more hopeful for it. But none of them say anything about any of that out loud. They all know the situation they’re in.