by C.L. Bevill
Sebastien’s head twisted toward her. “What man? What did he do to you?” His questions were angrily concerned. Or was it indignant outrage?
“He didn’t touch me. But he seemed to think I’m in some kind of danger here.” She watched as his troubled gaze returned to the highway.
“Danger? From whom? Who would hurt a child of Goujon?”
“I think he knows who I am, who I was.” Anna tried to decipher Sebastien’s expression and failed. From their conversation to and from the auto parts store, she discovered he possessed a wealth of information about the area, from the oil platforms which had once drilled into the bottom of the lake, to the time in the ‘40s when a man from Japan had grown pearls in the shallows of the black waters. There was a great salt dome that the lake sat partially over, which had been mined, but the mine had closed two decades before. The words were prominent in her thoughts.
“Who is this man?” Sebastien’s voice regained its slow drawl, and Anna glanced at him to discover a little flush on his face.
“He didn’t do anything to me,” she protested. “He said he was married to my mother.” Anna bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to say that.
“What does this man look like?” Sebastien’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles going white. Anna felt a little twinge of alarm. Why wouldn’t he want someone to tell her about her parents?
“A big man. In his forties. Maybe fifties? A strong man,” Anna deliberately left his name out. She didn’t know if Gautier would talk to her again if she told anyone that he had approached her to begin with. There had to be some reason he had waited until he could catch her alone in the darkness.
“Anh.” Sebastien’s tone became reflective. “I think I know of whom you speak. He’s a giant, yes? With eyes that might seem a little crazy?”
Anna shrugged noncommittally. Crazy or not, he knows who Arette is. He might know where she’s at now. I’ll have to track him down some other way.
“Best to ignore what that one says, Anna. He lost his wife many years ago when she ran away to be with another man. We shall speak no more of him.”
Anna realized she was suddenly tired again and almost cursed aloud. How long before she returned to normal? She glanced down at the scabs that had formed around her wrists and then put her head back against the bench-seat’s back cushion. Her eyes fluttered shut while Sebastien said, “Ah, you are still recovering, yes? I’ll drop you off at Camille’s doorstep. She’ll feed you some lunch, and perhaps tomorrow you’ll come back and fix my truck.”
What are you doing? came his voice almost instantly. You’ve got a secret in your head. I can’t quite get it. Anna. It was a slanting bend of emotion that glided through her thoughts. An-na.
Anna had an immediate rise of anger as a result. Her eyelids shot open, an incoherent gasp escaped her lips, and she sat straight up. Sebastien glanced at her curiously. She said, “I am tired.”
Stopping the truck in front of Camille’s home, Sebastien nodded pleasantly. “Tomorrow, you’ll sit in the store with me when you’re done, and we’ll drink a co-cola and talk about salt domes and pearl diving in a bayou, yes?”
Anna couldn’t prevent a smile. “Yes.”
Sebastien Benoit was the kind of person she liked to talk with, a storyteller, a man who had lived his whole life as if death was a myth only to be taken seriously by little children. Whether or not he wanted her to talk to Gautier was beside the point, Sebastien could still provide her with a wealth of information. Some of it would come to her without him being aware that he had supplied it to her.
* * *
Gabriel listened to two Rotary Club members argue about the best way to catch bass. “Spinnerbait works best!” said one defiantly. The other one replied heatedly, “Red rattle traps will always catch the biggest bass.”
With a smile floating across his normally saturnine features, Gabriel ignored both of them and helped with another Rotary Club member’s tangled line. After the headache from last night’s alcohol abuse had faded, the fresh air and strong sunlight had brought him to a better frame of mind. The Rotary Club men were amicable and friendly to each other, as well as to Gabriel and Jereme. Good-natured and easy going, they were eager to enjoy the trip and appreciated the lake’s innate beauty.
“What about the giant catfish?” asked the man whose line Gabriel was untangling. “The really big one that’s supposed to be in the lake?”
Gabriel’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve been talking to Sebastien Benoit. Just a legend. A big fish story to get the fishermen to come back.”
The man smiled. “Hey, I’d come back anyway. This place is beautiful. I can see why some of you people live here.”
Gabriel glanced at the water. The Belle-Mère sat in the shallows where the bass would bite more. Not fifty feet away, its sister ship, the Beau-Père, sat, with its own group of Rotarians. The water was temperate here, and the fish kept to the area until a warming trend occurred in the deeper water. “You should see it in the spring. Water lilies and lotus cover acres of water and spatterdock with its huge pads, it’s almost as if you could walk across the lake without ever getting your feet wet. Then there’s the goldenclub and yonqupin. Some of the yonqupin reach up to two feet in diameter. The world here really comes alive, a place like you’ve never seen before.”
The man freed his line and said, “I’ll try to come back in the spring. Bring the family. The kids will love it.”
“Good. Make sure you get a business card and reserve a guiding tour in advance. It gets busy in the spring. People anxious to get outside after wintertime. And the fish, they love to bite in the spring, yes?”
With a grunt of pleased assent the man resumed his fishing.
Gabriel was going to see about lunch for his passengers when he felt her again. He had promised himself he would keep out of her uneducated mind until she had a chance to become accustomed to the family, but there was a secretive flicker of something that instantly piqued his interest. There was a man she needed to find for answers. The picture came clearly to him.
He frowned once he realized that part of the dreams from the subsequent night hadn’t been merely dreams. She had been standing by the lake, and someone had been warning her away, someone with a deep, gravelly voice and who towered over her. What was the phrase? Something about being sucked down into a tomb of sandy soil?
Anna hadn’t been afraid exactly, which was why Gabriel had confused the event with a dream. She hadn’t been afraid because the man had said something that surprised her. He’d known something she hadn’t expected him to know.
Secrets. What are you doing? You’ve got a secret in your head. I can’t quite get it. Anna. An-na. Then she abruptly opened her eyes and straight away the connection was broken. Gabriel snorted to himself. This was too new to him. This was playing a game at which he was a novice. He was supposed to be the expert.
Then he realized who had been standing so close to Anna in the darkness at the edge of the lake. It was Gautier who had warned her. Gabriel’s good mood disintegrated. Gautier. What the hell?
* * *
After Sebastien dropped Anna off, she entered the Landry house with a tiredness she couldn’t ignore and rested for an hour until Camille had returned. Camille fed Anna some chicken soup and gently berated her for trying to do too much too soon. “Stubborn like Gab…stubborn like a bulldog. Can’t you simply rest, Anna?”
Anna tried not to be amused by Camille but failed. Camille reminded her of Jane. She suddenly dropped her spoon into the fragrant chucky chicken soup. “Oh, Jane! Oh God, I forgot about her.”
“Jane?” said Camille. She glanced at the clock. “Goodness. I’ve got to go again. Listen, p’tite, will you tell the boys to do their homework, or I’ll chop up their bodies and bury them in shallow graves where no one will ever find them.” She paused. “Call your friend, then. Tell her you’re fine. And be glad that you can call her instead of feeling guilty.”
“I’ll tell them that
it’s really important about the homework anyway,” Anna said with a doubtful tone.
Camille grinned, grabbing her purse, and headed for the door.
Anna did call Jane, who was much relieved. Then she told Jane what was happening. She skipped over the part about Dan Cullen because she wanted a moratorium on the subject at that time. There would be time to give her friend all the information later when Anna felt like she could talk about it. She excitedly moved onto the family and the people there.
“They all have gold eyes just like yours?” Jane said suspiciously
“But that’s not the best part,” Anna answered quickly. “I think I might have found my father.”
Jane sighed. “You just happened upon the spot, 700 miles away from where you grew up, that contains your parents, or at the very least, your father. Why did he dump you on the steps of the orphanage then? Or why did he allow your mother to do it?”
“I’d like to know the answer to that, Janie,” replied Anna honestly.
“Sweetie,” said Jane consolatory, “I want good things to happen to you. Bad luck seems to follow you around like the plague. Quick, knock on some wood, but don’t get your hopes up. There’s a reason he did what he did. Or maybe it was your mother or your grandparents or whomever. And you may not want to know why.”
There was a deep sigh that came out of the bottom of Anna’s lungs. Jane didn’t have hope for long-lost parents. Hers had died in a fire when she had been eight years old. No relatives had been willing to take her in, and older child adoptions were rare. When she came to the orphanage, Anna had been her first friend.
“So you’re staying for a while?” Jane said. She kept her tone neutral although Anna was fully aware that she did not approve.
“Yes, Jane. I’m just going to find out what’s going on and then I’ll be down there ASAP.”
“The job will wait, sweetie,” Jane said, acquiescing to her friend with a note of censure. “You have to call me. Call me collect. I want to know everything.”
After Anna had finished talking with Jane, the twins came home. They were a whirlwind of activity and noise, moving at the speed of light and chattering like maddened squirrels. They said hi to her while one went immediately to the TV. The other one approached the computer in the corner of the living room. She was resting on the couch, silently damning her imposed frailty, reading a book she’d found on the lake’s history. She watched them for an amazed moment before saying, “Your mother said to tell you to do your homework.”
Phillippe made a noise. Pierrot made the same noise a second later. Both boys contemplated their untouched book bags for another second. “Did she make some kind of threat, Anna?” asked Phillippe knowledgeably. Anna was dumbfounded at how intuitive the eight-year-old appeared to be at that very moment.
Anna nodded slowly. “Something about shallow graves.”
“Aie,” complained Pierrot. “Maman’s got eyes in the back of her head, she.” Both headed for the books without further objection.
Some little imp of mischief entered Anna’s mind. Oh now, I’m going to grill children for information. That’s just a real asset to my character. “You guys know everyone around here, right?”
Phillippe dumped his books on the kitchen counter. He plucked one up and turned to look at Anna. “Sure. Unknown is about as big as a postage stamp.”
Pierrot followed suit. “Not that big.” He giggled at his own joke.
“You know a big man. Tall man. Broad like a linebacker. In his late forties, maybe in his fifties. One of the family. Dresses like, well, he doesn’t dress really well.”
“You mean he dressed like a bum,” discerned Phillippe adroitly. He opened a mathematics book and grimaced. “I hate math.”
“She means Gautier,” said Pierrot. He opened the same book and took out a notepad. “He lives over to the bluff. Debou’s bluff. That’s ‘cause his name is Debou. Gautier Debou. It’s his bluff, you know. His family has lived there for ages.”
Phillippe nodded solemnly. “Gautier Debou. Grandmaman says he’s a druggie and a drunk, too. Smells like Gabriel when he’s gone to a bar.” Pierrot poked Phillippe in the ribs, and his brother quickly amended, “Not that Gabriel goes to bars very often.”
Anna didn’t want to think about Gabriel. She wanted to think about Gautier. She was feeling a thousand times better after resting for a few hours and eating. If it wasn’t far to the bluff the twins were talking about, then she was going for a post-lunch stroll. “Where is the bluff, guys? If you tell me, I’ll show you how to make a go-cart that will make your mother wring her hands in agony every time you roll it out of the garage.”
“A go-cart?” Phillippe’s eyes got big as saucers. Pierrot emulated almost immediately. “You can build a go-cart, mamselle?”
“Well, we might have to get your father’s permission at least. But I bet we can get enough parts out of your uncle and your father to make it almost cost nothing at all.” Anna reminded herself to say a prayer in retribution. She didn’t think Camille was going to be happy about it, but it wouldn’t take more than a day’s worth of work, and she knew that the spare parts that would work for such a project were usually abundant.
“The bluff’s easy to find!” cried Pierrot. “We can start the go-cart this weekend. It’s Christmas break. Yippee!”
Anna felt an instant of guilt before she listened to the twins’ instructions on how to find Gautier Debou’s home.
* * *
Phillippe and Pierrot would have joined her except that they only just remembered homework and the Christmas pageant. “I have to be a tree,” complained Phillippe. “Mrs. Bonin says that I have ants in my pants.”
Pierrot added, “I get to be one of the Wise Men. What’s myrrh?”
As Anna left the house, Phillippe said, “Myrrh is a secret power that the baby Jesus needed. Cretin! Like veiled eyes.”
There was a well-worn trail that coiled around the edge of the lake. She noted that the sun was just starting its descent behind the dark silhouette of tall trees and made a small moue. Anna didn’t have a watch on, and she had no idea when the sun would set. From the looks of it, it would be within the hour. The twins had assured her that the bluff was only a mile away and easily located, so she continued her trek, determined to speak to Gautier once more.
Gautier Debou, she amended. Now she had a last name as well. It was a reasonable assumption. If Gautier had been married to Arette, then he should be her father. But what were the reasons that she ended up on the far side of Texas, far and hell gone from this place.
Years had passed since Anna had any hope of finding someone who resembled her, someone who was related by blood. The birth certificate had been the first instance of something that gave her an overt optimism that she couldn’t quite contain.
She passed several homes hidden away in the thickness of vegetation. Some had lights on. Others were dark and silent. Then she came out on a narrow dirt lane. “Phillippe said go right here,” she said to herself. The shadows were lengthening around her as the sun was setting, elongating into substantial shapes that danced in conjunction with the branches above moving in the dying breeze.
It was a darkened tunnel surrounded by a line of trees that was as solid as a brick wall. Spanish moss was draped across each side, like curtains flittering across a considerable barricade. In the lingering light of sunset, Anna felt distinctly alone. The birds had gone silent. No insects called to each other. No nocturnal thing rattled about in the brush in search of sustenance. Utterly alone, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, not exactly cold but not exactly warm either, and continued down the lane.
There was a sudden disturbance that gave her pause. The distant sound of a shot fired, and she remembered a quick warning from the twins to keep on the trails. Deer season had started the previous month, and she didn’t want to get shot by mistake. She waited, but there were no further shots.
A hundred yards into the secret heart of the forest primeval, she found a s
imple mailbox at the end of another line bisecting the first. The name on its rusting hull was painted by hand as though by a child, but it was readable, Debou.
Anna turned down that lane and began a gradual climb, walking up a path that showed ruts from rains and vehicles that passed this way when the road had been a congealed mass of mud. When she emerged from the forest into a small clearing she was surprised that it really had ended. She almost expected the lane to meander through the black forest forever.
There was a cottage sitting there. No picturesque fairy-tale dwelling was this. It wasn’t as tidy as some she’d seen. It was a three-room building with peeling paint and broken windows covered by bits of duct tape and cardboard. The yard was overrun with weeds and saplings that longed to make this cleared area return to what it once was.
An old, desiccated truck sat in the driveway in front of the cottage. But Anna had an expert’s eye, and she knew this one actually ran. At least it did most of the time.
She looked over the cottage and saw no lights on. There was nothing there to give her any indication that anyone was home. Gautier could be out gigging frogs for all she knew or hunting a white-tail deer because it was the cheapest way of getting meat.
Anna patted her pockets. She didn’t have anything to write with or anything to write on. She could leave Gautier a message, and he might get in touch with her. She approached the cottage slowly and raised a fist to knock on the front door. Before she could move another inch, the wind came up, and the door swung open about two inches. Its rusting hinges gave a protesting squeal that caused a riot of goose bumps to ripple down her forearms.
“Hello?” She considered the half-open door for a moment and then said, “Okay then, I’m pushing the door open. Please don’t shoot me with your trusty, handy-dandy shotgun, if you’ve got one. I’m the one you talked to last night.”
Her hand opened up and touched the paint-flecked door for a second before she pushed it open. There was another dissenting wail as the hinges reluctantly did their job, and Anna found herself looking into the living room of the cottage. Straight in front of her was a stone fireplace, empty and cold, only ashes remaining. To the side, a moldering couch sat with piles of newspapers stacked on it. Another chair sat facing the fireplace, as if someone regularly sat there losing him- or herself in the glow of a flickering fire. There was a set of fireplace matches spilled on the floor next to that chair and a pile of crumpled paper. There was also a cardboard box filled with kindling within reach.
