by C.L. Bevill
Anna fit into the family as if she were raised there. With her closer connection to Gabriel, came general acceptance of her from most of the people in Unknown. More people brought their vehicles to her to repair or to tune up. More of them treated her like a member of the clan. The mysterious voice that had warned her had been conspicuously absent, leaving as if Meg’s absence had chased it away. However, there was still some grudging resentment from a few of the family members, but it was beginning to fade, and Anna felt something she had never felt before. Trying to describe that feeling to Jane on the telephone was like trying to herd cats.
“They treat me like I belong here,” she told Jane over the phone.
Jane made a noise. “Maybe they really needed a mechanic.”
“It’s not that small here. It’s only thirty miles to Shreveport,” Anna discounted her friend with a laugh. Pessimistic Jane.
He’s unfaithful to her.
What? thought Anna. Gabriel’s matter-of-fact statement came to her clearly, although he was out on the lake with a fishing group, far away, and showing a man how to cast his lure underhanded.
She’s worried about a man. A man with blonde hair and blue eyes. He’s got a scar on his chin. He’s cheating. Gabriel was plainly amused.
“Jane,” said Anna. She took the phone in the small apartment and went to the balcony. She looked out over the lake and could see nothing but the lake itself. The blue sky above disappeared into the black surface. Cypress trees wandered across its façade, meandering goliaths at peace in their environment. Neither Gabriel nor the Belle-Mère were anywhere within sight. “Are you seeing someone right now?”
Jane was silent for a moment. “His name is Garrett,” she said slowly. “Anna, you’re not going to have one of those freakishly weird premonitions or something?”
“Oh, it’s not that,” Anna lied.
Oh, you little liar, thought Gabriel amused. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Did you confess to the Father this morning, chère?
“You sound a little preoccupied,” Anna added after a hesitation. “Like something’s on your mind. Or someone.”
“It’s so funny how you know that. I saw him last night with a blonde,” Jane said flatly. “I was pissed. Mega-royally pissed off. Yesterday afternoon, he said he had another thing going on and so I went out with the staff to the French Quarter. They’re really gearing up for Mardi Gras here. Anyway, there he was, with Miss Double Ds.”
His personal trainer. Too bad.
Whistling man, Anna was a little confused. How can you be getting this?
Don’t know exactly. I’ve heard that some couple’s powers increase once they come together. It’s a little strange for me too.
Little strange, like holding a conversation in my head at the same time I’m talking on the phone with my friend. “Jane honey,” Anna said, “perhaps you should just confront him.”
“Really?” Jane said agitatedly.
“Did he kiss her?” How can I say it to her without giving something away?
There was a burst of emotion in her head that told her implicitly Gabriel really didn’t care. He was amused by Jane’s plight. He was even more amused that Anna was trying to keep her gifts a secret from her friend and at the same time trying to help her. In fact, Anna could tell the moment he started whistling while he put another lure on his client’s fishing rod and tuned her out.
“No,” Jane’s voice was puzzled and angry. “He had his hand on her thigh.”
“Well, then Jane,” Anna said, “maybe you should just ask him. I don’t think he should be going out with his personal trainer at the same time as with you.”
Jane was as silent as the grave, and Anna nearly groaned as she realized what she’d said.
Can she be any more dense?
Shut up, Gabriel, and look who’s talking, Mr. Grabby Hands.
Well, she deserves better. Even if she is an outsider.
Thank you, whistling man. Go stick your head in a bucket.
After Anna hung up, she heard the buzzer from downstairs and went down to find a man waiting that she hadn’t met before. Like many of the family he was tall with black hair and gold eyes. But he seemed oddly familiar to her, as if she had met him before. In his thirties, he smiled at her with a large toothy grin. “My truck, mamselle. She’s a real whore today. Don’t want to take any direction for no reason. Put gas in her and nothing. Pat her hood and nothing. You turn the ignition, and she goes chung-chung-chung like the battery’s dead, but the battery, I had it checked. Had to push it the last half-block.” He flicked a thumb over his shoulder at the ‘90s Chevy. Then he wiped some sweat away from his forehead.
“Let’s take a look.”
Ten minutes later Anna had eliminated the fuel pump as a problem and was looking at the battery connections. She cleaned the battery connections with a scrub brush and checked the ignition circuits down to the spark plugs. “You need a tune up,” she said to the man. “I think an alternator too.”
“Alternator?” the man repeated doubtfully. Anna caught a worried thought about cost. It flitted through her mind like a bat intent on insects by a fluorescent light. Damn. Something expensive broke again!
“Don’t worry. A hundred dollars for the part, I think. Maybe I can find a rebuilt one at cost. It won’t take me ten minutes to install it. But I’ll have to order it.”
“So, what, a hundred fifty bucks?”
“Yeah. About that. Definitely no more than that. Let me make sure it’s the alternator with the voltage meter.” Anna straightened up. “I can get it tomorrow. But the real cause is the battery connections. You’ve got to keep them clean. Clean them once a month at least.” She held up the little connection brush. “It costs three bucks for this, and it’ll save you from having to replace the alternator for ten years if you keep it up. Plus the new alternator will have a limited lifetime warranty. As long as you keep the truck you won’t have to worry about that part anymore.”
“That sounds fair, mamselle.”
The man followed her inside the garage and watched as Anna cleaned her hands with a rag. “Do I know you? Have we met before?” she said.
“My name is Laurant Theriot,” he told her with a grimace. “You thought my maman was lost in the mine.”
Laurant had been named after his father. It was little wonder because he looked like him as well. If his hair had been shaved close to his head, then he would have been the living embodiment of his dead father’s photograph.
Anna shrugged.
Laurant shrugged too. “Maman, she plays the little tricks sometimes, although never one so cruel. She was not always treated fairly by the family. Not her fault that her mother was an outsider, no more than it was yours.”
Anna put the rag down and crossed her arms over her chest. “Have you heard from her?”
“Non.” His voice became flat. “But that’s not unusual for Maman. She leaves sometimes for weeks and then comes back as if she’d never gone.”
Anna was suddenly curious. The moments that she had heard Meg in her mind, Anna had been completely convinced that the older woman had been dying herself, struck by someone, stuck in sifting mud, left to die in the darkness. The warning came to her. Graveyard. Anna? Beware, Anna. Beware.
Anna had been positive that it was real. If she concentrated she could feel the slick, gliding clasp of the sands pulling at her limbs, its grip inextricable and unyielding. It had been so compelling that she had gone into the mine itself, fighting her own personal demons to find Meg. And even now, despite what Anna said, Gabriel still didn’t believe she had been in the mine itself.
The doors had been open, the padlocks missing or unlocked. Someone had wanted her to go into that mine. Anna had thought about it. It could have been Meg herself. She said her husband had worked there for many years. Somehow Meg could have had keys to the padlocks. It would have been some trick.
Laurant suddenly looked away from Anna. “I’m gonna go get Bill over to the drycleaners to give me a
lift. You’ll let me know when you’ve got that part in? I’ll bring the cash in then.”
“But I haven’t even checked the alternator yet,” she said, trailing off as she watched him walk away. Abruptly, Anna couldn’t decide if Laurant Theriot was trying to hide something or if there was something integrally wrong with him. She reached for the multimeter to confirm her suspicions. If she could phone the dealer in Shreveport before 3 p.m. about the alternator, they could usually have the parts she needed the next day. Any other thoughts flew away from her.
* * *
At dinner with Gabriel and his parents, Anna took a moment to whisper to Gabriel, “I had that dream last night again.”
“I know,” he whispered back sotto voce. “I had to shower twice to get that feeling of being covered with dirt off my flesh. Can’t you dream about something kinky instead?”
“Funny, Gabriel.” Anna had woken herself up with the dream. The same dream she had for five nights running. She didn’t know what had spawned it, but it was becoming most bothersome.
“What dream?” asked Cecily, coming back into the dining room with a dish full of vegetables.
Anna looked at Gabriel’s mother. She was almost as tall as her son. Her hair short and feathered back into a flattering cut. Her face was rounded with age, however she was no kindly grandmother type, but instead, shrewd, possessing a dry wit that often caught Anna off guard.
“Dreams go by contraries,” said Cecily, placing the steaming vegetables on the table with a flourish. “Jean! Come to supper, you old fool!”
Gabriel folded his arms across his chest. “Maman believes that if you dream of something negative, then it is a good omen.”
“Dreaming of a funeral,” said Cecily authoritatively, “means a wedding is coming.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “We need some butter. You didn’t dream of death, did you, chère?” she asked of Anna hopefully.
“Does that mean the same thing as a funeral?” Anna said impishly.
“No, my dear. Dreaming of death means a birth.” Cecily smiled smugly and went to get the butter, and she said over her shoulder, “Although I’d prefer you’d dream of a funeral first.”
Anna glanced at Gabriel curiously. “Then what does clawing one’s way out of the ground mean?” That was the dream she had. It hadn’t been like when she had made her way out of the mine. Instead it was as if she had been buried alive, but strangely there was no fear involved. She knew that if she worked hard enough she could make her way to the light. Her hands ripped at the soil above her, tearing away clumps of dirt and roots, trying to reach the light above. Something waited for her there, something that she desperately needed to know, or worse, something that she felt she had forgotten and needed to remember.
Gabriel stared at Anna for a moment. His eyes went to the pearl necklace adorning her graceful neck. The dream disturbed him as well. He wasn’t one to read into hidden meanings or the superstitious nonsense that his mother was apt to spout. Surprisingly, down-to-earth Anna repeated such wives’ tales as gospel. “According to Maman, it means the opposite. You will go down into the earth.”
He discovered that he didn’t like that interpretation any better. It was too much like remembering what he’d felt like when he had believed that Anna was lost in the mine. Or what was worse, was thinking that Anna would be buried in a grave.
“This thing that happened today,” Anna said, “when I was speaking to Jane, and you got this vision of her boyfriend, it was unusual for the family. Yes?”
Gabriel looked over his shoulder into the kitchen and watched his mother rummaging in a cupboard for the right dish. His father, Jean, came in the back door and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek before reaching for the refrigerator door. “Unusual. Not unheard of,” said Gabriel with a little wave at his father.
“Pairs become stronger,” Anna mused. Jean Bergeron was an older version of his son. The same height and weight, from the back they could have been twins. From the front, the father’s creased face and receding hairline showed the difference. It gave Anna an idea of how Gabriel would appear when he was his father’s age.
“It doesn’t happen much.”
“I didn’t see the boyfriend in Jane’s mind. I wasn’t really even thinking of Jane at the time. I was thinking about—”
“Last night,” Gabriel finished for her; a satisfied smile flitted across his face. “I know. But today, as soon as she began to speak with you, it was like a sign appeared above her head in my mind. I could see her clearly and him as well. She was worried about him. Tomorrow she won’t be. It must be very lonely not to have any family.”
“It is.” Anna looked at Gabriel. She wasn’t lonely anymore. She was beginning to feel as though she would always be here in this place, close to the lake, close to the people who shared her roots. But her curiosity was piqued. “What other powers does the family have?”
“Telepathy you know about,” Gabriel said, unfolding his arms. He reached around her shoulders and pulled her a little closer. “Clairvoyance, from personal experience. Case in point today. Jane and her erstwhile boyfriend. What was his name?”
“Garrett.”
Gabriel touched Anna’s nose with his index finger. “Once I heard them say one of the little girls down by the Atchafalaya basin had the power to move things with her mind. What do they call that?”
“Telekinesis, I think,” said Anna, wrinkling her nose. “Couldn’t move anything even if I tried it. Well, unless I actually use my hands. What about psychometry?”
“Psych-what?”
“If you touch something you know where it’s been, who owned it, what its history is.”
“I’ve never heard of that one before,” Gabriel admitted. “They say some of us can see spirits.”
“Ghosts?” That amused Anna, but she was also wondering if the family had even more unusual powers. Laurant seemed to have no control over what he said for a moment, as if he were forgetting about his own mother, like he had been brainwashed. “I’d like to see a ghost.”
“Not like Ghostbusters, chère,” Gabriel advised gravely. “Mostly they’re more sinister than that. Evil twisted ones they say are the ones who stay behind.”
Gabriel studied Anna’s profile as she turned to look at what his parents were doing. “Would you like to dream of a funeral, Anna?”
Anna almost stopped breathing. She immediately forgot that someone in the family could have some very unusual powers. “Not because your mother wishes it.”
His fingers gently kneaded her shoulder. Gabriel leaned over and kissed her forehead tenderly. His only comment was, “Hmm.”
Then when Jean and Cecily Bergeron came into the dining room, Gabriel pulled out a chair for Anna, and they talked about the upcoming Mardi Gras festival in Unknown. It was a big money maker for the town and brought tourists in from as close as Shreveport and as far away as Little Rock and Tallahassee.
* * *
It was a few days after the dinner with Gabriel’s parents that Anna had an idea.
The family wouldn’t talk about Arette Tuelle. She had learned that fact early on. Even Gabriel had said his peace and would comment no more. He’d shrugged at her and said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know, chère.”
But what about Arette’s own family? The birth certificate listed Arette’s birthplace as Natchitoches, Louisiana. Anna’s hope was that it was an uncommon name, and there might still be relatives in the area. Natchitoches wasn’t far from Unknown, and Anna borrowed Gabriel’s truck. Once she’d been able to get a copy of her Texas birth certificate and a duplicate social security card, she’d gone to get a driver’s license using Gabriel’s truck. He didn’t mind her taking the vehicle while he worked on his boats to run various errands.
While she drove to Natchitoches, Anna berated herself silently. Now why didn’t I think of this sooner?
Because you’re not a private detective.
Whistling man. Anna tried to let her thoughts go blank and failed miser
ably.
Secrets. Someone’s got a secret. You might as well have lit fireworks over your head, Anna.
You know I want to find out as much as I can about my parents.
I know. Go and look, little girl. Maybe that will bring you some rest. Gabriel’s thoughts were resigned. He was getting used to Anna’s way of thinking.
I’ll drive carefully, she thought. But he was gone, and it left her feeling a little alone, something she hadn’t felt for some time now.
It only took Anna twenty minutes to find Arette Tuelle’s sister. Her name was Geneva Tuelle, and Anna got directions from a gas station on how to find the house. It was an older section of Natchitoches, which wasn’t saying much since the whole town dated from the 1700s. It was the oldest permanent settlement in the entire Louisiana Purchase, a decorative anachronism sitting on the Cane River Lake.
Anna pulled Gabriel’s truck up to the sidewalk and looked out the side. It was a two-story house which appeared as much as a century old. The style was a combination between art deco and old plantation that distracted Anna for a moment. The boxwood hedges and great hedge balls along the walkway were neatly trimmed, and the yard maintained its emerald green color despite the time of year. All of it broadcasted the middle class wealth of the owners.
When Anna rang the doorbell, she didn’t know what to expect. But it wasn’t the woman with the dyed chestnut hair and blue eyes who glared at her and said, “I should have known one of ya’ll would come a-calling one day.”
Chapter 20
Friday, January 23rd – Saturday, February 21st
They say that when the rain falls on a gravestone, it can tell the future. If it collects on the north side, then it is a good omen for the first person to visit. If it collects on the south side, then let that man beware because death follows his heels.
Geneva Tuelle was somewhere in her forties. Anna’s mother would have been forty-six this year. Arette’s sibling could have been a year older than that or a year younger, Anna simply couldn’t tell. The other woman was a few inches over five feet with dyed hair the color of lightly roasted chestnuts. Her blue eyes were a shade that would turn more blue or gray depending on the clothing she wore. She invited Anna inside with a condescending wave of her hand.
