by Trinity Crow
The decay now covered Corky, his white coat hidden beneath it. He panted and moaned, shudders racking his body over and over. He was dying and I couldn't help him. I screamed, rocking him back and forth, holding him against me, careless of the danger.
Someone knelt beside me, a skirt and arm brushing against me as they reached out, stroking Corky. I looked up into my own eyes. The blue-green swirling with brown…earth eyes, the whole world in those eyes.
"Give him to me," she said, her voice floated like clouds across me. I felt I would shatter from the emotion flooding through me.
'No." I said, my voice broke, a child denying what was happening to her, even as it tore her apart. I clutched him to me. Knowing who she was and what she was saying, that she would take him back with her to the other side.
"Not him," I said, hating the pleading sound in my voice. "Please, please…"
I pressed my face against him and cried. Maybe the poison would take me too. Kill me, end this. In my arms. Corky screamed, convulsing "No no." I cried. He shuddered and went still. I stared at Julia, my head moving in denial. "Please, don't take him. You could fix him. Please?"
"Child." Her voice was every sorrow the world had ever felt. It carried that pain and tried to take mine on its shoulders. "Let me help you."
For a moment, I resisted, holding Corky and the pain of being alive against my heart, and then sobbing, I pushed Corky towards her.
"Take me too," I told her, in the voice of some little girl that I had surely never been. My arms were empty, my heart shredded. I couldn't live in this much pain. "Please," I whispered, "take me, too."
She leaned forward, her face showing how her heart broke for me, and kissed me softly on the forehead, lovingly, reassuringly, like I had always imagined a mother would.
"No?" I said, hearing the whimper in my voice. She shook her head gently.
"Then help him," I begged her. "Please help him." Knowing as I said it that it was too late. He was too still and his weight was so heavy in my arms.
"We'll never leave you," Julia whispered. She leaned over, gathering Corky to her and the whole world filled with light. I cried out and covered my eyes.
And they were gone. She had lied like all the rest.
The wind beat and swirled around me, trying to get my attention. I pushed it all away. I sat with my head on my knees and cried myself out. Some time passed, and I realized it was raining. I sat in the dirt, watching it turn to mud. Watched as my door ran clean, watched as Mrs. Evers tried twice to get up and failed, watched as the water carried the poison to where she lay, watched as she screamed and convulsed, and then lay still.
I sat there a long time, giving her the chance to be really, truly, dead before I staggered up and went for help.
Chapter 26
They said the fall had broken her hip and the shock had caused a stroke. But I knew she had done it to herself…or made me do it to her. Either way, she deserved it. I had no pity in me for her. Apparently, I had called for help from her kitchen phone but had no memory of that. The ambulance guys had wanted me to go in and be treated for shock. They told me they were sorry for my loss. They meant the old woman, but my heart was stone. She meant nothing to me. And Julia had just taken my dog without even trying to help him. He had always been hers and I had known that. I had been stupid to let them into my heart. Stupid to break the rules and care. I was never going to do that again. The way to keep life from breaking you was to feel nothing, love no one. I made dinner with dry eyes and steely determination. I read a book and went to bed. The house was as quiet and empty as my heart.
I woke up at 4:45, slung on whatever clothes were nearest and pedaled through the dark, empty streets to the bakery. The cool air failed to make me give a damn. The oak allee was still and silent. The spirits of Ruelliquen biding their time. My insides felt scored and raw, and I hated them for their weakness. I tried instead to think of nothing. The ritual of chaining my bike to the wall and slipping inside the brightly lit warmth of the bakery's kitchen should have been reassuring. Only, there was a nothingness inside of me that could not be filled, a bitterness that warned me not to trust the comfort of the ritual. It could all be taken away. Instead, I welcomed the emptiness, let it fill me. I put a blankly peaceful look on the mask my face had become. This was no one's business, and I wanted no sympathy or nosy ass questions. As I studied my list, years of making honey date bread stretched before me. I saw myself at forty, old, alone and a mindless drone churning out food for people with lives to enjoy. Bitterness welled up inside of me. I kept my face blank as my hands moved in familiar motions. I worked steadily through the list and when it was done, I grabbed a clean apron and headed to the shop floor. Mrs. D was there ahead of me. She had filled the display case and was cutting chunks of muffins for the sample stands. I grabbed a rag and wiped the outside of the spotless display case. My mind followed my hands in random useless circles. A small buzzer sounded, my cue to open the doors and let the hordes in.
I left work with a bitter sense of satisfaction, the D's had made no comment so I guessed my act had been good enough. I had spent the whole day thinking about nothing and I was exhausted. The last thing I wanted was to go home to that empty apartment to that scorched spot in the grass, burned by black magic and hate. I pedaled through Lapierre, nowhere to go and nothing to distract me from the burning inside me. I found myself in the cemetery. LaPierre's welcome to town. A dead end if you think about it.
The graves were all above ground, in crypts to keep the water out. I sat down on the low wall in front of one and studied the names. A family named Pichon. A row of dates and names. There was no one here but me and a breeze coming from the bayou to the north side. I sat there kicking the loose rocks at my feet, wishing I had never been sent here. Or called here if Mrs. Evers had been telling the truth. There was a scuffling sound and I turned to see who the hell was coming. I stared as that cat-eyed girl from Chloe's house stepped into view. She met my glare with one of her own.
"I'm not here cause I want to be," she said sharply, in case I was confused she had come looking for a friend.
I rolled my eyes and stared off somewhere past her at nothing.
"My grandfather, Leotis, sent me."
I ignored her. I was done with this spook ass bullshit.
"He says to tell you there is more than one side of story. Evers told you what she was told. You even know she was married into the Darveaux family? The family Julia married into, the ones that killed her?"
I looked over at her. Unwillingly.
"Yeah. Listen, I know as little as you do, not that they haven't tried to tell me." She grimaced. "I may be from here, but I didn't grow up here. This crazy ass, mojo town trying to suck people in and trap them here."
She shook her head seeming annoyed with herself. "Whatever. I can take you over there if you want to hear what he has to say." She stopped. "Don't mean you have join sides, or think we're family."
I stared at her. Think we were family?
Then I caught on. Julia was only half the equation. Somewhere was Julia's lover, or at least the father of the baby. I eyed Amandine's skin beside mine.
Were we family?
I knew if we were, I didn't care. People, connections, they weren't worth what was left when they were done with you. But I was sick of everybody in this town having secrets, knowing more than me. And keeping me dancing on their puppet strings. I nodded my head at her.
"Let's go," I said.
Chapter 27
I rode my bike up the driveway. I had gotten directions from Amandine, not wanting to go in her car and find myself trapped there or on foot. This lane was wide open, unlike Ruelliquen, and you could see from a good distance if anyone was coming up to the house. The house itself was pretty typical, a Creole cottage with those six-foot shutters lining doors and windows. It was painted a bright tangerine color and glowed like the setting sun. The giant live oak that shaded the yard had managed to keep all its branches upright, but they
ran out twenty feet or more in astonishingly thick limbs. I stopped and stood, feet to either side of the bike and stared at the display hanging from the tree. Bottles, from big wine jugs to colored beer and medicine bottles, swung from the trees on thin, uneven lengths of twine. I shook my head, thinking of what would happen during a strong wind from the Gulf. Surely they would collide and smash. Here and there among them, bright streamers dangled of colored ribbons tied to dried chicken feet, giving the place a weird party atmosphere. A giant metal sign shaped like a rag doll was propped near the edge of the drive. "Protected by Voodoo" was written across it in black spray paint. I snorted and the sound scared a guinea hen out from under a nearby bush. It screeched that saw-on-tin sound and a small flock of them fluttered out behind it. They ran in that hunched-over duck walk for cover on the far side of the yard. Pushing the bike ahead of me, I made my way up the last bit of drive. My eyes caught movement underneath the shade of the carport.
The old man was sitting there, mending a broken chair. He, Leotis, didn’t look mystical in the slightest. He could have been somebody's grandpa doing one of those odd jobs with ropes or car parts that occupy old men endlessly with no visible result. When he lifted his eyes to mine, I saw the white, mucusy film obscuring them. They moved restlessly over me. I could tell he saw me, but if it was with his eyes or some other sight, I had no way of knowing. Images fluttered in my mind…babies born with a caul, winding shrouds, a cat blinking its third eyelid.
We stared at each other, the seconds ticking by. It was awkward. Then he blinked slowly and for one unholy second, I thought I saw something swim across the milky caul of his eyes. I thought of parasites…and then possession. That surely had not just happened. And if it had, I wasn't sure if the situation called for holy water or a dose of wormwood.
Hey," I said finally, "I'm Child."
"That right? Can't be nobody but yourself." the old man said.
The words made no sense, but he said them as if they were profound and full of meaning. I double checked them in my head. Nope, no meaning. Like his words, the wrinkles on his face held a hundred years of dark secrets and sorcery, but now he was old and childlike. My thoughts were too loud and I could see his face change as they reached him. He laughed, his mouth splitting wide to reveal missing teeth.
"Don't let this shell fool you none. I'm an old gator, but plenty of snap be left in me yet."
Red-faced that I couldn't ward my thoughts better, I took the chair he offered. The wooden slats on the bottom had been replaced with handwoven canes and a second glance showed that he was hard at work making the broken chair as comfortable as this one.
"You comfortable?" He tilted his head towards me, listening again to words I hadn't said.
I nodded, not concerned so much with the state of my butt as annoyed I was so easy to read. Taking a deep breath, I concentrated on closing my mind off.
He sighed then, a long, drawn out, weary sigh. His eyes turned up to the sky, that white film startling me all over again.
"A long time," he said quietly to himself. "My saints, a long time this story been held. When the day will come? we have asked ourselves. When will the one come home?" He turned his gaze to me.
"Here you are, lost Child. We waited for you. We laid protections for you and all the ones come before you. Your daddy, his mama, her mama and so on. Now come down through the blood, through the years, all of them come down to you." He sighed again, a weight lifting, a new one settling. "Come down to you and me sitting here."
I stared at him. He was saying the same shit Mrs. Evers had, that I was related to Julia, that these families had been calling me through their magics, both dark and light, to come back to LaPierre.
"You got to understand one thing. This is no story of black versus white. Not the colors of peoples or the colors of magic."
I felt anger curl through me that he had done it again and I slapped a wall across my mind.
"No," he said, his freaky eyes on me, "this a story of family, family by blood, family by marriage and what matters most, family by choice. This family's story is of how people see the world and what things hold true to they heart. Everybody, they want you to choose a side. I tell you this. What you choose is the way of your heart. For me, I b'lieve power is best held by them who hesitate to use it."
I stared at his blank eyes, wondering what he was seeing and if I wanted to know. My voice was slow as my thoughts caught up with me.
"I guess I want to know how your people saw the story. If it's true that I am, you know," I swallowed, "family to Julia."
The words came off my tongue and I felt my world waver. I had never ever in my life thought I would be able to say those words and as crazy as it sounds, I was more excited that I was related to Corky. Maybe he was just a dog, but it made him closer to me and made me feel like Julia was happy we had hung out. And it felt a little less like he was gone forever.
"I just want to know what you know about her and all of this. I need every side of the story that I can get."
The old man nodded his head, the white fuzz sprinkled across his scalp moved in the air.
"My people go back to the first slaves bought for the Ruelliquen plantation. They like to say they were good masters, the Trevautiers, but it is against the meaning of life for a man to be the owner of another. They like to say we had slaves of our own in Africa, we sold our own people. This has been going on since the dawn of time, Egyptians, Romans, Chinese. Slave trade, it's the dark side of human nature and only one arguing that this be the way of things, be whoever is holding the handle end of the whip. Put a chain on a master and he'll sing a different song.
"The Trevautiers, they were people coming to hard realizations. Can't have that cake and eat it too. Couldn't be the rich plantation owners and not have free labor. Pay the labor, lose the profit. I b'lieve in time he would have done away with slaves altogether. I know he bought freedom for many and sent them on their way up north. Many were too scairt to go. And it's true that Alain, the eldest boy, after the fire, he set them all free. He had seen the light on that night his whole world was destroyed over color, over masters and slaves.
The Trevautiers were as kind as slave masters could be, but they always thought of the slaves as childlike, not so bright maybe, as white folks." Leotis stopped and stared at me. "Maybe you seen this for yourself, someone talks different or English not their first language, and people right off think their brains are less able because they words don't match the idea of intelligent, educated."
I had seen it. I was maybe even guilty of it myself. Mrs. Evers' quaint Southern speech had made me think of her as a bit daffy, harmless even. I let down my guard and it had cost me everything. And maybe that wasn't exactly what Leotis was getting at, but it was the take away I had gotten from this crappy life lesson. I felt Corky's loss surface and fought not to show the ripping inside me on my face. I bit down on my lip, the pain giving me back some control. Was I even now, with Leotis' soft slurred accent, his be's and they's, was I judging? It would be a mistake to underestimate this guy.
"Well, the Trevautiers took no more notice of our religion than a hawk does a bee. Took very little notice of the doings of the slave folk at all, just children playing in they minds.We did as we pleased, little workings to keep life rubbing along. Terrible and true, it was Albert's soft heart that got him in trouble. He bought up a slave girl on a trip to New Orleans. A pretty little thing, he called her."
I frowned at this
"Ah," his head swung towards me, "you see it right away, a thing. And a thing, she was not. Her name was Fanchon, and she was sixteen, child of a free mixed woman, now a dead woman. Her mother had been murdered by her white patron. He then sold the children, his children, shipping them from St Dominguez to New Orleans. Fanchon had lived a sheltered life for a colored girl. Pampered as the favored daughter of the mistress, a powerful Obeah woman. Now she had been stolen, stripped, beaten, raped and sold on the block. Do you blame her for the hate that burned in her
heart for all whites?"
I said nothing and waited for him to continue. I knew all about hate, but what you did with that hate was a different story and one thing I knew is that there was no truth in blaming an entire group for the actions of one or a few. Had I felt that way, I would have left a trail of dead foster fathers instead of just the one. I shook that thought away. I had closed that door a long time ago, damned if I would open it ever again.
Leotis sighed deeply, caught up in something before both our time. I leaned forward and tried to get him back on track.
"Obeah woman?" I asked.
"Obeah woman," he repeated it with that crazy resonance of power echoing again in his voice… The way he said it made the word exotic, unknowable. "Obeah is African magic, from Nigeria. Black magic," he grinned at me, "in more ways than one."
A smile tugged at my lips. "Evil?" I asked, not giving in.
"Can be. Not all the spirits will help with all things. Obeah have the power to call the dark spirits, bend them to the task at hand. Is it evil to stop a man who beats his children, forces a woman? Those witch sisters, Aren and Sayre, they don't think so. When you call the loa, you ask the spirits. Obeah, she don't ask, she command. And those dark ones, they eager for the taste of blood magic."
I had heard enough. I wanted less occult lessons and more history.
"So Fanchon…"
"Yes, Albert bought the little snake that poisoned his family and he did it to be kind. When Lousette died… "
I lifted my head waiting to hear that Fanchon had murdered her.
"Non, that was an accident," he said, invading my thoughts with ease. "But when the family fell into grief, Fanchon saw her chance. Nella grieving, the boys run wild. Fanchon slipped into Albert's life and worked her ways on him. He was a good man as the times went, but he was no match for her. Not long before she is heavy with his child."
