Sorrow Creek

by Christopher Fulbright

  “I know. I tried to warn her about quicksand, snakes – it was like she didn’t care. Weren’t listening to me. Just running around barefooted and crazy.”

  “Barefooted?” Cassi asked, eyebrows arched.

  “I’m not making this shit up. She was giggling and running all over.”

  “On the edge of the swamp?”

  “I know. It sounds nuts.” Max sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped.

  Cassi watched him, concerned. She screwed the lid back onto the jar and set it down with a plunk, then she waved her hand casually. “Probably just one of the local Vacherie teenagers sneaking home late, using our property as a shortcut or something. You of all people know how kids are sometimes.”

  Max stood and went to the window. “You think so?”

  “Sure. She probably grew up round here, knows the land, knows all the shortest routes home. Probably didn’t want to get caught, or identify herself in the event you knew who she was. Everyone knows someone who knows everyone else around here. One slip-up and you’re found out. Probably already in deep shit being out so late, so she just ran on home.”

  “I’m worried she fell into the water. Or about the snakes.”

  “I’m sure she’s home by now.” Cassi smiled and stood, stretching. Illuminated by the light on the vanity behind her, Max could see the silhouette of her body beneath the white cotton gown. It was lacy, frilly, very much Cassi.

  “I’m going to get some milk,” she said, and left the room.

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Cassandra took a deep breath as she stood before the kitchen window, drinking her milk. “Oh, Maximus!” she whispered to herself. Even the isolation of Sorrow Creek wasn’t bringing his turmoiled mind any peace. She couldn’t throw every problem into the swamp and watch it sink. It wasn’t enough for him to deal with very real problems, now he was inventing craziness to feed his neurosis. She sighed, her lips making a loud raspberry to release some stress.

  She put her glass into the sink and walked to the light switch, flipping it off.

  Outside, through the window, she caught sight of a figure darting from tree to tree.

  She crept close to the glass, heart pounding, a sharp inhale of breath, held there for what seemed like more than a minute.

  Nothing there. Just trees. Just the night.

  She exhaled loudly. “Damn you, Max. Now I’m seeing your ghosts!” Cassi left the kitchen.

  5.

  Cassi scrubbed the bricks of the walls inside the summer kitchen with the wire brush to loosen a century or more of dirt and grime. After Max removed the old iron stove, she began cleaning the walls so she could tell where mortar repairs needed to be made and where there was just an abundance of dirt build up. Her shoulders ached from the repetitive movement of the brush. She moved the bucket over a few feet and prepared to scrub down a new section, when she noticed one brick projecting from the wall slightly higher than the others. Something about the way the brick seemed on a diagonal instead of lying straight seemed odd.

  Dropping the brush into the bucket of sudsy water, she peeled off her rubber gloves. Cassi draped them over the edge of the bucket and dried her moist hands on her jeans.

  She examined the brick. It looked like it was original to the wall, but it also seemed like it had been removed and then jammed there at some later date. Whoever replaced it had done it hastily and the brick was not well secured. She grasped the protruding edges and pulled, wiggled, and pulled some more. Slowly, the brick jerked free from the wall. With a final tug, the brick popped from the hole. Cassi caught herself as she was thrown off balance by the sudden loosening of the crumbling brick. Carefully, she placed the brick onto the floor and turned her attention to the hole in the wall.

  A fabric bundle was thrust into the small space. She reached a hand into the hole and grabbed the rotting material between finger and thumb. It was grayish, but looked like it might have originally been a shade of blue. Tied with darker fabric, the little wad looked like a long, thick sausage.

  Cassi picked at the knot on the first tie, but it disintegrated in her fingers. She slid a finger beneath each fabric strip and tore them away. In the corner of the summer kitchen a card table held cleaning supplies and packages of rubber gloves. Cassi pushed the items aside and set the bundle onto the flat surface. She unrolled it.

  “Hmm.” Inside was a badly tarnished silver baby rattle, a pair of crocheted booties, a rusted kitchen knife and a folded, yellowed sheet of paper. The inside of the fabric revealed it to be a patch quilt – possibly a baby quilt. All of the items tied together looked like a mother’s collection of sentimental keepsakes, but the presence of the rusty knife disturbed her. Goose bumps rose over her arms and she didn’t want to touch the contents, except for the folded paper.

  Cassi made sure her hands were completely dry and then gingerly slid her finger beneath one corner of the folded paper. The folds were brittle and brownish paper particles flaked onto the table as she pulled it open. She didn’t dare smooth it flat, but read it in a sort of half-folded half-open position. It read simply: Magdalena. A woman’s name, perhaps? Maybe the name of the baby whose belongings were wrapped in this faded fragment of quilt; or the name of the mother?

  But, what about this knife?

  A knock sounded loudly on the one window of the kitchen. Cassi shrieked, jumping about three inches from the ground.

  Troy Breaux, the mailman, peered inside with a smile, waving his hand on the other side of the window pane. Cassi put her hand to her heart.

  “Troy Breaux! Sheesh! You about gave me a heart attack!”

  “Sorry ‘bout that Miz Cassi. I’ve brought yer mail. Max says Shrimp’s gone missing. I’ll keep an eye out for ‘im while I do my route.” He walked around to where the doorframe used to be before Cassi and Max widened it to let out the stove. He handed Cassi a rubber-banded stack of envelopes and junk mail flyers. Troy noticed the spread of items on the table top. “Whatcha got there?”

  “Thank you, Troy. I’m sure Shrimp will turn up eventually.” Cassi pointed to the pile of things on the table. “And these I just found in the wall.” Cassi pointed to the hole in the brick wall. Troy looked, and then looked back at the collection of baby items.

  “Looks like things for a baby.”

  “Yeah, ‘cept the knife.”

  Troy looked closer at the knife. “I’d put dat back into the wall and put dat brick back o’er it. Probably not meant to be disturbed.”

  “Why not?”

  “Might be a cunja.”

  “Come on, Troy. You don’t believe in all that old superstitious crap, do you?” Cassi laughed good naturedly but it came out sounding strained and she knew it.

  Troy shook his head, while shifting his mail satchel to his other shoulder. “Nothin’ to mess widt, Miz Cassi. Da cunja can last forever. Don’t matter none that it’s old or been stuck in a dirty wall for hundreds a years. If it’s black magicks, it’ll still be workin’.”

  Cassi laughed again, trying to loosen up. “Troy!” She put her hands on her hips.

  “I’m jest sayin’--”

  “So, you think this knife has some sinister meaning?”

  Troy exhaled. “Sorrow Creek been known for some bad things happenin’ here.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “Men. They turn up dead here. Strange things.”

  “Men? Who? What do you mean – dead?” They didn’t have any information on any strange deaths on the property other than natural deaths or historically related deaths.

  “Well, there was the Cap’n--”

  Cassi interrupted: “You mean Captain Beauregard Buford Terrebonne III? The one on the crypt? It says he was murdered.”

  “Yes m’am. He was. But more recently: about five years ago there was a real estate agent. Don’t recall his name right off hand, but he hung himself with his own damn tie right inside the front door.” Troy pointed in the direction of the front door. “He was swingin’ there fo a few d
ays fo someone found him all bloated and black, flies a buzzin’ round him.”

  Cassi grimaced. “Suicide?”

  “Uh-huh. Or so was said.” Troy wore a fearful expression. “Maybe it wasn’t.”

  “Okay, but the old Captain and a suicide … both of those have plausible explanations. I mean, well, I really don’t know much about the Captain, but if I had to guess I’d suspect it has something to do with the dying Confederacy and Union loyalists.”

  “He was murdered before the war.”

  Cassi shrugged. “Anyway, those two don’t add up to strange deaths, really.”

  “’Bout ten years ago, there was a caretaker lived here. He was supposed to keep the place from completely overgrowing. Lived out there in one of them cypress shacks, sometimes inside the house. He had a heart attack and died in the upstairs room there--” Troy pointed in the direction of Cassi and Max’s bedroom.

  Cassi shivered, hugging her arms to her chest. “That’s our bedroom.”

  “Well, this caretaker, name was Henri sumthin, anyways, fit as a fiddle, then up and died. Doctors said it was heart attack.”

  “Well, then, see, that was explained. I would have appreciated the sellers disclosing this information when we purchased the home, but I suppose maybe that isn’t required for auction properties. I don’t know. Anyone else that you know of met an untimely demise here?”

  Troy laughed. “It be an old place, Miz. Probably dozens more I don’t know of. Look at all them slave shacks. They all died somewheres.”

  Cassi wore a worried expression as she looked toward the ramshackle remnants of the old cypress shacks, most of which were only piles of boards and brick chimneys. Troy saw the look on her face.

  “Don’t worry, Miz Cassi. Seems only menfolk up and die round here. You be safe.” He laughed lightheartedly. “Anyways, ‘bout earlier -- you workin’ too hard out here on this old house. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “That’s okay.” Cassi shuddered at the thought of only males dying. Shrimp was male. Cassi frowned. Shrimp is – was – a dog.

  “Yer lookin’ tired,” Troy said and turned to leave. “Fais dodo!”

  Cassi laughed. “No time to go to sleep. Too much work to get done round here.” She waved at him as he left, put the mail onto the table, and read the name on the paper once again: Magdalena.

  “Who are you, Magdalena?” she muttered to the musty room, “If you’re the mama, why did you wrap this knife up with your baby’s things? If you’re the baby, why is there a knife with your stuff?” Either way, that knife present with the rest of the collection sure made the whole bundle seem a little freaky. Cassi rolled the bundle and took it to the house. She’d show Max if he were around, see what he thought. Maybe it had something to do with the old Captain. Or maybe it was just what Troy said, some old slave woman’s cunja – stuck in the wall of her kitchen to ward off evil spirits or some such voodoo nonsense from more than a century ago. The world back then was much darker then than it was now. Wasn’t it?

  Maybe.

  6.

  Max’s eyes flew open and he lay stone-still. He knew what he’d heard. His ears had been on high alert listening, even in his sleep, for the sound of Shrimp howling or scratching at the outside door. So, he knew he wasn’t dreaming. He sat up, listening, but not to the anticipated sounds of a returning wayward dog. The very distinct sound of a baby’s cry filled the night. He pulled his bathrobe to him from the foot of the bed, slid his arms inside and tied the ties around his waist. Shuffling into his slippers, he quietly padded out of the room, through the hall, following the wails of the baby.

  Down the stairs he ventured, through the front hall and toward the foyer and the big double doors that led outside. As he approached, the cries grew more distraught, louder.

  Max unbolted the doors and pulled them both open, heavy hinges protesting loudly. The wind blew a few dried leaves from the wrap-around porch into the house, scattering brown, orange and red debris over the white marble floor.

  The crying stopped.

  “—the hell?” He walked in each direction over the porch, looking on and under the cushions of the wicker sofas there, and under the end tables. Not even a cat.

  He turned to go inside, but as he turned his back to the driveway and looming oak trees, the baby wailed again.

  “Dammit!” Max whirled around.

  And – there she was again! The mulatto woman in the tattered dress. She was flitting into the summer kitchen, the one with no door since they had busted it wider to take out the stove. Only he could have sworn he heard the sound of a wood door banging shut behind her.

  He moved closer to the porch railing, closer to the step leading to the ground, thinking he’d go to the kitchen. He stopped dead in his tracks as he heard the painful shrieks of a woman in distress. The shrieks turned quickly into mournful wails and, together with the bawling baby, the noise forced Max to place his hands over his ears to stop the chaos.

  The woman didn’t come out, but continued to cry and curse and cry some more. Max ran to the summer kitchen, and froze when he stood in the former doorframe. There he beheld the woman, flailing against the wall, grieving the missing contents of the hole where the loose brick that Cassi removed had once been.

  Max thought about the yellowed paper with the scrawled name. “Are you Magdalena?” he asked.

  The young woman jerked her head toward him, terror filling her pale face. Tears coursed over her dirty cheeks, her wild hair matted, tangled – no longer tied neatly behind her head like it was the first night he saw her out there by the edge of the bayou, dancing in the moonlight between the cascades of Spanish moss. She choked back a sob, and formed fists with her hands. Max thought she was going to say something to him, but then she ran past him like a gust of wind, her tattered dress billowing out from behind. She disappeared into the trees like a phantom.

  Cassandra came up behind Max. “What are you doing out here?”

  Max turned to her, looking confused. “I heard a baby crying.”

  “Out here?”

  “Didn’t find one. But, as I was going back inside to come back to bed, I saw her again.”

  “Her?” Cassi asked. “You mean the girl?”

  Max nodded. “She was the same one I saw near the swamp’s edge. She went into the summer kitchen. I followed her there. When I was standing in the doorway, I saw her crying and writhing next to the hole where you found the rags with the knife and rattle.”

  “What in the hell--?”

  “Then I asked her if her name was Magdalena.”

  “You did what?”

  “I asked her if she was Magdalena.”

  “The name on the piece of paper from the hole in the wall?”

  Max nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Max, that doesn’t make any god damn sense.”

  “She looked like a ghost.” Max said it in a matter of fact tone, as if he had seen multiple ghosts in his lifetime and knew damn well what they looked like.

  “A ghost?” Cassi sighed. “First Troy, now you. Cunjas, spells, voodoo black magick, dancing mulattos and now, mother friggin’ ghosts? You two been havin’ breakfast together or something?”

  Max stared at her, a frown on his face. “I didn’t say she was a ghost. I said she looked like a ghost.”

  “Max, I don’t know what’s going on with you. I really don’t. Doctor Caraveau sent us out here to get away from the university, your duties, all of that stuff that led to your breakdown. You were doing so good. We were doing so good. Now all of this – this shit – is starting. The girl you saw down by the swamp was nothing more than a teenager rushing to get home before she got caught being out so late. The bundle I found in the wall is nothing more than some woman’s safekeeping of some sentimental objects she probably had no place better to store it. One thing has nothing to do with the other!”

  He hung his head, exhaustion creeping over his face, shoulders slumping. “I want to go to bed.”

  Cassi pu
t her arm around his waist, leading him to the house. “Let’s do that. You just need some sleep, baby.”

  She walked him into the house, up the stairs, and into their bedroom. She tugged off his robe, pulled off his slippers and pointed to the bed. Max dutifully slid between the covers. Cassi tucked them under his chin and kissed his head. “Go to sleep.”

  “Night, boo.”

  “Night, baby.” Cassi crawled into the bed next to him. She sighed loudly, squished up her pillow to make it more comfortable and laid back.

  Waaa--

  Max and Cassi jumped from the bed, raced to the door, and down the stairs. They exchanged horrified looks as the cries resounded, this time coming from the downstairs kitchen, echoing in the cavernous room with the antiquated tiled floor. Max slapped the switch on the wall, flooding the room with light.

  The wails grew louder.

  The dirty bundle of baby quilt and articles Cassi discovered behind the brick lay on the table. The crying seemed to emanate from the pile. Max stared at the rotting fabric with a mingled expression of terror and curiosity.

  “Where is it coming from?” Cassi asked and picked up the fabric. The contents rolled out onto the table. The little silver rattle jingled a happy tune as it jumped across the table and fell to the floor with a loud metallic clang. The paper blew around in circles as if caught inside a small tornado and Cassi leapt to snatch it from the table’s surface, but instead made contact with the rusty knife.

  The blade sliced her hand. Crimson blood welled up quickly from her wound, spilling onto the knife and onto the table, splattering the delicate fabric. The paper ceased its upward spiral and fluttered to the table, sticking to the fresh blood. The yellow-brown, brittle paper absorbed spots of scarlet. Cassi gripped her bleeding hand.

  The crying stopped abruptly.

  Cassi looked at Max who stared back at her. They fixed their eyes onto the quilt, paper and knife. Max bent over and seized the silver rattle practically throwing it onto the table with the other objects as though the silver were red hot and it scorched his flesh to touch it. “Get rid of this shit.”