by C. L. Bevill
The soft brush of a thousand fragrant fingers spilled over Anna’s face. In the eye of her mind she saw dozens of roses spilling over her head, engulfing her in an ocean of crimson. She lifted her arms out to feel their silken texture wash over her, enjoying the sensation.
ANNA! It seemed like Gabriel’s beloved thoughts but while it was clearly a plea for her attention it was also so far away as if dulled by time and space in its most infinite form. She couldn’t bring herself to answer because she knew that it would garner him undesired knowledge that would draw him to his death.
There was a prick as a thorn bit into her flesh. It brought Anna careening into the present with a vicious stab of pain.
These were his roses, Sebastien’s roses. She had seen the greenhouse in his backyard herself, the variety of color that could be seen through the iridescent color of the glass. He had left the roses at Arette’s marker and it was his feet that had trodden the path smooth. He had honored Arette’s memory even while staying married to the one who had murdered her.
The pain of the thorn began to move along her body, moving into the side of her face and to the back of her head, where it had hit the ground when she’d fallen. The vision began to move away, drifting like the fog pushed by a demanding wind. Anna heard voices and she wasn’t sure if they were those in her head or those of men talking not too far away from where she was laying.
The ground under her shifted and Anna almost moaned, but she bit it back and allowed her body to sink into a state that was the equivalent of a well-boiled noodle. Consciousness had intertwined with her visions and then returned in full force, leaving her in a state of confusion. Rose petals continued to rain down on her thoughts and she was helpless to stop them.
“Merde,” said one, dropping Anna’s feet to the ground. He had been carrying her, his hands braced under her ankles. “She’s one of the family. She hasn’t harmed anyone. Perhaps we can convince her?” The same sentiment repeated itself in Anna’s head, as the man thought, Must convince her to keep quiet. It’s her birthright.
Another familiar voice erupted with rage and let go of Anna’s shoulders. She felt the gritty surface of a salt-laden path under her shoulders. “Don’t do that! I can only suppress so much before someone else will hear your thoughts. Control them.”
“The rest of the elders would not approve,” the first one warned the familiar voice.
“Oui, I’m aware of that. They haven’t got the Rocky Mountain oysters for this. That’s why I do it. I judge those who must be judged and it is up to us to tend to that business.”
There was a brief silence. The first voice said, “Anna’s not an outsider, no matter who her mother was. She has kind thoughts. She ain’t going to hurt the family, no matter what she’s seen down here.”
“It’s her kindness that makes her the most threat, cher.” The familiar voice became entreating, as he attempted to convince the other one. “She doesn’t have the stamina and the temperament to protect the family. Oui, the gifts are there, but she’s never learned how to use them. And look how she found her way down to this place. Looking for something she won’t understand or worse, she’ll refuse to understand.” Aurore Benoit became like ice as she spoke to her son, Gaspard.
Gaspard said, “We can convince her. We can make her one of us. Do you know what this will do to Gabriel? His pain will be like a fire that will burn through our forest, each of us will be blackened and smoking for years to come. The agony will be senseless.”
The gnashing anger was perceptible in Aurore’s reply. “Yes. Yes. We all make sacrifices. You think I wish your half-sister dead? What I don’t wish is to stand here and convince you that I am right, that this is best for le famille.” There was a momentary pause. “You did not wish to touch those geology students, but they had found the graveyard. They were looking in each of the vehicles. They had used boltcutters on the fence and broken the locks on the main doors. Another few minutes and they might have found the hidden opening to the sinkhole. The one said to me that he specialized in diving sinkholes. Anh. He would have found much to occupy him there.”
“Get rid of these vehicles then, Maman. They only point to us.”
“It used to be safe.” Aurore’s tone became thoughtful. “No one dared to come down this far into the mine. Not the miners. Not even the odd tourist. Never one of the family.” Her voice altered as she changed direction. “Just her. Looking for Meg. Who would have thought that Meg Theriot had enough of the gift to call to her? Oui, even the best of protectors becomes lax at times.”
Gaspard didn’t reply.
“I hear Gabriel,” said Aurore after a moment. “He’s faint. But he calls for her. And she, she dreams of roses. Roses the color of blood spilling from a fresh wound. The roses Sebastien leaves for Arette’s memory.” Her voice came closer to Anna. “Anna? Anna? So close to consciousness, oui? We’ll have to work quickly. We won’t want her to suffer.”
“It’s a mortal sin,” said Gaspard piously. “Thou shall not kill.”
“And thou shall not kill,” said Aurore. “The sinkhole. That’ll do the job.”
Rose petals caressed Anna’s cheeks. She let them flow over her in an endless rain. They protected her from Aurore’s knowledge.
Gaspard made a disapproving noise that bordered on horror. “It’s the same thing, Maman. And my own sister. May le bon Dieu watch over us. May He watch over her, as well.”
“Help me move the conveyer belts out of the way of the opening. We need to hurry.”
The voices moved away from Anna, and she cracked open her eyes. Gaspard had a flashlight in his hands. Aurore put her lantern down on the hood of an old Chevy. They moved to the side of the huge hollow and began to move pieces of metal and equipment away from the walls. Grunting noise accompanied their work.
Anna let the rose petals fall in her mind, wishing them to cover her furtive movements. Gaspard had knocked her unconscious with a single strike of his large fist. She didn’t want them to know she was moving before she had increased the distance between them.
The walls suddenly vibrated with a tremendous shudder of movement. She froze in place, her eyes still cracked, and watched as Gaspard and Aurore halted their activities. “It’s nothing,” said Aurore. She reached for a larger piece of a conveyer belt. “Help me with this.”
Gaspard was staring upward, remaining as still as night. “They say Goujon will cause another earthquake one day,” he said, his voice eerily echoing in the chamber. “He will come to protect his children from those who would do the family great harm.”
“Superstitious rot,” growled Aurore. “Goujon is a myth made up by our grandfathers to keep us in line. Help me with this, and be quick.”
The walls of the mine shuddered again. It rippled down and Anna felt the earth shift under her body. She felt a fine spray of moisture whip over her face and wondered if this room was about to fall into itself, filling with lake water that would rush in like Niagara Falls, forever washing away all sins from its path. Almost immediately she felt more water rushing around her hands and her bottom, as if sluice gates had suddenly been opened.
Gaspard dropped the large piece of metal in his hands. “Non. Non. It’s him. He knows what we are doing.” His voice became increasingly agitated. “We don’t kill our own people. First Gautier, then the Conja, and now Anna. He is angry with us.”
Anna began to crawl backward, like a crab, trying not to splash the water as she crept. Aurore’s attention was rooted on her eldest son. “We should be speedy about this,” said Aurore calmly. “She’ll drown or suffocate quickly. She won’t suffer and this place is no longer sound for man or beast. I had Sebastien put the explosives along the ceiling last week so that we could flood this place. It’s no longer safe here. There are things here that could expose us, expose the family to the wicked eyes of the outsiders. Better it is collapsed, covered with silt and lake water.”
Anna bumped into something behind her and the slight noise alerted Gaspard. His h
ead swiveled down to look at her, gold eyes connecting with hers. Not startled or dismayed, he looked at her steadily, and then back at his mother, who was struggling with a larger chunk of engine. “I won’t help you, Maman.”
Aurore straightened up. “What?”
Folding her body into the deepest shadows, Anna took this as tacit permission to haul ass for the surface and the safety that waited there. The walls shook again and she felt another splash of liquid run across her forearm. In a minute she knew she might be swimming for it.
“I ain’t going to have any more to do with this, Maman. The family don’t know about this. The elders they don’t know what you’ve done. They won’t condone murder. Not even the murder of outsiders. They won’t condone her murder. They know she’s special. You’ve lost your reason. You don’t have no common-sense left.” Gaspard’s voice became pleading. “Think about what you’re doing. Even Goujon is questioning you. Listen to him.” The walls of the mine trembled again; the sound ricocheted along Anna’s backbone.
She couldn’t see Gaspard anymore. She trusted her instinct and headed in the direction she thought she’d dropped her flashlight. She passed the shape of the Mazda Miata and knew she was headed in the right direction. The hidden opening to the sinkhole was just about opposite to the opening of the graveyard and the way out. She rose up on shaking legs and stumbled over something else.
Aurore’s voice echoed through the chamber. “Then don’t. Leave, boy. I don’t need your help.” There was a brief pause. “Dieu, where is she?” Another pause and Anna hurried to her feet, her hands out and feeling the way. “You let her go?”
There was a rush of anger that Anna felt in her head. It was Aurore’s utter rage at being thwarted for the moment. It pulsated over her like the leading edge of a shock wave, making her reel momentarily.
Gaspard cried out and was silent. There was a splash that revealed something had fallen down.
Anna stopped at another obstacle and didn’t dare look back. The pain went deep into her chest and she knew that she was feeling her half-brother die. Aurore had stabbed Gaspard with a knife. Gaspard’s thoughts shifted and slanted in her head and she couldn’t move. Sorry, it came weakly. Mon Dieu, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against-
You, whom I should love above all things. Anna finished it for Gaspard because she knew that he couldn’t finish it. I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior, Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In His name, my God, have mercy. Amen.
“Amen,” said Aurore. “He will forgive me for doing what I had to do, in order to protect the family. If one, or more, should have to do to protect the rest, to ensure our survival, then that is what shall be done.”
Aurore was on the move, searching her out. Anna cut Gaspard from her mind. He was beyond her help now. She couldn’t feel Raoul in the room. Perhaps only the one son had been recruited; Raoul had seemed naïve to her when she had spoken with him.
“True,” Aurore answered her thoughts. “It’s just you and I, now. And look what I had to do, because of you.”
“You killed him all by yourself!” Anna yelled. She felt her hands around and moved around the side of an unseen vehicle. On the far side of the room, the lantern was moving. Gaspard’s flashlight remained motionless where his dead hand had dropped it.
She stopped as the walls around them shuddered again, twice as forcefully as before, as if some massive monster was slamming its fists upon the ground above their heads. Anna could almost see the great tail of a giant catfish pounding the silty bottom of the black lake, causing waves to roll into shore, and the world to shift on its axis.
Aurore’s lantern halted in place. Suddenly Anna could feel a tinge of fear coming from her. She fed upon it, absorbing it with glee, unexpectedly happy that she was scared as well. “You should be afraid, Aurore! I think this place will become your grave, too! You’ll share it with all the people you murdered! With all the people your predecessors murdered!”
“Be silent!” she screamed back. “It’s nothing! It’s just the mine!”
Anna had resumed searching with her hands. It was with relief that she felt the cool metal of a flashlight under her fingers. It was right where she’d left it. The meager light from Aurore’s light refracting off the salt had allowed her to find it, even in deep shadows. She looked over her shoulder at where Aurore’s lantern showed her to be, and pushed the button of the flashlight. The light revealed the exit and Anna took it, happy to test her lungs, jovial that she would see how fast she could run again in this maze.
She fled up the tunnel, her ankles sinking into water that was rapidly running downhill. At the first turn she realized that Aurore had outsmarted her. She had seen the marks Anna had left with the spray paint primer. She had taken some time to knock the marks from the walls. The end of a flashlight would have done the trick in a few minutes, knocking the painted salt off so that a few gray spattered hunks of rock showed Anna that there was once a mark there, but certainly not the direction that would lead her outward.
Aurore’s voice reverberated through the tunnel. “Silly Anna! Silly, little outsider girl! No way out, chère! And I won’t chase after you. No, I’ll just set the explosives, little foolish girl! You’ll be trapped in here until you drown! And there’ll be nothing you can do! I’ll make sure you can’t call out to Gabriel until you die! You should have let me kill you, Anna! It would have been less painful!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Saturday, February 21st
Among the lake people, water drawn from where the dead and the living traverse is powerful gris-gris against the goings-on of all devilish beasties and their dreadful evil deeds.
Alby LaGraisse was drunker than a dozen Irish alcoholics on St. Patrick’s Day. He couldn’t find his prim daughter-in-law to drive him home, nor could he find anyone to point him in the right direction. In fact, he couldn’t find his truck, even if he could have driven it anywhere. In his current state of inebriation his gifts had temporarily failed him, and he wasn’t exactly upset about it.
Sometime later Alby was still stumbling around looking for some purpose in his evening. “That’s a helluva outsider,” he slurred amicably to someone wearing a carnival mask. The large, detailed mask resembled a wolf’s head with huge teeth protruding over an open voracious mouth. Normally it would have frightened someone as drunk as Alby but he thought it resembled a rabid Benjy and almost giggled at the thought.
The wolf said, “Huh?”
“Imagine that,” added Alby. “He could drink and eat crawdaddies. And he’s from New York.”
“He’s drunk,” said the wolf to another mask. That one was Little Red Riding Hood. The rose-red cloak allowed two blonde pig’s tails to hang loose and showed a bright little girl’s smile, permanently fixed on an elaborate mask.
“Well, duh,” said Little Red. It was a woman’s voice and plainly sarcastic.
Alby lurched over to the edge of the lake to take a breath. It was patently true that he shouldn’t mix a dozen forms of alcohol on the same night, but it hadn’t bothered him at the time. However, it was coming back to haunt him now.
“Should we do anything?” asked the wolf. Alby thought it was very solicitous of him considering he was supposed to be the Big Bad Wolf, although he wasn’t actively eating up Little Red Riding Hood like he was supposed to be doing.
“Well,” said Little Red. “Let’s get him to one of the aid tents. So he doesn’t fall in and drown himself. I mean, jeez.”
“Look at that,” said Alby wonderingly, staring at the blackness of the lake that he’d lived next to all his life.
“What is it?” said Big Bad.
“He’s drunk,” said Little Red. She put her arm around Alby’s shoulder and turned him away from the lake. Big Bad took Alby’s other side and added, “You’ll feel better when you’ve gotten some coffee in you, Mister.�
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“Coffee?” Alby repeated, disgusted. “Coffee sucks. It tastes like Moose piss, not that I’ve ever drank Moose piss.” He chortled and paused. “But really, did you see that?”
Little Red guided Alby into the tents looking for one of the aid stations she’d seen earlier. Some people didn’t know when to quit. “See what?” she asked, not bothering to keep the condescension out of her tone.
“The lake’s beginning to recede. Saw it just now. Looks like it’s slowly draining away.”
“Oh, Christ,” said Big Bad. “Is he blotto or what?”
“It was,” protested Alby indignantly. “It’s down a couple of inches. I’m not that drunk.”
“Come on. This man needs an injection of caffeine and somewhere to lie down for about a hundred years,” said Little Red. “Once we give him to them, we can get back to the band.”
•
“Anna,” called Aurore soothingly. She had regained her composure and any remaining fear that was in her had slowly faded away as the thumping vibrations in the walls had come to a halt. “I ought to give you one last chance. I can understand why you’d run. After all, it isn’t easy to make the decisions I’ve had to make. Killing family members isn’t like a cake-walk.”
Anna had turned the flashlight off, so Aurore couldn’t track her in the darkness by following her light. She had a plan. The strategy was to find where Aurore had chipped away the gray paint on the walls by looking at the gray splattered rocks of salt on the level part of the tunnel. She might not get the turns correct every time but eventually she could eliminate the tunnels and odds were that she wouldn’t have to do that every time. Ultimately, she would find that he hadn’t had time to trace her arrows all the way to the surface. She would find them in the upper echelons of the mine, still complete, and still pointing the way out for her.
