Veiled Eyes

by C. L. Bevill

  Let Aurore leave, she prayed to herself. Let her go to the elevator and leave. I can find my way.

  But Aurore heard Anna’s thoughts. Aurore’s voice vibrated down the tunnels, not allowing her to know exactly where the other woman was. “Sorry, chère! There are hundreds of miles of passages down here. Hundreds. This mine was worked for many, many years! There’s no way you’re gonna make it to the surface before I can flood the place out. And believe me, it’ll be quick. Water will fill up almost to the surface. It’s a physics thing, you know. The water will meet the level of the water outside. I’ve heard tell of another salt mine down south doing the same thing, excepting a drilling rig found a salt mine. They lost a whole drilling platform and two barges into it! Never recovered them! Now it’s one damn, deep lake! No one is going to find anything when I’m done. And there’ll be two unfortunate deaths. Family members who done got caught up in the misfortune. I can hear it now. My son and Miss St. Thais were somewhere by the lake and must have been sucked down with the rest. I’ll put a marker next to your maman’s.”

  Anna held perfectly still in the darkness. She could hear Aurore but no light was visible. Anna knew that the other woman was trying to trick her. Aurore knew the ways around this place. She’d probably grown up here, playing in these tunnels, trying out the part of understudy.

  Anna began to inch herself away from Aurore’s voice, trusting that she could find the exit if only she tried hard enough. The longer Aurore tried to convince her to give herself up to the other woman, the longer Anna had to find the way out before she followed through with her threat.

  When she couldn’t hear Aurore anymore, Anna turned her flashlight on and discovered that she was well and truly lost in the labyrinth. She’d made so many turns that she had completely lost track of her marks back to the surface.

  Anna. Aurore’s thoughts came clearly to her, sad, accepting of her fate. I tried to warn you, Anna. Now, it’s too late. The outsiders have truly spoiled you. Gautier and Meg’ll burn in hell for what they’ve done. You can let yourself die, now. There’s no escape. You can’t get out. Not before I set off the explosions. N’est Pas?

  There was a loud clanking noise that reverberated through the tunnels. Anna heard it and froze into place. She thought she knew what it was. Aurore had reached the elevators and the lift had been geared up to bring her to the main level, where Anna had passed on her way to find Meg Theriot. Aurore had the key for the elevator. After all, it was the family’s mine.

  We can make one last deal, chère, thought Aurore. In her mind Anna could feel the elevator moving slowly upward, the gears and pulleys squealing with age and disuse. She shifted her weight so she wouldn’t lurch around on the platform. I can block you from Gabriel’s mind. But in your last moments of death, well, I can have little control there. Fear, after all, calls to all of us. But you’re strong, Anna. You can die without letting him know. And he is your beloved, isn’t he? I felt it. You have strong feelings for him.

  A surge of anger threatened to overwhelm Anna. She wanted to scream with frustration. Good guys were supposed to win. Bad guys were supposed to lose and lose dramatically, in a flaming ball of fire that clearly showed their pain-wracked deaths. And the bad guy was certainly not supposed to threaten the life of the man she loved after her own wretched death had occurred. It isn’t fair.

  Aurore’s amusement was evident. Fair? Mais non, nothing in life is fair. Surely, you’ve guessed that? But Gabriel doesn’t have to die.

  In exchange for what? Anna couldn’t prevent the thought. What is it that you want me to do?

  Die alone. Die with only your thoughts. And I swear I won’t touch a single, solitary black hair on his precious head. You have to die. He doesn’t. Aurore’s thought patterns became vicious. And I won’t be kind to him. But Sebastien’s with him right now. He’ll take care of him. You’ll be a faint memory that troubles him only in a blue moon. He’ll live a long life. Le famille is like stone. Like cement. We stick together. We last.

  Anna’s chin came up. That’s a tired metaphor, Aurore. It loses its strength upon repetition. You might want to remember that.

  You agree, Anna? It’s you and him. Or just you?

  Just me, then. I’ll die alone. Anna gritted her teeth and willed herself not to be afraid. It would be quick. She would drown. All she had to do was to suck the water back into her lungs. She leaned back against the salt walls and slid to her bottom. The flashlight dropped to the ground and rolled away from her.

  Good girl. Aurore was approving. Her own personal protection came down before Anna could tell the other woman that she could be no more wrong than if she had tried.

  Hardly. But no one could hear her. And the fact that you’re a member of the biological family is purely incidental, you veiled-eyed bitch.

  •

  “You smelled earth?” repeated Camille.

  Gabriel and she sat in the coffee tent on the farthest side from the card players. Another bus driver had wandered in to sit in on the game and they were all giggling about the hand one of them had gotten. “I mean,” said one designated driver. “Could I get anything worse without having a baby straight? The gods of poker must hate me.”

  Gabriel nodded tiredly. His jaw had ceased to ache. For a brief time it had felt like someone had sucker-punched him with a 2X4 piece of wood. And the ache had transferred itself into the back of his head as if someone had followed up with another 2X4 from behind. “It was like someone was turning the ground with a spade. Rich soil. Sandy and wet. All around me. All around her.”

  Camille’s eyebrows almost met in a frown. “Then roses?”

  “Much later. Hundreds,” Gabriel reiterated. “Thousands of petals pouring over her. It wasn’t real, but the color was like blood. All in her head like the women hanging in the back of the tractor-trailer. Then she stopped. No, not just stopped. It wasn’t like her wall came down. It was like someone else’s wall came down. All heavy black stone, covered with barbed wire. Like someone with a lot of experience, one of the family.”

  “Someone killed Gautier,” whispered Camille. “Le sherif said it was drugs. They found evidence inside his house. You know this. But Anna thought-”

  “That Gautier was killed to prevent him from telling her something.” Gabriel finished the thought. “I’ve thought of this before. Gautier risked his neck for criminal ventures. We all knew and more than a few of us tried to reach out to him, but after Arette went missing in the bayou, he wouldn’t have it. But he came to Anna and warned her. Something about the soil sucking her down. No, it was worse than that.” He hesitated and then repeated it to Camille, not realizing until that moment that he could recall the words almost verbatim. “ ‘You’ll be sucked down, drowned in a place where you can’t escape. It won’t be a giant catfish who wolfs your rotting flesh down, it’ll be stuck in a tomb of sandy soil, with all those others who have gone before you.’ ”

  Camille shivered. Her skin went icy at the thought of Anna hearing such a warning, something that was clearly intended to frighten her away. But what if-

  All the outsiders’ excess thoughts in their heads were jumbling their gifts. It was like this every year. Sometimes it was difficult to hear another member of the family who was standing right next to you. But Gabriel received that thought clearly. He answered her aloud, “But what if he really was murdered by someone who didn’t want Anna to know something important.”

  “She’s as curious as a cat,” said Camille.

  “And we all know what happens to a curious cat,” Gabriel said quietly.

  “But what’s changed in the last weeks? What’s so different about today?”

  “It’s like she suddenly realized something and couldn’t live another second without seeing if it were true.”

  “The mine,” Camille announced. “She was so caught up in what was in the mine. She thought that the Conja Woman was down there.”

  Gabriel’s face tightened into an anger look. Camille had seen the look bef
ore but only when her brother was very angry. The last time had been when he’d seen what Dan Cullen had done to Anna, how she’d been chained in the back with those horrible photographs to torture her. His fury had been so palatable; she had felt the sheer enmity of his feelings like something she could reach out and touch. Gabriel had wanted to throttle the man on the spot using his bare hands, but that wasn’t the family’s way. Instead Sebastien and Gaspard were to take the man and his truck to some place where he would be handcuffed in the back and an anonymous phone call would tip off the authorities.

  Confusion passed over Camille’s lovely features. It had been in the news lately. It was a wretched business with the missing truck driver who murdered mostly young women and buried their misbegotten corpses in his backyard like some Louisiana version of John Wayne Gacy. Her mouth opened wide. It had been so visible, headline news that made national news. Bodies equaled press. Many bodies of young women equaled national press. She shook her head, even while Gabriel did the same thing.

  Gabriel’s frown intensified. He jumped to his feet. The mine. The mine. Anna’s in the mine. Why can’t she hear me?

  “Oh, children,” said Sebastien, who was standing behind them. “Don’t fret so. Aurore’s taking care of Anna and as for you, you’re not going to say or think anything out of place, are you?”

  •

  Alby started loudly singing a love song in French. He paused and encouraged his helpers to sing along. The couple with their oversized masks both sighed simultaneously. “We don’t speak French,” said Little Red.

  “Where in the name of god is that aid tent?” asked Big Bad. He adjusted his grip on Alby’s shoulder and added, “This mask is making me sweat like a pig.”

  “Did you know that there’s a giant catfish out in the lake?” asked Alby nonsensically.

  “Giant catfish,” repeated Little Red. “I’m never coming to this fest again, Fitch. Flying across the country again with the Jumpmaster, just to see some old guy nearly drown himself and big fish stories. Wow. That’s my idea of fun.”

  “This was your idea, Teddy,” said Big Bad. “You said-” and his voice went to a poor high-pitched imitation of his companion-“ ‘Let’s get him to one of the aid tents. So he doesn’t fall in and drown himself. I mean, jeez.’ ”

  “A giant catfish who protects all of the family,” slurred Alby. “I think mebe he’s really, really pissed off now.” He chortled. “Of course, it’s better than being pissed on.” He laughed at his own poor joke.

  “And you can forget going to see your parents next month, Fitch,” added Little Red. “All they want to know is when I’m going to produce five grandchildren. Chop. Chop.”

  “What the hell do my parents have to do with helping him?” Big Bad protested. “They just want to hear the pitter-patter of little feet around the house.”

  “Hah.” Little Red snorted. “Then let them get a dog. A little dog.”

  “Hey,” said Big Bad. He pointed. “There’s one. It’s the only tent that’s mostly empty.”

  As they guided Alby to the tent, a tall man with snowy white hair stood talking with another man and a woman. The tall white-haired man wore a simple blue T-shirt with a white Unknown logo that showed him to be one of the concessionaires at the festival. His hands gestured elegantly at the other two, who were both wearing the same T-shirts. In the background a group of five played cards at a table, blissfully ignorant to everything else.

  Little Red heard the tall white-haired man saying, “-Children. Don’t fret so. Aurore’s taking care of Anna and as for you, you’re not going to say or think anything out of place, are you?” Teddy would have said, “Duh?” in utter confusion, but Alby had pulled away from her arms and was teetering forward.

  Little Red turned to glance at Big Bad and found that he was attempting to pull the awkward and heavy papier-mâché mask off his head. It seemed to be stuck on something. He grunted and pulled harder. She looked back.

  The tall white-haired man was talking to a handsome, black-haired man, who said vehemently, “You’re blocking us? How can you do that? Mon Dieu, what kind of tricks have you played on all of us?”

  Little Red glanced at Big Bad again, and then looked back in time to see the black-haired man leap to his feet. Under the fluorescent lights she could see his gold eyes burning with rage and Teddy was taken aback.

  Alby muttered something to himself.

  The other woman who had remained sitting appeared horrified as she watched the tall white-haired man shrug and say, “Do you want your families to die? Do you want to be responsible for them, as well?” The black haired man raised a fist as if to strike the older man and froze at the words.

  Little Red was really confused. She occasionally liked to imbibe, but these people around here had clearly been doing more than drinking. Smoking, swallowing, snorting, and apparently anything else their little hearts had fancied. Teddy turned to her husband. “Fitch, why don’t we get back to the band?” she said solemnly. She could still hear the strains of the Zydeco group. Accordions and fiddles battled with a guitar in a bouncing tune that threatened to drown out anything around it.

  Fitch finally had his big bad wolf mask off, holding it awkwardly under one arm. He was wiping sweat from his forehead while he looked in the direction of the people in front of them. Suddenly his eyes went wide as he said, “Hey. Hey! Hey, don’t do that!”

  The old drunk they had helped had picked up a large red fire extinguisher that had been sitting against one of the braces of the tent. Fitch lurched forward as if to stop him but Alby had already lifted the extinguisher up, swinging it like Babe Ruth at the bottom of the ninth inning and the bases were loaded.

  Little Red said, “Omigod,” as the extinguisher felled the tall white-haired man like a sack of potatoes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Saturday, February 21st

  When the superstitious one sees blue flames in a fire, it is a portent of calamity. The agitation of embers only rouses the spirits of the hearth more. When the blue flames are seen, children must whisper three times, ‘Fire burns blue, spirits in the room, turn away to escape doom.’

  A sheriff’s deputy was arresting Alby LaGraisse. Alby took it in stride, saying to Camille and Gabriel, “Sebastien’s been a bad, bad person. It ain’t the family’s way to do that to another member of the family. You can tell him I said that when he wakes up. And I’d do it again.” He lifted his wrists up so that the deputy had better access to fastening the handcuffs. “There ya go, boy. Don’t want me getting away. I’m the scourge of the seven seas.” He laughed jovially to himself. “Hey, do they still have that cook from Terrebonne Parish down to the jail? He knows how to cook, oui.”

  “I’ll tell him, Alby,” Gabriel said, his tone grim. “I’ll tell him a few other things, too.” He watched as two paramedics carefully lifted Sebastien Benoit onto a stretcher. Riotous thoughts swirled in his head that he tried to comprehend. A crowd had gathered to watch the ambulance thread its way through tents and throngs of people to reach its objective, a person in need of medical attention. It was rare at Mardi Gras to avoid some person in such need, but the manner of Sebastien’s complaint had spread through the means of widespread whispers.

  “I’ll call your son, Alby,” Camille yelled over the crowd, as the deputy started to haul the older man away. “So he can post your bail.”

  Gabriel stared at Sebastien. His face was a wretched color of gray, as he lay motionless on the stretcher. His eyes were closed and only a little blood from the back of his head had made it to his face. He wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon, but he wasn’t dead; his pulse was strong and his breathing was regular. He knew what would happen when Sebastien did return to consciousness. The family would ostracize Sebastien. He knew where Anna was and he knew that Anna was about to be murdered by Aurore.

  “He’s not going to need bail,” Gabriel said to Camille and she strained to hear it. “I’ll make sure Sebastien doesn’t press charges.” Then he s
pun away, roughly brushing past the man and woman who had helped Alby over to the tent. Both held papier-mâché masks in their hands and goggled at the turn of events. Behind them the card playing designated drivers and bus drivers stared openly, having left their hotly disputed game on the table.

  Camille didn’t need to ask where Gabriel was going. She could hear it in her head, regardless of the slow eruption of fury that was threatening to blow him up, a virtual Mount St. Helens of angry molten rock. Find one of the elders, his thoughts relayed to his sister. Tell them what Aurore and Sebastien did. Make sure Maman and papa can hear you. They can’t silence all of us, can’t kill us all. Tell them Anna’s in the mine and Aurore is going to kill her because she’s discovered their secrets. Tell anyone you can. Something is hidden in the mine. Both Gaspard and Meg were murdered to protect it. Dieu, I’m sorry I ever disbelieved Anna.

  Camille looked around to see many pairs of gold eyes blazing in the crowd. Family mixed freely with outsiders, looking similar in form, but vastly different in temperament. She didn’t need to tell anyone what Gabriel had said. They had heard it. Despite the outsiders’ turbulent thoughts, he was broadcasting like the strongest beacon imaginable. People who received it rocked on their feet with the inconceivable astonishment of the unwelcome awareness. Then the information began to move through the family like a wildfire out of control.

  She saw their faces change with knowledge. Anger and horror mingled together as they realized what power had done to one of their own, what the Benoits had been doing with the salt mine for decades. She heard their comprehension in waves of thoughts. Missing people? That girl from Detroit. Her mama said her credit card receipts stopped in Unknown. Remember that couple ten years ago. They said they wanted a look at the salt mine, but dint want to take no for an answer. Twenty-something years ago that man from New Orleans up and vanished. Outsiders disappeared and we never even cared…And Gautier Debou. And Meg Theriot. Not only outsiders…In the mine?