We went straight to Connor’s room when we got home and found River and Tom already inside debriefing him.
“That was some messed-up stuff,” River said as we walked in.
We filled in what few blanks there were, earned a “Good job, team” from Connor, then all filed out. I was too worked up to go back to my room so I followed River and Tom out to the courtyard, where the three of us recounted the night’s events, taking comfort in the shared horror of what we’d seen. Lance opted to stay inside. He and I didn’t even say good night to each other.
When I finally went to bed, my room was dark, and Sabine was nestled in her bed, asleep.
I awoke the next morning from such a deep sleep that I wasn’t sure where I was when my eyes opened. My dreams had been wild and freewheeling, populated by those characters I’d watched in the cemetery. But instead of Clio at the center of that tapestry dancing and leading her group, commanding all those eyes, it was me. What seemed the worst about this dream was that it wasn’t a nightmare. It should have been. After what I’d witnessed last night, I had braced myself for waking up in a cold sweat, being scared to even let my eyes close. And instead, to have found my subconscious plucking out some part of that experience and twisting it into any sort of pleasant dream was terrifying.
I let my arm drop over the edge of the bed, like a dead tree branch, and fished around in my bag blindly until I found the cool, hard shell of my phone. I brought it to life and, as expected, found a new message waiting. The latest directive filled the screen:
Last night was no doubt eye-opening. You may have not even fully realized how much you learned. What may be most important is the feeling it evoked. That is the strength of this group—they can infatuate and entice like no other. This is how they operate—in a visceral, emotional way that can catch a person off-guard and then seize them before it has even occurred to them to fight back. This realm is less intellectual than what you encountered in Chicago and more physical. You may not be able to think and reason your way through—you will have to feel your way. It may very well be a more formidable fight than before. That’s why this is the second of the tests. It gets more difficult.
I turned it over in my mind: I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant right now, but I didn’t like the notion that this thing was telling me flat out to expect a tougher battle. I had barely made it out alive the last time.
Part Three
22. We’re All Winners
Dante and I spent much of Saturday strolling the city together, camping out in the courtyard of a coffeehouse.
“Dan, I’m so impressed you’ve got such a classic date night ahead of you,” I said, picking a pecan from a praline the size of a hockey puck. Ever the thoughtful friend, he had shown tremendous restraint, barely mentioning it, since he knew my romantic status had deteriorated quite literally overnight.
“I know, right? Dinner and a movie. And you won’t believe it, but I totally let Max make the reservations,” he said, proud of himself.
“Wow! You must really like him to give up control of your dinner location.”
“You know what?” He stirred his iced coffee and looked up, whispering, “I really do. Like, so much.” He stopped for a minute, sighing. “And, as for him, I know it’s probably just that gris-gris bag at work, but I’m having so much fun I almost don’t care.”
“Hey, now,” I comforted him. “I actually don’t think there’s any extra magic going on. I think it’s you.”
He thought for a moment. “Thanks for that, Hav,” he said, sincerely. Then, in his gentlest tone: “So, are you and Lance really . . .”
I exhaled. “I don’t know what’s going on. We’re taking a ‘pause.’”
“Are you going to Sabine’s group thing tonight? That concert or show or whatever?” He rolled his eyes dismissing it, which I appreciated. She had organized some sort of outing—inviting me as though things were actually normal between us—that I had been pleasantly noncommittal about all week. Now I shook my head. I didn’t want to tell Dante about Lucian. I knew what he would say; I knew that I probably shouldn’t be seeing him at all, but I couldn’t help it. Something just pulled me to him. Even though, deep in my heart, I still wasn’t sure what to think of all this, or what had happened when I saw him. That kiss shouldn’t have happened; it was just too sudden for me to properly process then. I couldn’t help but wonder if that would happen again tonight. Or perhaps it had just been a case of him being so relieved to hear that I had agreed to help him, as I had pledged to do. I thought the latter, to be honest, which might be for the best.
I smiled at Dante. “Promise to give me a full report on your date, so I can live vicariously?”
“Of course!” He didn’t say another word about Lance all day.
That evening I stayed tucked in my room alternating between reading my collection of Robert Louis Stevenson short stories and levitating it (it flew from the desk up to me on my bed, its covers like wings, and connected with my outstretched palm with such a hard slap, I had to shake out my hurt hand) as Sabine primped and filed out with her group. I thought of going, but I just couldn’t bear to see her and Lance in such close proximity to each other now that he was no longer tethered to me. Instead, when I had had enough levitation for one day, I convinced Drew to help me pop copious amounts of popcorn and settle into the common room to cue up a mini-marathon of chick flicks. At one point Connor strolled by on his way to the kitchen and stopped, watching for a moment, then plopped down on the sofa between the two of us for the rest of the film, falling victim to the charms of an assuredly happy ending.
We were finished long before midnight, and at 11:57, I stood on the doorstep of the LaLaurie mansion, the streetlamps casting a dim glow on the porch. Hand perched on the doorknob, I took a deep breath, adjusted my sweater, and turned the handle to let myself in.
Locked.
I rattled it, shaking the door in its frame, but it didn’t budge. Peeking through the windows, I saw nothing more than inky darkness and the reflection of the lamplight in the glass. I knocked. And knocked and knocked, but there was no response. Finally, I tried the windows and found one stuck but unlocked at least. With just a little struggling, I managed to push it up enough to slither through, getting dirty and dusty.
The darkness of the foyer engulfed me. I stepped forward into it, feeling my way. “Hello?” I called out, getting no response. With the help of the streetlight filtering in, my eyes adjusted, and I noticed the place was somehow nearly finished. Light fixtures dotted the walls—they were inoperable, with tangles of wires exposed. The second-floor landing was complete and it looked like there were actual rooms up there, as well as a staircase leading up to the top floor, it’s freshly polished banister gleaming even in such low light.
I took the creaky stairs up to the second floor and rather than explore there, I continued on to the third floor. “Hello?” I tried a couple of times but got no answer. Moonlight poured in through the windows of the top floor, casting a glow but still leaving many corners dark. The space was just one big open room, a great place for entertaining, with its sparkling hardwood floors and high ceiling. I tried once more: “Are you here?”
“Are you looking for me?” I heard from the shadows. It wasn’t Lucian’s voice. I stepped back toward the darkness of the staircase as he stepped forward: Wylie. My blood turned cold in my veins. And then I ran down the staircase, stumbling in the dark and nearly tripping down the whole flight to the foyer. Behind me I could hear his footsteps. I fumbled with the lock at the front door finally opening it before he came into view, and I flew out into the street sprinting so fast my legs throbbed. I glanced back over my shoulder but no one was there. He hadn’t followed me.
I didn’t stop running until I was safely back in my room. But Sabine hadn’t returned yet and being alone there hardly felt comforting.
On my way to the common room, intending to watch TV until my heart stopped racing, I knocked on Dante’s door, just in case. It ope
ned up; I had never been so happy to see him.
“Wow, you really do want the scoop. I just got home, like, two minutes ago!”
I invited myself in, curling up on Lance’s bed, my nerves still jittery. “Tell me everything.” He hopped up next to me, lying back to look at the ceiling.
“So, I won’t leave you in suspense: we had that awkward end-of-date moment where someone has to make a move, you know? So no smooch. But the date was a-maz-ing,” he said. “So, first on our way to dinner . . .” The sound of Dante’s voice was so comforting and the subject matter such a pleasant departure from everything on my mind that I felt my nerves begin to settle at last and lost myself in the details of his night out.
We were awakened, unexpectedly, the following morning at three o’clock. I had finally fallen asleep despite the sound of Sabine’s group talking spiritedly in the courtyard below. I had crept to the window only once and found Lance and Sabine seated on the chaise talking. It had been that simple, that innocent, but it had made me feel sick nonetheless.
Connor herded us up in the van and we nestled in for a long ride, expecting we might be making a return trip to the swamp. Instead, we pulled to a stop only minutes later at a dock along the Mississippi, not far from the Riverwalk where Sabine and I had sat and watched the ships pass. A steamboat reading NATCHEZ in giant letters along its side loomed there now in the darkness, its giant form in silhouette as it slept. The river looked like ink at this hour, lapping softly against that wheeled monster.
We stood at the dock in the cool morning air. A man walked past us, averting his eyes but giving Connor a nod as he boarded the boat and made his way to the captain’s quarters. He looked familiar; I remembered him from the Superdome.
“Who is that guy?” I whispered to Dante.
“Facilitator,” Connor, overhearing me, said in a clipped, all-business tone. “He handles logistics, so that I can handle you all. Like a getaway car driver. You never saw him.” And we never mentioned him again. Connor paced before us now.
“The steamboat races are a big deal around here,” he barked out. “So we’re doing our own sort of race this morning. And there’s a catch, folks. You’re going to be turning the wheel to propel this boat.”
Lance’s hand shot up. “I thought that the mechanics of the steam engine would make it impossible to—”
“Lance, I love it. Whatever you’re about to say, I know you’re right. But the point of this exercise is to show you guys how strong you can be when you toss aside your fear. Could you theoretically get crushed by the wheel? Sure. But y’all aren’t going to die, so you gotta get in there and figure out how to manipulate a situation where you have an incredible amount of force and discomfort coming at you and be able to fight against it. You’re gonna be on two teams. Each team is gonna take the boat out to that bridge—the Crescent City Connection—and loop back. I’ll start it moving at a low speed, so you can get a feel for what you’ll need to do to keep it going, but then I’m cutting the power and it’s all you working that wheel and keeping the momentum going. I’ll give it another blast when we make the turn. The team with the fastest time gets bragging rights and my utmost respect.”
I got put on a team with Dante, Brody, Drew, and River. Connor led us onboard, getting our opponents settled on one of the upper decks overlooking the paddle wheel, then taking us onto the lowest deck to a place I imagined passengers didn’t usually get to explore. We followed him all the way to the stern, where the pathway split and narrowed, framing that imposing wheel, which must’ve reached up a dozen feet from the water’s surface and a good twenty-five feet across.
Connor was explaining how the paddle worked to propel the boat and how we would need to accomplish this feat ourselves. As the wheel moved forward, its giant horizontal slats would cut through the water. The more I studied them, the more those paddles, equally spaced about four feet from each other across the wheel, began to take on the look of a motorized ladder.
“So if we position ourselves here sort of standing up on one rung and holding another above it”—I gestured to the side of the wheel nearest us—“and then we move like we’re climbing up those slats with enough force, jumping off and pulling up, then theoretically we should be able to move?” I proposed to our group, working it out aloud. It was exactly the kind of conversation I would’ve loved to have had with Lance. I could imagine him upstairs already thinking about the physics behind this challenge.
“Totally, right?” Brody seconded, staring down that wheel. “We just need to throw our weight around, make the wheel spin. This is gonna rock.” He shrugged, as if this simplistic strategy made perfect sense, and earned nods of agreement from our teammates.
Connor had hung back listening but not participating, when Sabine called his name. She had found her way down from the upper deck and pulled Connor aside, out of earshot. Even in the darkness, I could see how frantic she was, hopping from one foot to the other, hand on her forehead, her mouth set in a pained grimace. His arms folded, he looked away, seemingly unsympathetic. She tugged on his sleeve, pleading. I figured she would do just about anything to avoid getting in the water. After a moment, he sighed and then gave what looked like a reluctant nod. She jumped up and down in appreciation, following him as he walked back toward us. I could just make out what he said as he neared: “You can stay up top and watch but next time I’ll expect you to get in there.” She thanked him and turned around, prancing back upstairs.
“Okay, guys, we’re gonna get started. Time to get on that wheel. Rolling out in five!” he called. Four of us traded looks. Brody was the first to climb onto the metal guardrail and reach out to those narrow beams along the side of the wheel. With cautious agility, we crept out, taking our places on the slats of the enormous wheel. We stood there, our backs to the boat, as we looked into the wheel’s steel inner workings. My limbs trembled. Any moment this boat would begin to move and we would be forced to throw our bodies at this wheel to keep up with it. Success seemed unfathomable on such a slick, slippery mechanism. We would likely lose our footing as soon as the vessel pulled out and fall into the river to be batted around as the wheel rolled over the top of us. We probably wouldn’t die, but we could surely come close.
The five of us stood gripping our arms around the oak plank above our heads, our toes curling to remain steady on the one below us. The whistle sounded, blowing a burst of steam into the sky. I could feel vibrations as I held on so tight I thought I might lose circulation in my arms. At once the boat set off with a lurch, the wheel jerking us down faster than I expected. My stomach fell. I heard a few screams, but was too shaken to tell whether my voice had been among them. The motion, slow as it was, submerged us knee-deep instantly. We scrambled up, water flying so we couldn’t see where the surface of the river stopped and the air began.
I launched myself on the slippery planklike paddle, the tactic we had all discussed. My arms and legs burning, I shot up to the next paddle as fast as I could before being smacked back into the water, holding on to the support beams on either side of me. There was barely enough time to recover from one leap when I needed to do it again just to keep from being yanked underwater. Slowly I got ahead, making my way up that slick paddle wheel, back where we had begun, where it was easier to breathe. Brody was up there already, an animal, seemingly able to accomplish this effortlessly. I was glad to have worn my running leggings and not jeans. As I jumped, I glanced quickly to my side. Dante was still holding on but Drew had been bucked off and River, engaged in a wild dance of flailing arms and legs, was struggling.
We were strong, though, picking up speed now. The idea of what we were managing to accomplish made me want to push even harder. I felt my limbs figuring it out, getting into a rhythm. As the boat’s power slowed, I had the sense of ours revving up: my muscles registered the satisfaction of forward motion, the results and slow burn of our pulling as we pounced from one rung and grabbed hold above, swinging our legs up for leverage. In no time, the boat began to v
eer, we were nearing the bridge, and I was at Brody’s side keeping his pace, as though we were on neighboring stair climber machines at the gym. Yes, I wanted our team to win. I wanted to beat Lance and to be stronger, gutsier than Sabine. Was there anything wrong with that?
I breathed in the cool, wet air, feeding my adrenaline, channeling it into more power to help me climb and leap and pull myself up. Wind roaring through us, the port nearing, we pushed on as the whistle sounded. Only when we coasted to a stop did I realize how soaked we were and what a feat it had been just to have hung on the entire time. Poor Drew and River had slipped off and were still out there, two specks in the distance, swimming to shore. Connor politely waited for them before heading back out with the other team perched on the wheel.
Still buzzing with leftover adrenaline, we toweled off and made our way to the upper deck to watch them. We could just make out their silhouettes as the sun began to glimmer on the horizon. The boat set off, surging, Lance’s team propelling us at a quick enough clip that I couldn’t tell whether they just might best us. They lost Tom, but from where we sat, the other three looked astonishingly solid and sure-footed.
Before long, that whistle had sounded again and we pulled to a stop, all gathering on the lower deck awaiting Connor. “I know I encouraged bragging,” he said, as he joined us to declare the victor. “But let’s not have too much gloating because y’all did pretty good and the teams were separated by just seven seconds—”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re all winners,” Brody joked. “Give it to us, Mills.”
Connor just smiled. “But the winner is . . . team two!” He pointed at Lance. We all congratulated them, offering slaps on the back and high-fives. They cheered mildly and respectfully. But much worse than losing the race had been the image of Sabine, perfectly dry and lovely, jumping up and wrapping herself around Lance in a celebratory hug. The final traces of adrenaline drained out of me. My only mild consolation came when Lance almost grimaced, that particularly overzealous public display making him just uncomfortable enough to give me a glimmer of hope.
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