by Arden, Alys
He pulled out a robust first-aid kit.
I nervously removed my sticky fingers from the wound.
“Dammit, Adele!”
“What?”
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“Dad, there aren’t any hospitals.”
“Dammit.” He hesitated for a second before he managed his manly-dad-poker-face.
“Dad!” The tears began to well again.
“I’m sorry, baby, it’s not that bad. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he lied. “It’s just a lot of blood.”
He pressed the gauze against my face. “Damn bird.”
When the bleeding subsided, he spun the lid off the bottle of rubbing alcohol. My face scrunched at the chemical smell. “It’s gonna burn,” he said gently and poured a generous stream of the clear liquid down my face and neck.
My limbs twisted into each other. I tried not to yelp as the solvent spidered into the wound, burning like fire. He covered the clean wound with new gauze and pressed my hand over it.
“Stay here, and I’ll check out the rest of the house.”
“No, I want to see!”
“Okay, but just stay put for two minutes. Keep applying pressure. I’ll be right back. I promise.”
Something about his exit made me suspicious. I attached the gauze to my skin with some medical tape and dug through the remaining contents of the supply box: a transistor radio, an assortment of nonperishable food items, various kinds of batteries. Voilà. Two flashlights. I flicked them on and off to test the batteries.
When he returned, the beams of light revealed a small black object in his hand. I did a double-take. “What is that?” I exclaimed in a loud whisper. “You own a gun? Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“Calm down, sweetheart. It was Grandpa’s, and it’s always been locked up in the safe.” He seemed oddly at ease holding the weapon, as if it was something he used on a daily basis. Who is this guy?I gently placed the second flashlight into his free hand. And what else had Grandpa locked up?
“Let’s go,” I said and filed behind him.
He led the way back down the hall and into his bedroom, waving his light around to check out the state of his things. I continued to the rear of the room and opened the large pocket doors that separated his bedroom from his studio.
My brain refused to register what I saw in front of me. I hastily moved my flashlight from one thing to the next.
No.
No.
No.
“I'm so sorry, Dad.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
He rushed over, slid the wooden doors completely open, and stepped into the workspace.
“Stay here.”
Most of my father's life work was in total disarray, strewn about the large, open room. I focused my light on the rear wall and gasped. My flashlight was shining straight into the back courtyard – a humungous Greek-revival-style column from a neighboring house had smashed through the exterior brick wall and created a gaping hole at least seven feet tall and ten feet wide. Does it still constitute as a hole if a giant could walk through it?Wind, rain, and Lord knows what else had poured in. I thought of the crow as I slowly approached the gap, and wondered if there were any other animals lurking in the house.
“Adele, stay back. There might be structural damage.”
Backing away from the hole, I picked up two unstretched canvases and tried to separate them, but they had fused upon drying. I put them down to avoid any further damage.
“Come on, Dad, there isn't much we can do tonight.” My hand rested on his shoulder as I pulled him away from the acetylene tank he was examining. “We'll get a better look in the morning.”
We did a quick run-through of the rest of the house and ended back in the kitchen. To our relief, everything else appeared unscathed.
“No crows, squatters, gaping holes or pools of standing water,” my father said, dodging broken glass on the floor as he brought a chair to the kitchen door. He jammed it under the broken knob, securing the door for the evening. “Anything else can wait until the morning as far as I am concerned. Can you get through the night without electricity? I can set up the generator in the morning.”
I nodded with a jet-lag-induced yawn. “Definitely.” It was only 8:30 p.m. (3:30 a.m. Paris time), but I was so tired I could have slept through another hurricane.
I agreed to sleep in the living room to appease my father’s fear that the back of the house might have structural damage, although I'm not sure it would have made a difference where we slept if the house did cave in. I didn’t mind, though – after the crow incident, I was still kind of spooked. Not that I would have admitted it.
By the time I got back from a bottled-water toothbrushing, my father was snoring on the love seat. I sniffed an old afghan, and when the smell didn't make me scowl, pulled it over him.
Lying in a heap of blankets and cushions on the floor, I felt better than I had in weeks. Just being home brought on a small smile. Although it quickly faded when I thought about Dad's studio. His schedule was erratic because of the bar, so it was hard for him to meet people outside of the nightlife, who he tried to avoid since he was solely responsible for me. The only thing that truly seemed to make him happy was his art.
Why couldn’t that column have fallen into any other room in the house? Even my own bedroom would have been better. I wondered if any of his paintings or charcoals had survived. A sinking feeling inside told me, unlikely. At least his main medium was metal…
I pulled out my phone and hoped a quick text to Brooke would go through.
Adele 8:57 p.m. Made it home. Able to sleep in the house. Full report tomorrow. xo.
I was out cold before she had a chance to respond.
Chapter 4 Gris-Gris
October 10th
My face stung. As soon as I became conscious of the muggy air around me, I remembered I was home.
The storm boards on the windows blocked even the slightest crack of light from entering, masking any hints about what time it was. Based on the stiffness in my body, I guessed I had slept for at least ten hours. My phone told me twelve.Nice.
The quick glow from the screen had also showed me that I was alone. How had I slept later than my father, especially considering I was on Paris time?
Curiosity finally pulled me up and to the front door.
I squinted as the morning light poured into the cave-like foyer, and then stepped onto the stoop and let my forehead rest on the iron gate. The metal was cool. A breeze pricked my skin. Had the season already turned? Maybe we’d have a cold Halloween…? If we even have Halloween this year. The only thing harder for me to imagine would be a year without carnival season.
A wave of guilt swept over me. There were tens of thousands of families who had lost everything, including each other, and I was worrying whether all the hours I had put into my costume would be in vain. I pushed the thought away, double-checked the bolt on the gate, and left the door open to maximize the natural light.
* * *
The sliding doors separating my father’s bedroom and studio were wide open. A squirrel bounced across the room, scavenging through the wreckage. I chased it out into the courtyard. His studio was now an open-air space, thanks to the damage to the back wall.
It looked like a tornado had spun through. I guess one kind of had.
Hundreds of sketches, inks, paintings, and brushes littered the studio space. Colorful dried pools of paint, resin, and other chemicals patched the wooden floor. A large oxygen tank had smashed into a wall and cracked the plaster all the way up to the ceiling. Iron patio furniture and a mass of leaves and other garden debris had blown inside through the hole. Then there was the culprit: the giant column lying in the middle. How the hell are we going to move this thing? I wondered, failing to roll it even an inch with my foot.
“Zeus, I think you dropped something,” I joked halfheartedly. The small smile made my claw-wound sting beneath the bandage.
My
father was sleeping on an old couch in the corner. My nose turned up, considering how the upholstery had surely been drenched. At least he had bothered to put a blanket down first. He rolled his back to me, revealing a half-drunk bottle of whiskey wedged between the cushion cracks.
“Ugh, Dad…” I yanked the bottle free.
He barely stirred. Looking around the room again, I felt more sympathetic and decided to let him sleep it off. I tiptoed back to the kitchen to sort more pressing things. Coffee.
Thank God we had a gas stove, and thank God we used a French press. No electricity required.
Waiting for the grinds to steep, I quietly cleaned up the mess of broken glass and bird feathers.
Just as the rich smells of coffee ’n chicory filled the air, in walked my father like a perfectly timed commercial. Only in this version the cheery tone of his voice served to overcompensate for his hangover. He broke from rubbing his head to kiss my cheek.
“Morning. It’s almost like being a normal person, being awake at this hour.”
“I know. I’m so used to your vampire hours.” That was the moment I realized how much I’d missed him. “It’s nice.” I wiped down a mug and poured him the first cup. He took a giant swig and nearly choked.
“Jeez, Adele, trying to put more hair on my chest?”
“Sorry, I forgot we wouldn’t have milk to steam.” Chuckling, I added more hot water to both our cups. “What’s the plan for today?”
He took another sip before answering. “Hunt down Eddie. Have him look at the back wall and fix the kitchen door. If he's not back in town, I’ll try to get someone else to come out and assess the damage. Sort through what is salvageable in my studio, take photos, and begin the mountain of paperwork to file an insurance claim. Exciting stuff. Oh, then I’ll go down to the bar and start the process all over. How ’bout you?”
“The house needs to be aired out ASAP, so can you take down the storm boards first?”
He nodded.
“Oh, and set up the generator?”
A yawn interrupted his second nod.
“I’ll do an inventory of our food and water,” I continued, “and find out which grocers are back in business. Then I have school stuff. And I want to stop by Café Orléans to see if the Michels are back in town—”
“You’ve obviously had more coffee than me.” He drained his cup.
“Oh, and I was thinking I’d move all of my stuff to the room upstairs, but I’ll have to clean it out first.” Before our quick inspection last night, I hadn’t been up there in ages.
“Why would you move your stuff upstairs?”
“So you can move into my bedroom.”
“You don't have to do that, sweetheart. I want you to get settled. I can move the studio to the second floor.”
“No, it just makes more sense for me to move upstairs. This way your studio can be right next to your bedroom, and if you decide to work when you get home from the bar, you won’t wake me up going up and down the stairs.”
“You’re the best.” He kissed my forehead. “I am going to start unboarding the windows.”
* * *
I stepped out of the bathroom, hair dripping, candle in hand. It’s amazing what a hot shower can do, even if beforehand I had to wait for the brown water to run clear and was subsequently freaked out the entire time because, in the candlelight, I couldn’t tell whether it had turned murky again.
When I got to my bedroom, I blew out the candle excitedly – the boards were gone from the ten-foot-high windows. A small win for normalcy.
Everything got a sniff test for mustiness as I dug through my closet. After tossing four different dresses on the floor, I decided that everything needed to be washed.
Thanks to ma grand-mère (who I had just met for the first time in Paris), there was certainly no shortage of things to wear. She had been appalled by the lack of designer names in my wardrobe and had not held back on our shopping spree. I pulled out the simplest thing from my suitcase: a plain black Chanel frock. The idea of walking through a heavily devastated area wearing a six-hundred-euro dress nauseated me, but there weren't really any better options. At least it was lacking embellishments.
I tied the matching silk sash around my waist and dug through my luggage for shoes. Thinking about the amount of rubble and broken glass we had seen the night before, I tossed aside ballet flats and dainty booties and went back to my closet for my deep-burgundy Doc Martens – my shit-kickers, as Brooke called them. My feet slipped easily into the molds of the worn boots, making me instantly happy. Familiarity.
I rebandaged my wound, grabbed a small blue-fringed bag, keys, and sunglasses, and was out the door.
The shrill of a power tool unscrewing the boards came from the side of the house.
“Dad, I’m going for a walk! Be back soon!”
The drill stopped, and my father’s head popped through the side gate. “Please be careful. Call me if you need anything, and be back before lunchtime.”
“Uh, okay.” My father hadn’t told me to be back home by lunchtime since I was about nine years old. In fact, he was rarely awake before lunchtime.
Two blocks later, signs of life began to emerge: a lady walking her dog, a couple of gutter punks kicking a can, an elderly man shouting expletives while taking photos of his property damage. I turned onto another residential block and came across a shop hidden among the boarded-up homes. The doors were propped open, and the sign for Vodou Pourvoyeur gently swung in the breeze, making a faint creaking sound. Incense wafted out to the street. I’d never been inside the shop, but I’d referred many tourists from the café where I worked part time. Now, for no real reason, I found myself crossing the threshold.
Inside, everything was so bright, colorful and foreign, I couldn’t decide what to focus on first. The front room was filled with tourist thrills: make-your-own-Voodoo-doll kits, spell books, premixed bottles labeled “Love Potion #9,” vintage Ouija Boards and bright rabbit-foot key chains. To the right was a painting of Marie Laveau affixed atop an altar of flowers, melted candles and prayer cards. Visitors had adorned it with cigarettes, coins, candies, and a plethora of other small tokens to please the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.
The smell of incense grew more pungent. I couldn’t pinpoint the earthy scent – floral, with a hint of something sweet like vanilla. The shop was very long, probably a former shotgun house, and the deeper I walked, the more exotic the inventory became. Alligator skulls. Necklaces made of cowrie shells, bones and claws. Statues of Catholic saints carved from wax, wood, and ivory. A variety of other oddities that appeared to have originated from the local swampland, the Caribbean, or Africa. Both walls of the next room were covered by a sea of rainbow-colored Voodoo dolls decorated with neon feathers, sequins, and Spanish moss. The back of the shop was lit by candles and reminded me of an old apothecary.
How have I never been inside this place before?
I stood mesmerized by the floor-to-ceiling shelves of antique books and jars of all shapes and sizes, filled with herbs, powders, salts and oils. Indigo. Ylang Ylang. Wormwood.I recognized some of the names on the labels, but most completely escaped me.
Two women were near the rear of the room: one, a very old lady in a sleeveless, white, linen dress, sat behind the wooden counter. The old woman’s wild gray curls were half-tied up into a traditional head wrap. It was obvious she had been a beauty in her time. A tall girl with straight, black hair stood in front of the counter, her back turned to me. She was trying to coax the old woman into eating something from a bowl and was growing increasingly impatient.
To give them some privacy, I shifted my gaze to a shelf displaying an assortment of gemstone-encrusted daggers next to a “Do Not Touch” sign.
“Fine, Gran, don’t eat. I’m still not going to the gathering.”
So as not to listen to their private conversation, I tried to focus on the small daggers – when suddenly, without warning, two of the weapons near my elbow shifted and clattered onto the floo
r.
The girl dropped the bowl onto the counter and spun around.
“I swear I didn’t touch anything!” I mumbled, double-checking the proximity of my elbows. The girl shot me a glare that meant either she was embarrassed or that I should leave. Probably both.
“Child,” the old woman called out to me. “Child, you need to protect yourself. You need protection.”
The girl let out an exasperated sigh.
I brought the daggers to her and placed them gently in her hands. “It’s okay. My dad is a broken record about the crime in the city these days.” She rolled her eyes with annoyance and left them on the counter for the old woman to deal with. To say she was stunning was a major understatement. Long, black, pin-straight hair hung past her waist, and her toffee-colored skin was flawless. She towered over my average frame and could have easily passed for twenty-three, but judging from the private-school uniform and her attitude she must have been closer to my age. Immediately, I became self-conscious about the giant bandage across my cheek.
“So, your school has reopened?” I asked. The words came out rushed and slightly desperate sounding. “Do you go to school down here?”
“As if. I attend the Academy of the Sacred Heart. Uptown.”
Historically, Americans who had migrated down the Mississippi River had settled uptown, away from the wilder and more superstitious European, African and Caribbean Creoles who ruled downtown.
The Academy of the Sacred Heart was the most prestigious all-girls school in the city, possibly in the entire South. The campus was only a couple of miles away, in the uptown Garden District, but it might as well have been a world away. Supposedly, couples put their progeny on the Sacred Heart waiting list as soon as the birth certificates were inked. The school was chock-full of carefully curated pedigree – a mix of old money and nouveau riche, southern debutantes, daughters of politicians and oil tycoons, and even the offspring of celebrities who made New Orleans their home to escape the limelight of Hollywood.
