The Tangled Bridge

by Rhodi Hawk

  “What’s the matter with your car?” Ethan asked.

  Esther shrugged. “It’s old.”

  “Well, let’s take a look.”

  Her expression lifted a fraction, and she rose from the table. “It’s just outside.”

  Esther grabbed a set of keys that looked like it could double as wind chimes, and they went out to the carport. Bo and Ray were still at it, their silhouettes strobing by as they passed behind trees from the other side of the grove.

  Esther unlocked a silver Buick and Ethan checked under the hood, which looked to Madeleine about as decipherable as reading tea leaves. Growing up, Madeleine had done the cooking and hunting and some of the fishing, but her brother was the tinkerer, and he eventually became an electrician.

  Ethan said, “I’m no mechanic, but the engine definitely doesn’t sound right. That belt needs to be replaced. Pronto. You shouldn’t drive it until you can get a new one.”

  Esther said nothing.

  Ethan wiped his hands. “I can at least do that—pick up a new belt and throw it on there.”

  “Really?” Esther looked relieved.

  “But it still needs work. The belt’s the least of its problems.”

  Esther nodded. She licked her lips and glanced at Ethan, then at Madeleine. It looked like she wanted to say something but felt she ought to be careful about it.

  Madeleine said, “We may be able to help, you know. I’m not talking about the car.”

  Esther cut her gaze for a moment, then looked Madeleine in the eye. “You said before that we left that quilt and that cane there on the levee because we left in a hurry. You’re right about that. But it’s not like we knew what was happening. Bo, he’s real sensitive. That morning he clicked on something he didn’t like and told me, ‘Mama, we gotta go now.’ That’s why we left. Over the years I learned to listen to him when he acts like that.”

  Madeleine said, “The thing is, though, we want to make sure y’all are going to sleep here at home for the time being.”

  Esther looked next door where Cheryl was still bent over her garden, the evening sun illuminating her clamdiggers and casting a pink halo along the lattice beneath her trailer. “We only do that when Mare makes a fuss. We stayed on the levee because I don’t like to go into the blights. To Bo it’s like camping.”

  “I understand. But for the time being…”

  Madeleine paused and wet her lips. “For the time being, until the danger passes, please do keep Bo here. I don’t think y’all are gonna be safe anywhere else. Definitely not the levee. Probably better stay away from St. Jo’s, too.”

  Esther was watching her carefully. “I know who you are now. I remember seeing you on TV. That psychic from that murder trial.”

  Madeleine’s lips parted. When she’d been a star witness at Zenon’s murder trial, the prosecutor had exposed to the court how Madeleine often talked to “an invisible little friend named Severin.” The story had been all over the news. Madeleine, a psychologist and witness to a murder, had looked like a complete crackpot. It was a disaster. In the wake of it, some folks thought her crazy, others called her psychic, and the judge, well, after some of the jurors proved tainted by information overload, the judge had declared a mistrial.

  Madeleine said, “Not really a psychic. That was…”

  “You see devils. They after Bo?”

  A lump was forming in Madeleine’s throat.

  “Tell me!”

  Ethan was eyeing the grove of devilwood. The boys had gone quiet.

  “I’ll be right back.” Ethan closed the hood and started for the trees.

  eighteen

  NEW ORLEANS, NOW

  ESTHER AND MADELEINE BOTH stepped down the drive. Esther was still in her robe and slippers. Through a gap in the trees, Madeleine saw Bo standing with his hands on Ray’s wheelchair. They were facing a group of boys. Four boys. Older than Bo and Ray by a few years, and filthy. And then Madeleine recognized the stains under their noses. The same group from yesterday, minus Mako and Del.

  “The huffers.”

  “Damn bullies,” Esther said.

  Madeleine turned her head upward and saw Severin grinning from the roof. She was watching the boys. Ethan was already through the gate and striding toward them.

  The strange thing was, although Ray was shouting at the boys, no one else said a word. The huffers weren’t taunting like they’d done yesterday. Bo was clicking in an unbroken stream. Madeleine recognized Oyster’s frizzy hair, and saw that he was carrying a long silver Maglite. Two of the other boys were holding objects, too—one had a beer bottle and the other held a length of white painted wood that looked like it used to be a porch spindle.

  “My God, my God,” Esther reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “They never leave him alone.”

  Ethan had reached them. The four boys moved as one. An initial lurch followed by more fluid, independent movement. They formed a wide box around Bo and Ray. Bo’s clicking accelerated.

  Madeleine heard Ethan telling the huffers to back off. She looked back at Severin. Was Zenon here? No sign of him.

  Madeleine looked toward the huffers and tried: Drop what you’re holding.

  No response.

  She scanned the grove and the houses nearby, letting her sight recede into itself before opening up again. Briar sight. And she saw him. Zenon. Standing with his river devil near the wild olives. Zenon looked whole and fresh and young, at the peak of his prime, just like he’d been in the briar. Nothing like the limp shell that was giving itself over to atrophy in the hospital bed.

  The briar revealed, too, how Bo glowed with a light from within. It struck Madeleine with awe. His lumen glow.

  The piece of wood rose in one boy’s fists, and he swung it at Bo. Bo sprang away. Even though he was blind and couldn’t possibly have seen it coming. He was in tilt, careening sideways with his hands locked on Ray’s chair.

  “Get away from my boy!” Esther cried.

  Ethan knocked the spindle from the boy’s hand and it went clattering to the dirt. But the boy barely even looked at Ethan. His gaze never left Bo. They all kept watching and moving toward Bo. Bo moved like a charging boar and could probably give them a run for their money, but he seemed unwilling to let go of Ray’s chair.

  “This way,” Ethan cried.

  His leg prevented him from keeping up with the chase. Ray was shouting, and Esther was shouting, and in her mind, Madeleine shouted at Zenon, “Stop it, Zenon! Get out of here!”

  The neighbors had stepped from their mobile homes and were watching from their yards, clucking and calling in alarm. Even through her panic, Madeleine noticed an oddity about them all in the way they appeared through the lens of the briar. Some of them had devils. Everyone did, really, it’s just that some flourished more than others. But some of the neighbors seemed to radiate something else through the briar lens. Something strange.

  Esther was hollering into the cell phone, “I need the police, just send the police! Oh, God.”

  Bo rounded the devilwood grove with Ray’s chair just like he’d been doing earlier. No way they’d be able to outrun the huffers with the wheelchair slowing them down.

  A loud crack. It sounded like a shot. Esther screamed. But whatever it was none of them slowed down.

  “I got Ray, just go,” Ethan was calling.

  Bo finally let go of the chair and ran, ran, ran. One of the boys picked up a softball-sized rock and threw it, catching Bo on the shoulder, but Bo never paused. He shot from the drive and zipped through the devilwood grove, weaving through the trees and clicking like mad. The four boys went in after him.

  Ethan had scooped Ray up in his arms and was limp-running him back toward the trailer.

  Can we stop it? Madeleine asked Severin, speaking only in her mind.

  Severin was grinning at her from above. “Take the painted wood, maybe.”

  Madeleine saw the spindle that Ethan had knocked from one of the huffer’s hands. She ran for it. As
if borrowing her momentum, Esther went barreling down the steps after her. Somewhere along the way Esther had ditched her cell phone and picked up a hammer. Three of the huffers were spreading in a wide half-circle around Bo. They drove him straight into Oyster.

  “Stop!” Madeleine cried.

  Oyster raised the Maglite and whacked Bo in the head with it. Bo staggered a half step but kept moving.

  Ethan called, “Madeleine, you and Esther get back inside.”

  The neighbors, in their strange briar appearance, were stepping from their yards and onto the drive.

  Madeleine realized she was gripping the spindle. No recollection of having picked it up. She looked back at the trailer and saw that Severin’s eyes were sparkling, energized. A little girl river devil with her favorite game in play.

  Madeleine knew that this was wrong. Severin didn’t want her to save Bo. Severin wanted Bo dead. So why was Madeleine following direction from Severin?

  Chloe’s words from the hospital room yesterday came to mind:

  You hold a magnifying glass too long and it only serves to burn the object. You drop it, and look at the rest.

  Madeleine took a flash inventory of what was happening in her mind, a jumble of the relevant and irrelevant:

  The strange way the neighbors looked.

  Olives spread over the drive.

  The spindle in her hands.

  The clicking.

  And Madeleine understood that Bo was using his clicks to see.

  And that the neighbors held a trace of Bo’s luminescence inside them. It shone in Ethan, too, like a mirror reflecting a flame. Madeleine stepped toward the grove and the people. Cheryl was there, eyes wet. An older man wearing jeans with no shirt and bare feet—having run out without taking time to put on shoes—was striding across the stickery ground to take one of the huffer boys by the arm.

  And while Madeleine watched, that luminescence spread into the huffers, too. They just seemed to slow down.

  Except for Oyster. Through the bramble lens, Oyster looked darker, a sepia shadow, like the river devils. He was closing in on Bo.

  “Stay away from my son!” Esther screamed, running at Oyster with the hammer raised high.

  He ducked as she swung, then drove his fist into her face. Esther went sprawling.

  Oyster picked up Esther’s hammer and circled toward Bo in a crouch. He walked low and careful, below eye level, behind the devilwood where Bo’s clicks would have a harder time finding him.

  Bo seemed to be tiring. His movements were slower.

  Madeleine whispered, “Bo Racer, run straight home.”

  Like before, he heard it. Bo turned and burst into a sprint. Straight line for the trailer.

  Oyster had to leap to his feet to keep up, and in doing so Bo found him and swerved just enough to avoid the hammer crashing toward his skull. Ethan threw one fist under Oyster’s bicep, forcing his arm upward, and slammed down on his wrist. The hammer went to the ground.

  Bo was heading for the trailer. Madeleine stood in the drive between him and the gate.

  “Swing the spindle, now!” Severin cried from behind.

  And for reasons Madeleine couldn’t fathom, her fingers itched to do it. In her mind she could even see herself gripping the spindle, her arms forming an arc, the hard, heavy block of wood at the base aimed for Bo as he ran clicking toward her. Aimed right for the spaces of his eyes.

  That’s it, now. You can see it all in your mind, can’t you?

  Zenon. Suddenly at her side. Whispering in her ear. Like he himself was a river devil.

  She didn’t move.

  Bo swerved around her and kept running to his gate. He paused and turned, clicking in Madeleine’s direction.

  “She’s one of’m, mama,” he called.

  Madeleine let the strangeness and fury course through and then out of her. The spindle slipped from her fingers and fell to the olive-littered earth.

  From the devilwood grove, still gripping Oyster by the arm, Ethan was watching her.

  Esther was staring, too. Blood coursed from her nose where Oyster had hit her.

  “Get in the house!” Esther cried.

  Bo turned and continued to the trailer.

  Madeleine looked at her hands. Shadowed, sepia. But luminous, too. Bo’s light in there.

  Zenon said, “You keep hangin on, Madeleine. Fight the fight and for your prize you get to be crazy. All the same to me.”

  He turned and strode for the devilwood. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back for him.”

  And then he was gone.

  A police cruiser entered the trailer park and was moving in their direction. Esther looked at it, hand to the blood on her face, and stumbled onto the drive.

  She turned and pointed her finger at Madeleine. “Get away from here. I saw how you was lookin at my son.”

  Madeleine felt heat rush to her face. She could say nothing, only shake her head.

  Esther said, “You stay away from Bo. You keep your devils in your own pocket. Stay away.”

  nineteen

  HAHNVILLE, 1927

  FRANCOIS WAS SHOUTING TO Patrice over the roar of the motor. “Reverse don’t work. So if you need to go back, you put it in neutral and push.”

  Patrice gripped the steering wheel and wondered whether the motor was supposed to sound like that. It made her feel like her teeth might fall back into her spine. Would that sound continue the entire journey?

  Francois was sitting in the middle between Patrice and Trigger. Trigger had demanded to drive but neither Patrice nor Francois would let him. Gil and Rosie were in the back, in the pop-up rumble seat. They had to sit on top of the luggage that was strapped over the dead man. Rosie didn’t mind and Gil, well, he probably didn’t realize it and that was just as well.

  Francois went on with his instruction. “You mash the left pedal to switch gears, and if you just hold it forward, that’s slow gear. Hold that left pedal in about halfway and that’s neutral. Got it?”

  Patrice nodded.

  “Use neutral to coast. The middle pedal is reverse.”

  “And reverse don’t work,” Trigger shouted.

  “Doesn’t,” Patrice mumbled, knowing they wouldn’t hear.

  And yet Trigger corrected himself: “Doesn’t work.”

  She shot him a grin from across Francois.

  “No it don’t,” Francois agreed.

  “How do we go fast?” Trigger shouted.

  “We don’t!” Patrice and Francois replied in unison.

  Patrice was beginning to feel quite faint with the exhaust filling the barn.

  “Open them doors now,” Francois called back to the rumble seat.

  Both Gil and Rosie hopped out and swung the barn doors wide.

  Francois pointed to the steering column beneath Patrice’s grip, “To go, you give it gas with this lever on the side of the steering wheel stalk.”

  She tried it. The Ford lurched forward and Patrice’s head snapped back. “Ooh!”

  “Stop!” Francois cried.

  But he hadn’t shown her how to do that yet so they kept moving. The Ford was at least no longer lurching and it just sort of rolled out onto the drive. Gil and Rosie were standing way back against the open barn doors.

  Francois shouted, “Mash the brake! The pedal on the right.”

  The Ford halted and the occupants pitched forward. The engine died. Trigger hopped out and went for the crank.

  “Hold on, hold on,” Francois said.

  He took out his kerchief and mopped his head, grumbling.

  At least they’d made it out of the barn and into the fresh air and sunshine where the clouds had broken apart. That seemed like progress. Steam rose from the earth.

  “Close the doors please,” Patrice said to Gil and Marie-Rose.

  They closed the barn doors behind and reclaimed their positions atop the luggage and the stranger in the rumble seat.

  Patrice couldn’t help but think of Tatie Bernadette, that she’d be arriving back
here soon. It had been almost two hours now since Gil and Patrice left the service. Mother would be baptized by now, abomination that it was. And after, the parishioners would lay hands on her.

  If any of you, if any one person here lays hands on that woman, you are inviting devils!

  It still seemed unreal. Thus far the children had managed to keep their mother away by using the briar to ward her off. But they hadn’t anticipated that Maman might send a stranger or that she would get at Tatie Bernadette.

  Some plantationers had assembled in the allée, drawn by the spectacle. Patrice looked toward them, pained, knowing that they were moments away from coming up and asking what they were doing and where they were headed in Papa’s old automobile.

  Francois must have seen them, too, because he motioned to Patrice. “Listen close before I let Trig crank this thing up again because I’m tired of shouting. You use your right foot for the brake, and your left foot for the gears.”

  Patrrice thought it sounded simple enough.

  Trigger asked, “But how do we go fast?”

  “Boy, y’all are not gonna go fast, you hear?”

  “We need to at least know how it works.”

  Francois sighed. “That left pedal, if it ain’t pushed all the way and if it ain’t in the middle, then you lettin it out and that’s the fast gear. And you can give it gas on the lever up here to make it really go. But I mean it, y’all ain’t goin fast. You gotta go slow the whole ways. Now go on ahead and crank’r up again.”

  Trigger cranked. The motor reared to life. Trigger hopped back in.

  “Easy, easy,” Francois said.

  Patrice took it easy.

  Francois said, “Mash that pedal and then real gentle, do the lever here on the steering wheel. Now you goin. Now you goin. Watch the road. Always watch the road. Don’t never look at your feet. You go by feel.”

  The plantationers had circled closer in, though Patrice had barely noticed their approach. They were now backing off the road as the old Ford made lurching advances, though its movements were no longer so violent as that initial attempt. And then Patrice started to get the feel of it, and the Ford was moving smoothly but slowly forward.

  Patrice could see Eunice walking ahead in a thin calico dress. There were tears in her eyes. Patrice wondered what had upset her. Did she know? Before she could stop herself, Patrice sought inside Eunice’s heart. She found that Eunice was sad to see Patrice and the others go. How Eunice knew they were leaving for good, Patrice couldn’t guess. Maybe all those bags in the back.