BREAKING CURSED BONDS

by Elisabeth Zguta

  Emilie panicked, her heart tight in her chest. Nothing made sense. Why had her father kept the stranger's visit a secret? What is he hiding from me? She needed answers. How was she supposed to find them if no one would talk to her, though? She considered the question for a moment before she realized she needn’t be quite so alone in all this. Robert might know about father’s secret visitor, or remember some family history that could shed some light. Emilie turned with resolve and hurried toward her brother's office.

  She opened his office door while knocking, and entered the room. She realized Robert was on the phone and raised her eyebrows, an invisible question. He motioned with his hand for her to come in while he finished his conversation.

  "Yes, proceed as planned. Send me an update when he pays you."

  She took a seat and waited in a big leather chair, tugging her hair and fussing with her skirt. He glanced her way and took notice of her fidgeting, and she realized she had given herself away.

  "I have to go, but I expect that update." Robert finished his call and turned his attention to her. "Hi, Em. What's up? You look worried."

  There was humor in his voice. He always seemed more alive when he was away from the house. Emilie noticed he had that look in his eyes, as if he was laughing at the world. His smile was aloof, so carefree right now, and she hated dragging him into this matter.

  "Who was that on the phone?"

  Robert chuckled and shrugged. "Nothing of concern, believe me."

  Emilie felt like a child. She wanted to believe her brother, but she was certain he was hiding something from her. "I was just with Father. He didn't look well, and he's keeping a secret. I want to know what it's about. Robert, do you know what's going on?"

  "What in God's name are you talking about, Emilie?"

  Now she had his serious attention.

  "I heard Father talking with someone in his office, upset and screaming, literally shaking with fear!"

  Robert rolled his eyes while she talked. Emilie knew he assumed that she was overreacting, this wasn't the first time he’d used that look on her. She knew it well. She slapped the corner of his desk.

  "Listen to me, I’m not exaggerating. I saw a stranger go into Father's office right after he canceled the meeting. They argued. And today the same man visited him again, but when I asked Father about him, he pretended nothing was wrong, and denies he was ever there, but he lied, the stranger was definitely there, I saw him. The man went into his office and when he left, Father was distraught."

  Emilie hoped her brother would take serious interest, but he played like it was a joke. Robert folded his hands on the desk. He had his peacemaking face on now. It amazed Emilie how easy it was for her brother to change his mood, his gestures, and his voice. He’d missed his calling in life; he should have been an actor.

  "Em, calm down. Maybe nothing is wrong. You know how tense the old man gets going through new product launches. Plus, we have this merger dangling."

  He began moving papers around on his desk, behaving like he had no concerns in the world.

  "No, Robert, it was more than that. This was different. I heard them mention Mother."

  The room went silent, except for the air conditioning that blew cool air from the ceiling vent. Robert let go of his papers and sat up straight, his face impassive. He swallowed hard. Emilie watched the muscles twitch under his eyes. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. His eyes clouded with anger, and she was entrenched in his rage.

  "Leave this alone. This is not your concern, Emilie," he said.

  "What do you mean, not my concern? She was my mother, too. Robert, please tell me, what is going on? Do you know something about this?"

  He turned away from her, got up from his chair, and headed for the door. "Leave this alone. I will talk with Father myself, please don't consider this for one minute longer. I mean it, stay out of this affair.”

  He walked out and left her standing there alone, just like Father had done. The anger oozed from Robert. She was baffled; his rage seemed somehow directed at her.

  Since Robert and Father wouldn't discuss it, Emilie decided to find the truth on her own. It was time to get answers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Home again, at last. The family estate was an old mansion built in the 1800s, back when the de Gourgues family owned major interests in the local cotton trade. It lay between the Wolf and Mississippi Rivers, where quick storms had always threatened the area. The estate wasn’t affected by the rage of these storms, however, even though a tributary of the Wolf River touched the back of the property. The homestead sat on high ground, protected from the riverbank’s overflow.

  Set back from the road, the red brick mansion featured grand columns in the front facade, supporting porches on both the main and upper floors. A unique stone water fountain was displayed on the front lawn, acquired by Robert during one of his trips to Florida. He had shipped it home as a memento. An old magnolia tree stood prominent in the front yard, with large, fragrant white blooms nested on the shiny green leaves. The tree was surrounded by a colorful array of pink azalea bushes below. The skies were bright blue and the temperature a humid eighty degrees, the moisture keeping everything fresh.

  Emilie took a deep breath, inhaling the sweetness of the Southern air. Memphis in May, what a wonderful time and place. A bird sang in a nearby tree. Emilie closed her eyes and listened. She left her car and walked, deep in thought as she passed the new ferns on the wide open porch without notice, ignoring the wicker furniture. Instead, she plodded inside to the parlor, where she dropped herself into the overstuffed gold velvet sofa. Kicking her shoes off, she pulled her hair up, laid her head back, and closed her eyes. She needed to think up a plan of action.

  Within a few minutes, an idea came to her. She ran to her room to search her father’s documents again. Her mother’s death had been the most recent, so Emilie called for her medical records first. The voice on the other end of the line informed Emilie a copy had recently been sent to their address. It seemed someone else had been checking, too.

  The victim before her mother had been her grandmother, Claudia, who died in 1962 from some type of lung disease. Emilie had never met her grandmother, and only knew of her from a few old photographs in an album that Father kept in the bottom drawer, down in the parlor. Her father never mentioned his mother, and she never thought to ask. Emilie did the math and realized that Pierre had only been ten when he’d lost his mother, too. He must understand what we felt. Why didn't he ever say anything? Searching her memories, an idea popped into her head.

  With a rush of excitement, she opened her computer and searched for websites that specialized in tracing family lineage. She answered some basic questions and provided as many names as she could recall, which weren’t many. Her grandmother's death record came up quickly as an available document. Agreeing to the terms and payments of the site, she clicked on the icon to read the public inquest report. According to the report, Claudia de Gourgues’s cause of death had never been substantiated. Emilie continued reading more results, as icons popped up with documents available. The fragments found by the website matched some of the documents in the files listed on the disc sent to her father. The genealogy of the family traced back to France in the sixteenth century. They were ancestors of the famous Captain Dominique de Gourgues.

  Emilie learned more about her lineage from the disc and website than she had known her entire life living at the family estate. She read about the de Gourgues family of centuries ago.

  In the sixteenth century, Captain de Gourgues sailed to Florida to reestablish Fort Carolina, which was just north of St. Augustine, at the mouth of the St James River, formerly May River. Approximately five hundred Frenchmen had settled near the river at Fort Carolina, where they were subsequently massacred by the Spaniards, who had a stronghold on the entire area.

  Meanwhile, Europe was embroiled in the War of the Religions, which pitted Catholics against Protestants. As a result, the King of France refused to sen
d aid to the survivors at the fort, fearing the Catholic Church might cause monetary problems for France if they supported the Protestant Huguenots. The French people, horrified by the brutal attack, reached out to help. Captain de Gourgues, a Catholic himself, sold his personal assets and used the resulting funds to travel to Florida with hired soldiers and seamen to avenge the brutal deaths of the original French Huguenot settlers. When the Captain arrived on the shores, he made a pact with the local tribe's chief, Chief Saturiwa, and the Timucuan tribe helped the effort to regain Fort Carolina and push out the Spanish.

  The French took back the fort and raised the French flag again. Captain de Gourgues and the French seamen returned to Europe, not having enough military power to take over St Augustine, the Spanish stronghold. The Captain became a hero to all Frenchmen, Catholic and Protestant alike.

  There was much more about the exploits while in Florida, but she understood the main idea: her ancestor had been successful in the liberation of the fort with the help of the natives. Emilie searched the remaining documents and found PDF images of letters, including one that mentioned the captain's wife and her early death. Another letter spoke of a son's wife, who died during childbirth at only twenty years old. None were proof of a curse on their own; all the early death accounts found were plausible, however, considering the mortality rate of those times. But it suggested a pattern, particularly since the same phenomenon that had happened to Emilie’s ancestors also happened to her mother. It had begun so long ago.

  Something must have happened while Captain de Gourgues was in America, something that started this whole curse. That’s when the deaths began.

  Her nerves were as worn as the rug she paced. Emilie tried to sort the obscure facts in her mind, to clarify the situation, but she was left with more questions than answers. The old feelings she’d experienced as a child resurfaced, that deep shadow she had always sensed. It must have existed for centuries. Confused by the history, she decided a new approach was necessary. She wanted to concentrate on information about curses, in particular, the kind inflicted upon the captain so long ago. The curse that now threatened to revisit her brother and any potential wife.

  A rush of anxiety flooded her. For a moment, she stopped breathing. Rachael is in danger if Robert is truly serious about her.

  She had to take action. The statement she’d found on the disc, made by the local man in Fayette County, seemed worth checking into. The man had claimed to be an ancestor of a family from New Orleans who had handed down stories about curses and an old magic spell believed to have the power to curse family bloodlines. There were no facts, just rants of random boyhood memories. Emilie wanted a face-to-face conversation with the man. Looking his name up in the web white pages, she found his current address and decided to pay him a visit. She grabbed her scarf and handbag, ran down the stairs, and headed for her car.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Emilie drove her car north to Route 64 and then headed east to Fayette County. She watched as scenery whizzed by until farmland occupied both sides of the road. Gazing in her rearview mirror, she admired the beautiful pink and gray skyline as the sun began to set. The GPS and road signs directed her to the middle of nowhere, leading to a small, obscure dirt drive in the tiny southern town. Trees grew to the very edge of the road. Spaced between them were gloomy, scum-covered swamp areas, most likely infested with creatures. A dark, creepy place.

  Emilie's hands trembled like an electrometer needle. She gripped the steering wheel tight to stop the trembling. A split-second streak of regret made her question the reason for coming to this awful place. Although she liked nature hikes, she preferred the open areas and had never been much for the back country. She slowed down and held her breath as she drove on. A moment later the road opened up, revealing plowed fields laid neatly between a few houses that dotted the road. Her grip eased, and she took a gulp of air and exhaled.

  She found the correct address on a mailbox that stood sideways at the end of a driveway. The house was a small ranch made of brick and gray clapboard siding in need of paint, though the place seemed homey enough. The yard was in order, the bushes trimmed and brush cleared away. The smell of the fresh-cut grass tinged with wild onion hung in the air. The side yard revealed a garden with even rows of sprouts jutting from the soil, piled into raised beds. A workshop in the back displayed tools hung on pegs screwed into the sideboard. The cicadas and bullfrogs began their nightly song. The serenade soothed.

  Emilie got out of her car and walked toward the porch. A vibrant yellow rose bush climbed a trellis tilted against the railing. The flowers emitted a subtle sweetness in the warm, moist evening breeze. She tried her best to stay calm.

  Meeting new people made her anxious, and this conversation was bound to be awkward. She even experienced people's emotions when shaking their hand, usually elusive sensations, but still uncomfortable, as if she intruded on their privacy. It had been that way for as long as she could remember.

  No matter how difficult this would be, however, she needed to get answers. She walked to the front door, determined. Her small hand knocked against the hard wooden panel.

  The door opened. Breathe, breathe, Emilie chastised herself. An older gentleman stood in the doorway. He was tall and thin, with a bald brown head and big dark eyes. He welcomed her with a pleasant voice.

  "Can I help you, Miss?"

  She recovered her manners with an ingrained response. "Good evening. My name is Emilie de Gourgues, and I’m looking for a gentleman by the name of Mr. Labue."

  His eyes opened wide with acknowledgment, and he opened the screen door so he could shake her hand. Taken by surprise, his benevolence warmed her spirit, and she sensed that Mr. Labue was a kind man. She felt the smooth dark brown skin of his hand, and noticed his weathered face and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. His smile, bright and youthful despite his years, reflected a happy soul.

  "You found him, Miss Emilie. A pleasure. Now, please go home. I already gave all the information I can. Don't be bothering with this anymore."

  He closed the screen door and waited for her to leave.

  "What do you mean, sir? I just got here. Who else has been here asking questions?"

  "Your brother was here the other week,” he explained, his head bobbing left to right as he spoke. “He asked me all kinds of questions about curses and spells. I told him I didn’t know anything about your family curse. I do know something about Voodoo, things my folks used to mention, but curses like what he talked about is more like a spell, or some kind of made up hoodoo, there’s no such curse in Voodoo, anyway. Why don't you kids just leave all this alone!"

  There was finality to his tone. Startled to learn that her brother had been there, Emilie pressed for more information. "Whatever you told Robert, you can tell me, too."

  "I told him the same thing I'm telling you, leave it alone! There's no good from this kinda talk. Only bad things happen when people start gossip of curses and spells. Please leave it alone, Miss de Gourgues! It is what it is.”

  “Please, Mr. Labue, let me tell you why it's so important." Frustrated, tears stung her eyes. "My mother died because of this curse, and I miss her every day. She was so beautiful. She used to read to us underneath the wisteria tree in the backyard. I miss the walks we took to the stables, and I miss watching her trot her favorite Paint Horse around the track. Sometimes I go to the barn, and try to visit her spirit there. Sometimes I feel her presence lingering, like she's trying to connect with me, but it fades away. She always brightened me when I was little, and I could feel things when I was near her, like she was an antenna trapping waves of verve for me."

  "Miss Emilie, I am sorry for your loss. But what do you think I can do?" The old man's face filled with sadness.

  "You still don't understand. One afternoon she fell asleep, while my little sister Michelle and I were reading poems to her, Robert Frost, her favorite poet. Mother never woke up again. She was so young. I was so young. It was because of the curse, the cur
se on my family. I need answers. I need to stop whatever is plaguing my family."

  She poured her heart out to this man, and connected with his wonderful old soul. He could help, she knew it. Finished with her plea, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The old man opened the screen door again and stepped onto the porch to join her. He looked down at her with concern.

  "I don't know anything about this family curse of yours, but I can help you get to the right person, someone who might know a thing or two about spells. Like I mentioned to your brother, my great granddaddy came here from New Orleans. They had been what you call Choctaw Freedmen. My ancestors worked as slaves for the Folsom family, on their farm. But after the Civil War, they were accepted as Choctaw. You know, from the tribe."

  Mr. Labue's voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "There was a girl with them who messed around with spells and such foolery. They all thought it was Voodoo, but it wasn't. She liked to fool them and keep them afraid of her, so that no one would take advantage. No pretty girl was safe from the boss back then. My granddaddy said she had secrets. Claimed she knew of 'spirit spells' that wuz handed down to her from her grandmammy, who learned them from the native people who lived in the woods near the old plantation they worked in Mississippi. It's supposed to be the oldest of all magic and spells."

  Emilie was hopeful. This sounded like a good prospect to get answers. "Oldest of all magic spells. Are spirit spells the same as a curse?"

  "Some people call it hoodoo because it's all mixed up. Me and most folks call it just plain silly and wrong. I still say you should leave it alone. No good comes from spells and curses. Once a person starts believing, it grows like a cancer."

  Emilie was obstinate. "What's her name, please?"

  "Their family name is Boniverre. I think they still have some folks left down in New Orleans."

  "Thank you, thank you so much. I promise your name will never come up in discussion. You don't need to be afraid of getting involved. Sir, thank you."