The Devil in Canaan Parish

by Jackie Shemwell

  Later in the day, after the lunch counter had closed I cornered Izzy who had come by to make the afternoon deliveries.

  “Izzy, how is your mother?” I asked. He shot an anxious look at me, the smile draining immediately from his face.

  “Uh, she, she alright, sir,” he mumbled, ducking his head to examine his shoes.

  “Izzy, you know you can tell me if something’s wrong, don’t you?” I said.

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Izzy? Israel Johnson!” I demanded, getting his attention.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Has your daddy been around again?” I asked, softer this time.

  Izzy seemed confused, began to shake his head, and then stared back at his feet.

  “I guess so, sir,” he sighed.

  “Well have you seen him?” I asked.

  “No sir.”

  “Well, did he hit your mother?”

  “I guess so, sir,” he repeated.

  “Izzy, the next time you see your daddy, I want you to come get me, you here? You come get me, and I’ll do whatever I can to help your momma, alright?”

  “Mmm hmm, I mean, yes sir.”

  Izzy kept his head ducked, so I gave him a quick pat on the shoulder, and then sent him out to make the deliveries. The afternoon went by quickly. It was the week before Halloween, and children would come after school each day to try on masks and all the costumes we sold. A woman came in with a little girl who was determined to be a witch, no matter how her mother tried to convince her to be a princess or a fairy.

  “No momma! The witch! I wanna be a witch!” she pouted, her head shaking with exasperation.

  Her mother eventually gave in, and the little girl insisted on wearing the witch’s hat out of the store, her long curls bobbing underneath the wide black brim as she skipped along.

  Before I left for the day, I put two large bottles of valium and a can of white paint in my pockets. The valium was for Sally, of course. It helped her get through the days and nights without hearing me and Melee. It was the least I could do to keep her in supply. Each evening I would put two pills on her nightstand and two more in the morning. She spent her days in bed, barely speaking. Melee continued to tend to her, bringing her food, sometimes even feeding her, giving her sponge baths and caring for her like a dedicated nurse. Sally did not complain. In fact she seemed to have formed a strange attachment to the girl, which I did not question. I only cared that Melee would be waiting for me at night after Sally dozed off.

  The white paint was for my annual pilgrimage to the cemetery. Every year, before All Soul’s Day, I would drive out to the cemetery beyond the town limits and spend a few hours tending to the grave of our lost child. Other relatives of lost ones would do the same, trimming the grass, cleaning and painting the tombstones. I knew the drive well, though I only went there once a year. Up the oak-lined gravel lane, through the main gates, the road wandered around to the left. I parked the car and walked North, passing the rows of Landrys, Martins and Naquins, and came to a small white marker, the lonely resting place of the only Palmer who would be buried there until her mother and father joined her.

  I took out the white paint, a brush, and a clean cotton rag. I wiped down the stone, trying to remove some of the grime from the last year of neglect. She would have been seven years old. Just a little older than Gracie was when she died. I wondered what she would look like. Would she have curly hair like Gracie did? Would she want to be a witch or a princess for Halloween? I brushed a coat of white paint carefully over the gravestone, dipping it into the P, the A, the L, lingering over the M, wondering what we would have named her. . .Pamela, Alice, Lucy, Maggie, Emily, Rachel. . .

  By the time I had finished, it was getting dark and the air was chilly. I shivered and pulled my jacket up around my neck, jamming my hat down over my ears and tucking my head down. I shoved my fists into my pockets, gripping the valium bottles in one hand and the empty paint can in the other. In seven years, Sally had not once gone to see the grave of her child. I wondered if she ever would and felt sad for the little lost soul.

  “I’m sorry,” I said under my breath, not knowing exactly to whom I said it.

  The wind was starting to kick up when my car hit the main road back to town. I rolled my windows up and fumbled with the stereo, hoping to find a cheerful tune. A few drops of rain splattered across the windshield, and I sighed. There wasn’t too much of a fall season in Louisiana. Summer seemed to last forever, with warm weather all the way into December at times, a brief period of frost through January, and then warm again as early as February. By May, it was summer. Leaves did not usually turn the glorious colors they did elsewhere in autumn, and their stay was short-lived, a hard rain in October or November would knock them all out of the trees. I felt that this was going to be another one of those fall-ending rains.

  By the time I pulled into the driveway at my house it was pounding down on the car, heavy raindrops, so large it was almost possible to see them falling individually. The car’s headlights were muffled by the deluge. I could barely see to pull into the garage. I ran the short distance from the car to the back porch and stood shaking, cold and wet. It wasn’t until I reached for the door handle that I noticed Melee sitting in the rocking chair.

  She was rocking slowly, her feet drawn up and her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She was staring vacantly out into the night. The same vacant stare she had when I first saw her, the same stare as when I drove her away from Meyer’s store after the arrest. The same stare as a person whose soul had been emptied, her eyes black and lifeless.

  “Melee?” I whispered, “is everything alright?”

  Without looking at me, and in a voice so low it was barely audible she murmured,

  “I have seen the devil again tonight.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I’ve seen the Vieux Diable again, awake and in my dreams. At first I thought it was as it always has been, just my imagination -- the frightened nightmares of my childhood coming back to revisit me -- but now I am sure it is not. This time, he is there, watching me from the back yard, just out of reach of the porch light, a dark figure, unmoving, his face obscured in the night.

  The first time I saw him I was taking care of Sally. I was bringing her soup that I’d made, and I fed it to her. She only eats for me now. Though I know she once hated me, now she calls for me, and I help her. I bathe her and bring her roses cut from her garden. I sit at her bedside and I tell her stories – happy ones – about Compere Lapin and Compere Bouki, and I sing to her a little. Bram does not know. He is often so cruel to her, and it frightens me, though I cannot tell him this. He comes to me every night and I give him what he wants, so that I may stay here, so that I don’t have to go back to my father.

  After I fed Sally the soup that night, she told me she was hot and asked me to open the windows and the door to the back porch so that she could breathe easier. As I peered out into the night I saw him, leaning against the garage. Bram was not home; he was working late at the drugstore. I stifled a scream so that he wouldn’t know I was there. I stood watching him for quite a while, and he didn’t move. So I shut the back door again and returned to Sally.

  “Melee,” she called, “are you there?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I assured her.

  “Don’t leave me tonight until Bram comes home, please.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  “Melee, tell me a story. I have such a headache and your stories always make me feel better.”

  I sat next to her and prepared myself to tell a story, wondering which one of Marraine’s collection I should tell her tonight, and then a thought came to me.

  “Miss Sally, may I ask you something?” I said, stroking her hair.

  “Hmm?” she mumbled.

  “Why are you so sad?”

  She didn’t speak for a moment, and then she closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Because I am lonely.”

 
“For Mr. Bram?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered, and then after a long pause, “for my child. She died.”

  “Oh, I am sorry,” I said.

  And so I told her the story Marraine had given me, so long ago, about the mother who had lost a child and the child’s candle, and how the mother had to let the child go. And I think that this soothed her, because her face smoothed out and she began to breathe deeply and for the first time in many weeks, she fell asleep without crying and without taking any pills.

  The next morning, she woke up and sat up in bed and called me.

  “Melee!” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  “Bring me my clothes. I think I would like to work in the garden today.”

  And so I helped her dress, and she did work in the garden all morning, and I heard her humming from time to time. And when it was time for lunch she ate out on her back porch instead of in her bed, as usual. I waited until Bram had eaten his lunch and then he wanted to take me upstairs to my bedroom, and I gave him what he wanted again, so that he would leave and go back to the store.

  When he left I went to check on Sally.

  “Miss Sally,” I said, as I took her lunch tray.

  “Yes, Melee?” she smiled.

  “I would like to help you, would you let me?” I asked.

  She laughed a little, but her eyes were troubled.

  “How would you help me, Melee?” she asked.

  “I know some things. . .some medicine that my Godmother taught me. I think that it might help you. It might heal you and make you able to, to have a child.” I ducked my head down and waited, afraid that she would be angry at me for saying this. Instead she became very quiet. I waited for what seemed like forever until I dared to glance at her again.

  “Yes, Melee,” she whispered. “I think that I would let you help me.”

  After that, I went to work, trying to remember all of the recipes that Marraine had taught me and hoping that I would get it right. I knew that I needed to get a plant that did not grow near here, which only grew in the wild down in the marsh where I came from. Marraine called it Devil’s Claw. I knew I could not find it for myself and I worried, wondering how I could get it. One day, an answer dawned on me.

  Gabriel had come as usual to cut the grass, and as always, I brought him a mason jar of cold iced tea. He was my only visitor -- my dark angel. I looked forward to seeing his smile, so easy and free, as though nothing bad had ever touched him. We talked about his future. He wanted to go to school one day and leave this place. It was nice to dream about a future, even one I didn’t share. I never thought of my own future. When I did, there was nothing there in my imagination -- only darkness.

  “Miss Melee!” he beamed, as I brought him the drink. “How are you today?”

  “I’m good, Gabe,” I said.

  I watched him as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, and then, winking at me, took the glass and downed it in one long swallow.

  “Thank you kindly,” he said.

  “Gabe,” I began, “I was wondering if you might do something for me?”

  He froze for a moment and examined my face, trying to guess what I had in mind.

  “Sure, anything,” he answered.

  “There’s something that I need. A plant. Can you get it for me?”

  He seemed confused for a moment, and then broke out into a laugh.

  “A plant?” he grinned, “My goodness, Melee, I thought you were going to ask me for something serious!” He kept laughing and handed the glass back to me.

  “Well, it is serious!” I protested, “I mean, this may not be easy to find.”

  “Ah. . .” he teased, “a SERIOUS plant.”

  I began to pout a little, wondering if I had made a mistake.

  “Now, now,” he soothed, “don’t you fuss. I didn’t say I wouldn’t get it. What kind of plant do you need?” he asked, trying to erase the smile from his face.

  I explained what I needed and where he might be able to find it.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, thinking, “I believe I do know that plant. I think it grows down around where I take Izzy fishing with me sometimes. When do you need it?”

  “Well,” I answered, pushing some loose hair back behind my ears. “As soon as you can get it, but definitely before the next full moon.”

  “Full moon!” He exclaimed, and then burst into another laugh, “Lordy, girl, you are crazy!”

  I turned deep red and stared at my feet, embarrassed. He put his finger under my chin and lifted my face up to his. I felt a shiver go down my back at his touch.

  “Don’t worry, now,” he murmured, “if that plant’s to be had in a twenty mile radius from here, I’ll surely get it for you.”

  “Good,” I sighed, “Thank you. Here, take the mason jar. You can bring it back to me in this.”

  Gabriel gave me another big grin and nodded, then turned back to finish his work.

  True to his word, Gabe brought the Devil’s Claw to me the next week. The full moon was just two nights away and I began my preparations. I had given Sally a little bit of an idea what I wanted to do. The only difficulty was getting rid of Bram for the evening. Fortunately, Sally took care of that. There was a party happening that night at the Landry’s house, some kind of important social function that couldn’t be missed. They both were going to go after supper, and Bram was waiting for her in the kitchen, pacing and irritated.

  “Sally?” he called at the bedroom door. “Sally, we need to get going!”

  She emerged wearing a bathrobe, her face ashen and her eyes barely open.

  “Bram, I’m sorry. You’ll have to go on without me. I just don’t feel well enough to make it.”

  “Fine, suit yourself,” he grunted, and then stomped off to the car.

  As soon as he had driven away, Sally called me to her room. I brought my bag with me and began to set things up for the cleansing ceremony. I wasn’t sure if I could remember everything Marraine had taught me, but I did think it would be enough. I turned off all the lights and then opened the window. The harvest moon was shining full and bright and fell in a pool on the hardwood floor. Where the moonlight shone, I sprinkled the floor with salt. I brought out the tea I had made with the Devil’s Claw and placed a cup on the floor. When everything was ready, I lit a single white candle and placed it on the bedside table.

  Sally was sitting on the little stool next to her dressing table, still wearing her bathrobe. As I had instructed, she had carefully bathed herself, removed all her makeup and nail polish and brushed her hair down straight and natural around her shoulders. Her eyes were large and the candle’s reflection shone in her pupils. I carefully walked over and took her hands in mine and pulled her up to her feet, then I walked around behind her and pushed her gently toward the cleansing circle. As her bare feet stepped on the salt, I removed her robe from her shoulders.

  Sally stood there, completely naked, bathed in moonlight. At first she dipped her head down shyly and tried to cover herself. I tugged her hands back and placed them at her side, palms up toward the moon. She closed her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. I then picked up the white candle and began slowly walking around her in clockwise circle. When I had completed the circle, I placed the candle down at her feet and the raised my cupped hands to the sky. Sally copied me.

  “Moon,” I said, “Come to this woman and fill her with your light. Enter her, shining in your fullness. Let your abundant power heal her and bring her all that she desires.” I nodded to Sally.

  “Amen,” she said, and she picked up the cup of tea and took a sip. I scooped up the candle and made another circle around her, repeating my chant to the Moon. Sally continued to sip the tea, saying ‘amen’ each time I completed the circle. I wasn’t sure if this was the right thing for her to say, but it seemed fitting.

  When finally she had finished the tea, I turned and slowly walked around the other direction.

&nb
sp; “Thank you sister moon,” I said. “We thank you for healing this woman. May your abundant light fill her, always.”

  “Amen,” whispered Sally once again.

  When I had completed the circle for the last time, I blew out the candle. I placed the robe back on Sally shoulders. She stood with her eyes closed for a moment in the moonlight, and then, placing her hands on her stomach, her eyes fluttered open and she smiled.

  “Melee, I do believe something’s different,” she whispered.

  “Of course it is,” I smiled back. “Everything will be different now.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, putting herself in bed, and yawning, “everything will be different now.”

  I stayed with her until she fell asleep and then went up to my own room.

  I dreamed that night of the Vieux Diable. He was leaning over my bed, his claws reaching toward me, I could feel myself choking. I couldn’t see his face, it was a shadow, a black hole, but I could hear him hissing and as his hold on my throat grew tighter and tighter, I heard him chuckling, his voice low and dreadful. I felt my lungs bursting for air, and the veins in my neck pulsing against his claws, and when the blackness began to overtake me, I woke up, gasping and screaming.

  I lay shaking in my bed, afraid to move. Would he still be there when I opened my eyes? After a few minutes my breathing returned to normal and I sat up. The full moon was still shining, pouring into my bedroom window. I stood up and went to the basin to splash some cold water on my face. When I did, I peered out into the night, down into the yard, and then I saw him again! The Vieux Diable, standing just on the edge of darkness beyond the row of bushes that lined the property. I knew the dark figure was staring at the house, searching for me, but I still could not see his face.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sometime during the autumn months, something strange developed between Melee and Sally. I do not know when it began, but it seemed more and more that whenever I would come home from work, I could find them together: Melee brushing Sally’s hair, sitting on the back porch talking to Sally, helping Sally in the garden. At first I was relieved. Sally had given over her hatred for the girl and learned to tolerate, then accept and finally welcome her. But as time continued, I found the relationship more and more troubling. Melee seemed to be pulling away from me, and I felt that during our time together she was only acting from obligation. She began to lie there, lifeless, as I kissed and caressed her. My passion was no longer mirrored in hers. I could feel her slipping away.