Only one item sat out on her dresser and she turned her head to look at it before sleeping. The spirit box sat shoved against the wall, centered on the dresser where she could keep an eye on it. On nights that followed a troublesome day, she had often felt a restlessness in the box and she would tell it to be still. Sometimes it would. And sometimes it wouldn’t. Tonight she wouldn’t spare a word for it, but she eyed it good and hard before turning her head away. Within minutes she was asleep.
Two hours passed as Celeste slept.
Betsy stretched across the city, pounding on roof and wall, searching for the home where the child of the storm now lay listening to the storm, feeling it, on the waking side and the other. Sometimes the bear was at hand, on that other side.
“You’ve brought the storm clear through,” said the bear.
Betsy howled and shook the house, and shook her dream. “I had too,” Celeste explained.
“There’ll be distractions,” said the bear. “Just set them aside as best you can.”
The lightning flashed and flashed again and the thunder followed hard on its heels. In those instants of light that etched the boarded windows, Celeste could see the room and see the bear. It was just as things were on the other side, but also different; charged to the touch and sight and hearing. The power of Betsy, pressing against her.
Celeste listened to the mounting wind and the slapping sheets of rain. Gusts picked at the boards over the window and clawed the shingles on the roof. They sought out some small hold on the lap siding, searching for a way in. She and the bear sat in silence, watching each other. It was like, but not like, when she had been in the tree with the cub as the storm drove at them when she was a child. But that had been real where this was a dream. How odd that she had been a child facing that storm in the open while now, she hid from it inside her shuttered house, dreaming of it, yet still feeling it. A seed of doubt and fear sprouted.
“It’s important to be ready,” said the bear. “She’ll try to stop you.”
Betsy clawed to get in, then took out her frustration on the oak tree between the houses, grabbing at one of its branches and wrenching it free. Celeste recognized that ripping shriek of wood and anticipated the blow that followed. The blow from the wind wielded branch that bashed in Celeste’s window, boards, glass, sash and all. The flailing branch stabbed through and as quickly disappeared, swept away by the wind.
Something small shot across the room and struck the far wall. That small Something that once sat alone on the dresser under the window. She saw it slice across the room and strike the wall, and she saw the spirit box burst apart.
The ghost stood against the wall. Its long thin hair moved freely in the air; thin grey hair framing an expressionless face. Except for the eyes. Judging, as they had always been. Vengeful. Celeste swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood to face her, the bed between them.
“How dare you do what you did? Trying to bind me. You aren’t allowed to…,” said the ghost.
“Not allowed by whom?” Celeste interrupted.
“By whom? Listen to you talk.”
“Listen or not, doesn’t matter. You need to be put behind me. I need to be free of you.”
“Free? You think you’re free? Well, I guess that depends.”
“On what?”
“On where. Where do you want to be free? Inside your own head? I could grant you that, but I don’t see how it will make any difference.”
“Because I don’t matter.”
“You matter in your place. That’s what I’ve tried to teach you most of your life.”
The ghost slipped around the end of the bed toward her. “I remember that day when you marched into my classroom on those little flat, black feet of yours. You marched in to tell me my business. And now I find you here of a mind to tell the heavens which way to turn—which way to blow.” The cold breath from the dead lips hissed. “As though you had the right.”
Some meaningful shift in the air caught Celeste’s attention and she turned her face into it toward the broken wall; away from the ghost.
“Look at me girl. Look at me when I talk to you!” shrieked the ghost.
Outside, Betsy rushed overhead, crashing like a wave on sand and hurling whatever she could get hold of to the ground or to the heavens. She bellowed from the depths of her great lungs and her eye scoured heaven and earth alike. Something in her grip dashed against the roof of the house and every board and nail leapt in response.
“I’ll ride you through Hell’s Gate,” spat the ghost. “On through to Evermore!”
A bitter ghost, like a hurtful memory, is relentless and unreasoning. Celeste could attend to Betsy or she could endure the ravings of the ghost, but not both. She closed on the ghost even as it advanced on her, and grasped it by both wasted arms as the ghost’s brittle hands closed around Celeste’s throat.
“Who knows what this storm wanted by coming here tonight?” Celeste managed in spite of the ghost’s cold grip. “Maybe it was me. Or maybe it was you. Different winds are blowing, ghost.”
“Talk all you want. March all you want. You’ll never get me back inside that devil box!” hissed the ghost.
“I don’t need the box. This is a night for me to learn something new, build myself up where I can take on something good. This may be a frightful night, but it’s a good one too. Good, because I mean to try something I’ve never tried before. Maybe something no one has ever tried. Frightening because it’s so big…but not because you barged in. Yet here you are. Guess I asked for that, keeping you around so long, but now it’s done. I have something good to do and you aren’t part of it. So I’ll be showing you out now. Need to do a little house cleaning.”
She had the ghost to that edge between inside and out where the wind plucked at the frayed opening as if to get a substantial hold. The ghost kept her grip till the last, oblivious of the storm’s toll one her thin remains. Bit by bit she was drawn away into the screaming wind; like useless soot up a chimney. And Celeste set her own shoulder against the edge of the wall, careful not to be pulled out but careful as well not to let the ghost go free to ride the winds, free and whole. She let her dissolve until there was nothing more than the cold look of its eyes and a coldness about her own throat. And then the ghost was gone.
Boat
Many had left the city. Many more remained to ride it out—as if Betsy had wheels. When the light went out, the darkness gave the storm even greater power over someone sitting in the darkness. Her great voice seemed all the greater to anyone alone. They would know she would go by. She would have to, because that was her way; a wandering and restless giant. Her life would be fierce but short. She couldn’t remain there forever, but it felt like she could. Seconds like hours.
When the storm waded in, she didn’t come alone. She brought the Gulf in with her, crowding in on the river and the bay, parading clear up Mr. Go toward the city, washing little islands as she went, flooding the canals and lapping over the levees. Once inside, the waters raced through the streets, filling up the low spots then filling a bit more until they reached inside homes and chased people upstairs, if they had a second floor to flee to. And many didn’t.
Water slapped Celeste’s cheek and she woke at once to a dark room filled with the sounds of movement. Outside, the storm was passing but not yet passed away. Inside, the flood waters had come in through every crack and joint and sloshed in through the hole where the window had been—where she had fed the ghost to the wind. It was dark and dangerous now. This room she knew so well had been invaded by the storm and the flood.
Celeste woke cleanly and completely. Though it was dark, it was still her room and she knew where everything was, unless it had floated off. She crossed to the other side of the bed and stepped down into the dark water, hoping there were no fish or snakes lost nearby. With her hands outstretched, she found the ladder still nailed where she had left it, and she climbed it to the attic. The air was heavy with the smell of salt water and filth.
It
was even darker in the attic, if that was possible, and though her eyes couldn’t see anything but phantoms, her mind saw clearly where she had left the thing she needed most. With the flashlight switched on, the phantoms fled and she was sitting above her bedroom among the rafters. Boxes were stashed here and there, full of everything she thought was valuable and small enough to haul up with the rope and pulley set above the open hatch. Much of it was her artwork. All safe, provided the flood waters stopped rising in time.
She knew how long it would be until dawn, even without a clock. The wind was less fierce than earlier when she was locked in her struggle with the ghost. She lay, stretched her length along boards spanning some of the ceiling joists like the boards of a pier, and she stared down into the water swirling and lapping around the ladder below. The little white circle of light from her flashlight floated on the surface of the water and she watched it for some time to see if the water was rising. In the time while she lay watching, it claimed only one more rung before it stopped climbing. She watched it a while more until she felt sure it was done, and she pushed back from the edge, switched off the light and slept.
When she woke again, there was a pale light coming up from the room below, and the sound of water clop-clopping against the walls. It was morning, and it was hot in the attic. The air was wet and rank. She was stiff and got to her feet, crawling so as not to strike her head against the rafters. She worked her way toward the front of the attic and found the latch bolts holding the little door over the porch roof tightly closed against the storm. She opened it, squinting in the soft early light of the morning, and wondered if she might still be dreaming. She had seen the water rising in her room and knew that meant a flood, but even so, what her eyes looked out on now was a sight her mind couldn’t wrap itself around. Part of it had to do with how tired she was. A little had to do with looking out from a window up so high. The rest had to do with seeing her neighborhood all roofs and water. Her house was an island, as were all the houses she could see, and apart from their roofs and the top half of walls, there wasn’t much else. Directly across from her stood the little house of her neighbor; the old woman gone to stay with Aurore. And thank goodness for that! The house stood lower than Celeste’s own and was drowned almost half way up its windows. Celeste thought about what the old woman might have gone through had she stayed there—alone in the dark with the water rising…
She gasped at the sound of someone crying out nearby. Someone she couldn’t see. Then there were other more distant voices also calling or maybe answering. Without thinking of what it was she meant to do, Celeste crawled out through her little hatch onto the roof of her porch. She edged out enough to look around to her neighbor’s house to her right and saw the man and his wife perched miserably on their roof. It was the woman who was calling out; calling the name of the old woman across the street while her husband tried to keep her from getting too near the edge. Her neighbor spotted her.
“Oh, Miss Dubois!” she cried. “I just can’t see or hear anything from Old Miss Dee! I’m afraid she’s drowned in her house! Look at how low it sits in the water!”
“Calm yourself,” Celeste said. “I had her go away with a friend elsewhere in the city before the storm hit. A house with a second floor so she should be safer than you and me.”
That did calm the woman for a moment and her husband continued to urge her to join him at the ridge of the roof. But now she was freed up to worry more about her own situation.
“What are we going to do, Miss Dubois! I’ve never seen such a flood before. Maybe it’s God’s judgment!”
“More likely it was the hurricane’s doing,” Celeste said. “The water’s jumped the levees.”
“We’ve lost everything,” the woman moaned as she edged backward up the slope.
“It’s not as bad as that,” Celeste called to her retreating neighbor. “Maybe if we’d been drowned in our sleep you’d have a point. But I think the water’s come as high as it will for now and let’s hope the city can pump it all out again. It’ll be one huge mess, no doubt about it, and I don’t look forward to the smell of the house until it dries out good and proper. But for now, I’m just glad to be alive in the daylight.”
Celeste moved slowly to the other end of her porch roof and looked far down the street that was now a canal. Somewhere out there, others had not come through the storm alive. Here and there other voices called or cried. There was hammering, but whether it was someone trying to break out through their roof or not, she couldn’t tell. She thought of her people at the bakery and hoped they had all come through the night and were seeing daylight. Had the storm flooded only her little part of the city or was it all taken in by the Lake?
A gull landed on the roof across the water and it tipped its head to look at her; wondering if she might be planning to toss away some scraps it could scoop up while the local fishing was scattered and undependable. It reminded Celeste that she had put away some tins of this and that, just in case. With luck she had set an opener aside as well. But for now she wasn’t hungry and sat with her back propped against the wall beneath the gable and thought how she should have bought a little boat to keep stashed away.
As the day wore on, some people who were desperate, curious or helpful came wading along the flooded street. Some she knew and asked news of and received some back, but it was very limited and local. No one knew anything for certain though there were rumors.
“The whole city’s underwater,” said one man.
“It’s only us down here beyond the Canal!” called another man who was very angry. “I heard they blew up the levee on our side to send the water our way and keep it out of the French Quarter!”
Some were making their way to find family. Others looked to be hunting around for opportunities to pick up whatever they could find of value that was left behind. Celeste watched those folk like a hawk and they moved on once they saw her. Small, flat bottomed fishing boats started to appear; mostly people getting away with what little they could save, while others made the rounds checking in on the old and offering to take them somewhere safer. Celeste waved off those who offered her a space in the boat since she didn’t want to leave just yet. Not until she knew how things stood with her own little family from the bakery. They would know she was here. So would Aurore, who had said she would come around after the storm. But looking at the tops of a few cars just barely peaking out above the water, she knew there was no way for her to make it. This would be an evacuation by boat.
Late in the afternoon, Nathan, one of the young men from the bakery, appeared in his boat; sliding up next to the posts of the front porch like he was drawing up to a high pier.
“Sorry to be so long getting here, Miss Dubois,” he said. “You’re sort of the last stop for those at the bakery who live anywhere close by. I figured if anyone came through the storm okay it would be you.” He sagged a bit against the edge of the roof. She could almost feel the exhaustion pouring off him. “Can’t believe this has happened.”
“Can’t believe it either, Nathan. What’s the word on everyone else?”
“Okay I guess. Everyone’s safe, but Annie’s in a bad way over her grandmother. Doesn’t look like she made it, though no one’s found her yet and they know she didn’t leave.”
“I hate to hear that,” Celeste said and thought again of her old neighbor across the way. “This sort of thing’s bound to be hardest on the old people and the housebound sick.”
“Yes ma’am. Just can’t believe it. Never happened before, has it?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You want me to make my way over to the bridge and see if I can get across to George? I can do that, only I’m not sure I’d have a boat to come back to, if you see what I mean.”
“I do. No, we’ll just wait to hear and hope someone comes to get us soon. You have water and food that won’t go bad?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, but what about you?”
“I’m fine here for a few days if
that’s what it takes. But if you go out paddling around tomorrow or the next day, you might drop by just to check in.”
“I’ll do that.” He left her and paddled his small boat back the way he had come.
As the sun climbed higher, Celeste went back inside her attic and found it was bearable as long as her little window remained open. Cooler, damp air flowed up through the hatch in the ceiling. She edged down the ladder but the water would have been up above her waist inside her room so she went down to the rung where her she was ankle deep in the water and she went no further. Clinging to the ladder, she could see her room completely but the water was greenish brown and murky. Her bed and dresser were somewhere down there, maybe with a fish or two for all she knew. With care and a good stretch, she could lean across to the open transom of her bedroom door and see much of the main room. But there was little to be seen but water.
The tree between the houses had gashed open the side of her bedroom, mostly where the window was, but it didn’t look as bad in the daylight as it had the night before—when she had battled with the ghost. She half expected to see some scrap of the old teacher’s tattered dress hanging in the branches that lay in a tangle outside.
“That’ll be a mess to clear away before I can have the window fixed,” she said to herself. “But for now at least it should keep anyone or anything prowling about from getting inside.”
Fresh air was coming through freely enough, rippling the surface of the water in her room. As the fresh air pressed in, some rose up through the hatch and out through her attic window, like a chimney. “Maybe it won’t be too stifling to sleep tonight,” she said.
As the sun dropped, she went back out to her porch roof and learned what she could of how people had fared and heard what fresh rumors were spreading of conditions in the wider city. For every report that said one thing, there was often another that said the exact opposite, so she settled on believing only what the person had seen for themselves. Somewhere not far off, someone was crying pitifully, but the water did strange things to sound and Celeste couldn’t be sure where the person was or how close. She saw more and more people wading down the street, going to find a dry shelter, and suggesting she do the same. But she waved them on, thanking them for their thoughts and wishing them well. If it came to launching out to find help, she would do that at first light instead of late in the day. The thought of being out in the flooded streets at nightfall made her shudder.
Child of the Storm Page 18
