Gabrielle could see how it was. Celeste wasn’t strong enough to leave just yet and there wouldn’t be time later. She needed to move quickly.
“Can I at least pack up your artwork and anything else you want to keep safe? I can take it to the gallery. It would be safer there on the upper floor.”
Celeste nodded. “This.” She tugged on the edge of the quilt, and began to shift so it could be taken from around her and folded up. “Trunk in the spare room too.”
It took little time to get it packed away in the car. Gabrielle was reluctant to leave, but there was no time for delay. She left Celeste with some bread in case she was hungry. There was no more soup.
The bread wasn’t stale, but it wasn’t fresh either. It also wasn’t chicken soup, which was a relief. The butter helped and the water was better than anything else she could imagine drinking. So tired. She closed her eyes and rolled the bread around in her mouth, and the taste should have brought back a long and free flowing stream of memories, but it didn’t, because they weren’t there for her. Katrina had them.
“You’ve stirred the pot again,” said that always joyful voice. Ghédé Nebo, back for the last act, she reckoned. At least he was still there. Strange, that of all things, he seemed most clear in her memory.
“I tried,” she confessed.
“Guilty as charged and unrepentant as ever,” he laughed. “Always liked that about you, Miss Celeste. Still, looks like she means to pay us a little visit just the same. Maybe not as persuasive as you used to be.” The mystère took a seat opposite her and propped his long legs onto the edge of the table.
She looked at his one rolled up pants leg. “Expecting a flood?”
“There’s a hefty wall of Gulf water being delivered this way Miss Celeste, so maybe I am. Could be, very likely. Mr. Go standing there with open arms.” He eyed her tall glass. “What’s that you’re drinking?”
“Water.”
“Maybe a bit of that wine you keep in the cabinet would pick you up a little bit,” he suggested. “I’d join you in a glass too, even though it’s not my first choice, but it isn’t healthy drinking alone. Given how weak you are, I’d be happy to fetch it.”
Celeste rose from her chair with some effort. Guests don’t serve. She remembered that from somewhere. She poured herself a little, but about two fingers more for him. He watched her sip hers down before draining his own. Not very proper, she thought, but she wouldn’t dare say so. He departed soon after. Drink and run, but she knew he might be busy soon. So she sat there for a time, alone with her drifting thoughts as the rising and falling winds brushed the sides of the house like full and swirling skirts at a big dance. Her mind wandered from her old and weary frame.
The door opened and her mother entered, looking tired and a little wild about the eyes. Fear maybe, given the approaching storm. Her mother looked at the two empty wine glasses. “Someone’s been here?”
Celeste knew she shouldn’t have been into the wine, but if it was just part of socializing with a guest, maybe it would be alright. “Mr. Nebo dropped by.”
Her mother glanced around, expecting to see someone still there.
“He’s gone,” Celeste explained.
“Are you feeling better?”
“Feeling better?” The question didn’t make sense. It had been a busy morning and she was just sort of getting ready for something else though what it was, she couldn’t recall.
Her mother wasn’t there. Gabrielle sat behind Ghédé Nebo’s empty glass and sagged onto the tabletop with elbows wide, exhausted and fearful, wondering what state Celeste was in.
“I thought you left,” Celeste said.
“I took your things back to the gallery. Put them up safe with everything else on the upper floor. Should be okay there till after the storm.”
“Thought you would be too. Hurricane’s coming in. Won’t be safe to be out much longer.”
“I’m not going back. I’m riding it out here with you and I’ve brought along a friend. There’s water and other things I need to bring in from his truck.”
Celeste was shaking her head.
“You had that attic hatch put in for escape from a flood,” Gabrielle said. “So I figure we’re as safe here as back at my place. And we can look after each other through the worst of it. Help each other keep our spirits up.”
Celeste’s eyes closed, and she drifted off somewhere. Not the other side. Seems she’d forgotten how to get there. Off into some boxed in limbo—some unknown anteroom.
Virgil
A young man, Gabrielle’s friend, waited outside beside his truck, waiting for Gabrielle to return with the old woman she hoped might still leave, but he could tell that wasn’t going to happen. Knowing that, and knowing he wouldn’t leave without Gabrielle leaving too, he’d brought a few things of his own along. Precious little, since he was what they called a starving artist. Just his truck, his boat and his dog. Like some blues song. No extra clothes. If things got bad, it wouldn’t matter much whether his underwear was clean tomorrow or not. He smiled at that thought—a whole bunch of “accidents” might be in store for a whole lot of folks who didn’t leave. But he stopped smiling when a man driving a pick-up, empty in the back end, slowed on passing. Slowed and stopped to have a word.
“Nice boat,” the man said, eyeing the aluminum fishing boat resting in the back of the young man’s own truck. Eyeing the boat, but also the big black dog in the front seat. There was something just a little too eager in how the man checked out the boat. Not admiration, but coveting.
“Thanks.”
When the other man drove away slowly, eyes on his rear view mirror, the young man fished a padlock and chain out from under his seat and leashed his boat to the truck bed and the front porch which he’d back up to for ease of transfer. His father had given him that boat and he wasn’t planning to lose it to someone with quick hands and a truck.
Gabrielle came out empty handed and saw her friend testing the chain.
“You really don’t have to stay here, Virgil. I can manage her. She can’t be moved.”
“Unless there’s a problem with me staying, I’d rather stay. Now, if she has a problem with having me sleep over, I can stay in the truck. It’s passing us on the east so how bad could it be?” He smiled and grabbed some of the bottled water out of the truck. “But I hope she doesn’t make me do that. Maybe she’ll let Samantha stay inside.” He glanced at the dog, still waiting patiently in the front seat.
“In her state, she won’t mind either one of you.” Gabrielle dragged out another box from the truck. “Let’s get all this inside before the rain starts up again.”
While there was still light, while there was still anything left of that last day, Gabrielle and Virgil busied themselves with an inventory of provisions and placing all of it where they could find it in the dark, and up where it would be above the flood. Plywood was over the windows.
Celeste was comfortable enough seated at the table; surprisingly stable there in the straight back chair with no arms to prop against, especially as weak as she was. She had accepted another blanket as a stand-in for her quilt, since her weakness had left her cold. The dog, Samantha, curled up before her on the floor.
Once it was dark, Gabrielle checked on a dozing Celeste, then sat out on the front porch with Virgil a while longer. Somewhere, a door was being slammed by the wind; sucked open and slammed again, over and over without rhythm. Things skittered across the yards or down the street, bits of trash, an aluminum can or a plastic garbage bin. Lights still burned on the porches of some houses, but the greater glow of the city off to the west, beyond the Industrial Canal was still shining up on the underside of the pressing clouds. They went back inside, taking the chairs with them. The wind pushed hard, impatient and rude, snatching the knob from her hand and slamming the door against the wall. She got it closed and looked across at Celeste who only stirred and whispered. “It’s safer here. Just stay put.”
She opened her eyes and saw G
abrielle’s face; focused on it and recognized her with difficulty. The wind pressed against the plywood covering the window and Celeste cut her eyes that way. “She’s not here yet,” she said softly, and Gabrielle strained to hear her over the wind.
“No, not yet. Not until morning.”
“Pushing the tide in,” Celeste said. “Over the low parts. Over the wetlands. Passing us on the east. Not by much.” Celeste sat with her eyes closed as if speaking from inner visions.
“It looks that way. Maybe we’ll only get wind and rain.”
“It was too late,” Celeste whispered.
“Could you eat if I fix something? Might be good to have a hot meal now in case the power goes out.”
Celeste nodded. It wasn’t the Celeste she knew and Gabrielle’s heart sank. After they ate and she cleaned up, she offered to help Celeste off to her bed.
“You’ll be more comfortable there.”
Celeste shook her head. “Rather be in here to receive guests.”
The statement worried Gabrielle, since it sounded disconnected from reality. She remembered how her own mother got that way near the end. “Who are you expecting?” she asked reluctantly.
But Celeste appeared to drift and did not answer. She was waiting, and Gabrielle held her own watch.
Visitors
Gabrielle tried to distract herself with refinements of their emergency plans. Exhausting herself mentally as she second guessed over and over, or took mental side trips down this or that nightmare scenario, all of it complicated by Celeste’s condition. At one point, Celeste emerged from her fog and appeared to anticipate Gabrielle’s anxiety, reminding her young protector of what precautions Celeste had already put in place long ago.
“The house is strong,” she said softly, but with perfect clarity. “The storm’s knocked down a bit. Not as strong as over water.”
But as another strong arm of the storm passed over them again, and the winds rose wailing, shrieking and moaning, Celeste sank back into that middle world without warning. They each had their place to be for a time.
Hateful voices filled the air outside. Bodiless things, wind riding spirits, maybe waiting to be born that very night for good or ill, and beside them rode the bitter dead, led for sure by the ghost of the teacher as she spat her evil down at Celeste. Raw hatred without even the decency of words to carry it. Sheer glee at the prospect of mayhem.
“Maybe they passed away in storms,” she confided to Ghédé Nebo. “Maybe my fault.”
“Maybe so,” he said. “I get most souls directed on to a proper After Life, but there are always those who feel they have unfinished business. Some do and some don’t.” He looked at her and then to the ceiling. “Guess I could always go see if there were any new takers ready to give up the ghost as they say.” He left her.
Marie sat in his emptied chair, sewing. Bernard was seated at her side, very close but careful not to crowd her work. It looked familiar somehow, but not enough to hold onto and reach deeper.
“You were born out of the gentler side of the storm, remember?” Marie said.
“I try to.”
“It’s true, because I was there. Never a more peaceful child born into this world that I ever knew. Came to make the world more peaceful just by being here, like even a drop of honey can make a bitter brew of coffee just that little bit less bitter. You melted away a good measure of my Sadness, many a time. Not all of it, but a good measure. You, Bernard, Augustin, all together couldn’t have taken it all way because there was another measure that had to stay. It was part of me, twined in with love and the rest.”
Bernard rested his broad hand on her shoulder as he always used to do when she’d start talking this way. An acknowledgement, or reassurance maybe. There were never words that went with the touch. He looked at Celeste with those eyes that had seen so much.
“Things begin and things end and there’s a time for both,” he said. “Part of being wise is feeling when it’s time for the one or the other. Feels to me like it’s about time for both. Time for ending and a beginning. How does it feel to you Celeste?”
“Feels that way to me too.”
Gabrielle heard these words pass Celeste’s lips, but like a dreamer speaks. Whatever it might mean, wherever she might be, there was no cause for waking her. The house was standing whole and sound and true against the increasing wind. Debris rattled against the walls like fists, but she was up to that. When the power failed, Virgil was ready with the kerosene lamp and Gabrielle lit the candles.
In the shifting, dancing light of the little flames, Celeste, wrapped in her cloak-like blanket and motionless, looked ancient. For a time she seemed to notice her surroundings, looking at the table, the bright lamp and the bear, lying on the floor before her. She looked at the bear and it looked at her, waiting for her to speak.
Like it was story time.
“I was brought by a storm with no name. That’s what I was always told.”
She spoke and the others listened. The bear listened too.
“Always liked bears—since I was a little girl. That much I remember.” Her eyes drifted to the light of the lamp. “Bears are great dreamers. Someone told me that once, but not sure who.” She looked again to the bear. “So what sort of dreams do you have? Maybe I was never told that part.”
“I dream of you,” said the bear.
Such a nice thing to say, but was it just a bear’s politeness or was their recognition?
“I’m Celeste. Do you remember me?”
“Always,” the bear assured her.
Up
Gabrielle woke. The power was out, but by the light of the kerosene lantern she could see the dead clock on the wall. All of her preparation, and she had forgotten a battery powered clock. She rose quietly. Celeste was still asleep, and she checked on her first. Checked that she was still breathing. Walking softly, she went from window to window until she found one that had a large enough gap between the plywood to peek through. She had to open the window because the glass was grimed and spattered.
What she could see was little enough. It was morning. She was up early as a rule so she could recognize an early morning, even a clouded one. She could see other houses still standing; even a neighbor’s small outbuilding or garage. If these smaller houses like Celeste’s had come through in one piece, maybe the city had come through fine. Dodged a bullet.
Behind her, Celeste sighed and muttered in her sleep. “Through the walls,” she said.
Gabrielle returned to her side, waiting to see if she would wake.
It was like a dream, only Celeste couldn’t see it was so. Like hearing a song she recognized, but with no idea where she’d heard it. Sensing things from everywhere, and all of it bad. Gifts from a heartless ghost or cruel childhood.
The waters were herded toward the low shores by the hurricane, drowning the wetlands and outer islands, sweeping up like silent assassins toward the barriers, seawalls and levees, clambering up in the darkness and in irresistible mass, while the frightened and weary city folk hunkered down miserably in the stifling heat and darkness of their homes, listening to the wind but thinking of the dark and silent water. It tested the strength of the cities walls everywhere and in every way. It leapt to the top of those that were too low, and searched for the bottoms of those that might run too shallow—mining for a way in, all the while pressing against them like a horde. Moving fast. Shoved down the funnel toward every weak spot.
“What was that?” Gabrielle whispered to herself as she peered through the joint between the plywood like a prisoner hoping for some glimpse of life outside the cell.
Virgil was at her elbow, also trying to see. “Thunder?” he asked. “Maybe a transformer blowing.”
“It’s come through,” Celeste confided, also whispering. “Mr. Go’s opened the back door, just like for Betsy.”
“Mr. Go?” Gabrielle said. She turned back to that little view out the window. There was movement. All of it was wrong. She felt a sudden clutching in
her gut and a wash of cold down her back.
“Quickly,” Celeste said. “The water’s coming. Washing away Jourdan. Washing it all away.”
But Gabrielle froze. “Listen. What is that sound?” she asked.
A discordant symphony was playing. Percussion, shrieks and scraping, like barrels being bounced and wrenched by giants to get at what’s inside.
What was strange to Gabrielle was not to Celeste. The storm, passing them on the east, was shaping something she had lived through before. She felt it even as weak as she was. Even drained and muddled as the lifting sickness had her, every sense was assaulted now, shaking her. As Gabrielle and Virgil puzzled over the distant sounds, carried through and over those of the storm, Celeste rose, unnoticed, and moved to the dark bedroom. Her hand reached for the cord hanging from the ceiling and found it, grasped the piece of wood attached to its free end, fashioned to fit her two hands, and she pulled down, sinking to the floor, using her own small weight to bring down the access stair to attic. Had to be done now, or the house might bind it closed and no amount of tugging would free it. Once what was coming arrived, nothing in the house would be straight and true.
Betsy had been tame compare to this. Old Mr. Douglas would be saying he told us so, had he still been around. Feet of clay all over the city.
Flood waters scooped up and drove a wall of wreckage outward from the breach; homes and lives swept up and away. Spreading up and outward across the Ninth, eating it up. Dark water armed with ruin.
Rising.
Virgil breathed in the changed air. “Shit,” he hissed. “Salt water.” He grabbed Gabrielle by the arm, pulling her away from the window.
The dog barked.
Gabrielle was dropped to the floor as the first blow landed. Virgil was pitched against the table, knocking the candle over, extinguishing the one light they had. Almost at once the waters were in the house, spreading up through the boards.
Child of the Storm Page 25
