"Celeste!" Gabrielle screamed over the rising din, into the darkness, struggling to get to her feet as the house heaved again under a debris-wielded hammer-fall.
Answer came from the bedroom, weak but commanding. "We need to go up."
Another blow followed that came from her father’s room, cracking the wall open and shattering glass. Something raked along the side of the house outside Celeste’s own bedroom, clutching at the window casing, pausing, then helped along by more inpouring flotsam it pealed away the plywood over the window, shattering the glass in the lower sash. Light and air streamed in. Something large drove against one of the back brick piers, shearing it off, heaving the floor up before the house sagged and tipped.
The dog found her first, water already to its chin. Virgil and Gabrielle followed, moving toward the pale light from the lost window. He extended the folded stairs while Gabrielle helped Celeste to stand.
“Can you climb?” Gabrielle asked. “If not I’ll carry you up.” Shivering urgency in her voice.
“Up!” Virgil called to the dog, slapping the treads as Gabrielle steadied Celeste. The dog climbed awkwardly, disappearing into the attic.
“I’ll ride on his back,” Celeste said. She laid a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, suggesting he stoop down. “Like I would ride my father’s back when I was little. Cheek to cheek, like I was his coat.”
She fell in behind Virgil, hugging around his neck as she had done all those years back. Just came naturally. As they edged up the ladder she could feel one of Gabrielle’s hands gently pressing against the small of her back. Supporting.
They placed her on the thin mattress covering a pallet of boards, and the dog lay down beside her. Celeste could hear the water rolling outside. Felt the quivering it set off through the house.
Virgil groped about for the flashlight they’d set aside earlier at Celeste’s bidding. Then he watched the water rising through the open hatch. The glow of the flashlight lit his face.
“What if the water gets up here?” he whispered to Gabrielle.
She remembered Celeste showing her the hatch out onto the roof of the porch and opened it. The hottest air rushed out. “We get out this way.”
Celeste spoke from where she lay unmoving. Her eyes shut tight. “Won’t get high enough here to wash the transom over the door. But down around Dorgenoise it’ll be bad. So bad down there. Sitting so low and ceilings low too. Can’t get out of the way. Not enough time and nowhere to go.”
Water doesn’t lie about if it’s given somewhere to go. Somewhere, the levee had opened up and the water did what water does. Quick work. No matter what’s in the way.
By the time the fouled water stopped rising, it had claimed much of the door but left the transom over it clear. Maybe six feet of water in the house. Virgil joined Gabrielle at the hatch and looked out over the flooded Lower Ninth. They could already hear people calling. People screaming. The streets were gone. His truck was covered and the boat with it. But just maybe, he could free the boat and get the water out.
The house would stand, but not stand straight. Celeste could feel all that was wrong, but feel too, how they were safe for now. But there would be ghosts. Plenty of them. At her back, the dog lay still and damp. It’s breath even. Calming.
She could hear the sound of Virgil moving cautiously across the roof of the porch, sizing things up as she had done after Betsy’s flood. Gabrielle was seated by the hatch. Very close and still except for shivering.
“Won’t be a storm that takes me,” Celeste said.
The dog stirred. She could feel it turn its head toward her, listening.
“Celeste?” Gabrielle said.
“Won’t be a storm,” Celeste repeated. “I know that now.”
They were all alive, and that was something to be able to say. Life shouldn’t end hard, even if the life was full of hardship. And with that thought, Celeste slept.
From the heights of the Climbing Oak, Celeste could look down on the roofs of all the houses surrounding it. They looked so small that they reminded her of those little house-like vaults in the cemeteries of the city. There was no one to be seen and at first she thought it was such a very quiet place. But then she listened deeper and could hear sounds from inside those little houses. Just people talking, she thought, except that it all sounded angry or maybe frightened. The sounds of people having nightmares, or maybe a death in the family. She thought she heard her name in all the cries. Were they angry at her?
The more she listened, the louder the voices grew until she had to cover her ears to shut them out. But she kept her eyes open, because she knew in time someone would come help her down from the tree, and she wanted to be ready.
Bridge
She stood at the end of the bridge she knew as the Colossus. Beside her stood Augustin with everything he owned in a big sack slung over his shoulder, like Santa. Her aunt Beatrice was there too, but packed just enough for traveling, not for war. Celeste carried nothing.
The ship approached, trailing a plume of smoke like a banner. Its deep voice sounded and the Colossus awoke to raise itself out of the way. They bought their tickets from the man standing on the boat, a Mister Nebo, whose job it was to get folks onto the ship and to their chairs for the voyage from this side to the other.
Many were already on board and sitting in their rocking chairs. There were lots of soldiers like Augustin, but there were others as well. Mostly they were older, but she saw a few kids her age and some even younger. There was even one black bear on board that watched her like a puppy watches someone when they want to be held.
Even with so many already there, Augustin was able to get them good seats where you could see far out, and not just at the back of someone’s head. It would be awful, she thought, to sit on a ship for hours and hours with only the back of someone’s head to look at. Better still, she was right next to the edge of the ship, so she could reach out and swirl her hand in the waves, because they always came way up high when you were out on the ocean.
When they reached the end of the Canal, the locks closed in behind them and water came pumping in from the neighborhood next to it. The ship rose up higher and higher as the water pumped in from the neighborhood until you could see houses again. People came running outdoors to wave goodbye and do some shopping before the ship left, since the water would need to flood back into the neighborhood and fill it up. Everyone would have to be back safe indoors by then, she guessed.
The ship rose all the way up till it was of a height where it could steam out onto the High Seas, and Celeste looked out across those waves as the sun came up, and it was almost as dazzling as the sea itself.
She looked at her brother. “I’m ready to see the other side.”
“And that’s how it works,” he said.
So they sailed away from home, and the sea smelled strong and not as good as she hoped it might. Sometimes the waves coming up to be touched glistened with rainbow colors; tempting, but wrong too. She would fold her hands together in her lap until the good water returned. Water just stretching out forever.
Seemed that no matter how many came on board the ship, there were always chairs enough to accommodate. Mr. Nebo saw to that. Surprising to see how many people were swimming about. Mr. Nebo helped all who wanted aboard to find a chair. Find a way to the other side.
She’d been watching the waves and the people swimming about, when she realized she was alone. The chairs for her brother and aunt were empty. But the bear was standing near, watching her.
“Where’d they go?” she asked the bear, since it seemed to be paying attention.
“Not far,” said the bear.
“Rather not be alone,” Celeste confessed. “Think you could show me where they went.”
“I’ll walk with you,” the bear replied.
Celeste nodded at that. The deck ran straight back as far as she could see, lined all the way with porch after generous porch, like viewing stands, each with a neat roof, propped up with posts, sporti
ng wave-like brackets or just hovering out like a cap’s bill. Familiar smiles and waves greeted her as she passed, and she waved and spoke kindly in return, whether she could recall them or not.
Where the sun was too hot, the Live Oaks reached their long arms clear across the deck to shade the way, but careful not to block the breeze since the air was thick and needed to move. The Gulf had been worked hard and was still panting to catch its breath. The railing dripped.
“The heat doesn’t bother me much,” she said to the bear. “But I suppose you’re mighty uncomfortable with all that fur.”
“I’ll be fine,” said the bear.
They walked on together, and the porches ended. The deck of the ship was now that of a bridge that stretched out from day to night; long and long across the water. Straight and flat like the distant horizon.
“Boats are a lot like bridges,” she observed for the bear’s benefit. “Same with trains and streetcars. There’s somewhere you are and somewhere you need to be and they all get you there, like a bridge from here to there.”
“And maybe bring you back again,” the bear offered.
“Maybe.”
The bridge rose up so high that the water below was pale as mist.
“Can’t say I like being up so high without a branch to hold onto and leaves to keep me company.”
The climb was gentle but it still taxed her breathing. She slowed a bit and the bear matched her pace. But at the very peak, she paused to let her breath catch up while she admired the high, proud sun, shining flat down on the bright bridge and a dark host of fleeing clouds that had crossed it before them. High noon maybe. And how far might she get before that proud sun plunged itself into the water and let the night splash up and all over the sky like a rich wash of ink or watercolor?
She went far enough for the bridge to run down, and that downhill walk was just as tough a go as the uphill side. Her knees ached and she worried she might pitch forward and roll the rest of the way. She worried, but without complaint to the bear. It was being thoughtful over something and she sensed it might be some private concern, so she didn’t pry.
At a crossing in the road, they found an old ghost barring the way forward, so without a word, they took the way around her; the longer way but one more fortunate. Mr. Nebo came rattling along in an old spindly sort of truck and offered them a ride, just when she’d thought she might be running out of steps forward on her own two aching feet.
He carried them on to that crossroads where the old church steeple still lay crumpled on the ground, but there was no old man around to pick up the canned food strewn about, so Mr. Nebo helped her gather some of those up and go find the Twins where they lived under the big Magnolia tree. A welcome rest after a long day of walking. She sat beside the bear, tracing the shape of its ear and listening to the Twins, and Augustin, and even her Aunt Beatrice talk in soft tones about lovely things as the candles burned and the air hung still, and the sun set among the felt-backed magnolia leaves.
But the candles burned low and burned out. All the voices fell silent and another road opened up before her. Only the bear was at her side, but there was reluctance all about it—thicker than its thick coat.
“Thought I was done with the road for a while,” Celeste said. “And none of my aches and pains have gone away.” She rubbed her hands together. “Feels like they’re piling up all over. Still, there’s this road and it feels like its mine to walk.”
“I believe that’s so,” said the bear. “But not a road I can share with you.”
“So I’ll have to walk it alone?”
“It seems so.”
“What if I lose my way?”
The bear looked at her and not the road, and considered long before answering.
“If you get lost, I’ll come looking for you, and I won’t stop looking till I find you.”
“That makes me feel better,” Celeste said. “Not a lot, but some.”
This was a hard and dark road, though the path was as smooth and straight as could be. Nothing to trip over, but nothing joyful to look at either. Too little light to bring life to any color or true shape to anything lining the way ahead. Whatever sort of neighborhood she was passing through, it was none she knew. No porches or tall windows she could make out, but she suspected there were doors of a low, dark and open sort. There was something familiar about these small houses, but something wrong as well.
“Cemetery,” she whispered low enough, she hoped, not to wake anyone. “Cemetery with all the doors wide open,” she added, but only thinking it this time.
She’d walked through a good many of those grand, walled in cemeteries back home in her day.
In her day. And when was that?
All of her squinting couldn’t help pick out a familiar set of tombs from any of the cemeteries she used to visit. St. Louis, Lafayette off in the Garden District, even St. Roch where the old ghost had cursed her long ago.
How long ago?
“Back when you were just a little girl,” said a voice from one of the dark but open doors. “Long way back, but before I had my dead-legs under me good and proper. Lord! If I had known then what I know now…”
“What might you have done differently,” Celeste called to the ghost, expecting some sort of contrition even at this late date.
“Nothing of any benefit to you, girl,” the ghost spat. “Just you mind who has seniority here—and always will have. One nice thing about being dead is that you’re dead for good, so the years just pile up to my credit.”
Celeste kept up her slow pace along the smooth path, hoping she might leave the ghost behind, but the ghost’s voice called out from yet another tomb a little ways farther along, maybe sensing Celeste’s discomfort with all those little open doors.
“On the Other Side, they keep these all closed up tight like they mean to keep us in our place, but on This Side there’s an open door policy. Just find you a place and move on in, but not around here for the likes of you! Keep yourself moving down the road. There’s a place for you and mind you stick to it. Don’t be disturbing my peace!”
The path through St. Open Door’s cemetery stretched on endlessly, or looked like it might, but just as doubts about it entered her head, another voice, familiar but more welcome than the ghost’s, spoke from just ahead. Ghédé Nebo sat outside an open tomb with his long legs stretched out clear to the path.
“Don’t worry so about this path you’re on Miss Celeste,” he said. “I tend to it mighty carefully, even if it’s not of my own making—and never mind who came up with it either.”
“I wasn’t concerned with that, Ghédé Nebo. Just concerned how long it might be and how long I might have to be on it.”
“It’s never too long a path to walk, and never difficult to follow. Always brings the traveler straight to their very own door.”
“So it will lead me to a place that’s my own, just like the ghost has a place of her own? A new home for me from here on out? Is that it?”
“The here-on-out part is sort of up to the traveler, Miss Celeste. You can content yourself with it or not once you get there. All up to you.”
Since her feet seemed bound to carry her on and on without stopping until she found that door of her own, she left him where he sat.
By little measures the weak light grew weaker still, dying altogether at last before a simple opening, square and true, astride the way ahead. She would have to enter and hope it was only a gateway, with another further along. A hope that would need to hold up through maybe a long darkness.
But under that weight of darkness, her feet would go no farther as if they knew the path was ended and it was time to rest. She let herself stretch out on the floor and found it was not too hard for comfort, and maybe right for sleep. A good long rest that might carry away, at long last, the great and ancient load she felt.
Stale, unstirred air. The press of total darkness against her eyes like bandages. Muffled sounds from near, but not near enough to reach out to; like voi
ces beyond, or the movements of things in the earth.
She rose from where she lay and felt an urgent need to feel the movement of air on her skin, but where was she? She couldn’t remember, except for talk of This Side and the Other. With her arms and her fingers outstretched, she crept forward through the blackness until, at last, her fingers found a yielding barrier like a web, but tighter. Not fine like good material for the clothes she would make for herself, but coarser stuff, like something a careless or unfeeling person would select for her. Like poor, coarse cloth. Like a makeshift shroud.
This thought crashed in on her like awakening, and she began to panic, pushing against the material but making no headway. She needed something to cut through with, like a knife or scissors, and began to feel about—feeling for something she sensed was supposed to be near. Her hand came across it, more or less where she expected, and she gathered her wits enough to stab the knife through the fabric and slice sideways, left to right and then upward until she knew she had made an opening of a size that would allow her through. But through to where? Didn’t matter. She would be out.
But crawling out was a struggle, and she was exhausted again on the other side. It was a hard place and the air was not much fresher, but there was at least that small bit of movement to it. Just a breath of it. A bit more life. She leaned against the outside wall of what had been her prison and wondered what epitaph might be carved there. Her fingers felt along the surface in search of it, only to stop after a while. There was nothing there. Nothing with meaning. She lay outside and waited for strength to come, and it seemed a long wait.
The wall offered no comfort but the free air flowing over her unsheltered right side was becoming too cool and she began to shiver. There’s dead and there’s just outside of dead and the latter wasn’t much better than the former, without any hope or strength to let her enjoy the difference. You could still be cold and lost, just outside of dead. But something slid up beside her to hold that cold off. She shifted to lean against it instead of the uncaring wall.
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