Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy

by Nancy K. Duplechain

  She looked at him with a knot in her heart. “It probably doesn’t mean anything. I dreamed all kinds of crazy stuff before. None of it came true.”

  Jonathan hugged his knees to his chest and sat quietly. A minute later, they heard footsteps behind them and turned to see Peter coming their way.

  “Your grandma told me you were back here,” he said, stumbling over a branch. He adjusted his glasses and said, “She told me to tell you that it’s too cold out here and we can only stay out for another fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “We’re not having any luck anyway. All the turtles are hibernating. We can go play in the house if you want. I have a bunch of board games.”

  Peter looked out on the bayou and grinned. “This is pretty cool.”

  “You never saw a swamp before?” said Jonathan.

  Peter shook his head. “I’m from Springhill. We don’t have this kind of thing there. We have a lake nearby, but nothing this cool.”

  “Me and Lyla can do some really cool stuff. I can pick up this log and—”

  “Jon!” Lyla stared at him, her eyes threatening.

  “Oh, I forgot,” he whispered quietly to himself.

  “What’s he talking about?” said Peter.

  “Nothing,” said Lyla.

  “He said he can pick up that log y’all are sitting on.”

  “He was just joking around. You wanna go play some games?” She got up and motioned for Jon to follow her.

  “It didn’t sound like he was joking. What cool stuff can you guys do?”

  Lyla turned to Jonathan and stared at him again and pursed her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jonathan, frowning with his shoulders slumped.

  She marched toward the tree line that separated the bayou from the sugar cane field that was next door to Maw Maw Clo’s house. “Y’all come on. I think I have all the pieces for Monopoly.”

  Jon trudged after her.

  “I can do something pretty cool, too,” said Peter.

  They stopped and looked at him.

  Peter raised his right hand and narrowed his small blue eyes, staring at his palm. His sandy hair spiked up, and in a matter of seconds a ball of electricity the size of a baseball hovered over his palm. He grinned at his work. “Can you guys do anything like that?”

  Lyla, awestruck, said, “Not like that. No.”

  He closed his palm and the ball disappeared.

  “Wow!” said Jonathan, grinning. He ran up to Peter. “Do it again!”

  “Jon,” said Lyla, but she wasn’t scolding him, only wanting him to be cautious. Maw Maw Clo and Aunt Leigh had made them swear to never tell anyone about their powers. Now seeing someone else—a kid like them—who has a power, it felt more like a relief. For the first time in a long time, she felt she could possibly have a friend to talk to, someone close to her age who could understand.

  “I can do better than that,” said Peter. “Stand back.” He raised both his hands and aimed for a low-lying branch of a nearby cypress. A long, electric stream of blue shot from his fingers and wrapped around the limb.

  “Wow,” said Jonathan in awe. He moved closer to Peter, reaching out his little hand to touch the stream of electricity.

  “Jonathan!” cried Lyla.

  The second Jonathan touched it, he flew backward onto the ground. Peter was also knocked down. He sat and shook his head, not sure what happened.

  Lyla rushed to Jonathan and shouted, “Jon! Wake up!” She shook him and tapped his cheek.

  He didn’t move.

  “Jon!”

  “Oh, man, I’m so sorry!” said Peter.

  Lyla’s chest and lungs tightened. She had a hard time breathing as panic set in. She felt for his heartbeat, but there was none.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she whispered.

  “Is he breathing?” said Peter.

  Lyla put her ear to Jonathan’s mouth. No breath escaped him.

  Forcing herself to gain composure, she did the only thing she could think of. She placed her hand over his heart again. She closed her eyes and prayed quietly. Everything around her—the birds chirping, Peter beginning to panic, the breeze rattling the branches—faded into nothingness as she poured her concentration into Jonathan. Her hands began to heat up. No pain, but hot as coals in a roaring fire.

  She felt his heart beating again, and his eyes fluttered. She looked up, startled to see tall, translucent beings floating away from Jonathan. Something was different. Something had changed. But she didn’t know what. She just knew she had done something for Jonathan that she couldn’t do for her parents.

  3

  Linked

  Its paws thundered upon earth, scattering fallen leaves, dodging low branches, gaining on the hare. In just a few seconds it caught up with it and pounced, rolling over only once with the hare caught in its teeth. There was a loud squeal, and then it was over.

  It put the hare down and used its fangs to rip the pelt off to get at the tender meat. When it was done, it licked its paws. The once solid brown fur now had sparse white hairs throughout, which were stained red for the time being. That would wash off later in the bayou.

  It lay for a few minutes in a patch of shade, feeling satisfied and content. But it heard something far away, near the bayou. It sounded like humans. Once in a while they came here, but not often. It had been months.

  It trotted up to the far edge of the water and cocked its pointed ears toward the unmistakable sound of children’s laughter. It watched them—two boys and a girl—for a few moments and wondered why they were out here alone. It soon lost interest and turned to leave, but the wind shifted just then, and a scent made it stop in its tracks. There was no mistaking the scent of an ancient bond.

  Part III

  A Dark Legacy

  “There is no death.” Those words echo sometimes, just as I’m about to fall asleep.

  1

  Bullies

  I walked up to the Formica-topped desk and patiently waited for the secretary to finish stapling papers together. She had noticed me enter. In fact she had seen me through the glass wall of the office when I entered the building. Even from the main entrance, I noticed her lips purse and her shoulders droop. Yes, Colleen La Chance knew I was waiting, but would not lift her frizzy, graying head from her paperwork until she knew that I knew she was good and ready to acknowledge my presence.

  I took a deep breath and drummed my fingers on the chipped countertop. On the front of the counter was a wooden slab that served as a border for the Formica. On it, some kid had drawn a very tiny and crude likeness of Colleen, having the body of an elephant and the feet of a rodent.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw a petite blonde who was probably in her mid-thirties and looked like she worshiped the sun or at least the tanning bed. She still had on her sunglasses and was furiously texting on her phone. I supposed she was the mother of the boy.

  “Hello, Miss Leigh,” said Colleen. “I see you’re back again.” I saw the corner of her mouth trying to smirk. She was showing considerable constraint. I, on the other hand …

  “Well, if the school would do its job and properly punish the bullies, then I wouldn’t have to keep coming back,” I said, cocking my head to one side, daring her to counteract.

  “Bully?!” scoffed the blonde. I whirled around to see her push her sunglasses up on top of her head. “From what I understand, that niece of yours is the one who’s the bully.”

  “Maybe she wouldn’t have to fight if you would just teach your child to be a decent human being instead of picking on her.”

  Blondie stood up, ready to get in my face, when her phone went off with an incoming text. She looked down at the message. “Damn it! I don’t have time for this. I need to be somewhere right now, but instead I have to come down to this school to pick up my son because of your niece!”

  “It takes two to fight, sweetie,” I told her.

  “No,” she retorted. “That little girl just keeps getting int
o trouble.”

  “That little girl has been through more than you can possibly imagine, so back off!”

  “Ladies, please settle down,” said Colleen, but I know she secretly liked the drama.

  The door to the principal’s office opened then, and out walked Principal John Davenport with a child flanking either side. Lyla’s long brown hair was wild and tangled in a couple of places. One of her eyes had a dark semi circle around it. Aside from that, she looked mostly okay. The other boy, however, had two black eyes, a purple bruise on his left arm and a bandage on his cheek. It was clear who won the fight, and that made me a little proud, though I’d never tell Lyla that.

  Blondie rushed over to her son. “Honey, are you okay?” He shrugged off his mother’s embrace.

  “I’m fine,” he said, embarrassed.

  I held out my hand for Lyla. She came to my side, but she wouldn’t let me put my arm around her, either. “You okay?” I asked her. She shrugged and stared down at the floor, breathing hard, like a caged animal wanting to break out. “I’m parked right outside the door. Go wait by my car.” Lyla did as she was told.

  “You both need to sign them out,” said Colleen. She forked over a clipboard with a sheet on it. Blondie signed out her little angel, and I signed out Lyla.

  Blondie left with her son, and I started to follow, but Mr. Davenport stopped me. “Miss Benoit, that’s the third time Lyla’s been in a fight. According to the rules, she has to be suspended.”

  “Suspended?! For fights that she didn’t even start?”

  “It doesn’t matter if she started them or not. If she was being picked on, she should have told—”

  “She did! When that girl Taylor or whatever her name is and Logan picked on her for a month before I could pull it out of Lyla what was bothering her. When she finally told me, I told her to tell the teacher. She did, and nothing was done about it! Then more kids started teasing her. She never hit them until they started getting physical with her—dropping leaves and dirt on her when she was sitting down reading quietly to herself. Then they started throwing things at her, like empty soda cans—”

  “Yes, we know. You’ve told us more than once. And, like we told you, if Lyla isn’t going to identify those who did this to her, then there’s nothing we can do. And she told me that you told her it’s okay to fight back.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “And, that’s not the way to go about things. She needs to learn to follow the rules, which she could have done by reporting everything to us.”

  “She needs to learn how to stand her ground! And this school needs to learn to take action when something is reported the first time.”

  “I see we’re not going to get anywhere today. She’s out for a month.”

  “A month?! She’s going to be so far behind!”

  “We suggest that you get her into counseling during this time. You can pick up assignments daily, and she’ll have to keep up with the work at home.”

  I stood there, not knowing what to say next.

  “We’re not trying to be bad people here,” said Mr. Davenport with a note of sympathy in his voice. “We want what’s best for all of our students. I know Lyla’s history—about what happened to her parents. When I say that she should be in counseling, I mean that. She should have probably been in therapy for the past year. Please consider that, okay?”

  I nodded meekly and felt myself calming down, my anger turning to regret. It had never occurred to me that Lyla might need therapy, but it made perfect sense. “I’ll see about that. Thank you.”

  I left the office and went out to the parking lot. Lyla was leaning against the passenger door of my old black Mustang. She had her arms crossed, and she was staring down at the cracked pavement, still breathing hard, her jaw clinched. Blondie was giving her son a look-over to make sure he was really okay. He kept trying to shrug her off, but she doted away.

  I pressed the button on my key to unlock the doors. When the boy heard the sound, he looked up and saw me. A great smirk crossed his face, and he said, “You’re aunt’s a freak, too!”

  Blondie barely had the time to get out the words, “Logan, stop—” before Lyla took off from around my car and charged at him. I grabbed her by the waist just before she crashed into him, but she managed to grab a fistful of his golden hair that he inherited from his mother. He yelled while I made Lyla let go. Blondie freaked out, screaming at me to get Lyla away from her boy.

  “Keep that little demon away from my son!” she cried.

  “I pulled Lyla aside and held her arms until I was sure that she wasn’t going to go after him again. “Lyla! Listen to me! GO IN THE CAR!”

  She hesitated for a moment, staring down Logan who held his head in the spot where some of his hair was ripped out. She stomped off to the passenger seat and got in, slamming the door closed.

  “That girl needs to be committed!”

  I spun around, raising my fist. “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll do it for you!” I said and saw the fear in her eyes.

  “Get in the car, Logan.” They got into her SUV and left.

  I went back to my car and put both hands on the steering wheel, trying to get control of my anger, forcing the adrenaline to dissipate. After I had calmed down a bit, I said, “Lyla …”

  “Can you just take me home?” she said, defeated.

  I nodded, turned on the ignition and drove out of the parking lot. We didn’t say a word the whole way to Clothilde’s house.

  ***

  A few weeks after I came back from New Orleans, I got a job at a boutique in Downtown Lafayette and moved out of Clothilde’s and into a rent house in the Saint Streets area in Lafayette. That hurt Lyla, but Clothilde understood, and even wanted it that way, if nothing else than to protect Lyla. Being a dark paladin was dangerous for anyone around you. I cried that first night alone. I got so used to being with a family again, and now it was so lonely. My best friend Carrie came to visit at times, but I would never let her stay for long because I was afraid of what would happen. I felt like I was driving everyone away, and maybe I was, but it was for their own good. Couldn’t they understand that? Clothilde understood, maybe more than any of us.

  When we did get back to Clothilde’s house, Lyla ran out of the car and through the front door, slamming it behind her before I could corner her in the passenger seat to talk to her. I parked near Clothilde’s Grand Marquis and headed for the front door that was flanked with pumpkins that would be Jack-o-lanterns in a couple of weeks.

  As I dodged the dead honeysuckle vines hanging from the arbor that led to the back yard, I saw Clothilde hobbling over to her outdoor kitchen. She had weak knees that got worse every month, it seemed. Instead of going into the house, I changed direction and went to the outdoor kitchen, cutting through her immaculate garden that she used for her traiteur practice. Gourds, pumpkins and other fall squash took up most of the garden now.

  The chickens clucked noisily as I passed their coop to enter the small, tin building. Clothilde was stirring something on the little stove. I smelled garlic, ginger and sage, and I saw a bottle of locally-made honey on the counter, which meant that someone had the flu or a very bad cold. It was October, and while the weather was still on the warm side in our little corner of Louisiana, viruses were already popping up. This was the fourth batch of tea she’d made in two weeks.

  Clothilde sat at the table, her snow-white head bent over the Bible and quietly reading a Psalm. She seemed to be doing that more and more lately.

  “Someone else is sick?” I said.

  She held up a finger and finished reading the last couple of lines of the Psalm, marked the page, and closed the book. “Mr. Richard. He had a sinus infection. I got rid of the fever, but now it’s turned into bronchitis. This will help with the cough.” She seemed tired to me as she spoke.

  “How are you knees?” I asked.

  “No better. No worse,” she said, getting up from the table and over to the stove to give the small pot a sti
r. I knew she was lying when she said it was no worse.

  “I wish you’d let me take care of your knees.”

  She banged the spoon on the pot a little harder than she should have before setting it down on the spoon rest on the stove top. “We already had this conversation.”

  We did have that conversation, about a dozen times, and each time it turned into an argument ever since I became a dark paladin a few months ago. Dark Paladin—how I despised that nomenclature, hating the way it sounded, like some evil being from a sinister fairy tale. Clothilde had been hiding the disappointment in her eyes, though not always doing such a good job of hiding it. She even seemed afraid of me sometimes—or afraid for me. Ever since then, it’s been awkward between us, to say the least.

  I heard the sound of gravel and leaves crunching in the driveway. “I’ll go see who’s here,” I told her. I went back through the arbor to see Lucas’ old blue Ford coming to a stop beside my car. Lucas was another issue I had since I changed, though he didn’t take it quite as hard as Clothilde did.

  “Hey!” he said as he got out the truck.

  I walked up to the porch and sat on the swing where he joined me a couple of seconds later.

  “What are you up to?” I said.

  “Have to pick up Jonathan in a little while. I heard what happened with Lyla, so I thought I’d stop by and see how she was doing.”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Joey Broussard told me.” When he saw the perplexed look on my face he added, “You remember him. He graduated with me and David.”

  I barely remembered a skinny boy with a face full of pimples and shaggy red hair. “Yeah, I think I remember him.”

  “Well, he’s the P.E. teacher there. That little fight happened while he was on recess duty. He said Lyla’s quite the slugger.” He softly chuckled at that.

  “Not funny,” I said. “If she gets into another fight, she’ll be kicked out for good. They suspended her for a month, and they want her in therapy.”