French Quarter Clues

by Eva Pohler

  “Do you or your parents know of a Maria or Cecelia Nunnery?” Ellen asked.

  “I went to school with Cecilia,” he said. “I haven’t seen her around since Katrina.”

  They turned left on Law and passed the high school—Cornelius’s high school, Ellen thought to herself, where he had played in the band and had sung in a musical—before coming to a stop.

  “This is it,” the cabby said. “Do you want me to wait for you?”

  A set of posts, on which a house had presumably stood before the hurricane ripped it apart, protruded from the ground like tombstones in knee-high grass in front of a worn-down shack. A message spray-painted on the front of the shack read: “Don’t demolish.”

  To Sue and Tanya, Ellen said, “Maybe we can ask around the neighborhood.”

  “More walking?” Sue complained. “I’d just as soon go back and ask Cornelius with the Ouija Board.”

  “He might not be able to help us,” Tanya said. “He may not know where his mother and sister are.”

  “Are you talking about Cornelius Nunnery?” the cabby asked.

  “Yes,” Sue said. “We’re paranormal investigators, and we’ve made contact with him.”

  “For real?” the driver said. “That’s amazing. Tell him his old pal, Hank Jones, says hi.”

  “You knew Cornelius?” Ellen asked.

  “We played in the band in high school together. I had a crush on his sister. They was good folks. I just realized this was where their house used to be. I only ever went over one time.”

  “You don’t know what happened to their mother?” Tanya asked.

  “No.” He continued to gaze at the remnants of what once was the Nunnery residence. “I can’t believe their house is completely gone.”

  “What about that building behind the stilts?” Ellen asked.

  “I think that was their storage shed.”

  “Wow,” Tanya said. “How sad.”

  “Well, maybe some of the neighbors know something,” Ellen said.

  “You seriously want to go door to door?” Sue asked.

  “Come on,” Ellen said to Sue. “We won’t stay long.”

  “You can sit under that shade tree and wait for us,” Tanya offered Sue.

  “Yeah, right. I’d never get back up again.” Sue said with a laugh.

  “You want to wait in the cab?” Ellen offered.

  “And miss out on the adventure? No way!” Sue handed money to the driver.

  “You don’t want me to stay?” Hank asked.

  “If you have a card, we’ll call when we’re ready,” Sue said.

  Hank handed Sue his card. Then she, Ellen, and Tanya climbed from the van and stood before the abandoned stilts as the cabby drove away.

  “Where do we start?” Tanya asked.

  “I know it’s a longshot,” Ellen said, “but why don’t we knock on the door of the shed, just in case?”

  Tanya and Sue waited on the street while Ellen went to the shed. She knocked on the ruined door and waited for several seconds. As expected, no answer came. She turned back to Sue and Tanya.

  “Now what?” Sue asked with her hands on her hips.

  “There’s a church down the road,” Ellen said. “Let’s start there.”

  Pastor Ronny at the Baptist church knew Maria but hadn’t seen her for many weeks. He said that she couldn’t have gone far, because she occasionally walked by to check on her property before she disappeared again. Her daughter, Cecilia, had moved to Houston.

  “Her husband was one of my parishioners; but, Maria’s Catholic, so I never got to know her very well,” the pastor said.

  “Can you think of anyone in the neighborhood who might be in touch with her?” Sue asked.

  “There’s a teacher at Lawless High,” Pastor Ronny said. “They was good friends before Katrina hit. There’s a chance they stayed in touch. Beatrice Leland is one of my parishioners and the band director at the high school.”

  “Does she live around here?” Ellen asked.

  “Sure does.” He pointed to his right. “Corner house, same side of the street.”

  “Thank you, Pastor,” Sue said.

  Ellen and Sue followed Tanya down the road to the corner to a pretty, blue townhouse with a wooden front porch and a red compact car in the driveaway. When they knocked on the door, a black woman about their age answered.

  “How can I help you?” the woman asked.

  “Are you Beatrice Leland?” Ellen asked.

  “I am.”

  “Pastor Ronny told us that you were a friend of Maria Nunnery’s,” Ellen said.

  “I am,” Beatrice said again, sounding as though she were a witness in a court of law.

  “We’re looking for her,” Sue explained.

  “May I ask why?” Beatrice asked.

  “It’s kind of…complicated,” Ellen said.

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” Sue asked bluntly.

  “Sue!” Ellen chastised. “You can’t just ask a person that. It’s personal.”

  “Did Cornelius send you?” Beatrice asked.

  Ellen’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know?”

  “Another woman came looking for Maria about seven years ago,” Beatrice said. “And then another about three years ago. They both said the same thing.”

  Ellen and her friends gawked at one another.

  “Seriously?” Ellen asked.

  Beatrice Leland nodded.

  “If you could put us in touch with Maria, we’d be very grateful,” Tanya said.

  “I can do better than that,” Beatrice said. “Let me get my purse, and I’ll drive you to her.”

  Chapter Eight: Maria Nunnery

  Beatrice Leland drove Ellen, Sue, and Tanya six blocks to a shotgun-style house with a FEMA trailer, about fourteen feet wide and fifty feet long, sitting in the driveway. Ellen recalled hearing that some of the FEMA trailers were believed to contain toxic levels of formaldehyde. After parking by the curb in front of the house, Beatrice led them to the trailer and knocked on the door.

  A woman in her sixties, who looked of both Native American and African descent, with long, straight black hair and round, dark eyes, answered and smiled down at Beatrice, revealing a missing front tooth. “What’s going on, girlfriend?”

  “Hi, Maria. Cornelius sent these ladies to see you,” Beatrice explained.

  Maria’s eyes widened. “Really, Bea? Again?”

  “Seems so,” the high school band director said.

  Maria shook her head as her gaze turned to Ellen and her friends. “Let me guess. He wants you to find the Demon Baby of Bourbon Street.”

  Ellen gawked.

  “How did you know?” Sue asked.

  “Come on inside,” Maria said. “Just excuse the mess, ladies. We need to talk.”

  Ellen followed Beatrice, Sue, and Tanya into the small and crowded trailer.

  Once inside, they were met with an L-shaped sofa, the back of which partly cut off the access to the tiny galley-style kitchen. The kitchen had a sink and stove on one side and a small table and fridge on the other, and the little bit of counterspace, including the table, was covered with dishes, books, trophies, statues of saints, framed photos, and baskets piled high with who knew what.

  “I don’t have a lot of storage space,” Maria said. “That’s why it’s such a mess. Believe it or not, this is what it looks like when it’s organized.”

  “No worries,” Tanya said. “It’s fine.”

  Sue and Ellen took a seat on the sofa with Tanya squeezed between them. Beatrice sat on the side of the sofa that partly blocked the kitchen.

  “Can I get anyone anything to drink?” Maria offered.

  “Maybe some water, if you don’t mind?” Tanya asked.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” Beatrice said. “We don’t think the water is safe yet.”

  “I brewed some tea,” Maria said. “That’s all I drink anymore. The way I figure it, boiling the water kills the germs.”

  �
�Actually, I’m fine,” Tanya said, before giving Ellen a glance that said, “Yikes.”

  Maria sat on the couch beside Beatrice. “So how did Cornelius lead you here?”

  Ellen told her about their experience with the Ouija Board and how she got their contact information from the Voodoo Spiritual Temple.

  “Cecilia used to go there to see Priestess Isabel,” Maria said.

  Sue told about their encounter with Pastor Ronny, which had led them to Beatrice.

  Maria nodded, seeming unsurprised by any of it. “It’s true what Pastor Ronny said about my Cecilia living in Houston. She just finished law school and got a job there at a prestigious firm. It took her a long time to get through college, but she did it, bless her. And when she can afford it, she’s going to help me rebuild my house.”

  “Cecilia has offered for Maria to come and live with her in Houston,” Beatrice explained. “But Maria won’t leave New Orleans.”

  “This has been the home of my family for over a century,” Maria explained. “And I have a lot of memories here. I can’t leave.”

  “Cecilia will come through for you,” Beatrice said. “She’ll build you that dreamhouse.”

  “I know she will,” Maria said. “But I guess we’re not here to talk about Cecilia and my dreamhouse. We’re here to talk about my Cornelius and the curse put on him by Marie Laveau.”

  “Curse?” Ellen asked.

  “She visits me in my dreams,” Maria said. “She’s my great, great, great aunt. She says that if I can’t help her bring peace to the devil child by consecrating him to our family tomb, then she won’t let my child find peace, either.”

  “Maria has tried,” Beatrice explained. “I’ve helped her. We’ve snuck onto the grounds of Lalaurie Mansion more times than I care to admit, praying to Marie Laveau to guide us.”

  “And we get nothing,” Maria said. “No guidance. I’d come to believe my dreams were just dreams. Then about six or seven years ago, a woman found me and said Cornelius had sent her. But she had no further guidance than what we already knew.”

  “And then about three years ago, another lady came,” Beatrice said. “But we never found anything.”

  “Apparently, the information we need is in the diary of Delphine Lalaurie,” Sue said.

  Maria nodded. “Maire Laveau speaks of it in my dreams, but I can’t figure out what she’s trying to say. It’s in an old house beneath the floor. That’s all I know.”

  “It’s supposed to be in a house on Chartres Street,” Ellen added. “We’re trying to buy the house, so we can look for it.”

  “Really?” Maria cried. “How do you know it’s there?”

  Ellen told her about the dead man in the tub and Marie Laveau’s brief possession of Priestess Isabel.

  “If we can find the diary,” Tanya said, “maybe we can find the devil child, and Cornelius can find peace.”

  “I sure hope so,” Maria said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “That would be such a blessing.”

  “Do you have any idea why the baby is called a devil child?” Ellen asked Maria.

  “Well,” Maria began, “the way I heard it, from my mama, was that the infant was a harlequin baby, born with a genetic skin disease. It’s very rare, but Marie Laveau had seen it before. I think one of her own babies may have been born with it.”

  “Do you know what happened to the other thirteen?” Sue asked.

  “Gah, don’t believe what you read online,” Maria said with disdain. “My mama said Marie Laveau gave birth to nine babies—two with Paris, a free man of color from Haiti, and seven with Glapion, a wealthy white man from a prominent French family. I’m descended from him, and the Glapion tomb belongs to my family. The other children died of yellow fever. The reason legend says she had more babies is because she took care of orphans that no one wanted. Most of the time, those babies were afflicted with an incurable disease. She did what she could for them, in their last days of life.”

  Ellen lifted her brows at Sue, as if to say, “I told you so.”

  “I thought both of her consorts were free men of color,” Ellen said.

  “Gah!” Maria said again. “Glapion was the descendent of French aristocracy. Everyone seems to get that mixed up with her father, Charles Laveau. Charles was a free man of color—not a wealthy plantation owner, like so many articles say.”

  “Wow,” Tanya said. “The articles do seem to mix everything up.”

  “Legend has it that the devil child lived for some time,” Sue said. “Long enough for Marie and Delphine to share in the responsibility of caring for it. Is that part true?”

  Maria nodded. “My mama believed the child lived to be four or five years old, but no one knows for certain. There weren’t no records kept. My mama said some people say the devil child was called Richie, after one of Marie Laveau’s slaves. But others say he was called Charles, after Marie Laveau’s father.”

  “Marie Laveau had slaves?” Ellen asked.

  “A lot of successful free people of color owned them,” Maria said. “Marie’s biological father, Charles Laveau, had them, too.”

  “And you have no idea where the child is buried?” Sue asked.

  “If I did, don’t you think I’d have done something by now?”

  “Of course,” Sue mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s been very hard on Maria knowing that Cornelius hasn’t found peace,” Beatrice said.

  Maria wiped the tears from her face and sniffled.

  Ellen cleared her throat, trying not to cry. “He had a lovely obituary. He played the saxophone in the school band, right?”

  “He was always first chair,” Beatrice said. “So talented.”

  “And he could sing, too,” Maria added as more tears fell to her cheeks. “I think he would have made it big one day.”

  “Is it still hard to talk about?” Sue asked.

  Maria nodded. “Even after all this time. Maybe if the condition of the neighborhood didn’t remind me of it every single day, it would be easier to move on.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ellen said.

  “That Monday when the levee broke, we were all four together,” Maria said. “We didn’t have the money to evacuate, and we thought we could ride it out. We’d been through plenty of hurricanes and storms before. Our house was built on stilts, so we thought we were safe.”

  Ellen bit her lip, unable to imagine the pain Maria felt as she recounted her story.

  “When the water started coming in and flooding the house, we ran upstairs into my bedroom. The kids and I laid down together on the bed and prayed while my husband stood watch near the window. The house felt like it was moving, like a rocking boat. The wind and the rain were so loud. When the water crept up to the second floor, I became truly scared for our lives. I remember my husband looking at me in a way that made me believe he thought it was the end for us.

  “He kissed each of us on the head and told us he loved us and needed us to be brave. It wasn’t seconds later that the house split wide open, and part of the roof landed on Jamar and took him under with it. I never saw him again.”

  “Oh my God,” Sue whispered.

  Maria fought hard to speak through her tears. “I held onto my children for dear life. We were treading water, trying not to get hit by the walls and furniture falling in on us. The water carried us from the house, and I remember I kept grabbing at trees and other houses with my legs, trying to find anything that would keep us from getting carried away. Because, you see, there were all kinds of things blowing around us in the water, and I was afraid we’d be killed if we didn’t climb onto something.

  “I thanked God when I gripped a tree with my legs, and, between the three of us, we were able to pull ourselves up into the branches and out of the water. But that’s when I saw that Cornelius was bleeding from a gash beneath his ribs. He was bleeding bad.”

  Maria covered her face and cried for a moment as Beatrice patted her friend’s back.

  “You don’t
have to finish,” Beatrice said after a minute.

  “I do,” Maria said. “People need to know.”

  Beatrice got up and found a paper towel in the kitchen and brought it over to Maria, who wiped her eyes and blew her nose before continuing. “Cornelius was only sixteen years old. Beatrice was seventeen. We were all three still in shock over seeing Jamar so brutally taken from us. And we saw dead bodies float past. I half expected one of them to be Jamar.”

  “How horrible,” Tanya muttered.

  “We were up in that tree for five days without food or fresh water,” Maria said. “The sun was shining, yet the water kept on rising. A couple of helicopters flew by overhead, but they either didn’t see us, or they didn’t think we were worth saving. We ate leaves that we picked from the tree tops. We took turns sleeping, because I was terrified we’d float away or miss seeing a boat. Finally, on the sixth day, a rescue boat got to us.”

  “Five days in a tree,” Ellen repeated. “Geez.”

  “From the stories I heard about what happened at the Superdome, we were lucky,” Maria added. “We were eventually taken there and put on one of the last busses out to Houston. Can you imagine what it must’ve been like for the 30,000 people in that Superdome, with hardly any food and water and very little medical aid or supervision? Sometimes I think we were better off in that damned tree.”

  “Maybe you were,” Sue said.

  “Cornelius was taken to Memorial, and even though he was so weak and so pale by the time they got to us, I never stopped believing he would make it,” Maria said. “It was a shock when I lost him. I was crushed.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ellen said again.

  “Don’t be,” Maria said. “Because you’re here to help my boy, ain’t that right?”

  Ellen glanced at friends. “That’s right. We are.”

  Maria went on to tell Ellen, Sue, and Tanya about the days after Cornelius’s death, about the vague hope that Jamar might be alive, about having to stay in a hotel in Houston with Cecilia with nothing to live on and in such despair that some days she thought they would just go to sleep and never wake up. Jamar had been a brick layer, and Maria had been a substitute teacher, but they had nothing in savings.