Behind Judge, a second hunter jogs up, also carrying a rifle in both hands. This one Max also recognizes from the lighthouse parking lot—the one Eli called Percy. He glances at her and Eli on the ground and says, “Mysterious ways.” Then he cocks his rifle and aims it at the remaining razorback. But Judge sets one hand on the muzzle and shakes his head. He lifts his chin and whistles three sharp blasts, and the dogs disengage. They trot timidly toward him, leaving the wounded razorback. Its rear legs are shredded and useless, and it struggles to drag itself away. The big man levels his rifle and shoots from the hip. A moment later, in the eerie silence, Max looks up to see the great boar collapsed.
Now Judgment turns to Max and Eli. He studies them with the same steady gaze he had for the hogs, a look void of emotion. Max thinks he may well just shoot them. Instead, he says to Percy, “The swamps have provided us with abundant blessings. Mother Evangeline will be most pleased.”
Judge whistles once more, and the hounds erupt into motion, descending on the dead hogs, ripping and tearing at that foul flesh.
WHATEVER IT WAS RANG MY BELL BACK IN THE WOODS DID some kind of pretty damn good job, ’cause my brain is pounding something fierce and the world itself is sideways. At least that’s the impression I get as I first come to, but then I figure out I’m facedown in the dirt. I go to reach for the throbbing pain in my head, see if there’s blood, and that’s how I learn my wrists are tied tight behind my back.
With effort, I manage to sit up, righting the world. One eye is swelled mostly shut, but as the vision in my good eye comes clear, I see I’m in a tent, the canvas rattling like sails in a high wind as rain wallops against the sides. Dogs bark somewhere, and there’s not much doubt who the dogs belong to, or who’s got me trussed up like a roped calf at the rodeo. I tug at my bonds, but my wrists don’t budge. When I inch back, my fingers pulling along the rope, I come across the stake it’s tied to, pounded into the ground. There’s not enough slack for me to kneel, let alone stand.
I wonder what they’ve done with Max, or if somehow that crazy girl got away. Of course, wandering alone in the swamp with that storm bearing down could be worse than being a prisoner of loonies. Hard to say.
Something sniffles over in a dark corner of the tent, and with a start, I realize I’m not alone. A tall shadow stands frozen, like a spooked deer. My throat is raw, but I croak, “Who’s there?”
“Me,” she says, and I realize it’s Celeste. Only thing that’s weird is I can hear her voice with my ears, not just in my head. I wonder why she’s chosen now, after all these years, to finally speak to me like this. But I’m just lifted up by the pure joy, so much that the pain in my head disappears.
I say, “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” she asks, still in the darkness.
My mind flashes to the lighthouse rocks. “For not saving you.”
She giggles and moves forward out of shadow, but with every step, she grows smaller, like she’s shrinking. By the time I can see her clearly, she’s not my sister at all. She’s turned into a child, a kindergarten girl, with long brown hair. She’s wearing some kind of red dress, a sort of ballroom gown. “Saving me from what?” she asks, and nothing makes sense. With a chubby hand, she twists the top off a bottle of Sprite. “Want some pop?”
I nod, and she sets the bottle top against my lips. When she pours, what comes out is flat and lukewarm. Still, I’m grateful. I ask her, “Can you undo these knots? My hands are really sore.”
She seems to be considering this as she returns the top to the bottle, but I don’t get the sense she’s inclined to free me.
I say, “That sure is a pretty princess dress.”
“Not a princess,” she tells me. “I’m a fairy.”
“I never met a real fairy,” I say. “What’s your name?”
She raises a single finger to her lips. “If they hear us, they’ll be mad.” Outside, voices pass by. The girl walks calmly to a wall, bends down, and peels up the side. As she crouches on all fours, she looks back at me and says, “Don’t tell nobody I was here, or we’ll both get in trouble real bad. I’m Sabine. Just like the river.”
Even though my face feels stomped in and I’m a prisoner of her family, I can’t help but smile as she slides under the canvas. Almost in the same moment, a big flap gets pulled back on the opposite wall, and dull gray light enters the chamber. I wince and dip my head. “Told you I tied him good.” This is Percy’s voice, and when I lift my face, I see him and Obie bending over, looking at me like I’m some kind of freak show exhibit at the Calcasieu Fair.
“What happened to Max?” I ask.
“That her name?” Obie asks in return. “She safe.”
“I want to see her.”
Percy kicks me in the leg. “I want to be King of Texas. I ain’t waiting on it to happen any time soon.” He kneels behind me and starts in on the rope staking me to the ground.
Obie makes a point of showing me the rifle he’s carrying in his other hand. “Don’t know what you were thinking coming out here, runt, poking around, trespassing.”
Percy stands up and hooks me by a crooked elbow, my wrists still tied. He heaves me up, and I don’t really fight. I need to know more about what’s going on, and I’m not learning jack in this tent.
He tugs me out into a steady rain, and we emerge on the edge of a thick forest of scraggly witch hazel and wild buckthorn. The tent’s in the weedy backyard of an old-style Acadian log cabin. When we come around the front, plodding through puddles, I see a gas grill alongside an old pinball machine on the porch. It’s weird and out of place, but I feel the strange desire to go see it if works. That fairy girl Sabine is sitting in a still rocking chair, watching us walk by. She greets me with her eyes and takes a sip of her soda. The brothers don’t pay her any attention, and it passes through my mind what Dr. Jody says about Celeste: This girl might be a figment of my imagination.
Next to us in the compound is a similar cabin, this one in worse shape, with a busted window and a tilted shutter hanging on by a nail. On its porch a little gang of what look like middle schoolers huddle together, passing a single cigarette and staring at me. With a yank, the brothers march me forward, and I see other log cabins, a whole ring of nine or maybe ten more. They’re roughly spaced in a great circle with just a couple missing. In one open lot, a lonely stone chimney rises, and I remember the fire that claimed one of Mother Evangeline’s brothers. In another lot, there’s a blocky RV with a huge satellite dish on top from like 1990 or something. The vines growing up the sides cover the tires completely, but the boxy windshield is still clear. A calico cat curls up on the dashboard. Like all the cabins, the RV faces the center of the clearing, where a hardscrabble church rises from the dirt and the weeds. It’s one of those old-timey one-room schoolhouse buildings, where it’s easy to imagine folks speaking in tongues, charming snakes, casting out demons. That’s where the brothers got us headed.
Halfway to the church, we enter what feels like a mix between a dump and some half-baked flea market. There’s a ratty billiard table and a few bicycles, a rusty metal desk and a refrigerator with no door. A telescope on a tripod is aimed into the light gray clouds passing swift overhead. A bunch of golf clubs lie tossed on the ground. We pick our way through a whole zoo of garden sculptures—little stone elephants and giraffes, lions and rhinos, some of them painted cartoon colors. Overgrown azaleas and rhododendrons crowd the outside of the building, edging up over the bottom of the tall, thin windows. Along the church’s back, there’s this huge silver egg on three wheels, like a tricycle. The front wheel, mismatched, is rigged to the V-shaped metal bars, which makes no sense. I see the words “Airstream Roadmaster Deluxe” on the side and realize it’s some sort of camper-trailer. The thing is parked so close to the church, there’s no space between them. A thick blue tarp covers the trailer’s roof, rattling in the wind.
Around the front of the building, the brothers practically drag me up the wooden steps, and for a second, I see o
ut beyond the circle of log cabins. There’s an odd-looking building, a barn tilting at a precarious angle, with the back end of what I think is a white school bus sticking out. Light shines through the wooden slats of the barn, and when I tune my ears, I hear the low hum of a generator out there. Other than this, there’s no sign of electricity on the compound. I’d heard these folks were living off the grid, but I didn’t know they’d left it so far behind.
Percy kicks open the church’s front door, and inside there’s flickering light—a few kerosene lamps up by an altar. I see they got two windows boarded up, and from the angled ceiling, rain drips down into a handful of grimy buckets. Four weary ceiling fans with limp blades and an out-of-place golden chandelier hang from the ceiling, suspended by only an orange extension cord. The two dozen pews are mostly shoved to the side, with a few knocked over. Two people stand up together near the altar, a man and a woman side by side, like bride and groom.
“Eli!” Max hollers when she sees me. She breaks away from Judge and rushes down the aisle. I see her hands are tied in front of her—rope wrapped around her wrists—but she loops her arms over my head and we have a kind of awkward embrace where I can’t hug her back.
From the front of the church, Judge says, “We’s in the house of the Lord. You’d best mind your lustful thoughts.”
Max shoots him a look, and the wind rattles one of the windows like a loose tooth. Then she looks my way and her eyes tighten. “Your face.”
“Somebody did a number on me,” I say.
Judge strides up to us, hobbling on his stiff leg. When it broke, did they pray for it to mend in this very place? He puffs up his thick chest. “Maybe it ain’t smart, you charging through the swamp. Never know when you’ll run into somebody’s rifle.” He shrugs and at his side, I see the Remington he’s holding.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s sound advice.”
He grants me a toothy grin and takes in my shiner, admiring his work. From the feel, I’ll bet it looks about like an eggplant.
Behind him, there’s a loud voice—almost a shout—from the other side of a red curtain covering the left wall of the altar. The three brothers trade a look. Obie lifts his chin, making a question, and in response Judge shakes his head. “That girl had best watch herself. She’s messing with heresy.”
Max interrupts them. “Can’t you guys at least get me a towel and some water? His face needs to be cleaned.”
Judgment huffs. “That boy’s face ain’t on my list of things to worry about.”
Our odd little congregation makes its way to the front pews, and Percy shoves me down onto a pew. Max sits next to me. Judge limps around the pulpit and plants his elbow down as he leans forward. “So good to see new friends with us to worship the Lord.” Percy and Obie laugh, drop into the front pew across the aisle, kick back, and cross their legs.
Behind Judge, the four kerosene lamps flicker on the edges of a foldout table in the altar space, giving the air a bitter smell and casting a bouncing yellow glow. It falls on three statues, each life-sized, along the back wall. The Virgin Mary holds a baby Jesus, and a bearded man rests both hands on a mighty saw—Joseph the Carpenter. The third is Christ himself, complete with a crown of thorns. He’s raising one arm up like Father Arceneaux does when he delivers a blessing. Only that arm’s hand on the statue is snapped off at the wrist, so it’s just the stump and empty air. I feel the strange need to draw this sight, catch it on the page. Like the chandeliers, it clearly doesn’t belong in this place, and I wonder what church up in Lake Charles or Sulphur is missing its holy family.
The voices on the other side of that curtain rise up again, making us all turn. One voice is low and even, almost hypnotic. The other spikes sharp and snappy. Obie says, “They going at it pretty good.”
Indeed, the one who’s shouting is getting loud enough now that I can make out some of her words. “How ’bout the kids … impossible … a few hours, maybe. It’d take a miracle.” The brothers are trying to listen too, and while they are distracted, I ask Max in a low voice if she’s okay.
Leaning into me, she whispers, “I’m fine. Nobody hurt me or anything. These people, they’re insane.”
“I thought I’d brought you up to speed on that.”
Without warning, the red curtain splits in two like on a stage, and Charity stomps through, still wearing overalls. She looks surprised to see us, but she doesn’t say anything. After a hesitation, she heads for the aisle, and Judge scoots up, blocking her path. “Mind you keep a civil tongue in that brazen head of yours.”
Charity flashes him a challenging look.
A sharp bell rings out from the room where Charity was, and the air in the church shifts. Charity shoulders past her big brother, and as she moves through a patch of lantern light, wetness shines on her cheek. When she passes by me, I see her fingers are black with grease. Part of me wants to ask what sort of engine she’s trying to fix.
After she’s gone, Judge tells Obie and Percy, “Get on after her. See what help she needs.” The younger brothers stare at each other, and Judge goes on, “I can handle these two.” When he sees me looking, he lifts the Remington from his side and holds it like a threat.
The younger brothers are clearly ticked to be sent off, but they do what they’re told. Max helps me up, and that bell rings again, impatiently. Judge goes to the curtain and peels back one side. He tilts his head into the shadows and says to us, “C’mon, now.”
A weather-beaten wooden sign just inside the doorway reads MOTHER EVANGELINE. SPIRITUAL ADVISOR AND MEDIUM. CASH ONLY. When I pass through the curtain, I nearly stumble, but Max steadies me from behind. The floor drops down a few inches, something that helps me realize we’re inside that silver egg trailer. They must’ve hacked a wall out of the church proper and made this flimsy addition. The room we step into feels like a good-sized cave. Like the church, it’s lit by lanterns, with a half dozen spread on top of the antique dresser, the nightstands, and a huge rectangular box leaning weirdly in one corner. There’s also a loud ticking from a grandfather clock, though when I look to see what time it is, I find one hand is missing.
As for Mother Evangeline herself, she’s propped up in a four-poster bed against the far wall, beneath a frilly canopy that reminds me of something you’d see in a dollhouse or an old black-and-white movie. She sits up with her back against the headboard, with a bright red scarf covering her hair. On either side of her, pillows support her plump arms. A tray with a box of tissues, some bottles, and a small silver handbell with an ornate handle waits on one side. “Come closer, children of God,” she says. “These old eyes don’t work so good.”
Judge shoves us from behind, and only when I’m close enough to touch the bed do I see the circular glasses set on her chubby face. A blanket covers her lower half, though I can see the mounds that must be her belly and legs.
She smiles warmly and says, “How I been waiting for you.” Here she’s looking not at me but at Max, and something like pleasure is clear in her wide eyes. Max just nods and says nothing. Mother Evangeline waves a thick hand at us and tells her son, “There’s no need for them ropes. Our guests will behave themselves, won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
“That’s a bad idea,” Judgment says. “They’s both a bit wild.”
Mother Evangeline looks at Judge briefly, then turns to that tall box leaning in the corner. “When did all this happen, Aloysius? When did our babies begin to doubt me so?” In the dim light, I see a small cross carved about three-quarters of the way up that wooden box. Shifting back to her son, Mother Evangeline says, “You’ll pay heed to the fourth commandment. When you honor me, you obey the Lord.”
Judgment unsheathes a knife from his belt as he moves behind me. He roughly grabs my tied hands and yanks them down so my shoulders snap back and I’m pulled straight, and I feel a tension in the rope, then a rip. Freed, I rub at the chewed-up skin of my wrists and see him turn the knife he’s holding to Max, who lifts her bound hands.
He cuts her loose and whispers to me, “This here’s my hunting knife. Blade’s plenty sharp. Bear that in mind.”
“Young man,” Mother Evangeline says, “show us that face.” I cross to her and lean in close, one hand on the plushy pile of blankets. She inspects me. “That wound wants cleaning.”
She nods at Judgment, and Max can’t help giving him an “I told you so” look. He shuffles into a side room and returns with a basin of water and a cloth. He puts these on that tray setting on the bed, which I see now is dirty yellow and plastic, probably swiped from our school cafeteria. Mother Evangeline has me sit on the edge of the mattress. Gently, she begins to dab at my forehead with the damp cloth. She says, “What brings you to my home?”
“Listen,” I say, “we only want—”
“Not you,” she interrupts me. “I want to hear from her.”
We all turn to Max, standing at the end of the bed. She shrugs and says, “I’m just trying to get my daddy back.”
Mother Evangeline wipes tenderly at my cheek. “That so? And where is your father?”
“In the Jeep your creepy kids stole.”
“Stole?” she says, and her voice sounds offended. She holds the washcloth steady, contemplating something, then continues. “It’s a sin to covet. My children salvage those things that others discard. We collect here the unclaimed and unwanted, the flotsam and jetsam. Isn’t that right, Judgment?”
“Yes, Mother,” he says. “Flotsam and jetsam both.”
She goes on, “When you found that abandoned Jeep, was there a man in it?”
“No, ma’am.”
She finishes with my face and drops the cloth in the basin. “That’s better. The swelling will go down in a couple days.” She tilts her head back and considers Max through those tiny glasses. “My boys aren’t prone to lying.”
“My daddy’s dead,” Max says. Her words make Mother Evangeline go stiff for an instant. I swear even those lamp flames pause, then dance again. A hard gale outside whistles loud, and the floor shifts as the trailer rocks just a little. Mother Evangeline motions for Judgment to take the basin away and stares hard at Max.
Into the Hurricane Page 6
