Fred wipes his hands on a dish towel, then heads toward the back door. “I have to feed my goats. You can find yourself out.”
I’m still scared of this man with his brusque tone, so I do as I’m told and not even consider he’s being rude as hell. Just as I’m about to head off the front porch, he calls to me from the side of the house.
“Come back at night. Put a handkerchief on your car’s antenna.”
“Why?”
He grabs up a sack of what looks like feed and gives me one of those “Are you stupid?” looks. “So I don’t shoot you.”
“No, I mean why at night? I’ve already seen the ghosts at Miss Bessie’s house.”
Fred spits and throws the bag over his shoulder. I’m amazed at the agility of this man who must be at least eighty years old. “There’s more than ghosts haunting this lake.”
I wonder if he means those dumping next door, but Fred turns his attention to four goats who come running. I tell his back that I’ll return after the Fourth of July weekend and start for my car.
“Oh, and Miss Valentine,” he calls after me. “Drive a different car.”
I make it past the dreaded truck stop but I’m outside of Blue Moon Bayou when those cups of coffee come calling. I pull off at the welcome center and pee in the public restrooms which, thank you Jesus, smell nice and have ample toilet paper. On the way back to my car I detour to the bayou. Almost immediately, Abigail Earhart is there, giving me the once-over. I can feel her staring at me before I turn and check.
“You again?” Abigail asks.
“I need answers,” I reply.
She shrugs, like teenagers love to do. “Answers for what?”
There’s so many things I want to know but what exactly are the questions? There’s no manual for this kind of thing.
I deflect. “Do you know where you are?”
There’s that shrug again. “Yeah.”
I wonder if she’s thinking Blue Moon Bayou and not the ever-after but she grins at me and adds, “I told you, I know I’m dead.”
I can’t explain how weird that is hearing a person, standing clear as day in front of me, admitting they’re no longer living. It’s as if uttering to a friend, “Pass the salt for the margaritas. Oh, and by the way, I’m dead.”
“The train?” I offer.
“Yeah, jumped the rails and ran off the bayou bridge.”
What’s equally strange is that this girl takes it all in stride. It’s like she’s comfortable in her deceased skin.
I decide to get to the point before Abigail fades away. “Can you talk to people on the other side? You know, heaven, if there is such a place?”
She’s chewing on a blade of grass, which seems so human. I can’t help but wonder if the grass is dead, too. “Some. Mostly I don’t talk to them, just see them pass on to the light.”
“When they die?”
Shrug. “I guess. One minute they’re here, next minute there’s this light and they disappear.”
“And that’s that? You can reach them?”
Abigail spits like Old Man Frederick did only an hour before and looks away. “My mom prays a lot from the other side. I hear her sometimes, not really, just feel it kinda like.”
“And you don’t answer?”
She spits harder. “Heck no. She gave me up. Why would I want to talk to her?”
I raise my hands to appease her because I’ve clearly hit a nerve. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
The shrug returns and she turns to leave. “Whatever.”
“Wait,” I call out but she’s already heading down the bank, disappearing into the water before fading away. I watch her go, my heart aching because I have to know why I’m witnessing this young girl from the 1930s and not my precious baby.
“Talking to yourself?”
Annie Breaux peers down from the bayou bridge, her arms full of groceries, a baguette peering out from the top.
“Just myself,” I lie. “The only person who will listen these days.”
She pauses in her stroll from Hebert’s Grocery, debating on whether to get home and relieve herself of the grocery bags or come down the bank to say hello. She decides the latter and I walk up the incline so we meet halfway, me taking one of her bags and giving her a half hug since we both now have groceries between us.
“You okay?”
“Of course.” I give her a smile worthy of Meryl Streep.
She doesn’t buy it. “Who were you talking to, really? And remember, I run a haunted bed and breakfast.”
Now it’s my turn to shrug, feeling every bit as self-conscious as the teenager I’ve been courting.
Annie places a bag on one hip. “You know I don’t see ghosts or anything, but my aunts do. They talk to the people haunting our B&B all the time.”
“So, you’ve said.” I interviewed Annie for a travel feature and she had explained how their establishment was popular with ghost hunters, but I instead focused the article on the building’s former incarnation — it was once a mortuary run by long-standing members of the community — and not on those who refuse to check out. Annie’s B&B has fallen on hard times and I was hoping the travel feature would bring her some business, sans ghosts.
“My aunts claim there’s a girl who hangs out down here,” Annie continues, nodding toward the bayou. “A runaway. You didn’t happen to see her, did you? She’s thin, wears overalls. But not someone who’s living.”
I decide to come clean. I like Annie. Trust her. When I had interviewed her she had offered me some of her incredible baked goods she uses to spoil her guests. We talked forever, and I opened up about life, TB, and the loss of Lillye.
“I did see someone to that description.”
Annie shifts the bag to the other hip. “Want some iced tea? I’m getting ready to make a pot of gumbo. I know it’s still sweltering outside but I’ve got a serious envie for a shrimp gumbo.”
The last thing I need is more caffeine but after a day that started with aggravating Boudreaux and ended up with more questions to be answered about Lorelei Lake, sitting down with a friend sounds good. I still haven’t heard from TB, and for the first time in a long while I dread going home to an empty potting shed.
I follow her to the Mortuary B&B, an ugly, sterile building on the outside that probably scares most tourists away, if the ghosts haven’t done so already. The old mortuary sign still graces the front, although Annie and her aunts, two elderly sisters who own the place, added the “B&B” part on to the sign’s bottom.
The inside is quite another story. When Annie took over management of the old place to assist her aunts, she transformed the interior with warm blues and yellows and filled the place with soft, comfortable furnishings. The mortuary sitting room became the library, where guests may relax in oversized chairs and enjoy a number of Louisiana books, view movies filmed in the Bayou State or cozy up to the fireplace on the few days it’s actually cold in Louisiana.
The upstairs bedrooms are equally inviting. It took years of her working a bartending job at night and scouring thrift shops for antiques until Annie could restore the bed and breakfast to her liking and start attracting guests. This, all the while raising her daughter on her own. She’s a success story and one I was proud to write about.
We step into the hallway and turn on the lights.
“No guests?”
Annie laughs. “I had one of those couples who spook easily. They weren’t here ten minutes and I was explaining that they might hear an odd thing or two when they bolted out the door.”
According to Annie, the place is home to three apparitions: a grumpy old man whom everyone avoided in life (I’m thinking he will be good company for Old Man Frederick when he passes), a young girl who died from polio who routinely skips through the property because in death her legs work fine, and a beautiful woman locals claim died of a broken heart. She’s popular with the male visitors.
I never saw a ghost when I interviewed Annie but then they all died by natural means
. My heart skips thinking I may see one now, if it’s true I’ve evolved in my SCANCy abilities.
We head to the kitchen where Annie unloads the grocery bags and pulls out a couple of pots for the gumbo. We chitchat until the iced tea’s brewed, filled with the appropriate amount of sugar, and iced.
“So, you never see the ghosts that live here?” I ask her as she pours me a glass and I take a sip.
“Nope. I’m the normal one in the family.”
I spray my tea over her red metallic table from the 1950s.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.” She rises and grabs a paper towel to wipe up my mess while I apologize profusely. “It’s just that my mom, bless her heart, lives in Lala Land, which is why she’s in the assisted living complex down the street, and my aunts routinely talk to the dead, so I’m the logical one with no paranormal abilities.”
I do the Meryl Streep smile again because Annie doesn’t know about my SCANCy talents.
“Seriously, I think it’s cool,” she adds and I sense she thinks she offended me. “I just meant I’m the normal one in the family.” She uses quote marks with her fingers when she says “normal” as if to indicate it’s society’s label, not hers.
“I get it,” I say and wave her off. “I’m not the normal one in my family so it caught me funny.” I’m surprised I admitted as much.
“You see ghosts?”
Again, I’m hungry for a friend, so I explain how I saw apparitions as a child but repressed the talent until Katrina forced the paranormal door open again. She laughs when I discuss SCANC, but turns solemn when I mention the water ghosts who won’t leave me alone.
“But I’m evolving,” I finish. “I believe I can see ghosts who have not died by water so I’m hoping to finally be able to talk to my sweet baby.”
“So, you don’t think bayou girl was a water death?”
“Her name is Abigail Earhart and she told me she died in a train accident.”
Annie frowns, then gets up and heads to the library, pulling out an old book from the shelf. When she returns to the kitchen, she opens it to a section on Blue Moon Bayou and a photo showing the train derailment of 1934. According to the caption, several people on the train were killed in the accident, including a young runaway that had come to the area via the Orphan Train.
“They sent orphans from New York to Louisiana to work on farms,” Annie explains.
“It was the Orphan Train that derailed?”
Annie frowns and looks at the photo again. “I’m not sure. I always heard that train went to Opelousas,” mentioning the town twenty minutes north of Lafayette. “They even have an Orphan Train Museum up there.”
This excites me to no end, because it means Earhart was probably on that train when it left the tracks and she haunts the bayou because that’s where she died, not because of the water. I share this with Annie but she’s hesitant to agree with me.
“I don’t know, Vi. I’m not sure it’s the same train that transported orphans. I’ve never heard of them coming here. At least not by train.”
“It has to be. It all makes sense.”
She looks down at the photo in front of her and frowns. “There are freight cars in this picture.”
I glance at my watch and rise. “It’s getting late. I better go.”
Annie grabs my hand. “Vi, I’m not saying it’s not true, just offering some facts.”
“Facts?” I say a little too loudly. “We’re talking about ghosts here.”
She looks taken aback and I feel bad for my abruptness. But how does someone understand the pain I carry when they haven’t lost a child? Any chance I have of reaching Lillye is a chance I’m going to take.
“You don’t want to stay for gumbo?” she asks sweetly. “I have bottled roux so it won’t take me long.”
“Thanks, but I really need to go.”
We walk to the door in silence and I know I should apologize for my rudeness but the words won’t come. Instead, I tell her I’ll research the accident and see if I can find anything about the young girl. I’m still convinced this means I can reach all ghosts now. Why else would I be seeing Earhart and the host of apparitions at Lorelie Lake?
When I return home that night, with that pile of papers I snagged at the Alexandria library, who should be waiting by my back door but TB, traitor Stinky lying in his lap.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, then unlock the front door and let both inside.
“I was worried about you.” TB lets the cat down who does a beeline to his food and water, but TB lingers by the door.
“I’m fine. That jerk by the elevator tried to scare me off by busting my car window, but he’s got something coming if he thinks I’m letting this case alone.”
TB crosses his arms about his chest and looks away.
“What are you doing here?” I repeat. “Really.”
He looks back at me with such pain in those rich brown eyes I want to crawl into a hole for being so insensitive. I could have at least acted glad to see him, given him a hug.
“I’ve got another job here,” TB says, “but don’t worry, I’m getting a hotel. I just came over to make sure you were all right since you called in tears a few hours ago.”
I look down at my feet, ashamed that I had reached out to a man who cares, then dusted him off when things got better. Truth be told, I was happy to see him waiting on my doorstep, couldn’t wait to share my lunch meeting with Elijah and all that I had found at the courthouse and library. Not to mention my meeting with Bayou Girl and what I found out from Annie.
I’m about to tell him so when TB utters, “See ya, Vi,” and waltzes out of my apartment.
Chapter Eleven
It was before sunrise the first time I drove into New Orleans after the storm. TB and I had this insane idea there would be lines of cars on the interstate waiting to return. We were right about the crowds, but off on the time. We had no problem getting into Orleans Parish before sunrise — the lines came later — but we couldn’t see a thing due to the city being completely without power and lights.
With flashlights in hand, and handkerchiefs to fight off the stench, we did what we needed to do, gathered up anything salvageable from the house which was pretty much nothing, viewed the damage, and took photos for our insurance company who would spend almost a year getting around to cutting us a check. TB insisted on rebuilding but I wanted nothing of the place, a house gifted by his parents they had previously hoped to flip. TB tried over the years to make it livable but it was always one thing or another. I don’t know if it was the weird neighbors, crappy yard with its giant holes that prevented Lillye from playing there, or the fact that no renovation could redeem that ugly house, but once we found Lillye’s photos high in a closet, carefully wrapped in plastic and saved from that bitch Katrina, I found refuge in the car until TB was done. That horrid day, I cried all the way to Baton Rouge, determined never to return.
Once I got control of my emotions and halfway back to Lafayette, I asked TB for a divorce.
I think about that horrid morning in 2005 and TB’s reaction as I drive into New Orleans now, passing the trees at the 310 interchange still leaning as if Katrina’s winds blew in that morning. There’s a large swath of wetlands cypress that’s never coming back, I notice, stripped of branches and leaves and standing sentinel like telephone poles. The only redeeming sight this morning is the Motel 6 at Williams Boulevard and Interstate 10, which has been rebuilt after half of its façade was ripped apart and left flapping in the breeze for visitors to witness, shoot photos of, and show to the world.
I hate coming home. I wish that wasn’t the case because New Orleans remains one of the world’s most incredible cities. It’s not just the thousands of people who have drowned here from Katrina and other disasters, but the endless memories and few of them good. I’m the ordinary child of an overachieving, extroverted family. I got pregnant in college and married a man with a name that couples as a disease. I reported on murder victims and school b
oard meetings for the second-best newspaper in the city, and ended up on my roof for two days; reporters weren’t allowed to evacuate.
And then there’s Lillye. I spot Metairie Cemetery in my right peripheral vision but I can’t bear to turn and look. Even after all these years, the pain constricts my chest, holds it hostage like a madman, and it’s difficult to breathe. I pause at Metairie Road, then turn left and let out a large sigh.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I whisper. “I can’t bear to visit you there.”
I’m waiting for a sound, a whisper back, anything to let me know she hears me. But the only sounds are cars whizzing past, hip hop on a neighboring car’s radio, and the honk of the impatient person behind me, for I’ve slowed down, waiting for my eyes to clear. The man pulls in the lane next to me and rushes past, screams an obscenity as he does.
So much for answers.
I did get one this week, in the form of a telephone call from the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum in Opelousas. I grind my teeth remembering how a sweet older lady named Celeste called to inform me that yes, an Abigail Earhart arrived in Louisiana in 1928, given up by her widowed mother somewhere near New York City because the mother couldn’t care for the child while she worked. Abigail had disembarked in Opelousas and was given to a family that lived outside Blue Moon Bayou.
“So, she arrived on the train in Opelousas, then took another train to Blue Moon Bayou?” I had asked the volunteer who was nice enough to look this up.
“No, ma’am,” Celeste replied. “Once they arrived in Opelousas, the families picked them up, usually by horse and buggy or car.”
“But, what if this particular girl took a train south?”
“No, ma’am,” Celeste repeated, and if I hadn’t learned to respect my elders I would have pointed out that she was older than I and the ma’am business was headed in the wrong direction. “Your Abigail was one of the last to arrive. They stopped sending children on the Orphan Train shortly after that.”
“But, the train south….”
“I have it here in my notes.” I heard shuffling sounds as Celeste searched for the right paper. “Abigail Earhart arrived that summer and the Pinckley family picked her up seven hours later at the Opelousas train station.”
Ghost Town Page 16
