by Trinity Crow
What had this place looked like when it was cleared and farmed? I could take out a bunch of the thorn vines and bushes with a pair of loppers. Make it nicer back here. What kind of tools had the slaves used to clear this land? Axes? Hoes? The heat was bearable underneath the deep shade of the oaks, but I didn't want to imagine doing hard manual labor out here, sun or shade. We hung out for awhile, but I was impatient to get out of my work clothes and finally called Corky to come inside. He trotted easily ahead of me, seemingly content to go back in. He charged through the door into the kitchen making a beeline for his water bowl. As I turned to shut the door, I saw Mrs. Evers pull in. Maybe I'd go get the rest of Julia's story this afternoon. The history part wasn't much good if I didn't know how she died and why she and Corky haunted the place. It was going to be hard to listen to, but I was no stranger to hard things. I'd just suck it up and try to remember she had been dead for years. Even if she was a ghost, she was surely out of pain now. Then remembering the sorrow in the dead guy's voice, I wasn't so sure.
It was maybe two hours later, when a glance out the window showed Mrs. Evers, in her house dress and straw hat, out in the garden picking stuff. Corky was asleep on his blanket. Was It normal for dogs to sleep so much? He was really old… I decided to worry about it later and take advantage of it now. I walked softly to the door and let myself out.
“Well hello, chile!” Mrs. Evers' face was beaming, her eyes doing that mad twinkle.
I mentally shook my head as I caught myself smiling back. I wondered for the first time about some kind of entrapment spell, then almost snorted out loud. I had heard of love spells, but like me spells? I was jumping at shadows.
Mrs. Evers moved over to a pair of chairs under a Chinaberry tree. She set her basket down on the table between them and waved me over, motioning for me to sit down too.
“You been keeping busy, chile.” It was not a question.
I shrugged. “Yeah, work and stuff.”
Her bright eyes watched me. I wasn't about to say anything about spiderweb tremors and materializing dogs…or the protections she had left by my door.
She sighed a little. I guess it was at me being so closed mouthed.
“I reckon you want to hear the end of the story,” she said, settling back into the chair.
I nodded my head slowly. “If you have the time, I mean.” I looked at the basket of flowers and tomatoes. “I don't mean to interrupt you.”
“Oh, nonsense, chile. When you are my age, there is plenty of time for everything. You just aren't in such a hurry as you young people are. Now let's see, Julia was pregnant and her and Alcee were having a time of it on the Blackhawes Plantation.”
She leaned back, her eyes tracing the tree branches waving busily above us. The sweet, delicate smell of the purple blossoms hung in the air.
“The day the baby was born, Julia insisted someone go for her mother and although they said they would,” she shook her head, “no one went. She did not have an easy time of it, and outside the room, every cry and whimper was listened to by the Darveaux family awaiting the birth of their grandson. And as they tend to, the baby came in its own due time… and it was a boy.”
Mrs. Evers' voice had grown slowed and now she paused, her grief was obvious. I surprised myself by reaching over and patting her hand.
“Yes, chile,” she whispered, “have courage.” She took a deep breath. “Well, Mrs. Darveaux let out a scream when she saw the baby and the menfolk rushed in, Julia still uncovered on the bed. Alcee was cowering in the corner, trying to shield the child, but they knocked her in the head and dragged the baby away.”
I gaped at her. “But why?” I hadn't seen this coming. I had maybe pictured some kind of gruesome Caesarian on a live Julia.
"Oh, there was no doubt that the child was black, at least by half. A mulatto child with Julia’s eyes large as life. Aidan was in a rage. It was the worst a white woman could do, to lay with a slave. He went mad with the insult, the horror of it, beating Julia half to death, calling her a whore and a nigger lover. Alcee was beat almost as bad, trying to defend her and keep the baby from ol' Master Darveaux. The old man wrestled the child from Alcee and disappeared with him, screaming he would hack it to pieces…this abomination. Julia was left alone, bleeding from childbirth and the beating. It was Alcee that got Julia up and moving, took her down the back servant’s stairs. They went through the woods, Corky showing up as they walked, his white coat giving off the only light. They walked as long as they could and then collapsed under a big oak tree. Corky whined and carried on, pulling at Julia to get her up, but she could go no further. Alcee left her there with Corky and walked the long miles here to Ruelliquen and roused the family. They hitched up and rode out at full speed. It was a dark night and the men needed their lanterns to search the woods. Finally, they found Julia, unconscious, wrapped around Corky for warmth, and carried them back to the wagon and not a dry eye among those men.
"It was later that Aidan showed up with a heart full of hell and a loaded shotgun. The master, his father, had raced out to the chopping block with the baby, intent on murder and hell. His evil, old heart had given out with the blackness of his deed and he died there, axe in hand, frothing at the mouth. It's said the slaves stood there and watched him die, no one moving a muscle to help. I think Aidan had lost all reason at that point, murder, hanging, nothing was going to stop him from revenge on Julia and her family. And really, no white man or woman in the parish would have blamed him for killing her, not after what she had done.” She leaned forward, her head shaking.
I tried to put the pieces together and failed. There was a big hole in this story. Julia who loved Aidan, dealing with his crappy family, trying to make it work, she had cheated on him? Rape seemed unlikely given the consequences to a slave would face.
"It wasn’t that he was a bad person, but when you are faced with something ugly inside yourself it takes a powerful amount of courage to take an honest and hard look at who you are, what you believe and what things that belief has made you do. Most people don't have that kind of strength.” Mrs. Evers looked away, her face was a mask of sorrow and unhappiness. Her voice was uneven and she seemed to be talking about more than Aidan Darveaux. “They most times turn and run the other direction, clinging with all their might to the belief that their way is the right way. No one can dislodge them from it. All because they can’t face the blackness of their own soul and so they react with hate and fury towards any who threaten to take that belief away from them.”
I nodded. But inside something felt…off. I knew it. This was not the whole story.
"He shot her, there in the carriage house. They had put her there, hoping to hide her if any of the Darveaux's came looking. He shot her and then set fire to the big house, and shot himself. Julia, Albert, Nella and several slaves all died that night. Both families torn apart. The Darveauxs lost near everything…"
I tried not to snort at that. Surely they deserved to?
"Only Alain and Tobias remained of the Trevautiers. Tobias left, traveled north, living in the woods. Some say he became a trapper and married an Indian girl. But no one heard of him, not for certain, again. Alain was old before his time. He rebuilt this house and dedicated his life to helping the people here. Freeing the slaves and establishing LaPierre. He was a doctor, you know, and did house calls until his late eighties, often refusing payment. Julia stayed. Tied to this place, the happiest time she had ever known."
“But…” I stared out at the darkening yard in confusion. “Wouldn't Julia want to move on? To be with her baby?”
Mrs. Evers was silent. I turned to look at her and she was already looking at me.
“It's a fact,” she said, her old eyes steady on mine, “they never found that baby's body.”
I stared at her trying once again to understand something beyond me. Around us, the shadows grew deeper and crickets chirped, encouraging me to make the connection.
“The baby lived?” I was stunned and then wildly happy
. Crazy how I had become so caught up in the life of someone else. Lived and breathed her happiness and sorrow. Felt what the loss of a child would be to someone who knew family as everything. And yet, the baby had lived and Julia, dead, had been unable to move on. Caught in limbo by her uncertainty of the baby's fate.
“She didn't know,” I said quietly, mostly to myself. “She didn't know where the baby was, alive or dead, cold and hungry or happy and loved. She couldn't leave, she won't leave till she knows.” I was grateful the gathering dark hid the unwanted tears in my eyes. My own mother had not given a damn, just left me on a curb and walked away. Julia had fought death itself to protect her child.
Mrs. Evers sighed. It was not a sad sound, but a contented one. Something in the sound made me uneasy. I tensed, waiting.
“She did know the baby was alive,” Mrs. Evers said slowly.
“She did?” My voice cracked in shock.
"Alcee told her as they escaped Blackhawes. In the woods, before she left Julia hidden in the brush, Alcee told her that the slaves had taken the baby and run for it as the master's heart turned on him and took his life. She believed this would give Julia the strength to hang on, to fight. In a way, she was right.”
Mrs. Evers rocked gently back and forth. I could see her eyes glittering in the twilight. “She was too hurt to hang on to life, but she made sure she was not defeated by death.”
“You mean by haunting the place?" I asked, lost again.
Mrs. Evers took a long look at me before speaking. “Before Julia died, she bound her soul to her body. There is a way to use such a sacrifice, to strengthen a ritual, making her death a summoning to what was lost. Her body, preserved in the old ways, fixed this place as a lodestone.”
I stared at her in shock. She was actually admitting she was a part of the cult world of LaPierre? What did it mean that her secret was out?
Wait, kept her body by the old ways?
“Ewww,” I said unable to help myself. What was she saying?
Mrs. Evers smiled, her teeth gleamed in the dusk. “Dark measures are sometimes needed. The lost must be found and the child lost must take her place.”
The hairs on the back of my neck were rising, and I wanted to get up and leave, but she just kept talking, words I didn't want to hear filling the space between us.
“When Julia's child had a child, we felt it. When her child died, we knew. Through seven generations we have tracked the births, rejoicing, renewing the call, only to despair as it went unanswered to their death. But Julia’s casting was strong.”
I flinched as she said the word.
“And each generation came closer to home.” The deep satisfaction in her voice made my skin crawl. “We have kept her body unaltered, her spirit feeding the call. It has not faltered these two hundred and thirteen years.” She took a deep breath and turned to me, her face draped in shifting shadows. “And now you're home.”
The night fell in a single swoop and the darkness swirled around us. I stood up blindly, knocking the chair over.
“That's not true!”
“You know it is.” Her voice was sure and gloating.
“I DON'T!” I shouted, barely stopping the word bitch from leaping off my tongue.
“It's why you can see Corky, why you can cast. Your powers are handed down from Julia herself. She learned it from those slaves she kept company with.” Her voice laid out these sentences like they were unshakable facts and the certainty in her voice shook me. There was an edge to the old woman's voice I hadn't heard before, like the layers of sweet grandma icing were melting off.
“That's bullshit,” I said, pushed past caring about landlady/tenant relations. I ran down the steps and toward the house. Screw that crazy bitch.
“Child!” she called after me. “Child…we just want to welcome you home.”
We? I thought wildly as I ran up the stairs and slammed the door, locking it. I didn't want to think, I didn't want to breathe, I didn't want to be here. Corky raced into the room, barreling into my legs. I sank down on the floor and held him.
If I left for good, could he come with me? Was that fair to Julia?
It wasn't fair to me, I thought helplessly, to have found him and he wasn't really mine.
The doorknob rattled and Mrs. Evers called out “Child? We really should talk. I've let you have your privacy, but things have changed.”
Corky leaped up and slammed himself against the door, there was a distinct crack as his bulk went full force against the old wood. His fury was frightening and not just to me. There was a startled shriek from outside and then whatever else she said was drowned out by the thunder of Corky barking. I stayed where I was and when he returned to my lap, panting and snuffling, I knew she was gone…for now.
Chapter 23
It was still light when Corky and I biked over to Chloe's place. I didn't know the area well, but I knew it was on the far west side of town near the water, but then all the far sides are near water in this town.
The houses here were modest, all single-family stuff, shotguns, and cottages. We don't have apartment complexes in LaPierre. And like the rest of the town, they were mostly bright colors, greens, pinks, and yellows. I looked around noticing for the first time how many had doors and windows of haint blue. Maybe I had been clueless, but no more.
At the end of Rue DeLeon, little streets branched out going nowhere, but to the bayou's edge. Chloe's street was Delahoussaye Court, the name was much fancier than the rutted, cracked reality of the asphalt beneath my tires. I went slowly to avoid busting my skull. Azaleas, gardenias, and cannas filled the yards, white spider lilies glimmering from the deep shade of the oaks. Off to the side, kitchen gardens grew, tomatoes and corn were easy to pick out. Except for the crappy road, it was a pretty street. Cypress and willows crowded in with the oaks hugging the edge of the pavement. I pedaled even slower with acorns and cypress balls adding new hazards. Corky had no trouble and ran happily ahead of me, tongue hanging in the breeze. I smiled at the sight of him and something unfamiliar showed up inside me. I shook my head to banish the unwanted thoughts. I didn't want to analyze what he made me feel. I just wanted it not to end.
Of course, Chloe's was the last house on the road, not that there were more than four others altogether. The street made a small bend, most likely to avoid the giant oak on the roadside, and just beyond it, was the house. Only long practice kept my mouth shut and my chin from my chest. Her house rose up on legs of thick metal pipe from the bayou itself, a long, blocky rectangle of a mobile home resting maybe twenty feet up on those stilts. I'd seen lots of houses built on stilts for flood protection, they were common down here. But never a trailer. And as I squinted in the twilight, I saw it was painted in camouflage. The green of the bayou, gray of moss and tree and the soft cypress brown shaded together in a crazy quilt of muted tones. Crazy was the right word, but somehow it worked. The damn thing looked almost like it had grown up there, instead of being hoisted by a crane. A small, gated garden with an oyster shell path led to a catwalk bridge zigzagging it's way up to the house. A wrought iron balcony, of all things, surrounded a porch filled with ferns and rocking chairs. I shook my head at the odd picture of redneck and southern charm.
Leaning my bike against the gate, I started to lift up the latch, then pulled my hand back at a sudden tingling sensation. Corky chuffed a warning, and I rolled my eyes at him.
“A little late for that,” I told him. He pretended to look insulted, but his droopy ears told me he knew I was right.
Belatedly, I examined the gate, only now seeing the hex signs, swirls and ellipses, crescent moons and cat's eyes, scratched into the paint. Things I should have noticed. Corky wasn't the only one who had slipped up. I tried the gate a second time and, feeling nothing, pushed it open. Overhead, windchimes sounded from the porch. I edged my way into the garden, my sidekick hot on my heels. Some of the plants I recognized from Mrs. Evers' place, others were herbs we used at the bakery. Rosemary, dill, sage. I saw the hibiscus
-y flowers of okra and wrinkled my nose. With okra, you either do or you don't, and there is no arguing with the weirdos who do. Clumps of silvery stuff edged the path giving off a strong, not unpleasant smell as I walked by. Corky thought otherwise and issued a series of explosive sneezes. What I thought to be white pebbles among the plants, I now saw were small bones. I tried to remember something from biology class. Vertebrate? From a snake, maybe? I moved a little faster. The path ended at the edge of the catwalk and I stared past for a moment at lazy, verdigris water flowing slowly by. The air was thick with the sound and scent of the bayou. It was the scent of LaPierre, rich and spicy, mixed with the sound of water and wildlife, things you couldn't tame or control.
Corky nudged my leg and I lifted my head as someone came out on the porch. The someone was Sayre cheerfully eating something that she waved at me in greeting. Cork and I tackled the catwalk. It was a steep climb and I wondered how Chloe managed this trek with those leg braces. The sound of chimes grew louder and I looked up, wondering if they were some kind of spook doorbell/alarm system. But it was only Sayre, her chicken leg tangled in a mobile of what looked like giant colored buttons and brass bells. Bizarro, but weirdly attractive. I guessed it was an Aren creation. There were other chimes hung from the eaves, less artistic and more Blair Witch project, fish bones, feathers and tin can lids with weird symbols. I stepped on to the porch and my eye caught sight of a black porch mat with a warning in blood red letters, Turn Back Now. I raised my eyebrows at Sayre who laughed hysterically, then choked on her chicken. I bit my lip as she hacked and spat.
“Cool, huh?” she choked the words out, still gasping for breath. “I got it for her last solstice.”
I couldn't believe Chloe got the humor, and that she actually used the mat. She seemed to have zero funny bones.
Corky woofed a reproach at being ignored.
"Hey, pooch!” Sayre wisely kept her chicken out of reach. “We've got you a snack inside.”