Jacaranda

by Cherie Priest

  They wished to stress that point.

  At any rate, how could they be blamed, if their grandfather had left his manufacturing company to Matthew? And how was it any fault of theirs, that Matthew was no longer alive to take possession of it?

  Thank heavens for David and George, who were ready and willing to assume the responsibility. Thank heavens their grandmother had someone to rely upon, someone to manage the business and the finances. And never mind the gossips who wondered about Matthew, and some weird bargain he’d made with the twins. They declined to specify. The wounds were so fresh, you see. Two deaths in the family, so close together. Such a tragedy, but these things happen every day. Just like the tides, just like the storms.

  The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

  And sometimes down in the lobby, they thought they heard familiar footsteps coming up the stairs, just like they did at home. Just like the night that Matthew came home with the knife in his chest, and made it up to the top landing before he fell.

  Eleven steps, that’s what David said. George said it was twelve.

  Last of all, they spoke to the bright, quick-witted Emily Nowell with her pamphlets on suffrage and divorce laws. She wore her hair in an East Coast style, bundled and braided, and pinned beneath a big-brimmed hat that didn’t budge when she nodded her head, shook it, or otherwise expressed her shock and dismay at the Ranger’s intrusive questions.

  Steadfastly she denied any secret sin, any broken vow, or any other reason she simply could not leave the hotel.

  She could leave the hotel anytime she liked, thank you very much. In fact, this entire conversation upset her so badly that she’d decided to leave on the very spot, just to show them—and to allay any concerns that she was a criminal, somewhere at the bottom of her heart, in a corner no one knew about. (Or a chamber that no one could prove.)

  The Ranger strictly forbade it, given the rising storm, but she stood up and bid him good-day, and added something less ladylike when he protested. There was one last ferry, according to the newspaper schedules. She would retrieve her bags, pay for her room, and depart immediately.

  In the end, there was little the Ranger could do to stop her, except to apologize, beg, and warn. She ignored him at every turn. It was either let the woman leave, or hold her there at gunpoint, and as the padre said upon her leaving, “It may not matter. The storm may take her, or the hotel might. It’s no better to force her to stay, than forbid her to go.”

  “But now I feel like it’s my fault!”

  “No, it’s no fault of yours. She was lying, anyway.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The padre nodded. He’d been listening. “Whatever ties her to this place, she can’t bring herself to speak of it. Besides, it’s no business of ours—and it doesn’t matter. The pattern is already clear, for all the good it does us to see it.”

  And for all the quiet horror it instilled in him, knowing that this might be the last place after all, the last case he ever investigated. This might be the reckoning—and true, anyplace could be. Any confrontation with forces dark and treacherous could mean the end of this borrowed time he occupied, and it would be fair.

  It was up to the Mother now. He tried to have faith, but he’d tried to have faith in a church, too, and he’d put his trust in a pair of guns instead. His broken vow was a great one—maybe the greatest of all, if you looked at it from just the right angle, in just the right light.

  ***

  A short blast of wind fired a tree branch scraping along a window in the great hall, where soon the Alvarez women would serve up supper to those who remained—and then the place would be secured as best as possible.

  The Ranger and the padre discussed it between themselves: There would be boards, and ropes, and shutters to close; they would enlist the help of everyone still standing, and when the hurricane had passed—should any of them survive it, and survive the hotel too—they would bury Sarah, and hope there wasn’t any need to retrieve and bury Emily Nowell as well.

  But all of that was for later, if later ever came. For now, it was only the Ranger and the padre, and their notes, and the storm outside, rumbling and thrashing against the shore.

  “What about you?” the Ranger asked the padre. He still pretended not to see the world spiraling into darkness outside those enormous windows. “Why are you here? The nun called for you, I know, but it’s more than that. I bet.”

  Juan Rios didn’t see much point in lying. “I killed thirteen men in a church.”

  “Bullshit, now.”

  “They were bandits. They came to rob, rape, and murder. I stopped them, and I…” he paused, and let the wind shriek through the hesitation. “I told myself that it was right, but it was not. I did not have faith enough. I took…” he chose an English expression, one he’d come to like. “I took matters into my own hands, when I should have left them in God’s.”

  “But the broken promise…there must be one in your story someplace. Everybody else has one,” the Ranger said, glancing down at his notebook.

  “My promise was to the Mother. I told her I wouldn’t touch the guns again. It was part of my oath, when I took my vows.”

  “But you kept the guns anyway? In the church?”

  He sighed and leaned back in the chair, rubbing at his eyes. They were tired, and they were straining. He wished he knew how to turn on the lights, in case it would make a difference. The clouds had taken on a bruise-like hue, and everything had grown dim despite the early hour. “I had my reasons, at the time. And what about you? Where’s your broken vow? You said that the Rangers did not send you, that you came by your own choice…but that’s what everyone thinks. I bet.”

  “I came because it sounded weird and interesting. This is what I do, I guess—I look into the cases nobody wants to touch, because everybody thinks they’re stupid. But I know they’re not. I know they’re worth investigating, even if there isn’t any good answer to be found…it’s always worth trying. These last few years, I’ve looked into ghosts, curses, and angels alike. Hell, I checked up on a chupacabra, once. You ever hear about those things?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Still not sure if it’s real or not, but that rancher outside Oneida didn’t have one. He had a coyote with the worst goddamn mange you ever saw in your life. I did the thing a favor, when I shot it. But since you’re about to ask me why—that is, why I’ve got this interest in the stranger things—the answer is short and sweet: I met a little lady in New Orleans, oh, fifteen years ago now. An old negress, wily as they come, and twice as sharp. She had…power. I don’t know what kind, and I don’t know who it came from—but she had it. I saw it. And in the end, she used it to save that city.”

  “She did?”

  “This was all back during the occupation, when Texas was there—and when the sap-plague was really getting a foothold this side of the Rockies. Those rotters, they were swarming the river’s edge, taking soldiers and sailors, and anyone else they could catch. But Marie Laveau, she understood them. She controlled them. She knew things ordinary mortals shouldn’t, but she’s gone now.” He pulled out his tobacco pouch, and started to roll up a cigarette. His hands shook, and he flinched when another tree branch dragged itself along the glass behind him. “So I guess it’s always possible that these days, she knows even more about the world’s mysteries than she ever did before.”

  “And you broke a vow to her?”

  He sniffed, and fiddled with the cigarette. “No, not her; I’m sure I wouldn’t be here today, if I had. But it was Mrs. Laveau who got me bit by the mystery bug…and besides that, she introduced me to another woman…”

  “The good kind, or the bad kind?”

  “The best kind. Pretty and brilliant. Tough as nails. We were from different places, and different ideas, but we got along anyhow. We worked together, for a while—for as long as I could stay there, and whenever I could make my way back to the delta. Goddamn, but it was never often enough. Say, padre—you ever been
to New Orleans?”

  “No. But I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “Not half so beautiful as my Josephine. But you want to know what promise I broke, so before you can ask me again, I’ll tell you: I promised to marry her. I meant it when I said it, but I got cold feet. I didn’t leave her at the altar or anything…I just…left. I left by myself, when I was supposed to take her with me. We were going to see Paris, that’s what I told her. That’s what I’d planned…and I couldn’t go through with it. I don’t know what the hell was wrong with me.

  “Before too long, I realized what a shit I’d been, so I went running back, hat in hand, hoping she’d forgive me. But while I’d been gone, cholera had come calling—and it’d made a mess of the city. Josephine…she wasn’t even supposed to be there, when it hit. She was supposed to be in Paris by then.” He struck a match and lit the cigarette, then held it like he’d forgotten why he wanted it in the first place.

  “Josephine survived rotters and sap-plague, war, submarine fights, spies, and all other manner of things that would fell a lesser lady, and I loved her for it. But in the end, all it took was a batch of bad water to take her away for good.” He changed his mind, and took a deep puff. Held it in. Let it out, in a soft white cloud that spun in the air like cotton. “So there it is. That’s the worst promise I ever broke. And if that’s why I’m here, if this is where I meet some…some justice, or whatever… I’m all right with that. I sure as shit have it coming.”

  For a time they sat in silence while the Ranger smoked and the padre sank deep into thought, and the storm smeared itself across the hotel windows, and walls, and landscaping.

  The padre hoped he’d buried Constance Fields deep enough that the inevitable flooding didn’t dredge her up. He hoped they would have a chance to bury Sarah, too—and bury her properly, with more than a hedge to mark her passing.

  At the thought of Sarah, he likewise thought of Sister Eileen.

  He hadn’t seen her since Tim had delivered the doll. Had she stayed? Closed up the room, and returned to her own? “What about Sister Eileen?” he asked aloud. “She’s been here longer than anyone else, except for Sarah and the Alvarez family. She must have been called here too, drawn by some secret of her own. I wonder what it is.”

  Ranger Korman asked, “How well do you know her?”

  “Barely at all. We exchanged some letters, and then we met for the first time yesterday.” He leaned forward, then stood up and pushed his chair beneath the table. “But there’s something strange about her. Something different, and I don’t know what.”

  The Ranger stood up, too. “Neither do I, but I don’t disagree with you—and I’ve only known her an afternoon.” He tucked his cigarette between his lips, and beneath that fluffy white mustache. “Something about her reminds me of the old New Orleans woman, Laveau. Something about the way she carries herself, like she bears more weight than you can see. Do you think she’ll tell us about it? If we ask real nice?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Mrs. Alvarez joined them, by accident more than design. She rolled a tray into the great hall and stopped herself at the sight of them. “Pardon,” she mumbled, and guided the tray around them. In Spanish, she muttered, “The meal will begin in fifteen minutes. Spread the word around, if you like. Today we eat early, so we can get ahead of the storm.”

  “What’d she say?”

  The padre nodded at the woman, and then he said to the Ranger: “Get ready for supper. It’s likely to be our last.”

  The afternoon meal was hasty and tense, parceled out in a serve-yourself fashion that required minimal intervention from Mrs. Alvarez or her daughters. There was gumbo in a large tureen, fresh fruit, fried plantains, and corn muffins with butter for anyone who wanted them—though no one had much of an appetite. It was too hard to eat with the giant windows showing off the great chaos that billowed outside; or even after their hostess gave up and closed the curtains. Then the rain began to fall. Rather, it did not fall, so much as it flung itself at the building in droplets as big as marbles, propelled by the heavy wind. The clatter it made upon hitting the glass was worse than the scraping of tree limbs, or the rustling patter of leaves scratching upon it.

  The storm would not be ignored. If the guests of the Jacaranda refused to look at it, they would surely hear it anyway.

  When it was clear that everyone was finished pretending to eat, Mrs. Alvarez called out, “I need help. The rain has come, and worse will come later. This hotel is our presidio now, and we must make it strong.”

  “As if it matters,” grumbled Frederick Vaughn, who was still drunk from his afternoon of evading the Ranger’s questions. If anything, he was drunker now—having finished the bottle of whiskey and perhaps found another to chase it.

  “It matters,” the woman snapped. “The hotel is built strong, but it has cracks. It has weak places, where the storm might find a way inside. It will surely try.”

  Mrs. Anderson sighed hugely, and gestured at the enormous windows. “What do we do about these? Close the curtains, that’s all. Hope it keeps out the worst of the glass and debris, when the things begin to shatter.”

  “Yes, we close the curtains, and we close the doors behind ourselves, and we fasten them.” Mrs. Alvarez folded her arms. “We will lock ourselves as deep inside as we can. We close off all the side doors, and block them with heavy furniture. We shut every window, every door, in every room—and bolt them up tight. Then we close the fire doors, to shut down the hallways.”

  “And the front doors?” asked the Ranger. “They’re big and heavy, but…”

  “There is a brace for them, a beam. I will need help to move it, but it will hold. Come now, we must work together—before the last of the light has left us.”

  The padre rose from his chair. “Let us divide into groups, and secure the wings floor by floor. I’ll begin with the first floor’s east wing,” he declared, meaning the place where Sarah was still laid out, still broken-necked with a ragdoll lying on the bed beside her. “Ranger, perhaps you can take the third floor, of the same wing.” For that was where Constance Fields had died, and the room was closed without being secured. They’d discussed her death already; the Ranger knew what to expect, should he peek inside her quarters.

  The remaining guests chose their stations and departed, leaving their plates and cutlery on the tables without a second thought. Mrs. Alvarez left them too, pausing only to tie the curtains shut at each great window. She looked back and forth between the tables and the chairs, as if she considered how useful they might be…but she discarded any thoughts of securing the space any further.

  She threw her hands up in surrender, and when she saw the padre watching her, she told him in Spanish, “The glass will break and the room will be in ruins. We can’t save the whole building, and we shouldn’t fool ourselves about it; damage will occur, by the will of God. But we should preserve what we can. Sacrifice the one room to save the one wing. Come with me, we should close this door, and forget this room—it is already lost. Let the storm come inside and clean it out, I don’t care and neither does the Jacaranda.”

  He joined her in drawing the big double doors shut in their wake, and then he asked about sheets of wood, and nails. “We can cover some of the small windows, like the ones in these doors—and the front doors. We can keep the glass from blowing around inside, should it break.”

  “You can find those things out in the shed,” she said, then withdrew the statement as ridiculous, almost immediately. “But you should not attempt it. No one should leave anymore, this must be our fortress now.”

  “I agree, but what about—”

  With a snap of her fingers, she cut him off. “Wait—there are scraps by the back entrance. Tim was building a covered porch. We brought the wood and the tools inside this morning, and stacked them in the laundry room.”

  “Thank you. That is most helpful.”

  He excused himself with a small bow, and checked the laundry room. He remembered it we
ll, and yes, now there were piles of scrap and tools tossed into the mix of machines, sinks, and lines. He rifled through the building materials and, finding promising pieces and a heavy hammer, he went to the lobby to begin with the main doors.

  They were solid as stone, except for those small decorative windows—and through the colored bits of glass he saw terrible motion outside, drawn in hasty strokes that suggested violence and mayhem without any details. He shuddered and held up a scrap of wood, then drove nails through either end, on each side of the glass. Four more such scraps were enough to cover both panes, though he lingered over the last few inches, hesitating before covering the last small gap.

  It was only a sliver, and not even a sliver of light; between the hour and the clouds it might as well have been midnight beyond the little windows…but it felt very final, and very futile.

  It felt like he was walling up a tomb, with himself and everyone else inside.

  He pounded the last two nails in deep, and he told himself to have faith—because there was no one else to remind him.

  The nun might’ve reminded him, but she was absent. She hadn’t joined them for supper, and she wasn’t in Sarah’s room when the padre went to check on the pair of them. He heard nothing inside, even when he listened for all he was worth, and the door had been locked firmly enough that he didn’t care to try it. Sister Eileen was somewhere else, then, and no one would stumble upon Sarah’s body. It seemed like insufficient preparation, but it would have to be enough.

  He stood still and listened hard.

  All around him, the cavernous hotel rattled and pattered with the rushing thuds of feet, running from room to room, door to door. Windows were tested, and curtains were drawn; mattresses were lifted and pressed against them, in case the weight would preserve the room somehow.

  A silly effort, yes, but all of these efforts were silly. The hotel would stand, or it would not. A mattress here, a pair of curtains there, the occasional boarded-up portal…in the end, none of it would matter if the storm wanted badly enough to find its way inside.