by G A Chase
* * *
For three days, they returned to the same jetty, asked the same questions, and got the same lack of response. He began to believe Delphine was right. The old woman had probably died so long before that no one knew what they were talking about, and if any of the men did know anything, they wouldn’t admit to the swamp horror stories away from a good campfire.
As the sun again passed over the top of his Ford, he considered giving up on the idea of finding the swamp witch.
“You folks serious about going out to Honeydew?”
He turned and saw a man standing on a wooden flatboat, a pole in his hand.
“Can you get us there?” Lincoln asked.
“Not many venture into that wilderness. Those that do seldom find their way out. I only traverse those waterways during the day. No one in their right mind would stay past sunset.”
Delphine left the cool confines of the air-conditioned SUV. “We’re looking for the swamp witch. Can you take us to her?”
“Nope. Though I can drop you off on the far side of her island. You’ll have to find your way from there. My territory doesn’t extend to her side of the bayou.”
Delphine lifted her pack from the back seat. “We’ll be spending the night there. If your offer includes picking us up tomorrow, we can leave immediately.”
“Don’t remember making an offer, but if you’re serious, it’s going to cost you.”
Lincoln pulled the billfold from the pocket of his jeans. “Name your price.”
Having settled on a dollar figure that would allow the boatman to upgrade his raft to a nicely appointed aluminum skiff, Lincoln helped Delphine to a seat at the front of the old-fashioned boat. “I didn’t realize anyone used poles to get around the bayous anymore.”
The man stood at the back and used the long rod for both propulsion and steering. “No one does except me. The deep cypress groves are murder on outboard engines, and airboats end up skewered on cypress knees like pigs on a spit. The closer you get to that witch’s island, the pointier the knees. She doesn’t like visitors. She’s also not a fan of noise, so once we get close, I’d keep quiet if I were you.”
As Lincoln had suspected, he lost his bearings before the boat even left the winding river. Once in the heart of the swamp, he started praying their ride would honor his agreement to pick them up the next day. Should he decide not to, they didn’t have much hope of ever being found.
Dusk had fallen by the time the man beached the flat-bottom boat.
“Head through those trees,” he said. “The island’s not big, but it can be disorienting. If you get lost, just head in a straight line until you hit the swamp again. If you find yourself in the cypress grove, you’re in the witch’s property. Otherwise, you’ll be where I can find you. I’ll be back in the morning. Be ready for me. I’m not waiting around.”
The moment Lincoln pulled their packs from the boat, the man shoved off and was headed away from the island.
“Any thoughts on reaching the witch without making ourselves unwelcome?”
Delphine slung her backpack over her shoulders. “This place is covered in spells. I can smell them. She knows we’re here. If we head straight across the island, we’ll either find her or end up ensnared in one of her confounding curses and wander around lost until she decides we’ve had enough.”
He had to hurry to keep up with her. His temptation to fill the time with conversation was tempered by the boatman’s warning about keeping quiet. The silence, however, only added to his feelings of dread at the island becoming his final resting place.
The wax myrtles mixed in with the red maples made for slow going. If a path existed somewhere on the island, they’d missed it. He could hear animals lurking in the shadows but had trouble identifying the shrieks and howls.
“What are you two doing on my land?”
He turned and saw a woman in her early twenties pointing a shotgun at their feet. His shock gave Delphine the opening to answer.
“We’re searching for the swamp witch that lives here. She knows who I am.”
The young woman’s matted blond hair cascaded down her shoulders as she nodded. “Follow me, and keep up. I don’t want to have to come back out to find you again.”
She moved through the forest like a deer following a barely detectable trail. Shrubs that she skirted around managed to reach out and snag Lincoln’s pants, though, from the holes in her tight, faded jeans, he guessed her proficiency had come at a price.
The island’s scrub forest gave way to towering cypress trees that grew out of the bog. His fear of being scratched by the bushes was replaced by that of sinking into the marshy ground. In the distance, a house nestled in the limbs of the trees. It looked as though a hurricane had deposited it high off the ground.
“My grandmother is waiting. I’ll be back in the morning.” The mysterious woman disappeared back into the forest before he had a chance to respond.
Delphine put her hands on her hips and arched her back as she looked up at the boards that had been nailed to a tree trunk to form a ladder. “I’m getting too old for this nonsense.”
“Maybe this is why she doesn’t stop by your shop more often. I can’t imagine making this trek if I didn’t have to. I’ll bet she hasn’t been down from that perch in decades.”
She gave him a side glance. “You don’t have to go up there. This whole excursion is just to satisfy your damn curiosity.”
She didn’t understand. Once a question was fully formed in Lincoln’s mind, he’d stop at nothing to find the answer.
“I’ll go first to make sure the trunk isn’t rotted out or something,” he said.
“Cypress doesn’t rot, but I’m not going to stop your show of chivalry.”
His muscles were already aching from the jog through the forest. He put his foot on the lowest board and slowly trusted his weight to it. One down, twelve to go. In any civilized forest, this tree ladder would have had a maximum-age-and-weight-limit warning. Only children would find the island obstacle course anything other than torture, though, even as a kid, Lincoln would have avoided the adventure at all costs.
At the top of the ladder, he pushed open the hatch over his head, which fell with a loud thud onto the porch. The wood planks, along with the rest of the house, tilted unnervingly toward the ground. A drunk wouldn’t have a chance, but being sober, he found the front door without losing his footing.
“You’ve come all this way. You might as well come in,” someone with a raspy voice said inside the house.
Lincoln pulled on the screen door, which appeared to have been slashed by some rabid animal. From the way the tears stretched from the upper corner to below his knees, that had to have been one impressive creature.
His first impression of the living room was that it had been abandoned for decades. Dust coated every surface. The only colors he could make out were shades of blue and gray. He peered into the various mismatched high-back chairs for the lone occupant.
What he’d at first dismissed as a pile of rags shifted in the dim light let in from a side window. “Have a seat.”
Once he’d located a chair he thought might not crumble under him or leave him covered in magically cursed dust, he noticed Delphine standing in the doorway. He stared at her, expecting her to enter, but she stood stiff, as if bolted to the floor.
The old woman’s voice sounded as dry and harsh as the dust that burned his throat. “Don’t worry about your friend. There exists a separation between voodoo priestess and witch. Though the distinction may seem a matter of semantics to the uninitiated, Miss de Galpion knows her place.” The swamp witch leaned forward out of the shadows. Her gray skin stretched thin over her bones, leaving him the impression of a living mummy. Wisps of white hair inadequately covered her freckled scalp.
Though Lincoln found the scene disquieting at first, he’d survived much more terrifying encounters in hostile boardrooms. “Do you remember me?”
“Lincoln, son of Margery and Harriso
n Laroque.” She waved a bony finger at him. “Your lineage is written all over your face. I met you once as a young man. The years have left their mark on you.”
He’d never begrudged the gray hair at his temples or the lines on his forehead. Like most men in the business world, he relished the signs of command. “You said something to me back then.”
“I set you on a course that led you here today. My question now is, are you ready, or do you still need time to mature?”
“I run one of the biggest—”
“I don’t give a mosquito’s testicle for what you do,” she interrupted. “Your successes in life only fog the truth.”
What he needed no longer lay on the line his life had followed. “What is the truth?”
“I can read your aura, oracle the future, and hold the past’s secrets, but a person’s truth lies within them. Never let anyone claim to know more about your true being than you know about yourself.”
Just perfect. All this way for a bullshit answer. “You called me the family’s fulfillment. What did you mean?”
“You didn’t really come all this way to ask about a comment I made thirty years ago. What do you want?”
The time for small talk was over. “I have the imprisoned spirit of Baron Archibald Malveaux. Tell me how to use it.”
“You think this is some little trinket you keep on your desk for your personal amusement? Like you can just push a button and make it dance to your tune? You are a fool.”
Even as a child, he’d quickly lost interest in toys. “I think it’s a power capable of creating real change in people’s lives.”
She waved her leathery hand at him and scoffed. “Pretty words with no meaning. Your mother was right. You would have made a good politician. Try again.”
“I think it has the power to make a change in my life.”
“That goes without saying. If all you seek is change, I’ll see that you slip going down the stairs out there. A fall from up here could have quite the impact on your life.” She filled the room with screeching laughter at her own joke.
He didn’t find her amusing. “I have power over a lot of people. With or without the old baron’s abilities, I plan on increasing my reach. One day, that might stretch all the way out to this bayou.”
“You would already resort to threats? I thought you had more imagination. What you have in that totem is more than power. It’s more like a magnet that attracts power. It’s the realization of ambition distilled out from countless conquests. Like any other force in nature, power gravitates to the winner.”
He could feel her influence taking hold of him, preventing him from playing his usual game of deception. “That’s what I crave. It’s my birthright. You said I was the family’s fulfillment. This is what you meant. I know it is.”
“What you seek is only the beginning. The game Malveaux began never reached an end. His craving lives on.”
He saw his opening. “If I’m not the one to claim his energy, someone else will. Though Malveaux can’t escape the totem, that much command can’t stay locked up forever. The day will come when someone tries to utilize what they’ve found. Isn’t it better to open Pandora’s box in a controlled environment?”
“You play an interesting game, Lincoln Laroque. I’m an old woman. You tempt me with one last bite at the apple of guardianship, but you don’t fool me. You believe you can defeat me once you’ve gotten what you want.”
He knew the dynamics she was weighing. As an old woman with knowledge and power, she might prove a better adversary than her youthful, uninitiated granddaughter. The old swamp witch would fear that once she had passed, Lincoln might have a much easier time convincing the younger witch to do his bidding.
She settled back into the chair so deeply he wondered if she would be lost to sight in the ghostly shadows. “It’s getting late. There’s a cot in the next room and a hammock on the porch. The bayou conveys its messages in the dead of night. We’ll let the swamp decide.”
The room grew colder. He tried to listen for her breathing, but he could hear only the sounds of the night. He turned toward the door, still open.
“Well, either she’s dead or asleep,” he said. “Will you be okay out on the porch?”
Delphine moved out of the doorway and let the screen door slam. “If I could brave the wild animals, I’d sleep in the forest. Anything to be away from that old hag. The porch will have to do. Remember, nothing you see in your dreams is real.”
* * *
Lincoln didn’t remember falling asleep. The most disturbing part of his dream was that he knew exactly where he was, in the witch’s lair, and exactly what he was doing, sleeping. Such a revelation would normally wake him up, yet he remained at that level of unconsciousness like a fisherman who’d dozed off in his boat—pole still in hand—waiting for a bite.
A bird was whistling outside the open window. As he focused on the song, he realized it wasn’t a bird at all. He turned to his side and saw a young man decked out in a Confederate uniform, whittling on a stick and whistling “Dixie” as he rocked in the creaky chair. The boy couldn’t have been older than twenty.
“Have you come to haunt my dreams?” Lincoln thought if that was the best the swamp witch could conjure, the night was bound to be long and tedious.
The boy pointed the sharpened piece of wood at him. “I’ve just got one question. Who in the name of Jefferson Davis named you Lincoln?”
That wasn’t the first time he’d been harassed for the culturally insensitive name. “That would be my mother. She expected me to go into politics and thought the name would soften the image of me being a Southerner. I went by Colin for most of my school years, but inevitably, someone would figure out my real name. Eventually, I decided to embrace it.”
The youth shrugged. “I guess we’ve all got crosses to bear.” He returned to his work on sharpening the stick.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?”
“You wanted to see me, so here I am.”
Lincoln nodded. “You’re Anthony Laurette.” Which means I’m not you reincarnated.
“Right on both counts.”
He found sitting up hard in spite of the fact that only his spirit moved. His body was still lying on the bed. “You can hear my thoughts?”
The young man grimaced at him. “What exactly do you think we’re doing here? Your thoughts are all I hear. You are not some reincarnation. Each time the bucket of life gets dipped in the deep waters, it comes up with a fresh soul. It’s made up of a bunch of other souls, to be sure, but it’s uniquely itself. Understand?”
The initial question of his identity wasn’t his real reason for having made the journey. “I need to know how to control your father, the baron Malveaux.”
“Then you want in on the curse?”
He’d never considered that the family curse somehow controlled the baron in the afterlife. “Explain.”
“He thinks he’s in charge of the afterlife—or did until he was captured.” The boy used the stick as if pointing at different realities. “As the living have to pass through Guinee to reach the deep waters upon their death, there wasn’t a lot that could be done from your side to influence him. Think of him as guarding the gate. But he stole that power from the loas of the dead, so there was a mutual desire among both the living and those in charge of Guinee to rein in Baron Malveaux. In life, the curse was meant to harm the old man by threatening his heirs. That threat worked like a leash holding back an ill-behaved dog. You moved him out of the gate, but he’s still not tamed.”
“And the swamp witch is the one holding the other end of the leash?” Lincoln’s heart beat faster at the idea of exerting that level of control.
“It’s not that simple. Some things don’t translate well from my reality to yours. If you want a say in how that leash is used, you’ll have to lose your soul to the curse. Basically, you’ll become part of the leash. That’s the price.”
Even if the old swamp witch held t
he curse in her hands, being a part of the spell had to give him powers over the baron that she couldn’t control. “And if I sell my soul, I’ll have complete control over the baron?”
“You know, even when I was alive, I found people’s greed and lust for power perplexing. You think of evil as some attack dog that will sit calmly beside your chair until the command to attack is given. The witch is right. You are a fool.”
“All animals can be trained.”
The soldier took off his cap and revealed deep wrinkles around his eyes. “We’re talking about someone who, in life, found a way to steal power from the gods. In death, he was able to keep them at bay even though outnumbered. He’s wild but cunning. This is not an adversary you’ll be able to defeat. A leash has a purpose, but the one holding the end is the one in command.”
The thought that Baron Malveaux had stolen his power made Lincoln all the more determined. The baron was an opponent worthy of Lincoln’s life lessons. If he were to win that battle, the resulting power might finally satiate his unrequited desire.
“What do I need to do?” Lincoln asked.
“Once Kendell Summer opened the curse, she made it accessible by members of the direct family. It’s a two-sided coin. Those most in danger from the curse are also those who can enter the stream of dark energy.”
He knew someone must have been designated to prevent exactly what he had in mind. “What about the swamp witch?”
“She’s the guardian, but she’s not of our lineage. Cross her, and she’ll let loose hell on you, but she can’t enter the nether regions. You can. Just know once you combine with the curse, there’s no turning back. You’ll be in a lifelong struggle to make the mad dog behave. An uncontrolled attack animal can easily turn on its master—or chew through its lead.”
For someone who had spent his life in opposition to his father and sought to protect his heirs from the curse, Anthony Laurette was surprisingly accepting of Lincoln taking charge.
“And what about you?” Lincoln asked. “Will I be spending eternity with you as my adversary?”