Garden of Forbidden Secrets

by Eric Wilder

  “You’ll get your pretty outfit wet,” I said.

  “It’ll dry and so will I. I sense many important things have happened here.”

  “You’re right about that,” I said. “There are parking spots across the street. They’re probably all open, because of the rain.”

  Light from the streetlamps reflected off the rippled puddles as we ran toward the entrance to Jackson Square. Adela was the first to reach the gate and frowned when she pulled on it.

  “It’s locked,” she said. “Why is it locked?”

  “To keep street people from sleeping there at night. Now, they just sleep outside on the sidewalk. We’re getting drenched, and I forgot the umbrella.”

  “To hell with the umbrella,” she said. “I haven’t felt this alive in years.”

  I pulled my jacket up around my neck as I watched her raise her arms toward the sky and twirl on her toes like a ballerina. She’d dropped the light wrap covering her shoulders, the gauzy material of her dress becoming almost transparent in the rain. Though she didn’t seem to care, I draped my jacket around her.

  “It’s December,” I said. “We’ll both have a cold in the morning.”

  “Screw the cold,” she said, grabbing my hand. “I want to see the other side of the square.”

  She was all smiles as we hurried past the Cabildo, the cathedral and the Presbytere. By now, her long red hair was wet and clinging to her head and neck. I grabbed her waist, wheeling her around.

  “I’ll bring you back when the rain stops,” I said. “It’s coming down so hard, you can’t see anything anyway.”

  “What about the lights across the street.”

  “Café du Monde,” I said. “Best coffee and beignets in the world. We’re too wet to go there tonight. I’ll bring you back, I promise.”

  Handing me the keys to Mama’s Sprite, she put up little resistance as we hurried across the street.

  We weren’t far from her hotel, and I knew the entrance to the underground parking. The valet took the keys, gave me a parking stub, and pointed us toward the elevator. We were the only two people in it, as we continued up to her room. Once her hotel door was open, I got a surprise.

  Adela tossed my jacket to me and then let her soaked dress drop from her shoulders to the carpet. Giving me a silly grin when I reacted to her nudity, she hurried away to the bathroom. Drying her hair with a towel, she returned draped in a plush terrycloth robe.

  “There are more robes in the bathroom,” she said. “Get out of those wet clothes.”

  “I probably need to go,” I said.

  “No way! I have questions for you, and they won’t wait until tomorrow.”

  Adela had drunk a bottle of chardonnay by herself at the Riverfront. I realized now that she was a tad more than tipsy.

  “I’ve got no dry clothes to change back into. I’ll have to put on these wet ones before I go. I don’t live far from here. I’ll leave Mama’s car parked overnight.”

  “Don’t go. This hotel is old, and there’s a radiator in the bathroom. Hang your clothes over a chair. They’ll be dry when it’s time to leave.”

  “Uncle,” I said. “You’re the boss, Miss Adela.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” she said.

  When I exited the bathroom, I saw Adela had dialed for room service. She’d already poured herself a glass of wine and had lemonade waiting for me. A single candle cast flickering shadows on the white tablecloth of the serving cart.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Now, what’s so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow?”

  “I need to tell you something I haven’t told anyone, not even Taj.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  The room was dim, only a corner light and the candle casting dancing shadows on the wall. Adela had pulled the curtains on the window, thunder rumbling and rain pounding against the glass. She fumbled with a small leather purse on the table.

  “Do you smoke dope?” she asked.

  “Go ahead without me. I’m not offended.”

  She lit the crooked joint and took a puff.

  “I have something important to tell you. I need to knock the edge off all the wine I drank.”

  Her logic or lack thereof, made me smile. “Then why did you order another bottle?”

  “Because I need both the pot and the wine. Does that make sense?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “What I have to tell you is very serious to me. I need you to take a toke with me. Please?”

  “Mama would kill me if I smoked dope with a client,” I said.

  “Mama’s not here.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She has a way of finding things out.”

  Adela took another puff and let her robe drop to the carpet. Sitting in my lap, she draped her arms around my neck and drew so close I could feel the dampness of her hair against my face.

  “You know I like you. I didn’t tell you that I feel as though I’ve known you forever.”

  “Maybe in another lifetime,” I said. “You’re a person I’d never forget.”

  A tingle raced up my spine when she nibbled my earlobe and then blew in my ear. I flinched when a clap of thunder rattled the window.

  “Have you ever had a shotgun?” she asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Without explaining, she placed the lighted end of the joint into her mouth and blew a potent stream of smoke up my nose. The effect of the smoke was almost instantaneous. I felt my eyes cross. When I finally stopped coughing from the harsh smoke that had invaded my nostrils and lungs, I was already stoned.

  “Am I making you nervous?” she asked.

  She smiled when I said, “I don’t think you have to ask.”

  “Maybe I better sit over there before I forget what it is I need to tell you.”

  She was naked when she returned to the chair beside the table. After taking another puff, she handed the joint to me. My mind had already slowed into tranquil numbness. After a long draw, I returned it to her.

  “You’d better tell me this story while I’m still halfway cognizant.”

  “Let’s get rid of this light.”

  Adela turned out the lamp in the corner, leaving only the single candle to light the room. As my eyes began adjusting to the dimness, I heard a haunting tune from a single violin coming from somewhere.

  “Angel music,” she said. “And there’s something hallucinogenic in the pot.”

  Not knowing what I had smoked, I would have started to panic if the numbing effect of the drug hadn’t prevented me from doing so. Adela poured a second glass of chardonnay and gave it to me. I touched the wine to my lips, savoring a delicate flavor I hadn’t tasted in years.

  Thunder sounded outside the building, lightning causing the curtains to oscillate like a strobe light when it flashed. Rain continued drumming the window. Even though it was shut, the curtain was flapping in a non-existent breeze. The fury of the storm had dimmed in my mind, replaced by music of the lone violin and numbness that had swept over me.

  “Talk,” I said.

  Adela’s story began as a husky whisper. “Do you believe there are people with special powers?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’m different than other people. I’ve known it since I was a little girl. I have powers I’ve never revealed to anyone.”

  “What powers?” I asked.

  Adela concentrated her gaze on the candle burning on the table. The flame flared, wax melting into fat drops that hardened on the tablecloth. The candle began bending toward Adela’s gaze until she turned away, looking to see my reaction.

  “I could set this room on fire if I wanted to,” she said.

  Numbed by the wine and spiked pot, I must have seemed less than impressed because her eyes grew darker in the muted light of the candle.

  “What else?” I asked.

  Refilling my wine glass, she held it toward me. It left her hand, floating slowly across the room until I’d clutch
ed it.

  “I can do things that are beyond belief,” she said. “I don’t know why I have the power, or where I got it. I do know I can open and close doors with my mind and make objects levitate. I can levitate,” she said.

  As I watched, she floated slowly upward, her damp hair touching the high ceiling of the old hotel room before she descended.

  “I’m drunk,” I said.

  “You don’t believe your own eyes?”

  “When on a bender, I’ve seen white elephants. I don’t know if my eyes are lying, my brain, or both.”

  “Neither,” she said. “What you see is real.”

  “Right now, I’m not sure what I see, or what I believe.”

  “Believe this. There’s an evil room in this hotel, and I must visit it. Will you come with me?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How will you find it?”

  “I sense evil the same way other people smell a foul odor.”

  “Won’t the room be locked?”

  “You witnessed only some of my powers. Are you ready for more?”

  Chapter 10

  As Adela took my arm, we floated off the carpet, my altered reality suddenly wrapped in a Kodachrome dream. When I blinked, I was in a different place and a different time.

  Adela was gone. It took a moment for me to realize I was in a church, dressed in a white tuxedo, a white carnation in my buttonhole. The person beside me was someone I hadn’t seen in years: Russell Bender, the best man at my wedding, looking as if he hadn’t aged a day since the last time I’d seen him. I also saw Betty, my former mother-in-law.

  Betty was smiling at me, as she sat alone on the first pew in the crowded church. When the music began, she turned away to look at my bride, walking down the aisle toward me. When Adela jostled my shoulder, I had little time to ponder the scene.

  “Don’t be frightened,” she said. “We’re going on a trip.”

  The candle in the room flickered and died as we floated toward the window, passing through curtains and glass as if they weren’t there. When I glanced down, streetlights flickered up at us. What I was experiencing felt like a dream, or maybe a nightmare. I wanted to scream. A hoarse whisper was all I could muster.

  “Don’t let go of me,” I said.

  Adela squeezed my elbow tighter, probably the only thing about the situation that seemed even halfway real. Lightning flashed on the horizon. As we soared above the French Quarter, floating through damp clouds, my mind switched gears, and I was again in a church.

  Betty, My former mother-in-law, had once again invaded my dream. This time, she looked older than before, and we were in a different church, this one much darker.

  Betty stood beside me, grimacing as we stared into my ex-wife, Mimsy’s open coffin. Mimsy’s lifeless eyes stared back at us.

  “Oh, Wyatt,” Betty said. “I don’t think I can handle this.”

  I awoke in Adela’s grasp. Only the faintest whisper issued from my throat as I tried again to scream. I wanted to pull free from her grip, the reptilian part of my brain screaming for me to do so. We soared over Bourbon Street, a snippet of jazz issuing from an open door.

  “Put me down,” I said. “I don’t want to be here.”

  Adela circled higher. We flew over the river, so high the boats below looked like flickering points of light. I felt as if I was gazing out the window of an airplane, except there was no window and no plane. When she let go of my arm, I slipped into another nightmare.

  I was falling to my death, tumbling and not soaring. The scene morphed into another memory. I watched as Dauphine, the twin sister of Desire, the woman I’d loved, jumped to her death off the Crescent City Connection Bridge. She was staring at me, her arm outstretched as she fell. Adela was laughing, the nightmare fading when she grasped my elbow, halting my rapid descent.

  I had only a moment to catch my breath as we circled Hotel Montalba and then floated upward to the darkened window of the thirteenth floor. As we passed through the closed window, into a dark room, a feeling of doom swept over me. At least my bare feet felt something solid beneath them when I touched the floor. I was dizzy, almost falling on my face, as I took a step.

  Adela produced a candle, its flickering glow illuminating the interior of a hotel suite decorated as if from another era. I smelled an odor I vaguely recognized, and I recoiled when I stepped into something sticky.

  “Blood,” Adela said.

  The blood had begun oozing between my toes as Adela directed me to follow her into another room of the large suite.

  Because of strong drugs, insane dreams, or maybe both, reality had deserted me. Dark walls pulsated, the decorative wallpaper from another era making me woozy. The bedcovers on the old four-poster bed were in disarray and warm to the touch. I sensed someone, or something, wasn’t far from us.

  Hazy light radiated through the open bathroom door. Someone was splashing water in a tub. When Adela pressed against me, the voodoo veve on her chest began glowing red. Behind her, a shadow loomed. I wanted to run. I could not.

  Steam wafted across the floor in a damp wave, the room warm with humidity. A woman was in the bathtub. Someone, or something else, was in the bathroom with her. A piercing scream caused Adela to straighten. I wanted to race out the door. Instead, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward the bathroom.

  An antique tub dominated much of the room. Water, the color of blood, overflowed on the tile, the headless body of a woman flapping her arms as if she were still alive. I couldn’t take my eyes off the bloody scene.

  Adela and I watched until the body sank beneath the tub’s steamy surface. Bloody water washed over my feet as something behind us made a noise. I sensed it was the woman’s killer.

  My first instinct was to run. I could not because a throbbing demon, stinking to high heavens, was blocking our escape. Globules of slime dripped off the apparition that began to transform into a creature from hell as we watched.

  Adela and I backed away, not stopping until we touched the warm porcelain of the tub. My hand came out red when I accidentally dipped it into the hot water. The creature was now fully transformed and moving toward us. Worse, it held a woman’s decapitated head in its appendage.

  The eyes of the disembodied head had rolled back in their sockets as the creature dragged it across the tile. Though the head was waxen, I recognized the red tresses the creature was holding. It was Adela’s hair.

  The body in the tub had floated to the surface and was rising out of the water. When Adela slipped on the bloody tile, I grabbed her shoulders, pulling her to her feet.

  By now, the gaseous demon was glowing red, its body, eyes and everything about it was red, even the fangs in its open mouth that had begun spewing slime and an odor so foul it almost made me gag. When Adela grabbed my elbow and began to levitate, the demon’s roar echoed across the little bathroom.

  “I will have you, Aisling.”

  Using her magic, Adela flew us over the demon’s head. I held my breath as we passed through the wall and flew back outside into what had become a driving rainstorm.

  Chapter 11

  Mama and Taj waited on the sidewalk, beneath the awning in front of the Riverfront, until a cab appeared. When the cabbie saw Taj hold up a twenty, he slid to a halt and backed up to the curb. He hurried out of the car and opened the backdoor, Mama, and Taj both laughing after racing the short distance to the cab and piling in.

  “Where to?” the cabbie asked.

  “Musique Azul in the Warehouse District,” Mama said.

  “Sounds exotic,” Taj said.

  “It is. Like the blues?”

  “Love the blues,” he said. “I played ball for a season in Memphis. Some of the best blues music in America.”

  “Musique Azul’s as good as the clubs on Beale Street. I think you’ll like it,” she said.

  “Then it’s not on Bourbon Street?”

  “Not even in the French Quarter. It is part of the old industrial area we call th
e CBD—Central Business District. Entrepreneurs have converted many of the old brick structures and warehouses into expensive condos, rib joints, art galleries, and chic cafes.”

  “How big is this area?”

  “Within walking distance of everything a person might need.”

  “I’m looking for a place to live,” Taj said. “Are the condos nice?”

  Mama laughed. “You kidding? They’re so expensive, most of them are owned either by movie stars or professional athletes. You’d fit right in.”

  “Will you help me pick one out?”

  Mama laughed again. “Honey Babe, I already know just the one you need.”

  “You’re buying one?”

  “I wish,” she said. “The price tag has too many zeros on the end for a Tulane English professor to afford.”

  “English professor? I thought you were a voodoo mambo.”

  “Can’t you be both?” she asked.

  It was Taj’s turn to laugh. “Do I need to start calling you professor, or doctor?”

  “Either would be nice, though just Mama will do,” she said.

  “Where did you go to school?” he asked.

  “University of South Carolina. You?”

  “U.C.L.A., at least for a year. I was a one and done.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said.”

  “When you climbed into the cab, I couldn’t help but notice your great legs. Were you an athlete in college?”

  “Track and field. Relays and 400 meters.”

  “Pro runners make lots of money.”

  “I could have gone pro,” she said. “When I tore an ACL and missed the Olympics, my perspectives changed.”

  “Was that the only reason?”

  “No,” she said. “I was madly in love with my agent, a former world-class runner. When he dumped me for a sprinter from Jamaica, I decided to take a deep breath and think about the situation while I finished my education. When I finally did, I was too old to compete against the world’s best.”

  “I’m impressed,” Taj said. “Have you ever looked back and thought you may have made the wrong decision?”

  “Have you?”

  “Touché!” he said. “I’m so happy Sam gave me your name.”