Bayou Magic

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  We reach the Bon Temps dock. Oil is all over me. I cradle the tiny head. Gripping me by the elbows, Mister Cochon helps me and the pelican down. “Come on, Maddy.”

  Something makes me look back.

  Mami Wata’s head is sticking out the water. Her expression scares me.

  I run down the path, holding the pelican close to my heart.

  I pass Mister Cochon, who’s too short-legged and plump to run as fast as me.

  “Old Jake, Maddy. Take the bird to Old Jake.”

  “Jake, help. Help!” Everyone hears me shouting. Jolene stops sewing on the porch. Ben and Charlotte run beside me, keeping pace. “What is it? What is it?” they ask. “What you got?”

  I can’t stop. I run up Jake’s porch steps. The door opens. “Who’s hollering?” His gaze drops to the bird. “Bring her in.”

  I step inside. There are injured birds in cages—a chicken, a heron, another brown pelican. Diagrams, pictures of Louisiana birds on every surface of the wall.

  “Here,” he says, clearing an aluminum counter. He turns on a high-powered lamp.

  I gently lay down the bird.

  Jake winces. “Not sure I can fix this.”

  “You have to!”

  Jake doesn’t look at me. With a soft white cloth, he starts to wipe the bird. One cloth, two, twelve pieces of cloth… all of them stained, soaked with crude. You can’t tell the pelican used to be brown.

  A small yellow eye watches Old Jake. Like the bird knows he’s trying to help.

  “Get me a bowl of water. Put some Dawn in it.”

  “Dawn, the dish soap?”

  “Helps dissolve the oil. Need to dissolve it, else this pelican dies. May die anyway from the fumes. Or from swallowing crude.”

  I grab a bowl, fill it with soapy water. Gently, Jake puts the bird in the bowl like it’s a baby’s bubble bath.

  “Ooooh, now, now. Gonna be all right. Ooooh, now, now,” Jake keeps repeating. The bird keeps still as Jake washes his feathers. Jake sounds like a bird himself.

  In an empty cage, I layer hay and cotton. Jake lays the pelican ever so gently—first its legs, then its body and head.

  “Keep warm, Mister Pelican,” I say. “Keep warm.” The bird sighs, its chest rising and falling, then lies ever so still.

  “Now we wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “Whether it lives. It’s young, still has white plumes on its chest. Did you know pelicans live for thirty years?”

  The other caged birds watch the pelican. Like they know he’s the sickest one. The pelican’s eyes are closed. Jake and I sit, hoping the bird is just sleeping, watching for the rise and fall of its chest.

  “What’s happening?” I ask, but I already know the answer.

  “Oil spill. The deepwater rig is gushing oil.”

  “Can it be stopped?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  Dreaming True

  I dreamed true. Blackness is coloring the water. Crude gushes and stains.

  “The well is miles and miles down,” I remember Bailey saying. Relentless, crude keeps bubbling, gushing, spreading thousands upon thousands of gallons.

  On shore, everyone helps. Even Bear. “Your pa would be proud,” I say.

  We work hard to save the pelicans.

  It takes nearly an hour to clean just one. Every feather needs to be de-oiled. Every bucket emptied and filled again with clean water and soap.

  In a red wagon, Ben and Charlotte keep bringing more oil-soaked pelicans, barely moving. Piles are near my feet. I can’t keep up. Bear can’t keep up.

  The first pelican, recovering in Old Jake’s house, didn’t live. Jake says oil must’ve gotten in its lungs.

  We keep working on birds as others try to save stranded fish, quickly wiping them clean, then throwing them back into the water. Nobody knows whether they live or die.

  Mounds of slick black seaweed and kelp wash ashore. The sand is almost black, smelling like gas.

  Downshore, Willie Mae screams. “No, don’t come. Don’t come!” Her palm is flat, upraised. “Stop, don’t let the children come.”

  Everybody comes. Ben stares. Charlotte cries. Willie Mae picks up Douglass, her body blocking his view.

  A dolphin, dead, covered in oil.

  Angry, grown-ups shout: “Not right.” “Have mercy.” “Pitiful, a beautiful animal gone.”

  I clasp Bear’s hand.

  A boat horn blares. Blares again. Everyone stops. Some shade their eyes against the sun.

  It’s Bolden’s shrimp boat, with its nets empty, locked high.

  The engine growls and Bolden steers the boat straight toward the Bon Temps cove.

  Mister Cochon yells, “What’s it like out there?”

  Bolden’s hunched over the helm.

  Neighbors gather—Liza, André, Pete. Ben hollers, “Pa, there’s a dead dolphin. A big one. Maybe a momma dolphin.” Willie Mae pulls him close against her.

  Bolden straightens and looks at us, one by one. Then, I think he looks straight at me.

  “Oil is spreading fast. Getting closer to Bon Temps. Heard on the radio, the oil company can’t cap the well. Nothing’s worked.”

  In school, I made a papier-mâché volcano. Soda, a base, and vinegar, an acid, mixed caused fake lava to bubble and explode. For ten seconds, gray foam slithered down my painted volcano’s sides.

  Miss Avril said, “Real volcanoes can erupt, drain in an hour. But one has been erupting for twenty-four hundred years. Others take twenty years. Most stop erupting after seven weeks.”

  Though I can’t see the seafloor, I imagine it’s like a volcano erupting. How long before it stops? It’s been days so far. Will it stop spewing in weeks? A month? A year?

  I think the crude is alive. It’s like slime in black-and-white science fiction movies that gobbles anything in its path. Crude spreads. Strange, in daylight, the slick sheen makes rainbows.

  The pelican on my lap has died. Its head hangs backward at an odd angle. I’d almost finished cleaning its feathers, but it didn’t matter.

  Ten days. The oil well still isn’t capped.

  Today’s my birthday. There’s no party. No cake. I don’t mind.

  Ten means change, energy, luck. It’s a sign. Maybe, today, the oil well will be capped.

  I wait and hope.

  Twenty days. There isn’t a single hour when someone isn’t working. Out at sea, the oil company is still trying to quiet the well. Onshore, Bon Temps folks work. Scientists and students from Dillard and Tulane work, testing the water, cleaning sand, and hauling away rotting plants and dead pelicans, turtles, and dolphins.

  Everyone wears masks. A white cup covers my nose and mouth. I breathe funny. Talk funny. But the smell isn’t as bad. I don’t feel sick as often.

  Another pelican has died. I tried not to cry. But it was a baby bird. The whole time I cleaned it, I whispered tales about Sweet Pea and her wandering chicks.

  I hear the airboat roaring, spinning in the cove. When it stops, Bolden, Mister Cochon, and Pete start unloading sandbags.

  Lifting, pushing, pulling the heavy bags, they’re trying to build a barrier at the mouth where the Bon Temps tributary reaches the Gulf.

  I don’t understand. Bon Temps waters are clear. “Mister Cochon.” I wave. All three men look at me, their eyes fixed. They’re trying too hard not to blink.

  “What’s it mean, Bear?”

  Dull-eyed, he looks at me. “Bon Temps might die.”

  That can’t be my story’s end. I won’t let it be.

  Breathing hurts. I hug my legs, trying to comfort me. Why don’t I know what to do? Why didn’t I know that Bon Temps’s worst hard time hadn’t come?

  In another few days, another week… I don’t want to think about it.

  I shut my eyes, but I can’t stop seeing the future. Crude is in the inlets and cove, spoiling waterways, killing life. Ruining Bayou Bon Temps.

  I don’t want to think about it. I have to think about it. This is wh
at I was getting ready for—saving Bon Temps.

  Another Dream

  Bear snores, whimpers in his sleep. On the porch, I lie on my side, trying to dream on purpose. It’s hard. I breathe slow. Squeeze my eyes. Toss and turn. Punch my pillow.

  I roll on my back. Relax, I tell myself. Breathe.

  I’m ready, I tell myself.

  It matters that this was my year to have a bayou summer. I’ve been getting ready to keep Bon Temps alive.

  But I don’t know how.

  I exhale, punch the pillow, and turn on my side.

  The bayou is quiet, like all the animals, worried, have run away. Not even an owl hoots. The weeping willows’ branches seem lower, sweeping the ground.

  Time is running out. Sunday, Ma will come to take me home.

  I sniff, wipe my eyes. My firefly lands on the porch right in front of me. Hope is so tiny—little feet, delicate wings, black beady eyes. Her stomach glows—blinking, on then off, on then off. Her blinking slows.

  I focus on her light. I see pictures.

  Poisonous crude gushes, spreading outward in all directions, cloaking the blue-green sea. It travels with the currents, lapping onward, trying to reach shore. Hundreds of ocean miles are spoiled.

  I see me—onshore, arms and hands beckoning. I’m calling someone. I can’t see who. Mami Wata?

  Then I hear, “Build it. Make it strong.”

  Now I’m tumbling, falling through water. I’m in the Bon Temps swamp.

  I hear again, “Build it. Make it strong.” It’s me. I’m the one speaking.

  Then I see mermaids, hundreds of them, pushing, moving mud, rock, and silt. From the bottom of the swamp, they’re building a levee. A huge dam to block the river’s mouth.

  I wake up. Hope hasn’t moved. She still glows.

  I finally know… I know how my story ends. With courage and hope. “Right, Hope?” I ask.

  I slip on my tennis shoes. Bear stirs but doesn’t wake. Once beyond Grandmère’s yard, I run.

  “Come, fireflies. Come.” And they do—maybe Hope’s entire kin. Thousands of fireflies, more than I’ve ever seen before, lighting my path.

  This Is How It Ends

  I stand at the swamp’s edge. The world is green and hushed. Broken logs stick half in and half out of the water. Gators float, their bulging eyes just above water. A beaver scurries, dragging a branch.

  “Mami Wata.” All the fireflies hover behind me.

  “Mami Wata, please come.”

  Mami Wata surfaces and swims close. Staring into her eyes, I see me. I see Membe chained in a ship’s hold. I see Grandmère.

  “You’ve always been here,” I say. “Thank you.”

  Pleased, Mami Wata nods. I hear bell-like sounds.

  I speak slowly, trying to get my words right. “You left your home to support Membe, my family. Even when they stopped believing in you, when they didn’t have enough imagination to see you, you’ve been here. Believing in them.”

  Wata lifts her tail, water streaming like a waterfall.

  “Oil is spilling in the Gulf. An unbelievable amount of oil, and it’s ruining everything.

  “I don’t want to lose Bon Temps, Mami Wata. Don’t want Grandmère, Mister Cochon, Bolden and Willie Mae’s family, or anyone else to get hurt. Don’t want to lose animals, rabbits, fish, and birds. Or sassafras, flowers, and cypress.”

  Angry, Mami Wata shakes, slaps her tail.

  “Yes, not a bit of it, Mami Wata. None of it should be hurt. But it is hurting—being harmed right now in the Gulf of Mexico. We can’t save the whole Gulf. Just like we can’t stop an oil volcano. But we can save Bon Temps. Build a levee. A levee so strong, it keeps the oil from getting in, from ruining our home.”

  Mami Wata watches me, her face serious. A young face with strength, I think. Like me.

  “I’ve been getting ready,” I declare, standing tall. “To save Bon Temps. We need a happier ending.”

  I raise my hands high. “Fireflies, come.” Tiny lights swirl over and above my palms. “We must ask Mami Wata for help.”

  The fireflies swarm Mami Wata, their lights sparkling, making her appear more beautiful. My firefly, Hope, rests on her shoulder while the others make patterns more beautiful than stars.

  “I think there were more mermaids like you. More who followed slave ships to new worlds. More who loved children, and maybe not just children, but any kidnapped soul.”

  Wata’s head tilts. Moonlight glows.

  I feel both sorrow and happiness. “Call them, Mami Wata. Ask them to help us build a levee. To save Bon Temps. Please. Pretty, pretty please, Mami Wata.”

  Mami Wata dives and, though she doesn’t ask, I dive, too.

  The water is so warm. I float on my back. Fireflies dance.

  I hear a loud, resonating sound, an urgent call rippling high-pitched through the waters. I hear it again. Currents quicken; fish scatter.

  Mami Wata surfaces beside me. I flip over and we dive deep. She’s smiling. I know exactly what she’s going to do. She blows a trail of bubbles. I swallow them, breathing underwater.

  We swim south. I let Mami Wata pull me along, since her tail is so powerful. We glide swift like dolphins. Every few miles, she stops and calls out again. “Sisters, kin, come.”

  We swim on, and above us, the fireflies keep us company.

  Fresh swamp water is mixing with ocean salt. This is the river’s mouth.

  “Sisters, kin, come.”

  Quiet, we surface, treading water and searching the horizon.

  Long stretches of slick crude cover huge patches of ocean like scabs.

  Mami Wata stares and stares, and I feel more than ever that she’s ancient, other, and though she doesn’t cry or say a word, I feel such sadness, much larger, deeper than Grandmère or any other human could bear.

  I hear a whistling sound. Then, another voice. A call, maybe? Some kind of shout. Mami Wata smiles.

  “Oh, my,” I breathe. Mermaids, dozens and dozens, are swimming toward us. I recognize the white-haired mermaid. The mermaid with silver scales and black eyes. There are all kinds of mermaids—with faces mirroring different ages—young like me, old like Ma and Pa, older like Grandmère, and a couple who seem beyond old, with nearly translucent skin.

  “They’re all beautiful,” I say. Silver, purple, black, and gray scales. Tails that arch, slap and make them glide, skim, leap across waves. White hair, black hair, and chestnut brown. Some lips are blue, some pink, some red, and some just brown.

  Mami Wata talks without speaking.

  Hundreds of mermaids agree to save Bon Temps. Agree, in unison, to dive, swift down to the river bottom to push mud, rock, and silt. To build a levee from the bottom up.

  They listened. They will do what I dreamed.

  Because of me, there is a happy end.

  My Story

  Ma hugs Grandmère for so long I start to fidget. Then she gets in the car and we start the drive back to New Orleans. To my other home.

  The bayou starts to fade into paved roads, traffic signs, cars and trucks going places.

  After a hundred miles, we get to the main road. Ma turns on the radio.

  First it’s mostly static, then we hear:

  “They’re calling it the Bon Temps miracle. The oil has parted around this bayou like the eye of a hurricane. Scientists are stumped. Seabirds are flocking to the clear coastline, plants are staying green, the water clear. Here’s Thomas Bolden, a local shrimper. ‘Even the shrimp are fine. Bon Temps is famous for its shrimp.’”

  I smile and silently thank Mami Wata.

  Ma says, “That’s amazing. How lucky for Bon Temps. I was so worried about the spill.”

  “It wasn’t luck, Ma.”

  “No?”

  “I’ll tell you the story, but you have to promise me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “I get to spend every summer in Bon Temps with Grandmère, Bear, and my other friends.”

  Ma laughs. “Of course you can,
Maddy.”

  “Well, then, this is my story.”

  Ma listens quiet.

  “Oh, my,” she says, reaching across the seat and squeezing my hand. “You’re a hero.”

  I don’t say anything.

  In real life, it’s hard to be a hero. Bad things happen and you can’t fix everything yourself. You need good friends and hope. Sometimes, even mermaids.

  I look right, out the window. It’s getting dark. We’re approaching New Orleans—more concrete and fewer trees. Tall buildings and harsh shadows.

  I whisper, calling, “Come, fireflies.”

  I exhale. Tiny lights flit low among bushes, dotting the horizon, blinking warmly at me.

  I imagine Grandmère on her porch, waiting for me, waiting for our next summer.

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  A Note from the Author

  I’ve always loved Louisiana—its people, culture, and landscape. I’d just finished writing Ninth Ward, a novel about the human and environmental disasters caused by Hurricane Katrina and the levees breaking. To my horror, the evening news was filled with images of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion—flames leaping, fireboats spraying water, plumes of black smoke, and crude oil spreading over the Gulf waters. Eleven rig workers died in the explosion, and more than two hundred million gallons of crude polluted the environment. To date, the Deepwater Horizon spill is the worst oil disaster in US history.

  In Bayou Magic, my heroine, Maddy, uses her intelligence and magical powers to rescue her community from environmental catastrophe.

  Maddy is a symbol of hope and my personal praise song for all the young people who care about being good stewards of our air, land, and water, and the earth’s natural resources.