The Book of the Unwinding

by J. D. Horn

  “Which is it, money or love?” He leaned against the back of the chair across from her, his hand on the backrest. For a second she thought he might pull it out and join her, but he hung there, awaiting a response. Most days, she’d love nothing better than to chew each other’s ears off, but just because she didn’t think she was the kind of crazy he’d been worried about, didn’t mean he wouldn’t disagree on that point if she started yammering on about crawling corpses, disappearing cats, and the beautiful stranger trapped in a world of dreams.

  “Bit of both, to tell you the truth. Beer?”

  “Got a preference?” He flipped the drink menu over.

  “Naw. I mean, no, thank you.” She pushed the laminated card to the side and looked up at him. “Bring me what you’d have.”

  He nodded, backing away. “I’ll bring you one of our local brews, that way you can tell all your friends we gave you ‘The Boot.’” He smiled, waiting. She could tell he’d used this one before. “Hey, the Canadians here earlier laughed.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” she said. “That one’s only gonna work on the tourists.”

  He shrugged. “Wow, a tough room here tonight.” He stood there for a moment looking at her. “Tell you what,” he said. “First one’s on the house. I think something grease fried and covered in hot sauce, too. A little heartburn to help you forget your heartache.”

  “You don’t have . . .”

  He held up a hand to stop her. He winked. “Family’s got to look out for each other, right?”

  Nathalie’s eyes began to moisten at the kindness. Lucky for her he’d already headed to the bar to put in her order.

  Family’s got to look out for each other.

  Hell.

  Nathalie was sure Daniel meant well—although she wasn’t so sure about his cat. He was right. Alice’s daddy had sure handed her a raw deal. Nathalie would help if she could, but . . .

  Well, all right, maybe she wouldn’t. Daniel had fallen on his knees before her, and she’d still given him a flat-out no.

  Nathalie thought of the young woman in the photo. The picture she’d stolen from Frank’s place. The picture Daniel had insisted she keep, so she could remember the face of the “little girl”—his words, not hers—that she was condemning to “eternal darkness.” Daniel was so dramatic when he spoke, she’d assumed he was exaggerating for effect. In retrospect, Nathalie wasn’t so sure. All this other stuff, chwals and witches’ balls, living vèvès, and who could forget Zombie Frank? None of it was an exaggeration. What if she truly was Alice’s last hope?

  “Somewhere between dreaming and death.” That’s where he wanted her to go, but to Nathalie, this “somewhere” seemed like a place where Babau Jean would feel at home. Well, if the whole gravity thing could pull Alice out of the mess she was in, how could Daniel be so sure it couldn’t pull Nathalie in? Until now, the glass separating Nathalie from Babau Jean had always held, but if she did as Daniel asked, she might find herself standing on the same side as the monster.

  Ah, hell. She was just making excuses. It wasn’t Babau Jean that scared her.

  Forget Daniel’s guaranteed, A-1, five-star fairy-tale ending. Nathalie had never been the kind of woman to turn her back on someone in need. She never asked what was in it for her. Take out the hoodoo. Take out the magic. If she saw a young woman, Alice or not Alice, in a burning building, Nathalie would walk straight into the fire. If somebody were drowning, she would dive into deep and muddy waters to save them. So how had she managed to turn her back on Daniel’s pleas? How was this different?

  Maybe ’cause she was afraid that she’d feel this thing Daniel was so sure she should—and Alice wouldn’t. That her supposed soul mate might want nothing to do with her. Then she’d know without a single doubt that she was going to be alone. Forever. That’s why she didn’t want to take the risk of helping Daniel help Alice.

  Well, didn’t that make her a total crap person?

  Her waiter returned with her beer and, instead of the deep-fried wonder she now realized she’d been looking forward to, a remote control. “Here.” He set the beer before her. “You want something to make you feel better about what you’re going through?” he said, changing the channel from sports to local news. “Look no further.” Remote still in hand, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, focusing on the screen. A large-font “Breaking News Now”—phrasing that struck her as redundant—dissolved into a newscaster’s face, a fellow who reminded Nathalie of her senior year’s prom king.

  “We’re back again, bringing you a Five Alive update to the major story we broke earlier this afternoon,” he said, then paused, seeming to take direction from a voice only he could hear. “We’re going live now to Katie Cunningham at the scene.” Nathalie took a sip of her beer as the camera panned back from Katie’s fresh face to the big white house right next door to Demagnan Mortuary. Nathalie choked, and the beer came back out her nose. The waiter glanced down at her, but turned back to the screen, not noticing—or pretending not to notice—her wiping her face with the back of her hand. She set the beer down before she could do any more damage.

  “That’s right, Randy. We’re here live in Uptown, where, in a bizarre incident today, the still unexplained, simultaneous shattering of a commercial truck’s windows led to the discovery of the city’s most gruesome murder scene since the infamous Axeman’s spree.” Nathalie felt all the blood drain from her face. “Behind me, you’ll see the section of downed fence where the driver of a truck belonging to Perrault Landscaping crashed through, after losing control of his vehicle. The driver escaped the accident with minor injuries, but I’m told what officers discovered when they arrived on the scene shocked even the most stalwart of deputies.” Her eyes sparkled as she clutched her microphone tighter and put on an I’m about to say something very grave face. As the camera pulled back, she gestured with her free hand to the fancy white Victorian behind her. “Law enforcement was attempting to contact the house’s owner, when a cry coming from inside the house prompted officers to force entry. The source of the cry has not been discovered, but once inside they found evidence the media liaison has referred to as ‘souvenirs’ of apparent multiple murders.”

  “Wait,” Nathalie said, as much to herself as anyone else, “she said ‘multiple,’ right?”

  The waiter glanced back. “Mmmhmmm.”

  “Tell us, Katie,” Prom King Newsman’s voice rang out, though the camera stayed on the reporter, “have we learned the name of the property’s owner?”

  She put a finger to her ear, then nodded. “Yes, Randy, that’s right. Through public records we’ve identified the owner as a Frank Demagnan. Mr. Demagnan is also the proprietor of the mortuary immediately behind the house in question. So far we’ve been unable to reach Mr. Demagnan for comment . . .”

  “I should be going,” Nathalie said, pushing up from the table.

  Her waiter looked back at her with raised eyebrows. He turned. “Oh, darlin’, I am so sorry. I should’ve realized this wasn’t what you needed to be seeing right now. I just thought . . .”

  “No, no,” Nathalie said, heavy sweat staining her already stale shirt. “Nothing to do with”—her eyes drifted up to the screen, where they’d cut to a taped comment by the detective—“that.” Nathalie heard Reporter Katie’s perky voice saying, “multiple, unofficial estimates we’ve heard, perhaps as many as thirty.”

  Nathalie slid her chair beneath the table. “Thank you.”

  The waiter smiled at her, but she could see the genuine concern in his eyes.

  Poor thing, he was thinking as she stumbled back to her SUV. Nathalie couldn’t help but imagine the interview her waiter would give Reporter Katie once the police found out exactly how unavailable for comment Frank was, and came looking for his one and only employee.

  She started the engine and shifted to drive without a clue as to where she was heading. The phone she’d left on the seat beside her began ringing, the vibration sending it sliding across the seat towar
d her. She put the car back into park and stared down at the screen. A New Orleans number. Not one she recognized. The phone fell silent, and the screen announced she had missed calls. Fifty-eight of them. Thirteen unheard messages. One was from her landlord. Maybe she was a coward, but she started there. She pressed play.

  “Nathalie? Nathalie, you there?” Her landlord refused to use a cell and thought voice mail still worked like the old answering machines did. “Okay. I guess not.” There was a dubiousness in his voice, like he suspected she might be standing beside the machine as he spoke. “Listen, girl. We’re all real worried about you. The police called me. Asked me to open up your place for them.” A pause. “Now, don’t get mad. I know I’m s’posed to give you twenty-four hours’ notice . . .” The old man sobbed. “They think something might have happened to you. And . . . oh, God, I hope not. You know I think the world of you. That new boss of yours. He’s done some real bad things, girl. They got people keeping an eye out for your vehicle, but they said they’re stretched pretty thin. You stop wasting those good people’s time. You hear me? You call them. You tell them you’re okay.” Another pause. “Then you call me. Okay? I’ll stay close to the phone.” She heard him cough as he hung up.

  All right, then. Time to face the music, she thought. “The Axman’s Jazz” started playing again in her mind, and she flipped on the radio to kill the tune.

  She’d go to the police department. It would be easier to convince them of her innocence if she met with them in person and could gauge their belief in what she was telling them.

  First, though, there was an old guy she had to set at ease.

  Nathalie had a blind spot, and that blind spot covered anything and everything that might be of any real use to her about what was headed her way. Sure, some stranger on the street, she could stop them and say, “Hey, I know this sounds kinda weird, but you might wanna tell your mama not to visit your aunt. At least not before next Tuesday.” Most of the time she went on gut instinct, but in a lot of cases she could grasp the details. “Your aunt Toni,” she’d added when delivering that particular message. “She lives in Mobile, right?” She’d seen the image of a casino, so that part had been a guess.

  More than once she’d found herself smiling like a fool into a shocked or suspicious face. The woman she’d told about her mama hadn’t even responded. She’d backed away, shaking her head and holding her hand out between them, index finger pointed at the sky.

  Lots of people plain didn’t want to know what was coming, but Nathalie tried to help where she could. She personally wouldn’t mind a heads-up from time to time, but what she picked up about herself fell somewhere between a blank and a blur. She’d get an inkling or a rare flash of insight, but it would fade as soon as she tried examining it. Anything concrete? Oh, no, ma’am.

  Had she possessed the ability to see into her own future, she would’ve known the police weren’t looking for her because they thought she was guilty, but because Frank’s last driver, some guy named Cutter, had been found in the Doll House, his severed head sewed back in place. He’d been wired for use as a lamp. She caught a visual of how that could be achieved, but couldn’t bear to ask for confirmation of her concept.

  The detective had decided to question her at his own desk, not in a formal interview room with cameras and recorders. That was a good sign. She made a point of looking directly into his red-rimmed brown eyes, trying not to shift her gaze to his shiny bald pate. It made it easier for her to read what he was thinking.

  Nathalie wasn’t dead, so she wasn’t important. Her interview was a formality to be addressed, a mere box to tick.

  A story formed in her mind. One that might sound just true enough.

  Nathalie stumbled into it, treading with care through the officer’s thoughts and feelings, building upon his expectations.

  “Frank, Mr. Demagnan, that is—”

  Still no sign of the freak. Images flooded Nathalie’s mind. Photos the detective had seen of a beaming Frank posing with the corpses he’d mutilated. One image stood out in the detective’s mind. Like a damned family portrait. Even a goddamned Christmas tree.

  Selfies with the dead.

  Nathalie could almost see the picture herself, her imagination filling in the blanks. So that’s what he’d done to get himself cut up and sewn back together like Frankenstein’s monster. Someone had discovered his playthings. Someone who’d decided to give Frank a taste of his own medicine.

  “Sure, he creeped me out—” True enough, but the image she’d gleaned from the detective’s recollections helped add an air of authenticity to her statement.

  Desperate to work for him.

  “—but hey, I needed the work. Can’t be too choosy, right?”

  She picked through the questions as they surfaced in the detective’s mind.

  Mr. Demagnan had called her up to his personal quarters out of the blue and told her he was closing up and taking off for vacation. Starting immediately. Two weeks. No. He hadn’t said where, and she hadn’t asked. Why not? She was angry. She might be part-time, but she still counted on the income. He wasn’t paying her for her unwanted time off.

  Permanent time off.

  Where had she been? Why hadn’t she answered her phone?

  Day drinking. Followed by some night drinking. Sleepover with a friend. A friend whose name she’d not learned. A friend she’d probably not see again. Sly player’s smile.

  Yeah. She was a player. A regular Donna Juan.

  A coyote dawn around noon. Coyote dawn? You know, you’d rather chew off your arm than wake what was sleeping on it—yeah, you can use it. Followed by a righteous hangover. She’d turned off her phone to keep her head from exploding. Wandered around looking for her SUV for like an hour. When she found it, she’d crawled in the back seat for a little six-hour siesta. Didn’t have a clue any of this was going on until she caught the news at a bar she’d stopped by for some hair of the dog.

  The balding brown-eyed detective sent her away with a pat on the back and a “You’re a lucky little lady.”

  Nathalie wasn’t little, and she’d never been too clear on what it meant to be “a lady,” but she was a hell of a lot luckier than the detective could have guessed in a thousand tries. Someone had carried off Frank and his gun both. Must’ve done a good job of cleaning up the mess, too. Someone wanted the police to think the mortician was still alive. Or maybe—a chill ran down her spine—they’d collected all the pieces because they weren’t through with Frank yet. Nathalie was glad those details fell into her blind spot. The less she knew about her accomplice in covering up Frank’s suicide—and his murder before that—the better.

  FIFTEEN

  The warmth and humidity of the early fall air lessened as Evangeline rose above Vieux Carré rooftops, dim islands in a sea of neon light. She left behind the scent of Rampart Street piss, swooped down over Armstrong Park’s lemony, peppery, ever-blooming rose garden, then struggled up on uncertain wings into the cold air currents. Winds wearing the muddy perfume of the Mississippi drove her forward as she angled northeast. She navigated using the speeding flares of headlights on Highway 10 as beacons, though her destination was unknown to her. The destination didn’t matter. She’d been called to the sky, and she couldn’t resist. At least not yet.

  Despite the city glare, despite the madness below and in her mind, stars still shone above her. She tried to hold on to her sense of self by scanning for familiar patterns through a still unfamiliar wider avian field of vision, but the time of night and time of year had colluded to send the Big Dipper north to fill its cup, even as they drove Orion’s belt below the horizon.

  Cassiopeia ruled the sky.

  Tonight, there had been no pain. In a single heartbeat, Evangeline had shimmered from one form to another. It was her reward, she knew, for the violence she’d given in to this afternoon.

  She’d broken the windows of a single truck. Nobody had gotten hurt. And those idiots had sure as hell earned themselves a wakeup call.
Evangeline knew these were rationalizations—she had knowingly committed an act of violence, and worse, she’d enjoyed it. Her painless transition tonight was like a treat given to a pet who’d performed as its master desired. She was being trained, escorted step-by-step on a gradual descent into darkness. The timing of the freebie wasn’t lost on her either. They’d reached the end of the cycle. This was the last night this moon that the shift could be forced on her. She reasoned that it had to be. Otherwise her tormentors would’ve kept it up every night, wearing her down, trying to break her. Celestin and Margot weren’t letting up on her out of goodwill. They had no choice but to give her a breather, but they wanted to give her something to think about. The message was clear: last night’s change could be her last bone-cracking, painful shift. The choice was hers.

  The twinkling lights of homes and shops below thinned, then disappeared. Grunch Road lay, or at least used to lay, not too far from here. She rose higher and drifted a bit south, trying to veer away from her suspected destination. She could sense her tormentors playing with her, letting her test boundaries for the pleasure of slapping her back on course if she strayed too far.

  She felt the slack tighten as she approached the deserted remains of the amusement park.

  The park had changed names a few years before Katrina, but she still thought of it as Jazzland, because that’s what Luc had insisted on calling it. Luc. His face, his black-blue eyes, surfaced in her memory. For a moment, she was with him again. For a moment, the magic keeping her in a crow’s form failed and she had full control of herself once more. The wind rushed up toward her as she began to plummet from the sky. In that moment, she knew ecstasy. She would crash. She would die. But she had no fear.

  Death would bring freedom.

  A rough, invisible hand jerked her skyward, like a yo-yo that had reached the end of its string. She’d discovered one of the limits set for her.