by G A Chase
“You sure you can make it out to the swamp? We can always turn back. There’s no disgrace in admitting your limitations.” His fear only helped fuel her determination.
“If you don’t want me to fly off into the future and dump your ass in the lake at a time when no one will find you, you’d better shut up. In my irritation, I might not be able to work my way back to you when the time is right.”
The threat worked. He remained quiet for the remainder of the trip across the lake.
By the time Sanguine spotted the spillway that separated the open water from the Mississippi River and the bayou beyond, her wings were shaking from exhaustion. She spread them out wide and banked toward the cypress grove in the distance. “Almost there.”
His hands crept down from his elbows to caress her arms. The physical act of encouragement gave her the strength to hunch her shoulders and pour the last of her reserve energy into the aching back muscles that drove the tendons to her wings. When she saw the cabin hanging in the trees, she breathed a little easier. Though she’d done her best to stay focused, until that moment, she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t accidentally flown into the future or past. She spread her wings for one last glide down to the field in the middle of the island.
Once she let him go, Colin stretched out his back and arms as if he’d been the one doing the work. “No food, no beverage service—there wasn’t even a glass of water on that flight.”
Much as she loved flying, it felt good to be back on the ground. “The flight crew was spread a little thin. My grandmother’s old cabin is up in those trees.”
He looked up and groaned. “I remember my first time on this island. You looked like a teenager when you greeted me with that shotgun aimed at my stomach. That seems like a lifetime ago.”
“It was. You were still Lincoln Laroque back then, and I still had aspirations of returning to college.” She didn’t see much point in rehashing the past. If she were really interested in what might have been, she could easily fly through time to find out.
“I suppose that rotted-out house is the best we can do for shelter.” He started toward the trail that led to the far side of the island.
I don’t remember inviting you inside. She didn’t press the issue. They had plenty of time to get into a fight later—no point in starting one the moment they’d landed. “I’m not even sure the water pump works. I haven’t been out here in this time frame for quite a while.”
“If we’re back to a reality projection from the time around Hurricane Agnes, the pump doesn’t work. I stayed out here for a night while chasing you through the swamp.”
Nettles from the bushes that lined the unmaintained path were catching in her feathers. “You sucked at tracking, by the way. I had to light bonfires at night just to make sure you were following along and didn’t get lost.”
“You will remember who had the last laugh. My men were lying in wait when we finally emerged from your beloved swamp.”
Whatever. She pushed ahead of him when they reached the tree with the nailed boards that led up to the cabin. “Better let me go up first. If I fall, at least I can spread my wings for a soft landing.”
“You won’t get an argument from me. Last time I was up there, I thought for sure the ghost of your dead grandmother was destroying her home just to make me fall out of her tree house.”
Hopefully, that was the case. If not, these boards might really be paper-thin from rot. She held her wings at the ready as she trusted her weight to the first improvised step. Memories of scampering up the rungs while her grandmother yelled for her to be careful made Sanguine feel old. When the tops of her wings hit the trapdoor, she reached overhead and pushed open the access to the porch. “I seem to have made it.”
“Suddenly, I’m less concerned about wounding my male pride in having you fly me in your arms.” He bounced on the first step as if trying to prove the ladder unstable.
She peered down from the trap door. “Would you prefer me to come down and hold your hand?” She couldn’t resist the snarky teasing.
“No, but if I break a bone, I expect you to fetch my town car.”
Sanguine looked around the dusty rooms she’d grown up in for some indication of how long her grandmother had been gone. Each time she’d flown out to the swamp in hell, she’d seen her grandmother’s home perched in the field, but then, she’d also encountered the old woman while she was still in her prime. I miss you, Grandma, but maybe it’s better you don’t see me with the devil you spent your life trying to contain.
Colin stood on the porch and brushed the stickers off his slacks. “So how shall we spend our time? Did the old woman leave a deck of cards or something?”
“Why? You want me to read your future?” Sanguine felt a little defensive about where she’d grown up.
“I don’t doubt it would be full of terrors.” He poked his head into her grandmother’s room. “Just the one bedroom? Where did you sleep?”
“In a hammock on the porch during the summer. When it got cold or rainy, I slept on the couch. I’ve never been one for needing a specific space to call my own.”
He pulled off his wrinkled coat. “I’m afraid that flight did a number on my suit.”
Nice try, buddy. “I’m not having sex with you, if that’s what you’re implying.”
He looked around the cabin as if searching for a suitable spot. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Right. Like you’re too high-class to put your bare ass on any piece of furniture in my home? I know full well you got it on with random women in the disgusting alley beside the club. She sat in one of the two kitchen chairs so she could spread her wings while letting her irritation subside. “Why is saving Serephine so important to you? I could understand using her as one of your experiments to steal souls from Guinee, but trying to heal her goes beyond your normally calculated endeavors.”
He sat on the edge of the couch cushion as if trying not to further soil his suit. “I’m not trying to steal anyone. But you’re just going to have to stay in my hell for me to prove I mean what I say. As for Serephine, you wouldn’t believe me, so what’s the point in discussing it?”
“We have all day. I don’t know what Myles and Kendell can do for your little girl, but I can’t imagine it’ll be simply a snap of the fingers.”
He shrugged as if his answer didn’t really matter. “I loved her.”
Bullshit. “That’s an awfully simple answer.”
She saw something new in his eyes that seemed almost human. “The day she died was the day I gave up on caring about people. My family life at the time was no prize—though I had no one to blame but myself. Fleurentine hated me for my womanizing. I tried to keep my business practices—and the brothels that were stocked from those activities—secret from her, but I always suspected she knew about the indentured prostitutes. Since I was constantly either at work or parties, Antoine took over the job of protecting Serephine. But when I was home, that little girl lit up so brightly she could turn the darkest night into day—all because of me. I’d never known that kind of love, and I haven’t experienced it since. The longer I exist, the more precious I realize it was, and I threw it away.”
“So your concern for her really is all about you again. You don’t really love her. You just miss having her adoration.”
He looked at his scuffed-up shoes. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. She saw something in me that no one ever had. I could see the good man I might have been reflected in her eyes. While condemned to your hell, I met an alternate version of Serephine as a grown-up. She hated me, but she also told me that the man she’d seen as a little girl was possible. I took the wrong path, and the daughter I knew suffered for it.”
“So you see bringing her back to life as penance for all of your evil?”
He motioned to the room. “You condemned me to this realm because you thought my selfishness and greed were best isolated from the human continuum. I see Serephine as the opposite of what you see in me. Her optimism an
d love would have elevated everyone she met. The world became a darker place when she left it. Returning her to the reservoir of our collective spirit like the loas of the dead intend would only dilute her spark until it had no meaning. Some people deserve to have their day in the sun. And no one lit up this world more than Serephine. Condemn me if you wish, but if opposites attract, might it also be true that a devilish person could give rise to an angel?”
Sanguine knew he was talking about his daughter, but her wings quivered as if he were talking about her. “Are you sure you’re not just hoping to redeem your reputation by giving the world your daughter?”
“She never knew the man I became. And after messing up her soul by trying to pull her out of Guinee, I doubt any future story she would tell about me would be favorable. If I were to look for someone to tell my side of things, you’re the one I’d turn to—not a seven-year-old girl who knew so little of life.”
“I’m not playing the game of arguing your merits.” The late-afternoon light as the sun shone through cypress branches began turning the room into a ghostly display of moving shadows. “If she was the ultimate prize you tried to snag from Guinee, why didn’t you wait until you knew what you were doing or ask for help? For a soul you held as being so precious, you sure messed things up.”
“I did ask for your help, but I couldn’t wait forever for your reply. I knew I might only get one chance, and time was running out. Expecting Myles to give me the cane and the loas of the dead to be subdued enough to let me set up shop again in their domain were calculated risks. I still believe my idea for saving human souls from death was a good plan, but in the case of Serephine’s resurrection, I couldn’t rely on so many variables when I had an alternate means of pulling her across right at my fingertips. And even if you did deny me your help, I knew if things went wrong, you’d have my back.”
* * *
“Where do we even start?” Kendell had expected the child to be in a bad way, but nothing had prepared her for the drooling, wild-eyed, self-destructive animal-child that hurled herself at the walls and babbled incoherently. She reminded Kendell of a horror story character confined to an insane asylum.
Myles kept his arm around Kendell’s waist as if protecting her, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the child or from the impulse to dive in to help. “We know that she has three problems: her sense of time is out of whack, she’s in the wrong body, and she’s been pulled out of her dimension. Until she calms down, I don’t see how we can address any of those issues. You’re the closest to having an inkling of what she’s going through. Any thoughts?”
“Music worked to calm me down, but only because it’s so personal to me. The band gave me a reference to focus on—kind of like a drowning person seeing a lighthouse on the shore. But it still took all my willpower to make the swim.”
From behind them came a gentle lullaby. The words were so soft and quiet she doubted the child, in her fit of rage, would know that anyone was singing. The motherly expression of love, however, wasn’t as much about volume as pure emotion. She turned to Miss Fleur and whispered, “Stand close so she can see you.”
By the third repeat of “All Through the Night,” Kendell had the music memorized. Someone needed to get down to the child, who sat against the wall with her arms wrapped around her legs, rocking to her mother’s voice. Though still a slobbering mess, at least Serephine had stopped trying to destroy her body in an attempt to free her soul.
Kendell pointed toward the pit, indicating she was going to join the girl. Myles didn’t object, but he looked concerned. She’d have liked to reassure him that she knew what she was doing, but she feared any sound other than Miss Fleur’s singing would break the motherly spell. A kiss on Myles’s cheek was the best she could do to ease his anxiety.
The stone steps were slippery under her tennis shoes, but the combination of rubber and rock didn’t make any unwanted sound. When she reached the bottom, she hunched down against the wall, mirroring the position of the girl across the room. First, we need to stabilize your concept of time. Miss Fleur would only be fifty years ahead of you when she died here in this convent. It’s a start, but I need to bring you the remaining hundred years into my time.
Kendell started humming along with the soft voice above. Serephine’s body tightened up so badly Kendell feared the girl was having a seizure. She wanted to rush to the child and hold her tightly as an act of support, but for Serephine to cross time and dimension, she would need to do her part. I can’t make the first move. That would only give you an excuse to dive deeper into yourself. You have to try and find your way out of your personal hell, Serephine.
The girl turned her crystal-blue eyes to Kendell. Her look of terror and despair was tempered with a growing understanding of what was happening. Good girl. Just focus on the singing and me.
At the end of an hour, Serephine had fallen asleep. Kendell carefully got to her feet and motioned for Myles and Miss Fleur to come down. She and Fleurentine had succeeded in calming the girl, but saving her soul wouldn’t be so simple.
Even after the other two joined her, Kendell couldn’t brave crossing the room. Serephine’s sleep was far from restful. Her body jerked as if she were fighting a horde of demons.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Kendell feared they were badly out of their depth.
Myles worked his hand over the top of the cane. “Since this convent is an interdimensional embassy, she’s still not fixed in a specific time. At least she seems to have accepted whatever reality she’s experiencing. That’s a start. I can take her soul through dimensions the way you and I played cat and mouse with Colin. Without the conflict of being in her body, Serephine might gain a fresh understanding of who she is. Hopefully, once she no longer sees all of us as demons, we’ll be able to reason with her. Explaining how this strange body is now hers is going to take some doing, though.”
With every word he whispered, Kendell worried the frightened girl would wake up. “One problem at a time. Can you make the journey while she’s asleep?”
He looked from Kendell to Miss Fleur. “Even with both of us as just spirits, I can’t risk her waking up between dimensions. I’ll need one of you to come with me to keep her calm.”
Miss Fleur pulled her shawl around her shoulders. “Just tell me what to do.”
Kendell accepted that Serephine’s mother would be the best choice, but she couldn’t just stand around, waiting for the trio to return. “Keep singing that lullaby. We’ll start off together so Serephine can feel the harmony we’re creating between our times. I’ll keep singing from this dimension while Myles takes you on a little joyride. Our voices will move out of sync, but that distortion will provide a musical roadmap for Serephine, like breadcrumbs left on a trail. Between our two voices, hopefully we’ll not just cross her over dimensions, but we’ll also heal her time imbalance.”
* * *
Myles caressed Kendell’s back as she harmonized with Miss Fleur. Serephine was still sleeping but barely. He needed to hold the girl in his arms, though he was more than a little concerned about how she would react to being touched by some strange dude after fighting off demons. Hopefully, having her mother next to her would help. He aimed his cane at Serephine, indicating to Miss Fleur that it was time.
While sleeping, Serephine’s body had convulsed, moving from sitting in a ball to stretched out straight. She’d finally ended up curled on the floor in a fetal position. Myles lay on the cold stone floor to cuddle the emotionally battered girl with one arm while holding the cane tightly to his chest with the other. Miss Fleur lay in front of her daughter and stroked the girl’s hair and shoulders while continuing to sing the lullaby.
The position wasn’t optimal for interdimensional travel, but keeping the girl calm was Myles’s top priority. If either Miss Fleur or Serephine broke out of his psychic bond while traveling between dimensions, she’d be swept into chaos like someone falling out of a lifeboat in stormy seas. He closed his eyes and circled his ha
nd up to the walking stick’s green crystal. Here we go.
Miss Fleur’s soft singing remained the same, but Kendell’s voice faded and intensified as if someone were trying to tune in to a song on an old-fashioned radio. He used her voice as a reference point while spinning through the dimensions that surrounded Serephine. In each realm, the girl remained a terrified creature unable to connect to reality. We need to go deeper. I need to find that child who saved us from the Laurette mansion while it was burning.
He focused on his own time line and traced back to the confrontation with Colin. Using the cane like a joystick, he moved into the dimension that Colin had visited before the fire. When he spotted the Laurette mansion in all of its historic elegance, he pulled up on the staff to stop the swirling images. Myles stood beside Miss Fleur in the entryway with Serephine in his arms, the three of them getting their bearings like stranded travelers just in from the cold.
A woman sat on a divan in the foyer of the elegant Garden District home. From her stylish blue skirt, jacket, and white silk blouse, Myles could tell they’d landed in what he knew to be the present in his time line. Serephine remained sleeping.
Myles leaned in to Miss Fleur so as not to wake the child. “I’m not sure where we ended up.”
The strange woman stood and smoothed her dress. She walked up to them as if they were guests she’d been expecting for some time. She pointed at the child. “Is this her?”
Miss Fleur stepped forward and took the woman’s hands, staring so hard into her eyes that Myles wondered if he was going to have another person to save. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
The woman turned back toward Serephine. “Yes. That’s me in Myles’s arms. Or at least an alternate-reality version of me. From the time our father nearly beat down my door in that hell of his, I knew this poor child would find me one day.” She turned back to Miss Fleur. “What has that idiot done now, Mother?”