by Arden, Alys
“So Sacred Heart has reopened?”
“Obviously. In fact, it’s better than ever. Holy Cross flooded, and we graciously took in their all-male student body.” She was now fully scoping me out. Her blatant gaze started at my feet, where my worn boots got her utter disapproval, and then moved up to my dress, where her disapproval faded to befuddlement. Perhaps she recognized it from this season’s runway?
“Nice dress,” she muttered.
After navigating Parisian boarding school for the last two months, I was a professional in these kinds of situations. “Merci beaucoup, I bought it in Paris. Just got back in town late last night,” I said, as if I flew to Paris every Saturday for shopping and croissants. As soon as the words came out of my mouth I wanted to slap myself, but I had her attention now. Her left eyebrow raised, perplexed.
“I’m late.” She flipped her hair and grabbed her bag.
“How did your family make out with the Storm?” I tried to change the subject but had maxed the quota of attention she was willing to allocate to me.
“We don’t have problems with storms.” She smirked and pivoted to the front door.
I stood, a little stunned by her resolute manner.
“Don’t worry about Désirée, my dear. She doesn’t understand yet.”
I turned to the old woman. “Understand what?”
“Her importance in the world,” she answered tenderly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe.
The comment caught me off guard. My paternal grandmother had died when I was little, and ma grand-mère certainly didn’t think I had any importance in the world. All she cared about was my French accent and cramming me into smaller and smaller dress sizes.
The old woman began to open and close jars, making meticulous selections. She held one under my nose.
“Lavender, my favorite.” I inhaled deeply. “By the way, I’m Adele—”
“Le Moyne,” a resonant female voice finished for me.
I turned to find a middle-aged woman standing behind me. She had the same long hair and almond-shaped brown eyes as Désirée, but she exuded authority. With her tailored turquoise dress, navy blazer and gold bangles, she was way more Jackie-O than new-agey Voodoo priestess.
“You are Mac and Gidget’s daughter,” she said.
“Gidget?” Trying to imagine my mother with a girlish nickname almost made me snicker. Even hearing the Americanized version of her name, Bridget, sounded weird. To me, she was only Madame Brigitte Dupré.
“Your mother was—is an amazing woman.”
“Ugh…,” I fumbled.
Everyone in the French Quarter knew my father, and most knew me, but very few people knew my mother. She had lived here for only a few years before her sudden departure more than a decade ago. Or maybe people did know her and just never spoke about her? At least not to me.
“I’m Ana Marie Borges, Désirée’s mother, and this is my mother-in-law, Ritha.”
The old woman came from behind the counter.
“Borges? As in Morgan Borges?”
Ritha smiled in the way only a mother could. Lost in the moment, I didn’t notice she had drawn close behind me. “Ow!” I flinched when she plucked a few strands of hair from my head; my scalp was still sore from the bird attack.
She quickly retreated behind the counter to her herbs, muttering something indiscernible under her breath.
Borges was a household name in Louisiana, with deep roots in the political history of New Orleans, and like most political families, people tended to love or hate them. Morgan Borges had been elected mayor of the city of New Orleans earlier that year. Most of his campaign had revolved around bridging the socioeconomic divide. It was pretty apparent which side of the divide his daughter stood on. It made sense that Désirée would attend the Academy of the Sacred Heart, being the mayor’s daughter and all. I wasn’t old enough to vote, but I had always thought the mayor seemed like a genuine guy, for a politician.
“It’s nice to see you again, honey,” old Ritha said. Again? “Take this.” She leaned over the counter and curled my fingers around something soft. She had a wide grin and seemed a little kooky. I liked her.
Ana Marie moved directly in front of me and examined my face. Before I could protest, she peeled back the bandage and smeared something across my cut. I winced as it tingled.
Overcome with awkwardness from all the matriarchal attention, I searched for purpose by inspecting a basket on the floor at my feet, and grabbing a few bundles of herbs.
“Sage,” said Ana Marie. “Smart choice. Wards off evil.”
“Right…” I produced a few dollars, which they refused to accept. “Well, it was nice to meet the both of you.”
“Send our regards to your father,” said Ana Marie. “It’s been far too long.”
Was she just being polite? I hoped she meant it.
I exited the shop and paused out front to examine the object Ritha had slipped me. There was a small muslin satchel attached in the middle of the long white ribbon. When I pressed my fingers against the little fabric pouch, I could feel dried herbs and stones. And apparently my hair, I thought, rubbing my scalp. Ritha’s warning about protection echoed in my head.
“What’s the harm?” I whispered as I tied the ribbon around my neck and hid thegris-gris underneath my dress.
Chapter 5 Blue Eyes
The conditions of houses significantly worsened after I crossed Esplanade Avenue. The change was so sudden, it almost seemed like it had been purposely engineered. Once I left the French Quarter, signs of life went from slim to none.
Historically, the Faubourg Marigny was a neighborhood where immigrants had settled to build homes and chase the American Dream. In more recent years, artists and bohemian types had moved into the neighborhood because it was cheaper than other parts of the city but still well located. Post-Storm, one could beg to differ whether it was really so well located – in between the Mississippi River and the Industrial Canal.
Pre-Storm, this neighborhood had been one of the most colorful in the city, literally. The cultural diversity of its inhabitants brought a distinct flavor to each one of the old Creole cottages. Chartreuse, orange, magenta – pick any Crayon from the box and you could have found it here. Now it felt like I was looking at everything through a dirty gray lens. Rust and mold were the new accent colors, and the neighborhood was more akin to a junkyard: tricycles, hi-tops, ceiling fans, and bunk beds were sprinkled on the lawns. The contents strewn about varied from block to block, but every street looked exactly the same – like it had drowned and then been left out to bake and rot in the Indian summer sun. Flipped cars and boats, some smashed into houses and storefronts, had become a common sight. The sidewalk lifted in various places, reminding me of colliding plate tectonics from seventh-grade social studies.
A cloud of flies swarmed an overturned refrigerator, and an accidental glimpse of the maggot-infested mystery meat inside made me gag uncontrollably. I tried to move away quickly, but there were still puddles the size of ponds and no clear paths. I took a giant step, barely avoiding a drowned rat, and said a quick thank you for my Doc Martens.
A bad feeling crept up as my school came into view; all the windows of the old factory-converted building had been blown out. I approached the nearest one and peered in. The ground level was still filled with stagnant water. My heart sank.
The warm familiar feeling I usually had on campus had been replaced with the strange sense that I was trespassing. I circled around to the front and found a piece of paper inside a plastic sheath nailed to the front door:
New Orleans School of Arts
Closed — Indefinitely
Contact the office of the
School Board Superintendent
for current status updates.
I snapped a photo and texted it to Brooke, adding only a sad-face.
Despite the official stamp on the paper, there was something so unofficial about the posting that it looked piteous: the handwri
ting, the nail. For the first time in my life, the lack of bureaucracy made me uncomfortable. School and bureaucracy went hand in hand.
NOSA was an audition-only art high school where we were taught that creativity was in everything, even in trigonometry, which I struggled to believe. After my audition, my father had sat me down and very seriously explained that the greatest lesson an artist could learn was how to deal with rejection. I think the day I got my acceptance letter was the best day of both our lives.
Now I wondered if this would be it for NOSA.
As I approached the corner where I would normally see my father’s beautiful ballerina sculpture, I tried to brace myself for the possibility that she would be mangled, vandalized or missing altogether. He’d donated the sculpture for the school’s twenty-fifth anniversary. She was who I’d hidden behind, crying, after Johnnie West robbed me of my very first kiss during a scene-study class freshman year, and she’d always been there to listen to my nervous banter before my juries. I’d grown attached to seeing her every morning. Please be there. Please be—
“Thank God!”
I nearly skipped when I saw that she was still mid-pirouette. Her metal tutu, thin as paper, still created that amazing sense of movement, even the mask that covered the top half of her face was still intact – a metal version of the ones traditionally worn during Mardi Gras. She had always been one of my favorite pieces of his, and now she glimmered bronze against the sad spectrum of gray, almost begging me to not worry. I would have hugged her if she hadn’t been smeared in rotting foliage.
At least I’d have some good news for my father – his work withstood the strength of the Storm.
My father sometimes taught weekend metalsmithing workshops for adults at NOSA. I wished the school would allow him to teach us classes, but they weren’t too keen on allowing students to use blowtorches. Fair enough. Luckily, he’d been teaching me the art of harnessing fire since age six, after I snuck into his studio and burned off a pigtail (which gave me a very punk-rock haircut for a summer and nearly gave him a stroke). No matter what lengths he took to childproof his workspace, I had always managed to get in and meddle. Teaching me to correctly use the tools was his way of being better safe than sorry.
My eyes teared at the thought of not being able to spend my junior and senior years at NOSA. Most kids hated school, but I’d always felt strong and confident here.
Adele, think about how much more other people lost. I wiped my eyes and started the trek back.
Large orange X’s had been spray-painted directly onto the exteriors of the now-abandoned old homes. I’d seen images of them on TV, but they were so much more upsetting in person. The numbers sprayed into each quadrant of the X indicated when the premise had been searched and how many dead bodies had been found. The dilapidated houses, formerly as vibrant as the Caribbean, encouraged me to flee, but I couldn’t help but pause outside one house: next to the X, a rescuer had taken the time to spray out the words “1 dead in attic.”
The looming eeriness was suffocating.
Glass crunched under my feet as I walked away – it had come from the shattered window of a black town car parked next to me. There was a man in the driver’s seat.
I froze and stammered, “Hello?”
He didn’t stir.
I moved to see his face. His neatly groomed blond head was resting in the open window amongst a scattering of shiny glass fragments – his empty blue eyes looked straight through me.
“Sir? Sir, are you okay?” Southern hospitality took over, despite knowing there was only one explanation for the stillness of his body and for his head to be turned at that unnatural angle. I extended my hand towards his neck to check his pulse.
A bird squawked loudly, and I ripped my arm back in fright, barely aware of the broken glass grazing my hand as I spun around and broke into a full-on sprint. I ran through the remaining blocks of the Marigny, past Esplanade Avenue and back into the French Quarter. I kept running until sucking in the humid air became so difficult I had to stop and lean against a wooden fence.
Panting, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
The sound of the busy signal made me burst into tears. How many other people were trying to call the police at this exact moment? I’d never seen a dead body before much less touched one. Now, all I could picture were those blue eyes. I felt his dead skin on my fingers. My chest tightened, and an asthmatic noise croaked from my throat.
Breathe, Adele.
Tears dripped.
I threw my arms over my head, determined to pull it together.
The imposing concrete wall surrounding the old Ursuline Convent was directly across the street, which meant I was on Chartres Street, only about six blocks from home. My hand throbbed, and I felt liquid dripping down my arm, but before I could inspect it, a rattling noise caught my attention. I held my breath to create perfect silence, and heard the noise again.
From my vantage, all I could see were the five attic windows protruding from the slope of the convent roof – two left of center and three on the right. (Blame my father for teaching me to always notice symmetry.) One shutter had become detached and was hanging loosely, rattling in the wind.
I watched the shutter methodically flap open and snap shut again, but the man’s dead blue eyes stained my mind. What had happened to him? A car accident? The rhythm of the knocking wood put me into a meditative state. My tears stopped, and my breathing evened. The claps gradually became louder and louder, drawing my focus back to the window.
A rusty smell pinched my nostrils, and only then did I realize the cut in my palm was now bleeding profusely. I untied the sash from around my waist and wrapped it tightly around my hand. Back less than a day and I already have two injuries. Dad is going to freak. I silently mourned the death of the Chanel as the blood soaked through it.
Sweat dripped down my back. Gross.I tugged at my now-damp dress and wiped the tears from my face with the back of my bandaged hand, all the while watching the attic window. The heat was incredible, rippling down my torso in waves, almost feverish. Was it wrong to pray for a cool front, I wondered, staring at the convent. Maybe just a little breeze?
The shutter snapped back shut. Something bothered me about it… and then I realized what it was.
I stopped and stood perfectly still. There was no breeze; the air was dead. The shutter flapped back open and snapped shut again, as if demanding my attention.
My pulse picked up.
I squinted as the shutter flapped open – there was a flash of movement behind the panes before it swung shut again. What the hell? I blinked the remaining water from my eyelids.
When I looked back up, the shutter swung open.
Faint clinking sounds came from the convent courtyard, like metal raindrops hitting the pavement. Curious, I crossed the street and approached the convent’s iron gate, trying to keep my eyes on the dark window behind the shutter.
Through the bars, the overgrown garden looked as if it had been abandoned years ago, but then again, that’s how most of the city looked presently. I reached for the ornate handle, but the fixture turned downwards before I touched it. The loud clank made me jump back, and the gate creaked open just enough to let me pass through.
A little voice inside pleaded with me to bail, but instinct led me through the maze of overgrown hedges as if I’d been there a hundred times before. My eyes went back to the window and refused to look away. As I drew closer, the wooden shutter continued to open and close – slowly and precisely. Once I was directly underneath, I could see the nails popping out of the joining shutter, which was still closed. I glanced at my feet. The ground was covered in long black carpenter nails – clearly the work of a blacksmith, not a modern machine. Had it really been necessary to use so many nails to secure the shutters? A tiny raindrop hit my face.
The shutter flapped twice more, faster and faster.
It was slowly pulling itself off the building. Only a single stake in the center hinge kept it fro
m falling, but it, too, was protruding, as if being pulled by some invisible force. The cut on my hand throbbed; the blood had soaked completely through the sash.
A loud clap of thunder made my pulse race, but my feet still wouldn’t carry me away. I stood motionless, neck craned, watching the shutter wrench itself free until it was suspended by just the very tip of the stake.
For a brief moment, the world seemed to freeze.
Then gravity prevailed.
My arms flew over my head as the dangling shutter crashed three stories to the ground – just a few inches from my feet.
The speed with which the sky became dark felt wholly unnatural. Bigger droplets of rain began to fall. Too stunned to move, I tried to make sense of what had just happened.
Suddenly, the remaining wooden shutter slammed open, and the windowpane blew outward in an explosion of showering glass. I fell to the ground and curled into a tight ball, shielding my face. A whoosh of wind whipped around me, and there was a loud whistle that faded into what sounded like sardonic laughter.
This is not happening right now. This is a dream.
The clank of metal nearby forced me to release my tense muscles and unwrap my arms from my head. I peeked out with one eye. The thick iron stake that had held the shutter was rolling along the cement towards my face, as if pulled by a magnetic force. It stopped right before it touched my nose.
I quickly sat up and grabbed it. The metal felt strangely powerful in my hand, a thick, giant nail, twice the width of my palm.
My eyes told me I was alone, but my gut told me I wasn’t. Every ounce of my being screamed, Get out! Now I really was trespassing, and on the private grounds of the archdiocese.
Another loud crack of thunder made me scramble to my feet.
The wrought-iron gate banged shut behind me, just as the chapel bells began to clang.