by Arden, Alys
Chapter 6 Busy Signal
I sprinted the remaining six blocks home and slammed the front gate behind me, pausing on the stoop to catch my breath. I grasped the slick, wet bars and looked both ways down the street.
No one. Nothing.
Safe behind the iron gate, my pulse mellowed, but then I remembered only a chair held the kitchen door closed and that there was a giant hole in the back of our house – not exactly high security.
Rain dripped from my dress and weighed down my Docs as I stormed to my room. I kicked off the boots and flopped onto my bed, not caring that my hair would soak the pillow. My head spun.
What the hell just happened?
The stake was still clutched tightly across my chest. I loosened my grip, allowing blood to flow back to my white knuckles, and examined the piece of iron. I turned it over and over, but there was nothing to give me a clue.
Blue eyes. Dead, blue eyes. I exhaled loudly, trying not to cry. Why had that man’s eyes still been so blue? He had shown no signs of decay, but the Storm had hit over two months ago. My hands began to shake. I set the stake down on the bed as I tried to recall the scene in exact detail.
The black sedan seemed undamaged, except for the smashed driver’s side window. Gray suit, blond hair, blue eyes. My breathing picked up. What if the man hadn’t actually been dead, and I had neglected to help him?
No, his neck had been contorted into a position allowed to no living person. He couldnot have still been alive. And yet, he certainly couldn’t have died two months ago. Had I discovered a recently deceased man?
I sat up quickly, knocking the stake off the bed, and dug my phone out of my bag. My heart pumped faster as I pushed the three numbers we were schooled to never dial unless in case of a real emergency.
Busy signal.
I dialed four more times until I finally heard ringing. The line picked up:
“Hello.”
“Hello! I need to report a murder!”
“You have reached the New Orleans Police Department automated hotline. If you are calling to report a missing person, please visit our website at www.nopd.gov. If you are calling to report a crime or another emergency, please stay on the line.”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding! Who in this city has Internet right now?”
An instrumental version of “Mardi Gras Mambo” started playing.
From the ground next to my bed came a gentle scraping sound. I glanced down.
“What the…?”
The stake was standing upright on its point. As the hold music droned on, the stake slowly started to turn, grinding itself into the floorboard. I blinked several times, totally perplexed.
“To report a dead body, press one. To report a dead animal, press two. To report a non-Storm-related violent crime, press three.”
I pressed the number three without looking at my phone.
“Please state the nature of your call. You can use phrases like, ‘My house has been robbed.’”
“Um, I’d like to report a crime. A dead body, possibly a murder—”
“Thank you for calling the N.O.P.D. Who am I speaking with?” asked a despondent female voice.
The stake stopped turning.
“Hi, my name is Adele Le Moyne.” My tongue garbled the words.
“Ms. Le Moyne, what’s the incident you’d like to report?”
“I was walking on Chartres Street around Franklin. And there was— thereis a dead body in a black car on the side of the street… It’s not from the Storm… his eyes were still normal, so he couldn’t have been dead for that long, right?”
“Calm down. Slow down. Did you witness any acts of violence?”
“No, I was just walking and found him, about forty minutes ago. I tried to call earlier but the line was busy.” Talking about the corpse brought the reality of a post-Storm New Orleans to a whole new level. Chills shuddered through my shoulders. My father and I had been driving down that street less than twenty-four hours ago.
“And you have reason to believe this was a homicide?”
“Yes. I mean, I don’t know. His neck looked really… wrong, like he had fallen down stairs or something. But he was in a car.”
“Did you see any other distinctive wounds or unusual markings?”
A splinter of wood cracked. I glanced down to the ground to find the stake turning itself again.
“Um, no, but I was only there for a minute before I ran away.”
“Okay, Ms. Le Moyne, are there any other details you would like to report?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“All right, we’ll send a unit over to investigate. I just need your contact information; an officer will reach out to you for an official statement.”
I gave her my contact info and hung up the phone.
“What the heck?” I tugged the stake out of the floor.
It felt hot.
I flung it into the nightstand as if it had some contagious disease, slammed the drawer, and fell back onto the mattress with an incredulous headshake. My chest tightened. “I’m losing my mind.”
* * *
When I woke, the sheets were damp. I was unsure whether it was from the rain-soaked clothes I had fallen asleep in, or from the layer of sweat coating me, thanks to the humidity and lack of air-conditioning. My face throbbed from accidentally rolling over on it, and my left palm ached. The silk sash wrapped around my hand was now encrusted with dried blood. I pushed it over enough to reveal my watch.
Nine o’clock?I sat up a little too quickly, and the room spun. Had I really slept for sixteen hours? The overhead light was still on, and the curtains were still open, but it was pitch black outside.
“Nine p.m.,” I said out loud. It had only been four hours. “Ugh, jet lag.” I fell back on the pillows. Immediately, those dead, blue eyes popped into my mind, and memories of the nonsensical events at the Ursuline Convent followed. I groaned and got out of bed with illusions of productivity to avoid the vivid memories. There was still the daunting task of moving the entire contents of my sixteen years of existence upstairs. Perfect.
First, I retrieved the first-aid kit. The alcohol stung, but the cut on my hand wasn’t that bad; the blood had made it seem far worse. I wrapped it tightly and then stripped off my wrinkled dress. The gris-gris necklace Ritha Borges had given me was stuck to my chest. I peeled it from my skin but then decided it could stay.
* * *
The staircase led to a small open space, which we lazily used for storage. I flashed my light as I stepped over sacks of Mardi Gras beads from years past, crates of bulk art supplies, and a box of winter clothes I would soon pull down for the two months a year that allowed for wool blends. The second level was an attic my great-grandparents had converted. I could count the number of times I’d been upstairs on one hand; the ground level had always been plenty big enough for the two of us.
I pushed the simple wooden door, and it swung open.
The air on the other side was thin and stale. A flip of the light switch got me nothing. Ugh. Had Dad not connected the attic breakers to the generator?
I slowly scanned the unkept bedroom with my flashlight. In the darkness, the room was unassuming, and the furniture was covered up with old drop cloths. I bumped into a tall, slender object and pulled off the sheet, revealing a lamp. When I toggled the switch, a muted light shone through the old linen shade.
“Success!” The bulb in the ceiling fixture must have burnt out. I removed the lampshade to amplify the light. “Good enough for tonight.”
The room was quite large, covering the width of the downstairs. The ceiling sloped at various heights due to the roof’s slant, and four dormer windows protruded over the front of the house. There was a small fireplace and two doors on opposite walls.
The first door revealed a small room, about ten feet by ten feet, with mountains of stuff piled up to the ceiling. I flicked my flashlight around for a few seconds. Whoa. I could have my own little studio… or a walk-in closet
. Suddenly the task of cleaning everything out didn't seem so arduous. I nearly skipped as I closed the door and crossed the room to door number two.
I pulled the long ball ’n chain dangling from the ceiling. A single bulb flickered on, and I shrieked, “WHY have I been sharing a bathroom with my father for all of these years when there is one up here?” I pressed the flusher on the toilet and marveled at the working plumbing.
The dust was so thick on the oval mirror above the pedestal sink that I struggled to see my own reflection. Feeling slightly nosey, I opened the glass door of a tall, narrow cabinet, disrupting the long-settled dust, which in turn disrupted my sinuses and caused me to sneeze three times.
Stacks of towels long past their prime. A heavy, silver hairbrush. An assortment of vintage cosmetics. I ogled at a collection of perfume bottles made of multicolored, unlabeled glass. A few were marked with the word “Paris.”
Who did you all belong to? They were way too old to have belonged to my mother. The little objects begged me to make them shiny again.
I pulled out the rotting linens. They were far from salvageable, but my affinity for fabric caused me to poke through them anyway. A misplaced square of lace lay among the tattered terrycloth. The dry-rotted Chantilly fell apart at my touch, revealing a piece of silver. At a glance, it looked like an old coin, but on further inspection it seemed to be a medallion of some sort. One side was rough, as if something had broken off and left behind a scar in the metal. There was something familiar about the shape – an eight-pointed star. The other side was flat and smooth except for an ornate border. It looked sad. Unfinished. Like a canvas someone had given up on. I wondered if something was missing from the piece or if this was the artist’s intended design.
I slipped it into my pocket and sighed at the tragic state of the disintegrated loops of lace. After another minute mourning the textiles, I started a trash pile, telling myself I couldn’t get attached to every inch of vintage something-or-the-other I found while cleaning.
* * *
The smell of bleach permeated the air as I wrung the mop into the sink. My fingers ached from scrubbing. I caught a glimpse of my watch and was surprised to find more than two hours had passed.
Break time.
The air in the lamp-lit bedroom wasn’t any better. I struck a wooden match and lit one of the Voodoo shop’s sage bundles, unsure whether it would help or hinder the dusty and now chemical-filled air.
At least now the room will be free of evil spirits.
Chuckling, I left the smoking herbs in a glass dish on the fireplace mantle. The dust began to tickle the back of my throat, making me cough.
With some force, I managed to wriggle open one of the windows. In the darkness, there was nothing to look at but the moon, but I rested my elbows on the sill and breathed in some of the cooler, cleaner air.
No tourists, no screaming drag queens, no horse hooves clacking down the street. The perfect still of the night – this was something I would never get used to. Not in New Orleans. The quietness freaked me out.
My mind drifted back to the Ursuline Convent. I could almost feel the swoosh of energy that had moved past me after the shutter burst open and glass rained down in sparkling shards.
It was a miracle I had walked away unscathed. A trapped breath escaped.
I leaned out the window and tugged at the shutters. Neither budged; both were securely fastened open. I’m not sure what else I expected to happen. With my upper body still hanging outside, I noticed a bird perched on our neighbor’s balcony: a large black crow, staring. I yanked myself back inside, banging my head, and slammed the window shut.
Touching the bandage on my face, I looked back through the glass with a little spite, but only the moon stared back at me. “Come on, Adele, it’s just a stupid bird.”
I shoved the window open and turned back around, ready to clean.
“Dad! Are you trying to scare me to death?”
My hands went to my knees, pulse exploding.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I called your name when I walked through the front door, but I guess you couldn’t hear me all the way up here. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He pulled me up. “What’s wrong?”
I hesitated as the day’s events sped through my head. There was no real need to tell him about the dead body. It would only make him worry, and might even result in stricter attempts at parenting, an experiment in which I didn’t want to be a test subject. And there was no way to explain the bizarre events I had seen in the convent courtyard; I felt insane just thinking about them.
“Nothing’s wrong. You just startled me. How was your day?”
“Okay, considering all things. No leads on finding someone to fix the wall. The supply and demand ratio for labor is already way out of whack. It’s going to be mayhem when the masses return.”
“And the bar?”
“Looks like it got a couple inches of water, just enough to damage anything that was resting on the floor.”
“Oof, that’s good? I guess?”
“Yeah, it could have been a lot worse, I suppose. The smell was the worst part, but I managed to drag most of the rank furniture outside. Did you make it to school?”
“Uh, no.” I braced myself for the onslaught of guilt after lying to my father, but I didn’t want to open that can of worms tonight. I moved my bandaged hand behind my back.
“What’s that smell?”
“It’s sage. Oh, I ran into an old friend of yours… and Mom’s.”
His left eyebrow raised into a question mark.
“Ana Marie Borges.”
“Wow, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Where did you run into her?”
“In their shop. That place is so cool! I can’t believe you’ve never taken me there before.”
“What were you doing in Vodou Pourvoyeur?”
“Nothing, really. I moseyed in because it was actually open.”
He looked a little more uncomfortable than usual.
“It was kinda weird.”
“How so?”
“Just, they kinda acted like they knew me.”
“Ana and Morgan have a daughter about your age.”
“Désirée. We met. She’s delightful.”
He laughed. “Well, I’m sure she’s grown up wanting for nothing.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Let me guess, the Storm went easy on their shop?”
“To quote Désirée, the Borges ‘don’t have problems with Storms.’ Oh, I have some more sage if you want to bring a bundle to the bar.”
He gave me a funny look.
“You know, for the rank smell?” I looked down at my watch. “Whoa, where have you been all night, Dad? It’s after midnight.”
“I told you, at the bar—”
“But what about the curfew?”
“It’s not like I was out loitering or looting, Adele. People have lives; people have to work. Damn curfew.”
“Jeez, sorry I asked.”
“And that doesn’t give you permission to be out past curfew.”
“All right.”
“We should go to bed. It’s late.”
“I took an epic nap, so I’m not really tired.”
He moved to the window and pushed it shut.
I sighed, switched off the light, and followed him down the stairs to my bedroom door.
“Try to sleep. It’s the only way you’ll get back on Central Time.” He kissed my cheek. “Goodnight.”
“G’night.”
I kicked off my flip-flops, playing back our conversation in my head. Something about the casual way he had mentioned Ana Marie struck me as odd.
Chapter 7 Ciao, Bella
October 11th
With the curtains open, I sat at the antique vanity, under the natural light. I leaned so close to the mirror, my nose nearly touched it. The advantage to listening to my father and not staying up all night was that the signs of life were slowly coming back to my face: the
puffy dark circles from switching time zones had mostly faded, and the crow wound was slowly starting to scab over. Gross. But at least now I could lose the giant bandage.
I slathered on an assortment of fancy Frenchcrèmes my mother had stocked my dorm room with. She must be doing something right, to stay so young-looking. As I breathed in the lavender moisturizer, I wondered if she used the same scent. Too lazy to do much else, I ripped a comb through my tangles, spritzed in some product, and hoped my mop of brown waves would dry in a decent manner.
Black leggings. Grey T-shirt. Shit-kickers.
It was unsettling that my old routine felt only vaguely familiar. When would things start to feel normal again?
I reached for my chain on the vanity and also found the silver medallion from the disintegrating lace. I moved closer to the window and held it under the morning light – there was something underneath the burned star. Initials. I breathed heavily on it and rubbed it with my towel, vowing to clean it properly later, in my father’s studio. The letters were difficult to make out at first, but then became clearer: A.S.G., etched in sweeping calligraphy. I flipped it over to see if I had missed anything else last night. There was nothing special on the other side – just the ornate border.
Something about the medallion felt old, and I found myself slipping it onto the silver chain next to the sun charm my father had made.
I looped the long, thin necklace over my head. My collar slouched off one shoulder, revealing thegris-grisribbon. Who was A.S.G.?
* * *
I brought my second café au (powdered) lait with me into my father’s room. He looked depressed, blindly dumping stuff into a large garbage can. I wondered if I should stay and help him.
“Morning,” I said and decided that having to unexpectedly throw away piles of your own work was something an artist would want to do alone. “I’m gonna go for a walk, check out the grocery situation, and swing by Café Orléans.”
“All right, let’s go for a run when you get back, before it gets too hot?”