by Rhodi Hawk
Madeleine said, “I told her not to do it anymore.”
Chloe seemed nonplussed.
Madeleine looked at Zenon and said, “He used to listen to foreign radio stations. Where they spoke in languages he didn’t understand. Said it helped him stay sharp.”
“He studied. He learned much. Now it is up to you, Madeleine, you are the last.”
Madeleine flinched, thinking again of little Cooper, but she would never tell Chloe about him.
“I say, you are the last, yanh?” Chloe said, and she was watching with a fixed stare.
Madeleine nodded.
Chloe lowered her voice to a growl. “Bah! A waste. You do not care what happens! Generations of children who squander gifts.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“You didn’t ask! You have a gift; it is your duty to use it. You too lazy. You should make babies with that worthless man and bring them to me. I will raise them to be gods.”
“If I ever did have a child, Chloe, you can bet I would keep it far away from you.”
Chloe leaned forward in her chair, eyes bright. Madeleine wondered if the old woman really could live long enough to raise a child. Already, she was supposedly 116 years old. She looked like she’d stopped ageing altogether once she’d reached eighty. Which child of the bramble had helped her do that?
“Listen to me, Madeleine. You listen, girl. You will go mad. I tell you this, you will go mad.”
Madeleine stared, her mouth going dry.
Chloe lowered her voice. “Your river devil plays along with your silly bargain as a way to draw you deeper into the briar. Your body will be an empty shell while your mind flies away. Maybe forever.”
Madeleine could feel tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. She tore her gaze to Zenon. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell. She dared not look at his face.
Chloe said, “You go on and on about something meaningless, one drunk vagrant kills another drunk vagrant. You pretend that is important. That is housecleaning. If you want to keep from going mad, you have one choice. You come and learn with me.”
seven
NEW ORLEANS, NOW
BO RAMIREZ FIRST FIGURED out the clicking thing when he was really young. Couldn’t say exactly how old. At that time, he could pretty much find his way by feel and by listening to regular sounds. The air-conditioning blower. Cars passing. Wind in the trees.
Kids at school were either nice to him or mean. Some of them were really mean. Bo couldn’t play much with the regular kids because he was a special needs for being blind. That’s how he met Ray. The only other one with a physical handicap. Bo would go running on the playground and crash into Ray’s wheelchair, and they’d both go butt-over-bean onto the pavement and sometimes even get bloody.
Ray never gave him hell about it, though, as far as Bo could tell, because in the early days Ray couldn’t speak, only sign. Bo couldn’t sign, only speak. And because Bo was blind he couldn’t see what Ray was signing even if he knew sign language, which he didn’t. Not at that point anyway. Bo did Braille and he mouth-talked, and that was it. So if Bo crashed into Ray’s wheelchair and Ray was hacked off about it, Bo never knew because Ray had no way to chew him out. They got along great.
One day Bo was running on the playground and heard Ray’s wheels going, and he grabbed Ray’s wheelchair and ran with him. They flew like that for a few seconds until Bo ran them off the pavement into the grass, at which point they crashed, both of them rolling butt-over-bean again. Ray lurped up his lunch and Bo got in trouble. They were best friends from that point on even though they couldn’t talk to each other yet.
The clicking discovery seemed like a small thing at first, but really it changed everything.
Bo’d discovered it accidentally one day when he got in trouble. He’d been chasing a cat and crashed into his mom while she was bringing in the groceries; caused her to drop an entire jug of milk and a lettuce. The lettuce was washable but the milk was for spoil. Anyway, his mom stuck his butt in the corner. She’d always told him to slow down because it was dangerous for blind kids to be running around. Said he’s liable to break his neck one of these days.
So he was standing in the corner, bored stupid, and he was running his hand along the bumpy wall and making all kinds of noises with his mouth. Farm animal sounds, motor sounds, tick-tock sounds—making clicks. That’s when he realized that when he clicked at the wall it sounded different from when he clicked at the middle of the room.
That’s all at first. Could just tell when he was standing in front of a wall.
He took to clicking at everything, remembering how the tone of the click sounded different depending on what he was clicking at. His mom said he sounded like a clucking chicken. He could eventually tell the difference between a wall and a curb or a car, and then he could tell the difference between a car and a truck.
The school put all the special needs kids together which meant that older kids, some of them way older, were stuck playing with the littler kids like Bo and Ray. There were about twelve kids altogether, of which most were learning disability. Those kids were all pretty nice. They liked to play hard like Bo did. But some of those kids weren’t really learning disability, they were just plain fools who spent all their time huffing paint. And those ones, Oyster and Mako and them, they were older than Bo by about six years.
The paint huffers threw rocks at him on the playground. Told Bo they were playing baseball and he had to use his cane like it was a bat. Bo knew it was just their excuse to pelt him with rocks. Later, they quit pretending there was any game at all and just beat on him, threw rocks, stole his pack, even stole his shoes once, and always they stole his cane. They would steal his cane and break it, steal his cane and smear it with dog shit, or take it from him and beat on him with it. They stole his sunglasses, too. Bo had to wear sunglasses because it looked funny in the place where his eyes ought to be.
Bo missed the sunglasses but didn’t care about the canes. Even without the huffers he’d lose a cane here or there or somewhere. He only carried them because his mom made him. Even now she made him carry one, even though the clicks were way better for seeing than the cane.
After Bo and Ray became friends, the bigger boys started beating on Ray, too. Mako seemed like the meanest one but Oyster gave him the mean ideas. Sucker punch the blind kid because he couldn’t see you coming. Run up behind the deaf kid in the wheelchair because he couldn’t hear you and he couldn’t chase you down.
Bo would swing back, and he built up real fast reflexes. Managed to clock Mako or one of the other boys every now and then. But not often.
The clicking, though, was starting to really pay off. He crashed a whole lot less. And he crashed Ray less, too.
One day Mako snuck up behind Ray and smashed him in the face with his backpack so hard Ray’s chair went sideways and he fell out. But Bo figured out what was happening with his clicks and he chased Mako and knocked him good in the ear. Mako went down. Bo went down after him. But Mako was so much bigger and he turned it back and rang Bo’s bell. And then the other huffers came after him, too. Teacher showed up and put everyone in detention except for Ray. So all in all you couldn’t say Bo won the fight because he was pretty much getting his butt handed to him except for one or two good punches, but still, things changed after that. The huffers would still come over and sock Bo or Ray every now and then but it was less often.
After a while, the huffers stopped coming to school. Bo had no idea what they were doing if they weren’t going to school, but good riddance. His mom always said every cloud had a silver lining and it was true. Even though the huffers pretty much made his life miserable, Bo had had to be so extra careful when they were around that he’d become an expert at seeing with his clicks. Could run like the wind without crashing into anything, could even chase a soccer ball.
Now and again he’d still come across the huffers. Found out they didn’t only leave school, they’d all left home. On purpose! Bo and his mom so
metimes had to leave their home and spend the night wherever because his mom’s roommate needed some privacy. Bo didn’t mind camping out with his mom like that, but guaranteed he’d never do it on purpose.
eight
VACHERIE, 1927
PATRICE AND GIL RODE their horses along the wet main road to Vacherie. In the same way they used kerosene lamps instead of electric lighting at Terrefleurs, the primary mode of transportation was still horses even though they had Papa’s automobile. It required gasoline and upkeep. If Papa were still alive, though, they’d be using electric lights and the car. Despite his madness he’d managed to keep things running.
“You think we’ll be late?” Gil asked.
“We might be,” Patrice said.
She watched as his gelding trotted along with its smooth gait. Sugar Pie, the mare Patrice had chosen to ride, had a more jaunty way; it made Patrice’s legs a bit stiff. At least the drizzle had stopped before they’d set out.
She said, “We’ll need to get serious about leaving Terrefleurs.”
“I know,” Gil said.
“If we’re very careful, I think we can be ready in three months’ time.”
“Three months? How do you figure?”
“We just need to come up with a plan.”
He seemed to think this over but said nothing. The horse hooves beat against the gravel in a rhythmic accompaniment to first light.
Patrice said, “The primary thing is money. We’ll need to save up as much as we can. A hundred dollars, I think.”
He turned and looked at her, his blue eyes slanting. “We could take up horse wrangling.”
“Be serious!”
“I’m trying, honey, I just don’t know where we’ll find a hundred dollars. Mother still handles all the money even though she’s off in New Orleans.”
“We could sell eggs.…”
She did a quick calculation. Even if they could sell a dozen eggs a day at 25 cents a dozen, that only added up to a dollar every four days. Which was about $7.50 a month. At that rate, it would take them over a year to save to a hundred dollars. And that was assuming the hens could actually produce a dozen eggs a day every single day, in excess of what went to the workers.
She shook her head. “Maybe six months. We’ll just have to come up with a way. A hundred dollars in three months’ time, that’s $33.33 each month for two months, and $33.34 for the third month.”
“Might as well be a thousand.”
“Or … we can pull it off in six months if we only save $16.66 a month.”
“You really think we can hold mother off for another six months?”
“I … don’t know. Maybe. Yes, we can probably hold her off that long.”
“Well, alright. But even so, even if we can save up all that money, what’ll we do once we’ve got it?”
“We just have to make a plan.”
“What kind of plan?”
“You know, what to take with us. Where to go. What to do for shelter. Horses or car.”
“Car!”
“We’d have to get it running first and I’d be the only one who could drive.”
“You can’t drive, you’re a girl.”
“Hush up. At least I can see over the steering wheel.”
And Patrice thought, six months seemed like an eternity now. But six months ago Papa was still alive, and Mother presided over Terrefleurs. Over the children. Terrefleurs was now coasting along like a raft with no one to guide it. A lot could happen. They had to make that money in six months or they would be mother’s slaves forever.
She secretly believed they’d find a way to do it in three.
* * *
PATRICE AND GIL SAT in the back pew. They’d arrived late to church and had had to slip in after the service had already started. Reverend Turner looked smaller from this distance. Tatie Bernadette was sitting way up at the front. This was new. The children and Tatie usually sat together somewhere in the middle. Tatie was easy to pick out even from behind where not an inch of skin showed, because every Sunday she wore the same violet dress and the matching violet hat with the silk rose pinned at the base, and if there was a chill she used a shawl. No shawl today.
Patrice stared at that distant violet glow and thought of Rosie. From experience, Patrice knew that Marie-Rose would be fine. Trig would find her as promised. Just another wander. Rosie wasn’t the only LeBlanc child to physically walk off when the briar closed around her, but she was the most frequent one to do it. Their mother had started in on Rosie when she was still so young.
Thank God their mother was gone for now. This thought did not take the Lord’s name in vain. Truly: thank God.
At the other side of the church, on the pulpit, Reverend Turner was talking about King Solomon in the days before he came to glory. The wicked days.
Patrice stifled a yawn and stole a glance at Gil. He was looking toward the reverend, but in truth his gaze was leveled at the dust motes that glimmered like wood fairies in the morning light. Most buildings had the windows angled so they never took a direct ray of sun. A dead stare of sunlight could heat a room to the steam boil in under ten minutes. This was probably why most parishioners took the first Sunday service, when those rays still seemed more a miracle of God than a torment of Hell. Patrice hated to think what the ten o’clock service might feel like.
Something was out of place. She looked beyond the reverend, then realized the altar had been removed from the great basin. So there’d be a baptism. Reverend Turner wasn’t one to take the flock down to the river the way some did. Patrice tried to scan the pews for the newborn who was to be baptized but found only her fellow parishioners’ backs.
From the pulpit, the reverend spoke of how King Sol had taken to idolatry, turning against God, and in doing so had split his kingdom in two: Christians and idolaters.
And then he bade the flock rise and turn in their hymnals to page 662. The piano sounded off with the opening chords of “Holy, Holy, Holy!”, and Gil had the hymnal open to share between himself and Patrice just in time for queue.
Holy, holy, ho-ly!
Lord God almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee
Patrice didn’t need to read from the hymnal. She often sang this one to herself at home. Song was not a thing their mother had allowed them to engage in, either. Songs came from the radio and from the cadence the workers sang in the fields. Her mother had kept Terrefleurs openly practicing in river magic, while Christians like Tatie Bernadette had privately maintained their faith. Privately until now, when all was open, and river magic had become the faith that was frowned upon at Terrefleurs.
What would mother do if she heard Patrice singing a Christian song right now?
Patrice smiled.
Cherubim and Seraphim
Falling down before Thee
She tilted back her head and lifted her voice straight to God, somewhere up in heaven, where maybe poor lost Papa had finally found comfort.
Gil’s voice rose alongside Patrice’s. He set down the hymnal and took her white gloved hand as they sang together. She smiled at him, but then:
A dried spot of blood on the back of his collar. She angled her head to take a closer look. A scratch just below the base of his skull. She stopped singing.
He caught her examining him. Frowning, she turned to show him the same scratch at the back of her own neck. The one she’d woken up with. The one that was supposed to be a bug bite.
He stopped singing, too.
Patrice drew her gaze toward the front of the church where Tatie Bernadette stood short and round in that violet Sunday dress. But next to her, next to her …
Holy, holy, ho-ly! tho’ the darkness hide Thee,
Tho’ the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see
A spindly woman standing with Tatie. Not Tatie’s sister. The hair was pulled snug up under a cloche hat. A dress that dipped low beneath the nape. And along that dark skin, a light trace, visible even from the back of t
he church. A scar. A snaking zipper of a scar—Patrice knew even though it was not fully visible—that traveled down below that collar line.
Mother.
* * *
PATRICE FELT A HAND on her arm. Gilbert was trying to pull her down to the pew. She realized that she and Reverend Turner were now the only ones left standing. The song had ended and the reverend was segueing into the baptism.
Patrice balled her fist and funneled her gaze on the back of her mother’s head. You stand and leave—
But she clamped the thought in midstream.
Not here. Not here.
Not in God’s house.
She couldn’t bring herself to use devil’s magic here.
She was still on her feet.
“It’s blasphemy,” she murmured, feeling helpless.
Gil rose and took hold of her elbow, whispering, “Let’s sit now, honey.”
She turned to look at him full in the face. He must not have realized it yet, that their mother was sitting up there with Tatie Bernadette.
There were ways in which Patrice could talk to him so that no one else could hear. Ways in which she could cast her mother out of God’s house. To invoke such things as that, though, no matter how pious the intent, it was all still—
Gil had an arm around her waist but he was no longer trying to pull her down to the pew. Because he finally saw his mother, too. There, up at the pulpit, Reverend Turner was taking Maman by the hand. The reverend was speaking of baptism. Sin washed away.
Patrice shouted, her voice breaking across the pews:
“NO, SIR, DO NOT WASH THAT WOMAN!”
The entire congregation turned to look at Patrice. Paddle fans paused. Even Reverend Turner paused.
Patrice called out, “Reverend Turner, that woman is not clean. She must not touch that water.”
Mother lifted her gaze from the front row, then turned with her hand still in the reverend’s and ascended the steps to the pulpit where the basin waited. The reverend looked bewildered but he followed her.