The Witch of Bourbon Street

by Suzanne Palmieri

  Edmond leaned against the stone pillar of the front gates and smoked a pipe. He’d railed against it when the walls and gates went up around the Sorrow Estate. But Helene had insisted after SuzyNell was born.

  “Someone will try and steal her,” said Helene, who’d read a newspaper story about babies being stolen from their families and held for ransom.

  “You still don’t understand it here, do you, chérie?” he’d asked. But he gave in to her demands, for much the same reason that Helene gave in to his physical advances.

  Leaning there, against the walls, Helene surveyed the man she’d been bedding for all of her adult life. The years had been kinder to Edmond than to Helene. Still handsome, Edmond never seemed to age. He was like all the other Sorrows, with their signature dark hair, olive skin, and light eyes that ranged from blue to gray to green depending on whom they married. (Defying all sorts of genetic formulas, even a brown-eyed man or woman who helped a Sorrow make a baby couldn’t seem to override the original characteristics.) The only thing different about Edmond now was the mustache he’d decided to grow a few years after they were married.

  A “dapper,” was what their oldest girl, SuzyNell, called him.

  Helene, in contrast, was light and fragile. A little of the dewy, youthful beauty she’d had when they’d first met left, bit by bit, with the birth of each child. She was convinced she lost a little of her mind with each pregnancy as well, and she knew Edmond felt the same.

  It was different with her first pregnancy and their firstborn. SuzyNell was a beautiful baby. The première fête—also the last party ever held on the estate—was held in her honor. And Helene had felt that same hope she had first setting eyes on the Sorrow Estate. But that night, Helene found Edmond making love to Rosella in the lighthouse, and as she stumbled away into the dense trees because she could not face her guests, she found the small shack that held the dark magic—jars, altars, candles, even bones—and knew it would be her undoing.

  She sent all the guests home. She broke fine china. She slapped Rosella across the face. She demanded that the shack be burned to the ground and Rosella exiled out of their lives.

  Her demands fell on deaf ears.

  “You pray your way, she prays her way,” said Edmond. “I will not exile her, I love her. I love you both.”

  After everything else failed, she tried to leave, but her father was too ill to take her in. For years she tried to fight off Edmond’s charms as much as she could, moving to a separate bedroom, staving off his affections. But he’d wear her down eventually, and six more children followed. Each pregnancy was a reminder of her weakness and his betrayal. But all of the hate disappeared as she looked at the faces of her newborns. Her children were her salvation. Her hope was that whatever spell or curse Rosella placed on her was dispelled with each of her perfect children. Until her last child, the boy, was born.

  Helene searched for him through the window, amid the rest. The older girls were playing lawn tennis, and their beauty made Helene misty-eyed. In her clearer moments, she felt a love for them that rivaled her love for Jesus, which terrified her.

  SuzyNell and Edwina played against the twins, Lavinia and Grace. The youngest girls, Mae and Belinda, played a gentle game of croquet with … yes, there he was, Egg.

  SuzyNell was wearing her hair up, and the high neck of her dress only emphasized her burgeoning womanhood. Her children were true Sorrows—all of them with thick, glossy curls and gleaming eyes. But something else as well. They all shared that mysterious heat pulsating in ripples around them. Helene, tortured by the idea of sin, made her children wear white at all times to counteract the seductive, Sorrow allure. “You are my vestal virgins,” she’d tell her daughters.

  Belinda B’Lovely—that whore Rosella gave her the nickname when she was a baby, and as Edmond refused to end his relations with her, it stuck—always found a way to get around it, though. She’d fasten a bit of red ribbon to her wrist, tuck a red rose behind her ear, anything to offset what she called “the hateful white.” Helene took it in stride, gliding past her daughter in the hall or on the stairs, gracefully removing whatever item Bee had adorned herself with.

  “Red is the color of sin, ma chérie,” she’d say, and then kiss her youngest daughter on the top of her sweet head.

  But that day, as the boat carrying her salvation found its moorings, Helene was too far away from Bee to pull the red sash from her daughter’s lovely white lace dress. And as Helene watched, her youngest daughter straightened that sash defiantly and looked up into Helene’s bedroom window, right into her heart, before running down the covered path to meet their guest.

  Helene didn’t like to admit she favored any of her children, but she had a special place in her heart for Belinda because she was the one who needed the most saving.

  She even favored her over the youngest. Edmond Seraphin Sorrow was his full name, after his father. But the girls all called him Egg. Not Egg because he was round. He wasn’t round at all. He was very, very small, in fact. They called him Egg because he was fragile. Egg was always sick. Pale, drawn, cher bébé Egg.

  He worried the family so intensely that Edmond ignored Helene’s protests and asked Rosella’s Maman, Patrice, a renowned traiteuse, to heal the boy using whatever bayou remedies she could conjure. “You invite the devil into our lives every day, Edmond,” Helene would whisper icily.

  Patrice visited Egg only once, because after the poultices of dried animal innards and duckweed were prepared in the kitchen, and their earthy odors filled the house, Helene became hysterical and went to her chapel, where she threatened to stay until a sister-nurse was employed.

  “She will have to live with us, you know, and we tore down those rooms to build you your own kind of altar!” Edmond shouted throughout the heavy locked doors of the chapel.

  “Then build her a cottage! If you’d run this estate properly from the start, there’d already be a place to put her. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times. No matter how far you put yourself out of society, Edmond, you will suffer the error of your ways in one way or another.”

  23

  Albert Monroe

  From The Sorrow Papers

  My mind was working so fast. If what Sister Vesta said was true, and I simply could not believe such a detailed account to be false, then it meant Rosella had more of a motive than anyone else.

  “So it was Rosella. Vesta, this will help me clear your name.”

  “No, Albert. It wasn’t Rosella,” she said, but I noted a hesitation in her voice. There was an accusation somewhere; I simply needed to find it.

  “What makes you so sure it was not Rosella? Did she take you into her confidence as well? I can’t imagine that with the close relationship between you and Helene, as evidenced by your intimate knowledge of her history, Rosella would have shared her deepest thoughts with you.

  “It’s late,” she said, “and I’m tired. Come back soon, and I’ll tell you more of their secrets. But I will not tell you anything that you can use against them, Albert. This is a documentation of sorts, a memorial so that they will not be forgotten. I am in no mood for redemption.”

  * * *

  I left late that night more fascinated than confused. I was pleased that Rosella had sent a boy to come and escort me back to Trinity Bridge, even as I was building a case against her in my mind. My driver was asleep at the reins, and when I nudged him, he jumped.

  “What is it, man? Why so startled? I’ve woken you from naps before.”

  “Do you see them, sir?”

  “See what?”

  “The feux follets. They be everywhere tonight. I’ve asked all who pass by for some salt, but no one wants to give any away. Seems everyone is sure those Sorrow souls are trapped in the bayou. And if we aren’t careful, they may just get us. They angry we ain’t got their killer yet. You sure you don’t want to go on back over there and drag that nurse out by her habit?”

  I reached into the cab and pulled him up by his
collar. “Don’t you ever let me hear you talk like that again. This is nonsense. Those people, that family of my dear friend, they suffered from a tragic set of circumstances. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, drive. I have rooms ready for us on Saint Sabine Isle.”

  “For me, too, sir?”

  “Yes, of course. In the stables,” I said.

  * * *

  I was glad to be at the Sorrow cottage at Saint Sabine Isle resort. It was late, but the staff had opened it during the day, and the gas lamps were lit. All the cottages were luxurious, but the Sorrows’ was the most lovely of all. I fell asleep listening to the waves of the Gulf, thinking of better times. I’d been there before, of course. But one summer, the last summer they stayed, I believe, the summer before Egg was born, I was invited for the whole season. Helene kept to herself, reading and praying and doting on her girls, but Edmond and I had a riotous time. Belinda was just a little thing, but so different from her sisters. Determined to stay by her father’s side, she followed us everywhere.

  “She’s the son I may never have,” said Edmond.

  “With such a lovely, healthy brood, why do you insist on having a son? Isn’t it the Sorrow custom to lavish power and equality on their daughters?”

  “I know the customs, Albert. And I know how I’m supposed to think and act and feel, but sometimes I wish … I just wish that things were a little more, I don’t know. Ordinary. When Helene and I were first married, she was full of questions about slaves and poverty and social class. And I fought her on all of it, I did. But I’ve always wondered what things would have been like if we’d run our parish, our cane fields, our lives, like everyone else.”

  “Power can be a drug, Edmond. Think of all your family has acquired without the evil attached.”

  “No evil. That’s funny, Albert!” He laughed at me, having a private joke, then cried out suddenly, “Race you to the ocean! Tonight, we’ll make the journey into the ville and drink and whore and gamble. And stumble back here in the morning to sleep on the beach! How does that sound?” But his last word was muted and low because he was already halfway in the water. I ran after him, delighted as ever with my dear friend.

  That night, Belinda made a fuss over her papa leaving. She wrapped her arms around his leg and dirtied the bottom of her dress in the sand.

  “Take me with you, Papa! I can wear a red dress and sit on your lap and play cards. I will put on lipstick, too! Like the ladies on Bourbon Street. Take me with you! I want to see the ladies dance. Please?”

  If she’d been the daughter of any other Southern gentleman, she may have been sent off to be spanked by a servant and then have her mouth washed out with soap, only to be followed with a good dose of Bible reading as a bedtime story. But this was a Sorrow child, and Edmond, for all his protesting, was a Sorrow father. So he picked her up and held her close.

  “Someday, my love, when you grow big, you can do anything you wish. Paint your face, or join the church, it is entirely up to you. But for now, you are still too little to stay up so late. And though I will miss you, I will be back when you wake in the morning. You can make me my coffee. Would you like that?”

  “Oh yes!” she squealed, and skipped off clapping her hands.

  The waves were like a metronome, and soon I was falling asleep deep inside the memories of that summer. But there was an overarching anxiety about Belinda. Could she still be out there, alive and all alone? I preferred to think of her in heaven with her family.

  I really did.

  The next morning, I woke to the sounds of the wealthy playing on the beaches. Little did we know, on that perfect morning, that in only two months’ time, a hurricane would come and level the whole island. That no one would build it back up again. Those were the last, fading days of glory for so many of us.

  I returned two days later to finish my session with Vesta. My time on the island had given me clarity. I could vindicate her.

  As I saw it, there were only three possible things that could have occurred: It was as I believed, a terrible pairing of coincidence and accident facilitated (in some way) by Vesta, thus incurring her feelings of guilt; or it was Helene, a mother known to have mental instability and who died last; or it was Rosella.

  Vesta had proven to me that it was not Helene. If I could get her to tell me what I already knew, but could not prove, she would be cleared. The accidental deaths needed to be explained, and the only witness left was Vesta.

  I pleaded with her to simply tell me how all the events unfolded.

  “Tell me, just tell me. I have ceased to care if you are guilty or not. Vesta … this was a horrible twist of fate. But I cannot create a fictional tale for you. You must tell me.”

  She put her finger to my lips and sent me away.

  “Please don’t come back,” she said. “It will do my soul grave harm. I mean this, Albert.”

  And so I returned to New Orleans and began compiling my notes. It was clear to me that Rosella must have been at the heart of the issue. And then, after speaking with a historian visiting Tulane who specialized in toxins, I was equally sure that the rosary beads handed down to Edmond, which had stayed safe inside their boxes for so many generations, had slowly poisoned the family with mercury. I was also quite sure that Edmond himself had suffered from syphilis. All of this should have made me joyous, but it didn’t. Because no matter how many notes I sent to Vesta that summer, her response was always the same.

  “It does not matter. Stay away.”

  And I did, I stayed away until I could not. When the hurricane began to gain strength I knew I had very little time left to fetch Vesta. She couldn’t turn down my offer of refuge from a terrible hurricane.

  Or so I thought.

  I went to her; there was no time to send a note. But though I pleaded with her, even tried to forcibly take her from the cottage, she would not come. And the officer, still out front, wouldn’t allow me, either.

  “You are killing her, letting her stay here locked in like this,” I said.

  “Serves her right. She killed all those babies.”

  “He speaks, finally,” I growled at him.

  I left that night in a dismal state. But I still had hope. I’d formulated a plan of sorts. That estate was the safest place to be on the bayou. Built high and with stone. If her strong will to survive began to set in, she could ride out the storm. I planned on riding it out myself at 13 Bourbon. Then, when the morning came, I would return. But before I went to her, I’d call a meeting. I’d go there under the pretense of helping with what I was sure would be a disaster, and then, when enough people were assembled for provisions, I’d tell them everything I knew. I’d explain about the metals and the syphilis. It was a good plan. Only I never got the chance to implement it because in the middle of the night, in the center of the raging storm, a drenched, mud-covered Vesta knocked on my door, holding a sleeping child with a dirty red sash hanging from her torn dress. Belinda.

  “Help us,” she said.

  The Waning Moon

  The Waning Moon

  As the moon begins its journey from light back to dark,

  We are allowed to shed any burdens we are no longer required to carry.

  Even if this means letting go of those we love the most.

  Make no mistake, there will be times when we must carry each other …

  and times when we must set each other free.

  —Serafina’s Book of Sorrows

  24

  Frances and Sippie and Nothing but Time

  Frances

  As we read Albert’s narrative, the time passed in snapshots. Me reading aloud and making us tea. Us huddled on the floor, against the wall, heads bent down together. Sippie upside down on the couch, book in the air, as I picked up the mess we made.

  “Help us,” Sippie read.

  I waited. “And then?”

  “And then nothing.” Sippie righted herself. “But look, Frances, there are missing pages.”

  “Of course there are.” I sighe
d.

  “Of course there are,” echoed my Sippie. “Let me go see if Mr. Craven has the pages.”

  She ran downstairs. I could feel the wind pressing against the windows, like the pressure in my mind. The ache of Millie wanting to hurt me so bad. The crazy love bursting out of me for Danny. The fullness of finally knowing Sippie. And then Jack, who I somehow believed was safe. But the terror of waiting for an unseen twist made my heart into a mess of compressing parts. Like a machine with some parts working too hard while others were broken. But at least, after all those years, it was working.

  “He’s looking, but he doesn’t think there’s anything else,” Sippie said, deflated, coming back inside the apartment.

  “Let’s not worry about what we don’t know, Sippie girl. Let’s worry about what we do know,” I said, trying to lighten her a little. “Now, if the sister-nurse was alive and she didn’t die in the storm and she has a child in her arms … and they are here, at Thirteen Bourbon, then … we know you were right, and he is here in the city.”

  “But not where … which is all we really need.” She hung her head.

  “Maybe if we read through it again,” I said.

  “Do you think Helene’s Goldie is really our Crow?”

  Sippie rubbed her head with exhaustion. I went to her and put my arms around her.

  “Why not, right? What did you say that first morning: You don’t try to explain what can’t be explained? It’s more interesting that way.”

  “Do you hear that?” she said, breaking free of my embrace.

  “Hear what, Sippie?”

  “I swear, I’m hearing blues,” she said, and then sang, low and lovely, “‘Lover man, oh, where can you be…’ Frances, I got to ask you something. I know you and me, we sort of, quietly agreed to skim over the top of this, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not the needy sort of child, never was. And now, we got to find Jack, so I don’t want you to think…”