The Witch of Bourbon Street

by Suzanne Palmieri

  “Rosella,” I begged her, “you have to know, you didn’t do anything wrong, we know that now. But you have to know it.”

  “But I did. I never told her, Frances. She died thinking she was all alone. She didn’t know I was her mother. She didn’t know. I’ve looked and looked for her here, in this place, but I can’t find her. And it pains me to think of her, stuck in some other place. Darker. Full of fear and echoes.”

  That’s when I learned that ghost tears glow when they glisten.

  “She’s right here,” Jack spoke up quietly from behind me. I turned to see both my children, Sippie and Jack, on either side of a little girl who looked like a whole bunch of trouble, that crooked red bow in her hair, that gleam in her eye. There was no mistaking it, this was Rosella’s child.

  Belinda B’Lovely Sorrow let go of Sippie’s hand first.

  “Good-bye, Sippie, it was a pleasure to meet you. Be good to Jack, he’s a nice boy. And boys need more attention than they say.”

  “Good-bye, Belinda,” said Sippie, blinking back tears, trying not to be forced to feel something. I wanted to go to her, but it wasn’t our moment. Not yet. We’d have a lifetime of moments.

  Then Belinda turned to Jack. “I know we already said good-bye, but I think I need another kiss now that you know I’m not your great-grandma. I tried to tell you a thousand different ways. You are a stubborn person, Jack Amore Sorrow. But I’ll miss you very much. Bonne nuit.”

  My boy kissed her forehead. “Maybe we’ll see each other again. You can never tell. I’d like to leave it that way, is that okay, Bee?”

  “I know you, Jack. It doesn’t matter if it is, as you say, a-okay with me. You will hope for it anyway.” She took a deep breath, moving toward Rosella, who sat with her arms open to her daughter.

  “I’m so sorry, my darling. Je t’aime. I’m so, so sorry.” Her arms shook, her hands grasping at the air. Belinda B’Lovely walked into those waiting arms and sat, a perfect fit, in her mother’s lap. “Je suis ta maman, Bee. I’m your mama.” Rosella covered her with kisses. “I never told you. I should have told you. I should have never listened to them. That night, I tried.…”

  Bee put her finger up to Rosella’s lips.

  “Shhh, Mama. I know. I always knew. I felt lucky having two mothers. Everyone should be so lucky. Helene smiled at me when she would yell at the others, so worried I would find out the truth that was so clear to me. Did you not know why I always wore the red ribbons? I wore them for you.”

  “Children always know the secrets parents keep,” I said as I pulled my children close to me, wanting to hold them in a way that made them both know that I would never stop holding either of them again. And as they returned my embrace, I watched the room begin to grow worn as the worlds shifted and the smiling sunlight turned into the driving rain of our fleeting storm.

  The three of us, along with Danny, and the rest of our family would have to become mapmakers of sorts. We’d be like Serafina, brave, and curious, and honest enough to know that we learn far more from Sorrow than from Bliss. It was the final compass point, allowing us to navigate the distance between who we were and who we could, or would, become with time.

  Always time.

  31

  Renovation and Restitution

  Jack and Sippie

  Jack and Sippie Sorrow sat on the dock in front of Sorrow Hall, listening to the chaos of party preparations from a close but safe distance. Neither one of them had much interest in doing any more chores. Jack had taken Sippie to explore Rosella’s voodoo cabin, which Sippie thought was the coolest thing she’d ever seen. She could almost hear the beats of trance-inducing drums and smell the burning of ancient roots. They’d walked along the thin strip of soggy earth that wound around the bay and ended up back at the front gates. Neither wanted to go back in just yet. Their parents had had them working too hard for too many moons.

  Frances hadn’t been able to give up the broken beauty of Sorrow Hall being half swallowed up by the natural world. She’d said, “If we’re gonna reclaim this old whore of a hall, we better make sure we keep it pretty, like it is.” So whoever wasn’t working on structural things, roofs and ceilings and rotting beams, those lucky ones got paintbrushes and oils, and whenever a vine or a branch was ripped out of a window frame or crack in the wall, it was painted right back where it was, for eternity. And even though the house was almost the way she wanted it, there they were, touching up painted on cracks right down to the last few hours before Frances and Danny’s “not-a-wedding.”

  Jack had urged Sippie to put down her brush and sneak out while Danny and Frances surveyed the work and got all lovesick with each other.

  “I tell you what, Gypsy, the house is still weird,” said Danny. “But pretty. Just like you.”

  As soon as the kissing started, Jack and Sippie made their escape.

  Later, on their way back from Rosella’s cabin, Jack reached into a deep pool of water in the cypress grove, trying to get some of the paint off his hands.

  “So, it’s over,” he said.

  “Or just starting,” said Sippie.

  “Oh, hey! Here comes the mail boat,” he said, pointing down to the front docks. “Maybe that new comic I ordered came.”

  They raced each other through the maze of gardens to meet it.

  “You planning on growing up anytime soon?” Sippie teased as they bounced a bit on the new storm-friendly dock.

  “Nope,” he answered, and turned to the mailman.

  “Here you go, one package, one letter, same sender.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jack. “Damn, not for me. One for you and one for Mama. Figures.”

  “For me?” asked Sippie.

  “Just open it.”

  It was a small box wrapped in plain brown wrapping. Sippie opened it and caught her breath. “It’s Simone’s pin,” she said, holding the opals up to the sun. “It’s from Millie.”

  Understanding flashed across Jack’s face.

  “Sippie, I got to take you somewhere. Not far from here. Let’s cut through the house.”

  “Where we going? We just got back. You okay, boy? They’ll kill us if we miss this party.”

  “Just trust me.”

  They left the letter for Frances on the table in the front hall, and Jack dragged Sippie out back.

  “And where do you two think you’re going?” asked Danny, stopping them on the back lawns.

  “Won’t take but a short while, Dan,” Frances said, coming up from behind. Sippie watched a look pass between Jack and their mother.

  “You keeping secrets from me, Jack?” asked Sippie.

  “I wouldn’t be fool enough to try that. I’m just now figuring what Serafina wanted from me. I still don’t know why, but at least I know what.”

  They took his pirogue from Sorrow Bay deep into Meager Swamp.

  “You gonna talk to me at all, or are we on a secret mission?” asked Sippie.

  “More like a quest,” Jack said confidently.

  “You and those games of yours,” said Sippie.

  “Think about it, Sip. It’s like … everything’s a level. And sometimes you get stuck on one for so long it makes you want to shoot the game. But then, you figure it out, get smarter and faster, and that’s the win that makes you want to take over the world.”

  Then, when water met land, they walked out into the shallow mud that joined up to a large meadow.

  “Wait, no … Jack, I’ve been here. Not really, but I don’t want to be here. Jack, we got to go back, please.”

  “Sippie, take my hand. This place, it’s sour. Something bad happened here. Worse even than what happened to our family back in 1901.”

  Sippie looked out over the field as it grew thick with violets before their eyes. The small house appeared through a subtle mist and the woman hanging clothes.

  “What are we supposed to do?” asked Sippie. A cool breeze swept up and moved the tall grasses around their feet.

  “Hell if I know.”r />
  “I bet you’d know the next move if we were in a video game.”

  “Bet you I would.”

  “Then tell me what to do next, O wise one. I mean, when you think about it, it’s like we been on two lifelong quests that seemed different but are really the same.”

  Jack’s eyes lit up. “You got to go to her. She has something to show you. At least, that’s the way it would go in an adventure game. This place, it’s stuck in time. Maybe you get to unstick it or something.”

  “I don’t know if we’re even allowed to mess with time, Jack.”

  “If you don’t want to,” said Jack, softening, “you don’t have to.”

  “No,” said Sippie. “You’re right, I have to. And I think … I think I want to.”

  Jack watched her walk across the field and haltingly approach the woman. A small toddler in a white dress began to try to touch the clothes hanging in the sun. The woman didn’t see Sippie. Slowly, gracefully, Sippie stepped next to and then into the woman. Jack could see both of them, somehow shadows of each other, blurred in their movements. The toddler ran over, raising her arms. Sippie picked up the little girl and held her close, walking onto the small porch, singing. Minutes later a man came rushing out of the house, and Jack watched Sippie put the child on her hip while reaching for a gun behind the rocking chair. She yelled something and pointed the gun, safely away from the child.

  The man ran off.

  Sippie put away the gun again and sat back down in the rocker, playing for just a short while with the child. Then she stepped back out into the meadow, leaving the woman and child right where they were, alone, uninjured, and full of love.

  “You changed the past,” said Jack.

  “I think there are many different pasts, Jack. And presents, and futures, too.”

  “How come?”

  “Because if I’d changed the only past there is, I wouldn’t be here. Simone wouldn’t have left me, and I wouldn’t have ever got to know you. So I guess I’m trying to figure out what the whole point was.”

  “Maybe, if you’re right, you changed something in some other past. And now all that good golden stuff can slide on over here to us.”

  Silently, they made their way back across the bay.

  “You okay, Sip?”

  “I’m better than okay … that was the most wonderful present,” she said, holding the opal pin tightly.

  Sorrow Hall lay before them, a flurry of last minute activity.

  “Look at them,” said Sippie.

  Their family and a bunch of lost souls who’d come in dripping after the storm were on the back lawn of Sorrow Hall, setting up tables and other fancies for Frances and Danny’s “not-a-wedding.”

  And those two were fighting. Again.

  “Didn’t we just leave them all happy?” asked Jack.

  Sippie and Jack could hear every word echoing over the bay.

  “You’ll never change!” Frances yelled.

  Danny hit a table with his fist so hard, its folding legs gave out underneath and a vase of flowers crashed to the ground.

  “You are the most infuriating woman I ever met!” he yelled, and then Frances ran off.

  “Should we go over there?” asked Jack, his voice tight with worry.

  “No, cha, wait … I know you’re worried about them, but things be different now. Watch.”

  “Are,” said Jack.

  “What?”

  “Things are different.”

  Sippie laughed, punching Jack’s arm. “Yes, they really are. Look.”

  Frances walked back onto the lawn and stood behind Danny, who hadn’t moved an inch. She leaned her head against his back. He turned, held her tight, then picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Their laughter became the music that would light up the entire world.

  Sippie looked at her brother again. Tears were pricking the corners of his eyes, but she knew he didn’t want her to see. “It’ll stay good like this, right, Sippie?”

  “It will, Jack. And if it don’t … I’m here.” She put out her arm, and Jack leaned into her, letting himself soften against his big sister. “You know what, Jack? I’m learning that I’m even better at finding my way into things than out, entrances instead of exits. That make sense?”

  “Sure it does, like levels in a game.”

  So maybe, we just need to figure out what new level we’re on now. What’s our new quest, Jack?”

  “Well,” said Jack, calming down, “quests should be about something you need, or something you lost in the last part. Usually the whole point to a new level is finding another piece of something you won after a battle. And in our case, we lost family, money, and power during that last level of The Game of Sorrows, right?” Jack grew more and more animated.

  “So, what’s the missing thing we need for this new quest?”

  Jack stood still, thinking. Then his eyes lit up, happy and excited. “Magic!” And then, knowing what she’d done … how she’d distracted him, he paused. “You’re a good sister, Sip.”

  “I’m trying … so, now … what level should this be?”

  “Since we haven’t been counting, let’s make it level thirteen!” he said excitedly.

  “Perfect … Welcome to level thirteen of The Game of Sorrows: ‘Recapturing the Magic.’”

  “Hell, Sip, that sounds like a romance novel. Don’t ruin it. Such a girl sometimes.…”

  “Got a better idea?”

  “Of course I do. It’s called ‘There Ain’t No Names to Levels.’ You really got to play more.”

  “Let’s not lose focus, we’re on to something. I know you have an idea.”

  “Well, each time you win, most games give you a new set of tasks. So, how about this—” Jack took a damp, well-worn notebook out of the back of his cut-off Levi’s jeans. “No, let’s go back to the house and write it all down there. I hate it when the words get all messed up ’cause I’m not writing on a table or something.”

  “You are such a girl, Jack Sorrow.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are, too.”

  They playfully pushed each other as they got out of the boat and, teeming with excitement, ran up the back lawn through the maze of tables and people and waiters who were beginning to arrive from Tivoli.

  “Watch yourself, kids!” Danny yelled.

  They sat in the newly painted back gallery, and Jack pulled up a side table by the porch swing. He turned to a new, limp page and wrote:

  “Level thirteen of The Game of Sorrows: ‘You Must—’”

  Then he stopped.

  “It’s harder than it seems,” he said.

  “Let’s brainstorm, you know … think it through out loud.”

  “Okay, so we got to figure out the full extent of our ‘powers.’ Some may be hidden. And some need to be practiced. Like this—” Jack stared hard at the candle centerpiece lined with roses. It didn’t go out.

  “Or maybe, like this,” said Frances, walking out of the house and onto the porch, and neither of her children could believe what they saw. She was ethereal, like a medieval bride with her curls tamed and pinned up in different places, lavender wound in her hair; a simple white cotton dress clinging to her.

  Barefoot and shining, Frances Sorrow looked like what love feels like.

  Then she glanced at the candle and it went out. “Now light it back up, and go get dressed, the both of you. You haven’t been a bit of help today. I got lazy children. Who knew?”

  “Yeah,” said Jack, lighting a match and reigniting the candle. “We should start with that.” He wrote down:

  1. Reclaim the magic.

  “Go get ready! Now!” Dida yelled from the lawn chair she’d occupied all day just so she could yell at everyone. Old Jim kept checking on her, covering her tenderly with their very own “not-a-wedding” quilt, because she was always chilled lately. But her lungs were still strong enough to cast fear deep inside her great-grandchildren.

  “How about we leave it at that, Jack? Maybe
we won’t know the rest of what we need to beat this level until we accomplish that first step … right?”

  “Right. Now we better go get ready.”

  “I thought we were ready.”

  “We got mud everywhere, Sip.”

  They walked into the house and upstairs to their bedrooms, which were next to each other, sliding open the huge double doors connecting the rooms so that they could get ready and keep planning at the same time.

  “First thing we gotta learn is all the root stuff,” said Sippie, washing her face in a basin of water Frances left for her. Flowers floated on the surface.

  “Dida will teach us,” said Jack. “Should I wear long pants? It’s hot.”

  “Just wear those khaki shorts,” said Sippie.

  “Look at this,” he said, coming into Sippie’s room. “Mama wants me to wear this white shirt, it’s all pressed and everything. Got a note pinned on it that says, ‘Wear Me.’”

  Finally, all cleaned up and ready, Sippie and Jack stood at the top of the wide staircase. They looked at each other.

  “Should we?” Sippie asked.

  “Do you have to ask?” said Jack, and he slid down the curving banister to the foyer.

  Old Jim stood at the front doors, greeting guests. When Jack made it to the black-and-white-checkered floor, he slipped, sliding right into a girl about his age who was walking into the house. Sippie slid down fast to try to help him save face.

  “I dared him to do that,” she said to the young beauty standing in front of her.

  “No, you didn’t. But it’s nice of you to try and make him feel better.”

  “Well now, that’s a fine way to say hello,” said Old Jim. “Grant, Wyn, Byrd Whalen … meet Jack and Sippie Sorrow. My wild, godforsaken, poor-mannered great-grandbabies.”