Child of the Storm

by R. B. Stewart

  She was like that man in the story. An old man riding out to do battle with giants. Only they weren’t giants at all. They were windmills for turning the mill stone and grinding down the grain into flour. The thought of that struck her as grimly appropriate. Camille was a windmill of sorts, and everyone in the city might be the grain yet to be ground up between the base stone of the land and her own awful runner stone.

  “I’ll need to catch her far, far out. See if she’ll listen to what I have to say.”

  She prepared the kitchen table for her work, laying out her colors, her brush, the bowls of water and the broad square of textured paper taped to the board. She set each item just so. One water bowl to clean the brush between washes, and the other for mixing with paint. She held the brush and eyed the blank paper, preparing herself for the next step, into that frame of mind where she would prepare her painting of what her senses told her Camille would need to do if that other, wider path was to be the one she could see fit to choose. Each wash went down with care and respect. She built it in her mind and on the paper; cool colors and warm colors where needed. A saturation of pigments here and almost nothing but water there. Suggestions of pressure, movement and heat. She turned in, having laid it all down on the paper and set it in her mind to show the bear.

  The bear was waiting for her, seated on her right where she could just see, her eyes cutting between Celeste and the emptiness prepared for her to work. “So you’re ready?” asked the bear.

  “Feels like it. I’ve done all the preparations. I need to bind my intentions with that of Camille, and binding is best done with threes.”

  “Threes,” repeated the bear, wistfully. “I seem to recall something of threes.”

  “Three colors and you can make any other your need. Paint, water and paper. Three again.”

  “And what about you, me and the storm?” asked the bear.

  “You could say that too, and also three in how I touch the storm—sight, smell and feel.”

  Celeste painted the emptiness with the power of Camille. “Like, but not like Betsy,” Celeste explained. “Each one dances its own way, and where Betsy’s was a big sprawling sort of dance, this Camille is like one that’s studied hard and means for every move to be right, like she’s on a stage. She spins fast and tight. Sure of herself, I’d almost say.” She rendered the climbing clouds and the agreement between Gulf and sky. “They’ve lined up just right to make her something special. Like they’ve high hopes for her and she means to do them proud.” The picture formed before them, in accordance with all Celeste had come to understand of Camille, until it was complete.

  “This is how she’s come to be and where she is now,” Celeste explained. “Looking from then to now, and judging the shape of what will likely be, I suspect their wrong about where she’ll come to land. Left as they are, the shape of things will bring her down on us, just as in the dream.”

  “Maybe she was whispering that intention to you even then,” suggested the bear.

  “Maybe so. Maybe my web and hers have touched. She’s whispered a frightening notion to me, and it’s for me to whisper something else in return. Nothing boastful. Nothing proud or hateful. Not warning but suggestion, and maybe just enough to help it see a way around.”

  The image of her watercolor study came to mind again. A good study. A reasonable assumption, borne out once more here in the company of the bear. Both pictures suggested the same thing, and Celeste took that small suggestion, and, reaching out along her web into the path of Camille, she placed it among the flow and hoped it would be taken up—and move the dance just that least little bit.

  She woke late in the night and for a while the room seemed strange and the silence threatening. She stretched out her fingers and there was the quilt. She turned her head to catch the breeze from the window on her face. The room was hot, but there was at least that small bit of air coming through the boards. At some point she had left the kitchen table and turned in, though she couldn’t recall doing so. She felt very tired but also calm, as if all was safe and as it should be. She rose but turned on no lights, feeling her way across the dark rooms, until she reached the front door and went outside to sit on the porch. It was late and the night was quiet.

  Most folks have turned in or left town, she thought.

  She felt strained and her senses would tell her little of the night. Except that it was dark. Come morning, she might know if her work had done any good.

  Miss

  The phone rang several times before the sound of it punched through to the depths of sleep where Celeste floated deaf and blind to the passing morning. When she finally woke and struggled out of bed to answer it, there was no one there. They must have given up, she thought. It was especially hot in the house. Part of that was because only two windows were open, but the light from the half covered windows was so bright. She fumbled about the room, looking for a clock, only to catch herself staring at the wall, uncertain what it was she had been looking for, only to find she was looking right at it. Noon. She couldn’t remember a time when she had slept so long. She was still wearing what she had worn the day before, but she needed fresh air to clear her head and didn’t much care who saw her looking a bit rumpled. She opened the door to find George standing right there on her front porch, knuckles in the air ready to knock.

  “Are you alright?” he said, tilting back on his heels as she appeared. “I called earlier but got no answer.”

  “I’m fine. Just moving slow. I was up later than usual last night.”

  He nodded a few times. Nice slow nods to say he understood completely.

  “You just came by to say good morning, or do you have some news?” she asked, and thought it came out a little short. “What have you heard about Camille?”

  “Well, she never did take that big turn north like they predicted.”

  “No?”

  “No ma’am, but she’s taken a little one. Maybe enough to still keep her out of here.”

  “Well that would be good news.” She took a seat in her rocking chair. She felt weak and light headed.

  “Nothing’s certain,” he continued. “So I still plan to take the family inland. We’ll make room for you if you don’t have other plans. Could let you have our house at least. Someplace dry.”

  “I’ll be fine here,” she said, though she didn’t feel fine at the moment. “You go ahead and get going before it gets bad on the roads. That’s one place you don’t want to get stuck.”

  He backed off the porch. “I’ll do that, but you be careful too. I’ll check in as soon as we get back.” He went to his long blue station wagon that was already looking full at the back end. He paused before getting in and leaned on the roof. “Thank you, Celeste.”

  “For what?”

  For answer he just smiled. Then he was gone.

  She closed her eyes and did her best to feel what the wind might have to say. Just that little turn she needed to keep her out of here, she thought, and that’s what the wind said to her. A near thing, but a near miss. As long as the waters don’t get too rambunctious, we may be fine.

  As tired as she was, Celeste slept poorly that night, and her dreams rode her so hard she could never get hold to settle them down. Wherever the bear was, she was not there with her, or couldn’t wade through all the mess of dreams Celeste had churned out; dreams of worry and images that might be those of death and the departed. At midnight, she dreamt she was on her front porch seated in her rocking chair. The light was dim and diffused; neither dusk nor dawn, and there was so much silence, that it made the sound of footsteps coming down the street all the more special and worthy of notice. She leaned out to see who was coming her way, and a tall thin figure came striding out of the fog-like air. A figure dressed all in black, from his shoes to his tall hat.

  “Morning Miss Dubois,” said the walker.

  “Is it morning Ghédé Nébo?”

  “Yes ma’am. A fine but busy morning.” He replied without stopping or even slacking
his pace. “I’d like nothing better than to stop a while and visit. I’ve some jokes to raise a blush in those fine cheeks of yours, but maybe another time. I’m needed elsewhere, and no time to waste. But I’m sure that’s music to your ears!” And he marched away into the dim east.

  She never heard the phone ring, but an hour later, when the knock came on the door, she heard it and, putting on her robe, shuffled out to answer. It was George, and Annie as well this time, like a delegation with a grim purpose to perform. Behind them was George’s station wagon parked on the street, and there were birds singing, and the sky was clear and the air clean. Celeste was squinting at them.

  “She missed us,” George said. “I can take these boards off the windows and we can open up the shop tomorrow. She missed us clean.”

  “Are you okay Celeste?” Annie asked.

  “Just tired. I didn’t sleep well. But what of the storm? Where did she land?”

  “Mississippi mostly,” Annie said.

  George nodded. “Over towards Biloxi.”

  “How bad was it?” Celeste asked.

  “Where ever she went, there’s nothing left, as I hear it,” Annie said. “She swept it all clean with wind and flood water.” Then, because George wasn’t quick enough to stop her, she added, “At least a hundred people killed and maybe a whole lot more than that.”

  That news hit Celeste in the stomach so hard it made her head reel. She heard nothing else; no words, no singing birds. Her mind closed like a slamming door. She had set Camille on them; all those people that might have been waking to this bright and clear morning as she had done. No wonder Death’s Right Hand had no time to talk to her last night. He had business off to the east where Camille had gone to trample, crush and drown whoever she could find. George caught Celeste as she fell. Caught her just before her head could hit the floor.

  She came to with her head in Annie’s lap and George dabbing her forehead with a cool, damp hand towel. He spoke as soon as her eyes found his.

  “You okay?”

  Her head and her stomach still hurt something awful, but she managed to move her head, yes. “Tired I guess,” she said weakly. “Worried. Maybe.”

  “We were lucky,” he said. “Camille could have killed thousands and thousands if she had landed here. Anybody who didn’t leave might have died, and all of this would have been swept away. We were very lucky, Celeste.”

  “He’s right,” Annie said above her.

  “You ought to see a doctor.” George told her.

  Celeste rolled her eyes up where she could see him properly, even though it hurt.

  “No doctors, unless it’s Aurore. I’m still your boss and Big Brother. Don’t forget that.”

  Thinning

  Something was taken out of Celeste that took a good while to replace. Where before the storm she had only a sprinkling of grey, she now had only a few last holdouts of the deep, deep brown hair of her youth, and the grey was being visited by white.

  “I’m sixty two years old and it’s time I start thinking of what comes next,” she said to the bear.

  “What does come next?”

  “Long, long walks, for one. Maybe travel.”

  “And the storms? What if they come this way again?”

  Celeste traced the bear’s ear. “We’ll see.”

  One night, she dreamed about missing her friend Aurore, as if she was gone. She sat up in bed, reminding herself that Aurore had been off to visit her family in Hattiesburg and would not have returned until a few days ago, but as early as she dared the next morning, she was over at Aurore’s house. A young woman was standing on the front porch, seemingly lost in thought. The front door to the house was open and Celeste could hear voices inside. The young woman turned to look at Celeste as if expecting her.

  “You’re here to see Aurore?”

  “Just a friend checking in on her,” Celeste said. She stopped at the steps up to the porch, unsure whether it was appropriate to go farther. Something in the way the woman stood suggested it might not be.

  “I’m sorry. Aurore passed away last week.”

  Celeste steadied herself with a hand on the rail. “What?”

  “A car accident. Maybe a stroke, we can’t know. She was driving back to New Orleans. Are you a friend, or one of her…congregation?”

  “She’d been my friend for a long time. We met when I was a girl.”

  The woman motioned for her to follow and they entered the house. There were at least three others inside. One was the young woman Aurore was bringing along to be her replacement—when she retired. The new Voodoo Queen looked weary but focused. The others were helping her sort through things. Maybe they were family of Aurore’s. She couldn’t tell.

  “I’m Aurore’s niece, Ester.” The woman offered her hand.

  “Celeste Dubois.”

  “Oh yes. Aurore spoke of you. I would have come to your house if you hadn’t come by. Aurore seemed to think you would come here.” The woman motioned for Celeste to follow her into Aurore’s consultation parlor. She opened the top drawer of Aurore’s desk, drew out an envelope and showed it to Celeste. There was the simple outline drawing of a sailboat, and her name below it. “The Will mentioned this envelope.”

  Celeste opened it and drew out a small note card.

  Since you are reading this now, it proves I was right that you would out live me. I’m so sorry to have left you since you’ve lost so many already. I hate to be one who adds to the burden. I have felt so fortunate to be your friend and to watch your powers of sensitivity grow over the years. It often confirmed my better opinions of what was possible and what was meant to be.

  Find those who were lost, and take this little gift as help along the way.

  Aurore.

  There was something else in the envelope and Celeste poured it into her hand—a light gold chain, a necklace with a small charm attached—a tiny figure with armor, sword and wings.

  “I don’t understand,” Celeste said.

  “It looks like St. Michael,” said the woman. “But I’m Catholic, so…”

  The new Voodoo Queen stood at the door to the room, eyeing the gift.

  “That’s Ogou; a mystère and a warrior,” she said. “Aurore spoke of you that way.”

  Back home that evening, Celeste found herself drawing a picture of Aurore. Drawing from memory with a single flowing line. The little winged charm hung about an old wooden candle holder that was dark with age and dabbed with wax. The little figure reflected the candlelight and Celeste puzzled over it from time to time. Aurore was gone and gone much too soon. There should have been many aging years ahead for slow talk and good humor between them.

  Celeste’s world was thinning out much too fast for her liking.

  Before turning in, she penned a short note to Jonathon Hogue for posting in the morning.

  Part IV – The Spare Room

  Gabrielle

  Celeste had company and was prepared for more, someone sent her way by George, even though he was supposed to be retired now. His daughter complained that she couldn’t get him to stay home and leave things to her. Celeste knew it wasn’t as bad as that. George wasn’t meddling too badly as a rule, but when his gardening hobby work was slow—and it was often slow, being nothing much more than two old barrel halves with a changing cast of plants growing in the narrow courtyard and a few baskets trailing flowers on the gallery rail—well, he tended to slip away to the bakery just to check in. His wife didn’t keep a short leash on him, according to their daughter, but now that he was into his seventies, he could be just a little too cute for prolonged periods of confinement with more serious folk. So he was allowed to slip away to be cute somewhere else.

  Celeste had put on a dress without watercolor stains and wrinkles, and looked in the mirror, smiling at herself, admiring teeth that were still her own, roots and all. Her hair was a tight cap of white. She let her eyes roam to the top of the tall and narrow mirror, tall so her father was able to use it without stooping down
. He had used the upper part while she had used the lower. Celeste always gave the top part a looking over each morning, just to keep things balanced.

  By the time her guest arrived, Celeste was seated on the front porch waiting for her; seated there next to a girl of five; a tiny little thing with eyes as big as Celeste’s had been at that age. Big, bright eyes and a squirm that always showed up after about an hour’s worth of reading together on the front porch.

  The young woman approached on foot from the west—coming from Dubois’.

  “Ms. Dubois?”

  “Miss Girard,” Celeste replied. She closed the book that she and the child were reading, and the child shifted forward to the edge of her seat, sensing the end of a session. “George said you’d be coming by. Said you were looking for a place to stay.”

  “Yes ma’am. Please call me Gabrielle.”

  “Have a seat, Gabrielle. Tricia here’s had just about as much reading lesson as she can stand for today. That right, Tricia?”

  The child wasn’t sure how to answer that one politely, so she just said thank you and leapt off the porch, setting off for home.

  “Your granddaughter?” Gabrielle asked, nodding toward the disappearing little girl.

  “No children and no grand children. She’s just one of those I help with their reading. Lucky for them, they have schools to go to and don’t have to count on the likes of me.” She pursed her lips. “But sometimes school can’t give all that’s needed. Mostly, I try helping the youngest ones. They put up with an old woman, and they just learn so quickly. Learn a language, read a book, read the clouds. Whatever you offer up. Like eating up soup with a big spoon. Helps if they’re sensitive.” She reinforced the need for Gabrielle to take a seat, patting the arm of the empty chair. “I’ll need to know something about you if I’m to suggest somewhere proper for a girl your age. Eighteen is it?” she asked. “Born in 1979, George says. Same year as Hurricane Frederic.”