She chuckled. “I know. I’ve seen the website. I think they took an old picture and photoshopped it. I think they even did a copy-paste on the courtyard and stuck in somebody else’s plants.”
“Really. I can see that the house is neglected, but what’s going on with the garden?” I asked. “I’ve never seen anything so dead in this part of the state.”
“I know. I mean, we get enough rain here, at least something should grow. I can’t figure it out. It’s been a puzzle to me since I started cleaning the place. I actually tried planting a few really hardy plants here myself because it just looks so darn sad. I’m really great with plants everywhere else, I’ve got a super green thumb, but nothing I planted here ever took. Rochere said that it was the soil, that some tenant had poisoned the ground at one time with a plant poison so lethal that it would probably be decades before anything would grow here again.”
“That sounds like a reasonable explanation,” I said, playing dumb.
Brenda shook her head. “That’s not it. I bought that explanation myself when she first told me. But a friend of mine, a real plant freak, moved out of town and couldn’t take with her all the potted plants she had in her apartment, so she gave the bulk of her collection to me. I didn’t have room for all of them cause her place was so much bigger than mine, so I brought some of them here in their pots. Didn’t transplant them, mind you, just left them in their pots. When I got here the next day, they were all dead, just like the rest of the garden. It really creeped me out.”
“Do you think that maybe whoever poisoned the garden may have snuck back and poisoned those plants as well?” It was a reasonable assumption. Wrong, I knew, but I was just playing devil’s advocate.
“That’s what I thought, too, at first. But the day after they died, I took them home. Most of them I just threw away, but there were a few that I held onto because they were in really great containers I wanted to keep. I’d made plans to throw out the plants and the soil, since I was sure it had been poisoned, wash out the pots really well and use them again for something else. I mean, the containers I really liked weren’t too porous, so I figured I could reuse them. But then the funniest thing happened.”
“What was that?”
“Well, I took them home with me at my regular time, in the evening, right about this time of day and set them out on the balcony at my apartment over night. The next day, every single one of them had new growth. It wasn’t even on the heartier plants like the ivies and the philodendrons; it was some of the more delicate ones too, the types that are harder to grow. Once they got out of this courtyard, they came back with a vengeance. I thought they were all so dead that I’d just have to throw them away, but I still have those plants and to this day, they’re all doing great. I don’t know, Ashley, poisoned soil doesn’t act that way.”
“Did you try it with the other plants here?”
“Yeah, I wanted to know what was going on. So I took some of the dead roots from the garden and transplanted them at home. But nothing took. I think this stuff’s just been dead too long. I don’t know what it is, but just between you and me and the lamppost, from time to time, I’ve seen some trash or something laid out way back over there,” she pointed to a spot by the far end of the old slave quarters. “It had a black circle drawn around it. Now I don’t know if it was some kind of hoodoo curse or something, but that sure would make sense.
“Now you promise not to breath a word of what I tell you?” She was leaning in now, whispering. I nodded. “You know how I said that I heard something coming from upstairs a few times before?”
“Yes, and looking at the house in the daylight now I can see why it would spook you,” I said, realizing that yesterday I’d only seen an image of the house that someone, and I didn’t know who, had wanted me to see instead of the truth.
“Just from my experience with this garden, well, I don’t know what it was, but I really don’t think it was squatters or transients. I don’t think this place even has rats. At least not live ones. I guess this place is okay for vacationers, to stay a week maybe, even though nobody ever stays here longer than a few days. Hardly anybody ever stays for their entire rental agreement and I can’t say I blame them. Anyway, I can’t help but think that if anybody or anything ever actually tried to live here on a more permanent basis, well, I don’t think they could. Live here, that is. I think they’d die, just like the plants. If the cops or someone ever found anybody or anything here, I think they’d just find bones. I don’t think that anything could stay here for long. At least not alive.”
Brenda had been caught up in her own tale and then, suddenly, snapped out of it.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot who I was talking to! I mean, I can talk like this to my friends, it’s just like telling a tall tale or an urban legend, but I am so sorry about talking to you like this. I know if I were staying here alone, I wouldn’t appreciate somebody running off at the mouth, telling me creepy stories about the place I was staying at. Please, forget I said anything. My imagination starts to run away with me here. I don’t know why, it just does.”
“No, that’s alright. I appreciate a good story.” I didn’t want her to stop. I needed all the information that I could get at this point. “I’ll remember it anytime I’m sitting around a camp fire.” I tried to make light of it, to keep her talking. Her stories had me terrified, because I knew that the forces causing her concerns were very real. I couldn’t let on, though, because that would have shut her up for sure.
I walked toward the old servant’s quarters stairwell and looked up at it. It was dark there, with a aura of always being imbedded in shadow. I walked into those shadows so that my eyes could adjust.
“I wouldn’t go up there if I was you,” Brenda cautioned. “Rochere warned me that violators would be persecuted. I laughed when she said it, cause I thought she meant prosecuted, but by the look on her face I could tell that, man, she wasn’t kidding. I’ve never actually gone up into that section myself. It was never tempting in the first place, but after that threat, no way!”
“Oh,” I said casually, “I’m not about to go up there.” Even without Rochere’s threats, those stairs looked dangerous enough on their own now that the illusion was gone. I wondered how I’d managed yesterday. Virginia had probably guided me up a safe path without my even knowing. “I just wanted to take a peek.”
“Well, sure,” Brenda acquiesced, “I guess just a peek wouldn’t hurt.”
When my eyes grew used to the darkness, I saw that, barricading the door that I’d walked through from the quarters into the house proper was a barrier, sloppily yet thoroughly nailed shut with several old and warped two by fours, held in place with thick, thoroughly rusted nails. All the doors that lead from this part of the house to the next, on either side, were the same. Condition of the staircase aside, how on earth had I ever even entered the upper house yesterday? How had we gotten through those boards?
“Um, I hate to rush you,” Brenda said. “But I really need to be going now.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, snapping out of my thoughts, my mind returning to the moment. “Sorry, Brenda.”
We walked through the gate and shut it behind us.
“Listen,” she said to me as we faced the street. “I’m sorry I told you all of that crap. That was very inappropriate of me and I feel terrible about it. I’ve been known to talk a blue streak before, but I don’t know what made me shoot my mouth off like I did today. I sure hope that you don’t get too spooked tonight because of it.”
I gave her a smile that held far more reassurance than I felt. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. I enjoyed listening. I’ve always been one to enjoy a juicy piece of gossip. It was fun. And I promise, my lips are sealed.”
I wasn’t completely lying. Aside from Troy, Brenda was the only normal person that I’d spent time with since arriving at Rochere’s office. There was a lot to be said about conversing with the living. I also appreciated any new light that anyone could shed upon the na
ture of this bizarre endeavor within which I was trapped.
“Thanks a lot. I might see you Monday then. Bye.”
“Bye,” I said back, wondering what the events between tonight and Monday would bring.
We parted and went our separate ways; she turned to the right as I turned to the left toward Bourbon, walking away from The Crypt rather than toward it. It was still late afternoon and I figured that I probably had a few hours left before my next showdown with Rochere and her forces. I had no more of an inkling of what I should do than I did yesterday or of what would happen next; still, I knew that again I had no choice but to let my feet return me to The Crypt tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I knew I should have gone in the same direction as Brenda. I didn’t, though, because again I really needed to put off the inevitable just a little bit longer. I knew that I had no choice but to go back into that horrible club and I was fully aware of the duty that rested on my shoulders; I just wasn’t ready to face it yet. In my heart, I knew that I would never be. I was overwhelmed, tired of the burden already and I had not yet even begun to fight this challenge in earnest. I was tired of The Crypt, I was tired of the apartment, tired of the whole damn thing. Why couldn’t this be a simple nightmare so that I could just wake up and go home?
I needed some normalcy around me so that I could think. My first instinct was to hit a bar and get drunk. I had no real courage of my own, so perhaps the liquid variety would suffice. I could already feel Edmond’s courage in me wearing off and I really didn’t want to face whatever was in store for me stone cold sober. But I decided against it. I’d need my wits about me tonight. I simply needed a place, any place, to be alone to think. I needed to sift through some of the madness that had now become my world. I’d barely awakened from my second dream when Brenda arrived and, as welcome as the normalcy she’d injected into the insane asylum that was now my life had been, I’d had no opportunity to process any of the information that Edmond passed on to me. So instead of a bar, I popped into a coffee shop, sat down and looked at the menu on the board. I was still uncharacteristically full from the half a sandwich and pudding I’d eaten at the apartment, so I just ordered a cup of coffee. Maybe the caffeine would sharpen my brain and give me a little edge. I laughed at that thought. Edge? What edge? Who was I kidding? Like a simple cup of coffee could make any difference in this impossible, perverse situation. Unless it was magic coffee made with magic beans, there wasn’t a thing it could do except, perhaps, give me an excuse to delay the inevitable for a little bit longer.
The waitress brought over my cup and set it on the table. After adding some cream and sugar, I blew on it awhile until it was cool enough to drink. Coffee in hand, I sipped it in solitude, realizing that I couldn’t put off thinking about my night ahead any longer. I wished that Edmond could have told me exactly what lay before me. All I knew was that Rochere had a full bag of tricks and there was no telling which ones she would pull out to use on me. The healing dreams he’d brought to me held warnings, but they’d been vague, far too vague, for me to make any practical use of them. I needed specifics, I needed a definite, sure-fire, step-by-step, easy-to-follow plan, with each step clearly outlined. Oh, hell, who was I kidding? Even that wouldn’t be enough. This endeavor called for somebody else, somebody completely different from myself, somebody more fit and more qualified to execute it. It always came back to that, didn’t it? It always came back to my own lack of suitability for this impossible assignment. This battle demanded a person with a sense of adventure which I did not possess. It required someone who was a thrill-seeker, not a homebody like me. It was all I could do to keep from freaking out just thinking about it. No, I just wasn’t up to it. I was no heroine, just your basic, garden-variety coward. I’d never been happy about being a coward and I wished I could change it, but I knew myself well enough and that was who and what I was.
Lack of enough information had managed also to turn this nasty struggle into a game of cat-and-mouse, an enigma whose real mystery was not just how to win, but also how to stay alive long enough to do it. I hated mysteries, at least in real life, because I was no good at solving them; my mind simply didn’t work that way. Oh, I adored a good mystery novel or movie; there was no risk, it was all make-believe. In the final scene the handy-dandy detective, professional or amateur, always came through to solve the crime. There were no loose ends, no guilty parties left unpunished. But this wasn’t fiction. This was my life; it was on the line and I sure as hell was no detective.
While constructing my list of inadequacies, I realized that I would be remiss to leave out the fitness requirements. This endeavor cried out frantically for someone who was up to the challenge physically, for there was an obvious need for a great deal of energy, stamina and coordination. I’d almost failed phys ed in school, besides which, I tired easily. Even though Edmond had said that the amulet would help me in that department, I doubted that anything truly could help me that much. Yep, when it came to the physical requirements alone, I was a complete wash-out. This game really needed a disclaimer: “couch potatoes need not apply”.
Yet Edmond had such high hopes for me. He seemed to be under the misguided assumption that I was the very best candidate for this job. Poor Edmond. He knew me only from my dreams. In this situation, that was tantamount to not knowing me at all, for in dreams, the laws of physics do not apply. Anyone can be a secret agent in their dreams. My thoughts came full circle as once again, I desperately longed for a game plan. What the heck was I supposed to do? How the heck was I supposed to win? It was maddening and I was driving myself crazy just thinking about it. If I only knew, then maybe I’d have more conviction than I did now, more confidence in myself, but as it was I merely being pushed and prodded by forces over which I had no control whatsoever. Only the tiniest pieces of the puzzle were being thrown at me without even so much as a picture on the box to show me how to put it all together. How the hell was I going to figure this out? I simply did not have enough information with which to work! Besides not drinking anything or removing the necklace, I knew only three things. First, not only was Edmond in trouble, but also, it seemed, the entire world. Hey, no pressure there. That in and of itself was enough to scare me shitless and back under the covers. Second, Rochere was something truly evil, what it was, I didn’t know. She was not human, virtually indestructible, and had supernatural powers. Still, no pressure, right? Third, if I didn’t solve this puzzle and win, I was a dead woman.
I could not do this. For the briefest of moments, out of sheer desperation, I had the same lame idea I’d had earlier of calling the cops into this, but no sooner had that crossed my mind than I dismissed it just as quickly. Of course that would do no good. If all the world powers using all the weapons of mass destruction at their disposal couldn’t stop her, I really didn’t think that the N.O.P.D. would have much of a chance. If it was that easy, this battle would have ended a long time ago. Apparently, only the wearer of the amulet had any chance of winning and defeating Rochere and I was the lucky lady that had landed that booby prize. Besides, the cops would probably just throw me into Mandeville or some other mental health facility for my trouble, where they’d slap me in a padded cell and pump me up with thorazine, where I’d be left to wait helplessly for Rochere to come by and finish me off. No, the old science fiction movies were right – it ain’t easy convincing a disbelieving world. I quickly abandoned this line of thinking altogether; it was pointless. I had no choice but to handle this one alone. Poor Edmond, again I thought as a feeling of hopelessness washed over me, did you ever put your money on the wrong horse this time.
I couldn’t even bring myself to think about the vortex in the shower from which I had so narrowly escaped only a few short hours ago. It seemed unreal to me now, a bad dream from which I’d awakened rather than the alternate reality that it truly had been. I wondered why I was not more traumatized by it now. Probably for just that reason, it didn’t feel real. I’d been worse than injured in that experience
, I’d been maimed. By all reason, with those horrible injuries, I should have died on that bathroom floor or at the very least, had paramedics reached me in time, been disabled for the rest of my life. But here I sat now, sipping on a cup of coffee without a mark on my body, physically no worse for the wear. It really was like a nightmare, wasn’t it, a nightmare in which horrible things happen to you but when you wake up, you are whole and unscathed, untouched. What forces were these that were at play for both good and evil? They were strong indeed and those that were there for my benefit seemed to rival those that were working against me. I felt tremendously better when I realized this. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, I had to face the fact that, as desperate as I was to go home, playing this nightmarish game, while it would probably wind up killing me, also held my only real chance of survival. Others had been telling me this all along, but I now knew it deep within myself. I was at last convinced.
An uncharacteristic pluck stirred in me. Maybe I didn’t know what kind of game I was trapped in, but I suddenly realized, for the very first time, that I was a player and not just a victim. I was a player with a very powerful ally on my side, an ally for whom I cared deeply. Even if I couldn’t do this for myself or even for the world, I knew I had to stay and fight for Edmond. He needed me. My thoughts kept returning to him and to the wonderful curative dreams that he sent me to mend all of the wounds that Rochere had inflicted. He was counting on me and I couldn’t let him down. When we spoke in my dreams, the look in his eyes, begging me to stay, begging me to rescue him, hounded me. Whenever I thought of Edmond any coldness I felt left me and I became warm again. I’d fallen in love with him; I couldn’t deny it. Even though I’d never met him in the real world, he had taken possession of my heart, of that I was sure. He was in trouble, deep, deep trouble and right now I was the only one who could help him, the only one who could rescue him. I closed my eyes and as I fingered the dragon necklace I resolved to continue this quest. I had to come through for him, I just had to.
The Nightmare Game Page 18