A Twisted Ladder

by Rhodi Hawk

“I tried to tell you before.”

  “Tell me again. I may be listening with new ears.”

  Daddy said, “Your mémée, she thought if she kept Chloe away, we’d all be safe. But you see how it is. Chloe gets her way regardless. Even if you never meet her face-to-face. It’s like she’s grooming us for something. I don’t even know what. That’s why she ought not know about that little baby up there in Canada. One thing peels away and then it just gets worse and worse.”

  “I’m not following you, please be specific. Is it about pigeon games?”

  Daddy’s eyes sharpened. “You didn’t start in with her, did you? I always thought you were too practical to believe any of that.”

  “I—I am. But I read about it in Mémée’s diary, and I witnessed . . . tell me, what exactly are pigeon games?”

  Daddy eyed her, then let his gaze drift to the window. “Honey, I just don’t know. It’s something to do with manipulation, that’s all I got. I told you, when Chloe comes around I just turn and walk the other way. Never got so far as the pigeon games.”

  “Well then tell me this.”

  “What?”

  She folded her arms across her chest and looked into his eyes. “There was an article in the Picayune about Joe Whitney. The reporter says you gave him the information.”

  Daddy nodded, his face grave.

  Madeleine said, “So when did you do all that?”

  He raked his hand through his hair and blew out a long breath. “When I came back from D.C., honey. Can’t you see? I couldn’t stand up in front of all those congressmen and tell them I’m crazy, not if they don’t know the bigger picture.”

  “What is the big picture then?”

  “It’s right in front of you! Girl, you’ve known me for close to thirty years but you made up your mind a long time ago. Got a degree as a headshrinker just so you could tell me I had delusions of grandeur.”

  “I’m just asking you, Daddy. That reporter, Shawn, said you were very specific about names and dates, told him exactly where to look. Please, just tell me where you got the information about Joe Whitney.”

  “Where do you think?” He reached up and took her face gently in both his hands, stroking her skin with his thumbs. “Same place I found out about Marc’s baby child. Down in that damn briar.”

  HOUSTON, 2009

  ANITA AWOKE TO WHAT sounded like emergency sirens blaring into the early Houston morning. She slapped at the largest button on the alarm clock until the wailing ceased. At first she couldn’t remember where she was, then she realized she was in a guest bedroom at Julie’s parents’ house. The clock glared at her and refused to divulge the time. Or maybe she couldn’t see it because her clumped mascara had glued her eyes shut. She fell back asleep.

  Nine minutes later, she repeated the drill, and then again and again until she leapt out of bed with the awareness that she was now late. Her mouth was pasty and sour from the bottles of Shiner she and Julie had downed the night before, and Anita was grateful that she lacked the ability to smell her own breath. She patted her face and tried to shake out the grogginess.

  She slipped on a filthy bra under the t-shirt she had slept in, and reached into her bag and retrieved a pair of jeans that were four sizes too big for her. Perfect for the road, Anita thought, and shoved her fists deep into the pockets.

  As she grabbed the rest of her things, the Taser gun she bought from Zenon tumbled out of the wadded pair of clam diggers she had worn the night before. She smiled as she remembered how she and Julie, already lightheaded from the Shiners, had watched the training video that came with the weapon. Julie had instantly perfected her Bubba imitation, and recited parts of the video as if Zenon were the trainer, twirling the Taser on her thumb like a gunslinger. But the Taser didn’t have a trigger so when she twirled it, it had gone flying. It sailed through the air and they both dove for cover, expecting the thing to send out random ropes of electricity.

  Needless to say, the training video was probably wasted on them. Anita shoved the Taser into one pocket of the baggy jeans and then put the can of pepper spray in the other. She patted the bulges and checked herself in the mirror.

  Julie’s mother had made coffee and was already in the shower, but other than that, the house was quiet. Anita finished getting ready and then dragged her heavy bag down the stairs and onto the Houston street. Still no chill in the early pre-dawn despite the fact that it was already well into fall, and as she locked the front door Anita was grateful that she did not need a jacket, because God knows she would have never thought to pack one. She heaved her luggage into the trunk of the Mustang. She was facing a sixteen-hour drive to St. Petersburg.

  She pushed the hair away from her eyes and slipped the key into the driver’s side door, suddenly struck with the sensation that she was being watched. She looked up.

  She gasped. Zenon Lansky was standing right in front of her.

  She relaxed a bit when she recognized the face, but the shock continued to pulse through her. He was standing so close. How did he get there without her noticing? And what was Zenon Lansky doing in Houston?

  forty-two

  NEW ORLEANS, 1920

  CHLOE ARRANGED FOR THE burial of Henri LeBlanc, but elected not to hold a funeral. She also chose not to inform Rémi of his brother’s demise right away, as he was still suffering the ill effects of the previous night’s activities. Chloe aborted all further nuptial celebrations and set off with her husband for Terrefleurs. One night of honeymooning was as much as she cared to endure.

  She packed a trunk with items that had belonged to Rémi’s brother, and instructed the house staff to load it into the motorcar bound for Terrefleurs. In it were strange mementos: mostly battlefield relics from the Great War. But Chloe found them to be fitting, lest Rémi romanticize the memory of his brother and his ruined body.

  The drive home was agonizingly long. Freezing rains from the night before had transformed River Road into an endless rope of pulled taffy. Rémi suffered a nervous stomach and spoke of the river devil, crying out the name Ulysses in a near fever, attempting to leap from the motorcar as it bounced along the sodden road.

  Chloe pondered her new acquisition: Bruce Dempsey. She thought it important to establish herself outside of Terrefleurs. She hoped never again to have to rely on loathsome playboys such as Jacob Chapman, and those New Orleans servants were simply not trustworthy.

  RÉMI AND CHLOE HAD borne little resemblance to newlyweds when they’d returned to the plantation. In the weeks following their wedding, they hadn’t shared a bed; they’d barely spoken. Rémi had retired to the men’s parlor where he’d slept fitfully for days, grappling with the ever-present visions and bilious words of Ulysses. Chloe had instructed Tatie Bernadette to remove all alcohol from Terrefleurs, and to cease production of it. They kept Rémi stone sober, but still his visions had continued to rage.

  After several days, Rémi had emerged from the men’s parlor and wandered the plantation. He had taken to disappearing for an afternoon or for a day, haunted all the while by his rogue spirit companion. He’d been coherent, but at the same time vacant. Women of the plantation had called him the loup-garou, a man-wolf of the bayou, and had told their children that he would carry them off to the swamp should they misbehave.

  Chloe, meanwhile, had met with sudden and unexpected resistance from her business associates. They’d shut her out. She’d tried to arrange for an audience with them, knowing she could compel them to resume business with Terrefleurs. But they’d refused any dealings with her, and had insisted that Rémi personally supervise all further transactions. Impossible, of course, for Rémi’s mind hadn’t recovered since their wedding night. Any words from him were of the kinds of truths that most would deem nonsense. Parading him in front of the suppliers and buyers who fueled the sugarcane crop would prove disastrous. Chloe had no intention of exposing her vulnerabilities.

  The January sugarcane crop had been the most prolific harvest they’d seen in years. The Terrefleurs mill
was bursting with cane stalks, and Chloe had held a feast to celebrate the gifts of the spirit world. The people had exalted her as their heroine, a priestess whose influence with the spirits held tremendous power. But soon after, they had questioned whether she was lacking in the proper influence over mortals.

  Later, when the sugar mill still remained full even though weeks had passed since the harvest and the celebratory feast, Chloe had noticed seeds of doubt sprouting among the workers. She overheard their questions: Why were they not carting the raw sugar to the refinery where they could sell it for processing? Why was the cane still in storage, falling to borers and rot? How could Terrefleurs survive if it was unable to sell its sugar?

  The weeks had continued to roll by, and now the cane still remained in place, moldering in the sugar mill. Chloe knew the workers were talking. And she could think of nothing to remedy it, because the truth had become apparent to all: Chloe was unable to arrange for the sale of the sugar harvest.

  forty-three

  NEW ORLEANS, 2009

  AT THE TOP OF a ladder, Madeleine pulled at the framework of suspended ceiling, hands protected in rough leather work gloves. Ethan climbed up on the folding table and joined in. They’d already removed the ceiling tiles and stacked them by the door next to the disassembled cubicles. Ethan and Madeleine tugged until the metal skeleton gave a groan, and the entire grid unzipped and clattered to the canvas tarp below. A parachute of dust billowed into the flat. Madeleine teetered and Ethan jumped down and reached for her, steadying the ladder and her leg. She was coughing and laughing.

  “Come here,” Ethan said, and she let him pull her off the ladder.

  “Thanks.” She walked to the kitchenette and stepped over Jasmine’s pet gate.

  She opened the window, fanning the dust. “I’m thirsty. How about you?”

  “Parched.”

  “Water or beer?”

  “Both.”

  She retrieved them, including a glass of water for herself, while Ethan dragged the debris into the pile of rubble by the door. Jasmine yawned and stretched in her dog bed, having been sequestered in the kitchenette where she was safe from the renovation work. Madeleine gave her a treat and patted her fuzzy head, then stepped over the pet gate to join Ethan.

  They sat on the empty canvas tarp with their drinks. Ethan wrapped his rough hand around hers. She felt grimy and sweaty but pleasantly exhausted, her body having flexed new muscles during the demolition. The breeze from the window was quickly banishing the stored-up heat in her bones. She pressed her fingers into the metacarpal ridge of his hand.

  “Your hand’s cold,” he said, and rubbed it.

  “Mmm, yours is warm.”

  She looked at his face, and saw a smudge of dirt running along his cheekbone. It made him look attractive in a rough-and-tumble way. She thought of the Audubon Zoo, when they’d talked about his escapades in neuroscience and she’d found him so deliciously irresistible. The very memory of it stirred her.

  “Tell me again how the brain emits and intercepts wave patterns.”

  He looked at her, surprised and sweetly oblivious to her ulterior motive for asking the question. “Well, of course the interception part is just theory, not yet proven.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “There’s no way to demonstrate that in the lab other than through periphery indications—raised hair, pulse, sweat.”

  “Mmm. Raised hair. Pulse. And sweat. Little periphery indications.”

  He regarded her quizzically.

  She said, her voice a little on the rough side, “I guess because of the way the brain is structured, technology hasn’t figured out all the nooks and crannies.”

  “Exactly. Not yet. Most parts of the body function in a way that we can measure. But the brain is different.”

  She leaned in closer, angling her chest toward him. “How so?”

  “Well, uh . . .” He looked her up and down. “Take memory. We used to believe that memory was stored in specific parts of the brain, now we understand memory is distributed. It’s like a hologram.”

  “Is that so?”

  He was watching her intently, and seemed to finally catch on to the tone in her voice, the languidness of her posture, and the way her own brain must have been emitting some intense gamma waves that conveyed a very specific, very good idea.

  His eyes intensified. “Yes ma’am. That is so.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, the uh, the way . . .” His gaze was fixed on hers, but he licked his lips and rallied. “Holographic film doesn’t just record an image. The actual surface of the film is rippled. It’s all . . . wavy.”

  Her fingers stroked his hand, and then traced a wavy pattern up between the bones of his forearm. “Wavy. Like the surface of the brain.”

  He laughed. Or maybe just shivered through his vocal cords, breaking into a wide smile. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the surface of the brain.”

  She couldn’t help but grin.

  He said, “So when you have a laser. It shoots the light. I mean, you need two beams of light. To intersect. Or multiple beams. With mirrors.”

  “Mmm.”

  “And they intersect at the ripples that scatter the light waves. Creating . . . creating a 3-D image. And the brain . . . it’s the same with memory. I’m having a hard time concentrating with the way you’re looking at me, Madeleine.”

  “That’s because the brain can’t function as a multitasker.” She reached up and touched the smudge on his cheek, and he caught her hand and kissed the underside of her wrist.

  “Come here.” He pulled until she was seated in his lap, his hand running up and along her back.

  His lips pressed against hers—sweet and heated like cinnamon. She combed her fingers through the cropped hair at his temples, and then down, along his neck, reaching just below his collar where his skin was even warmer.

  “You must be exhausted,” she said.

  “No ma’am. Not in the least. You?”

  “I’m a ball of energy.”

  Their lips joined, arms encircled, bodies coiled. They were smiling, delighted for this very good idea. His hands were large and strong. They kneaded the muscles in her shoulder and down her back. She let her own fingers travel down the front of his shirt, curling under the short sleeve and over the ridge between his elbow and shoulder, her thumb stroking the hot underside where his arm rested at his upper rib cage. She could smell dust and sweat and plaster. She wanted to be closer to him. Smell his base scent beneath it all.

  She rose to her knees and pressed herself into him. Her head was above his, her hip at his abdomen. She curled her right knee around his middle and lowered back down again as though on a wave. His hands slipped under the bottom of her tee to the small of her back. The sensation of skin on skin caused a shiver to radiate through her body.

  It felt as though a powerful magnet inside her chest had locked with something inside his. That connection was blocked by the layers of cotton clothing that separated them. She tugged his t-shirt and pulled it over his head, then her own tee was coming off, both of them tugging to free it. And then it was gone.

  She whispered, “Do you have protection?”

  He fumbled about and pulled a thin packet from his wallet. “Should we go to the bedroom?”

  “Too far.”

  Her skin pushed against his. Two layers of the same creature. His hand at her back, releasing her bra clasp. The straps dropped from her shoulders like feathers. It felt as though their hearts were sending electrical pulses to one another, joining in the same rhythm, and the chest cavity where her heart rested inside her own body seemed yet another illusion of space. A bundle of tissue that camouflaged something far more alive. The life force inside her had linked to the one inside Ethan. They were entangled beyond any hope of extrication.

  Her limbs opened like the wings of a butterfly. He hooked his arm around the backs of her thighs and lifted, supporting her with his arms and legs, holding her back, laying her gently onto
the canvas. He unfastened her jeans. She lifted her hips and he pulled, tugging them over and down. She kicked them off. Dust from the renovation work swirled around them and caught glints of light from the window. He was already unbuttoning his own jeans. She pulled on the fly, each button releasing in a downward succession. He was erect over the top of his briefs. He pulled off his jeans and they fit their bodies together, rib to rib, hip to hip. His erection pressed into her skin. The heat center moved from her heart, down lower, and the need to join with him felt both excruciating and exquisite.

  She drew shallows breaths as they snaked around one another. Limbs locked with limbs, fingers exploring skin. She heard the clink of glass, and looked to see that her water had spilled onto the tarp. It looked gorgeous. Late morning sunlight bending to diamonds in glass and liquid. He raised his head and looked at her.

  “We’re both filthy dirty,” she whispered.

  She dipped her fingers into the water and brushed the smudge off his cheek. He smiled at her. He dipped his own fingers into the water and moved them down, under the fabric of her panties, between her legs. The cool liquid on his rough hands made her arch her back. His mouth covered hers, lips open. His fingers moved slowly, easily, and they found the ridge just above the opening. She gasped. A fresh, sparkling ripple unwound from her. It expanded through every nerve and then every cell in her body, escalating. She reached down and took him in her hands, mirroring his movements in broader strokes.

  She pulled him toward her.

  “Hang on, Madeleine,” he whispered.

  He pulled her panties off, moving them slowly down her body. And then he had the packet open and was pulling off his own underwear, putting the condom on. His face was sweet anticipant. His chest was white with curled black hair. She wriggled out from under him and pushed on his shoulder until he rolled onto his back, and she draped herself over him, pulling him to her. She felt the solid mass press at her opening. Heat ricocheted through her. She pushed forward, trying to take him inside, and then relented a little and pushed again. His hands moved from her rib cage down to her hips. She took his length with two hands and angled her spine, and pushed once more. He entered then, and a murmur escaped from her throat. A searing burn between her legs. His hands smoothed the wall of her abdomen, thumbs to her ribs, and then caressed her breasts.