by Rhodi Hawk
“Pirates!”
Guy and Gilbert turned to look over their shoulders, and Patrice bit her lip. It seemed Maman hadn’t heard, though.
Ferrar said, “They make rum and whiskey in the islands, where no one’ll find them, and bring them to the bayous. I know those places real good. Cocodrie, Bayou Black, Big Hellhole Lake.”
Patrice was vaguely aware of her mother’s New Orleans operations, that she was selling alcohol, but she had no idea that her enterprise was so far-reaching. “I never heard of any of those areas you mention.”
“Lafitte? Bayou Bouillon?”
“I’ve heard of Lafitte.”
“In Bayou Bouillon the water likes to boil. And you can hide real easy in Bayou Black. They ain’t nothin but places to disappear. I don’t do it no more, though. As of yesterday.”
“Why not?”
Ferrar nodded toward Chloe, who was now so far ahead that she was just the occasional flash of fabric through the woods. Only Ramsey kept pace with her, and Patrice kept her eyes on him instead. The twins had fallen back as well and were now listening to Ferrar with interest.
Ferrar said, “Your mother don’t want me workin for her no more. Says I got a flaw.”
Patrice eyed him sideways, noting his scar and his blood-shined eye.
He caught her looking and put his hand to his eye. “I don’t think she meant this flaw.”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t . . .” But she was. She shrugged.
Ferrar said, “Doctor said it was supposed to go away in two weeks. But that was fifteen years ago. ’Fore you’s even born. My mama says it ain’t gonna ever go away cuz it’s a mark from your mother, Miss Chloe. I owe her a life.”
“A life?”
Ferrar nodded. “She saved mine when I was just a piti. Stuck me in the throat when I couldn’t breathe. That’s why I ran the bootlegging for her in the islands and all the lakes and streams. Wouldn’t’ve done it otherwise.”
Guy said, “I wanna be the new pirate if you ain’t doin it no more!”
“Me too!” said Gilbert.
“Shush!”
But it was too late. Chloe had paused and was already turning back. She cut hands at Ramsey and he stopped walking. He shifted the shotgun to his other shoulder.
“You!” Chloe said as she approached, pointing at Ferrar. “Wait here! Ici!”
She grabbed Patrice by the arm and thrust her forward into the woods. Patrice didn’t dare look over her shoulder at Ferrar. Chloe signaled Ramsey, and he resumed walking again.
Chloe was pinching Patrice’s arm. “I have told you not to fraternize!”
“Oui madame.”
“You disobey me again and again!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know . . .”
“You know. If you watch my intent you know exactly how to act.”
Patrice bit her lip, afraid to say anything lest her mother’s temper escalate.
Chloe said, “That boy, he is bad. These years, I put him to work in the water where he would stay far away. But he is too flawed! I should have let him suffocate years ago. I was young and did not understand.”
Patrice gasped. “How could you say such a thing?”
She looked over her shoulder. Ferrar was obediently waiting a distance back, leaning against a mulberry. She couldn’t tell whether he’d heard Chloe’s words. Despite the ugliness of his appearance, he seemed such a gentle soul. Why had Maman brought him along, only to make him wait in the woods?
Chloe grabbed Patrice by the chin and made her look at her. Patrice stumbled, and had to clutch her mother’s wrists to keep from falling. Ramsey and the twins stopped.
“Allez!” Chloe shouted at them.
Ramsey lowered his head and continued on through the woods. The twins stole worried glances at Patrice, but they followed after Ramsey.
Chloe whispered, still gripping her daughter by the chin, “You silly and stupid. He is making a fool of you, that boy. He will turn your line to rot.”
Chloe released her. Patrice put her hands to her burning face. She didn’t dare turn to see whether Ferrar had been watching.
How long before she was old enough to leave home? With Papa gone, the children were now fully at the mercy of their mother. Even if Patrice could leave now—go off to boarding school abroad or enter a convent—she didn’t dare leave her sister and brothers behind. Already, look what had happened to Marie-Rose. She wondered if she could ever travel far enough to escape the river devils. Rosie was now attached. That horrible grinning woman. One day Patrice would become part of a pair, too, mother had promised. Maybe years from now, or maybe tomorrow. Or maybe today.
Patrice saw a glimmer ahead and realized they’d reached the bayou. A remote corner of it, far away from the fishing and swimming holes where the plantationers spent their scant idle hours. Patrice realized that was the reason for coming here. This cove was the farthest point from Terrefleurs and any of the neighboring plantations; and they were sure to be alone, out of sight, out of earshot. It made Patrice nervous.
She reached a searching thread into her mother, and found the intent: exercises. But not exactly pigeon games. They were far away from the garden and the pigeonnier.
Patrice wondered about the new exercises, but she couldn’t bear to keep seeking inside her mother’s intent. So much hatred there. That hatred found its way into Patrice’s own heart, too. Hatred for Chloe. Yes, she would call her Chloe from now on, not Maman. Chloe was nothing a mother should be. The trees stretched higher, blacker, and formed thorns.
For some reason, this acknowledgment of hating her mother caused her to raise her head. She walked taller.
Ramsey and the twins were waiting by the bayou’s edge. And to Patrice’s eyes, the cove existed inside the briar. But for once she didn’t fear it. She realized that her hatred was a powerful tool to bring to the world of thorns. Chloe reached the bank and turned. As Patrice approached, she gathered up the black feeling that had formed in her breast and streamed it toward her mother. Chloe’s eyes opened wider for just a moment. She must have felt it.
Chloe gestured toward Ramsey’s gun. He loaded it with shot.
Patrice joined her brothers and folded her hands, waiting to learn the new exercise.
THE CHILDREN’S EYES WERE closed. Easier to see this way. Even with her lids sealed, Patrice could see the cove, the bramble, the truth of light and shadows, and, most importantly, the unseen. The full spectrum of senses. Patrice, the twins, Ramsey, and Chloe were all standing on the banks facing the woods, their backs to the bayou.
They began with a simple exercise of intent. Chloe directed them to seek inside of her, which they did. Patrice found that their mother wanted them to use the pigeon exercise on Ramsey. Patrice joined with her brothers to implant the suggestion according to their mother’s will. Patrice knew that her mother was not strong enough to move Ramsey on her own. Patrice was. But her mother didn’t know just how strong she’d become. Let her believe that it took the three children to join together in order to move a grown man.
Under the influence of the children, Ramsey laid his shotgun against a tree and then knelt on the sandy bank. Chloe took a kerchief from her pocket and blindfolded him. And then Patrice and her brothers followed through with the next directive that they found inside Chloe: causing Ramsey to rise to his feet and take up the shotgun once again. He stepped back into line next to Patrice and faced the woods.
Patrice realized then that they had become so efficient that they did not even have to concentrate. The children controlled Ramsey without conscious thought of their own. Chloe was effectively manipulating Ramsey by proxy, magnifying her intent through the lens of her children. As much as she hated her mother, Patrice felt excited by the ease of it.
She continued to relay her mother’s intent alongside her brothers, eyes closed, sight more vibrant than ever. She felt the presence of river devils. Male, female, small and large. They were drawn by the cluster of children, the race of humans that could conduct the
m into the physical world, and accelerate their purpose. And then Patrice realized that Marie-Rose was there too, standing between herself and Ramsey. The silver-eyed river devil hovered behind Rosie, hands wrapped around her waist. Patrice opened her eyes and the two faded to colored shadows. Ramsey was standing there, deaf and blindfolded.
She closed her eyes again and could see Marie-Rose and the river devil looking just as solid as the rest of them. Patrice reached out and squeezed her sister’s hand.
A rabbit appeared at the woods. It paused at the tree line before stepping out toward the banks. Patrice knew that she had called it. She saw a second rabbit, and then a third. All four children calling them forth.
Something stirred inside of Patrice. In the briar, the inhibitions receded, and base intentions came forth. Primal feelings. A hunter’s lust. The quick movements of the rabbits excited her. She wanted to grab one of them. She wanted to feel it go still in her grasp. And yet . . .
And then Ramsey, acting on the implanted suggestion of the children, shot the first rabbit. He could see nothing, but the children guided him with their minds. The rabbit fell.
Patrice felt a mixture of horror and elation. Marie-Rose tightened her grip in Patrice’s hand. Patrice knew her sister was thinking the same thing as she: The tale of Compère Lapin, the little brown rabbit who lived in the briar patch. A second shot rang out, and a second rabbit fell. The others jumped but did not run away.
“Take their fear,” Chloe said.
Patrice concentrated on suppressing the fear reaction in the rabbits. She found it in a tiny corridor inside their heads.
Ramsey reloaded. Continued to shoot them down one by one. He shot and reloaded in a continuous motion like the machination of a clock. But the rabbits kept coming forth. They emerged from the trees in obedience to the suggestion, and they waited to be shot.
Patrice stopped calling them.
Chloe said, “Do you see how powerful you are? No one can do these things but you. That is why you have power. The hunter and the rabbits are one in the same. No more than pigeons, both of them, and they must do as you wish. . . .”
And Patrice thought, But they are following your wishes, Chloe, they aren’t really my wishes.
She sensed the excitement among the river devils, and knew that the intent belonged to them as well.
“You are all calling the rabbits, and you are all shooting them through Ramsey. In this way, you do not know which of you has killed which rabbit. It is easier for you at this stage, but you will grow bolder. . . .”
The rabbits kept coming, called by the other three children, and Ramsey shot them each between the eyes. The tail ends of his blindfold stirred in the breeze.
Chloe said, “These rabbits, they are like all humans. You can move them to your will. But there are those who naturally oppose you. Those others would bring our secrets to the entire world. They show people how to unlock the triggers within their own minds. So then all the people everywhere become the same as you. You are no longer any more powerful than the fools of the world.”
Patrice turned her focus to her brothers and her sister. She implanted the suggestion to cease their calling. Ramsey continued to shoot the remaining rabbits, but no more came forth.
Chloe paused, and scanned the children. “The other one is here, yanh? Marie-Rose?”
Patrice said nothing, but the twins nodded. “Yes ma’am.”
Marie-Rose gripped Patrice’s hand. Their mother’s gaze swept over them, wide and searching. Patrice realized Chloe could only dimly sense the things that were so apparent to Patrice and the other children. Chloe grabbed Patrice by the wrist and shook it until the girls let go.
Chloe said, “Marie-Rose. There might have been more of your race but for the way you were born. You broke my womb. Now you are alone, the four of you. You must stand against the other ones by yourselves.”
Marie-Rose started to protest, “But Maman!”
She stopped, realizing that Chloe couldn’t hear her. The river devil bent her head and whispered into Rosie’s ear.
Marie-Rose turned to Ramsey and spoke, and Ramsey also vocalized Rosie’s words in unison with her: “But Maman, who are these others?”
Patrice gaped. She had never heard Ramsey speak before, and any utterance he’d made had been little more than a grunt. But now he spoke Rosie’s words with perfect clarity in his own croaking, unused voice. It sounded impossibly deep and Marie-Rose sounded small and light as they spoke together: “How will we know them?”
Chloe nodded. “I will show you. See my intent.”
All four children concentrated. They called. Patrice felt her fingers curl into fists. She sensed the briar growing thicker. The trees of the physical world stretched higher, blacker, more vast, pushing the sky away and forcing the enclave deeper into the tangled world.
Patrice followed her mother’s intent along with her siblings. They searched, and found the presence in the woods. They sent their will forth. Unlike with the rabbits, there was resistance. They locked their minds together and pulled. And then Patrice felt a sense of yielding to her call.
Sounds in the woods—snapping branches. From the shadows, Ferrar appeared.
FERRAR LOOKED DIFFERENT THROUGH the lens of the briar. He emitted almost a golden shimmer, just the faintest trace, but he also emitted something much more powerful than the visual phenomenon. Patrice realized that she might have distantly sensed it when she’d walked alongside him, but now it felt like a tidal wave of energy.
Ramsey kept his shotgun trained on the woods. Trained on Ferrar. It sat at Ramsey’s shoulder but through the blindfold, there was no need to lean in and peer through the sights. He saw and heard nothing, and in acting on the children’s intent, or Chloe’s intent, he had no awareness of shooting a rabbit or a stump or a human being.
Ferrar resisted them. He was slow to advance. It caused the children to reflexively pull harder at him. The exchange was electrifying. Ferrar stepped from the trees to the bank.
Patrice felt a stirring of such savagery that her lips fell open. But this sensation danced at the top of her head, and it warred with another part of her psyche, deep within her skull, one that tried to neutralize the viciousness. Like lightning dancing over the ocean. She felt that if she wanted to, she could expand or shrink that ocean, depending on whether she wanted to tame the lightning or let it dance. And that war within her psyche was equally as exciting as Ferrar’s resistance.
Ramsey reloaded.
“Hold back,” Chloe said sharply.
Patrice saw the X at Ferrar’s throat. The splotch of blood at his eye. Either point made an excellent target.
But Ferrar’s gaze was fixed upon Patrice. In it lay the vastness of that ocean, and at once Patrice understood. People like Ferrar could bring that vastness forth. It could soothe the turbulent energy. Swallow it up. And it acted as a roux for human evolution.
Chloe said, “See my intent.”
Patrice searched inside her mother, terrified of what she would find. But the result was a simple thing. She wanted only for Ferrar to kneel. Ferrar would be blindfolded too. Cover that gaze that seemed to penetrate deep into the ocean within Patrice’s psyche. And then, the children would turn their focus back to Ramsey. . . .
But Patrice didn’t want to think about that. She joined her brothers and sister in making Ferrar kneel. She felt him resist. A warping, rolling wave of resistance. Too flexible to push against, because he seemed almost to bend with their will. Ferrar’s gaze never left Patrice. Sweat beaded his brow.
“You see the flaw,” Chloe said. “You see how these kinds may oppose you. Les lumens. Even with all of us in focus, he is obstinate.”
Ferrar exhaled slowly through his lips. And then at once, the waves of resistance dissipated. The children actually lost balance for a moment. As though they’d been pulling a cart with a rope that suddenly snapped. But Ferrar remained on his feet. Patrice felt the lovely chaotic lightning snap through her mind and then disappear.
She knew that she could not conjure that lightning back to life, that delightful, primal savagery, as long as Ferrar kept his gaze on hers. She could not bear to join her siblings in the pigeon game with Ramsey and his shotgun.
And suddenly, she didn’t want to. Couldn’t remember why she would ever want to in the first place.
But this was not true of her brothers and sister, they still drank from the intoxicating pool of Chloe’s intent. They were heady with the power. They weren’t trained in Ferrar’s gaze.
“It doesn’t matter,” Chloe said. “Le lumen cannot oppose us all.”
Patrice looked at her hands. She saw just the farthest hint of Ferrar’s shimmer. His ocean had seeped into hers, and helped her to broaden the vastness. Even her own hatred for her mother seemed to have dispersed like mist on the ocean.
But Chloe’s intent still accelerated. It passed through Patrice like vapor, but it rested inside the other children. Not in words, but in an awareness and solid but artificial desire. To not shrink in fear and weakness, but to strike Ferrar down, naked-eyed, and preserve the power of their line.
No!
Marie-Rose turned her face toward Patrice. Patrice focused her mind on her sister, and on Guy, and then Gilbert, pushing her mother’s intent out of them. Leaving them open.
Ramsey and all four children turned away from Ferrar and faced the bayou. The sight of it soothed Patrice. No longer looking upon the litter of dead rabbits. The river devil looked from child to child and began to babble. She spoke in a language that Patrice did not understand. No; she might not have been able to identify the words, but she felt the river devil’s full intent. The hatred for Ferrar. The conjuring of that exhilarating chaos.
“What is this?” Chloe said. “Turn around.”
She yanked Gilbert’s arm and he turned to face his mother. The other children looked over their shoulders. They seemed uncertain. One by one, they turned back, casting confused glances from Chloe to Ferrar. Patrice turned too.
Chloe said, “Now! The hunter, turn Ramsey around.”