Water Witch

by Deborah LeBlanc

  “Okay, let’s hol’ up a minute . . .” Poochie dropped the dishtowel on the counter and joined us at the table. After settling into a chair, she tapped the table top with a finger. “I wanna put something on dis table right now. We got to quit dancing around Trevor, Cherokee, all dat. We got to get some serious business down now.”

  As soon as Poochie said, ‘down now,’ my finger began freezing up again. I gritted my teeth, trying to keep my expression neutral.

  “What are you talking about?” Angelle asked.

  “You know what I’m talking about.” She turned to me. “’specially you. I know you seen dat toaster move, huh?”

  I sat back, surprised. I thought I’d been the only one to see it happen.

  “What about the toaster?” Angelle asked.

  “You was too busy fussin’ with Trevor to see, but dat toaster over dere, it moved by itself. I seen it. And you sister, I know she seen it, too.” Poochie drilled me with a look. “You might think I don’t know nothin’ ‘cause I’m too old, but I seen how you went out de kitchen before. You was hurting. You hands was hurting. How come dat is? You feel dem ghosts with you hands or what?”

  Angelle’s eyes went wide. She looked ready for a panic attack. “Poochie, there’s nothing—“

  “Look, don’t play crazy with me, no. I know better. And you know better, you, too.”

  Besides curiosity, I saw determination and honesty in Poochie’s bright green eyes. Seeing that, I felt something spontaneously unlock inside me. Like an old forgotten closet door, it creaked open slightly, and I suddenly found myself wanting to tell Poochie Blackledge everything. My mouth went dry. I licked my lips. Then, without any explanation, I pulled my hands out from under the table, stretched out my fingers . . . and laid both of my hands palm down on the table.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Angelle let out a breathless, “Dunny . . . ”

  Poochie’s eyes settled on my left hand. She pursed her lips and nodded. “Uh-huh, I knew it was something.” She looked up at me. “So what you can do with dat?”

  “Mostly find stuff.”

  “Like dem little chil’ren?”

  “Maybe.”

  Angelle looked as if she’d just seen a UFO, mouth hanging open, eyes wide with that deer-in-the-headlights look.

  “It’s okay,” I said to her. “I really don’t think she’ll say anything to anyone.”

  “You talkin’ about me sayin’ something? Ha! Not me, no.” Poochie pinched her thumb and forefinger together in front of her mouth, twisted them as if turning a key, then made a tossing motion over her left shoulder. “You see dat? I locked dat all up and t’row away de key. Whatever you got to say gonna stay right here.”

  As simplistic as the gesture was, it opened that closet door within me even wider, and I soon found myself telling Poochie everything, starting with the water found on Frieda Hughes’ property. By the time I reached the part about finding Pirate, Angelle had evidently warmed up to my exposing the secret because she started adding little comments. About how much she loved that cat. How devastated she’d been to discover he’d died such a horrible death. How she’d kept my secret all these years and never once told a soul, not even her husband. I followed up with more stories, moving through all the years and incidents that had involved that extra finger.

  As amazed as I was at how easily the words spilled out of my mouth, I was even more amazed that Poochie never stopped us once to comment. She listened intently, nodding or shaking her head in commiseration, especially when I told her about the kids who’d teased me at school, calling me Freak and Water Witch—about the men who’d come into my life pretending love, but actually meaning to use me for their own gain.

  When I finished, I felt purged, as if someone had lifted a forty pound sack of wet concrete off of my back. The three of us sat in silence for a moment, Poochie studying my finger like it was a puzzle piece and her responsibility was to find out where that piece was supposed to fit.

  Her tone was almost reverent when she finally spoke. “It’s hurtin’ you now, huh?”

  “Yeah, a little. Cold, but not a hard cold like earlier today.” I volleyed a look between Poochie and Angelle. “When I was outside, near the bayou a little while ago, I picked up a different kind of pain, not cold at all.”

  Angelle sat bolt upright. “The kids?”

  “I’m not sure. Possibile, though, because I was concentrating on them when I felt it.”

  “What did it feel like?”

  “Fire. You remember that Fourth of July when we were kids, the time that Black Cat exploded in your hand?”

  “God, do I ever.”

  “Sort of felt like that, only in the tip of my finger. Weird. Then it pulled up and over, pointing east.”

  “So we gotta go find dem in de east?” Poochie asked, leaning closer to me.

  “The direction I’m sure about. What’ll be found in that direction is what I can’t quite figure out. I couldn’t really interpret what was happening or what it meant because I’ve never felt it do that before. Heat usually means I’m getting close to finding a lost object, like jewelry or something. But this wasn’t just heat. It was fire hot. And there’s so much . . .energy in the bayou, the swamps, that Lord only knows what I might be picking up.”

  “But at least it’s something,” Angelle said. “Someplace to start, right?”

  I shrugged, afraid to give her too much hope.

  “So what de cold means? Dat what you gonna find is dead?”

  “Usually, yeah.”

  “So de cold in you finger now, it’s tellin’ you we got a ghos’ in de house?”

  I shrugged again. “That the only thing I can figure. Cold always means dead. Even though it’s not as cold as before, maybe that just means there’s one here now, whereas earlier it was more. Maybe the three you saw coming in here through the bricks.”

  I’d never seen a look of relief wash over a woman’s face as purely as it did on Poochie’s in that moment. “Mais, I can’t believe . . . somebody finally believe what I gotta say.” She sat up tall in her seat, face beaming. Then she pointed to Angelle. “Okay, before we go sidetrack again, it’s you turn.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you got a story to tell you, too. You don’t have a extra finger like you sister, but you got something in you, I know.”

  “I . . . I don’t under—“

  “Tell her, Gelle,” I said softly. “Tell her about the touching.”

  Angelle’s face turned five shades of pink before rolling into brick red. I reached over and squeezed her hands, wanting to encourage her. When she finally spoke, her voice was hesitant and soft, and the tears began almost immediately. With absolute detail, she recounted the pinching, the bruising, the invasion of hands and other male body parts. By the time she was done, all three of us were crying.

  “Poo-yi.” Poochie pushed away from the table, sniffled hard, and hobbled to the sink. She grabbed a fist full of paper towels and blew her nose. It was then I realized she’d not been using her walker.

  “You seem to get around pretty good without that metal contraption of yours.”

  Tossing the paper towels into the trash, Poochie tsked. “I don’t have to use dat all de time. Sometimes my balance goes a little cuckoo, so I have to use it to hold myself up. Don’t want to fall on my face in de public, you know? And over to de Bucket, I ride my scoot ‘cause I’m too lazy to haul my big butt from one of dem aisles to de other.”

  I smiled, and it felt good to release some of the tension that had hung in the kitchen for so long.

  Poochie suddenly closed her eyes for a second, waving a hand in the air. “Okay, hol’ up, hol’ up, we goin’ sidetrack again.” She pointed at me. “Now, let’s see . . . you feel de ghos’ wit’ you finger, and you t’ink you know de direction we supposed to go for de chil’ren . . .”

  I nodded.

  She pointed to Angelle. “And you, dem ghos’ been messin’ wit’ you. A bad ghos’
, so we gotta figure out how to turn dat off.” She brought her finger to her mouth and tapped it against her lips for a moment. “Hmm . . .hmm.” She dropped her hand. “Okay, de bes’ I can understand from de good Lord is dis. De ghos’ in de house, de ghos’ dat touch her, de los’ babies, all dat’s mixed up together.”

  “That doesn’t really make sense. How would they all be connected, especially the kids?”

  She shrugged. “I’m like you, me. I don’t understand too good. My finger don’t hurt like you finger, but He put a picture in my head. It don’t make no sense, dough.”

  “A picture of what?” Angelle asked.

  “A cypress tree.”

  “One?” I asked.

  “Non, and it’s not de regular tree. It’s de stump. Old, rotted stump and de new tree growin’ inside dat.”

  “Huh?” Angelle and I said at the same time.

  “A new tree growin’ inside a old stump dat’s rotted like dat, dey call dat a olm tree. I know dat much, me. But I don’t know what He’s trying to tell me wit’ dat. He show me de tree . . .you finger . . .de ghos’ . . . what de ghos’ was doin’ to Angelle’s tee-tons—”

  “Tee-tons?” I asked.

  Poochie gave me a bewildered look, like she’d never met anyone who’d never heard the word tee-ton before. “Yeah, tee-ton. . . you know, you two breasteses.”

  Angelle blushed hard and looked away.

  Now that definitions were cleared up, Poochie shook a finger at me. “You know, I don’t know what we supposed to do to stop what’s in dis house. I don’t know how we supposed to stop dem from takin’ de shoes out de prayer tree. But something’s tellin’ me, and I think it’s de good Lord, dat if we find de chil’ren, den all de rest is gonna be fix. We just gotta find dem.”

  “We were planning to go look tonight,” Angelle said, “But since Trevor isn’t bringing back the boat, we won’t have any way to get into the swamp.”

  “Poo-yi, girl,you must be crazy! Even if you had de boat, you can’t go out in dem swamps in de middle of de night. Dat’s too dangerous. And you would even know what to do wit’ de boat?”

  “I’ve been out with Trevor checking traps before. He showed me how to run the boat. Start it, steer it, everything. All we’d have to do is bring a flashlight or a headlight, and I could find my way around . .I’m sure.”

  “Den thank de good Lord Trevor took de boat! You two don’t got no business bein’ out dere by youself. Dat’s cuckoo. Don’t you know what’s out dere? If de ghos’ come from de bayou up in dis house, den what else you think is out in all dat big swamp?Not Santy Claus, no. De feux fo lais’ might get you out dere.”

  “What’s that,” I asked.

  She leaned close to me again. “A lot of people believe de feux fo lais is different things, but me, I know dat’s not true. A feux fo lais, dat’s a los’ soul from purgatory. When dey get los’ dey float around in de swamp until dey find where dey supposed to go. Some of dem souls get mad ‘cause dey los’, dem all dat mad turns into a big ball of light. Dat light tries to trick you, lead you way, way out in de black, black swamp.” Poochie sighed. “Den it leaves you dere, so you los’ forever. Can’t ever find you way back.”

  “Then if we see anything like that, we just won’t follow it,” Angelle said, matter of factly.

  “It don’t work like dat. I think de feux fo lais uses gris-gris or somethin’ ‘cause it makes you follow it whether you wanna go or don’t wanna go.” Poochie pursed her lips for a moment. “Mos’ do dat anyway. Dere’s a few feux fo lais dat might be close to figuring out where dey supposed to go, and dose don’t get so mad. Dey not gonna make you get los’. Dey gonna help you get home. De trouble is, you never know which one you got when it shows up, de good one or de bad one. Will all de stuff dat’s been goin’ on around here, I think de bad would come. And dey would lead y’all way out dere where nobody, not even de game warden, is gonna find y’all. Non, y’all bes’ wait for de day. In de daylight y’all can go look.”

  “I can’t go out during the day,” I said.

  “Mais, how come?”

  “Everyone would see what I showed you, Poochie. That extra finger. They’ll find out what it can do. I don’t need that kind of hassle in my life again. You have no idea what it was like having people follow me around everywhere, always wanting something from me. People get greedy. They want me to look for oil and gold, and they get desperate.”

  Angelle nodded. “It’s true. I saw it. I remember all those people.”

  “Yeah, I can see how dat would happen. Dere’s greedy all over de world. Everybody’s got dat today.” Poochie rubbed her forehead with three fingers for a long moment, then finally looked over at us and said, “Oh, yi, dat’s not good, no.”

  “What?” Angelle asked.

  “What I just seen.”

  Poochie looked up at the ceiling as if watching an overhead screen. I felt Angelle’s leg jiggling nervously near mine.

  “What, Pooch?” Angelle asked again, an impatient snap in her voice.

  “Y’all in a big fight . . . in de dark . . . in de boat. Poo-yi, out in de water . . .”

  “A big fight?” I said.

  “With who?” Angelle chimed in.

  Instead of answering, Poochie stood up, leaned over me and made a Sign of the Cross on my forehead with her right thumb. Then she walked over to Angelle and did the same thing, only after crossing her forehead, she said to her, “'S’cuse me, cher,” then quickly made the same mark of the cross on each of Angelle’s breasts. Once that was done, Poochie lifted her hands up high, palm up, as if she expected the ceiling to fall and planned on catching it.“God, if you ever listen to me, Poochie, den you need to listen to me now. Please take care of us and please—”

  Poochie never got the chance to finish her prayer. For in that moment, the light fixture hanging over her head exploded, and the kitchen went dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Nicky Trahan hated the dark, even more than he had at any other time in his life. In the dark, back home, he always imagined things hiding under his bed. In the dark—hiding in the closet, waiting to attack him every time he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. In the swamp, where he and Sarah were, the dark was different. It had sounds that frightened him because he didn’t know what they belonged to. For all he knew, that chittering, squawking, croaking, grunting could belong to a bear. One of those giant brown ones like he’d seen during a field trip at the zoo in Baton Rouge. Then again, maybe it was a wild hog or a bobcat. It could even be another alligator.

  They’d been lucky with the first alligator. Way lucky. They’d been so frightened by it, he and Sarah had screamed at the top of their lungs, until no sound would come out of their mouths anymore. The screaming must have scared the gator because it let out a loud hiss, then flipped itself backwards into the water. It hadn’t come back . . . yet. But the gator knew where they were, and Nicky feared it would find it’s way back to them. And if it did, he didn’t think they’d be able to scream loud enough to scare it away again. Not only was he hoarse from all the yelling, there was so much mud pressed against his chest, it made it difficult to draw in a big breath. There was no way he’d be able to pull in enough air to scream loud enough to even scare away a mosquito.

  He swallowed, forcing down the little bit of saliva he was able to gather in his mouth. He was so hungry, and so scared of all the shadows moving around them. Even a little breeze made a branch look like a monster’s arm, raking across the ground, creeping towards them. He tried to be brave, tried not to cry. It was so hard. He imagined what it would be like if he had a dad right now. Imagined him out in the swamps, looking for him and Sarah right now. His dad would be the kind of person who would never go looking for just one kid when two were missing. He’d want to find both.

  In truth, Nicky didn’t know who his father was. Each time he tried talking about it with his mother; she’d cry or get angry and drink more whiskey. Because of that, Nicky had no idea who
the man was, what he looked like. Didn’t know the color of his hair or eyes. Didn’t know how tall he was, or if he was strong or skinny. In a way, that was good because it allowed Nicky to imagine his dad any way he wanted to.

  At that moment, he pictured him to be Superman: tight fitting shirt over a broad muscled chest, and the shirt had a big red S on it. He’d be able to pick up buildings and move them sideways to check and make sure his son wasn’t under one of them. He’d bat cars out of the way with one hand. He’d be able to grab alligators with two hands and rip their mouths apart for even thinking about eating his son for supper. Then, with one finger, his dad would pick him up by the back of his shirt and simply lift him out of the thick, stinky mud.

  Even better, if his dad was Superman, then that would make him Superboy, and Superboy didn’t cry. Superboy was strong. Not as strong as his dad, but close to it. Close enough to rescue people. And he wanted to rescue Sarah.

  Girls weren’t supposed to be treated the way that man had treated her. Girls were supposed to be taken care of and given presents. That’s what his mom had told him anyway. And that must have been the truth because every time he looked over at Sarah, all he wanted to do was take care of her. Nicky had never been in a fight before, but he knew if he had the chance, he’d fight that bad man, the one pouring the mud. He’d punch him in the nose, make his mouth bleed, put a sleeper-hold on him the way the wrestlers did in WWF. He’d take care of her. Yes sir, he would.

  “Hey . . .” Nicky called out to Sarah as loud as he could, but the word came out sounding like a warbled croak. He tried again. “Hey, Sarah!”

  She didn’t move. Maybe she was afraid to move. Afraid the mud man was nearby and would dump more stuff on them. As far as he could tell, though, they were alone for now.

  “Psst!”

  She still didn’t move. He turned his head towards her as far as he could and squinted.

  The moon was big enough and bright enough for him to see that her head was leaning forward, not back like it had been before, when she was sleeping. Nicky knew the man had put more mud in her hole, too. What if he’d put too much? Sarah was a little smaller than he was, suppose the mud went up to her neck and when she dropped her head, she drowned? Maybe she drowned in the mud . . . and if she drowned, then that meant she was dead . . . and if she was dead, then that meant he was alone. He didn’t want to be alone.