…black water in front of me. Can’t go back. Best to get in, swim for it…they can’t track me in water! But slow…don’t make splashin’ sounds. If only I had my hands…”
…sound of a motorboat behind me. Lights spearing past me! Get into the mangrove! Run for the trees, little places where boats can’t follow!”
…lost time…everything like a dream…still moving through the water but up to my chest now…don’t know which way to turn, which way is back to land or even a dry hummock…Pappa took me huntin,’ what did he say?…moss side of tree means north? Black water up to my neck now…so tired…if the gators come now I’m done…something coming up on my right…too tired to look…”
…someone lookin’ down at me. Am I still in the water? Someone lookin’ down…someone in a boat. Stretchin’ out a hand to me. I know that hand…don’t I know that hand?”
…’My hands is tied!’ I think I said that. ‘Can’t take yer hand ‘cause mine’s is tied!’ grinning at me, can see teeth, just teeth. ‘Thas OK,’ a deep voice says…’jest relax now, honey…just close yer eyes…it’s all a dream’…got a hand on my head now, in my air…pushing…pushing…
‘Thas the wrong way!’Yer pushin’ me down!”
But under I go.
The water is warm.
And it’s nice not to struggle no more…almost relaxing. Likely even find peace here.
If it weren’t for so many questions...
There was a shockingly loud sound—clunk--that jolted Mama Grace wide-eyed from her trance.
Jolted me out of my own trance; the sonorous almost-little-girl voice having me near-mesmerized.
The old woman blinked angry eyes, scowled agitation. “Who done thet?”
Katie blinked confusion.
“Somebody done thet!”
I shrugged, looked around us. “It wasn’t me!”
Caught the old woman’s eyes and followed them to the center of the little wooden table before us.
Amy’s locket lay shining among the snaked coils of its chain.
FOURTEEN
“I did it,” Katie said evenly, voice steady under the hag’s glare.
“Why?”
“I thought you were through.”
“I mean, why do you have the thing! The locket ain’t fer you! Belongs to Amy!”
“Amy is dead,” Katie replied softly.
The old woman stared down at the locket, moved an inch as if to pick it up, but declined finally, as if it wasn’t for her either.
“It’s for him!”
She turned those watery yellow eyes on me. “Amy want him to have it, the school teacher! Ain’t you two figured that out yet?”
I looked over at Katie, who ignored me and gently challenged the dark witch. “Amy told you that?”
“She’s told all of us, are ye deaf? She’s been callin’ out to the both of ya, but especially the school teacher here! Callin’ out to him for days! He took a snap of her, didn’t he? A pitcher!” She turned the lantern eyes on me again. “Didn’t ya?”
I felt suddenly sick to my stomach, unable to speak for a moment, tongue bloated.
“Ya trapped her image at the time of her death in thet infernal camera! Now she can’t be free to join God! Not ‘til you fix it!”
“F-Fix it--?” The room listed, alligator skull whirling slowly, grinning wider, picket mouths opening, summoning…
“Elliot studied film in college, thought of becoming a director once. He only finished one film.” Katie leaned toward the old woman. “But the plot of his movie closely follows both the setting and events surrounding Amy Robichou’s disappearance.”
“A movie?” The yellow eyes jerked back and forth between us. “You made a movie here in Manchac? Like one of them…what cha call ‘em?”
“’Documentary’?” I shook my head. “No, it was pure fiction. At least I thought it was pure fiction. I mean…it was fiction as far as I was…look, I shot the thing in Cincinnati! We don’t have swamps in Cincinnati!”
But she was peering at me intently, suspiciously. “Read about the case, did you? Heard it on the news?”
“No! At least…not that I consciously recall. Maybe I overheard it on TV or something but I don’t recall that either. I thought I was making it all up. Thought I was a being the next baby mogul, a brilliant new filmmaker.”
“Channelin’s what you was doin,’ boy! An I don’t mean the kind of channels on the TV!” She sat back, gave me a lingering, searching look. “What else you do?”
I was confused, abruptly exhausted. “Nothing else.”
“Don’t lie to me, teacher! You’ve seen her! You must have! Where?”
I had to throw up and pee at the same time. But I was pretty sure the only place was the swamp, the idea of which filled me with sudden terror. “I saw…I did see something on campus a couple of times…the last few weeks.”
“On campus, eh? And where else? Here? Here in Tangipahoa Parish?”
I sighed. “I’m not sure…”
The old woman watched me eagerly, gripping the arms of her chair with those bony claws. “But you felt her here, am I right? Her presence! You felt her even stronger than when you saw her back in Texas!”
Katie jerked toward her. “Who told you we were from Texas?” she asked coolly.
Mama Grace ignored her, not taking her eyes from me. “Yer the key, teacher! Yer the missing link in all this!”
I must have appeared stricken because Katie leapt to my defense. “And you’re the soothsayer in all this! The soothsaying fortune teller, the seer, the majorly prescient one! You know what happened to the little girl, don’t you? And how!”
Mama Grace was undeterred, her eyes remaining on me. “Don’t matter what I knows and don’t knows. Ain’t nothin’ I kin do about it. Professor Filmmaker here’s the one! The only one can hep little Amy.”
Katie made a defiant face, snatched up the locket quickly, mostly, I suspect, to get the old woman’s attention. She got it.
“We’ve talked to the Robichous, Dean and Angel. Been out to their humble little place. They’re hardly nouveau riche, are they? Why would anyone think Dean Robichou had the money to pay Amy’s ransom?”
The old woman glared, but sat back a notch, eyes drifting. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Well, if not you, who?”
The old woman bent her head, began stacking her pipe again just when I’d become accustomed to the lack of stench. “Kin be tart as bad cider, can’t we, Missy?”
“Tarter than you know, when I’m after the truth. I’m a professional investigator, Miss Grace.”
Which brought a rueful smile from the crooked mouth. “Investigator.”
“Hey! I won’t commit the sin of adultery and you don’t commit the sin of judging others, deal?”
The old woman was quiet for a time, tamping at her pipe.
Finally: “I don’t know Dean Robichou, never met him. Knew Angel in passing. Knew Dean’s grandfather back in the time. A big man but a quiet one. Kept to hisself. Him and his ways…”
“What ways?”
Mama Grace puffed smoke. “He was a hoarder.”
“Of what?”
“Money, what you think? Is thar anythin’ else fer his kind? Money he made carpetbaggin’ after the war. That’s Civil to you all.”
“We know what the Civil War was,” Katie told her patiently.
“Huh! Ya did, huh? Nobody thet weren’t there knows what it was. Nor how many profited from it later. Old Callan Robichou did all right. Squirreled away a small fortune, so they say…so they used to say. What some still do say is that grandson Dean ended up with it. Still has it, last I heard. Hidden away somewheres. Anyhow, thet’s the rumor.”
“So, you’re saying he could have paid Amy’s ransom…and then some.”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’. Rumors sayin’ it. And rumors ain’t facts.”
“What are the facts, Mama Grace?”
The old woman settled in her chair
. “Amy wasn’t never found. That’s a sure-nuf fact.”
Katie studied her a moment, finally leaned back again. “You’re afraid.”
I was startled, hadn’t seen it coming. From the old crone maybe, not from Katie. Mama Grace didn’t look like she feared anything, including death, but Katie had apparently seen something behind the watery yellow eyes. But Katie, I was learning, always saw something.
The old woman accessed her a silent moment, then nodded once. “I am fearful, child.”
“Of what?”
“Not ‘what’. For. You. The both of you.”
The bile was back in my throat.
Katie’s voice was maybe a slip less confident. “Oh? And should we be fearful too, Mama Grace? Are Elliot and I in danger here?”
The old lady looked suddenly weary. Like a melted Halloween candle. “It’s a big swamp, Missy…people disappear in it every year or so, and not just little girls.”
This last came with a faint wheeze in the crackled throat. “I must get my sleep now. And y’all best be getting’ back. Dark’s a-comin.”
At the door, the old woman bade us wait a moment.
She reached up to a peg on the planked wall and brought down a little leather sack. “Take it,” and she shoved it at Katie.
“What is it?”
“You know.”
“Gris-gris?”
“Call it what ya will.”
“Did you make it?”
“I ain’t claimin’ it’ll protect ya none. I ain’t claimin’ nothin. You wouldn’t believe me anyways. Haven’t believed a thing about me so far.”
Katie’s face softened. “I never said—“
“Thas awright. Most city folk don’t. But here’s some advice, such as it is…”
“Yes?”
“The ju-ju works best for those who do believe. Remember that when it’s time.”
“When it’s time?”
“You’ll know. Oh, you’ll know.”
Katie thanked her, put the little leather pouch in her purse. “What do I owe you?”
“Fer thet? Nuthin’” And then she added: “Wear it in health.”
I lingered by the door.
“Don’t worry, school teacher, I’ll mail you back the Visa card.”
“Oh,” like I hadn’t been thinking about it. I turned to Katie--then back to the witch woman. “Um…when?”
“When I decides what to charge ye.”
“’When you decide...’”
“Don’t worry. I’ll know.”
“Well,” Katie nodded, “we’ll say good-bye then. And thank you.”
“School teacher--”
“Yes?”
“She warn’t no angel, ya know” The old woman wore an almost wistful expression. “Lovely a child as ever walked the earth. But beauty and sweet smiles don’t a whole person make. Nor a whole child, neither.”
I assumed she meant Amy.
The old head nodded as if reading my thoughts.
“She’s amiable enough now all right—amiable little Amy—but her spirit had dark parts jest as her life did. She’s waited a long time, teacher, and jest liable to get a might peevish if you keep on ignoring her pleas.”
“That sounds like a threat,” Katie put in, seeing me blanch.
Mama Grace smiled yellow tombstones and pink gums at Katie’s lovely gray eyes. “Ain’t afraid of a little child now? Are we?”
Katie smiled back, heels dug. “Not if that’s all we have to fear.”
The crone nodded philosophically. “Yer a pessimist, Missy. Thas good! But yer out of yer depth here. Way, way out. Parts of this swamp they say don’t seem to have no bottom. Tis the land of superstition you’ve come to now. Oh yes, brought with ya the cold light of reason, I know. Just the kind of light of reason that casts the longest shadders. Thas where they hide, ya know. In the shadders.”
I started to ask who but it felt somehow superfluous. “I’m not ignoring that little girl,” I said limply, “I’m just not sure I understand her.”
“You saw her die,” the witch croaked softly, “…or anyway yer film did. That’s enough.”
There was a long moment of silence broken by a pop from the hearth and again, that distant mad cry of the loon.
Garbanzo was waiting for us at the short, earthen stoop.
* * *
The warped door shut behind us.
Katie and I started down the rickety dock.
When I looked back over my shoulder, both door and shack had been absorbed again by tangled cypress shadow; I had a vaguely unconfirmed sensation I wouldn’t be seeing Mama Grace again. But whether from her own demise or mine I wasn’t so sure.
The ancient planks creaked uneasily beneath our feet.
“Well?”
“Well what, Elliot? She’s full of crap.”
“You don’t trust her.”
“I think you can find things about a person to like and even admire without completely trusting him. Do you trust her?”
I shrugged. “Well, she didn’t eat the cat. What about the ju-ju pouch?”
“What about it?”
“I don’t know. Do you think you’ll keep it?”
“Maybe. I also think she might keep your credit card. And how does an old, half-blind woman even use a credit card out here in fashionable Centipede Acres? There are no phone lines, no Ethernet--not that she’d know what that was--how’s she going to bill the thing?”
I shrugged again, batted a mosquito. “Search me. Ju-ju?”
“You liked her.”
“I was terrified of her. Though I suppose terror does come with a modicum of respect.”
Katie seemed hardly to be listening. “…all that hocus pocus bullshit at the ‘sitting’ table. Summoning up children’s spirits! All I felt summoned was about a foot of hardwood chair up my tookus.”
“I thought you worked within the paranormal—“
“But I begin with the facts, work my way methodically to the paranormal, if that’s what’s warranted. Did you smell that place?”
“Yes, immemorial. Thanks, I’d nearly forgotten.”
“I don’t mean the mildew and rat shit. There was incense or something, didn’t you detect it?”
“Well—“
“Like no commercial incense I ever smelled. A few well-known hallucinogens on the other hand…And that…tea, or whatever it was, who knows what she put in that aside from the sun-kissed fresh pesticide. We’ll probably both get cancer.”
“Oh, I think that tea would kill any cancer. Are you really suggesting she drugged us?”
“I’ve been to a lot of séances, Elliot, I know the phony hosts from the expert phony hosts. Mama Grace is very much the former, believe me. All that stuff about us sleeping together, what was with that? And smelling it?! ‘Wal then,’ she cackles, ‘yer thinkin’ about it!’”
“Yeah, she was way off base there,” I said.
“She certainly was.”
“Silliest thing I ever heard!. The two of us having sex. Can you even imagine--?”
“All right, Elliot! I heard you the first time!”
I turned to her as we walked the creaky dock. “You sound pissed. Even jealous…”
Now she turned to me. “Of what? You?”
“Of the idea I might be more psychically gifted?”
“Please!”
“Mama Grace thought so.”
“So send her roses! A nice box of Lime Disease! And she didn’t exactly say that, Elliot! She said you were more directly connected with this case. Hell, I already knew that. Knew it the moment I saw your film.”
“Oh.”
We walked in silence a moment.
“What do you think she meant about my ‘trapping her image’, about how Amy ‘can’t be free until I fix it.’?”
“The movie, Elliot, of course.”
“But she didn’t even know about the movie before you told her! And now she’s telling me to fix it?”
“I told you, Elliot,
it’s part of her scam, the way they work. Get little bits of information from you and make you think they came from her, that she prefigured them with her Voodoo powers. It’s all bunk.”
“But ‘fix’ it, she said. Why would she say that? Like--I ‘fix’ the film somehow and Amy’s all at peace again and goes back to her grave? Fix the film? How?”
“Take it easy, partner, you’re overreacting to an old carny woman’s tricks. She tossed out little tidbits of obtuse information that can have a hundred different meanings, a million different interpretations.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Fix it, that sounds pretty definite.”
Katie sighed, shifted the cat cage in her arms.
“He’s heavy. Here, I’ll take him…”
“No, I’ve got him,” holding the cage against her breast. Like a protective shield? The old lady admitted she didn’t trust cats. Does Katie protest too much—was she more frightened of the old woman than she let on?
“Maybe she meant dust the film off,” she suggested absently, “get it on the circuit, let people see it. Tell Amy’s story, let the public see the truth.”
I grunted. “Easier said than done. Film festivals, bookings…next thing she’ll want it re-edited. Mama Grace the Mogul! She wants ten percent of the back-end and an audience preview with a more upbeat ending!” I snorted. “And the ending’s the only good part of the damn film…”
Katie turned to me, astonished. “Jesus, Elliot, what’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. “The camera pans over the marsh. We hold on the little girl’s image running deeper and deeper into the swamp. Until finally she’s swallowed by the mist and foliage. Fade to black. We don’t really know what happened to her. If she drowned or got eaten by something or maybe even made it out again. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Katie had stopped on the narrow dock, gray eyes suddenly darker. “What the hell are you talking about, Elliot? That’s not how the film ends at all!”
I stood, waiting for the joke that didn’t come. “What do you mean?”
“She slogs through the water until a boat comes along. It pulls up alongside her. She looks up, sees a dark, foggy, indistinguishable figure. She pleads for help. The figure leans over, its hand pushes her head underwater. Just like Mama Grace said!”
FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 14