by Sharon Sala
With the wind at your back.
She spun abruptly and began to run, taking care to keep the force of the storm at her back, letting the wind push her when her legs were too tired to move.
Several minutes passed, and still she could see nothing but rain and the dark, verdant thrashing of storm-tossed limbs. Then, just as suddenly as she had entered the grove, she was out, running across the grounds toward the blessed safety of the old house.
Marie was standing at the back with the door open, waving for her to hurry as Laurel bolted up the steps and all but fell into the kitchen. Her eyes were huge, her heart hammering so hard she could barely hear Marie scolding her for being gone too long. She looked down at the puddle she was making on the old linoleum flooring and started to shake.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m getting everything wet.”
Marie made a clucking sound with her tongue as she began tugging and pulling at Laurel’s clothes.
“Take these off right here, baby girl.”
When Laurel hesitated, Marie scolded her again.
“There ain’t nothin’ under those clothes I never saw before, and you gonna catch your death if you don’t get yourself dry. Lord, Lord, honey, you worried me right out of my mind. I was afraid you’d gone and gotten yourself lost in there.”
Laurel began pulling at the sopping spandex, which was all but glued to her skin.
“I did get lost,” she said, shivering as her teeth began to chatter.
Marie kept shaking her head as she helped Laurel peel off the wet clothes and shoes.
“It’s good you find your way out,” she said. “It’s ’bout dark as night out there now, and it ain’t even seven o’clock.”
“But I didn’t,” Laurel whispered.
Marie pulled an afghan from the arms of an ancient rocking chair and threw it around Laurel’s shoulders, wrapping and patting until it had covered Laurel’s nudity all the way to the tops of her knees.
“There now,” Marie muttered, then realized what Laurel had just said and looked up with a frown. “What you mean… you didn’t? You standin’ here big as day, ain’t you?”
“I was lost. When it started to rain, I began to run. Then she told me I was going the wrong way.”
Marie frowned. “She who? Ain’t supposed to be anyone else in the grove.”
“I didn’t see anyone else. I just heard her voice… in my head. She told me to put the wind at my back, so I did. That’s how I got out. That’s how I found my way home.”
Marie’s expression blanked. She took a deep breath, then stared at Laurel before she began to nod.
“What?” Laurel asked.
“She likes you.”
Laurel pulled the soft, well-washed blue afghan tighter around her shoulders.
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember the day you arrived? Remember the feelin’ you had on the stairs?”
The skin on the back of Laurel’s neck began to crawl. It was all she could do to answer.
“Yes.”
“That was her. She don’t welcome just everybody into this house.” Then she patted Laurel’s back and then took her by the hand. “Come with me, baby girl. We gonna get you all warm and dry, and then we’ll have us some supper. Yep. You’re gonna be all right now. Don’t ever have to worry ’bout anything again. She likes you. She’ll take good care of you.”
Laurel paused. “For Pete’s sake, Marie. Quit talking in riddles. Who likes me? Who’s going to take care of me? Are you trying to tell me that my grandmother’s spirit is still in this house?”
“Lord no, honey,” Marie said. “Your grandmama was ready to go. She met her Maker with a clear conscience and His name on her lips. She’s with her Etienne again and got no need to stay in this place.”
“Then what are you trying to tell me?”
Marie looked at Laurel in disbelief. “Why, honey, I thought you knew. It’s Chantelle LeDeux.”
Laurel stared at Marie as if she’d just lost her mind.
“But didn’t she run away from here almost two hundred years ago?”
Marie shrugged. “That’s what they say.”
Laurel frowned. “Then why would her spirit stay in a place where she hadn’t wanted to be?”
Marie shrugged again. “Maybe because she all guilty for running away and leavin’ her husband and her babies. Maybe she’s doomed to spend eternity here at Mimosa Grove because she didn’t stay and care for it in life. Who knows? I’m just the housekeeper round here. You’re the one who’s supposed to know all that kind of stuff. Come on with you, now. You need to get you a bath before the power goes out.”
Laurel followed the old woman upstairs, letting her fuss and scold, because she knew it was her way of showing that she cared. Later, after they’d shared bowls of soup and cold sandwiches by candlelight while the storm still raged beyond the walls, Laurel gave up trying to read and went to bed, hoping that power and rationality would both return with daylight and the passing of the storm. And hoping that somehow she would reconnect with her dream lover, who’d been noticeably absent since her arrival in Louisiana.
***
Parish police chief Harper Fonteneau and his men had been searching for the little girl for hours, but with no luck. When it started to rain, their hopes dropped. Whatever clues might have led them to four-year-old Rachelle Moutan’s location were being washed into the river that connected with the Atchafalaya Bay. Tommy and Cheryl Ann Moutan were pale and quiet as the dead, which bothered Harper even more than if they’d been screaming and cursing his name. But losing a child in the bayou country was dangerous in broad daylight. It was now almost midnight, it had been raining for hours, and he was at the point of praying they’d at least find her body before the gators did.
While little Rachelle’s parents clung to each other in desperate silence, her uncle, Justin Bouvier, had been manic—almost driven to find her himself. Upon his arrival three hours earlier, he’d taken to the bayous in a shallow boat with an outboard motor for power. And with a two-way radio for communication, he’d covered a large portion of the waterways on his own, leaving the others to search higher ground, where they believed the little girl to be.
It wasn’t until a few minutes ago that one of his deputies had bemoaned the fact that Marcella Campion had passed. If she’d still been alive, they were certain she could have given them a direction in which to search, if not an exact location. It was then that Harper had remembered the woman he’d accidentally insulted in Bayou Jean.
“Holy Mother of God,” he muttered. “I forgot she was here.”
“Who you talkin’ about, Harper?” one of the deputies asked.
“The granddaughter! Miz Marcella’s granddaughter is at Mimosa Grove.”
“She got the sight like her grandmama?”
“I don’t know, but I’m damn sure gonna find out,” Harper said, and ran toward the lost child’s parents. “You got anything here that belongs to Rachelle?”
Tommy only shook his head and started to cry, but Cheryl Ann had a different answer.
“Her jacket,” she said, and ran toward their car. “I brought it in case the mosquitoes got too bad before we got home from the picnic.” Moments later she thrust it into Harper’s hands. “Are you gonna use the dogs? Maybe it’s not too wet for them to track her, right, Harper?”
“No, darlin’,” Harper said. “Not the dogs. They couldn’t get a scent in this rain. I’m takin’ this jacket to Mimosa Grove.”
“That won’t do any good. Miz Marcella is dead… like my baby.” At that, she started to wail.
“Her granddaughter is at Mimosa Grove. I don’t know if she’s got the sight, but I’m gonna find out.”
4
Laurel was dreaming about Christmas and a flashing string of lights that kept falling off the Christmas tree when she realized that the flashing lights were really outside and not just in her dreams. She rolled out of bed and stumbled to the window just as the doors o
f a police car opened and two shadowy figures dashed through the rain toward the house. Without giving herself time to think of why they might be there, she grabbed her robe from the back of a chair and put it on as she ran.
She could hear them pounding on the door before she reached the top of the stairs. As she started down, Marie appeared out of nowhere carrying a flashlight and a baseball bat.
“Marie! What’s going on?” Laurel cried.
“Don’t know, but I’m gonna find out,” Marie said. “Be careful comin’ down the stairs. The power is out.” Then she yelled through the door, “Who is it? Who’s knockin’ on the door?”
“It’s me. Harper Fonteneau!” the police chief shouted back. “Let me in, Marie. It’s an emergency.”
Marie set the bat aside and then opened the door, shining her flashlight right in his eyes.
“What wrong with you, Harper? Don’t you know it’s the middle of the night?”
Harper flinched as the lights blinded him, then pushed his way past Marie and into the foyer. From the comer of his eye, he saw movement on the stairwell and turned to look. It was the woman from town, standing midway up the stairs.
“Ma’am,” Harper said, “I need to talk to you.”
“You wait a minute!” Marie yelled, and grabbed Harper by the arm as he started up the stairs.
Harper pulled a small pink jacket from inside his coat.
“You see this? It belongs to Tommy and Cheryl Ann Moutan’s little girl, Rachelle. She’s been missing more than six hours in this storm. We need help, Marie.” He waved the jacket toward Laurel. “Can she do it? Is she like Marcella?”
“What’s wrong?” Laurel asked.
Harper ran up the stairs as Laurel was coming down. Impulsively, he thrust the jacket in her hands.
“Please… please, lady. Can you see her? Can you tell us where she is?”
All she saw was a tiny pink jacket with the name Barbie embroidered on the front and then the room went dark. She fell backward onto the stairs with the jacket still clutched in her hands. She didn’t see Marie rush toward her or feel the police chief’s hands as he caught her just before her head hit the stair rail.
“Mommy… I want my mommy.”
The small, high-pitched voice that came out of Laurel’s mouth raised goose bumps on Harper Fonteneau’s arms.
“Holy Mother of God,” he said softly, and made the sign of the cross as he stared down at the woman on the stairs.
“Where are you?” he asked. “Where are you, Rachelle?”
“I’m afraid,” Laurel cried in that same little singsong voice. “The gators are gonna eat me up.”
Then she started to weep. At that point, Harper began to shake. He didn’t want to go tell Tommy and Cheryl Ann Moutan that their baby girl was dead. He didn’t want to have to recover her in bits and pieces floating in the bayous.
“Sweet Jesus… no,” he muttered, and stifled the urge to throw up.
Laurel flinched, then threw her arms above her head as if covering her face.
“Daddy… Daddy… the water is comin’ over the stump.”
Harper gasped. Wherever the child was, she was in danger of drowning, which had to mean she was somewhere in the bayous. This wasn’t good, because most of the search had been conducted on dry land. He frowned, trying to remember which searchers had been assigned to the waterways, then remembered that Rachelle’s own uncle, Justin Bouvier, had gone there on his own. He turned to the deputy who’d accompanied him into the house.
“Give me your radio,” he said, pointing to the handheld two-way the deputy had on his belt. As soon as he had it, he keyed it up. “Justin… this is Chief Fonteneau. Do you read me? Over.”
There was a crackle of static; then a faint voice broke the silence there on the stairs.
“I read you, Harper. Any news? Over.”
“I’m at the Grove,” he said. “I need you to listen and listen close.”
Justin swiped at the rain beating down on his face.
As he did, a large chunk of a rotting tree came sweeping through the arm of the bayou in which he’d been searching. It hit his fishing boat, causing it to lurch suddenly to the left. His heart skipped a beat as he tightened his hold on the steering arm of the outboard motor, then let the accelerator idle down as he pressed the radio tight against his ear, straining to hear above the storm.
Harper held the radio close to Laurel’s mouth and began to feed her questions.
“Rachelle… can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
Harper shuddered. It was too damned eerie hearing that voice come out of this woman’s mouth.
But Justin didn’t have the privilege of knowing where the voice came from. All he knew was that it sounded like his niece’s voice.
“Rachelle! Rachelle! Are you there?”
When there was no answer, it dawned on him that Harper had not released the key on the radio, which meant no one could hear him talking. Panicked, he grabbed a piece of canvas from the bottom of the boat and then ducked under it, using it as a buffer between him and the rain. Even though the rain was still pelting down, thanks to the heavy canvas, the exterior sounds had been muted. He could hear Harper’s voice and what sounded like Rachelle’s. And yet, it wasn’t Rachelle. If Marcella Campion was still living, he would have known what was happening. But he’d been to her funeral. He’d watched them carry her casket into the family crypt. So who was at Mimosa Grove? Desperate for answers and willing to try anything, he focused on the faint voices coming to him through the storm. He heard Harper’s voice, asking another question.
“Rachelle… can you tell me where you are?”
Laurel shuddered, then wrapped her arms around herself, as if she was freezing.
“In the rain. I’m in the rain.”
“What do you see? Can you tell me what you see?”
“It’s dark. I can’t see nothin’ but the dark.”
“Is there still lightning?” Harper asked.
“Yes. I’m scared. It’s too bright. It hurts my eyes.”
Harper looked down. The woman held Rachelle’s jacket in a wad beneath her chin, as if trying to absorb it.
“Yes, I know it’s bright… and it’s scary… but the next time lightning comes, I need you to keep your eyes open. I need you to look around and tell me what you see.”
Seconds later, Laurel screamed, but she didn’t hide her face. Harper watched her eyes widen and would have sworn that he was looking into the eyes of a frightened child and not the woman lying prostrate on the stairs before him.
“Tell me, Rachelle… tell me what you see.”
“A big cypress tree that’s broke in half, but still growing and… and… there’s a little house on long wooden legs. It looks broken, like the tree.”
Justin’s heart stuttered to a stop and then jumpstarted itself as his pulse leaped. That sounded like Marcus Sweeny’s old fishing shack, and it wasn’t far away. He threw the canvas off his shoulders, checked his compass to make certain he was going in the right direction, readjusted the big searchlight mounted on the bow of his boat, then accelerated carefully.
The wind was at his back now as he moved cautiously through the inky darkness. The rain continued to fall, adding to the misery and difficulties he was facing, but he kept thinking of Rachelle out alone in the storm and knew he would do anything to get her back. He kept the radio close to his ear, listening for more clues as he drew closer to the location of the fishing shack.
Harper’s hands were shaking as Marie slipped past him, only to take a seat on the stairs so she could cradle Laurel’s head in her lap.
“She wearin’ out,” Marie warned as she eyed the pallor of Laurel’s skin and the frantic tic at the corner of her right eye. Even though she understood what was happening and had assisted her old mistress, Marcella, in the same manner over the years, she was still superstitious enough to be made uneasy by the supernatural.
Harper nodded, then lifted the radio. “Justin…
it’s Harper. Where are you? Over.”
Justin waited for a shaft of lightning to illuminate more than the small tunnel of light that the searchlight emitted. When it came, he could tell he was about a quarter of a mile from his destination.
“About ten minutes from the location,” he said. “Over.”
“Stay tuned. I’m going to question her more. Over.”
Justin had to ask. “Who? Who are you talking to?”
“Marcella’s granddaughter. Over.”
The skin crawled on the back of Justin’s neck. Like everyone else in Bayou Jean, he’d known Marcella’s daughter, Phoebe. What he hadn’t known was that she’d had a daughter, or that she was now at Mimosa Grove. Even though he’d grown up knowing that the women of Mimosa Grove had gifts beyond the norm, it was unbelievable to think that she was able to tap in on a lost child miles away from where she was.
“Come on, lady,” Justin whispered, as he took a chance and accelerated through the night. “Guide me to our little angel before she actually becomes one.”
Harper put the radio back to Laurel’s mouth.
“Help is coming,” Harper said. “Your uncle Justin is coming to find you. Tell me if you see a light.”
Laurel lay without moving, but it was her silence that brought their fear to a frantic peak. If she wasn’t answering, did that mean they were going to be too late?
“Rachelle… tell me! Tell me what you see.”
A soft, almost nonexistent moan slipped from between Laurel’s lips, and then she gasped.
“The water… it’s over the stump. My shoes are wet. Mommy gonna be mad at me.”
Harper swallowed around the knot in his throat. God help them all. The water was rising. He spoke quickly into the radio, knowing his panic was evident from the tremor in his voice.
“Justin! You’ve got to hurry. I think she’s standing on a stump or a bunch of logs… she says the water is over her feet.”
The moment Justin heard this, he gunned the engine, despite knowing full well the dangers of running blind in the dark. But if he was too late to save Rachelle, it would be far easier to die than to go back and face his sister without her baby girl.