Veiled Eyes

  There weren’t any dates on it, but the stone was smooth and not aged. The letters on it were as clearly cut as if the stone had been set the previous day. Anna tried to restrain feelings of disappointment and dismay into manageable components that wouldn’t cause her harm.

  “She was an outsider, you know?” said a polite voice. It was a woman’s voice, and Anna jumped before spinning to face whomever it was.

  Chapter 13

  Saturday, December 20th

  The old ones mutter that a body should spit three times on the ground before crossing a stream of running water after the sun has set. Thus, spirits’ and witches’ evil powers will be turned aside.

  The woman standing behind her was small and capped with a head of white hair. Hardly larger than a mythical fairy, she didn’t weigh more than ninety pounds and was ethereal in appearance. Perhaps in her sixties, her spine was arched at the base of her neck, showing the insidious progression of osteoporosis. Despite that, she looked at Anna with level eyes.

  Green eyes. Anna noticed them last. The color of grass after a lush rain, just as unique as the gold in their own way. Not one of the family? “Who are you?” she asked softly. “And how did you know about Arette?”

  “Anais was the name she gave you.” The old woman motioned at the marker. “It was her mother’s name.”

  Anna’s mouth gaped at the name. It was a French variation of Anne, pronounced ah-na-ees, and her own name had been purely coincidental. The nuns at the orphanage had preferred traditional Catholic names, but there were far too many Marys and Catherines to name another child the same. One of the sisters had Dutch ancestors and didn’t mind catering to a personal whim.

  Glancing over her shoulder at the memorial, Anna realized something else. On the birth certificate the mother’s name was Arette Tuelle, not Arette Tuelle Debou. Her long-dead mother had admitted no marriage, not giving her grown-up daughter any kind of lead to follow. For whatever reason.

  “My name is Anna now,” she told the other woman.

  “Of course it is,” she proclaimed cheerfully with an amused chuckle. “The winds whisper it. Goujon mutters it under his breath in the night and him. Him of course. He knows it, too.” She lowered her voice to a calculating whisper. “He dreams about you.”

  “If you knew my mother…” Anna said after a pause. Does she mean Gabriel? Or the one who wants to judge her? Or are they one and the same? But there was something she wanted to know more than the other... “I’d like to hear about her?”

  The old woman with the curved spine gathered an ivory-colored, hand-crocheted shawl closer around her shoulders. “I guess you would, Anna. You can call me Meg.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a family name. They seem to prefer things of French origin.” Surprised, Anna glanced down at her right hand for a moment. It suddenly burned with pain. She could have sworn something had slashed open her palm, a slit that went from one side to the other. She fully expected to see a gaping wound there, but the flesh was only angrily red. After another moment, the pain began to fade, and she looked back up at Meg.

  “Meg Theriot,” she completed the name with a wrinkling of her upper lip. Meg noticed Anna’s lingering glance at her hand and didn’t mention it. “Marguerite Theriot, that is. But I’m not one of them. My mother was an outsider too. I have her eyes.”

  * * *

  Meg’s little shack was the same one Anna had noticed before sitting in the lee of the bluff. It had two rooms. A living room with a little kitchenette showed its economy of space, and another open door led to the bedroom. An iron bed with a wedding ring quilt was visible.

  Anna looked around the small room. Meg had photographs of her children and her grandchildren hanging on the walls and sitting on the few tables. There was a prominent photograph of a man in an Army uniform.

  “That,” said Meg, pointing at the service photo, “is my husband, Laurant. He died in Vietnam. They gave him a medal after he was dead, you know. They said he was a hero. I expect Laurant had a little tickling of something or other before he joined our Father. Truth, he was a good man.” She touched the black-framed photograph reverently. “You know about people sometimes.”

  The photographed man had the same black hair, shorn closely to his head in a traditional buzz cut for the military, and those self-same gold eyes. He had a large white smile. Anna thought he seemed wistful.

  “The family,” Meg went on. “They make good soldiers. Good lawyers too. Damn fine doctors. Most of them good with people. But they feel too much. Some of them lock out the world because they never learned how to shield themselves. That’s why many of them stay close to the lake where our spirit lies, close to Goujon.”

  “Do they hold it against you?” asked Anna. “You said your mother was an outsider. Do they not trust you because of it?”

  The older woman lit a pipe. The smoke was pleasantly fragrant, and she thought she detected a hint of apple. When Meg had the pipe going to her satisfaction, she added, “La, people have been letting their thoughts out of their heads, hmm?”

  “You didn’t come from here, originally,” Anna deciphered. Meg’s accent wasn’t the same. It was true she had some of the phrases down, but most of the time she sounded more like Anna herself, than other members of the family.

  “Nope. California. My mother’s people lived there, and that was where I lived. My father didn’t like it. Too many people. Too many voices in his head. He left her when I was three years old. I came here when I turned eighteen.” Meg’s eyes went to the solitary window in the shack. It looked out over the lake. “I suppose you know exactly what I mean when I say the lake was calling me. I never wanted to leave the lake.” She abruptly looked away. “But there are my children here too. That’s where I was on Wednesday night when you found Gautier, you know. Visiting with my children’s children. My little blessings.”

  “And what am I?” Anna was aware of what Meg was trying to tell her. Meg hadn’t been in the shack when Anna had ploughed down this trail. Meg had been away, unable to help her.

  “An unknown quantity,” judged Meg. “They don’t know what to do with you. Sure, you a mechanic and all. Good one from what Al Bonin says. You done saved him $500 from some fancy dealer up at Shreveport. He says you’re the best.”

  “Just a short in the fuel pump. They wanted him to buy a whole new one.” Anna shrugged. She had heard them in her head. Loose tongues might have fit if they had been speaking. Loose thoughts are more apt.

  Meg chuckled as she blew smoke out at the ceiling. She pulled a chair out from her little dinette set and carefully sat down. “Loose thoughts,” she repeated. “That’s about right. You got ‘em too, little girl.” She waved her hand at the other metal chair.

  “So I gathered,” Anna said dryly and sat down.

  “Maybe that’s why some people don’t want to talk with you.” Meg took the pipe out of her mouth and rapped the bowl on the table. “My mama knew what I was. She told me about the feelings. Although I was eighteen before I heard someone else speak to me up here.” She tapped the side of her head with her index finger. “Scared me right to death. I thought I had the devil himself talking to me. Instead, it was just Laurant.”

  She sighed loudly. “Oh, I miss him. Knew the moment he died too. Felt like I was dying inside. Had a funny sense of humor, he. Tall and strong and handsome and as good as an angel. Made alligator stew like a chef from New Orleans.” Meg put the pipe down on the table and looked at Anna thoughtfully. “But you’ll learn.”

  “Learn?” Anna repeated doubtfully.

  “Sure. They say you’ve gotten a good grip on it already. When you want to, ain’t no one can get inside.” Meg looked pleased with herself. She picked the pipe back up and checked the tobacco. Then she struck a match and lit it again. “Most folks around here are plenty kind. Some well, they the ones you need to avoid.”

  “You mean the wall inside my head. My little garage door,” she said.

  “Garage door,” Meg chortle
d. “That’ll work. Yes, they say you learn too fast. Your gift is too strong. Many of them already suspect you’re the issue of the family and an outsider. It’s the nature of where you grew up. They say some young lad fooled around with an outsider, and the girl became pregnant. It’s happened before. Then the baby was sent to an orphanage. It’s not what the family would have done, given the choice. But the gift doesn’t develop for some time so such indiscretions keep private until the powers start to come up. It’s most powerful in the strongest bloodlines. It’s not that you have them or that you’ve returned, it’s whose daughter you are.”

  “I thought Gautier was…”

  “Never,” answered Meg firmly. She blew a smoke ring and then blew another littler one that passed through the first one. “Gautier didn’t have the gift. Some families don’t. There are those who look down upon them, but again, most of the family is kind, and it doesn’t matter to them. They’re still family. But everyone with even a little trickle of the gift within the state of Louisiana heard you the night you were kidnapped. Lord Almighty, not that one of them blames you, but you were like a woman with a bullhorn standing a foot away from our ears. Only the elders have that kind of gift. They’re frightened of it.”

  “Of me?” Anna was astonished. “What could I do to them?” But she was more astonished by what she had just learned. Her mother had been married to Gautier Debou, and this woman was saying that Arette must have been having an affair with someone who had a powerful bloodline; the resulting pregnancy was the beginning of her life.

  “It’s not you, exactly. It’s what you represent. And perhaps what that representation has caused. Someone has broken the rules. Someone has slaughtered one of our own. And worse, someone has done it without perception from the rest. Fear is what binds the family together. Fear and love. Don’t forget it, Anna.”

  “I don’t think I understand you,” Anna persisted. “Why can’t I…”

  Meg put her pipe down. Her green eyes blinked. “I’m real tired now, child. I’ve got to take my afternoon nap to make sure my old bones keep on working like they’re supposed to.” She hesitated, and her vivid green eyes sought out the bruises and half-healed scabs on Anna’s wrists. “Why don’t you come back and visit me? Some folks call me a conja, a conjuror. They say I can heal things. Maybe I can help you out. We can deal in trade. You get something from me. You fix my son’s truck, maybe?” Her green eyes became calculating. “Or you might just bring me some money, hmm?”

  Anna realized she wasn’t going to get anything else out of Meg Theriot. She stood up and said firmly, “I’ll be back. I want to know about my mother.”

  Meg raised herself up as well, showing for a moment that she was merely an aging woman with infirmities. She went to the door and opened it. “Some things are best not talked about,” she said. “Just a kindly warning, dear.”

  From Meg’s door Anna could plainly see the clear-cut area of forest where she had surmised the salt mine was located. It showed evidence of re-growth. Pine trees dotted the land, demonstrating nature’s intent to reclaim the area. A road wound its way to the edge of the bluff, where there were more gates and fences and an enclosure that butted up to the edge of the hill as if it was one with it.

  “Is that the old salt mine?” Anna said. She could see that once flat-bottomed barges had made their way up the narrow bayou to a crude dock. There, workers would have loaded salt into them to be taken away for refinement at another location. The dock was crumbling into the bayou, and if she followed the length of water out, the lake showed its rainbow-colored reflection beyond a seemingly impenetrable wall of giants.

  Meg looked toward the mine. “Yes. Laurant once worked there. So did I. Closed up not long after he died. The owner gave me a pension. Maybe he don’t want me talking about no secrets. The pension still pays regular-like.” She took a breath. “Of course, it don’t buy what it used to, but with social security and such, a body don’t got a problem.”

  Anna stared at the mine entrance and felt a surge of uncomfortable emotion. It was a dread that crawled up her back with extended claws, an animal with sharp little talons that bit into her with each movement. It was a heavy weight that pushed at her soul. It was something that called to her to come and investigate and at the same time told her to run away lest she see something she didn’t dare to recognize.

  Meg said, “That place isn’t for exploring. Some of the shafts have flooded, and only our Father who art in heaven knows when the rest of them will go.”

  “Why would I want to go in there?” Anna asked off-handedly, speaking with a little more bravado than she felt. It’s just an old mine. Nothing there but salt and lake water. She mumbled goodbye to Meg and started down the bluff. She would go back the way she came and cut down the trail off the bluff, avoiding Gautier Debou’s house.

  * * *

  Despite the weather being moderate, Anna couldn’t shake the feeling of cold that tickled the tips of her limbs. She wrapped her arms around her body and hurried down the path, taking a left at the first intersection and heading back up another part of the bluff. The pace warmed her, and soon she could feel her heart beating fiercely with the effort. She looked back over her shoulder once and saw Meg’s shack disappear behind the thickness of the pines and oaks. After another moment, Anna might as well have been utterly alone in the forest.

  No one is ever alone in the family.

  Anna froze. It was the same thought pattern, the mental voice that had warned her that she would be judged. Like Gautier. She shut her eyes and knew that her guard hadn’t been let down. She had been focused on it for hours. It was almost becoming second nature with her. Someone had slipped by it nonetheless. Who are you?

  There weren’t any words in reply, just another swirling eddy of aggravated irritation that sharply denied her. She wasn’t supposed to be able to respond to him, whomever he was. Could it even be a she? Anna didn’t know. It’s just as likely, compared to Aurore’s and Camille’s. But what do I know?

  Then there was silence. Anna shrugged it off. It wasn’t an overt threat but perhaps a warning. But what was she being warned about?

  * * *

  Anna stopped at Camille’s house and found Mathieu chopping wood outside. The twins were piling the chunks into neat little stacks close to the kitchen door where they could easily be retrieved. Each stack had a tarp over it to prevent rot and invasion from insects. She found Camille inside making dinner.

  “Red beans and rice,” Camille said happily. “With cornbread made in an iron skillet, oui? And okra, pan-fried, of course. Followed by peach cobbler. We will put meat on your bones, if it’s the last thing we do.”

  “I wasn’t trying to—” Anna bit off what she was trying to say. She hadn’t come to the Landry home for supper. She had wanted to continue reading the book she had found in the house before. The book that had an interesting history about the lake and the people who had chosen to live there for so long. There was a chapter in the book about the salt mine that she particularly wanted to read.

  “No arguments. Food is good for the soul.” Camille whipped eggs in one bowl, adding them to the cornmeal and flour in another. She turned the oven on with her other hand. “Is that not so, Gabriel?” She smiled secretively. “Supper in half an hour.”

  Anna hadn’t heard Gabriel come up from behind her. His hair was wet from a recent shower, and his shirt showed bits of moisture. There was a fresh cut on his jaw from where he’d nicked himself shaving. His handsome face didn’t give anything away as he studied her in turn, noticing the way the bruises on her wrists were beginning to turn yellow and green and the wind-swept state of her short hair. She abruptly looked away from his keen gold eyes and said to Camille, “Can I help you?”

  “Mais, non. Too many cooks in the kitchen are bad luck. We would eat the beans and Chicken Little would begin to scream that the sky is falling.” Camille put a heaping spoonful of butter into a huge iron skillet and thrust it into the oven. She returned to anoth
er skillet on the stove, removed the lid and stirred a redolent mix of red beans and rice. “Go outside. Talk. Have a beer. Mathieu keeps some foreign stuff in the fridge in the garage. He thinks I don’t know, but oh, we know everything, don’t we, Gabe?”

  Gabriel uttered a noncommittal grunt.

  Anna was about to ask about the book on the history of the lake when she noticed something else. There was a thick bandage wrapped around Gabriel’s right hand, looped over his thumb, with thick padding was centered on his palm. It was the same place on his palm as the searing pain she had felt after she first had met Meg, the pain that she had noticed and then slowly went away. She said, “What happened to your hand?”

  His eyes flickered to his palm. “Fishing lure from a silly tourist ripped it open. That’s why we had to come back a little early. Not that they minded much. They’d already caught their limit. They were throwing the ones they caught back in the lake.” Gold eyes caught hers. Gabriel said, his voice lower, “What is it? What’s wrong now?”

  “Nothing,” Anna muttered. She bent her fingers over her palm surreptitiously since she could still feel the residual pain there. Her palm felt as though it had been cut open. What is this connection I have with him? Of all people. Why him?

  Gabriel’s eyes glittered. He had caught that. I don’t like it much either, chère.

  Anna didn’t say anything else but spun on her heel and went to find the beer.

  Chapter 14

  Saturday, December 20th – Sunday, December 21st

  An old superstition charges that if a lady’s hairpin falls out of her hair, then someone is thinking about her.

  They don’t trust me. Anna stood with her arms crossed over her chest. One hand grasped a bottle of Corona. She watched the twins play with a Frisbee. Gabriel’s dog, the cinnamon-speckled spaniel, actively and cheerfully tried to get the toy from them. Because of their secrets. Their gifts. My gift.

  She unfolded her arms and took a sip of beer. It wasn’t bad as far as beer went. Screw the beer, she thought resentfully. I’ve felt like an outsider all of my life. And now when I’ve got this one chance, I still feel like one. One of the twins tugged the Frisbee from the dog with a shout of triumph.