Anna felt suddenly uncomfortable, but she decided to go ahead with what she wanted to say. “I wanted to thank you both.”
“You’re one of us,” said Sebastien. He swiped a lock of white hair from his forehead. Aurore merely crossed her legs delicately at the ankles and waited.
“I don’t know if I can fit in here.”
“You’ve only been here a week, chère,” said Aurore, “half of that unconscious. It’s hardly enough time to make a judgment.”
Anna sat up straight in the wrought iron chair. “There are people here who believe I’m an…outsider.” She stared in the direction of the lake. This was hard enough to say without looking into their eyes. “I catch the thoughts sometimes.”
“I think they’ll never accept me,” Anna finished. “I’m not one to give up without a struggle, but I can’t change other people.”
Sebastien sipped at his café. He put the cup down on the wrought iron table and folded his hands in his lap. “I shall tell you a story.”
Anna looked around, and a faint smile flickered across her lips. Sebastien was an innate storyteller. Every problem most likely had a solution in a story, including hers.
“Oui. A story. It ain’t a happy story,” Sebastien said firmly. “A sad story, for the heroine, she dies.”
His tone was innocuous, but he had Anna’s complete attention. She said, “Okay.”
“There was once a beautiful young mamselle. Black hair, as black as the lake, as shiny as the blackbird’s wings, and you’d think you held a bit of the night in your hand if you was to touch that lovely hair.” Sebastien smiled mysteriously. “Her eyes were golden. Like the coins of long-ago kings, minted to celebrate their majesty and forgotten in the passage of time. And her lips.” He chuckled to himself. “Well, men wrote songs about those lips. Full as pomegranates, like berries from the vine. Lush, curving, seductive.” His voice lowered for the last word, and Anna’s smile increased minutely.
“A wondrous girl then,” she submitted.
“Oui!” answered Sebastien. He slapped his thigh. “Beautiful. La jolie femme. The men buzzed about her like she was Helen of Troy, Aphrodite, or some goddess who had done come too close to an Earthly realm. She was much sought over, yes?”
Anna nodded expectantly.
“But the mamselle, whose name was Lisette, was already in love with a fine young fella named Varden. A handsome young man, rippling with muscles, fine of feature, with a steady income to boot. A man with a home already, waiting for its mistress to come to it.”
“The salt of the earth,” said Anna dryly.
Sebastien shot her a suspicious look and then cracked a smile at her. “What woman would not want such a man? Nonetheless, they were in love. And they were to be married.” He waited for Anna to say something, but she wisely kept her mouth shut.
“One day Lisette traveled to Shreveport to have her wedding gown fitted. She was so happy about her upcoming nuptials. But when Lisette drove alone to Shreveport that night, she did not come home.” Sebastien’s voice suddenly lost the playful tone and became serious. “She was kidnapped by men who had been told of the family’s powers. They drugged her with opium so that she could not call for help and took her far away.”
Aurore said softly, “You see, distance and drugs do temper the gift. Else, we would have known of your existence a decade ago.”
“Oui,” agreed Sebastien. “These men traveled by train to places like New York City and Chicago, and the girl was shown in sideshows, like an animal, forced to play little mentalist tricks to survive. We was told by Varden, her beau, her lover, later.”
Anna was frozen. Reminded by her own ordeal, she could not help the dread that flowed through her body at the thought of what the young woman had endured. It was at that moment she knew that this wasn’t some made-up story to impart a moral to her, but something that actually had happened to the family. “What happened?”
“She grew ill. Sick with shame and fear,” Sebastien said. “She died in the ‘40s, and Varden spent five years tracking down each one of the men who had kidnapped her. They didn’t want to tell him at first, but they did because the young man, who was crazy with rage, would have it no other way. Then he found out who had betrayed us, and that was the worst indignity. One of the outsiders we had trusted had a loose tongue and liked to brag about his friends with the unique gifts. At first, they didn’t believe him, but well, Lisette was persuaded to show them the extent of her powers. Varden brought his beloved back to be buried in the cemetery behind the church, where she lies even now, ever a reminder to us.” He paused, full of sadness and regret for what might have been.
Shivering, Anna clutched her shoulders.
“Varden returned to tell us. He told me this once when I was twenty years old, and he still mourned his lost love. You could see the rage in his eyes decades later as clear as day. He killed the outsider who had betrayed us. L’ami, our trusted friend, with the careless lips, he vanished into the lake. Only Goujon knows where his restless spirit lies.” Sebastien took a deep breath. “That is why we do not trust outsiders.”
“And Gautier?” Anna couldn’t prevent the question. “Whom did he trust?”
Sebastien cursed suddenly in French. “It’s not a warning to you, Anna. It’s only the reason why we have to be careful. We cannot hide from you the way we can hide from the outsiders.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “There’s so much to understand that I don’t. Surely, you understand that I’m confused by what’s happened.”
“Of course you are, chère,” soothed Aurore. “We only want you to understand why we don’t trust them. Why we didn’t trust your mother. Why, look what she did to you? She took you far away from your roots and abandoned you to an orphanage?”
“And then she came back here to die?”
Aurore shrugged. “No one knows.”
“I promised Phillippe and Pierrot I would work on their go-cart with them this afternoon,” Anna said abruptly. Too many questions boiled in her mind, questions she wanted to demand answers for and questions she knew would not be answered if she did.
“I shall give you a ride,” said Sebastien, standing up. She couldn’t read his expression, and Aurore was calmly sipping her café. Neither of them seemed particularly bothered by the chain of events, and Anna wasn’t sure what to think.
Meg Theriot, went through Anna’s mind. Meg might know the answers. She must be the one who told Gautier about my return. And she might be the only one who will talk to me.
* * *
After helping the twins complete the go-cart, Anna watched them load it up in the back of a truck to take it to a place where Mathieu said it was safe to drive. Each eager child promised to wear a helmet and take it easy on the curves.
Anna closed the garage door and looked in the direction of the general store and the dock where Gabriel’s boats were located. Of course one was gone, but she didn’t know which one was which or if Gabriel was out on the lake with some clients.
She felt restless and called Jane with an update. Jane was concerned but accepting. “You got the bus ticket? You could be here for Christmas!” she said to Anna.
“Yes, Jane,” Anna answered obediently. “I got it. But I can make a little money first, and oh yes, I need to replace a few things I lost in my wallet. Driver’s license, library card, blood donor card, you know, important stuff like that.”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” said Jane immediately.
“Better sarcastic than crying,” replied Anna.
“Why would you be crying?” asked Jane suspiciously. “What have they done? I’ll come up and kick some—”
“It’s not that,” Anna said quickly. “I still feel like the one on the outside.”
“Well, sweetie, of course you’re going to feel like that for a while, even if you found your parents.”
“I found one.” Anna’s tone was flat, and Jane understood immediately.
“You mean one’s dead,” said Jane.
&nbs
p; “Yes. My mother. I saw her marker. Funny, I almost tripped over it.”
“You what?”
Anna told Jane everything that had happened so far, leaving out only the parts about the family’s gifts. She knew it sounded odd to Jane, but for some reason, she wasn’t sure if Jane would think her still sane if Anna told her the complete story.
“And this Gabriel?” said Jane.
“Intense. Brooding. Right out of Jane Eyre.”
“I always thought you read that damn gothic stuff too much.” Jane suddenly chuckled. “So you think your father is there.”
“He’s one of them. I guess all I have to do is figure out which one.”
“Probably still married,” suggested Jane, “which would explain why he doesn’t want to come forward.”
Anna didn’t say anything.
“And the dead guy,” added Jane. “Whoa. That creeps me out. He warns you off. Says he was married to your mother and then someone kills him before you can question him more. What’s up with that?”
“I wish I knew,” sighed Anna.
“Keep calling me, Anna,” Jane requested solemnly. “I actually said a prayer this morning for you and lit a candle at St. Benedict’s. You know I hate going to church.”
“Bad luck to go to church without a hat on,” said Anna. It was clear in her mind suddenly, even over the distance between them. Jane had gone to Mass without a hat, and she had been thinking about it because it had bothered her.
“How did you know I didn’t wear— ” Jane bit the question off. “How do you always know stuff like that? I never could keep anything from you.”
After a few minutes more, they said goodbye and hung up, leaving Anna still feeling restless. She was going to spend some time with Meg Theriot even if it killed the older woman to answer questions. Anna paused and thought about what Gabriel had said. The conja woman. Meg Theriot does anything for money. Money is all she cares about.
Anna supposed Meg could have been hinting for a handout. She dug around her apartment for the money that Jane had wired her and took out a hundred dollars.
Anna set off for the bluff once more. She couldn’t find the trail she’d taken before, so she ended up trudging up the dirt road that led to Gautier Debou’s house. As she passed the little cottage, she saw that the doors and windows had been boarded shut and a seal put on the front door.
Trembling as she passed the cottage, Anna quickly made her way past and into the forest. The trail was as she remembered it, smooth and worn. How many times had Gautier made the trip to visit the marker of his deceased wife? How many times did it take to wear the trail so flat?
When she came to the part where she would take the fork that led to Meg’s shack, Anna hesitated and went to the marker instead. It was just the same, situated underneath the large oak with Spanish moss wafting in the breeze. However, someone had placed flowers in front of the marker, fresh red roses that Anna could smell as though someone had cut them from the garden just a moment before.
It made her think of an old superstition about roses. What is it? Pick a rose on Midsummer’s Eve and preserve it under paper.
But someone else was thinking about roses recently, Anna thought. Roses were out of season, and the flowers had been brought to this place to mark the passing of a woman who died long ago. What had Arette been like? Did she like roses? Did she ask too many curious questions that upset the family’s equilibrium? Had one man taken her fancy after she married Gautier? And why had she borne his child, me, in silence?
It was implied that Gautier was a loner, something of an oddity in the family. Perhaps the pair had married swiftly, and Arette had turned to someone else for the comfort she desired. Anna shook her head sadly.
Anna gave the roses a lingering glance, cut from someone’s own garden, the color of blood. She would remember those roses for they could provide her with a clue. Find the bushes where these were cut, and she would find someone who still thought about Arette. Or perhaps it had been Anna’s return that had prompted the mysterious person to remember his dead lover. Whichever, he could help Anna. If Gabriel was correct about Meg, then it could not be her. If Gabriel was right, Anna might soon get some answers.
Meg, she thought suddenly. There was a presence in her mind. It weighed upon her conscious like an anvil. She felt the soil slipping up around her ankles. It was in her head, the immediate pressing feelings of another person.
Then she remembered Gautier’s warning, “You’ll be sucked down. Drowned in a place where you cain’t escape. It won’t be no giant catfish who wolfs your rotting flesh down, it’ll be stuck in a tomb of sandy soil with all those others who done gone before.”
Just like Arette?
The presence was still there. It warbled at Anna’s thoughts like a little broken bird, touching her, begging her. Anna opened up her mind and tried to be reassuring. The person was afraid. Not as afraid as Anna had been, but garbled, muddled somehow, like he or she had been drugged.
But it’s not drugs, thought Anna. There was a throbbing pain at the base of her skull, just above the spine, where someone had violently hit her. Not me. Hit her. Who?
The person wasn’t begging for help but instead, was trying to find her way out of the blackness. It enveloped her entire being, and there was nothing in the darkness. The slick feeling of dirt working its way up her ankles and the moisture soaking through pantyhose made her want to cry with distress. She was alone and confused.
Anna shuddered, closed her eyes, and focused. A shiver of dread went through her as she tried to comprehend. She knew this person. She had spoken with her.
Meg. Alone in a black place, hurt, scared. Her ankles are sinking into the silt.
Anna thrust out a thought like a dagger striking home, Where are you, Meg?
The answer was dim, bewildering. Graveyard. Anna? Beware, Anna. Beware.
Then Meg was gone. The heavy weight had vanished from Anna’s mind.
Anna began to run. She made the turn toward Meg’s shack, thinking that something was desperately wrong, that Meg might have fallen, or something else might have happened, the person who had targeted Gautier had also targeted the conja woman.
Did I do this? Did I bring death here with me? she thought desperately.
The shack was empty. The door was open, remarkably like when she had come to knock on Gautier’s cottage door. Anna looked inside, checked the privy out back, and returned to the front door, looking around frantically. She finally yelled, “Meg! Meg!”
No one answered her.
Anna stood alone for a moment, listening to the sound of a jetliner passing over far above, and then called for Gabriel. Whistling man, she thought, reverting back to the way she always thought of him. Whistling man. Answer me!
Anna, came Gabriel’s response. There was agitation in his thoughts, as he caught hers. Now what the hell is wrong?
Anna blanked out for a moment. She looked around her. Inside the house nothing was overturned. Everything was in its place. No pipe burned in its holder. No hot coffee steamed in its cup. No pictures were overturned. There was nothing wrong here. No overt signs of a struggle, nothing to prove that anything was wrong. What could she possibly say to Gabriel to convince him that something was going on with Meg? And why hadn’t he felt it anyway?
Anna?
I felt Meg, she answered slowly.
The conja? His thought was derisive. So what?
Something’s wrong with her.
Anna. The tone in the thoughts became consolatory. You’re still getting used to your gifts. Perception is different in our minds. Emotions are sometimes exaggerated. Try to remember that.
Okay, she snapped back at him, suddenly angry. I’m imagining it. She slammed shut the garage door in her mind and shut him out.
An— his thought, cut off in mid-stream, was aggravated.
Standing on Meg’s stoop, Anna suddenly saw something she hadn’t noticed before. In the cleared area of forest that was the salt mine, the gate wa
s open. Its metallic links glittered in the sunshine, showing its position. The huge double doors of the main building were open, only blackness showing from inside. From this vantage she could see it unmistakably.
Anna thought about it. Meg was in a dark place without light with her feet trapped by dirt and sand. What had happened to her? Had she become fuddled and wandered into the mine by mistake?
Anna didn’t even remember moving. Moments later, she found a little-used path that led to a gate on this side of the cleared property. The latch was open, and the padlock that probably secured it was missing altogether. She opened it and went to the main building with its large doors slid open on their tracks. Inside were the accoutrements of a typical working office. There was a place for men to stamp their timecards before they went into the mine and a place for foremen to get coffee. An old rotary phone sat on a desk covered with dust. Then there was another set of doors that led deeper into the bluff. These had been left standing open as well. Left open for something or someone? She noticed that the padlocks were unfastened and hung open on the door. Someone with a key had passed this way. Certainly, there were reasons someone could legitimately be in the mine, but why would Meg follow?
Anna leaned into the open door, staring into the blackness that concealed the tunnel’s direction and yelled, “Hello?”
Only the echo of her own words answered her.
Finally, she rummaged around in the little building and found several miner headlamps. The batteries were still working. Despite that, she dug around in a desk until she found a pack of extras. She stuck the package in her pocket and walked into the mine.
Chapter 16
Sunday, December 21st
They say that no man or boy is to whistle, under pain of chastisement, while underground in a mine. The whistling will frighten away the ore or bring the roof down upon their very heads or bring the devil up to see what the matter is.
Anna. Now what is she up to? Gabriel couldn’t help the turbulent thoughts that cascaded through his mind like violent waterfalls. She was nothing like any woman he’d ever known. Full of doubt and uncertainty, she was also stubborn and willful.
But then she wasn’t raised with the family. He’d dreamt of her for years. Throughout that time a smattering of her thoughts had trickled out of an intermittently dripping faucet, tantalizing him, maddening him. It had made him bitter so that when Gabriel was finally faced with her, he had allowed his frustration to get the better of him.