Passing her end of the steel tub to Gabriel, Anna laughed. “Alby only wants to go get more of his moonshine so he can sell it to the tourists as genuine lake liquor. They’ll be lucky if it doesn’t poison them.”
“Non. Non,” Gabriel protested. “Sebastien made him promise. No homemade stuff. Just the cola out of my garage. You can go with him, oui? Make sure he doesn’t run over my dog. Phideaux thinks trucks are something to play with, especially while they’re moving.”
Anna sighed and watched Gabriel poke fun at his sister, saying something about how the twins were going to give her white hair before she was thirty-five. Don’t tease your sister.
Why not?
She knows all your secrets.
The hood was up on Alby LaGraisse’s antique Dodge. Alby himself was kicking a tire in frustration. “Anna!” he called happily. “You fix. Thank le bon Dieu Himself.”
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked as she stuck her head under the hood searching for something obvious.
“It flooded, and I cannot get it to start.”
Anna’s nimble fingers worked with the carburetor. She looked over her shoulder and saw dozens of people passing by, laughing and talking. Some were in colorful masks, others had dozens of ropes of multicolored beads around their necks, and others had full-blown costumes on. A dozen random thoughts trickled into her mind making it hard for her to concentrate. “Where do all these people come from?” she muttered, half to herself, suddenly understanding why some of the family had difficulty living in the outside world. It hadn’t been like that for her before, and she was still adjusting to the change.
Alby patted her back. He was an older man in his seventies with hair the color of snow, and his eyes the duplicate of hers. “They bus them in from Shreveport, from Dallas, from Alexandria. Oui, some even from Arkansas. I swear I saw a man with a T-shirt that said New York City. I bet he don’t know what to do with a crawdaddy, oui? Probably thinks it’s some kind of strange cockroach.”
“Why don’t they go to New Orleans?” she asked as she worked.
“Because we have a safe area. Designated drivers and family events.” Alby’s voice lowered to a grumble. “Not since I got to sell my own homemade liquor.” He brightened. “But the tourists, they buy everything anyway. And we have the best fireworks show in all of northern and central Louisiana. Oui.”
“How does the family stand the voices?” she asked curiously. Alby’s carburetor was full of sand. “What have you been doing with this truck, Mr. LaGraisse? Four-wheeling in the bayou?”
Alby shrugged. “Non. Non. We only went to the dark side of the forest to get some mushrooms. You know they pay in the city for some of those. Up to twenty dollars a pound. My son, he got the old truck stuck in the sand. I guess he sucked up some sand, yes?”
“Yes,” Anna said severely.
“And the family, they who can’t take the voices in their heads, they aim for the hills, Anna. You’d be surprised what some dirt between you and a big crowd can do. The ones who don’t mind as much, they work the festival while the people are here.” He stuck his head under the hood and looked at Anna curiously. “Sometimes I forget you ain’t from around here. Well, you are but then you ain’t.”
Anna pulled her head out and said, “Try it now, Alby.”
Just as Alby was turning the ignition in the old Dodge, a family passed Anna, and the father asked her where the main tent was located. A father carried a toddler in his arms, and a mother led another little girl behind her. The little girl had flaxen blonde hair, and her face was painted like a ladybug’s shell. She held onto her mother’s hand as if it would save her life. Her other small hand held onto a doll.
Anna pointed in the right direction. “Down this street. It’s on the right, next to the general store. If you hit the band, you’ve gone too far.”
“Appreciate it,” said the father and adjusted the toddler on his hip.
Anna smiled at the family and turned back to Alby. “Crank it again. Once you’ve got the stuff out of— ” She stopped as she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned away from Alby and scooped up the Barbie doll that the little girl had dropped. “Hey!” she called. The mother paused and turned back. “Your little one dropped her doll!”
Anna trotted up to the mother and the little girl and started to hand the doll over but she hesitated. She looked down at the doll in her hand and saw that it was a blonde with its hair swept back, like the girl had brushed it back too often for it to regain its natural style. Dressed in a blue jumpsuit with high heels, the Barbie looked like she had been played with hard, the participant of many an imaginary tea party. Her hair looks windswept. The words popped into her mind. Don’t you fret about Miss Barbie. She done runs and runs and she ain’t never gotten caught by the dawg yet.
“Miss?” said a voice.
Anna’s eyes came back up. The mother and daughter looked at her expectantly. She shook her head with a little snort and said, “Sorry. Got lost in thought there. I was thinking about another Barbie doll I saw recently.”
“Thank the lady,” commanded the mother.
The little girl took the doll and held it protectively. She hid behind her mother’s leg and said faintly, “Thank you.”
“Uh, sure,” said Anna.
Then Alby got his Dodge started and whooped loudly.
When Anna looked back the family was walking away, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to think.
Chapter 21
Saturday, February 21st
The most superstitious of folk will look around before retiring for the night to see if anyone will cast a headless shadow; should anyone cast such a shadow then it is said that they will die before the next New Year’s Eve.
Anna opened Gabriel’s single-car garage door. It slid up its tracks with a squealing complaint that attested to its advanced state of rustiness and general lack of use. She made a mental note to fix it for him. In the driveway, Alby was backing up the truck so they could easily load the cases of Coca Cola. She found the light switch just as Phideaux wandered around the side of the house and affably nosed her ankle with a wet schnozzle. “Hi Phi,” she said off-handedly. “You’re a good dog, aren’t you?”
The dog sat on his haunches, brought his front paws into the air, and begged prettily. Anna had taught him one trick, how to beg for Milk Bones. Phideaux was smart only when it came to the issue of food. He knew exactly where Gabriel kept the Rubbermaid container of dog treats; in the garage right next to the washer and dryer where the animal couldn’t nose at it until he managed to open it, as he had done before. Anna popped the lid open and gave the dog one of the treats. Phideaux took the prize in his mouth and vanished around the corner of the house to consume his delicacy in private.
Alby lowered the tailgate of the truck with a loud clank. The cases of coke were sitting on the side of the garage. Anna lifted one up and slid it into the back of the truck, watching as Alby did the same. Minutes later they were done and Alby said, “Come on, gal. They already started cooking, and I’ll be damned ifin I miss a meal in my old age.” He chortled. “A little more cholesterol ain’t gonna kill me off before I hit eighty.”
Not really listening to him, Anna had an image stuck in her head. A windswept Barbie doll was talking to her, whispering wretched things into Anna’s ears. She shook her head slowly and focused on Alby. “You go on without me, Alby. There’s something I need to do.”
“What’s that?” Alby asked curiously, his hands on the door of the Dodge.
Anna grinned weakly. “You know, female stuff.” On the spur of the moment it was the only excuse she could come up with, and it sounded feeble even to her. On the inside of her mind, she was reinforcing her thick garage door. Over the past weeks she had become accomplished at keeping private what she wanted and what she needed to keep private. But she was preoccupied, and she didn’t want anything to slip out to Alby, or to Gabriel for that matter. “I’ll walk over when I’m done.”
r /> “Sure, Anna.” Alby chortled again. She watched him drive off and turned back to the garage. The single light in the garage cast long shadows in the driveway and revealed all the junk that Gabriel had delegated to the garage. There were a few old chairs, a black and white television, a table saw that hadn’t been used in years, often-painted lawn furniture, and nearer the front, the stuff he used regularly, a lawn mower, some ice chests, and equipment for his boats. On one wall was a rack of shelves with various and sundry items. Tools that Anna didn’t recognize littered one shelf, and she knew these must have to do with the boats’ maintenance. On the bottom shelf was a large cardboard box with an open top.
Anna looked at it and pulled it out. Her muddy, ripped jeans lay on top of the pile, just where Gabriel had said he had put them. She hesitated and then put her hands on the jeans, pulling them out. She didn’t know why he kept them. It seemed to her that they were almost useless as a rag, but Gabriel tended to be frugal, recycling all manner of items when he could. She wasn’t interested in the jeans themselves, only in the item that she had found in the mine.
Anna had caught sight of something next to the rail she had stumbled over, but the passageway had pulsated again harshly, almost making her disregard what she’d seen. One hand had snagged the object up as she brought herself into a loping run. She had stuffed it into one of her pockets and concentrated on making tracks and she had forgotten about it, lost in the mindless dash away from the thing that haunted the tunnels of the mine.
Her hand shaking, Anna found the pocket of her jeans and slowly pulled the object out. Gabriel hadn’t bothered looking into the pockets of the jeans. Her hand was closed around it, and for a moment she didn’t dare open it. When her fingers slowly opened, she exposed it to the meager light inside the garage. It rested on her palm like a viper waiting to strike its prey.
It was the head of a Barbie doll, its windswept hair pushed away in a permanent style that had been forced upon it because it had been fastened on the front of a Peterbilt truck. It was a blonde-haired Barbie that Anna had seen before. She didn’t need to see the rest of its body attired in a polka-dotted dress or the single shoe that had hung from one tiny foot to know where this Barbie had come from.
This was Dan Cullen’s Barbie, the same one he had attached to the grill in the middle of the steel dog’s fangs about to chomp down on her little plastic body.
Anna shuddered and knew that someone was walking over the place where she someday would be buried.
When she had been rescued from Dan Cullen, Anna had assumed the man had gone to jail. She had wished him all the hell of being in such a place. But no law enforcement officer had ever come to question her about her experiences, and she hadn’t given it a thought. She had never even wondered why. Gabriel had revealed the grudging truth that Dan Cullen had been turned over to the police but anonymously. Through some blunder on the police department’s fault, the twisted individual had made bail and apparently fled.
Only after Dan Cullen’s bail had been met did the police pay attention to the photos that had been left with him and start looking around his property for evidence of the crimes. There they had found remains of his victims. The police were trying to discover which murders might be attributable to Dan Cullen. However, he was still missing and actively being sought. His name had been added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.
It was so stupid that she felt like she would choke on the emotion. Anna forced a rising sense of anger and guilt down her craw. If she had gone to the police initially, would Dan Cullen have been able to make bail? Would he be out to prey on other young women?
Anna closed her eyes on the Barbie doll with wounded eyes that were gazing up at her sightlessly. Hadn’t she wished Dan Cullen to the worst level of hell where he would burn forever? The family had taken his fate into their hands themselves. The doll was in the mine because that’s where Dan Cullen was now, where his truck was; the tunnel was more than large enough to get a tractor-trailer down into it. Had the mine been used as a convenient depository for something they didn’t dare face? Could Dan Cullen have exposed them?
It came to Anna in a flash. It wasn’t exactly Dan Cullen they had been afraid of; it had been her and how they had been able to rescue her from the man. In her drugged state, they didn’t dare risk allowing her to speak with law enforcement who would ask uncomfortable questions and threaten the family’s position. Remember, outsiders are not to be trusted. Anna is an unknown quantity. Wait until the elders get her measure. Besides she’s the other half of Gabriel.
Anna opened her eyes again and stared at the Barbie doll. The little girl’s dropped doll had prompted her memory. Suddenly she knew that the repeated, odd dreams of escaping the earth, clawing for some unknown thing, were come true, were about to come true. And what Gabriel had said was going to come true as well, she would be returning to the earth.
Anna stared at nothing at all.
There wasn’t a better time to go back down into the mine than now. The festival occupied everyone or else they had gone away to wait until the people had cleared from the town. No one would miss her, except perhaps Gabriel, and he was occupied with the boat. He was taking a group of tourists out on the Belle-Mère to watch the fireworks from the deck. She was supposed to meet him later but he wouldn’t worry until much, much later, if she didn’t give him a reason to be concerned.
All Anna needed was a few hours. She dropped the Barbie doll head on the floor of the garage and looked for the items that she needed to take with her. She didn’t even need Sebastien to open the gates of the mine for her. Anna had her own private entrance, the same one she had used to come out.
No matter what was waiting for her at the bottom of the mine, no matter if it were some great hulking creature that moved in the shadows and threatened her, Anna had to find out what was hidden there.
* * *
Anna easily found the sign that invited tourists to come back soon to Unknown. Its lights were brilliant as it illuminated the large appealing words on the billboard. She had walked the distance in twenty minutes with her pack over her shoulder. Cars passed on the road. A few who had obviously already made merry honked cheerfully at the solitary pedestrian far from the festivities. She had faded into the shadows after that, wishing to be inconspicuous. Most of the people who were coming to the Mardi Gras festival were already there, only a few stragglers were dragging in for the fireworks and the crawfish boil. The tourists weren’t an issue, but any family members might wonder why Anna St. Thais was off by herself on a festival night.
In the distance Anna could feel Gabriel talking with someone. He was drinking a beer and laughing at a joke that Mathieu Landry was telling him. Gabriel was a different man than the one who had first grabbed Anna after she had woken up. She now realized that it was the concerned man that had relentlessly sought her out, intent on rescuing her from her abject horror, who was the man she cared about. His desperation that other day had masked his confusion. Inside he was good and caring. Her conclusion made her wonder who else was privy to terrible secrets.
Anna? Gabriel began to sense her interest, and Anna retracted the thoughts, sliding away before he could perceive any of her intentions. She arranged herself accordingly, pulled a flashlight out of the pack, and slithered down into the earth, allowing it to swallow her up.
* * *
A niggling feeling of alarm cast its shadow over Gabriel, making him glance around uneasily as if he could immediately find the cause. Mathieu was helping him load some supplies on the Belle-Mère. Camille was rounding up their children. Cecily and Jean Bergeron were talking to some people on the dock. Everyone that he cared most about was here with him, except Anna.
Anna? She didn’t answer. It didn’t mean anything in particular. He knew that she probably heard him, but her closed nature went hand in hand with her upbringing. She wasn’t used to sharing all that she was with a group of strangers. She shared with Gabriel, and there were times when she shut him out. He di
dn’t hold that against her, although it was an irritating trait to which he’d have to adjust. He knew that it would become easier for her and that in time she wouldn’t have the fear of closeness with the rest of the family.
But that isn’t quite it, is it? Gabriel frowned. She had that wall up, the same mental one he wished a thousand times that he hadn’t told her how to construct and the one that prevented him from understanding what she was doing.
Sebastien said something to Gabriel. Then the older man tapped him on his shoulder. “What’s up with you, cher? You ain’t heard nothing I’ve said.”
“The sodas are coming, Sebastien,” Gabriel said. “Alby and Anna went for it about forty-five minutes ago. If Alby didn’t make a pit stop at the German beer tent.”
“Well, they started singing beer songs about an hour ago,” Sebastien said laughingly. “If Alby heard that, then, well, there’s no accounting for what might happen.” He looked up. “Well, look at that. The moon’s full. You know what they say about people when the moon is full?”
“Uh-uh,” Gabriel muttered. He looked around, and his eyes scanned the crowd. He could tune out the voices that trickled across, but he couldn’t find Anna. Then a little bit of something came to him, slipping out beneath her imaginary door. The smell of dirt was heavy in his nostrils as if he had dug his hand into the earth and held it up to his nose. And it was dark, far darker than the night around Gabriel, with colored lights flashing from the tents with the games and the floodlights that had been set up for the band, with the bright light of a full moon shining down upon the surface of the lake.
“They say the really crazy ones start to howl,” finished Sebastien, and he howled just to show Gabriel.
Gabriel focused on the older man. “If you see Anna, you tell her to talk to me, oui?”
“Oui,” replied Sebastien in a nonplussed manner. “Sure, I tell her. But,” he winked at Gabriel, “it’s that full moon. I’m a-telling you. Oww-whooo.”
Gabriel stared at Sebastien for a long moment before turning away. What now, Anna? What are you doing now?