Hidden Jewel

"Let me come around and try it," he said. I slid over, and he got behind the wheel. "Might be flooded." He kept his foot down on the accelerator and turned the ignition. It churned and churned and then suddenly sputtered and started. "Let's see how bad you're hung up in this ditch," he said and put the car into reverse. Then he accelerated. The car lifted and fell, lifted and fell. He shook his head. "I don't know. We could rip something out if we force her."

  "I've got to get to Houma, monsieur. It's a matter of life or death."

  "Ain't it always?" he muttered and looked at me. "You sure you're old enough to be driving?"

  "Oh, yes. I have my license right here," I said fumbling for my purse.

  "That's all right. I ain't the police. Your folks know you're out in this weather?"

  "I'm trying to get to my mother," I said.

  He nodded. "All right. I'll try something. I got a chain in the truck. Give me a few minutes to hook it up to your car and I'll see if I can tug you over the ditch here."

  "Thank you, monsieur. Thank you."

  He smiled at me and shook his head. "Women drivers," he muttered and got out. I waited. The rain didn't ease a bit. I saw him working, seemingly oblivious to the downpour. I was sure he was soaked to the skin. Finally he tapped on my window.

  "Just hold the steering wheel steady. If she comes up and out, turn to the right so you straighten up, okay? Got it?"

  "Yes, monsieur. Thank you."

  "Don't thank me yet," he said. He ran back to his truck. I waited, and then I heard the chain tighten and I felt the car move back a few inches at a time. As it lifted, I did what he told me to do, and moments later I was free. My heart beat with joy instead of fear.

  "Okay," he said, returning to the window. "You're out. If you're going to continue driving in this storm, you had better keep it slow, understand?"

  "Yes, monsieur. How can I repay you?"

  "Send me a thank-you card," he said and rushed away.

  "But, monsieur . . ."

  I waited. He got into his truck and drove off, beeping his horn as he went by. I never even got to know his name.

  Minutes later I was back on the highway, driving with exaggerated care until the rain eased. It slowed to a drizzle, and then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. I chanced accelerating, feeling more confident as I put more miles behind me and the road looked drier and drier. Even so, traveling along highways with trucks and cars whizzing by and so few lighted houses made me nervous. If something happened to me, Mommy would never know and Pierre would never get well, I thought. Daddy would be left alone and would surely die, too. Just the thought of all this tragedy brought stinging tears to my eyes.

  A half hour or so later I saw the clouds had broken up. Stars were visible, blinking their promises. It warmed my heart, and I felt even more self-assured. The horrible accident that had begun my journey became just a memory. When I drew closer to Houma, however, I realized I had forgotten the exact side road Daddy had taken to bring us to Cypress Woods. I slowed down and studied the roads, but they all looked the same now. Desperate, I decided to stop at the first shack with lights on inside. This journey that was supposed to take me about two hours had already taken nearly three. A house appeared on my right, so I slowed down and turned into the driveway.

  As soon as I got out of the car, two gray squirrels scampered up a nearby cypress tree, their sudden movement making me gasp. They peered down at me curiously from the branch over my head. I laughed at them and walked up a gravel path to the gallery of the shack.

  It was a paintless wood-frame building with orange stained screens on the windows. Some windows had shutters, some didn't. The yard was cluttered with used automobiles, washing machines, and damaged pirogues. The gallery had square columns that were barely holding up the tin roof, and the first step on the short stairway was broken. I hadn't picked the best place to stop for directions, but I wasn't sure how far away the next one was and I didn't want to get any more lost than I was. So I drew closer.

  Zydeco music was coming from inside, and through the opening in the batten plank shutter, I saw a man playing a harmonica, another playing a washboard, and a third playing a fiddle. There was the sound of a woman's laughter and then someone shouted, "Laissez les bon temps rouler"--let the good times roll. More shouting was followed by more laughter and the sound of someone dancing on the plank floor. This close I could smell the heavy aroma of a seafood gumbo.

  I hesitated to interrupt the festivities, but when I turned around and looked at the dark surroundings, the trees with the Spanish moss draped like ghosts, the fireflies like sparks in the night, and the absence of any traffic or people, I felt I had no choice. I stepped up to the door and knocked, too softly at first and then hard enough for the people within to hear.

  Someone shouted. The music stopped. I knocked again. Moments later a man in just a pair of pants and suspenders came to the door. He had a heavy thin line of hair running down the center of his chest, which was spotted with pale yellow freckles. He was barefoot with toes that looked as thick and as long as fingers. His black hair was disheveled, some strands so long they reached the tip of his nose. He looked as if he hadn't shaved for days and never shaved the hair on his neck that curled over his collarbone. He just stared out at me.

  "Anyone there, Thomas?" A woman demanded.

  "Yes," he said.

  Suddenly there were two little girls behind him, both in sack dresses and both with hair that looked as if it had never been cut. It reached below their shoulders. They gazed at me with large, curious dark eyes. Another, shorter man appeared, smiling widely, and then a tall woman, stout with rolling pin arms, pushed in between them. She had a chubby face with a double chin and large dark eyes.

  "Well, whaddaya lookin' at, you two? It's just a girl. Whatcha want, missy?"

  "I'm lost and I was hoping I could get some directions, ma'am."

  "Lost, huh? Lookie what we got here, Jimbo," she said, pushing the shorter man back so that an older man with bushy white hair could come to join the curious group. He was the one playing the washboard. "She says she's lost."

  "Where you goin'?" he asked. There was gray stubble on his chin and a light gray mustache.

  "I'm looking for a place called Cypress Woods," I said.

  "Cypress Woods!" The first man smiled, revealing gaping holes where teeth should have been.

  "You related to the Tates?" Jimbo asked.

  "No, monsieur."

  "Well, Cypress Woods is the Tates' place," he said with narrow, suspicious eyes. The woman nodded. The group was joined by two more men, another woman, three older girls about sixteen, and a boy a little younger.

  "You lookin' for one of them oil riggers?" the woman asked in a disapproving tone. She folded her arms over her bosom and straightened her shoulders.

  "Not exactly," I said.

  "Not exactly? What's that supposed to mean? Not exactly?"

  "I'm not coming here to meet a man," I added. "But someone who works with the oil riggers has information I need."

  "That so?" She looked like she didn't believe me. Why was it so important for them to know every detail before they would give me directions?

  "Tates don't live there, if you're looking for them," Jimbo said.

  "I'm not looking for the Tates. Listen," I said with a deep, impatient sigh, "I lived there once." I realized if I didn't give them more information, I might not get any out of them. "But I'm not related to the Tates."

  "Lived there?" He looked at the woman. "Don't say?"

  She narrowed her eyes, too.

  "You related to the old traiteur lady?" she asked. "She's too young to be Catherine Landry's granddaughter," Jimbo said shaking his head.

  "You her great-granddaughter?"

  "Yes, ma'am, I am," I said.

  "Well,I'll be. Yeah, she looks somethin' like a Landry would, don't you think, Jimbo?"

  "That she does. They was good-looking people. Buster be happy to hear about this. He's been bulling aroun
d about it for years now."

  "Do you know how I can get to Cypress Woods?" I asked, not hiding my impatience now.

  "Sure. You go down here about hundred yards, see, and then you make a left turn, hear? Then you follow the road to the first fork. Turn left and follow that. It will take you to Cypress Woods, hear?"

  "Yes, monsieur. Thank you."

  "Buster ain't gonna believe this," the woman said. "She looks like her mother, don't she?"

  "Buster ain't gonna believe this," Jimbo agreed, nodding. They all just stared at me with big eyes, making me feel like a ghost.

  "Thank you," I said and hurried back to the car. When I looked back, I saw they were all still standing there gaping out at me. I hoped their directions were accurate. I drove slowly. These side roads were even darker than the road that took me close to Houma. The cypress trees loomed tall and thick, their branches twisted and turned above me. The reflected

  illumination of my car headlights made some of them look like skeletons. Something furry ran across the road, and when I made the last turn, an owl swooped in front of me, its wingspan so large it took my breath away. With my heart pounding, I finally turned up the driveway toward Cypress Woods and the oil wells. It had been more than three and a half hours since I had spoken to Jack Clovis. I wondered if he was still here.

  The great house rose out of the night as I drew closer and closer. Its windows were dark, but some of them were like mirrors reflecting the movement of trees and bushes. The building radiated its emptiness in the silence that surrounded it. Only the wind stirred the loose shutters and brushed the tops of the weeds and tall grasses that grew unchecked along the sides. It looked much more abandoned and forsaken without the sunlight glittering around it. Now it was a house occupied only by shadows. As the clouds passed over the stars, those shadows shifted and twisted behind the windows and over the gallery.

  I had an empty feeling in my chest as I gazed at the great mansion that had once been filled with song and laughter, good food and good friends, a place of joy and life in which my mother had created wonderful works of art. Now it was a grand tomb without a body, all the voices long gone, their echoes absorbed by the vast space.

  And all of my childhood fears suddenly swept over me. I was afraid to turn my head and look at the oil rigs. My heart skipped a beat and then raced. Something luminous in the darkness radiated in waves over the field between the house and the swamps, going in and out of focus. Maybe it was just a reflection, but to me, for the moment, it looked like the face in my nightmares. I gasped as it seemed to draw closer and closer, floating toward me. A flutter of panic made my heart skip.

  "No!" I cried, shaking my head. I accelerated up the driveway and turned left toward the office trailer. A tiny light burned on the door, and I saw some dull illumination through the window. I pulled up quickly and got out, hugging myself. It was far from cold. If anything, the humid, hot air should have made me sweat, but I had a chill in my spine that put icicles over my heart. I hurried up the steps to the door and knocked. There was no answer.

  Oh, no, I thought. Jack gave up on me. I'm out here all alone. Something croaked in the grass to my right. I heard scurrying along the gravel. When I looked back toward the house, I thought I saw a thin veil float down from the upstairs gallery. Whatever it was, it disappeared in moments. I knocked again, harder. When no one responded, I tried the doorknob and discovered it was unlocked.

  I stepped into the trailer. There was a desk to the right covered with blueprints and other papers, a telephone, and a copy machine. Behind it was a small kitchen. To the left was the living area and there, sprawled out on the sofa, his feet dangling over the arm of it, was Jack Clovis, sound asleep. I closed the trailer door and stood there for a moment, embarrassed, not sure what I should do next. Fortunately, he finally sensed my presence. His eyelids fluttered and then opened. The moment he saw me, he shot into a sitting position and brushed back his hair.

  "Oh, sorry," he said, rubbing his cheeks vigorously. "I guess I fell asleep."

  "I'm the one who should be sorry," I said. "I took so long to get here, but I got into an accident just outside New Orleans, and then I got lost for a while."

  "Accident? Are you all right?" He stood up and buttoned his shirt.

  "Yes, I'm fine. I just slid off the road into a ditch, but a truck driver helped me."

  "Oh. Good." He looked behind me. "Isn't your father here too?"

  "No," I said. "I came by myself."

  "Yourself? Oh," he said without asking any more questions.

  "Have you seen anything since we spoke?" I asked quickly.

  "No. I watched the house for an hour or so, too. There were no cars. I don't even know how anyone would get here, except . . ."

  "Except what?" I said.

  "Except through the canals, of course. It was too dark to go down there and check. You want something to drink--cold water, juice?" he offered moving toward the small kitchen.

  "No. I'm fine. I'd like to go into the house immediately and look where you saw the light."

  "Sure. Let me get us a couple of flashlights," he said and went to a cabinet. "I really didn't mean for you to come up here so late. Tomorrow would probably be just as good. Does your father know you've come?"

  "He doesn't know yet, but I left him a note. It's all right."

  Jack nodded, but he looked skeptical.

  "It's very important that I find my mother quickly. My brother needs her desperately," I said.

  He stared for a moment, his eyes softening. "I understand. Okay, let's go, then." He opened the door for me, and we stepped out. "Might as well drive over to the house," he said, nodding at my car. We got in and I drove over, describing how bad the rain had been at the start of my trip.

  "Didn't get much here," he said. "That's the way these summer storms are. Sometimes we get them bad and you don't and vice versa."

  We got out of the car and walked up the steps to the gallery. He flipped on his flashlight and I did the same. Then, we entered the house. Please, I prayed, please let Mommy be here. If I found her, I would take her directly to the hospital. In hours we could be at Pierre's bedside.

  The small amount of illumination our flashlights provided elongated the shadows and made the rooms and corridors look deeper than they were. Furniture draped in sheets resembled spirits waiting patiently to be reanimated, and the silhouettes created by our flashlights slid across the walls and ceilings like phantoms gathering around us. Our own footsteps made the floorboards creak. Our shoes clicked over the tiles, a small sound amplified in the emptiness.

  "The light was upstairs," Jack said. "Be careful."

  He led the way up the grand staircase. The steps groaned under our weight. It had been a long time since anyone had walked up or down regularly. I felt a rippling sensation on the back of my neck, as if someone had stepped up behind me. I paused and spun around. As we were moving forward, the darkness, pushed aside by our beams of light, was rushing back in behind us. I decided to stay as close to Jack as I could. When we reached the landing, he directed me to the right and we entered what I knew was Uncle Paul's bedroom.

  "I might be wrong," Jack said. "But I'm pretty sure the light was in here. I counted the windows from the end of the house. If there was someone in this room, that person was standing about here." He moved to the window. "The light lingered awhile and then grew smaller. My guess is that the person moved deeper into the house, away from the window. I called and called, but no one responded. Could have been a prowler or a burglar, as I said," he added.

  "There isn't much here for a burglar to steal, is there?" I asked.

  "Well, there are good furnishings, works of art, bric-a-brac, kitchenware . . sure, there's good loot, especially for some of these swamp pirates. We don't have urban crime, but we do have some lowlifes meandering about the canals, breaking into other people's shacks. This place is so far out that it's not easy to rob, but desperate people do desperate things."

  Our flashligh
ts were like candles. They threw a glow over our faces as we stood talking.

  "Why would your mother come back here by herself in the middle of the night?" he asked. "You obviously thought she would or you wouldn't have come. I don't mean to poke my nose where it don't belong," he added quickly.

  I shook my head and bit down on my lower lip. If Mommy was in the house, she would have heard us, but I couldn't be sure she would let us know she was here. I had no idea what state of mind she was in at this point.

  "I told you about my brother's death and how upset my mother was, but I didn't tell you that my mother blamed herself for the tragedy. She went to a voodoo mama and was told to enact certain rituals. The next thing we knew, she had left to do something else mysterious. She sent a letter telling us she wouldn't be coming home for quite a while, if ever. We suspected she had returned to the bayou and found something she left in the shack where she and my great-grandmother lived when my mother was a little girl."

  "And then she lived in this house after she married Paul Tate," he said.

  "Yes."

  "So you think she's coming back here to perform some voodoo ritual?"

  "She's returning to wherever she thinks she did something that might have put a curse on us. I'm sure there's some ritual that has to do with driving away evil spirits," I told him.

  "You don't believe in any of that, I take it," he said. "No."

  He nodded thoughtfully. "I'm really sorry for your troubles."

  "It's gotten worse. My little brother, the one who's in a coma, has become very sick. The psychiatrist treating him thinks he believes my mother blames him for my other brother's death because she doesn't go to see him. He doesn't want to live anymore," I concluded sadly.

  "That's terrible."

  "So you see why it is so important for me to find my mother and get her to come home."

  "Yes, I do. I'm sorry I didn't try harder to find whoever was here. You want to go through the rest of the house?"

  "Yes," I said.

  He reached for my hand. "We'd better be careful. This place has been deserted for a long time. I don't know what to expect."