Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 01 - Dark Bayou (22 page)

***

“Those were his parents in the barn,” I said after awhile. Lucas was driving us back to Lafayette. By the time the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s office had shown up and taken our information, the last sliver of twilight had disappeared from the summer sky. We drove through the darkness with his headlights and a crescent moon to guide us down I-10 East.

“How do you know?”

“Her dress. It was same one she wore in one of the pictures.” I was silent for a moment, my mother’s locket now around my neck as I clutched it close to my chest. “He killed his own parents,” I said, surprised at the indifference in my voice. Lucas noticed and looked at me uneasily.

“It’s going to be okay, Leigh.”

I whispered a chuckle, “How are we supposed to stop a monster like that?”

He didn’t answer me, but I could tell he thought long and hard about how to answer the question. He was just as lost as I was. “Roger said he found an obit on a Walter Savoy of Sulphur who died in 1997,” he said, softly. I hadn’t told Lucas what Clothilde told me about the night my mother died. About how the Dark Man, who I now knew as Walter Savoy, was killed that night, too, by the descendants of Charlemagne’s knights, which included my mother. And now it looked like he wanted revenge, to make sure all of us “sorcerers burneth in a lake of fire and brimstone.” How could I tell him this? He seemed eager to believe in ghost stories, but tales of paladins and ancient bloodlines? Despite the fact that I was supposed to have this great ability bestowed upon me through my lineage, I still felt so powerless to save a little girl from a dead man.

We got back to Clothilde’s just before nine o’clock. Her car wasn’t in the driveway. Alarmed, I ran to the house, unlocked the door and called out, “Maw-maw? Lyla?” I heard no reply, but saw a note by the answering machine.

The message light on the answering machine flashed, and I hit play. The first three messages were mine, asking her to pick up and call me back. The fourth was Cee Cee, saying that she would be stopping by in the morning to bring something over. The last one was Clothilde, saying that she tried my cell phone, but it wouldn’t go through, and that she and Lyla would be spending the night with Miss Ya because she was sicker than she thought. She took special care to add that Lyla was safe with her.

“Everything okay?” Lucas had followed me in the house.

“Yeah. Maw-maw’s staying with Miss Ya tonight. She has Lyla with her. She said she tried calling my cell, but it wouldn’t go through.”

“We probably lost service in some areas out there.” When he said “there,” dread washed over me as I recalled the events of the afternoon and evening. He noticed the look on my face and hugged me tightly. “It’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you or Lyla. I promise.” I didn’t argue. I let him believe that. Truth is I wanted to believe it, too. He released the hug. “You going to be all right here tonight?” I nodded. “Okay. I’ll call Miss Celia and tell her I’m back.”

He excused himself to make the call. I wandered over to the fridge, or the “icebox,” as Clothilde still insisted on calling it. Inside was a casserole dish with a roast in it. It looked great, but I wasn’t hungry. I shut the door and heard Lucas telling Miss Celia, “I guess you’re right. You sure?” A pause. “Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Night.” He followed me to the kitchen as he put his phone back in his pocket. “She said Jon’s already sleeping, and she wouldn’t mind if he spent the night.”

“Was she angry?”

“Not at all. Her granddaughter was visiting again, and she said the two of them wore themselves out playing. They both crashed around seven.”

I smiled, but it quickly turned to a grimace. I let my frustrations out, pounding my fist on the table. “I don’t know what to believe anymore!” He went to hug me, but I shrugged him off. “It feels like I’m losing everyone I love and Lyla is going to be next. Clothilde’s getting older every day, and I can see how exhausted she gets. Everyone keeps leaving me.” I couldn’t stop a few tears from silently rolling down my cheeks.

“Lyla’s still here. So is Clothilde. And Carrie.” He gently took my hand in his. “And so am I.” I let him hug me this time, and he held me tightly against him. I wrapped my arms around him just as tightly. We stayed like that for a few moments before he pulled back, wiped the tears from my eyes, and kissed me very softly. And it felt right. It felt like everything that happened that day had aligned itself to make this moment happen. I kissed him back a little harder. And then we walked upstairs together and into my room.

***

I was afraid to open my eyes. I was afraid it would be like my dream, where, after we made love, I’d awaken to that horrid scene my mind conjured up the night before. But this was different. We hadn’t made love. We simply slept in each other’s arms. I felt more like a lady than I had in a very long time.

With my eyes still closed, I ran my hand along his strong arm that was wrapped around my waist. It felt good, and I felt safe. Behind my eyelids, I could tell the sun was out and it was morning. I felt his body pressed against mine, his breathing slow and steady behind me. I made myself open my eyes.

There was no L.A. skyline outside the window across from my bed. Instead, there was the top of a persimmon tree with a couple of sparrows in it. They chirped at each other, fighting over a spot on a branch. I smiled and shifted my weight a little.

“Morning,” he said, softly. I turned to face him. “Hi.” He smiled at me but then gave me a weird look and asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You were looking at me funny.”

I laughed a little. “I was just relieved to see you there.”

“Who else were you expecting?”

“Never mind.” We were quiet for a bit, and he never took his eyes off of me, not even when he delicately kissed my shoulder or ran his fingers through my hair. I delighted in the way his own hair was a little shaggy compared to how groomed he usually looked. When he was little, it was almost platinum-colored, but it was a nice dirty blonde now. When I thought about all the times we spent growing up together, the times he and David used to pick on me, it felt weird to be with him in this moment. But it was the first time I felt really at peace since I’d been back in Louisiana.

“Do you feel a little better?” he asked.

I groaned, remembering last night’s events. “I was.”

“Sorry.”

I nestled in closer to him. “It’s okay. There’s a lot I have to do, and I just don’t know where to start.”

“You won’t have to do it alone.”

I looked into his sincere eyes and couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else in the world. I kissed him softly and rested my head against his shoulder. “Remember when you asked me if I believe in an afterlife?”

“Yeah. Do you now?”

“I suppose. It’s the only explanation that makes any kind of sense after everything I’ve seen.”

“Always looking to explain things.” He shook his head, disapproving. “Never had much faith, did you?”

“I used to.”

“What happened?”

“It’s just hard to hold onto when everyone you love keeps leaving.”

“That why you left? Why you moved way across the country? You decided to do the leaving for a change?”

I laughed. “I can do without the psychoanalysis this morning, thank you very much.”

He kissed my nose and squeezed my waist. Then that peaceful feeling I had was suddenly broken by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. “Damn! She’s back! Hurry up!” I told him as I hopped out of bed and started throwing on some clothes. He took his time. “
Hurry
!” I hissed at him.

“We’re adults. And we didn’t even do anything.”

I shot him an evil glare. “This is Clothilde we’re talking about.” He understood what I was getting at and hurried to finish getting dressed. We raced downstairs to beat her to the door. We quickly arranged ourselves in the living room, I in Paw-paw’s old chair, and he on the sofa. We waited for the door to open, but there was a knock instead. I looked at him, puzzled. I got up to answer it. Cee Cee was on the other side, a covered basket around one arm, her Elvis purse draped over one shoulder.

“Well, good mornin’, Leigh!”

“Morning.” It took me a second, and then I remembered the message she left last night, saying that she’d be coming over today. “Oh! Um, Clo- Maw-maw isn’t here. She’s at Miss Ya’s.”

“That’s okay. Mind if I wait?” Before I could answer, she stepped inside. “I tell you, I don’t know how much longer I can take that drive on the Basin. It’s—” She noticed Lucas. “Well, hey! Who’s this?” she grinned.

“Um, Miss Cee Cee? This is my friend, Lucas Castille.”

Lucas, always the gentleman, rose to greet her. “Hi, how you doin’?”

“I’m good, my baby. Thank you.” She turned to me. “You know when your maw-maw’s coming back?”

I shrugged.

“Sorry, ladies. I have to get to work. It was nice meeting you, Miss Cee Cee. You take care.”

“You, too, darlin’!”

I gave Lucas a helpless look. He shrugged and said, “I’ll call you later, okay?” He left, blushing heavily.

“I hate to ask,” she said, sweetly. “But do y’all have anything to eat here?”

“Oh! Of course. Sorry, I should have offered.”

“No, no! Not at all! Don’t worry about it. I was just feeling a little weak, and I think something solid would help.”

I made us a breakfast of eggs, toast and sausage. I had to admit that it was delightful talking to Cee Cee. She wasn’t as old as Clothilde, but she was somewhat of a Louisiana historian, nonetheless. She told me stories of New Orleans and old Louisiana politics, stopping every few seconds to laugh. Eventually, the topic moved to her Voodoo store.

“Maw-maw said you have the gift of magic,” I said, cautiously.

“Yes, indeed,” she said, proudly holding her head high.

“And you do this through Voodoo?”

She nodded and then laughed at the worried look on my face.

“Voodoo has received a bad reputation throughout the years, I’m afraid. It’s really a lovely religion that borrows a lot from Catholicism. But I’ve learned spells and incantations in the Voodoo faith that enhance my ability. The ancient Franks had their way of doing their magic and, as the bloodline made its way down to me, my ancestors adapted their magic through Voodoo. And even I do things a little different from how my daddy did it.”

“What can you do? With magic, that is. I mean, do you just say a magic spell and something happens?”

“No. I need to have certain ingredients that are important for the rituals. The magic is in the ritual. It’s a lot of repetition, you see. Kind of like telling the spirits over and over what you want done. Sometimes they a little hard-headed, so you have to keep reminding them.” She laughed at this.

“Spirits?”

“That where you get all your help, from the spirit world. You pray to God, of course, but when you want something to happen sooner rather than later, you can speed things up by asking for help. And, when you need help with something not from this world, the spirits can show you the door.”

“So, do you, like, put curses on people?”

She laughed. “That depend on how you look at it.” She took in the puzzled look on my face. “Yes. I can put a hoodoo on someone. But I don’t.”

“Not even for your enemies?”

She shook her head. “When you judge someone, you playing God. That’s not good for your soul. It make you darker. I seen the sweetest people in the world have dark souls because they choose to use their abilities the way they do. See, when you put a hoodoo, or curse, on someone, the negative energy of what you doing imprints on you and winds up hurting you just as much as it hurts them. I’m sure you heard that old phrase, ‘what goes around comes around?’“ I nodded. “That’s a universal law. It keep everything in balance. No one person is supposed to have control over another.”

“But you
could
put a hoodoo if you wanted to?”

“Yes.”

“On just people?”

She saw what I was getting at and sighed. “No one can curse something that doesn’t have a soul. The Dark Man gave up his soul a long time ago to follow Les Foncés.”

“Oh.”