The Tangled Bridge (3 page)

Ethan caught up with her and took her arm. “You alright?”

She nodded.

He asked her, his voice soft, “Is this what you saw when you were in the briar last night?”

“No. I didn't have anything to do with it!”

“Of course not. I didn't say that.”

He was looking at her carefully, as though he wasn't sure what kind of question he really wanted to ask. And she didn't know how to explain.

She said, “Not much happened, there was just that bird call. I was following the clicks. I don't know why.”

“Alice used the word ‘hunting.'”

She said nothing. What could she say?

Ethan asked her, “Do you have any idea what's really going on here?”

Madeleine glimpsed the flop-soled shoe again, shaking her head. The streetlights went out up above on the hike-and-bike trail. Light enough now.

“All I know is, that poor guy lying there wasn't the intended victim. And that woman Alice, she's not really the one who killed him.”

 

three

NEW ORLEANS, NOW

SHALMUT HAD STAYED WITH
Alice. Ethan had waited with both of them while Madeleine went to the Circle K and asked the manager to call the police. They arrived shortly thereafter and like moths chasing the blue-and-white lights, neighbors gathered to watch. Now the police were interviewing witnesses, with various sections of the woods cordoned off and Alice in handcuffs sitting in the back of a cruiser. Madeleine took it all in. She knew that Alice had been used like a puppet to commit that murder, but she didn't know what to do about it.

Madeleine toyed with the idea of consulting the river devil. She didn't want to think of her as Severin anymore. In fact she didn't want to think of her as a “her” anymore. This was a river devil. An “it.” Thinking in terms of name and gender made it feel human. River devils weren't human.

“Ya daddy woulda been proud a you.”

It was Shalmut, shuffling up to pat her shoulder.

Madeleine gave his hand a squeeze. “Proud of what, Shal? I haven't done anything.”

“You coulda just let it all be. Most wouldn't a bothered with folks like us.”

“I'm not so sure about that.”

He said, “It's true. People give up on us, I know. We give up on ourselves so who else gonna care? Bible says the Lord helps those who help themselves.”

Madeleine looked at him and then over at Alice. Both had trouble with booze. Maybe other substances, too. On the street, most folks were addicts or had mental disorders.

Shalmut leaned his back against the truck and put his hands on his thighs. “You ain't tryin to save us or sweep us away. For you it ain't like givin up cuz you one of us. Used to be. Ain't tryin to be disrespectful in sayin so.”

“I know, Shally.”

“You talk to him ever? Your ole man?”

Madeleine gave him a careful glance. Some people believed she could commune with the dead. Or predict the Super Bowl score or any manner of things. All her secrets had come out last year during Zenon's murder trial. Seemed like admitting to talking to river devils would be scandalous enough, but the public liked to attach other ideas to that, thinking her a psychic of many stripes. Or a crackpot. She'd set up a Web site and accepted the help of a few volunteers (angels, as she liked to think of them) to sort through the hundreds of letters and e-mails. The messages were pretty much categorized according to what the inquirer wanted; most just wanted to tell their own stories.

“I talk to Daddy, Shal. But maybe not in the way you mean.”

He looked offended. “Whatchoo talkin bout, ‘the way I mean.' I'm talkin about a quiet moment and you say a little prayer. That's what I mean. Put a flower or a nip of something strong on his stone pillow.”

But he added, “Course if they's any sonofabitch gonna come back from the dead and raise the roof out here, it's Daddy Blank.”

Madeleine laughed, and Shalmut guffawed so loud it drew glances from the officers. He tipped an invisible hat to them.

She grinned. “Why don't you stick with us for a while, Shal? You could stay with Ethan, or I could ask around, see if I can find you a room for a few days.”

“That's awful kind a you, Darlin, but I'm OK.”

“Then how about a ride somewhere?”

“Naw, I don't think I need to see this through. You alright now.”

“Did the police finish up with you already?”

He shrugged. “They don't need to talk to an ole man drinks too much. Ain't seen nothin ain't heard nothin. I think they want to talk to your doctor-man next.”

He pointed, and Madeleine looked. Ethan was standing with a detective who'd already questioned her and whose name she'd already forgotten. The poor guy was wearing a suit jacket in this heat.

For the police, this was a cut-and-dry case. Madeleine wished her friend Vincent was here. She'd chance telling him a bit more about what she knew. Vincent wasn't a detective but he was on the force, and he might be able to help.

“Too hot to be wearin…” she started to say to Shalmut, but he was gone.

She looked around, but no sign of him. Just the neighborhood and the boat sales lot and cars passing on Leake Avenue, an unfortunate name for a street that ran along a levee. Neighbors had satisfied their curiosities and were turning back to their homes. There were some cyclists along the hike-and-bike trail.

Down below, pitcher plants adorned the bog with late season blooms. Madeleine thought about all the mosquitoes that had been buzzing near that soft, damp earth, and wondered how many of the insects had followed the pitchers' scent and into the drowning traps. Ants, flies, and even small frogs seemed to fall for the attractive illusion the pitcher plant created, inviting its victims deeper into its belly. Occasionally a stoic beetle might bore its way out of an already weakened plant. But usually, once the pitcher had its prey, it kept it.

Madeleine felt eyes upon her. She didn't even have to look up to know that the river devil, Severin, was there.

*   *   *

TO MADELEINE'S EYES, SEVERIN
looked like a little girl. The voice was light and cherubic, and so at odds with what it was. Severin tapped fingernails along the pickup as she walked around the bed, grinning in that manner that looked more grimace than grin. Bare feet, bare body, silver-gray and filthy.

“You called for me,” Severin said.

“Did I?”

But of course Madeleine hadn't. In fact she'd never summoned the river devil, ever, and likely never would.

She said in her mind, “I didn't summon you. I was just thinking about you.”

But Severin said, “To think is to summon. It seems you wish to see about last night. As to why it was such.”

Madeleine looked over toward the policemen and the remaining onlookers. No good consorting with Severin in public. Madeleine would look like a lunatic. Even if she spoke only in her mind she'd lose track of the physical world around her—not respond if someone spoke to her, exhibit wild expressions and posture.

“No. Later,” Madeleine said.

“A thing such as this. You think it could wait, so?”

Madeleine swallowed. Severin was right. If she waited she might lose track of whoever or whatever was behind Alice's behavior last night.

Severin slipped a small, grimy hand into Madeleine's, and guided her to the pickup's door handle. Madeleine pulled the handle and climbed inside the truck.

Or rather, her
physical
body did.

She settled back onto the seat and closed her eyes. Tugged. Feeling the light wobble, prying her ghost from her body.

Madeleine left her shell behind and followed the river devil back in the direction of the Mississippi, where otherworldly thorns were already starting to stretch, and blacken, and curl into tunnels.

 

four

HAHNVILLE, 1927

PATRICE LAY IN HER
bed waiting for the four o'clock rooster. The night was still night, and it was a quiet one. Even Marie-Rose was silent. No noise but the clock ticks. Patrice counted them, waiting for Sunday to emerge.

The lovely thing about Sundays was that they were perfect—perfect in the ways of God, not man. On Sundays, the heart went to grace. Of course, that didn't prevent the river devils from coming around. Patrice had once hoped it might. Was a time, Patrice and her sister and brothers were not permitted to go to church—their mother had forbidden it though Tatie Bernadette had secretly told them about Lord Jesus. Mother had never allowed church because she had a black heart and wished to lead her children away from God, away and down into the depths of the bramble world, that the children might learn shadow magic to serve her.

But now, their mother was gone. After Papa had died, Patrice had used her skills to banish her mother to New Orleans. The children had been going to church for many months now.

And yet Patrice recognized the ugly irony of it: The river magic that was an abomination in the eyes of God was the only thing that kept their mother at bay. Patrice knew this had to stop. The river magic had to stop. The children had to find a means to escape their mother without using river devil ways. And to do that, Patrice knew, they would have to leave Terrefleurs. They would have to hide.

Today in church, Patrice would have to pray for courage to do this. She didn't know how to leave Terrefleurs, the only home she'd ever known. She was the oldest at fourteen; Guy and Gilbert were both eleven; and Marie-Rose, the youngest, was only seven years old. Where would they go? How would they feed themselves?

They could try living off the land. At least the boys were good hunters. Guy was, anyway. Frog gig, fishing pole, slingshot, it didn't matter; he never came home empty-handed. And since Papa died, Guy had also begun using the rifle. He was good with it. They'd all started calling him Trigger. If you were just talking about him, it was Trigger. But if you were talking about the twins together, it was Guy and Gilbert.

Patrice rolled over and looked at the rumpled heap of bedding where her little sister, Marie-Rose, was sleeping. Marie-Rose always tossed and turned through the night, sighing and muttering and laughing, sleeping about as peacefully as a toad in a dragonfly swarm. She even sassed in her sleep. Usually, when Patrice lit the lamp by the four o'clock rooster's crow she'd find Marie-Rose with her feet on her pillow and her head buried deep under the quilt. Were it not for Patrice's insistence that Marie-Rose sleep with a kerchief wrapping her hair, the child would awake each morning with so many snarls on her head she'd look like she was starting to cocoon.

Patrice smiled, listening. Still dead peace. Still too early to wake her. Where was that rooster?

On Sundays, the children rose and washed and donned their best clothes—Trigger always needed a little nagging but the others got themselves ready and were taking breakfast by dawn—and they all went to church with Tatie Bernadette and Francois and the other Christians on the plantation. They sang and clapped and praised and praised. A far cry from pigeon exercises.

The rooster crowed.

Patrice drew up on her elbows. It wasn't right.

The crowing hadn't come from the four o'clock rooster. This one was different. One of the later ones.

It was crowing a second time as Patrice reached over to the bedside table and lit the kerosene lamp. The room glowed to wakefulness. A tiny speck of brown on Patrice's pillow, brown like blood, and her hand went to the back of her neck. A broken welt there. Probably a bug bite that she'd scratched in her sleep.

She looked to the mantel clock and caught her breath: 5:30! An hour and a half later than it ought to be.

Patrice threw aside the quilt and scrambled to her feet.

Tatie Bernadette was staying with a sister and was to meet them at the church, which meant that Patrice was to help make breakfast this morning. She now only had an hour to bathe, dress, and make breakfast for all the workers.

“Marie-Rose,” Patrice started to say …

But her sister's bed was empty. The quilt lay balled in the middle of the bed. Straps dangled to the floor. Rosie hadn't been strapped in last night. There hadn't seemed any need.

Patrice pulled a wrap over her shoulders and opened the door, heading for the pantry, and saw Gilbert.

He said, “I know, Treese, it's late. The second I heard that other rooster I knew you'd be in a fit.”

“Where's Marie-Rose? You see her?”

“Naw. What happened?”

Patrice just shook her head and adjusted her wrap.

He said, “You go ahead and start getting ready. I'll look for her.”

“What about Trigger?”

“I woke him up.”

“
Got
him up?”

Gil shrugged but did not reply. Which meant Trig was probably still sleeping. Gil opened the pantry door, stepping out to look for Rosie. Drizzle out there. Not rain. Not full rain. Patrice hadn't even heard a pitter-patter the whole time she'd been lying awake.

She hurried to the men's parlor and flung open the door. “Trigger!”

He was sprawled facedown on his bed, looking like he'd lost a brawl with the linens. He groaned but did not move.

Patrice grabbed a tail of sheet and yanked. Trig thumped to the floor with no protest and no resistance. He did manage a whimper.

She said, “Starch up. It's late.”

“Honey, why you got to be so hard?”

She left him to it and rushed off to get ready.

*   *   *

WHERE HAD ROSIE GOTTEN
off to?

The girl might have gotten a start with chores, or maybe she'd just gone to get something to eat. Gilbert would find out.

Patrice washed and dressed and tried not to think too much about it as she made it to the kitchen house and started breakfast. No biscuits this morning. They'd get eggs and coffee and porridge from last night's leftover cornbread. Milk, too. If someone had done the milking.