The Tangled Bridge (38 page)

Gaston jerked her upward in the water and slapped her face. “Stay awake!”

She tried to cough but what came out was mostly liquid, and it coursed through both her mouth and nose. She felt it sting her sinuses. Seemed impossible that she might have fallen asleep. Her chest contorted and spewed again, then made an actual cough. Her lungs burned.

“Lady, you still full capable of drowning even with briar gills,” Gaston said.

She looked at him but saw him only through ghosting spots of darkness. She was too weak, too tired. Behind him was what looked like some kind of a barge. She fought to keep her eyes open.

He pulled on her elbow. “Come on, now, I can drag you a little in the water but I can't get you up out of it.”

She made herself cough, and in that way she stayed awake as Gaston dragged her toward the structure. Several rafts and pirogues were tethered along with the barge that was actually, upon closer inspection, a floating pier. Her jaw was shaking, shivering, as was her spine.

He took her arms and lifted them onto a wooden raft. “You got that? Hold onto it now. You got only one more heave-ho then you done. On a count a three, swing ya leg.”

Her body felt like it was made of lead. This was not leftover sleep from scratch poisons. She was ill. Seriously ill. Feverish.

“OK now, one…”

Gaston had his arm over the floating pier. He reached down and pulled her by the belt loop so that her legs were surface-level.

“… two…”

She closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate on the one single movement she had to make.

“… three!”

She jerked her hips as hard as she could but she only managed a small lift. Gaston grabbed her leg and continued her momentum to force it up. She caught the lip of the raft with her foot.

“You got it, you got it. Lift yaself up.”

Madeleine squeezed with all her might, but she could go no further.

“Hold on.” Gaston pulled himself up onto the raft and grabbed her leg.

The raft started to tilt from the back and he had to lie flat to prevent it from flipping. This meant he could use only his upper body to pull her the rest of the way out, his hand hooked over her knee.

“Again. One, two, three.”

This time the rest of her body lurched out of the water. She lay flat, heaving, and he caught his breath, too, sitting with his elbows over his knees.

“God almighty, Miss Madeleine, y'ain't makin it easy on me.” He made the
kee-he-he
sound, and despite herself, Madeleine smiled.

Her body was now shivering hard even though she was also sweating. She realized, too, that there were tears of exertion, not just water, rolling from her eyes. And yet she felt strangely giddy.

He said, “Awright, yer majesty, you just lie there on your puffy pillows while I drive this here carriage.”

She wanted to sass back but even if she could think of something witty her teeth were chattering too hard to speak. The raft was moving. Gaston propelled it with a pole.

Swamp trees ringed an area the size of a football field, and they were at the goal end where the pier jutted out. On the inside of the ring was a group of structures. Dozens of them. Most looked like houses up high on stilts. But then Gaston turned down between two of the houses and Madeleine could see storefronts deeper inside, where the passage between the houses formed an aquatic alley. It seemed to be an entire floating village.

Severin was seated on a rooftop near the entrance to the alley.

Gaston whispered, “Remember, we're like ghosts.”

 

forty-eight

NEW ORLEANS, NOW

IN THE EARLY MORNING
light, the room at the Motel 6 looked gray. Ethan hadn't slept. Bo and Jasmine, however, slept with enthusiasm. Ethan had dared to swing back by Madeleine's after the incident with Oran to collect Jasmine and get Bo's clothes. The Motel 6 seemed an anonymous enough place. No frills, but it was cheap and clean and it allowed dogs, and for a few extra bucks he could get online. And that's what he was doing now.

The Internet wasn't helping, though, at least not directly. Looking up voodoo for Chloe's hiding spell was a waste of time. Oh, there were plenty of spells out there. Each one either looked made up on the spot, or the same thing was copied and pasted from one source to the next. This was true of all the spells he came across—hiding, healing, revenge, wealth, seduction. Reading them only made Ethan feel all the more foolish.

Except.

There was something about the act of going about the rituals themselves. Things like collecting objects and tying them together into a gris-gris, or making a concoction to drink. Each individual step included methodical, focused attention. Any psychologist alive would consider that to be excellent therapy. This was a kind of active meditation.

There were countless studies that showed how regular prayer or meditation made for an excellent basis to regulate the brain's electrical and chemical balances, and in doing so it reduced stress responses. Same with self-hypnosis. But most people didn't have the patience or the control of attention to keep it up for long. Maybe a minute or two.

But this.

Doing these spells was like a kind of meditation that involved active body movement—kinesis—which of course would boost the neurological effect. And also it engaged the senses—the taste of a potion, the scent of herbs or even animals, sometimes the feel of a pinprick. Any repeated activity that engages all five senses is going to form super neurons. People looking to gain wealth may not know how to achieve it, but with this kind of neurotherapy, they would at least achieve a Jack Russell tenacity for it. And it created a new belief system. People who see themselves as incapable may change their thinking if they believe they have access to some kind of mystic power outside themselves.

He wondered if people like Madeleine somehow harnessed that kind of practice into a natural, ingrained adaptability. It helped to understand a little, but he needed much more than that if he was going to find her.

Jasmine sprang awake with a woof and ran to the door, sticking her nose in the jamb.

Ethan frowned and rose from the desk. “Whatcha got, girl?”

He stepped to the window, keeping himself hidden, and parted the curtains just enough to get a look.

Outside, parked next to the Lexus, was Oran's car.

Someone was in the driver's seat. Someone who was not Oran.

*   *   *

THE CAR WAS IDLING
. No telling how long it had been there. The driver had a disarray of gray hair and Ethan thought at first that it might be Chloe.

No. Not her. He backed away from the window.

“Bo,” he whispered, his hand on the boy's shoulder.

Bo's face went from slack to pinched, and he rolled away.

“Do you sense anything?” Ethan asked.

Bo gasped and bolted upright, suddenly wide awake, clicking.

Ethan clamped his hand over the boy's mouth and whispered, “Don't click!”

“It's OK, it ain't here,” Bo said, plain voice through Ethan's fingers.

Ethan let go and exhaled. “Alright. Stay here. I'll be right back.”

“Where you—”

“Just gonna be outside. You can holler if there's an emergency, but only then, OK?”

“OK.”

“And you got Jazz here with you.”

Bo whistled, and Jazz hopped up on the bed and turned around, her back to the boy and facing the door.

Ethan stepped outside, reprimanding himself for not having a concealed-carry permit by now.

The driver looked vaguely familiar. She wore a dirty LSU tee-shirt and was staring off into nowhere. When Ethan approached she followed him with her eyes. And when he tapped on her window, she rolled it down. That's when he recognized her.

“Alice.”

“The good doctor. Last time I saw you's down by the river. Called the po-lice on me.”

“What are you doing here, Alice?”

“Truth, honey?” And she laughed, a sticky, toothless exhalation.

“Yes, the truth please.”

“You might oughtta sit down.”

Ethan looked back at the motel room, hands in pockets, resigning himself. He walked around to the passenger side and got in. It smelled like long-unwashed clothes with a backdrop of mothballs, the fusion of Alice's world and Chloe's.

“It's a long story,” Alice said.

“What is?”

“All of it.”

“Why don't you start by telling me what you're doing here?”

“I came to kill you, Doc.”

And she turned and looked at him, like a parishioner who'd chosen to open the confession booth screen and face the father eye-to-eye. She was searching his face as though his opinion might lay out her entire future for her.

Ethan said, “Do you still intend to do that?”

“No sir?” A comforting reply but for the way she spoke it like a question.

“So why did you change your mind?”

“Just suddenly seemed like a stupid idea.”

“Well, that's refreshing. And do you remember why you thought it was a good idea in the first place?”

“Yeah.”

She said nothing else for a moment. Ethan rolled down his window and the cross breeze carried through the vehicle. The faint odor of car exhaust came with it but it still felt refreshing.

She said, “I wanted you out of the way. You were in my goddamn way. Truth is, Doc, you piss me off.”

“I do?”

She frowned. “No. I don't fuckin know.”

“I think I know. You wanna tell me how you got out of jail?”

She laughed again, a wet chuckle that ended in a cough. “They let me out.”

“The judge dismissed your case?”

“What? No. Ain't even had a judge. The driver and the other guy, they just let me go. I's bein transported in the van with all the deadbeats. And then the driver pulled over. And the other guard's like, ‘what the fuck are you doin?'”

Another laugh, and this time she turned and spat out the window before continuing. “And the driver's all, ‘I'm gonna put this one free.' And I's sittin there in handcuffs and leg cuffs. I couldn't hardly believe it. But then the other guard's all, ‘OK.' And he unlocks me and off I went.”

Her arms were dirty, her hands were dirty, her fingernails were black.

Ethan said, “OK. Tell me about the car.”

She looked at him, her mouth slack. “What car?”

“You know good and well, what car. This car!” He struck the dashboard with his fist, startling them both.

Her mouth was open, the sparse teeth gleaming, and her shoulders began to shake. He wasn't sure if she was laughing or crying. But then she let out a long, wailing sob.

“Just tell me, Alice.”

She spoke through puckered lips, her voice having gone higher and tighter. “I's lookin for the other doctor. Doc LB, from St. Jo's.”

“Why?”

“Cuz I … I thought … If I'm gonna be in charge, I needed her on my side. She gets stronger and I get way stronger. We gotta get rid of them rats, like the little blind boy.”

Her eyes had gone wild, and she fixed them in Ethan's direction. “I do that and I can get all them devils following me. They forget about the old witch. They be following me! You know what that means?”

“No, tell me.”

But her expression had frozen, and then it crumpled, and she began to sob again. “It means I'm crazy, don't it? I don't know why I was thinkin that way. You gotta bring me back to the jail, Doc. Please, I … tell'm to keep me in there!”

“Where is Oran? The person who owns this car?”

She was shaking her head, her grimy hand over her eyes, tears staining her cheeks.

Ethan asked her, “Is he alive?”

“I think so.”

“Alice, listen to me. You gotta answer the question. There's more to this you don't know about, OK? Something bad's got a hold of your head.”

“You mean it wasn't me?”

“Not entirely. Something about you makes you an easy target. I think that may be why he keeps coming back for you.”

“It's because I turned my back on Jesus, ain't it? Oh, look what I become!”

He shook his head. “I don't think that's it. I have no idea why.”

“I only slept on the streets a little while. I tried to get back on my feet an go get a job. Went in for an interview, then afterward I looked in the mirror an there was dirt on my face. No one told me! I went and did the whole interview like that.”

“Oran, Alice. Just tell me about Oran and how you came to be drivin this car!”

She took a gulp of air. “I never done anything like this before. My old man and I used to brawl but that was fair, and we just hittin. That night down by the river, I don't know why I did that. And now I…”

“Alice!”

She said, “I thought for sure he knew where the doc was. Couldn't get in his head, had to make him talk the old-fashioned way.”

She gave in to sobbing again, but still managed to squeeze out the truth. “I cut on him! He really didn't know where she was! But, I kept them, just in case, they're in there.”

She was pointing at the glove box. Ethan swallowed, and opened it. Three fingers inside. Oran's fingers.

He slammed the thing shut. “What is it with Zenon and the damn fingers?”

“What?”

“Where is he now, Alice? Where is Oran?”

She gestured a shaky hand back over her shoulder. “He's in the trunk.”

“Jesus! Give over the keys!”

She handed them to him and he scrambled out of the car and opened the trunk. Oran was in there, shaking and bleeding. He didn't react to the sight of Ethan or the trunk being opened. Looked like he might be in shock.

Ethan yanked out his cell and dialed 911.

 

forty-nine

BAYOU BOUILLON, 1927

IN A WAY IT
brought relief. No more wondering when the river devils might appear, or the thorns. They were already there. No more groping for the quiet mind, trying to conjure the kind of stillness Ferrar wore so effortlessly. She could follow where the sylphs led her. There was so much to explore: learning to breathe underwater, looking inside yesterday and tomorrow, pinching time to shape the hour.