The Tragedy of Knowledge (7 page)

“He just told me to be careful about what I choose to tell you guys in order to save you. But I have no idea what he meant by that.”

Arianna’s eyes narrowed and she sat back, taking my words in. My gaze settled past her shoulders, on a little boy at the end of the sidewalk. He was wandering toward us, tears pricking his eyes as he twisted his fingers and glanced around, his soft sobs intensifying with each step that brought him closer and closer to our table. Arianna shifted to find the source of the crying, and my heart lurched in my chest when he locked eyes with me.

His big blue irises were filled with fear, his breathing rapid and heart rate thumping so heavily I could feel it in my own chest. He held my gaze and paused for a beat, taking tentative steps toward me when I didn’t look away. Instantly anxious, I rose to my feet and waited.

He approached me and reached out to grip onto my finger with one little pinky, latching on and staring up at me, pleading.

Bending down to meet him at eye level, I let him grasp harder at my finger, his worry transferring and imprinting on me, causing tears to spring up in my own eyes. A faint stinging sensation attacked my temples and I flinched.

“Cam?” Arianna stood from her seat and bent down to face us.

Everything became clear. Our skin-to-skin link giving me a direct hotline to the little boy’s worries. “He’s terrified.” The words were automatic, my eyes unblinking and glued to his. “He’s lost his mom, hasn’t seen her in thirty minutes. The last place he remembers seeing her is the blue flower shop three blocks up the road, the one with iris and lily arrangements in the front window. But the shop’s closed now. He’s too afraid to ask an adult for help because he doesn’t like strangers.”

The words rushed from my lips and the tears chased them. Arianna’s eyes widened as I stood. Taking the boy by the hand, I patted it gently. “It’s okay, buddy. Let’s go inside this shop here and make a phone call to find your mommy.”

He buried his head into the crook between my arm and leg, allowing me to lead him into the shop. I gave Arianna a nod before entering, leaving her standing there, staring curiously at the little boy’s hand in mine.

***

“Camille?” Gavin’s voice was faint, but I recognized this feeling. It was breaking through, penetrating the outer haze that always surrounded me like a smothering bubble whenever I slipped off into the dream state, when I saw the visions. He and Gabe must’ve returned from their business in London.
How long have I been out this time?

“She’s coming out of it, give her a second,” Arianna’s voice replied, getting clearer with each syllable. Next came Gabe and Audrey’s voices, but I couldn’t quite make the sentences out. Just when I thought I was about to snap out of it, a thick ripple roped me back into the bubble, bombarding me with images of a dark, fog-filled bayou, Gavin and me sitting in an old, baby-blue rowboat, headed toward a destination with flashlights in hand. Our faces were focused, our time was short.

And then my heart swelled with hope at the sound of Vivienne’s voice.
Take the south end of the Bayou Teche nah, child. You’ll know what to do, ya hear? Hurry nah, before it’s too late. Before it’s too late, before it’s too late, before
…

As her voice trailed off, the vision blurred and my friends’ voices grew louder, clearer, until the bubble popped and I found Arianna softly shaking my shoulder. My eyes immediately zoned in on the Book of the Ancients on top of Gavin’s piano, and I stood from the couch to move toward it, gently breaking through my circle of friends. They all turned to watch me like a circus animal about to do another trick. Had I not been so focused on the damn book, it might have been amusing and given me a good laugh.

“Unbelievable,” Audrey’s voice squeaked as I pushed past her. “Here we are, talking to you about your freaky little-boy encounter back in Breaux Bridge and how your caramel macchiato tasted like cardboard, and boom! You just zone out like one of the kids from
Children of the Corn
.”

“Um, Aud, babe … I don’t think those kids zone out. They’re just freaky twenty-four-seven. It’s a year-round thing.” Gabe’s response drew a half-hearted laugh from me, but it was quickly reined in when I reached the Book of the Ancients.

“Whatever, Gabriel,” Audrey said to him. “My point is, it’s freaky, okay? She gets this glazed-over look in her eyes, like she’s gonna whip out a butcher knife and go all Michael Myers on us or something.”

I glanced over my shoulder to cock an eyebrow at her.

“Oh,
now
you pay attention.” She cocked an eyebrow back.

“What is it with you and the cheesy horror-movie references?” Gabe muttered.

“Hey, now.
Halloween
is a classic,” Gavin scolded him. “Don’t go hating on the classics.”

Audrey shushed them both and came to join me at the piano. “Well? Are you just going to stand there and stare at it? What is it?”

I blinked, recalling the one thing that had stuck out in this new vision. Aside from the fact that Gavin and I were in a rowboat, in a part of the bayou I’d never seen before, I’d noticed the Book of the Ancients was propped on my lap as Gavin rowed. I shut my eyes as if to replay the scene in my mind, opening them when I realized I couldn’t summon the vision back.

But I knew. The book,
this
book, was with us in the boat.

The cover slammed open in front of me. The gust of wind caused our little gathering to stumble backward. The pages flipped as it blew open, landing on the empty pages near the back.

“
Okayyyy …
” Gabe stepped back with his hands up.

“Holy
Poltergeist.
” Audrey’s voice came alive with awe, and she pushed the hair out of her eyes.

Sliding the book toward me, I rested my elbows on the piano lid and turned the empty pages, a zap of energy pinning my attention to one of the last blank pages. Skimming my fingers over the parchment, beautiful gold trails of light followed my fingertips, gliding, twisting, and turning, illustrating and illuminating a path of arrows. The page continued to come alive with each trace of my fingers, the golden light beaming upward and onto our faces, the image more vivid as the light grew in intensity.

“It’s a map,” I said, examining each path and waterway that appeared, taking in the lush foliage that surrounded it, springing up from the page like a three-dimensional picture book.

“What’s that in the waterway?” Gavin asked, leaning over my shoulder to get a better look.

“It’s my vision,” I whispered in realization, studying the light as it shaped an outline of a small boat with oars attached to the side. The oars began to move, the motion pushing the picture of the boat along, up the waterway toward a small shack on the bank, Vivienne’s voice echoing in my head.
Take the south end of the Bayou Teche nah, child. You’ll know what to do, ya hear?

I blinked and turned to look at my friends, just to make sure I wasn’t falling into another trance.
Hurry nah, before it’s too late. Before it’s too late, before it’s too late, before …

“Before it’s too late,” I whispered.

“Huh?” Gavin glanced between me and the illustration. “Too late for what?”

“I have to go here, wherever this is. Before it’s too late … before we leave for Amaranth tomorrow.” As soon as the words were off my tongue, the golden light disappeared and the map faded, the book slamming shut.

Just like that, I had my answer.

And never before had an answer confused me more. Answers were supposed to give you peace, give you some kind of direction. Instead, this one was leading me further into the darkness, encouraging me forward onto a path I wasn’t sure I wanted to take. I couldn’t even see the steps in front of me, only the signs.

I scooped up the Book of the Ancients and grabbed Gavin’s hand, and led him past our friends, out of the house, and into the night.

4

HAUNTED

The setting sun dressed the bayou’s horizon in a sultry, lazy glow, the bank’s trees casting dramatic shadows over the water. Gavin and I approached the southern part of the Teche that was shown to me in my vision.

He caught my arm as we neared the edge of the bank. “Come on, love. We don’t really need to search by boat. Let’s take to the trees and search that way.”

“No,” I murmured, glancing around. “The vision was very specific, we have to go by boat.” We’d fueled up on blood, and we’d run all the way here, occasionally dipping into flight amongst the trees. It helped to burn off some of my pent-up energy, but slowing down to look around and figure out the next step felt frustrating. The Book of the Ancients was stowed in a backpack over my shoulder, and all I could think about was where to find this baby-blue rowboat so we could bring my vision to life.

Why it had to be exactly as my vision, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was compelled to mimic it, traveling the waterways by rowboat, a specific rowboat. It was a feeling just as sure as the certainty I’d felt when the little boy wandered up to me on the street. I knew he needed help, and in that instant, it was my sole purpose to help him find his way to his mom. If I didn’t complete that task, I would have been broken, a mechanical malfunction that needed a missing part to operate properly again.

And that surety fueled my direction now.

Gavin shot me an apprehensive side-glance and then stationed himself beside me, slipping his hands in his pockets. “Well, I don’t think a blue rowboat is going to appear out of thin air. And flying would get us to wherever we need to go faster. Do you remember anything else?”

I bit the inside of my lip and turned in a slow circle, letting my eyes study our surroundings. “Nothing comes to mind, but this is where we’re supposed to start searching.”

“Well …” His voice was unconvinced. “Let’s start heading up the bank, then, and go from there.”

I nodded and trailed behind him, aware the darkness was imminent, the sunset almost complete. It was nightfall in my vision, the bayou enveloped in an eerie white fog that blanketed the water’s surface and slithered through the surrounding trees. We walked farther north and within minutes, the sunlight was gone and our flashlights were on. Low croaks, high-pitched chirps, and soft cooing echoed all around us, the bayou’s atmosphere swallowing us up in its hypnotic cocoon. Twigs and leaves crunched beneath our feet, and Gavin stopped, swinging around to meet me.

“Baby, I don’t know if—”

“
Sshhh
,” I lifted my head to the trees, then spun around when an echo of sinister laughter washed over me. “Do you hear that?”

His eyes widened and he withdrew his silver dagger, tucking me behind him. “Hear what? What is it?” His voice dropped low and husky, his jaw set.

“Cammmillle,” the voice hissed, followed by more laughter, and I withdrew my own blade, readying my stance while my eyes bounced everywhere to locate the source. I stumbled and bumped into Gavin when I heard another echo of poisonous snickering, the seductive, velvet sound sliding through me, making the hairs on my neck erect.

“You really don’t hear that?”

“Hear what? All I hear is insects and alligators.”

I straightened and planted my feet into the muddy ground, shutting my eyes with hopes of pushing the voice out, away from us, out of my head, which is where I suspected it was originating in the first place.

Good God, I was really losing it.

My lashes flittering as I blinked, I reopened my eyes and flew back, smacking into Gavin’s chest. He wrapped his arms around me in a protective hold. Amidst the inky backdrop of the nearby bushes, beneath the ghoulish overlay of stringy Spanish moss, Scarlet snaked around the branches, weaving in and out of the oaks in a vibrant, apple-red silk dress, the thin spaghetti straps hugging her luminous white skin while the flowing skirt swayed around her knees.

“Scarlet,” I choked, pushing back farther against Gavin’s chest. He tightened his grip around me and I could feel his chin move above my head, searching for the vixen in red.

“Where?” He spoke low and hushed, shifting us to the left, then to the right. “Cam, hurry, tell me where she is.”

“Right there.” I followed her with my eyes as she held my gaze and frolicked between two gigantic oaks.

“Cammmilllle,” she cooed again, this time breaking eye contact with me to prance farther back into a copse of trees. The branches and moss seemed to entangle her entire form, reaching and wrapping around her arms and legs as she moved, but she showed no sign of distress, only a smirk. Her fingers toyed with the moss as it caressed her skin, eyes dancing with delight as it slithered beneath her long chestnut locks. She was an angelic serpent, a deceitful goddess of nature. When her eyes locked with mine again, the image stole my breath away.

“Gavin, right there!” I pointed to the space between the oaks, gulping hard when she continued to slink in and around the brush, her body starting to fade in and out before my eyes. Her arms and legs were suddenly flickering as they worked in slow motion. “How do you not see her? She’s right there!” As she faded in and out, I darted toward her, afraid I might lose sight of her.