A Chalice of Wind (5 page)

I turned left and cut down a narrow, one-block-long little street. I waded through a busload of tourists on a walking tour and turned another corner. Two blocks down this street was where I was sentenced to live, at least for the next few months.

Axelle’s apartment had once been part of an incredible private home. There was a side gate made of wrought iron, which I unlocked. It led to a narrow, covered driveway, wide enough for carriages, not cars. My feet made faint echoing noises on the cool flagstones, worn from hundreds of years of use. The front door was in the back of the house. Four buildings bordered a private courtyard, which had a weensy swimming pool and lushly overgrown plant beds around the walls.

Sighing, feeling like an anvil was on my chest, I turned my key in the lock. With any luck Axelle wouldn’t be here—she’d already be out for the evening, and I wouldn’t have to go. Last night she’d brought me to three different bars, despite my reminding her that not only was I not twenty-one, but I wasn’t even eighteen yet. At all three places, the bouncer or doorman had looked at me, opened his mouth as if to card me, which I was hoping for, because then I could go home and go to bed—but then they’d just shut their mouths and let me pass. I guessed Axelle knew them, and they’d let her do whatever.

I pushed open the door, to be met by a blessed whoosh of air-conditioning, and found I was out of luck. Axelle lounged on her black leather sofa, her clothes making slight sibilant noises when she shifted. She was smoking and talking on the phone and barely looked up at me when I came in.

To add to my fun, her creepy friends Jules and Daedalus were there too. I’d met them practically the moment we got off the plane in New Orleans. Neither of them was her boyfriend, but they were around a lot. Jules was good-looking in a Denzel Washington kind of way, poised and put together, and seemed about Axelle’s age, early thirties. Daedalus was old enough to be her father, like in his mid-fifties. He reminded me of a used car salesman, always smiling but the smile never reaching his eyes.

“Ah! Thais,” said Daedalus, looking up from a thick book. Jules also looked up and smiled, then continued examining a map on the small round dining table at one end of the huge main room. At the other end were a fireplace and sitting area. The tiny kitchen was open to the big room, separated by a black granite counter. Axelle’s bedroom and huge, pathologically crowded and messy closet were down a short hallway. My tiny bedroom, which was essentially a former lean-to tacked onto the main house as an outdoor kitchen, opened off the back of the kitchen.

“Hi,” I said, heading for privacy.

“Wait, Thais,” Jules said. He had a beautiful deep voice. “I’d like you to meet our friend Richard Landry.” He gestured toward the main room, and someone I hadn’t noticed stepped through the haze of Axelle’s cigarette smoke.

“Hey,” he said.

I blinked. At first glance he appeared to be my age, but in the next second I realized he was actually younger—maybe fourteen? He was a bit taller than me and had warm brown hair, streaked from the sun, and brown eyes. I couldn’t help standing still for a moment to take him in: he was the only fourteen-year-old I’d ever seen with a silver stud through his eyebrow, a silver ring through one nostril, and tattoos. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the sleeves torn off and long black jeans despite the heat.

I realized I was staring and tried to recover. “Hi, Richard,” I said, pronouncing it the way Jules had: Ree-shard. He just nodded, looking at me in a weirdly adult way, like: appraising. Yes, he won the weirdest-kid-I’d-ever-met award. And why on earth was he hanging out with these people? Maybe his parents were friends of theirs?

Axelle hung up the phone and got to her feet. Today, in deference to the ninety-eight-degree weather, she was wearing a black, satiny cat suit. “Oh, good, you met Richard,” she said. “Well, you all ready?”

Jules, Daedalus, and Richard nodded, and Richard put down his glass.

“We won’t be long,” said Axelle, unlocking a door that I hadn’t even seen the first four days I was here. It was built into the deep molding of the main room, a hidden door. I’d almost jumped out of my skin one day when I’d thought I was alone and then suddenly Daedalus had appeared out of the wall. Now that I knew it was there, I could easily see its outlines and the round brass lock. It led to stairs, I knew that much, but I wasn’t allowed in—it was always locked when Axelle wasn’t home.

I watched silently as the three guys followed Axelle.

I was convinced they did drugs up there. And now they were dragging a kid into their web. True, a strange, hard-core kid, but still. The door clicked shut with a heavy finality, and I prowled restlessly around the main room, wondering if I should do something. Okay, for the three weird adults, that was one thing. They might be complete dope fiends, but they’d never hit me or come on to me or anything. But now they were corrupting a kid—if there was anything left in Richard to corrupt. That was definitely wrong.

Unsure what to do with my concern, I wandered around, picking up used glasses and loading them into the dishwasher. Axelle was the world’s biggest slob, and I’d started tidying up out of self-defense, just so I’d have clean plates to eat off of, etc.

“Mreow?” Minou, Axelle’s cat, jumped up on the kitchen counter. I scratched him absently behind the ears and then refilled his food bowl. Like the hidden door, Minou had shown up several days after I got here, but Axelle knew him and actually had cat food, so I figured he was hers. Guess what color he was.

I gathered a stack of newspapers, and the weird domesticness of the situation suddenly hit me. I blinked back tears, remembering how I’d done the same kind of stuff at home, with Dad, and how I’d grumbled about it and made him remind me five times and stuff. Now, what I wouldn’t give to be at home with Dad nagging me! I would be the perfect daughter if I could only have another chance. I gulped, thinking maybe it was time to go cry on my bed for a while.

“Excuse me.”

I whirled, sniffing and brushing my hand across my eyes. I hadn’t heard Richard come up behind me. I closed the dishwasher door. “What?” I said, feeling unnerved.

“Axelle sent me down for matches,” he explained in a husky, un-kid-like voice, stepping past me into the narrow kitchen. He was slender but wiry, with defined muscles. He was wearing black motorcycle boots.

“Don’t you—?” I began, and he glanced up at me. I could see that even though he was young, he would probably be really good-looking when he grew up. If he lost the face jewelry. “Don’t you think you’re a little young for that?” I waved my hand toward the hidden stairway. Richard looked at me, expressionless. “I mean—do your folks know where you are? Don’t you worry about getting in trouble or having it lead to bigger stuff that could actually really be dangerous?”

Richard picked up the box of matches. “I’m an orphan, honey,” he said, with a funny little smile. “And it’s not what you think, upstairs. You’ll find out.”

Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good. “I mean, it’s not too late to quit,” I said, feeling more and more unsure.

He did smile then, showing a hint of the man he would become in a couple of years. “It’s way too late to quit,” he said, and gave a little laugh, like there was a private joke somewhere. He left me and went back through the door, and feeling completely weirded out, I glanced absently at the stack of newspapers.

Time to register for school, those attending Orleans Parish public schools,
I read. I had to move Minou’s tail to finish the headline. School started on August 26, barely three weeks away. It listed a web site where you could register online.

“Oh, Thais,” said Axelle, coming into the kitchen. She rummaged in the cupboards and pulled out a box of salt. “Listen, don’t go anywhere—we’ll be done in a while and then we’re going out to dinner.”

I nodded. We always went out to dinner. “Um, I have to register for school.”

Axelle looked at me blankly.

I tapped the paper. “It says it’s time to register if you’re going to public school. Which I assume I am.”

She seemed to recover and said, “Well, you don’t have to go if you don’t want. You’ve probably gone enough, right?”

Now I stared at her, her beautiful face that never seemed to show lack of sleep or hangovers or anything else, the black eyes that had no pupils. “I haven’t graduated high school,” I said slowly, as if I were explaining something to a child. “I have one more year.”

“Well, what’s one year?” she asked, shrugging. “I bet you know everything you need to know. Why don’t you just hang out, relax?”

My mouth dropped open. “If I don’t graduate high school, I won’t be able to go to college.”

“You mean you’d sign up for four more years?” She looked appalled.

“How am I going to get a
job?
” Or did I not need one, here on Planet Unreality?

Now she looked downright shocked.
“Job?”

Okay. I was getting nowhere. I could see that.
Thanks, Dad,
I thought, tasting bitterness in the back of my throat.
You sure can pick ’em
. I took a deep breath and let it out. “I’ll take care of it,” I said calmly. “I’m going to school, and I’ll register myself. I’ll let you know what happens.”

Axelle looked like she was trying to think up a good argument but couldn’t come up with anything. “Well, if that’s what you want to do,” she said reluctantly.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” She sighed heavily, as if she couldn’t believe Michel Allard’s child could be so incredibly unreasonable. I picked up the newspaper and headed back into my room, where I carefully shut the door. Then I lay down on my bed, put a pillow over my face, and howled.

“C
’est impossible,”
Daedalus muttered in disgust. He banged his fist down on the hood of the car.
“C’est impossible!”

“Hey!” said Axelle.
“La voiture, c’est à moi!”
She carefully examined the hood of her pink Cadillac.

Daedalus folded his arms across his chest and joined Richard and Jules, who were leaning against the side of Axelle’s car, staring across the street. Axelle lit a cigarette.

Jules made a face. “Must you smoke even here?”

“Yes,” Axelle said evenly. “Are you going to lecture me about the health disadvantages?”

Richard chuckled, and Jules looked away.

“It’s unpleasant is all,” he said.

“Then stand
downwind,
” said Axelle.

“Stop it, you two,” said Daedalus. “We can’t start arguing among ourselves. Now, more than ever, we have to stand together.”

“Has Sophie come yet?” Axelle asked.

“I think she and Manon are coming tomorrow,” said Daedalus. He let out a breath and looked across the street, still unbelieving. “This
is
the place?” he asked for the fifth time.

“It’s the place,” Jules said dispiritedly. “It has to be.”

The four of them stood in a line against the car. Across the street, where they had expected to find thick woods and swamps as far as the eye could see, there was instead a huge Wal-Mart Supercenter. And a huge parking lot. And other stores in a line next to it.

“When’s the last time anyone was here?” Daedalus asked.

They thought, shrugged.

“Long time,” Axelle said at last. “Obviously.”

“Hang on.” Richard leaned into the open window of the car and pulled out their old map. He took the recent map from Daedalus and spread them both out on the hood of the car. “Okay, here’s New Orleans,” he said, pointing to the city within the crescent bend of the river. “And this is about where we are.” He traced a slender finger down a blue highway line, south-southwest of New Orleans.

“They’re two completely different maps,” said Axelle.

Daedalus saw what she meant. “What’s the date on that first map?”

“Uh, 1843,” Richard said, finding the date in one corner.

“And this is a current map,” Daedalus clarified. “Clearly, the older map is wildly inaccurate—it’s not a satellite-data topographical map. The same features don’t even appear on both. Look, Lac Méchant, Lac Penchant. This one is called Grand Barataria, and now it’s called, uh, Lake Salvador. I think.” He squinted at the two maps, then glanced up and saw that this afternoon’s quick, heavy thunderstorm was on its way.

“Crap,” Axelle said.

“But this is the map we always used,” Jules said.

“But it’s been a long time,” Richard pointed out. “Even the actual courses of the rivers have changed. The coastline has changed a lot. With every hurricane that’s hit Louisiana, some aspect of the landscape
changed.
”

“Now what?” Jules asked, frustration in his voice. “This is a major point.”

“Yes, Jules, we
know,
” Daedalus said, hearing himself sound testy. He tried to dampen his irritation. They needed to pull together, to work as one. He reached out and put a hand on Jules’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, old friend. I’m upset. But this is only a temporary setback, I’m sure. We’ll do more research. We’ll look at maps from different years and compare them. It will show us how the landmarks have changed. From that we can extrapolate where we need to be looking. It will take time, but we can do it.”

“We only have a little time,” Jules said.

Again Daedalus squelched his temper. “We have time enough,” he said, trying to sound both certain and reassuring. “We’ll get started tonight.” He looked over at Richard, who’d been quiet. That handsome child’s face, those old, old eyes. Richard met his gaze and nodded. Daedalus got into the car just as the first big raindrops hit the windshield. They had to pull this off. This was their only chance. Who knew if they would ever have another?