A Twisted Ladder (24 page)

HAHNVILLE, 1912

R
ÉMI COULD STILL HEAR
Laramie’s mother sobbing and whispering from within the chapel, even though the plantationers were still singing. Their voices, which Rémi had found soothing at first, now buzzed sideways in his head. He backed away from them, putting his hands to his ears, feeling a sudden need to get away. He turned from the cottages and made for the brush, and the voices weaved and entangled with the dissonance of night creatures.

Daylight was fading, the chatter from the bayou reaching crescendo. All about were sounds to bewilder and frustrate him. He came upon the eastern well and sat down on packed dirt, leaning against the hard, cool stones.

In a clump of grass by the base of the well lay an assemblage of pebbles. He recognized them as a slingshot collection. A burning in his throat. It occurred to him that he was thirsty and he thought about what Tatie Bernadette had said, that Laramie might have drunk water from this well. He looked, and saw the drawing pail hanging from a nail in the railroad tie beam, and wondered if the water was indeed tainted. He pulled back the wooden lid and peered into it. The well reflected his silhouette, framed on the glassy surface by pastels of late sunset.

He sensed that he was not alone.

Rémi scanned the thicket but saw no one. The sensation persisted, and with it, a hatch of dread. He conjured the day the stranger had come to the garden, whispering to Helen and Laramie. He’d had this same feeling then. He closed his eyes, imagined a light switching on, and then opened them.

Slowly, he became aware of movement nearby, and heard a groan from the thicket.

He spun about. The sound seemed to be coming from an expanse of rotting wood. It had been a main branch of an oak tree that was hundreds of years old, wide as three men side by side. The intonation rose once more, deep and inhuman, like the sound of a hurricane tearing the roof from a house.

Rémi pushed the palms of his hands into his temples and squeezed. The outline of the log was a crooked ramp in the fading light. He sensed movement on it.

Cold dread cleaved Rémi’s chest, but he stepped toward the log, straining his eyes and ears.

Something
was
moving. The log was swarming with termites. One of the insects fluttered onto his knuckles, and he jumped back and shook it. He wiped his hand repeatedly and pressed it under his armpit, a tremor pulsing his spine. The log crackled as a smaller branch fell under the fervor of the insects. He had never before known an infestation to work so ravenously.

Then the entire log creaked, and as Rémi stood transfixed, it split and fell open. He stumbled backward in horror, gasping. A black man’s hand protruded from the hollow center. The stench of carrion was overwhelming. Rémi gagged and reached for his hunting knife, thinking he must hack away the crumbling log to expose the body, and release the poor devil who had become entombed there.

But the hand moved. Fingers flexed and closed around a branch.

Rémi backed away from the thing, his knees failing him when his feet touched the well, and he slid to the ground, eyes rooted to the log. Another hand emerged from the wood and pulled, and then the log crumbled open.

A hulking form climbed from the rotting wood and rose to his full height over Rémi. He had ebony skin that flurried with the occasional panicking termite, wings flashing indigo mirrors of sunset. His overalls were dusted with moss and rotting wood. He stood, heaving, eyes trained on Rémi. He was the same man that Rémi had seen whispering to Helen and Laramie.

Rémi grappled to find his voice. It came strained and croaking.

“Who are you?”

The stranger stared, the whites of his eyes the only discernible feature in the growing darkness.

He answered, “Ulysses.”

Rémi found his strength and struggled to his feet. He searched for words to challenge this man and demand an explanation, but his voice failed him. He could not think how a living person could emerge from that log.

Instead, Rémi managed to say, “What do you want?”

Ulysses pulled back his lips, revealing black gaps between his teeth. He stretched forth his massive hand and before Rémi could stop him, forced his fingers inside Rémi’s mouth. He wrenched one of Rémi’s teeth free from its socket.

Rémi sank to the ground, bleating in surprise. Ulysses rolled the tooth between thumb and forefinger and then tasted it as one might sample the freshness of milk. He turned and thrust it back inside the log, burying it under crumbling wood and insects. Rémi coughed, lurched, and gagged, spitting mesocarpic blood like pomegranate pulp.

Ulysses laughed, a deep runble. Teeth flashed in the evening light, the canine points tapering at the ends. Rémi could smell the rot of his breath.

Ulysses turned and faced the well. His back muscles flexed visibly through the thin, filthy shirt as he moved. Rémi heard the sound of water meeting water, and realized that the brute was urinating into the well.

“Merde!”
Rémi cried and jumped to his feet.

Ulysses emptied himself and turned back.

“What . . . what are you?” Rémi whispered.

The brute leaned toward him so that his face was inches from Rémi’s, the stench of decay nearly overwhelming.
“Je suis votre damnation.”

Then he turned, striding toward the woods, and disappeared.

Rémi stared after him. He dared not move nor even breathe. His mouth tasted bitter with blood, the defiled tooth lying somewhere within the rotten log.

RÉMI APPROACHED THE GARDEN
in a daze. Francois was standing outside the kitchen house tapping tobacco into a paper wedge, and he called out to him. Rémi kept pace. His mind was tumbling over the taste in his mouth, and the strangeness and dread. Not a thing he could fluidly describe. He was barely aware as Francois strode over, cigarette still unrolled in his hands.

“Rémi, what’s ailing?”

Rémi continued toward the house.

He stopped and turned around. “Francois. Condemn the eastern well. The water is foul.”

NEW ORLEANS, 2009

A
HEADACHE CLUNG LIKE
a crab behind her eyes. Jasmine fussed to be let outside and so Madeleine heaved herself out of bed and slumped down the stairs in her cotton sleeping shorts and tee. She felt nauseated, even wondered if she was going to throw up. She had barely slept at all.

She turned the handle to the French doors and stepped barefoot onto the pavers, and almost immediately, the fresh air lifted her spirits. The sunlight turned to gold in the fine hairs on her thighs. Jasmine bounded over to the ivy and watered them. The courtyard was small, a hidden garden, and the focal points were the climbers—honeysuckle, ivy, Carolina jasmine. Madeleine’s favorite was the honeysuckle. She and Marc used to play hide-and-seek among them in Houma, tasting the nectar. She stepped over and plucked a flower, pulling the stamen through the petals, and touched her tongue to the sweet jewel at the base.

A pinprick on her forearm. She slapped, and pulled her hand away to a bloodied ink blot. Jasmine trotted over at the sound of the slap.

“That’s the problem with honeysuckle, Jazz. You gotta be ready for mosquitoes if you want a little sweetness.”

She ushered the little dog back inside and up the stairs, and then tapped on her father’s door.

“Go away.”

“Come on, Daddy, get up.”

“Nobody home.”

She turned the handle and poked her head through. “Rise and shine.”

“Come on, baby girl, I got a headache.”

“I have a headache too. All the more reason to get up and shake it out.”

Jasmine vaulted onto the bed and tongued Daddy’s face.

“Gyadh!” he cried, and dove for cover.

“Come on Daddy. We’re going back to Bayou Black today.”

He sat up and blinked at her, face puffy. “What? We was just there coupla days ago.”

“We need to deal with that house. We can’t put it off any longer. Anyway, I’m ending my sabbatical and won’t have the time later.”

“I can’t do it today. I have to . . .”

She waited. Daddy frowned as if searching for words.

Madeleine said, “Well?”

“Good God, baby, you know it’s too early for me to think up a good excuse. Why don’t you be an angel and leave your poor papa alone?”

“Breakfast in ten minutes. We’re having sandwiches. Wear your grubbies.”

She patted her leg twice. Jasmine released Daddy and bounded through the door.

Daddy whimpered with saintly resignation. “You’re a hard woman, Maddy.”

BY THE TIME THEY
reached Bayou Black, the pain in her temples had lifted. Ironic, because the task at hand would itself be one giant headache.

They stood armed with every possible weapon of cleaning artillery Madeleine could round up, along with boxes, tools, and industrial strength trash bags. But the moment they opened the door, the cleaning arsenal seemed paltry. The old Creole house reflected how Marc’s state of mind had turned. And the place had only festered since he was gone, succumbing to mold, rodents, and bugs. At the sight of it, Daddy Blank looked like he was about to swing his right foot behind his left, snap an about-face, and march back to the truck. Madeleine grabbed his arm.