A Twisted Ladder (29 page)

MADELEINE RETURNED TO THE
open door near the back stairs. When she stepped through, darkness engulfed her. Plywood covered the windows, and sparse patches of light spilled through the doorway and gaps in the roof. Her nostrils flared against a barrage of odors—the faintest hint of herbs and flowers, though musty and laced with mold, animal hair, and rotting wood and fabric. But beneath it all she found the odor of something far more sinister. Something had died in the house.

Again, she felt the wave of dread, as though a cold drop of oil was spiraling down her vertebrae. Her senses grew taut. It seemed natural that the condemned house would smell like dead animals. Probably possum, raccoons, and all kinds of creatures had nested there.

A few steps deeper inside the house, and shapes began to take form in the darkness. She was standing inside some sort of pantry just opposite a dining room. The interior did not have any of the grand woodwork or moldings of the mansion in the Quarter, though a carved mantel framed the tiled fireplace. Layers of torn wallpaper covered the plaster walls, much of which had chunked away, revealing slats of wood beneath.

Beyond the dining room, light flooded in from where the roof had smashed through on what must have been a living area. The east walls were still standing, covered in black and white toile, but the entire west section was rubble. A credenza, a secretary, and odd pieces of furniture stood amid the debris. She opened the door to the secretary, found it empty, and closed it again. Madeleine shook her head at the notion that the beautiful antique should fall to rot.

A sudden movement caught in her periphery, and she thought she saw a male figure hulking just a few feet away. She gasped and stepped backward, but realized that it was a trick of shadows. The wind had stirred the limbs of the oak and magnolia, eclipsing the splashes of sunlight in an erratic shadow dance. But the movement drew her attention toward a dim corner where a rolltop desk stood.

A fine old piece, made from the same bayou cypress wood as many of the furnishings in the mansion on Esplanade. Not ornate, but sturdily constructed and obviously crafted by someone who took pride in the work.

Madeleine raised the rolltop, made from a single piece of wood that had mellowed over time to a honey and cinnamon color. Inside, she found small drawers and cubby holes for sorting. One by one, she opened each drawer and closed it, admiring the hand-crafted dovetails that formed the joints. The desk appeared empty, and she was about to turn away when she realized something was out of place.

Inside the center cubby hole, a wooden peg protruded slightly. She reached in and removed it, and then felt around until she found a piece of loose molding. When she tugged at it, it pulled, revealing a small hidden compartment.

Inside were a blank-faced wooden doll and a small metal flask leaning against the panel. The doll was not painted and had no dressing, but its face had distinct cheekbones and recessed eyes. The wood was smooth and dark.

She unscrewed the cap to the flask and smelled lingering fumes of old whiskey that disappeared after a single whiff. Behind where the flask had been sitting, she saw a small leather-bound book. She opened it and tried to read, but found only handwritten French filling the pages, and she was not exactly proficient. She gingerly scanned through, spotting words she recognized:
voudrais, fenêtre, LeBlanc
.

Madeleine felt a jump of excitement to see her family name. She flipped to the first page. A single line in French:

“Le Livre de Marie-Rose LeBlanc”

“Mémée,” Madeleine exclaimed aloud.

Her grandmother’s name, her grandmother’s diary. Madeleine scanned through pages again. If she had a little time, she could probably translate it. Mémée might even have written about her own father, whom Chloe’d referred to as having a “river devil” just like Daddy.

She bit her lip. She had no idea who might be the current owner of Terrefleurs, but obviously someone had cared enough to leave a ladder outside. She had no claim on the property, was indeed trespassing, and certainly had no right to rummage through its contents.

Nevertheless, she took the book.

She reasoned that once she got a good peek and translated it properly, she would contact the current owners to return it. She arranged the desk back to the condition in which she found it, leaving the flask and the doll in place.

She followed a hallway to her right, where an unusually narrow door opened to another room. The stench of the house grew much stronger here and she covered her mouth. She could also hear insects buzzing. Obviously, this room was the source of the worst smells.

She pushed the door open wider. A gaping hole in the ceiling and roof illuminated the room. A chifforobe, the only item of furniture, stood on the west wall, and in the east corner she saw a large, sticky-looking black stain on the floor. It was crawling with flies.

Madeleine recoiled, gagging.

The desire to take flight gripped her. But she clamped the fabric of her t-shirt over her mouth and forced herself to breathe evenly until the room stopped tilting. No dead animal nearby. No hint at what had shed this slick of rotting blood. The flies were fat and sluggish; their sick humming almost as intolerable as the smell.

In the shadows opposite the blood lay a pile of objects. She could see a glint of glass and some sort of dark canvas material. She took a shaky step deeper inside the room.

She saw a camping lantern and a dark blue knapsack and some folded newspaper lying amid cigarette butts. Flies hovered like zeppelins. The newspaper had not begun to yellow, so she guessed that it was fairly current, though she could not bring herself to examine it more closely with all the drunken flies waiting in her path.

She’d seen enough.

“Termites.”

She jumped, and turned to see her father standing in the doorway.

“What, Daddy?”

He didn’t reply.

“Let’s get out of here, Daddy. This room is awful. There was a hunter here or something.”

She gestured at the stain that swirled with flies each time she moved. “Someone must have butchered an animal. A deer maybe.” She could think of no other explanation. “We should go.”

But her father remained framed by the door, blocking her way.

“Rats and termites,” he said.

“What?” She swallowed, trying not to allow the fetid air into her lungs. “The house is rotting away. Termites are the least of its problems.”

“Right there.” He pointed at the wall beneath the window. “You see?”

She kept her eyes on him for a long moment, then turned to look where he was pointing. Nothing there. She grimaced; he had changed so swiftly.

“Honestly Daddy, it’s time to—”

“You wanna come here to raise Cain, had to stir it all up, now, you take a look.” He grabbed her arm and turned her toward the wall. Flies ballooned up from the black stain and bounced against her skin.

“Daddy, please!”

He held her with force. The sound of her own heartbeat drummed in her ears.

“You look,” he seethed, gripping her arm. “Like putting stars to sleep, only backwards. They’ve been there. Right there! The whole time. You tell’m to
show themselves to you!
”

His words grew louder, mounting to a near-shout at the end, and Madeleine could not tell whether he was addressing her or the wall.

She stood, eyes wide, staring where her father pointed.

Despite dread and worry, despite all sense of reason, she let the thought come into focus:

Let me see
.

In the darkness . . . movement.

A tuft of hair. A glint of wing. Ripples in the shadows.

Madeleine broke free from her father’s grasp. A heavy fly spiraled from the dark mass and buzzed her face. She fled the room, fled outside to the porch. She was coughing and spitting, filling her lungs with fresh air, leaning over the railing to catch her breath.

Her father emerged from the doorway and stood beside her.

The breeze sighed from the river, and the crickets chirped in unison among the stretching shadows. Madeleine’s lungs caught with intermittent shudders.

“I’m sorry, kitten,” he whispered.

She regarded him warily, her hand at her stomach. Given the intensity of his manner only moments ago, it seemed impossible that this fugue could be so short-lived. Cognitive, yes, but too cognitive. Almost as if he had not slipped at all, but had acted with clarity.

“We should go,” she said.

The creature sounds from the nearby swamp reminded her of Bayou Black, and offered some comfort, however slight. She descended the rear steps and realized they had just enough daylight to make it back to River Road.

She took one last glance toward the bayou at the far end of the property, and stopped. A shape moved through a clearing in the distance and disappeared into the foliage. It looked like a man, a black man clad in overalls.

“Somebody’s here,” Madeleine said.

They scanned the clearing and caught another glimpse of the shape.

It
was
a man. He was not wearing overalls, however, but instead wore jeans and a t-shirt with a baseball cap. And he was coming toward the house.

MADELEINE FROZE ON THE
rear stair of the Terrefleurs main house, then realized that the man had not seen them yet. He entered another large clump of brush and disappeared.

“Come on,” Daddy whispered.

They quickly and quietly finished their descent down the stairs and the ladder, and padded through the compact dirt around to the front of the house.

“Keep quiet,” Daddy said.

They ducked into the thicket of trees, pressing forward to the mouth of the blackberry bushes. The old house was still visible beyond the dirt road. They paused, hidden among the thorny tendrils, and watched. Madeleine felt a rivulet of sweat slide from her temple.

They heard footsteps and the groan of rotten wood at the rear stairs. A shadowed figure appeared at the back of the wraparound porch and moved toward the front of the house. He lit a cigarette, illuminating cupped hands in a flare of light, then he leaned forward on the railing. His face emerged from shadow.

Zenon.

Madeleine gasped. But as her surprise dissipated, anger swelled to replace it. Zenon had attacked her that night in the flower shop, she was convinced of it. He had discovered a way to transmute thought. A sense of fury hatched inside her, so dark and savage that she felt her lips peel back in a grimace. She began to rise from her hiding place but Daddy caught her arm, clamping his hand over her mouth. He frowned and shook his head, releasing her, tapping a finger to his lips in a hushing gesture.

Madeleine glared at him. He was right though; this was not the time or place for a confrontation. They waited, motionless in their hiding place. Zenon seemed unaware of their presence, taking slow drags from his cigarette and looking out in the direction of the Mississippi. He looked comfortable, completely at ease, and yet he was a trespasser same as they. Sheriff Cavanaugh’s warning percolated in her mind. She would have wondered if perhaps Zenon had been the hunter responsible for the bloodstain in the bedroom, except that she suspected that Chloe had sent him here. Sent him to come looking for Madeleine.

But if that were true, why hadn’t he approached the house from the road, as she had? Zenon had come up from the bayou.

The mosquitoes, waiting amid the berries, began to sting. She resisted the urge to slap them, and instead regarded Zenon as he smoked. As children, she, Marc, and Zenon had in common that antisocial quality that made them outcasts. For Marc and Madeleine, it had stemmed from their mother abandoning them and their father fading in and out. Zenon’s parents had both been drunks, and he would often come to school with bruises and broken bones.

Madeleine remembered a day when she and Marc had been catching crawfish over by Zenon’s house and overheard his mother screaming at him. The door had swung open and Zenon had come running out, but not before his mother had struck him on the skull with a cast-iron skillet. He’d staggered and swayed. From where Marc and Madeleine had been sitting in their skiff, they could see blood flowing from Zenon’s ear as he ran into the woods. Both his parents beat him, but his mother—she was the worst.

Madeleine stole a glance at her father. He was watching the house. She began to feel foolish standing there, getting perforated by insects, spying.

Zenon dropped his cigarette over the railing to the damp foliage below. He stood and rubbed his head, and walked back around to the rear of the house.

Madeleine and her father both exhaled, deep and silent. They turned together and stepped through the tangle of sticker bushes, quickly at first, then slowed when full darkness enveloped them.

“I wonder why he came from the back of the house, not the front where River Road is,” Madeleine whispered. “Is there a road back there too?”

She saw her father shrug as he moved ahead through the tunnels. “Nothing but swamp back there, far as I know. Must have come in by boat.”

“I don’t know why we’re hiding from him.”