A Twisted Ladder (50 page)

In a blink, Severin appeared at the stern of the boat. And with her came the bramble.

Madeleine squeezed her eyes and tried to make the apparition disappear.

Put the layer back. Put it back
.

But it seemed as if once flowing, the vision persisted. She wished she hadn’t stopped. Severin stared at her with challenging eyes, and rain began to fall again. The sound of it filled the swamp and the trees all around, as if echoing applause in a grand theater.

“Did you come to shoot yourself, like your brother?”

Madeleine closed her eyes and breathed evenly. She knew that hallucinations could be brought on during moments of stress, and so she strove to make herself absolutely calm. Rain washed down her face.

“He shot himself after he tried to kill that man,” Severin continued.

Madeleine opened her eyes.

“He tried to burn him up.”

Madeleine knew the child was not real, simply a hallucination she should ignore. Nevertheless, Madeleine spoke directly to her.

“That isn’t true.”

“It is true, very very. I’ll show you.”

The briar stretched over her like a wave, and the cove grew dark. Madeleine screamed. Her vision faded to black, and then it seemed that she was no longer sitting in a boat in the rain, but was instead warm and dry deep within a tangled cave of thorny stems. To her right, an illuminated tunnel opened up. She could see movement in there. Walls and incandescent lighting. It looked like the basement of some kind of commercial building. And then she saw Marc, his tool belt slung around his hips. He and another man hovered around an electrical transformer.

“Marc!” Madeleine gasped.

She heard a titter of laughter, and saw Severin grimacing from the shadows.

It’s an illusion. This isn’t Marc, and Severin isn’t real
.

Marc’s hands pressed against the wall on either side of the transformer. Wires protruded from an open panel. Behind him, a tall lean man was whispering. Madeleine did not recognize the man, but he had an unusual way about him. Then she realized what was different. The man had that strange, surreal grayness about him, much like Severin.

Madeleine shuddered. This was Marc’s Severin.

Marc stood drenched in sweat. His back was to the stranger, and he was obviously trying to ignore him. From his hip, Marc’s two-way radio crackled with the apprentice electrician’s voice:

“You got the juice cut off yet, Marc? I been sittin in here waiting.”

The stranger continued to hunker over Marc’s shoulder, whispering. Marc reached up and touched a bundle of wire inside the transformer—a commercial transformer. The stranger leaned in closer and whispered more urgently.

Marc scowled at him and looked like he was going to close the panel door. Then he stopped and unhooked the bundle of wires. The apprentice’s voice came over the radio again, sounding more impatient. Marc retied the wires to a different terminal, one where another bundle was already tied, so that now two bundles were sharing the same connection.

Marc picked up the radio and held it to his mouth. He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth, then sighed, relenting. He pressed the button on the side of the two-way.

“I’m done. Go ahead.”

Marc stepped back from the transformer.

For a suspended moment, everything fell silent. The stranger had stopped whispering. He backed away from Marc. They looked toward the building, where the apprentice electrician was somewhere about to throw the main breaker.

“No,” Madeleine whispered, and felt tears spill down her cheeks.

An explosion tore from where the two men watched, and the transformer burst with sparks.

And then, the bramble folded over them, and the faces of Marc and the stranger faded. Madeleine was once again sitting in blackness. The bramble kept twisting until it opened above her. Slowly, the sound of rain returned. It found her, soaked her, and she was once again crouching in the boat in the gray-shrouded cypress cove. An open space in the briar. Hot tears that spilled down her face were replaced by cold raindrops, steaming from the heat radiating from her body.

“Don’t fret for your brother,” Severin said. “He tried to kill that man because that’s what he’s supposed to do.”

All around her, the rain sizzled. She turned her eyes away from Severin and focused on the garden of cypress knees that rose out of the water beyond.

Not real. Didn’t happen like that
.

She had to remain calm. The vision had been so tangible. So detailed. Marc never intentionally hurt anyone.

I need treatment
.

She fixed her gaze on the contours of the tree’s wooden root system, steadying her breathing. She had to return to the swamp house right away. She would be caught in the storm for sure, and to what end? She couldn’t even escape Severin.

But something about the tangle of cypress knees prevented her from turning away. One of the larger roots was jet black and rounded, not brown and pointed like the others.

The wind picked up. The storm had arrived.

She looked at Severin, and then back at the jags of cypress knees which were now fading behind a curtain of rain. The large round root moved. It bobbed ever so slightly with the motion of the water.

Madeleine gasped and stood, rushing forward to look at the large round shape that was not a cypress root. A human head, hidden under a blanket of wet black hair.

“Oh my God!” Madeleine said, and then again with growing alarm, “Oh my God!”

Behind her, Severin began to giggle.

How could Madeleine trust her own eyes? She thrust an oar into the water and shoved the boat closer, trying to get a better look. She could see the rest of the body below the surface. She reached over the side of the boat and lifted the face, soft black tendrils falling away in wet clumps. The girl had long dark lashes to match her thick black hair, and her olive skin had gone ghostly pale in death.

BAYOU BLACK, 2009

M
ADELEINE SHIVERED IN THE
rain, unable to believe the dark-haired girl who swayed in the water below her was actually dead. Her young expression was so peaceful; she looked like she had simply fallen asleep. But no way could she be alive; she had been lying face down in the water.

With trembling hands, Madeleine put her fingers to the waxen throat, hoping to find a pulse. But she found no sign of life, and the girl’s skin was as cold as the November waters that enveloped her. Her body rolled under the pressure of Madeleine’s hand, and as it did, through the girl’s torn clothing she caught sight of gray, bloodless wounds in her back and chest.

From behind, tiny hands shoved Madeleine’s back. She lost her balance and went hurtling toward the water.

She screamed and grabbed at the boat, but too late. A shock of cold purple water swallowed her and pointed roots sliced at her flesh. She had fallen directly upon the dead girl, and the body lolled underneath.

Madeleine shrieked, floundering. The rain was now coming down so hard she was unable to tell whether her lips were in the water or out. Aquatic scavengers skittered across her body as they abandoned the corpse.

Madeleine flailed, swallowing foul liquid. The girl’s body was now completely entangled with Madeleine’s, and the cold, raw claylike feeling of dead skin raised an instinctive panic. She floundered with her in a horrific water ballet until she was able to scrabble up onto the base of the tree.

Severin laughed from the boat.

Lightning tore through the sky, and the sound of thunder broke simultaneously. Madeleine shuddered, crouching on a ridge of inhospitable cypress knees. Bleeding, teeth chattering, she couldn’t move, terrified of what lurked beneath the surface of the water. The skiff bobbed only a few feet away, but it was growing obscure behind the thick downpour.

The wretched body had gotten wedged in the cypress knees in the struggle, and the face was now tilted up toward the heavens. Even in the rain, Madeleine could see that she was very young, and lovely. Long, thick lashes and . . .

A sudden jolt of recognition: Anita Salazar. Madeleine cried out and reached for her, grasping at her face. She was so very clearly dead. Nothing to be done for her. Madeleine felt a ghastly uselessness.

What was Anita doing here?
Madeleine’s thoughts ran tilting and frenzied. And then:
I shouldn’t be touching her
.

She realized this was a crime scene, and the police would want it left alone so they could gather evidence. Madeleine would go straight to Sheriff Cavanaugh. A team would come out to recover Anita’s body and . . .

But no. It would be too late. The storm would soon bear down on the tiny cove and anything could happen. Anita’s body would likely wash away into the Gulf, lost forever. Madeleine racked her mind for someplace—anywhere—here in the bayou where she could seek help. But this section was utterly wild. The only place she could think of was an empty fishing cabin with no phone lines and no electricity.

Zenon’s fishing cabin.

My God
.

Zenon killed this girl
.

The cold rain penetrated to her marrow as she realized Anita must have gotten away from him somehow. He had been hunting her when Madeleine saw him on the far banks. Suddenly she knew that if the storm did not claim Anita’s body here in the bayou, Zenon would.

If she left her behind and the body disappeared, what was she supposed to do about it? Tell the authorities that she found Anita’s remains in the bayou, and then promptly check herself into some mental health facility? Her story would be met with a jaundiced eye. No, she had only one choice: She had to bring her back.

Madeleine wiped wet hands across her face. The storm was more violent than she had expected, and it drew the little cove into its maw. For the first time she realized she might not make it home. And yet, she had to try.

Slowly, gingerly, and with loathing, she lowered herself from atop the cypress knees, back into the chilling depths. The water stung the cuts on her arms and legs. She eased herself over to Anita and encircled her with her arms. The body slid without resistance. The boat had drifted further away, so she tucked Anita under her arm and swam over to it, clutching at the side.

Severin was leaning over, watching.

“Leave it here.”

“Go away,” Madeleine tried to say, but the effort of gasping for air in the rain and swamp water prevented her from speaking aloud.

She tried to heave Anita over the side of the boat, but whenever she raised her the effort caused her own body to sink below the surface, and she had to lower her again in order to catch a breath. She was unable to get enough leverage to lift her high enough.

Finally, Madeleine gave up and tried to pull the skiff in toward the cypress knees. She clutched Anita with one hand while trying to grasp the tether with the other, kicking out her legs in a frog swim. It was slow going, but she eventually made it back to the tangle of roots.

She wedged Anita into a crevice and pulled the boat firmly toward her. Her arms and legs trembled from the exertion, and she was utterly exhausted. She planted a foot in the root system.

Severin scowled from the stern, arms folded. “I told you to leave it here. Now Zenon’s gonna come for you too.”

Madeleine gasped and looked back toward the mouth of the cove. No sign of his fishing boat, and anyway it couldn’t fit through the narrow passage. But of course his boat was not there. She had believed the words of Severin, a hallucination.

But then lightning flashed, and she saw him.

He was swimming into the cove, a mere twenty feet away, his body camouflaged by the storm.

“Oh my God,” Madeleine breathed.

She braced herself against the roots and heaved. Time slowed and her arms turned to lead. She despaired, knowing she would have to give this up and climb in alone. She could survive; Anita could not. But just as she was about to abandon the effort, Anita’s body spilled over the edge into the skiff.

Zenon was just over ten feet away, thrashing closer. He had seen Anita.