Blackwater (14 page)

I cross the room and look out the window. The sun has just set. I can see the orange glow of it burning the skyline in the far off distance. The far off distance I will have to make my way to.

When I look down, I see Andy walking away from the apartment building. My heart aches a little bit. I'm gonna miss him. I'm gonna miss nighttime ice hockey and taking a stroll in the cold mountains. His warm hand around mine. The smell of his cologne in the air, calling to me. The way he assumed I was a sweet small-town country girl and doted on me. The way he made me feel normal.

I look around at my things. Nice things. I'm gonna miss it all.

"
She needs you
." The icy air whispers. The voices are so much stronger than they were when I was alive. Before I barely made out a word.

I snap my fingers making the flashes of light.

My brain fires, Tessa. Could it be my aunt needing me? My aunt hasn’t needed me since she moved into our house. I don’t understand why she needs me now. My guts ache for the scent of the white lilacs and the way the air at home coats you in itself. Marking you.

The Canadian air is clean and fresh and every bit of it feels like it's never touched anyone before. It's fresh from the trees.

Not like the air at home. The air that presses itself against you and brings with it the smell of everything it's touched along its way to find you. I miss home. Seeing Tessa would be nice and shutting the whispers up would be amazing. They've been barking at me for some time. I swear I can even see a sliver of light in the air when I hear them now too. It's creepy.

"Home."

I look around the room. I wish I had bunny, the damned whispers still freak me out.

I leave the room the way it is. I leave my stuff where it is. I leave Andy still wanting me. The way I leave every boy, well the ones I don’t eat by accident. I wish for just today, it could be different. I wish I was a normal girl and I could stay with him.

My feet start the journey out of the room and down the hall before my heart is ready. I leave through the back door and run until I reach my truck. I sit inside and wait for the tears to hit.

I don’t want to go back home. I don’t understand why she needs me and why, after all this time, the voices are back. It's been weeks of them.

I start the truck and drive. It's gonna take me days. Days I can spend talking myself out of going.

Days I can spend rehashing every detail. Every moment I spent making the wrong choices, murdering my entire family except my one aunt who apparently needs me. I owe her that don't I?

It ain't her that drives me forward though. It's every moment I spent loving something too much. Wanting something too much. Something I still want if I'm honest with myself. I don’t like being honest with myself. I look at the rearview and shake my head.

The drive takes me four nights. The icy whispers keep me company. They seem excited by the drive home. They seem excited by the prospect of going back. They are alone in that.

My brain tries to talk me out of it but I don’t let it. I sense it, somewhere deep inside of me, I need to go home. It’s a funny feeling I can't explain. The return of the icy whispers is part of it.

When we pass the sign for Baton Rouge, I feel sick. I experience everything I felt before. All of my emotions come barreling back, forcing a panic attack.

I make the turn but nothing looks the same. I know the freeways are a new development in this part of the world, but everything looks different. I think I'm lost.

My stomach is in knots. I drive gawking at it all, lost in thought and direction. I turn off when I see a road I recognize the name of. The memories of running through the fields and the open space don’t match what I see. The thriving metropolis feels as if something unholy has occurred. My town is gone. My place where I felt safe and played is overly developed. Every part of America has had development but for some reason I imagined Baton Rouge would remain untouched. Folks would still be arguing about women wearing pants, over sweet tea on the porch.

I turn onto River Road and drive slowly. The old plantations are still there but they look either like they will be torn down any moment, or someone is charging admission prices for tourists to see inside. Sleep in the bed of the dead. Louisiana is full of ghosts. I should know. I'm one of them.

I feel sick wondering if Hurricane Katrina ruined anything along the riverbanks. I watched the footage of New Orleans and felt sick. But I was in London, far removed from the suffering of my people.

I wonder what my house looks like. Will it be ruined as well? Or worse, will there by people lining up to pay to sleep in my bed.

I glance at the passenger seat and smile bitterly, "Shoot, y'all should've stayed at the house and haunted it. We'd be rich as preachers of the Pentecost." I don’t know if the icy voices can hear me, but I notice suddenly my accent is stronger. I have never been able to pick up the languages or accents of the many places I've been. The many places I've run to. Always fearing his breath is at the back of my neck. It ain't never been him I was scared of, well not once I changed. It was always me and my love for him. My undying love.

I see the old farm that is next door to my house, it's refurbished and brand-new looking. It looks better than it did forty-eight years ago.

My driveway, half a mile down the road, however is a different story. The trees that made an oak alley up the drive to my house have bent over completely. Their twisting and gnarled branches look like they're trying to keep people out. I stop the truck and jump out.

The moment my feet touch the ground the icy whispers surround me like a twister.

"Home Lorelei. Home."

I shiver from the breath of the dead greeting me. It ain't like I'm alive, but it makes my skin crawl.

I walk to the sign hanging sideways on the broken iron fence.

'Huntington Plantation'

Not much of a plantation anymore. The vines and bushes have burst through the iron gates and fences. They creep through onto the street. They're either trying to get out, or drag something or someone back in. Either way, they scare the dickens out of me. The driveway does too. The bent and leaning trees are a mess. Several of them are down across the driveway. I get back in the truck and park it on the side of the road. I pull my coat around me and walk back to the sign. I look at my truck and wonder if it'll be there in the morning. Things look rundown and frightening here.

My boots crunch on the rocks. The driveway is gravel, just like it was before. Daddy wanted to have it paved. We had argued about it. I was bent on having a swimming pool, like Angie had. He laughed at me and told me that we lived on the river and if I needed to get wet, I could go swim out back. I remember scowling. I never woulda swam in that filthy old river. I still couldn’t, and ain't no filthy gator gonna eat me now.

Emotions take my breath. If I had a heartbeat I know it would be wild and insane. Instead, it's broken and my feet don’t want to take any more steps. They freeze mid step. The grounds are destroyed. Everything is in ruin.

I break into a run. My aunt needs me. What if she's inside and trapped and the icy whispers have been trying to get me to come and save her? My boots meet the ground with force. I'm still the fastest runner. It's how I've stayed alive. My strong thighs have saved me more than once, running when I knew I felt him nearby.

I climb the front steps and burst through the front door.

She is sitting at the large chair in the foyer. The chair my momma bought. It's moldy and dank inside.

She smiles at me. She has to be over one hundred years old. I still see her as she was before though.

"Auntie Tessa?" I ask softly.

She smiles back, "You came for sweet tea."

I'm lost. Not only lost in how the house has come to this, but also how half a century has passed and I have not come home to help. I have left her to rot with the old house.

Guilt fills me, making my nerves worse. How did fifty years ruin something so beautiful and strong? Louisiana is known for taking back a house when it wants it to become part of the mystery and magic. From the look of it Aunt Tessa and the house have had a rough fifty years.

She stands with difficulty and shuffles in her slippers over to me. She puts one of her hands out and takes mine in it.

Her voice is cracked and old, "You look good, my dear. Good like her. She looks good too. You always was such a pretty young thing. Pretty as a peach."

She pulls me to the kitchen. I gag when I smell it.

The decay is everywhere.

The walls are dripping and leaking. The ceiling has a hole in it and I can hear animals moving in the other rooms. Scratching and digging. Vines and trees have taken over the walls.

I shiver.

I did this.

The left wing is gone. The end of that side has been boarded off.

I did this.

I feel a lump forming in my throat. I fan my face and take deep breaths.

The kitchen is tilted like it's sinking in the back. There are no lights on anywhere.

"Is there power?" I ask.

She looks at me and giggles, like an insane schoolgirl.

I squeeze her hand. Is she alive? Is she the icy whispers? Have they finally gotten me here to kill me? Can I die?

We walk through the dark and crooked halls to the back deck. She walks through. The French doors are gone. Everything is gone. Boards cover windows but only some of them. The rest are just open.

Everything feels like a Charles Dickens tale.

Aunt Tessa is wearing an old nightgown instead of a tattered wedding dress, but the effect is the same.

The cold air inside the house is creepy. It still feels like the southern air, thick and heavy, but it also takes my breath away it's so cold.

I know it's not normal cold. I lived in the Rockies in Canada and never ever felt the cold of the place. Here I'm gripping my jacket to me and nearly shivering.

The cold here is death and haunting.

Tessa giggles, "She ain't very happy with you. She needed you."

I'm about to meet my maker. I know it.

The back porch is overgrown and in ruin. My boot goes through a board before we finally get to the back steps.

She pulls me and as I realize our destination, my skin crawls.

I pull back, "Let's just go back to the house and I'll get you some sweet tea, Aunty. The porch swing didn't seem to bad."

She doesn’t let go. She is fiercely strong for an old lady. She is strong and incessant.

The pillars aren’t all standing and lilacs and magnolias have grown up and out of control. The oaks and willows are mangled.

"Hurricanes have ruined it but I remember it the way it was when he built it." she whispers.

My daddy.

My daddy who built it for the parties and dances we always had. He was going to replace the floor the summer after my wedding.

A sob escapes my chest. I can feel the tears building. As we climb the stairs, I look around and am thrown right back into it all. I can feel and see the memories coming to life.

Whit's hands on me. The music swaying the people. The heat of the night air and the feeling of the scotch in my belly.

I drop to my knees and cry.

It's the second time I've cried in near fifty years I've been gone.

The black tears rain down my face. Tessa is dancing alone, waltzing and humming a song in amongst the overhanging branches and old man's beard.

I'm rocking back and forth with my hands over my face. I'm covering the Devil's tears.

I did this. I did it all. The ruin and decay is as black and filthy as my tears are. As my heart is.

I can feel his breath on me. I can feel my heartbreak all over again. I can see the hand that swipes at Emily's throat, making her blood spray across the foyer. I can feel the love I felt for him. It's still there. It has never left me. I can't kill it no matter how hard I try. It's unnatural like him; it always was.

I don’t react the right way. I never seem to get it right. Something about the black blood he made me drink keeps my pain from me.

I did this.

I did it all.

The icy whispers blow past my neck. I ignore them.

Suddenly the ice pools at my feet in a bright-white light and when I look up, a beautiful woman stands before me. She glows in the dark and when I focus I realize I can see Tessa waltzing alone, right through the woman in white.

She is my ghost. She is identical to my momma and yet I know it's not her. Her face is not harsh and cruel.

I prepare for her to end my pain. End my life.

She holds her white, frighteningly wispy, hands out to me, "I tried to warn you. I done tried to warn you, Lorelei. What in Sam hell did you think I was trying to say?"

Her southern voice is familiar. Her country accent is familiar but her lips don’t move properly with the words that are coming out.

Her long blonde hair flows around her white ghost face. She is my age, if that. She is beautiful and tragic. Her voice is the one I have always heard.