Child of the Storm (9 page)

She
slept hard through the night, not needing a guide or any dream she could recall
to see her safe through to midmorning; waking only a while before Odette would
arrive after a before-dawn departure from New Orleans. Celeste sat up in the
bed they
’
d made for her and ate a biscuit
without noticing if it was still warm, or tasted good, or was anything like a
biscuit that her mother would have made for her. She didn
’
t notice John Stone and Sandrine
sitting quietly by and waiting just as she was waiting, since what little
needed to be done
had already been done. She chewed on the
biscuit, her brain still numb from so much shock and sleep, and watched each
door in turn, as if they were having a slow conversation with each other and
she was just there to listen in.
The door where Odette would
soon come walking in, and the other door through which her mother would never
walk.

           
Her
eyes were on the front door when she heard the brisk clopping of horse hooves
approach and then
be
still outside. Soon, the door
opened and the shape of Aunt Odette stood rimmed in morning and made straight
for the bed where Celeste lay, as if nothing else mattered or even existed in
all the
world. That was a good thing, even though Celeste
had never felt at ease around this bold and older woman who was always bringing
lessons of one sort or another. Not the sort of lessons her mama or papa had
sometimes promised when she
’
d messed up and
crossed some line without knowing it till it was too late
—
all caught up in a tantrum over
something huge only to be brought up hard and short, maybe with a sharp smack
to the backside. Aunt Odette brought the long and drawn out sort of lessons that
could bring a sigh out of Mama.

A
sigh, or even a sharp smack from Mama would be welcome now.

Odette
stopped before she got to the bed, cast a nod of thanks to Sandrine where she
sat nearby and spared a glance toward the door of the other room. John Stone
closed the front door and stood with his back to it.

Eyes
on Celeste again, Odette took a slow, deep breath before speaking.
“
This is a hard thing, child.
Maybe the hardest thing of all.
But we
’
ll get though this together. I promise
you that.
”
She waited, maybe to see if Celeste
would speak or maybe to choose her next words with the care she always managed.
“
Your mother
’
s passed, but she
’
ll never be lost to you. You
’
ll have all her love and her kindness
and every good and true thing she ever taught you as long as you live. You know
that
’
s true, don
’
t you Celeste?
”

“
Yes ma
’
am.
”
Celeste might have
said more. Might have told Odette that she knew she
’
d have her mother with her from now on,
because her mama had found her again already. Her mama had become a spirit
guide, just like John Stone said, and was like a bear, because she knew Celeste
loved bears so. She might have told Odette all that, but Odette didn
’
t care for such notions and might not
have understood. But John Stone understood and he looked worried standing over
there by the door
—
maybe worried Celeste would share their
secret when she shouldn
’
t. So she didn
’
t.

Odette
sat on the edge of the bed and gathered Celeste up in her arms. She spoke so
quietly that Celeste thought she might just be talking for her own ears and for
no one else to hear, but Celeste heard.
“
To have lost them
both,
”
she whispered.
“
Thank heavens I didn
’
t lose you as well.
”

But
there would be little time for such lingering reunions and gentle comforts.
With Aunt Odette there, everything would have to speed up, because there were
important things to resolve.

While
she had arrived by horse and wagon, within the hour a machine arrived
;
a truck driven by a man who never spoke but took his
direction from Odette. With John Stone
’
s help, he brought in
a long box and they took it into the room where her mama was. Then Odette took
Celeste out back of the house to explain what would happen next while the box
was filled and taken back out to the truck again. Celeste understood but was
polite enough not to let on to her aunt.

“
We must leave at
once, Celeste,
”
Odette said.
“
If there is anything you need to take,
you must collect it now.
”

Celeste
tried to think of what might be lost inside her old house, but could only bring
Neighbor to mind, and he had been taken by the storm. The storm had taken
everything. She shook her head.
“
Can
’
t think of anything,
”
she said.

“
Anything you need, we
can get in New Orleans. We must make it to the station in time for the train. I
’
m sorry it must be so quickly, but
there is no other way. It will be for the best.
”

Celeste
nodded.

The
back end of the truck was like any old
wagon
’
s
,
but most of it had been tented over by a large tarp. At the front, where the
horse should have been, there was an odd sort of metal box
—
big and black with spots of rust and
road dirt on it. That was where the truck kept its belly full of noise and
smoke. Celeste touched the wheels of the truck as she passed, noting how
different that feel was from wood or iron. Not cold like iron in the shade, or
warm like
well used
wood, but tough.
Tough like callus on a bare foot.
She was handed up to sit
next to Odette, and eyed the driver, thinking how his neck looked like a turtle
’
s.

The
truck rumbled and smoked, and Celeste left her old world behind.

They
came to another town after some long time bumping along the road. She had a
good sense for time just by the change in the light and height of the sun. A
chunk of the morning was spent in watching the roadside slip by faster that her
legs could make it go. But this was just a town much like the one near her
home. All the same sort of buildings, just arranged in a different way and with
more of them.
Just more of the same thing, until they
unloaded at the train station.
It was nothing special either. She was
handed down to the ground by Odette, who motioned her to move along with a
press against her back, as she motioned two men to attend to unloading the
truck with a sharp wave of the other hand. Odette made people and things move.
“
We
’
ve little time,
”
she told Celeste.
“
That
’
s the train
approaching now.
”

The
floor trembled and there was a sound like far off thunder or a deep wind.
Something was coming.
Something so much bigger than the
truck.
Odette opened the door onto a platform like a long porch that
either belonged to the station or to the long train that had just arrived. Here
was a dragon fresh from a story, if not exactly as she might have pictured it
from the telling. A thing so full of fire, it could have eaten ten trucks like
the one that brought them into town and still wanted something more. Oh, she
knew about trains from Augustin. Anything that could take you far away was
something he liked. A train had a belly like a furnace; as hot as the furnace her
papa worked, only this fire made the train
’
s blood boil, and
filled it up with more GO than it could know what to do with. Even now, there
was a puffing plume, a throb, and now and then, a hiss, like something sent
through clinched teeth.

Odette
helped her onto the train and steered her toward their seat, placing Celeste by
the window where she could look out onto the platform. It was empty now and she
craned her neck to see if they had brought her mama along or left her behind.
Odette eased her back down into her seat.
“
Everything is taken
care of,
”
she said, and Celeste understood. They
waited there for a while longer, not speaking but listening to the rumblings of
the engine until, with a lurch, the train began to move away.

Soon,
the truck seemed a plodding thing as Celeste sat with her cheek pressed against
the window of the train car, her stomach just a little churned, and the scenery
racing by
—
water, marsh, farms and trees, there
and gone again. It had never occurred to her to notice the name of the town
where they stepped on board, and didn
’
t seem to matter now.
The train wanted to get to New Orleans and so did she. That
’
s where Augustin had gone before he
went farther still. Aunt Odette said that her papa would come home that way, so
if she
was
already there, it would be that much closer
for him.
That much sooner.

The
thought of New Orleans scared her nearly to death, but that was okay. She
’
d been scared nearly to death before
and come out just fine.
 
Her old
home would just be a memory. The ones dearest to her were with her now, or
waiting to guide her again next time she visited that other place, or coming to
join her at the new home. Odette lived in New Orleans, and Odette had powers
over all manner of things. They
’
d be safe with her
looking out after them. She told herself that.

At
the Mississippi River, the train was loaded onto the ferry for the crossing,
since a bridge was still years away. The ferry was not much more than a big
flat something
—
like a platform to build a house on,
only this one floated. It was hard to see just what all was going on as the
train loaded itself on to that flat boat, but once the cars were arranged in
rows across the width, Celeste was glad her window still faced out where she
could see the river.

She
compared this to the little bayous she knew back home that ran clear enough to
see to the bottom, when they weren
’
t dried up during a
long stretch between rains, or ran brown with traveling mud right after a
downpour. This Mississippi River looked like it ran brown all the time. It was
so wide, she thought maybe they
’
d traveled too far
and reached that ocean her papa had sailed across to fight the war.

A boat, like a train of the river,
shouldered alongside the ferry, shepherding it across.
Celeste could see it just outside her
window and see the man standing at its wheel in the windowed room set in front
of the fuming stack. She
’
d never seen a boat
so big, or one that wasn
’
t rowed.
Machines pushing machines.
That was how you got to New
Orleans. If you didn
’
t have a bridge, then the machines
would make you one.

On
the other side, the train had its own rails again and plunged on toward the
city, passing through places Celeste thought might be New Orleans at last, but
Odette told her it wasn
’
t so. These were
towns out from the city
;
children of New Orleans. They
rolled on under the sun, west to east, slower than they had before the river.
No running inside the house.

Celeste
watched a town of neat, white houses slide by them. She pointed out the window,
looking back at Odette with a question.

“
That
’
s a cemetery,
”
her aunt explained.
“
You know what that is?
”

Celeste
nodded. Would they put her mama there? She didn
’
t ask. Didn
’
t want to know such a thing just yet.

The
train trimmed off more speed and crawled down the line to where Celeste knew it
had to stop soon or get too pinched in by the buildings crowding up around it.
This
had
to be New Orleans, she told herself, but wouldn
’
t ask Odette. Another porch waited for
the train to slip up alongside it, and they stopped with a soft jolt.

Other
passengers climbed off before Odette would let Celeste leave her seat. Their
train was not the only one at the station, and even as they came to the end of
their journey, another train started its own, heading off slowly back the way
they had come. As they walked the long porch to the station, Celeste sniffed at
the different air. There was a weight to it,
laid
on
by the sweat and breathe of the trains. Then, through some doors, they passed
into a room so large, Celeste simply stopped. The store where Augustin had
worked was a nice big place, and the dreaded schoolhouse was large as well, but
not so large that the teacher
’
s hate couldn
’
t fill it up to the high ceiling. But
you could have dropped that whole schoolhouse and all its old ghosts inside
this grand space and it would have been shamed off into just one corner. People
of all types and dress swept past her as she stared up at the ceiling and
across the polished stone floors, washed in the bright afternoon glow from a
window that brought the Climbing Oak to mind. Its top was high and rounded like
a tree
’
s canopy and at its feet the people
came and went. That window shone the brightest, but there was one to right and
left as well. She stood in the middle of this grove of windows and something
Sandrine told her once came to mind.
Something about grand
and pearly gates leading into heaven.