Sweet Unrest (4 page)

“What’s the dreaming?” Chloe asked, breaking into the conversation.

“It’s the part of life that lets our souls be what they always been. When we sleep, Chloe-girl, we let go our mind—all our hates, all our worries—and our soul can be free.”

“So if someone has a reoccurring dream,” I said carefully, picking my words like dangerous fruit, “it might mean something?”

I should have let it be, but part of me wanted to know too badly to stay silent. The Dream was back, and I was at the point where I’d listen to pretty much anyone’s ideas about what it meant.

Mama Legba seemed vaguely amused at my question. “Sure enough, Lucy-girl. I told you, dreams let our souls walk free. We might re-remember something that happened to us before. Maybe see our future in them.”

I thought about the card—Death’s skeletal hand reaching for the bleeding young woman, the dark water of a river in the background. “But isn’t there some way to tell?” I asked, more urgently than I meant to. “I mean, whether a dream’s about the past or the future?”

The past, I could handle. That was over and gone. The future, though? Considering what the Dream was about, that was more than a little worrisome.

Mama Legba paused and studied me for a moment, her eyes sharp as knives, before getting up suddenly. “Our time’s up, Chloe-girl. We’ll pick up again next week. And don’t you be late.” She wagged a finger at her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But about the dreams?” I asked again, interrupting their goodbye.

Mama Legba stopped my words with the sharpness of her gaze. “Your time’s up for now too. You want to know more, Chloe knows where to find me. Maybe you come back with her next week.”

With that dismissal, Mama Legba gave Chloe a quick hug before disappearing through the doorway leading to the back of her shop.

“Come on, Lucy. That’s all we get for today,” Chloe said as she tugged me out the door.

After the coolness of the Voodoo woman’s shop, stepping into the steamy day was a shock to my system. But even that wasn’t enough to distract me from what the old woman had said.

I didn’t believe in hoodoo, voodoo, juju, or any other type of mumbo jumbo. Whatever my cards might have been, my parents hadn’t raised a fool. But I hated the Dream. I hated what it did to me, how it made me shake, made me feel beyond lost when I woke tangled in my sheets. I glanced back over my shoulder and wondered, just for a moment, if maybe I could find answers in a place I’d least expected them to be.

Six

After a few days on the job at Le Ciel, I was starting to understand that holding up my end of the deal I’d made with my parents was going to be a lot harder than I’d thought. It turned out that being an intern to the onsite preservation expert consisted less of actually taking pictures and more of fetching coffee and adjusting items in the light box “a little to the left, no to the right.” All. Day. Long. In fact, on the first day, Byron, my boss, told me not to bother bringing my equipment with me.

As if I’d go anywhere without my camera.

By the middle of the fourth day, I was exhausted, probably more from boredom than anything else. We were working in one of the big tents that had been erected on the grounds to handle the cataloging and inspection of objects from the estate. One of the research historians was sorting through a giant box of junk someone found in the attic, and Byron was deciding what artifacts merited documentation. He didn’t seem to trust anyone to just do their job.

I refilled the coffee when necessary.

When Byron said I could have the afternoon off, he didn’t have to tell me twice. With all the coffee I’d been lugging, I hadn’t had many chances to take any real pictures, and I was itching to continue documenting the house and the grounds for my senior project. I was in the mood for nature, so I took the gravel pathway that wound from our cottage, through some gardens, to a thin line of trees that bordered a clearing with a small pond.

The second I saw the pond, I knew I should have walked in a different direction, maybe out toward the river. At the far end of the clearing, one of the plantation’s trademark oaks dripped its Spanish moss over a bit of land that interrupted the otherwise perfect oval of the lake. It was picturesque, sure, but it was too perfect to be
interesting
. I walked down to the water’s edge anyway, hoping maybe I could find something in the scene worth capturing.

I was about to turn around and head back to our cottage when a warm breeze came up from behind me and cut through the stillness of the day, stirring the trees that surrounded the pond and rustling their leaves against one another. The current rippled through my hair, grazing me with an unwelcome warmth, and sent a skittering warning across my skin.

Suddenly nervous, I scanned the tree line across the pond for danger, but I didn’t see anything that would explain my sudden unease. When the feeling didn’t subside, I turned slowly to scan the trees behind me.

That’s when I saw him.

In the shade thrown by the trees I’d just come through was the guy I’d seen at that first morning meeting. In my determination to make it to the pond, I must have walked right past him. He was lying on the ground, his chest bare. His head was propped up on what must have been his shirt, and his face was covered by a well-muscled arm. And he was completely unaware I’d happened upon him.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to look away. For a second, I wondered if I could get away with taking a picture of him, but I dismissed the thought almost as quickly as I had it.

When the breeze finally stilled, the clearing went silent once again, and I couldn’t help but notice how completely peaceful it was. Everything about the space—from the position of the large oak to the way the pond had been so meticulously carved into the land—had been designed to create a sense of restful perfection. It seemed somehow natural for him to be a part of the scene—like he was meant to fit just so, there under the tree he was resting beneath. Or perhaps it was the other way around—the diamond-clear water of the pond and the spread of wildflowers around its edge could have just as easily been designed to serve as a backdrop for his beauty.

Either way, I was the one who felt out of place there.

I started to leave, but when I took a step, a twig snapped under my foot. The sound caused him to sit up with a quick, graceful movement. It took a moment for him to find the source of the noise, but once he did, he stared at me.

In that moment, I felt the same shift I’d felt the first time I saw him, lounging against the great oak. This time, though, the feeling was stronger, like something deep inside me recognized him.
Knew
him.

“You came,” he said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him. But the melodic rumble of his voice resonated somewhere deep inside me, rubbing at some long-forgotten memory like the bow of a violin. Neither of us seemed to be able to say anything else, and in the almost-comfortable silence, I wondered if he felt the same.

Then I realized he wasn’t feeling what I was feeling—he was examining me again. The intensity of his scrutiny made me wonder what the heat and humidity of the day had done to me. I wanted to run my fingers through my curls and tug at my sweat-dampened T-shirt, but I resisted. From the strange way he considered me, I wasn’t sure any amount of preening was going to improve his impression.

Uneasy at the intensity of his attention, I began to wonder if I should have stayed closer to the big house or our cottage. Closer to where someone could hear me if I screamed.

Before my thoughts could turn too dark, he turned suddenly to grab his shirt and with quick, efficient movements put it on and started to button it. I should have turned away, but I didn’t. When he looked up and saw me still watching, I swallowed my embarrassment and forced myself to meet his stare. He didn’t comment on my rudeness—he just continued to silently appraise me.

It wasn’t long before the silence between us grew awkward. I thought about walking back toward our little house on the other side of the trees, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to leave. “I’ve seen you around,” I ventured instead.

He nodded but didn’t reply. His eyes were still sharp, and I got the distinct feeling he was calculating something. I didn’t have a clue what it could be.

Finally he spoke again. “I was beginning to think you would not come.” He spoke formally, and his voice was smooth and warm with a hint of an accent—maybe French?

“I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I told him, confused by his strange statement.

“No?” He smiled softly, then, but the expression in his eyes seemed to go flat.

“No.” This close, I could see that his eyes weren’t simply green. The irises glinted with different shades, and the combination gave the effect of surprising depth.

Another gust of warm air coursed around us, setting the trees in motion and lifting his honey-colored hair from his brow. As we continued to inspect each other uneasily, I had the sense that an energy was building or growing in the heavy air—one that seemed to almost crackle between us. The way the sun glinted off the stone-smooth surface of the water and the breeze rustled up the dappled underbellies of the leaves made the moment feel strangely familiar. Even if it didn’t quite feel safe.

“Have you been here long?” I asked, trying to break the tension.

“I have.” He didn’t offer anything else, and the silence stretched on again.

I tried again. “You were at the meeting a couple of days ago,” I said, thinking that maybe I should have retreated when I had the chance.

He shrugged. “I like to see what is happening when a new overseer appears.”

His choice of words struck me as odd. If he wasn’t a college intern after all, I thought maybe he was one of the employees the previous owner had hired to give tours. The university had kept some of them on.

“He’s not an overseer, really. More like a director,” I told him.

The boy finished buttoning his shirt and leaned back again, confident and at ease. “As you wish,
ma chère
.” His voice was intriguing in the way it softened the harshness of each word’s consonants and rounded the vowels.

I still couldn’t completely place his accent, and I wasn’t sure I liked the overly familiar endearment. “Are you from around here?” I asked, wondering if he was Cajun. “Your accent. It’s different.” And could I sound more banal? This was not going well at all.

“I have been in this country quite a while, but originally, I am from France.”

“So. French?” I cringed as the words left my mouth.

“
Oui
.” He must have sensed my discomfort, because he suddenly flashed me a wicked grin that I felt clear to my toes. But he didn’t venture anything else. The silence continued to crackle.

“I’m Lucy.”

His face softened. “Ah, so you are the light.”

“Huh?” Clearly I was not meant to win him over with witty conversation.

“Your name, it means light.” He gestured to the sky. “Like the sun.”

“Really? Actually, I was named for some suffragette. Lucy Stone,” I blurted without thinking.

He gave me a blank look. Expectant—like he was waiting for me to explain.

“My parents. They’re history nuts, and this woman, Lucy Stone, she was a big deal back in the 1800s. She was a suffragette and she was really into women’s rights and liberation and all that, and one of her friends said she had a soul as free as the air.” And I was officially babbling. But, oddly enough, he looked intrigued.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a soul as free as the air?”

“Oh.” I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know about that. Right now my soul is stuck here.”

“As is mine.” He grimaced, his eyes shuttering as securely as a house preparing for a storm. He looked up at me then with that painfully blank expression. “If you were free, where would you go?”

The pained intensity of his gaze threw me off for a moment. It was like he was waiting for something, like I had the power to wipe that grief from his face if I just gave the right answer.

“Back home. To our house in Chicago.” Disappointment flashed across his face, and I felt the burn of failure. “Where would you?” I asked him, my voice scarcely more than a whisper.

“I’m not sure anymore,” he said, his voice as distant as the focus of his gaze. “I thought I knew once.” There was more he wasn’t saying, but the regret in his tone was clear.

“It didn’t work out so well, huh?”

“No,” he said, infusing the single syllable with an impressive amount of contempt. Emotion potent enough to have me taking a step back appeared in his eyes. “It did not.” He was silent for a moment, like nothing else could be said about the matter. But then he let out a soft breath and the anger left his face. “I am Alexandre, by the way.”

The rolling cadence of his soft accent gave the name a sophisticated edge that pulled at a memory in a dark corner of my mind. “Just a coincidence,” I whispered to myself, dismissing the thought.

“What is?”

“What is what?” I asked.

“What is it you call a coincidence?”

“Oh … ” I hadn’t meant for him to hear me. And it certainly wasn’t anything I wanted to explain to some guy I’d just met. “Nothing. Just … nothing.”

He unfolded himself from the ground and, with his hands in his pockets, studied me again. “I think,” he said slowly as he took a step, and then another, toward me. “I have come to believe, that is, that very little in life is a coincidence.” His was gaze unreadable.

“Really?” I asked. He was less than an arm’s length away from me. I wasn’t sure if it was the intensity in his expression or his nearness—if it was excitement or fear—that had my heart stuttering in my chest.

“Things, I believe, happen most often for a reason,” he said. The space between us was still charged with that peculiar energy, and for a moment I thought he would touch me.

Instead, he shook his head, dismissing whatever thought he’d just had, and turned away.

His sudden and too-easy dismissal stung. “So, what?” I challenged. “You believe in fate? Some grand scheme we can uncover in the cards?”

He’d already started walking away from me, toward the pond. But then he turned back for a moment. “Of course,” he said softly.

“So it’s fate I’m here?” I asked, irritated at myself for feeling so … affected by him. “That I’m trapped in Louisiana when my real life is in Chicago? That’s all part of some grand plan?”

He gave a shrug. “Trapped is a strong word, no?” His censure was clear.

“No. Definitely not.”

He considered my words for a moment. “Perhaps you are right. But, think of this—if you were not trapped, as you say, we would not have met, yes?”

“Probably not.”

He smiled then, his eyes warming again. “Then it must be fate,” he said softly, teasing. His gaze drifted lazily over my body again, making the already-hot day feel even warmer. “And one I am quite glad of.”

I rolled my eyes to cover the strange hitch I felt when he looked at me like that. “No,” I argued. “That would make it a coincidence.”

“Unless we were … ” He paused for dramatic effect and waggled his eyebrows like a villain in an old silent movie. “
… meant
to meet here. No?”

I couldn’t help but grin. “You’re smooth,” I said, my irritation easing. “I’ll give you that.”

“Ah, but it is my fond hope that you will eventually give me much more.” His voice had darkened, the playfulness of a moment before all but gone. The new tone that infused his words sent a chill through me.

I opened my mouth but no pithy remark would come. Instead I made a fairly unladylike sputtering sound as I tried to form words to assure him I wouldn’t be giving him anything.

Well, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be. But standing there with him felt a little like being in a different world, one far from the problems of my life. There by the glittering water, surrounded by the now-peaceful hum of the trees, I had a sense that it would be very easy to forget just how sure I was. To give him anything he asked of me.

His crooked grin told me he’d recognized the direction of my thoughts, and something about the moment—the angle of the light hitting his face or the tilt of his mouth—fluttered in the dark corners of my mind again, but it never took flight. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was how he should always look, smiling at me with dancing eyes that promised so much more than a simple smile should.