A Twisted Ladder (28 page)

Satisfied that Chloe had not used black magic against him, Rémi began to tell her what he knew of Ulysses. He explained how he had glimpsed Ulysses just before Helen’s death.

Chloe fingered the damp sling that still lay limp around her neck and then removed it, casting it to the floor. “Why did you try to drown me in that swamp? Was it because Ulysses told you to?”

“No,” Rémi answered. “Well, maybe. He speaks to me, but he has a stronger way of communicating than that. Just by being there, I know what he wants of me. And sometimes I cannot tell the difference between a thing that he wants and a thing that I want. When I found you collecting your plants for charms I thought you had conjured Ulysses to torment me and kill my wife. But after I had you in the water I saw him there, goading me on.”

Rémi paused, remembering Ulysses’s grimace in the swamp. “Why do you think he wanted me to kill you?”

The lamplight flickered on Chloe’s coffee-colored skin, and she sat silently for a long while. Then she said, “Maybe he thinks I can drive him away.”

“Can you?”

“No way to know. He seems very powerful.”

Rémi nodded. “Powerful enough to kill.”

Chloe shook her head. “No, he cannot do that. Missus Helen and Laramie did that to themselves. Think of what you saw. What did he do to them? Only whisper. He makes suggestions, and they believe it comes from within their own thoughts.”

“I saw him sully the well.”

“That was only his wishful play. His way of whispering to the sickness in the water. This world to him is no more than a picture. He can’t really touch it, only whisper. It is different now for you because you can see him.”

“I don’t want to see him.”

“But he would still be there. He has always been there. You can try to drive him away, or I can bottle him. We could use his power to your advantage.”

“I just want him to go away! Can you drive him away?”

Chloe said nothing. Rémi felt exhausted and desperate.

“Please help,” he said, and his voice caught on the words.

She reached out and stroked his shoulder. He was touched by the kindness, and tears spilled from his eyes. She rose to her feet and laid both arms around him, letting him weep into her wet dress as she stroked his hair.

They stayed that way for some time, clinging to each other in the lamplight of the men’s parlor. And then, as dawn began to glow purple over the Mississippi, Chloe loosened her wet dress and let it fall to the floor. She unwound her under wrappings, revealing breasts that were full and firm, capped with soft circles the color of coffee. She reached for Rémi.

He grabbed her wrists and pushed her back. Chloe was barely more than a child, a servant. A stark betrayal to Helen. And yet . . .

He stared at her, riveted, unable to think clearly. The air in the parlor felt heady and chilled.

She took his hand and pulled him to the bed, and he allowed it. They peeled off the rest of their clothing. She smelled like cut tupelo gum, and the fresh bayou water was still shining in her hair. He put his face to it, taking the droplets on his lips. He lowered his hand between her legs. Already she was slick and open. He pressed his nose to her neck and drank in the scent, letting his fingers explore the feel of her.

She pushed him aside and then rolled onto him, taking him in her hands, pressing her velvet center just at the tip. He pushed forward but she did not let him enter; she held onto him with both hands curled along his length, and she moved him against her opening in repeated up and down circles as she rocked her hips. He didn’t understand what she was doing. He gripped her buttocks but she straightened her back and held. Helen used to lie beneath him like a nesting dove, soft and warm, a gentle smile. Chloe was moving against him with a sense of demand. He felt he might shatter if he didn’t enter her soon. Sweat pearled at her collarbone and ran down her breasts as she moved. It made him want to taste it, taste her, devour her. She gasped twice and stopped, mouth open, sustaining her pressure against him, eyes on his. He didn’t dare move.

She leaned forward, and spread her legs wide. She pushed him inside. He shuddered at the streak of sensation that shot through his body. Chloe reached back to support herself with his thighs. She felt damp and scalding against him. She started moving again, arching her body in time with his breathing. They advanced in quicker gasps as their momentum intensified. He rocked with her, sweat curling from his neck to his back. Inside, he felt suspended, silent.

The sky flowed from violet to indigo to gray, and then finally, to a gold-touched white. And as the first direct rays of sun touched leaves of cane, Rémi finally found sleep, lying intertwined with the woman who, only hours before, he had sought to murder.

NEW ORLEANS, 2009

M
ADELEINE’S GAZE SWEPT OVER
a chain-link fence with hoop barbed wire that ran along the perimeter of Terrefleurs. She slowed the truck and leaned down to get a good look. A thick tangle of bramble obscured any view beyond a depth of five feet.

“I don’t see anything.” She chewed her lip, brow furrowed.

Daddy Blank shrugged. “Not much to see.”

Drainage ditches running along either side of the road prevented her from pulling over. Instead, she drove on and parked at a mechanic shop about a half mile beyond the site. A deadbolt secured the aluminum roll-up doors; no one around. She got out of the truck.

“Where you goin now?” her father said.

She spread her hands. “I want to see it! Don’t you?”

“I thought we was just gonna drive by! You wastin your time, baby.”

Madeleine’s exasperation arced. “What’s gotten into you? If you don’t want to come then just stay here. I won’t be long.”

She got out and strode in the direction of the old plantation. After a half a minute she heard the truck door slam, then Daddy’s footfalls.

“Hard-headed.”

They slipped through a torn section of the old chain-link fence. Daddy grumbled at the No T
RESPASSING
signs, but Madeleine ignored them.

The bramble, however, was a much more formidable barrier than the fence. Coils of blackberry bushes towered above their heads, and they had to plod through a labyrinth of tunnels that seemed to deadend at every turn.

Eventually, though a little scratched, they emerged on the other side at an overgrown dirt road, and beyond it they could clearly see the remains of an old Creole house. The west end had crumbled and the roof splintered, revealing black gaping holes. Nevertheless, the massive size and the fact that it sat high on piers gave it an imposing presence. A porch wrapped around the entire perimeter, and a staircase sagged like an accordion at its center. But the bottom steps were a pile of rubble with no visible way to get to the top.

Madeleine’s forehead glistened with sweat, but not just from the heat and exertion. Her mind raced with the possibilities of who had once inhabited the place.

“What do you think,” she said. “Distinguished old gentlemen and gracious southern belles?”

Daddy finally began to warm to her enthusiasm and smiled. “Probably.”

“Our ancestors,” she said. “I wish I could have known them. All we got is Chloe.”

“You met your grandparents too. And your great auntie. You were just too young to remember.”

A sea of vines and branches seemed to blanket every inch of space beyond the house. Madeleine and her father picked their way around the side, peering under the great porch where through broken windows they could see remnants of black and white marble tiles in the basement.

Madeleine was dying to get in there.

“What time is it, Daddy?”

He took out his pocket watch and regarded it. “Five to six.”

She believed him. Daddy had a knack for telling the time of day, and it had nothing to do with his engraved golden pocket watch, which was just a ruse. That thing hadn’t ticked in years. But for whatever reason, he consulted it when asked, and reported the time of day based on his much more accurate internal clock.

She figured they had about forty-five minutes before sundown. At the rear of the house, the side facing away from River Road, a smaller staircase wound to the top. It, too, was in disrepair, though not nearly as hopeless as the one in the front. Several lower steps were missing, leaving about a five-foot drop. In that space, a twisted ladder bridged the remaining gap, the wood so old and warped that it spiraled upward as if it were some hybrid strain of the bramble that surrounded it.

Madeleine took hold.

“Careful. This thing’s got dry rot,” Daddy said, then muttered, “Guess that proves it’s from the LeBlanc family.”

He followed her, carefully maneuvering up and onto the stairs, avoiding broken steps. At the top, they could look out over the rear of the property from the broad veranda.

Over the wall of vines, outbuildings emerged, most of which were either overgrown or caving in. Two neat rows of what must have been housing were divided by a thin dirt road that had been so compacted from use at one time that the foliage still could barely penetrate the soil.

To the east, the pointed roof of a small building rose from a choking nest of vines. Remnants of white paint curled from the old brick of the top. They could see a row of perfectly spaced round holes, and under each hole, a peg.

Madeleine asked, “What is that?”

Her father squinted at the structure. “Dove cote. Or I guess a pigeon house, not that I know the difference between the two.”

“One’s for doves and the other’s for pigeons, I suppose,” she said.

“Dunno the difference between those either.”

“I read somewhere that they used to use the bird droppings to help fertilize gardens.”

But as they surveyed the savage tangles of brush around the pigeon house, she found it difficult to imagine someone might have once had a cultivated garden there. Beyond the scattered outbuildings, the ancient trees obscured all but a sliver of the great bayou, already singing with frogs and insects beginning their early evening banter. Madeleine and her father walked along the porch to the front where the swell of the earthen levee came into view. Beyond it would be the Mississippi.

“I guess before the modern levee had been built up, they had a clear view of the river,” Madeleine said.

She tried to imagine her ancestors looking out over the great Mississippi from this porch. A thick breeze suddenly chilled the damp of her neck, and with it, something changed. The air, to be sure; but something else, too. She shivered.

And as she looked at her father, that cold air seemed to have affected him, too, clearing away the warmth. His face changed, a tension at the brow, and his shoulders rose and held.

“Let’s take a look inside before it gets too late,” she said, turning back toward the rear door.

“I don’t know why you’re hell-bent on seeing these devils,” her father muttered under his breath.

She halted, startled, and turned to him. “What?”

She watched him closely. His jaw clenched and he looked away, but said nothing more.

A cold tremor crept down her back. Daddy had made a slip. Was he changing? But something else was happening, too. Something indefinable. She felt as if she had stumbled into a great spider’s web.

“Come on, Daddy. Let’s go inside.”

“I ain’t goin’ in there!”

Her brow furrowed. She knew better than to push him when he was agitated. She kept her voice gentle, and even managed part of a smile.

“Alright then. Why don’t you wait here in the fresh air where it’s nice and cool. I just want to take a quick look around.”