The Tangled Bridge (16 page)

Ethan had scooped Ray up in his arms and was limp-running him back toward the trailer.

Can we stop it?
Madeleine asked Severin, speaking only in her mind.

Severin was grinning at her from above. “Take the painted wood, maybe.”

Madeleine saw the spindle that Ethan had knocked from one of the huffer's hands. She ran for it. As if borrowing her momentum, Esther went barreling down the steps after her. Somewhere along the way Esther had ditched her cell phone and picked up a hammer. Three of the huffers were spreading in a wide half-circle around Bo. They drove him straight into Oyster.

“Stop!” Madeleine cried.

Oyster raised the Maglite and whacked Bo in the head with it. Bo staggered a half step but kept moving.

Ethan called, “Madeleine, you and Esther get back inside.”

The neighbors, in their strange briar appearance, were stepping from their yards and onto the drive.

Madeleine realized she was gripping the spindle. No recollection of having picked it up. She looked back at the trailer and saw that Severin's eyes were sparkling, energized. A little girl river devil with her favorite game in play.

Madeleine knew that this was wrong. Severin didn't want her to save Bo. Severin wanted Bo dead. So why was Madeleine following direction from Severin?

Chloe's words from the hospital room yesterday came to mind:

You hold a magnifying glass too long and it only serves to burn the object. You drop it, and look at the rest.

Madeleine took a flash inventory of what was happening in her mind, a jumble of the relevant and irrelevant:

The strange way the neighbors looked.

Olives spread over the drive.

The spindle in her hands.

The clicking.

And Madeleine understood that Bo was using his clicks to see.

And that the neighbors held a trace of Bo's luminescence inside them. It shone in Ethan, too, like a mirror reflecting a flame. Madeleine stepped toward the grove and the people. Cheryl was there, eyes wet. An older man wearing jeans with no shirt and bare feet—having run out without taking time to put on shoes—was striding across the stickery ground to take one of the huffer boys by the arm.

And while Madeleine watched, that luminescence spread into the huffers, too. They just seemed to slow down.

Except for Oyster. Through the bramble lens, Oyster looked darker, a sepia shadow, like the river devils. He was closing in on Bo.

“Stay away from my son!” Esther screamed, running at Oyster with the hammer raised high.

He ducked as she swung, then drove his fist into her face. Esther went sprawling.

Oyster picked up Esther's hammer and circled toward Bo in a crouch. He walked low and careful, below eye level, behind the devilwood where Bo's clicks would have a harder time finding him.

Bo seemed to be tiring. His movements were slower.

Madeleine whispered, “Bo Racer, run straight home.”

Like before, he heard it. Bo turned and burst into a sprint. Straight line for the trailer.

Oyster had to leap to his feet to keep up, and in doing so Bo found him and swerved just enough to avoid the hammer crashing toward his skull. Ethan threw one fist under Oyster's bicep, forcing his arm upward, and slammed down on his wrist. The hammer went to the ground.

Bo was heading for the trailer. Madeleine stood in the drive between him and the gate.

“Swing the spindle, now!” Severin cried from behind.

And for reasons Madeleine couldn't fathom, her fingers itched to do it. In her mind she could even see herself gripping the spindle, her arms forming an arc, the hard, heavy block of wood at the base aimed for Bo as he ran clicking toward her. Aimed right for the spaces of his eyes.

That's it, now. You can see it all in your mind, can't you?

Zenon. Suddenly at her side. Whispering in her ear. Like he himself was a river devil.

She didn't move.

Bo swerved around her and kept running to his gate. He paused and turned, clicking in Madeleine's direction.

“She's one of'm, mama,” he called.

Madeleine let the strangeness and fury course through and then out of her. The spindle slipped from her fingers and fell to the olive-littered earth.

From the devilwood grove, still gripping Oyster by the arm, Ethan was watching her.

Esther was staring, too. Blood coursed from her nose where Oyster had hit her.

“Get in the house!” Esther cried.

Bo turned and continued to the trailer.

Madeleine looked at her hands. Shadowed, sepia. But luminous, too. Bo's light in there.

Zenon said, “You keep hangin on, Madeleine. Fight the fight and for your prize you get to be crazy. All the same to me.”

He turned and strode for the devilwood. “Don't worry. I'll be back for him.”

And then he was gone.

A police cruiser entered the trailer park and was moving in their direction. Esther looked at it, hand to the blood on her face, and stumbled onto the drive.

She turned and pointed her finger at Madeleine. “Get away from here. I saw how you was lookin at my son.”

Madeleine felt heat rush to her face. She could say nothing, only shake her head.

Esther said, “You stay away from Bo. You keep your devils in your own pocket. Stay away.”

 

nineteen

HAHNVILLE, 1927

FRANCOIS WAS SHOUTING TO
Patrice over the roar of the motor. “Reverse don't work. So if you need to go back, you put it in neutral and push.”

Patrice gripped the steering wheel and wondered whether the motor was supposed to sound like that. It made her feel like her teeth might fall back into her spine. Would that sound continue the entire journey?

Francois was sitting in the middle between Patrice and Trigger. Trigger had demanded to drive but neither Patrice nor Francois would let him. Gil and Rosie were in the back, in the pop-up rumble seat. They had to sit on top of the luggage that was strapped over the dead man. Rosie didn't mind and Gil, well, he probably didn't realize it and that was just as well.

Francois went on with his instruction. “You mash the left pedal to switch gears, and if you just hold it forward, that's slow gear. Hold that left pedal in about halfway and that's neutral. Got it?”

Patrice nodded.

“Use neutral to coast. The middle pedal is reverse.”

“And reverse don't work,” Trigger shouted.

“Doesn't,” Patrice mumbled, knowing they wouldn't hear.

And yet Trigger corrected himself: “Doesn't work.”

She shot him a grin from across Francois.

“No it don't,” Francois agreed.

“How do we go fast?” Trigger shouted.

“We don't!” Patrice and Francois replied in unison.

Patrice was beginning to feel quite faint with the exhaust filling the barn.

“Open them doors now,” Francois called back to the rumble seat.

Both Gil and Rosie hopped out and swung the barn doors wide.

Francois pointed to the steering column beneath Patrice's grip, “To go, you give it gas with this lever on the side of the steering wheel stalk.”

She tried it. The Ford lurched forward and Patrice's head snapped back. “Ooh!”

“Stop!” Francois cried.

But he hadn't shown her how to do that yet so they kept moving. The Ford was at least no longer lurching and it just sort of rolled out onto the drive. Gil and Rosie were standing way back against the open barn doors.

Francois shouted, “Mash the brake! The pedal on the right.”

The Ford halted and the occupants pitched forward. The engine died. Trigger hopped out and went for the crank.

“Hold on, hold on,” Francois said.

He took out his kerchief and mopped his head, grumbling.

At least they'd made it out of the barn and into the fresh air and sunshine where the clouds had broken apart. That seemed like progress. Steam rose from the earth.

“Close the doors please,” Patrice said to Gil and Marie-Rose.

They closed the barn doors behind and reclaimed their positions atop the luggage and the stranger in the rumble seat.

Patrice couldn't help but think of Tatie Bernadette, that she'd be arriving back here soon. It had been almost two hours now since Gil and Patrice left the service. Mother would be baptized by now, abomination that it was. And after, the parishioners would lay hands on her.

If any of you, if any one person here lays hands on that woman, you are inviting devils!

It still seemed unreal. Thus far the children had managed to keep their mother away by using the briar to ward her off. But they hadn't anticipated that Maman might send a stranger or that she would get at Tatie Bernadette.

Some plantationers had assembled in the allée, drawn by the spectacle. Patrice looked toward them, pained, knowing that they were moments away from coming up and asking what they were doing and where they were headed in Papa's old automobile.

Francois must have seen them, too, because he motioned to Patrice. “Listen close before I let Trig crank this thing up again because I'm tired of shouting. You use your right foot for the brake, and your left foot for the gears.”

Patrrice thought it sounded simple enough.

Trigger asked, “But how do we go fast?”

“Boy, y'all are not gonna go fast, you hear?”

“We need to at least know how it works.”

Francois sighed. “That left pedal, if it ain't pushed all the way and if it ain't in the middle, then you lettin it out and that's the fast gear. And you can give it gas on the lever up here to make it really go. But I mean it, y'all ain't goin fast. You gotta go slow the whole ways. Now go on ahead and crank'r up again.”

Trigger cranked. The motor reared to life. Trigger hopped back in.

“Easy, easy,” Francois said.

Patrice took it easy.

Francois said, “Mash that pedal and then real gentle, do the lever here on the steering wheel. Now you goin. Now you goin. Watch the road. Always watch the road. Don't never look at your feet. You go by feel.”

The plantationers had circled closer in, though Patrice had barely noticed their approach. They were now backing off the road as the old Ford made lurching advances, though its movements were no longer so violent as that initial attempt. And then Patrice started to get the feel of it, and the Ford was moving smoothly but slowly forward.

Patrice could see Eunice walking ahead in a thin calico dress. There were tears in her eyes. Patrice wondered what had upset her. Did she know? Before she could stop herself, Patrice sought inside Eunice's heart. She found that Eunice was sad to see Patrice and the others go. How Eunice knew they were leaving for good, Patrice couldn't guess. Maybe all those bags in the back.

But the rest of the plantationers seemed oblivious to the significance of all of this, and had only gathered to enjoy the spectacle of seeing all four children plus Francois riding around in the automobile.

A few children were walking alongside the slow-moving Ford. Patrice itched to look over her shoulder into the rumble seat to make absolutely sure that the dead man was concealed. Maybe when Rosie and Gil were hopping in and out, they might have upset the blankets that hid the stranger. But she didn't dare tear her eyes from the road.

Eunice walked up alongside the Ford and was pulling something—a necklace, it looked like—over her head. Patrice felt like every muscle in her body had tensed to stone as she gripped the wheel and eased the lever. Eunice leaned over and slipped the necklace over Patrice's head while she drove, then kissed her cheek.

“Go on now!” Francois was shouting at everyone.

Patrice hadn't dared to so much as glance at Eunice when she'd put the necklace over her head. Even now, Patrice couldn't say whether it was made of silver or gold or string. Or whether Eunice was now still watching or was walking back to her cottage. Nothing but the steering wheel and the road, which looked like a death combination if ever there was any.

They rumbled down the allée of pecans, Francois coaxing Patrice to accelerate the gas lever a bit more, more. It felt like every leaf and frog and blade of grass in all of Terrefleurs was turning to watch them go. And yet Patrice couldn't look. She saw only the road.

Such was the way she left her home.

 

twenty

NEW ORLEANS, NOW

THEY WERE DRIVING TOWARD
the intersection of Tchoupitoulas and Napoleon, and in her mind Madeleine was turning over the situation with Bo. She took out the paper Mare had given her and punched Esther's number into her cell phone.

Ethan said, “It ain't even been half an hour since we left. Maybe y'oughtta let her cool off.”

Madeleine glanced at him. The call was already giving over to voice mail. She considered hanging up but when the beep came, she stammered something out: “Please call back” and “It's an unusual situation,” and she left her number. The phone felt limp in her hand.

Ethan shook his head.

Madeleine said suddenly, “We can't go home.”

“We can't?”

“No, they'll find us. Please just pull off somewhere and let me think a minute.”

Ethan frowned but did as she asked, pulling the Lexus down a side road.

“Who's gonna find us?” he asked.

Madeleine cut her eyes toward him and then at the road again. It had gone bumpy with potholes. “I don't know. I think we might have led them straight to Bo.”

He pulled past a gated drive with a sign that read R
ESTRICTED
A
CCESS
and kept going until the road ended in an industrial wharf. Freight containers crowded in on tracks along the waterfront. He parked along cyclone fencing in a spot where they could still see the river between two rusted freight cars.

“Why'd you stop here?” she asked.

“Lady says pull over, I got to oblige.”