Water Witch (11 page)

Poochie pursed her lips again, then added for
good measure, “And if you got a little extra time, could you let me
know what de hell’s goin’ on wit’ de shoes on de purgatory side of
my prayer tree? Dem shoes up and disappeared just like dem
chil’ren, and it’s makin’ me cuckoo tryin’ to figure out how come.
So, if you would give me de answer to dat, too, I’d appreciate it.
Now, I’m done. Thank you.”

Satisfied that she’d covered all the bases,
Poochie opened her eyes, prepared to sit for a while and simply
listen in case God decided to quicken His response time. That’s
when she saw them . . .

Three long, dark gray shapes, floating only
inches from the ground, coming from the bayou towards the house.
Although the forms weren’t clearly defined, she could make out
heads, arms, and what looked like very skinny stick-shaped legs. By
the time she got to her feet, they’d already reached the house and
were making their way inside by seeping through the bricks.

Poochie grabbed her walker and made a Sign of
the Cross. God wasn’t farting around this time. He was obviously
giving her some of the answers she’d asked for. The only problem
was, from the looks of those things headed into the house, she
wished she’d kept her damn mouth shut for once.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The sound of crying and grunting tugged Sarah
Woodard away from a strange but wonderful dream. She’d been running
through a field of purple wild flowers with a blond woman she knew
to be her mother. Both of them were laughing, holding hands,
exhilarated by the feel of wind and sun and freedom. Somehow Sarah
knew they were headed for a flea market, one that sold magic shoes.
Shoes that would fulfill their every wish, no matter how small or
how big. A brand new house with a yard as wide as the field they
ran through—any car they wanted—a father who’d come home from work
with flowers for her mother, one who’d gather his daughter in his
arms and swing her around and around until they were both
hiccupping from spinning and laughter. Anything was possible with
those magic shoes, and the anticipation of reaching them and the
sound of her mother’s voice filled Sarah with so much happiness,
she felt as if she could fly.

The faster they ran, the lighter she felt.
There was no sharp pain in her sides from running, no panting or
gasping for air, only joy—her mother’s touch—and hope. Then, just
as Sarah felt her feet about to leave the ground and her body
prepare for flight, the crying tugged her down harder. The sound
was faint at first, far away, but it was loud enough to weigh her
down until she felt the ground solid beneath her feet again. She
tried desperately to ignore the cries, tried to run faster, to
regain momentum so she could fly. But the sound grew louder,
forcing her to a slower pace, too slow to keep up with her mother,
who’d already let go of her hand. Her mother raced ahead, not
bothering to look back. Sarah tried hard to catch up with her, but
only fell farther behind . . .

Farther . . .

. . . farther . . .

When the woman finally faded out of sight,
Sarah looked down at her feet and saw that she was no longer
running through wild flowers. She was standing in an ocean of mud,
heavy black sludge that made it impossible to run, impossible to
hope. That’s when her eyes fluttered open and reality hit her full
in the face.

Kids were supposed to be able to wake up from
nightmares, not stay stuck in them—literally. But at that very
moment, she sat in a nightmare, in a hole, her hands tied behind
her back, her legs outstretched and bound at the ankles. She could
just see above the top of the hole, which had been filled with mud
that reached the middle of her chest. The grunting whimpering sound
was coming from Nicky Trahan, who sat in a hole just like hers, a
couple of feet away. All she could see of him was part of his nose,
his eyes, his forehead, his hair. Judging from the bobbing of his
head and the grunting sounds he made, Nicky was trying to get
out.

Although he was about her size, which was
pretty small, and his hands and feet had been tied up just like
hers, Sarah held her breath, hoping he’d find some way to break
free. She watched intently as his head bobbled first one way, then
the other. One way—then the other. He kept it up for quite some
time, then his head finally bowed and stayed still. When he finally
looked up and turned to her, his eyes were red and watery. He’d
been crying, something she’d done quite a bit of herself before the
dream.

Even at seven years old, Sarah knew that
seeing a boy cry was a big deal. The boys around Bayou Crow were
taught to be tough. They were conditioned to hunt, fish, play
football, and no matter how hard they were hit, they weren’t
supposed to cry. All the boys in her class were rough and loud,
always acting like they were high school kids instead of second
graders. If one of them ever made the mistake of breaking down into
tears, the rest of the boys pounced on them, teasing them
mercilessly. Not that it mattered to her. Sarah thought most boys
were stupid anyway and, for the most part, ignored them.

Because of her uncle’s constant tutoring,
Sarah had started school in the second grade instead of the first,
which made her a year younger than everyone else in her class.
Being the only kid in school who didn’t have to go through first
grade was one thing, being a preacher's kid was another. Especially
a preacher like Rusty Woodard, a man prone to jumping and hollering
during his services like he was being stung by a hive full of bees.
Because of him and because of her age, Sarah was the target of
every kid in school who wanted to move up a rung on the bully
ladder.

She knew the pain that came with teasing, and
even if Nicky wasn’t looking at her with a
please-don’t-tell-anyone-you-saw-me-cry look, she would have never
told a soul. Not that that mattered either. Sarah didn’t think they
were ever getting out of here, not alive anyway.

Surprisingly, the thought of dying didn’t
scare her as much as she figured it should have. Maybe it was
because she was so tired and they’d been here for what seemed like
months without any food. Or maybe anything was better than having
to go back and live with her uncle Rusty.

Sarah knew her uncle did the best he could,
being single and all, but she didn’t think he had a clue about
raising kids, much less understood how the real world worked. To
the mighty Reverend Woodard, if a person didn’t read the Bible
twenty-four hours a day, every day, and say, “Praise Jesus! Thank
you, Lord!” every other minute without fail; they were going to
hell and didn’t deserve to be alive on this earth. And he made a
point of reminding her every day just how great a sinner her mother
was. Not because she dropped Sarah off on his doorstep and
abandoned her, but because she went out with a lot of men and drank
alcohol and smoked cigarettes. Those things were far worse in his
eyes than abandoning any child.

When Sarah had started school, her uncle,
believing that fruit didn’t fall far from its tree, had all but
strip-searched her each day when she got home, looking for evidence
that might alert him to her slipping into the
ways of the
world
. He made her wear long dresses and patent leather shoes
to school because that’s what he felt young ladies should wear. But
heaven help her if she came home with a spot or stain on that
dress. Finding any smudge would usually prompt an hour-long
interrogation, ‘
How did this get here? Who were you with? Did
you let someone touch you? Were you alone with any boy at any
time?
This was followed by another two hours of preaching,
expounding the reasons why every Christian should separate
themselves from the world.

She wondered what her uncle would have to say
if he saw her in this hole. The pastel blue cotton shift she’d put
on two days ago now looked like a muddy burlap sack, at least what
she could see of it. Knowing him, Sarah figured he’d probably stand
at the foot of the hole, jumping and hopping, arms waving, full of
bees and the business of Jesus.All the while he’d be spitting fire
and brimstone, declaring to anyone within earshot that the
suffering she was going through was surely a punishment from God
for all she’d done wrong. To Sarah, that was stupid, too. She knew
she’d done nothing to deserve being buried in a hole. Neither had
Nicky.

Two days ago she’d been walking down the
levee road, heading to Dale’s Trading Post, which was only two or
three blocks from the Unified Kingdom of Christ Church. She had
wanted a soda and was thinking about how the fizz made her nose
tickle when she came upon a mewling kitten. Feeling sorry for the
poor, scrawny thing, she’d scooped it up, then sat on the grassy
slope of the levee and petted its soft, soft fur until its cries
became gentle purrs. She’d been sitting there a while, enjoying the
feel of the kitten’s trust in her, when Nicky showed up on his
bike. The only reason she hadn’t run off then was because he was
one of the few boys from school who didn’t tease her.

Nicky was asking her questions about the
kitten and talking to her like a regular person when a man in a
beat-up, black pickup pulled off on the side of the road beside
them. He stopped so short, dirt clouds rose up from the shoulder of
the road, and the kitten jumped off her lap and ran away. In that
moment, Sarah thought her life was over for sure. That somehow her
uncle had spotted her sitting and talking with a boy and had sent
someone to drag her back to the church so he could cast out the
demons he was so fond of blaming for everything. Lust—greed—pride.
But that didn’t happen.

The man got out of his truck, talking really
fast. He wore a purple ball cap that had LSU in gold letters on the
brim, and it was pulled low over his eyes, so she really couldn’t
see his face very well. He called them by name, told them to hurry
and get in the truck, that there’d been an explosion at the Dow
Chemical Plant, where most of the people in town worked. He said
Nicky’s mother had been one of the people injured, that she was
bleeding really bad and might die.

They were so shocked by the news, by his
abruptness, that they only stared at him, unmoving. He got angry
then, insisting they get in his truck right away. Dangerous
chemicals had been released into the air, and he had been ordered
by the governor to take as many people as he could find to safety.
And that safety was at Fausse Point, the farthest slough south of
the Atchafalaya Basin. They needed to get as far away as possible,
downwind, so they wouldn’t be affected by the chemicals.

She and Nicky had looked at each other then,
both so afraid, not knowing what to do. The man grew even more
insistent, and pounded on his truck with a hairy hand, yelling that
they needed to hurry up before everyone suffocated under a huge
cloud of poison. He demanded that Nicky leave his bike because
there was no time to load it and had assured Sarah again and again
that her uncle Rusty was already safe and awaiting her arrival.

Like idiots, they’d fallen for it.

They wound up in his truck . . .

Then in his boat . . .

Then in these holes.

The man had been right about one thing. He
had taken them to the farthest slough in the Atchafalaya. The hill
they sat upon was so far away from all the camps and houses, they
could scream for a year, and no one would ever hear them.
Everything else he’d said had been a lie.

Liar, liar, pants on fire . . .

Her uncle Rusty had always said liars went to
hell. He’d obviously missed a scripture passage somewhere—because
now she knew that liars sometimes
brought
hell with them as
well.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, trying to
remember the feel of the kitten’s fur when she’d petted it, the
sound of its gentle purring and how that sound had sent soothing
vibrations all the way through her body.

“Maybe he won’t come back.” The sound of
Nicky’s voice startled her. It sounded foreign in this place, like
the pound of a hammer in an empty church hall.

“Maybe,” she said, opening her eyes and not
feeling an ounce of hope that that would happen. She just didn’t
want to crush whatever hope he might be holding onto.

“I…I’ve been trying to get us out of here.
Figure out a way for us to get out, you know? But every time I pull
my knees up, they get sucked back down. The stuff he dumped in here
is like quick sand or something.”

Sarah nodded, then considered that he may not
be able to see her head move. “I know. I tried, too, and it did the
same thing to me.”

When the man in the purple hat had forced
them into the holes, he immediately began hauling buckets of sludge
from the edge of the island and dumped it over their legs. They
hadn’t screamed then, not like earlier when he’d tied them up and
they thought he’d meant to kill them right away. She’d been too
afraid he’d dump mud in her mouth if she screamed again, and
although Nicky never said one way or the other, she was sure he’d
kept quiet for the same reason.

After a bunch of trips to the edge of the
island for sludge, the man finally stopped dumping it on them when
the mud reached their waist. He’d gotten back into his boat then,
leaving them there. When he returned a couple hours later, he had a
bottle of water with him and forced both of them to drink from it.
After that, he dropped another bucket of mud into each hole, then
left again. That became his routine.

The last time he’d come, Sarah had gathered
up enough courage to ask for food. The man never responded to her
question, just mumbled something about stars and the moon. She
might have been young and didn’t have a lot of experience with
much, but Sarah knew crazy when she saw it. Living with Rusty
Woodard had at least given her that advantage. It was something in
the eyes, the way they talked and moved their bodies, like
something else was controlling them instead of their own brains.
According to her uncle, God was the one who controlled him, but she
had no idea what might have been controlling the mud man. He seemed
even farther removed from reality than her uncle when he was in the
throes of a serman, or filled with the spirit like he always
claimed.