Water Witch (16 page)

As amazed as I was at how easily the words
spilled out of my mouth, I was even more amazed that Poochie never
stopped us once to comment. She listened intently, nodding or
shaking her head in commiseration, especially when I told her about
the kids who’d teased me at school, calling me Freak and Water
Witch—about the men who’d come into my life pretending love, but
actually meaning to use me for their own gain.

When I finished, I felt purged, as if someone
had lifted a forty pound sack of wet concrete off of my back. The
three of us sat in silence for a moment, Poochie studying my finger
like it was a puzzle piece and her responsibility was to find out
where that piece was supposed to fit.

Her tone was almost reverent when she finally
spoke. “It’s hurtin’ you now, huh?”

“Yeah, a little. Cold, but not a hard cold
like earlier today.” I volleyed a look between Poochie and Angelle.
“When I was outside, near the bayou a little while ago, I picked up
a different kind of pain, not cold at all.”

Angelle sat bolt upright. “The kids?”

“I’m not sure. Possibile, though, because I
was concentrating on them when I felt it.”

“What did it feel like?”

“Fire. You remember that Fourth of July when
we were kids, the time that Black Cat exploded in your hand?”

“God, do I ever.”

“Sort of felt like that, only in the tip of
my finger. Weird. Then it pulled up and over, pointing east.”

“So we gotta go find dem in de east?” Poochie
asked, leaning closer to me.

“The direction I’m sure about. What’ll be
found in that direction is what I can’t quite figure out. I
couldn’t really interpret what was happening or what it meant
because I’ve never felt it do that before. Heat usually means I’m
getting close to finding a lost object, like jewelry or something.
But this wasn’t just heat. It was
fire
hot. And there’s so
much . . .
energy
in the bayou, the swamps, that Lord only
knows what I might be picking up.”

“But at least it’s something,” Angelle said.
“Someplace to start, right?”

I shrugged, afraid to give her too much
hope.

“So what de cold means? Dat what you gonna
find is dead?”

“Usually, yeah.”

“So de cold in you finger now, it’s tellin’
you we got a ghos’ in de house?”

I shrugged again. “That the only thing I can
figure. Cold always means dead. Even though it’s not as cold as
before, maybe that just means there’s one here now, whereas earlier
it was more. Maybe the three you saw coming in here through the
bricks.”

I’d never seen a look of relief wash over a
woman’s face as purely as it did on Poochie’s in that moment.
“Mais, I can’t believe . . . somebody finally believe what I gotta
say.” She sat up tall in her seat, face beaming. Then she pointed
to Angelle. “Okay, before we go sidetrack again, it’s you
turn.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you got a story to tell you, too. You
don’t have a extra finger like you sister, but you got something in
you, I know.”

“I . . . I don’t under—“

“Tell her, Gelle,” I said softly. “Tell her
about the touching.”

Angelle’s face turned five shades of pink
before rolling into brick red. I reached over and squeezed her
hands, wanting to encourage her. When she finally spoke, her voice
was hesitant and soft, and the tears began almost immediately. With
absolute detail, she recounted the pinching, the bruising, the
invasion of hands and other male body parts. By the time she was
done, all three of us were crying.

“Poo-yi.” Poochie pushed away from the table,
sniffled hard, and hobbled to the sink. She grabbed a fist full of
paper towels and blew her nose. It was then I realized she’d not
been using her walker.

“You seem to get around pretty good without
that metal contraption of yours.”

Tossing the paper towels into the trash,
Poochie tsked. “I don’t have to use dat all de time. Sometimes my
balance goes a little cuckoo, so I have to use it to hold myself
up. Don’t want to fall on my face in de public, you know? And over
to de Bucket, I ride my scoot ‘cause I’m too lazy to haul my big
butt from one of dem aisles to de other.”

I smiled, and it felt good to release some of
the tension that had hung in the kitchen for so long.

Poochie suddenly closed her eyes for a
second, waving a hand in the air. “Okay, hol’ up, hol’ up, we goin’
sidetrack again.” She pointed at me. “Now, let’s see . . . you feel
de ghos’ wit’ you finger, and you t’ink you know de direction we
supposed to go for de chil’ren . . .”

I nodded.

She pointed to Angelle. “And you, dem ghos’
been messin’ wit’ you. A bad ghos’, so we gotta figure out how to
turn dat off.” She brought her finger to her mouth and tapped it
against her lips for a moment. “Hmm . . .hmm.” She dropped her
hand. “Okay, de bes’ I can understand from de good Lord is dis. De
ghos’ in de house, de ghos’ dat touch her, de los’ babies, all
dat’s mixed up together.”

“That doesn’t really make sense. How would
they all be connected, especially the kids?”

She shrugged. “I’m like you, me. I don’t
understand too good. My finger don’t hurt like you finger, but He
put a picture in my head. It don’t make no sense, dough.”

“A picture of what?” Angelle asked.

“A cypress tree.”

“One?” I asked.

“Non, and it’s not de regular tree. It’s de
stump. Old, rotted stump and de new tree growin’ inside dat.”

“Huh?” Angelle and I said at the same
time.

“A new tree growin’ inside a old stump dat’s
rotted like dat, dey call dat a olm tree. I know dat much, me. But
I don’t know what He’s trying to tell me wit’ dat. He show me de
tree . . .you finger . . .de ghos’ . . . what de ghos’ was doin’ to
Angelle’s tee-tons—”

“Tee-tons?” I asked.

Poochie gave me a bewildered look, like she’d
never met anyone who’d never heard the word tee-ton before. “Yeah,
tee-ton. . . you know, you two breasteses.”

Angelle blushed hard and looked away.

Now that definitions were cleared up, Poochie
shook a finger at me. “You know, I don’t know what we supposed to
do to stop what’s in dis house. I don’t know how we supposed to
stop dem from takin’ de shoes out de prayer tree. But something’s
tellin’ me, and I think it’s de good Lord, dat if we find de
chil’ren, den all de rest is gonna be fix. We just gotta find
dem.”

“We were planning to go look tonight,”
Angelle said, “But since Trevor isn’t bringing back the boat, we
won’t have any way to get into the swamp.”

“Poo-yi, girl,you must be crazy! Even if you
had de boat, you can’t go out in dem swamps in de middle of de
night. Dat’s too dangerous. And you would even know what to do wit’
de boat?”

“I’ve been out with Trevor checking traps
before. He showed me how to run the boat. Start it, steer it,
everything. All we’d have to do is bring a flashlight or a
headlight, and I could find my way around . .I’m sure.”

“Den thank de good Lord Trevor took de boat!
You two don’t got no business bein’ out dere by youself. Dat’s
cuckoo. Don’t you know what’s out dere? If de ghos’ come from de
bayou up in dis house, den what else you think is out in all dat
big swamp?Not Santy Claus, no. De feux fo lais’ might get you out
dere.”

“What’s that,” I asked.

She leaned close to me again. “A lot of
people believe de feux fo lais is different things, but me, I know
dat’s not true. A feux fo lais, dat’s a los’ soul from purgatory.
When dey get los’ dey float around in de swamp until dey find where
dey supposed to go. Some of dem souls get mad ‘cause dey los’, dem
all dat mad turns into a big ball of light. Dat light tries to
trick you, lead you way, way out in de black, black swamp.” Poochie
sighed. “Den it leaves you dere, so you los’ forever. Can’t ever
find you way back.”

“Then if we see anything like that, we just
won’t follow it,” Angelle said, matter of factly.

“It don’t work like dat. I think de feux fo
lais uses gris-gris or somethin’ ‘cause it makes you follow it
whether you wanna go or don’t wanna go.” Poochie pursed her lips
for a moment. “Mos’ do dat anyway. Dere’s a few feux fo lais dat
might be close to figuring out where dey supposed to go, and dose
don’t get so mad. Dey not gonna make you get los’. Dey gonna help
you get home. De trouble is, you never know which one you got when
it shows up, de good one or de bad one. Will all de stuff dat’s
been goin’ on around here, I think de bad would come. And dey would
lead y’all way out dere where nobody, not even de game warden, is
gonna find y’all. Non, y’all bes’ wait for de day. In de daylight
y’all can go look.”

“I can’t go out during the day,” I said.

“Mais, how come?”

“Everyone would see what I showed you,
Poochie. That extra finger. They’ll find out what it can do. I
don’t need that kind of hassle in my life again. You have no idea
what it was like having people follow me around everywhere, always
wanting something from me. People get greedy. They want me to look
for oil and gold, and they get desperate.”

Angelle nodded. “It’s true. I saw it. I
remember all those people.”

“Yeah, I can see how dat would happen. Dere’s
greedy all over de world. Everybody’s got dat today.” Poochie
rubbed her forehead with three fingers for a long moment, then
finally looked over at us and said, “Oh, yi, dat’s not good,
no.”

“What?” Angelle asked.

“What I just seen.”

Poochie looked up at the ceiling as if
watching an overhead screen. I felt Angelle’s leg jiggling
nervously near mine.

“What, Pooch?” Angelle asked again, an
impatient snap in her voice.

“Y’all in a big fight . . . in de dark . . .
in de boat. Poo-yi, out in de water . . .”

“A big fight?” I said.

“With who?” Angelle chimed in.

Instead of answering, Poochie stood up,
leaned over me and made a Sign of the Cross on my forehead with her
right thumb. Then she walked over to Angelle and did the same
thing, only after crossing her forehead, she said to her, “'S’cuse
me, cher,” then quickly made the same mark of the cross on each of
Angelle’s breasts. Once that was done, Poochie lifted her hands up
high, palm up, as if she expected the ceiling to fall and planned
on catching it.“God, if you ever listen to me, Poochie, den you
need to listen to me now. Please take care of us and please—”

Poochie never got the chance to finish her
prayer. For in that moment, the light fixture hanging over her head
exploded, and the kitchen went dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Nicky Trahan hated the dark, even more than
he had at any other time in his life. In the dark, back home, he
always imagined
things
hiding under his bed. In the
dark—hiding in the closet, waiting to attack him every time he had
to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. In the swamp,
where he and Sarah were, the dark was different. It had sounds that
frightened him because he didn’t know what they belonged to. For
all he knew, that chittering, squawking, croaking, grunting could
belong to a bear. One of those giant brown ones like he’d seen
during a field trip at the zoo in Baton Rouge. Then again, maybe it
was a wild hog or a bobcat. It could even be another alligator.

They’d been lucky with the first alligator.
Way lucky. They’d been so frightened by it, he and Sarah had
screamed at the top of their lungs, until no sound would come out
of their mouths anymore. The screaming must have scared the gator
because it let out a loud hiss, then flipped itself backwards into
the water. It hadn’t come back . . . yet. But the gator knew where
they were, and Nicky feared it would find it’s way back to them.
And if it did, he didn’t think they’d be able to scream loud enough
to scare it away again. Not only was he hoarse from all the
yelling, there was so much mud pressed against his chest, it made
it difficult to draw in a big breath. There was no way he’d be able
to pull in enough air to scream loud enough to even scare away a
mosquito.

He swallowed, forcing down the little bit of
saliva he was able to gather in his mouth. He was so hungry, and so
scared of all the shadows moving around them. Even a little breeze
made a branch look like a monster’s arm, raking across the ground,
creeping towards them. He tried to be brave, tried not to cry. It
was so hard. He imagined what it would be like if he had a dad
right now. Imagined him out in the swamps, looking for him and
Sarah right now. His dad would be the kind of person who would
never go looking for just one kid when two were missing. He’d want
to find both.

In truth, Nicky didn’t know who his father
was. Each time he tried talking about it with his mother; she’d cry
or get angry and drink more whiskey. Because of that, Nicky had no
idea who the man was, what he looked like. Didn’t know the color of
his hair or eyes. Didn’t know how tall he was, or if he was strong
or skinny. In a way, that was good because it allowed Nicky to
imagine his dad any way he wanted to.

At that moment, he pictured him to be
Superman: tight fitting shirt over a broad muscled chest, and the
shirt had a big red S on it. He’d be able to pick up buildings and
move them sideways to check and make sure his son wasn’t under one
of them. He’d bat cars out of the way with one hand. He’d be able
to grab alligators with two hands and rip their mouths apart for
even thinking about eating his son for supper. Then, with one
finger, his dad would pick him up by the back of his shirt and
simply lift him out of the thick, stinky mud.

Even better, if his dad was Superman, then
that would make him Superboy, and Superboy didn’t cry. Superboy was
strong. Not as strong as his dad, but close to it. Close enough to
rescue people. And he wanted to rescue Sarah.