A Twisted Ladder (52 page)

BAYOU BLACK, 2009

I
T SEEMED LIKE HOURS
had passed, and Madeleine had kept checking over her shoulder for the glimmer from Zenon’s craft. Hadn’t seen it again.

She risked shining a spotlight at the shore and could see that the banks had fallen back and given way to another artery of water. She hoped it was
her
artery of water, though in the darkness it was impossible to tell. If she was wrong, she could get lost in an endless maze of cypress forests. She snapped off the light.

She angled the craft and let up on the motor, allowing the current to push her into the little waterway. Finally, the waves from the Intracoastal receded to the calmer whitecaps of the small channel.

The wind and the current were finally at her back, and they lifted and carried the tiny boat toward home. The knowledge that the journey would now get easier was a balm to her nerves. But she couldn’t tell whether she was headed down the right path. It seemed like she should have at least reached the saltwater intrusion station.

Severin was looking over her shoulder. “He is angry, very, very.”

Madeleine tasted bile. She knew she could very well be having paranoid delusions about everything. But she cut the motor and listened. The wind had lifted, but its steady breeze still chimed in the treetops on either side of her. Severin said nothing, watching in the direction where Madeleine was leaning. Madeleine strained her ears as her heart began to race. If he had made it down the channel, it would not be long before his superior craft overtook hers. Ever so faintly, she did hear the sound of another motor. Off in the distance. She drew in her breath, listening through the layers of wind and rain.

And then suddenly, the urgent pulsing of an alarm wrenched through the darkness. Madeleine jumped, causing Anita’s body to loll to the side.

What is it? A hurricane warning?

But the alarm was not the kind of piercing rise-and-fall wailing of an emergency alert siren. This sound was more like a rhythmic kind of honking. It was—

It was the saltwater intrusion station. The storm must have surged seawater deep into the bayou, triggering the lock. The alarm was signaling that it was about to seal off the channel.

“Oh dear God!”

She pounced on the motor and ripped the cord. It roared to life and she sent it immediately into full throttle. She shined her spotlight down the channel, speeding toward the gateway.

If she could just make it through, she would be safe. It would close behind her and Zenon would not be able to follow. Even if she ran out of fuel she could make it to one of the tract houses before Zenon even set foot on earthen ground.

“Come on!”

But the small craft could only travel so fast, and she had already pushed it to its limits.

Then, finally, she could make out the lock ahead of her. The alarm pounded in her head. But even in the weak ray of the spotlight, she could see that the gate was closing.

Her motor was already maxed; the boat would not go any faster.

She watched in horror as the gate slowly closed. Her skiff was less than fifteen feet away but the lock was already too narrow. She frantically tried to reverse the throttle, but it was too late.

She was going to crash.

BAYOU BLACK, 2009

M
ADELEINE THREW HER ARM
across her face as the vessel charged the saltwater intrusion lock. She had no sense of the impact itself, but in her next moment of awareness, she was completely submerged and could not breathe. A cold, black, airless void.

She began to flounder, slowly at first, and then with a growing wildness, trying to lift her head for a gulp of air. She was deep below the surface. She could see nothing, and thrashed upward with mounting panic. Pressure increased, crushing her ears. Her lungs contracted, and she feared she would involuntarily inhale.

But she realized she wasn’t facing upward. She was at the bottom; she’d been swimming toward the bottom. The bayou felt silky down here. Even the sticks and debris were soft and smooth. She was sleepy, the urgency in her lungs fading. And she thought she might care to lie down. Wrap herself in the amniotic bath of Bayou Black and sleep on the broad, soft bed of clay that lay beneath the forest.

Madeleine lay down on her side, curling her head over her hands in the form of a prayer. The river bottom was black as the inside of a hollow oak. She closed her eyes.

Severin’s voice whispered in her ear. “Wake up, Madeleine.”

Tiny hands lifted her and tilted her face up. She opened her eyes. Still black down here. And she was so sleepy. But Severin was right.

Madeleine kicked, thrusting her body in a straight line for the surface, clawing at the water above. She broke through and gobbled blessed oxygen. Her throat convulsed, spewing a tide of water, and her lungs felt like they were full of crushed glass.

A tempest shrieked all around. She spun in the water, still sucking for air, when the sight of a small fire caught her eye. At first she was unable to identify where she was, and she watched the flames flicker and dance until they were finally extinguished in black water. She was treading in complete darkness, the sound of thunder rolling around her, and then she remembered.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the shape of some creature nearby, and she lunged in the opposite direction. She had the unreasonable suspicion that it was an alligator. And then in another flash, she could see that it was Anita, floating facedown in the water.

Madeleine swam to her and pulled her toward shore by the hair.

The rain began to spill again, though the wind remained stable. The bank was steep and tangled with brush. Ordinarily it would have been a vertical mess of woody roots, but since the water level had risen to flood stage, the bank was a miniature jungle of partially submerged shrubs that scraped at her skin as she swam in.

She managed to find a dubious foothold and dragged the girl up from the water. Fireworks of pain shot through her chest. Her shoulder wasn’t functioning properly. She found no flat surface, no stretch of dirt where she could stand and get her bearings. Nothing but branches and logs and scrub. Every molecule of her body ached. Blood was flowing from somewhere at her forehead; she could taste the rusty liquid, diluted by rain.

Somewhere in the far distance came the purr of a motor.

Madeleine sprang to her feet in a crouch, animalistic, balancing on a log and tightening her grasp around Anita. She pulled the girl deeper into the woods, stabbing herself on sharp sticks. She staggered and groped, her right arm becoming less and less useful from whatever injury she had sustained.

Her body suddenly sank waist-deep into a pool of muck. She set Anita over a log and hoisted herself out of the fetid-smelling liquid, steadying herself with a thick branch.

She tried to take another step, but her muscles refused to obey. She began to tremble. And then to weep. The rain continued its deluge, and the woods hissed in blackness. It occurred to her that she had very little chance of making it to safety like this. She could see nothing, and the way was blocked by fallen trees, pools, and swamp debris. And to try to tackle it all while still carrying the girl . . .

The faintest glow of light appeared, and Severin’s face emerged from the darkness.

“You’ll die out here.”

Madeleine’s body would not stop shaking. “It’s starting to look that way.”

“The water will swallow this place soon.”

Madeleine nodded. “I can believe it.”

“I can lead you out.”

Madeleine looked at her, an abomination of her own mind. Her brain must have manufactured Severin’s statement in a desperate play at survival:
Keep trying
.

Well, if she was going to die anyway, she had nothing to lose.

“All right, Severin. Get me out, then.”

The girl stood, and a wide halo of light glowed around her. Madeleine could finally see the cypress forest, and discovered she was closer to the channel than she’d thought. Then it occurred to her that it was because the banks were flooding. The water had followed her in, stealing into the forest even as she had struggled ashore.

Severin started walking, and Madeleine heaved Anita’s body up and tried to follow her.

Severin stopped. “Not with that. You leave it behind.”

Madeleine shook her head. “No.”

“You won’t be able to carry it that far. You’ll die.”

“I’ll probably die here anyway.”

If she could at least drag Anita deeper into the woods, maybe neither of their bodies would wash out to sea. Rescuers stood a better chance of finding them in the heart of the woodland.

“I’m taking this girl with me. Or I might as well stay here and drown.”

Severin scowled. “I can show you a place where she won’t wash away. They can come fetch her later.”

Madeleine considered this. “I’d have to be damn sure it was a floodproof spot.”

Severin turned and started walking in a slightly different direction. Madeleine hoisted Anita and followed, trying to ignore the eels of pain that shot through her shoulder.

SHE’D MADE EXASPERATINGLY SLOW
progress. She’d had to lift Anita over enormous fallen logs and then climb over them herself. She’d stopped frequently to rest. Most of the time she was either slogging on her knees or scrabbling on her feet with one hand to the ground. She’d carried the dead girl on her back, or dragged her, or whatever it took to move her just a few more feet.

Rain was streaming without pause, and the wind howled. But finally, the muck and pools hardened and real earth solidified below Madeleine’s feet. She could tell they were ascending to higher ground though the slope was almost imperceptible. Pine and oak replaced cypress and tupelo gum, and newly formed streams of water gushed by in veins through the earth.

Finally, they came to the highest point: a ridge, though the change in elevation was subtle. Severin pointed to a monstrous oak, and Madeleine could see that its branches would be sheltered from flood-waters. Her only chance.