Fever Moon (16 page)

“When can we start? I have classes to teach in Baton Rouge, but if I can set up appointments, I can travel back and forth.”

“Raymond is the key to all the others. If he talks with you, the others will.”

“I’ll pay him a visit first. Now I suppose I should get you home. Your mother will be worried.”

Chula shook her head. “Wrong. I’m sure she’s clapping her hands with glee that we’ve found enough to talk about to occupy our late evening.”

They left the drugstore, laughing out loud as a child dressed as a pirate capered by. Moonlight peeked through the canopy of trees that lined the sidewalk while Chula talked about the development of New Iberia and how the coming of a railroad would change the town. “The days when the Teche is the heartbeat of the parish are ending.”

“Do I detect a note of sadness?”

Chula considered it. “I’m twenty-nine years old and I act like someone seventy, always despairing about how the world is changing. If you asked anyone else, they’d say the railroad will bring New Iberia and the world closer.” She hesitated, kicking a pile of leaves from the sidewalk. “I don’t want the world closer.”

“What about modern conveniences?”

“The price is always too high.” She gave him a wry smile. “We’re a special place, unique. All of that will change.” She caught a glimpse of a figure moving quickly through the bushes in the McLemore backyard.

“What’s wrong?” John touched her arm.

“Probably just a child playing a prank.” She paused to get a better look. “Mrs. McLemore lives alone. Maybe I should check.”

“I’ll go with you.”

They walked across the front lawn to the back, where the shadows were deepest. Chula scanned the yard, her gaze moving from the storage shed to a clump of azaleas and camellias, past a pecan tree. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. John stood beside her, and she felt him tense.

“There.”

At the very back of the yard where a thick wisteria covered the fence, she saw someone—or something—running. The creature looked neither human nor animal and disappeared into the darkness.

“Stop!” John took off after it with Chula right on his heels.

They dashed to the fence and halted. Whoever it was had made a clean escape.

“Did you see that?” John asked. “What was it? I couldn’t tell if it was an animal or a person.”

Chula’s heart still pounded. “It was probably some older boy, pulling a Halloween prank. Let’s go home and call the sheriff.” She took his hand and pulled him back to the sidewalk, out of the dense shadows. When they resumed walking, their pace was brisk, almost a jog. Sitting on the ground with his back pressed against a tombstone, Raymond watched the Spanish moss in the old oaks dance in the moonlight.

“Happy birthday, Antoine,” he said. He gave the distinct cry of the hawk. “I can’t stay long, but I wanted to visit a moment.” He got to his knees and turned to face the stone so he could trace the inscription with a finger. “Antoine Thibodeaux, 1927–1943, Beloved son and brother, he answered the call of duty.” Raymond had paid for the stone but hated the inscription. “Beloved son, left unprotected by his brother” would have been far more accurate. His poor judgment had cost Antoine his life. Hell, Antoine had barely become a soldier when he died, had never become a man in the truest sense of the word.

In the months since Antoine had been shot, the earth had mended with a new web of grass, but everything else about Antoine’s death was raw. No one in the Thibodeaux family had recovered from the loss, would ever recover. Tony had been the heart of the family, the thing that kept them all together and moving forward when Ambrose Thibodeaux had died in a boating accident. Now they were lost. Each in a different way, but lost nonetheless.

He could no longer speak with his mother. Pain radiated from her, peeling the skin from his bones. Antoine had joined the army, following Raymond, wanting to fight for his country, to make a difference. In both of their idealistic imaginings, the war was going to be something like shooting bottles on a fence post. One German down, two, three, four. Raymond was a skilled sharpshooter, and he’d imagined the war as death from a distance.

He’d learned differently on his first combat assignment. He’d tracked through woods and slipped behind a mortar nest of three German soldiers. He’d shot the first one in the chest and the second in the neck before either man knew what had happened. The third had turned to him, terror on his face, his gaze searching the woods for the bullet that would take his life. Raymond had shot him, because to do it meant saving American lives, the lives of his brother and comrades. But the dreams had started then, the images of bloodied young men holding out their stumps instead of hands, pleading for mercy. Mercy that Raymond couldn’t give. He was a reluctant but efficient killer, and the only solace he took from it was that by volunteering for such jobs, he kept Antoine safe.

Tony had followed him into the infantry, because he knew his big brother could protect him. But Raymond had failed. The cold stone against his hands was testimony of his dismal failing. The harvest he’d brought to his family was death and loss and suffering. This was the bitter crop his great-grandmother had warned against. When he felt the urge to live again, all he needed to do was come here and attend his harvest.

The sound of a vehicle bumping over the rough road made him get to his feet. He felt as if he’d fallen asleep, though he knew he hadn’t. He’d only been at the grave for ten minutes or so, but the night had taken on a different cast.

When he saw the old truck, his heart sank. He’d avoided the cemetery all day, hoping not to run into his family. His sister parked the truck beside his car and walked toward him.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was low.

Raymond stepped back from the headstone. Elisha had the look of a witch, dark hair hanging in tangled ringlets. She’d once been pretty, a slender girl with eyes as tender as a doe, and this was what grief had done to her.

He made a semicircle around her, determined to get back to his car and leave. He’d had his moment with Antoine, but he didn’t want to talk to his sister. He couldn’t face her, or his mother. He’d caused them too much pain already.

“Raymond, please!” Elisha advanced on him. “Won’t you talk to me?” Tears glistened on her pale face. “Mama is dying, Raymond. Grief is killing her. Antoine is dead, but you’re not.”

Raymond wanted to grab her by the shoulders and pull her against him, to hold her against the pain that was tearing her apart, but he had no comfort to give her. “I can’t help Mama. I can’t help anyone. She sees me and it makes it all fresh again. She sees me, and she thinks how Antoine is dead.”

“She sees you and she sees her son.” Elisha held out a hand to him. “Raymond, she talks of you constantly, of how you look like Papa, of how you did this or that. Please, come and see her. Before it’s too late.”

Against the dark night, Elisha moved like a wraith of suffering. She was too thin, her cheeks hollow and lines marking flesh too young and tender for wrinkles. No matter how much he wanted to comfort her, he knew his touch would ultimately bring only pain. “Go home, Elisha. Mama will be worried about you.”

“Mama doesn’t worry about me.” Elisha wiped the tears from her cheeks. “She sits on the porch and rocks. That’s what she does, Raymond. She looks down the road, hoping that there’s been a mistake and that Antoine will walk home. She slips away more and more each day. She doesn’t know or care what I do.”

Raymond felt the weight of her loneliness. “I would change things, if I could.” He stepped toward her. She was his little sister, a child he’d cuddled like a puppy when she was born. He and Antoine had taken her on their adventures, waiting for her when her legs were too short and stubby for running. My God, she’d become a woman and he wasn’t certain how it had occurred.

“Why did you come back here?” Her tone held only confusion, no blame. “You won’t see your family. You have no friends. You walk the town like a ghost. Why did you come back?”

He hesitated, but then decided to tell the truth. “Because I have no place else to go.”

In the moonlight fresh tears tracked silver down her face. “I don’t know who I feel the sorriest for. You or me or Mama.”

“Go home, Elisha. It’s dangerous out here. You should stay home at night.” Her unrelenting grief had driven away all of her friends and suitors, and that was his fault, too.

Raymond walked to the car and got in. His headlamps caught and held Elisha as he backed out and left the family cemetery. He had to find Adele, before everyone in the parish learned she was on the loose. He had to find her and contain her—for her own safety. He couldn’t help his family, and if he failed Adele, he would accept that he was doomed.

Adele was barefoot. That much Raymond could tell from her footprints. She was headed toward town—if she even knew what direction she followed. Using a flashlight, Raymond tracked Adele from Madame Louiselle’s and into the thick woods. Trying to find Adele was the only thing that quieted the demons that raged in his memory. Straining his eyes in the darkness, he concentrated on his task.

He stepped cautiously, more afraid of a snake or gator than a predator. The length of Adele’s stride told him she had no such concerns. She was running, careless of her footing or what she might disturb. Almost as if she were a part of the swamp.

He considered the story her tracks told. From a coma, Adele had risen, dressed, and stepped into the night. She’d begun to run, and for the last mile that he’d covered, she hadn’t slowed at all. A woman who was so weak she couldn’t sit up without help was now running. As Raymond’s boot slipped into an oozing bog of mud and cold water, he realized he could draw one of two conclusions. Either Adele had played them all, pretending to a weakness that was fake, or she was so ill she didn’t know what she was doing. The third option was impossible. She was not a shape-shifter with supernatural strength and powers.

He splashed through the bog and kept going. The waning moon couldn’t penetrate the thickness of the woods, and he was forced to rely on the feeble beam of the flashlight. He found the high-arched print of her foot, the impression of the ball deep and the distance between steps nearly three feet. She was still running.

When the trail came to a spring-fed branch, he stopped. The tracks disappeared in the water, and though he cast the beam on the other side, he couldn’t see where she’d exited. Or if she’d left the water. He brought the light down into the water, half expecting to see her dark hair and wide-open eyes staring at him from beneath the shallow stream.

He found only dead leaves rotting on the bottom. There was nothing for it but to turn back. He couldn’t follow her now, and he certainly couldn’t keep the pace she set as he tracked her by flashlight. Her direction was northeast, as if she were being drawn to town.

As long as she stayed in the woods, no one would hurt her. If she showed up on the streets of New Iberia, there was no telling what a panicked resident might do. Raymond hesitated on the edge of the stream.

By refusing to chain Adele to Madame’s bed, he’d allowed her to put herself in ultimate danger. She was free and running loose because of him. Because of the decision he’d made. He stood a moment in the moonlight before he began the walk out of the woods.

When he returned to Madame Louiselle’s, she took him to her kitchen where a bowl of soup steamed hot in the cool night. She stood behind him, her hands moving over his shoulders, and he listened to the gentle mumbling of a prayer.

When she was finished, she moved to sit across from him. “I’m sorry, Raymond. I wouldn’t have left her if I’d thought she might run away.”

He pushed his bowl away. “I never believed Adele
could
run away.”

“You wanted to handcuff her, and I urged you not to do it.” Madame held his gaze with one dark and curious. “Is it possible I’m to blame for all of this?”

“No, Madame. She was so sick. How could you know?”

“Sometimes it isn’t possible to know the outcome of an action. Sometimes you have to act on faith.” She leaned forward. “How’s your back?”

To his surprise, the pinching pain was gone. “Better. Thank you, Madame. I have one question. When you saw Adele last, was she quiet?”

Madame nodded. “She asked for water, and she understood. She was coming around, beating the fever back. I went to gather some roots to brew her a calming tea. I had it in my head that she would be ready for a warm bath when I returned. I was only gone an hour or so. When I came back, she was gone, and I went to town for you.”

Adele had moved from near invalid compliance to running wild in less than an hour. It was a repetition of a pattern that confirmed Raymond’s dark suspicions.

“Madame, did anyone come to see Adele?”

The old woman’s face showed sudden understanding. “It’s possible,
cher
, but I didn’t see anyone. I was half a mile away.”

Raymond stood up. “Thank you, Madame. And don’t worry. We’ll find her.” On his way out, he put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

When he was in the yard, he pulled the flashlight from his pocket and examined the ground. It took ten minutes, but he found what he was looking for. Tire tracks led up to the house. Someone had come to visit Adele while Madame was gone. To visit and to dose her again with the concoction that made her run like a wild thing through the woods.

He knelt down to study the story of the tracks. The tires were in fair shape. Better than fair. Since the war, rubber was near impossible to find and most residents made do with tires so bald they had no tread. Raymond slowly rose to his feet, aware that his back made no complaint.

Praytor Bless’s car had good tires. Somehow, Praytor, or his mama, had managed to obtain them. It would be worthwhile to pay a visit to Praytor in the near future.

T
HE sound of childish laughter disappeared on a gust of wind as Florence picked up her crystal ball and started toward the front door. Trick or treat was over. She’d handed out fortunes of adventure and wealth—along with apples, oranges, and the much sought-after peppermints she’d found in Baton Rouge. She was out of energy and treats, and something in the night had set her nerves on edge. She wanted to be inside with her door locked, waiting for Raymond to return. Tonight, she needed the comfort of his arms, the sense that for the dark hours of the moon, someone was there to protect her.