Hidden Jewel (10 page)

"But, Mommy . ."
"I told Gisselle, you know."
"What did she say?"
"She just used the information to blackmail me into becoming her slave, but I deserved it. I should never have let my anger get the better of me. No one else knew about it but Nina. She was always burning candles to keep evil away from me and giving me good luck charms, like the dime you now wear," Mommy said, smiling.
We turned the corner and started down a long, dark street. The buildings looked no better than shacks. Despite the hour, I saw young children still playing on the stoops and on the scarred and bald front yards. Broken-down cars were parked along the sidewalks, and the streets were very dirty, the gutters full of cans, bottles, and paper.
We stopped at a shack that looked somewhat better than its neighbors. The yard and the sidewalk were clean, but I saw bones and feathers hanging above the front door.
"Wait here for us," Mommy ordered the driver. "I won't wait long," he warned.
"I have your name and your license number," she told him. "You had better be here when I step out of that house with my daughter," Mommy countered. He grunted his reluctance, but sat back. Mommy took a deep breath and then found my hand. We walked to the stoop, and Mommy knocked on the door. A moment later a short black woman peered out at us. Her long gray hair hung down to the middle of her back, and she wore what looked like a potato sack and old sneakers without laces. Dangling from her earlobes were two small live lizards. They both held on for dear life.
"We're here to see Nina," Mommy said.
"Nina is not here," the small woman said.
Mommy glanced at the note she had been given. "I was told to come to this address. I was told Nina Jackson was very sick and dying in this house."
"That be told true, but Nina's gone. Zombie take her about an hour ago. She's in paradise."
"Oh, no. We're too late," Mommy moaned. I squeezed her hand, and she straightened her shoulders. "I want to see her anyway," she insisted.
The woman stepped back for us to enter. A sweet aroma flowed from the rear of the house. The old lady nodded toward the left, and we heard the monotonous rat-a-tat of a drum. Slowly Mommy and I walked toward the entrance to the rear room.
It was a small bedroom with the shades drawn. The bed took up most of the space. Around it nearly a hundred candles were burning. Another black woman, not much bigger than the one who had greeted us, sat very still beside the coffin. Across from her, an elderly man with a luminous white beard was tapping a drum made of thin cypress staves hooped with brass and topped with sheepskin. He didn't look our way or move his head an inch when we entered, but when the woman turned toward us, her large, sad eyes brightened with some recognition.
"You be Nina's Ruby," she said.
"Yes," Mommy said. "Are you Nina's sister?" The woman nodded and glanced at the body of Nina Jackson. Her face looked waxen, like a mask. I hadn't seen them at first, because my eyes were blinded by the glow of the candles, but at the foot of the bed were two cats, a black one and, on its left, a white. They were both dead, preserved by a taxidermist. Above the headboard dangled a black doll wearing a brightly colored dress and a necklace of snake vertebrae, from which hung an alligator's fang encased in silver.
"My sister couldn't wait no more," the woman said. "I'm sorry," Mommy said, moving to the side of the bed. I was right beside her. "Poor Nina."
"She be rich Nina now," the sister said quickly.
"She be with zombie."
"Yes," Mommy said, smiling. She sucked in her breath and sighed before reaching out to touch Nina's hand. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer and then looked at Nina's sister. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"No, madame. Nina called for you because she wanted to do something for you. Before he took her, zombie told her something. Before she go for good she say, go fetch Madame Andreas. Bring her to me. I got to tell her what zombie let me know. But you don't come, and she couldn't wait no longer, see?"
Mommy made a tiny cry. I took her hand. "Did she tell you anything?"
"No, no. Nina can tell such a thing only to you. All she do is tell me get you fast, and then she asked if you be here and I said no. A while later she asked again, and again I say no. Then I heard her mumble a prayer. I seen her take her last breath and when I look closely, I see she died with a tear in her eye. That bode no good omen.
"You go pray now, madame. You go pray for Nina's voice. Maybe best you go to cemetery at midnight. Bring a black cat. Nina maybe speak from beyond through the cat's mouth."
The drumming got louder.
"Mommy, let's go," I whispered, feeling a chill in my spine. She looked transfixed, her eyes frozen in fear. "The taxi."
She took another deep breath and then opened her purse and took out some money. "Please, take this and buy what you need for Nina's burial," she said. Nina's sister took the money. Mommy looked at Nina again and turned to leave.
"You better go to the cemetery at midnight," Nina's sister called after us.
Mommy was silent most of the way home. She stared out the window until we were nearly there. Then she turned and mumbled, "I should have gone immediately. I knew it. I should have just gone to her."
"But, Mom.tny, how could you? All those people had come to see you."
"None of that mattered as much. I know Nina wouldn't have sent for me if it hadn't been important," she said, shaking her head.
"Mommy, you don't really believe all that; you don't really believe Nina went to the land of the dead and returned to tell you something, do you?"
She was silent.
"Mommy?"
"I remember once going with Grandmere Catherine to drive away a
couchemal
," she said, "an evil spirit that lurks about when an unbaptized baby dies. She was called to drive it away so it wouldn't bring the family bad luck."
"How did she do that?" I asked.
"She put a drop of holy water in every pot, every cistern, anything that could hold water. We went around the house searching and while we she was depositing the holy water . . ."
"What?" I asked when she hesitated.
"I felt it. I felt the spirit," she whispered. "It flew past me, touched my face, and disappeared into the night."
I swallowed back my gasp.
"I don't mock anyone's beliefs," she said, "and I don't challenge the charms, the gris-gris, or the rituals. I don't want to believe in most of it, but sometimes . . . sometimes I can't help it. It fills my stomach with butterflies."
I embraced her; she was shivering. "Oh, Mommy, those are just foolish old superstitions. People make them up. You can't believe anything bad will happen because you didn't get to see Nina in time."
"I hope not," she said, shaking her head. "I hope not."
Daddy and the boys were home when we arrived. He had sent the twins to bed, but fifteen minutes later they were both complaining of stomachaches. "Which doesn't surprise me one bit, considering what they gobbled down tonight." He paused and looked hard at Mommy. "What's wrong? Nina died?"
"Yes, Beau. She died before I got there."
"I'm sorry," he said. "She was quite a character, Nina. I remember how well she dealt with Gisselle. She was the only one who could get her to do as she was told. I think Gisselle was a little afraid of Nina, even though she mocked her and her voodoo."
"Her sister said that Nina had something important to tell me, Beau."
Daddy looked at her. "Something about what?" "Something she learned in the other world," Mommy blurted.
At first Daddy just stared. Then his mouth dropped. "You don't mean to tell me you believe Nina came back from the dead to tell you something?" Mommy nodded.
"Mon Dieu,
Ruby. A woman with your intelligence and--"
"It has nothing to do with intelligence, Beau."
Daddy clamped his lips shut. He and Mommy had had arguments about this before, and he knew how firmly she held on to her old beliefs.
"I'm tired," he said. "I'm going up to bed. Oh," he added turning at the stairway, "Bertrand from the gallery said seventy percent of your work has been sold--a record for an opening. Congratulations." He started up the stairs.
Mommy sighed. "What a night. I should be happy, but long ago I learned that for every ray of sunshine, there's a shadow lurking. We've just got to balance ourselves between them, I suppose." She smiled at me. "Thanks for being at my side and being my comfort"
We hugged.
"I better go up and see how the boys are doing. I might have to use one of Grandmere Catherine's herbal recipes," she said.
When the boys set eyes on her, they're begging for attention. "It's no use bawling them out tonight," Mommy said, coming out of their room. "They're both too green to hear a word."
Mommy went down to prepare the old tried and true remedy, and I went to bed. However, as soon as I closed my eyes, I saw the hundred candles and heard the dreary drumbeat. Later I had a horrible nightmare in which Nina sat up on her deathbed and turned to me. She opened her eyes, and they were yellow. Instead of tears, hot wax streamed from under her eyelids and hardened on her cheeks. When she opened her mouth to speak, all I heard was Mommy's voice screaming "N0000!" I woke with a start. I was about to get up for a drink of water when I heard footsteps and sobbing in the hallway. I waited and then peered out. Mommy was descending the stairway. I saw her go out a patio door. She appeared to be sleepwalking.
I put on my robe and followed. At first I didn't see her. Then I caught her silhouette in the garden shadows. "Mommy," I whispered, "why are you out here?"
She didn't hear me, so I drew closer and asked again.
"Oh, Pearl," she replied in a voice drawn from a well of sadness. "I was hoping Nina would speak to me in the darkness. Don't tell Daddy I came out here," she pleaded. I took her hand. Her skin felt clammy and cold.
"You better go back to bed, Mommy, and stop this worrying."
"I can't. Something's going to happen because of some bad luck my past actions have brought into our home. Nina wanted to warn me, I'm sure."
"That's silly, Mommy, and you know it is. Things happen for logical, natural reasons only."
She sighed deeply. "I don't know," she muttered. "I don't know."
"Well, I do," I said firmly. "Now come back in and go to bed or I will tell Daddy."
She started back to the house with me and then stopped and seized my hand in a desperate grip. "Did you hear that?" she asked, softly.
I listened, but heard nothing unusual. "Hear what, Mommy?"
"The sound of someone sobbing. I heard it before, too," she said.
"Wasn't that you?" I asked.
Her eyes widened. "Then you heard it too!" she said quickly.
"Stop it, Mommy. You're scaring me."
We both listened a moment longer.
"I don't hear anything," I declared.
She shook her head and walked back to the house with me. We both returned to our bedrooms, but I didn't fall asleep until nearly morning.
Mommy didn't come down to breakfast the next morning before I left for work. Daddy said she had spent a restless night and was still sound asleep. In fact, despite the wonderful reception her new works had received, Mommy remained in a melancholy state for days. The twins were usually there at the door complaining when I returned from work.
"Mommy's losing her hearing," Pierre concluded. Jean, nodded worriedly. "She should go to an ear doctor."
"Maybe you can test her hearing, Pearl," Jean said. "Why do you say she's losing her hearing?" I asked with a smile.
"If we ask her a question, we have to ask her twice, maybe three times," Pierre explained.
"Sometimes we have to shout!" Jean added. "She's a bit distracted these days," I told them. "It's not her hearing. Just be patient."
They shook their heads skeptically and went back to their games. But the mood of despair that had laid itself over our home depressed them. They had no enthusiasm for their pranks. Daddy began to worry about Mommy, too. She wasn't working; she didn't visit with her friends or have any visitors, and she wasn't eating well. Finally, one night at dinner, my father thought he had a solution.
"Pearl has Monday and Tuesday off this next week and I'm due for a holiday. What say we go to the chateau, this weekend, Ruby? The change of scenery will do you good. You can get some ideas for your work, and the boys and I can go fishing."
"Yeah!" Jean cried.
"I don't know," Mommy said. Daddy looked to me for help.
"I'd love a change of scenery, Mommy, and we haven't been to the chateau for quite a while," I said. "I can get some of my college preparatory reading done, too."
She looked at me and nodded. "I suppose we could go," she said.
The boys were cheered, and the packing and planning did add some brightness to what had otherwise been a dark time. Despite her initial reluctance, Mommy dived into the preparations. No one had to wake the boys the next morning. They were already dressed and ready by the time Mommy, Daddy, and I went downstairs for breakfast. They had packed their own suitcases, but when Mommy inspected them, she discovered they had included slingshots, baseballs, shedded snakeskins, marbles, and jackknives.
"You'll have plenty with which to occupy yourselves at the chateau," Mommy told them. "No need to bring all this junk."
Daddy packed the car immediately after breakfast. I think he was even more excited than the twins about taking the holiday. As usual the twins talked a blue streak during the drive, asking questions about practically everything in sight. What were people selling on the sides of the highway? How did they make those baskets and palmetto hats? Why were the shacks built on stilts? Mommy had little time to dwell on her dark thoughts, so even though Daddy normally would have asked the twins to take a break, he simply smiled at me, winked, and let the questions go on and on.
It was a beautiful summer day. Bringing Mommy out to the rural world appeared to be the panacea Daddy and I were hoping for. The sight of her beloved Spanish moss draped from old cypress trees, the glistening goldenrod, the willows and cottonwoods, and here and there a pond covered with lilies and hyacinths filled her with pleasure and restored the glow to her eyes and cheeks. The twins loved to test her knowledge of birds, and she was more than eager to identify a grosbeak heron or a scarlet cardinal. They were fascinated by her description of a butcher bird and how it stored its food on thorns so it could eat the cured flesh during the winter. Everything about nature fascinated them. I decided they were the ones who had really inherited our grandmother's affinity for wild things.