Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 01 - Dark Bayou (16 page)

I guessed it was as good an explanation as any. “So you never really win, do you? Just one battle after another? Seems so hopeless.”

She laughed then, something I wasn’t expecting. “Lache pas la patate.” I laughed now, too. I hadn’t heard that since I was a child. It was a common phrase in Acadiana.
Don’t let go of the potato
was what she said.

It meant
d
on’t give up
.

9

Encounter

I
woke up with a headache from a dreamless sleep. But at least I woke up earlier this time. I got dressed and sluggishly headed down stairs just in time to see Clothilde remove the skillet of sizzling bacon from the burner. Lyla was again picking at her food. I took a seat next to her, and she turned slightly away from me, careful not to meet my eyes. Talking to her about what happened yesterday before supper was going to be tricky. Ever since I came back to Acadiana, she and I had been entangled in some elaborate dance, cautious with each other’s space.

“Nice to see you up at this hour,” remarked Clothilde.

“I guess I got off of L.A. time and got back on LA time,” I joked. She didn’t get it. I thought at least Lyla would crack a smile, but she just sat, picking at her food. My left temple throbbed. I applied pressure to it with one finger, trying to keep blood from flowing there. Clothilde noticed.

“You have a headache?”

“It’s okay.”

She put down a plate of bacon, eggs and cinnamon toast in front of me. I saw her pour some orange juice into a glass and set it down on the counter. She reached up into the cupboard and searched briefly through a couple of rows of small bottles with no labels. She grabbed one bottle and shook it twice over the juice, which she then placed in front of me, next to the plate. I stared at it.

She put the bottle back and then looked at me. “Drink it.”

“What’s in it?”

“Something that’ll make you feel better.

“It’s not dehydrated chicken poo, is it?” I was hoping to get a smile from Lyla, but she was either completely oblivious or exhibiting superb self-control.

“It’s not that!” fussed Clothilde. “It’s an herb.”

I shrugged my shoulders and took a sip. I made a face and Clothilde rolled her eyes. It tasted like orange juice enough, but there was a bitter after taste not associated with anything citrus. I hurried to replace that taste, eagerly gobbling up the eggs. To please her, I drank the whole glass, but a little at a time, alternating with bites of food to help wash down the bitterness stuck to the back of my tongue. My headache was gone by the time I finished my breakfast.

“What are your plans for today?” asked Clothilde, while she and I cleared the dishes off the table. She had sent Lyla outside to pick cucumbers to make pickles later. Her question to me now was loaded, no doubt.

“I think Carrie and I are supposed to do something tonight,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

She nodded, and I could feel her packing more gun powder into the barrel. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

I put my last dish in the sink and ran water in it. “I don’t know yet.”

“And the next day? And the one after that?” she pushed, cocking the gun.

“I don’t know,” I said, quietly.

“Do you know what you’re going to do about anything?”

BANG!
I rolled my eyes and tried not to raise my voice. “I still don’t know if I’m staying here or going back. It’s a lot to take in. I haven’t had a chance to deal with it.” I dried my hands on the dish towel and then sat at the table, ready to take my medicine she was dishing out to me.

“So you don’t know if you’re going to make the choice to even be one of us yet.”

“You said last night that you would take care of Lyla. Besides, I’m still not entirely convinced of this while business of ancient bloodlines and super powers.”

She nodded again and put her last dish in the sink to soak. Without looking at me and with all the coolness of a polar bear’s tongue, she asked, “How’s your headache?”

Sly old lady.
I pursed my lips. Even though her back was to me, I could feel her smirking. “I’m going to see if Lyla wants to come with me to Carrie’s tonight,” I said, leaving without another word from her, but I could have sworn I heard a low chuckle before I stepped out the door. It didn’t matter. I was just glad to be escaping the inquisition for the moment.

Outside, the sun was incredibly bright, set against a perfectly blue sky. Normally, this is a beautiful sight, but all I could think was how hot it was going to be the rest of the day. It was just before nine o’clock, and I was starting to sweat. Lyla was kneeling in the garden, scooping up cucumbers and placing them neatly into a basket. I knelt down by her, and I saw her stiffen. She continued her work, and I started to help her, but she got up and went to the other side of the garden where the cucumber vines started to tangle around the tomato sticks. I let her be for a moment, trying my best to respect her space. She moved more frantically, pulling the cucumbers as quickly as she could and tossing them into the basket.

“They stay fresher longer if you twist them off the vine,” I said.

She ignored me. I got up and walked over to her. She pulled the last few cucumbers off as fast as she could and got up, staring to walk off. I gently grabbed the basket’s handle, and she came to a stop, whirling around to glare at me.

“Let go!” she commanded.

“Wait, Lyla. I want to talk about—”

“Let go!” she repeated, louder this time. She jerked the basket back as hard as she could, yanking it out of my hand. She fell down and the cucumbers spilled over the St. Augustine Grass that lined the garden’s perimeter. I knelt beside her to help pick them up.

“I got it!” she yelled at me. She scooped them up, two and three at a time, and threw them back into the basket.

“Lyla …”

She turned to me with those fierce eyes that can only be inherited from Clothilde. “Leave me alone!” She frowned, and I saw her struggle to keep the tears in, but she wasn’t strong enough. She was about to bolt. As she started to get up, I grabbed her, hugging her. She struggled, but I held her harder. She gave up eventually and cried her little heart out with her face buried in my chest.

“It’s okay,” I soothed, patting her back. “Is this about what happened yesterday?”

I felt her nodding. “Lyla, it’s okay.”

She picked her head up, eyes wet and red. “No it’s not! I’m a freak!”

I was taken aback. How could she think that? What she had was so incredibly special. I had never seen anything like that before. “No, honey, you’re not a freak! What you have … what you can do is beautiful. How long have you been doing it?”

She shrugged. “Since I was seven, I think.”

“What happened when you were seven?”

Now she was sniffling, the tears momentarily stopped. “There was a deer that was in our backyard. It was shot and bleeding, but it was still alive. I was crying, wishing I could make it better. I put my hands on it, trying to hug it so it wouldn’t feel lonely while it died. And my hands got really hot, and then the deer got up and ran away.”

“How many times have you done this?”

“I don’t know. Lots.”

“Always with animals?”

That got her crying again. “I tried to save momma and daddy, but I couldn’t!”

I hugged her again, tears pricking my eyes now. “Baby, people are a lot bigger than animals.”

“But I tried so hard!” she wailed.

“I know, baby. I know.” Looking down at Lyla and, knowing the danger that possibly awaited her, I wondered if I would be able to save my loved ones if I made this absurd choice to be a paladin. I rocked her in my arms and desperately tried to put my logic aside. Faith was something I needed to work on, and I would do it for her.

* * *

After Lyla calmed down, she and Clothilde and I spent the rest of the morning pickling the cucumbers. Carrie had called me on her lunch break to discuss our plans that night. She decided we were going to have a girls-only slumber party. The promise of ice cream and painted toe nails was enough to get Lyla to come with me. But we had a lot of time to kill before the party. Lucas was at work, and Jonathan was with his sitter, so it was just me, Lyla and Clothilde for the rest of the afternoon.

Lyla helped me pick figs and the three of us canned them in Mason jars. I then got Lyla to help me cut the grass and wash the porch. We stopped a couple of times an hour for fresh sweet tea that Clothilde served us from the porch steps. By the end of the day, we were both a little sunburned and sweaty, but the house looked a lot better than it did when I drove up on June first.

“You sure you don’t want to come with us? Carrie invited you, too,” I said to Clothilde as Lyla as I headed out the door, our overnight bags slung over our shoulders.

She waved us away. “Y’all go. I have company coming later. Father Ben wants to go over a few things.” She saw the concerned look on my face. “It’s nothing to worry about. I promise. Y’all have a good time and I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”

“Sure you’re going to be okay here by yourself?”

She chuckled. “I’ve been living by myself for twenty years now, and I’ve managed pretty good.”

“Okay,” I said, hesitating before I walked out the door.

I wasn’t expecting Lyla to talk much on the way to Carrie’s, but I was soon surprised at how animated she was. “So, what are we going to do first? Watch a movie? Do our nails? Or eat?” she asked.

I smiled. “I don’t know. Can’t we do them all at the same time?”

She giggled. “No! How can we eat and do our nails at the same time?”

“I guess you have a point. What color you looking to do your nails, anyway?”

“Pink. Pink. Pink. And, oh yeah. PINK!”

I laughed. It was good to see her happy again and, better yet, happy with me. I supposed my reaction to her secret gave her relief. And I think that the bonding the three of us did over the pickling and canning helped, too. It was too much to hope for that Lyla and I could be buddies again, but it looked like it was moving in that direction.

I had allowed myself to be hopeful while we drove to Carrie’s, but the conversation with Clothilde last night was soon threatening to tear away the veil of brief happiness that hung over me for that short trip. I was glad Lyla didn’t notice my slight shift in mood. I let her babble all the way to Carrie’s. When we arrived, Lyla eagerly hopped out with her overnight bag and ran up to the front door, barging in without knocking. I took my time, forcing myself to let go of my worries for the night. When I walked in, Carrie squealed and wrapped her arms around me, crushing me with the force of her exhilaration.

“Hi,” I managed to choke out.

“Hi!” she squealed again. She let me go, and I gasped for air. “I was trying to decide what to watch tonight and I thought, since Lyla’s never seen it, we have to watch the one, the only, the
classic
…” She pulled a DVD case from inside her entertainment center and held it up like it was the Arc of the Covenant. “
Dirty Dancing
!”

Lyla’s mouth gaped open as she ogled the movie in Carrie’s hands. “Oh, MY GOD! Oh, my God. I have been dying to see that movie since forever!”

Carrie and I laughed. It was funny to hear Lyla already talking like a teenager, even though she was three years away from that. She held the movie out for Lyla, who took it and was instantly intrigued by the pictures on the cover.

“Okay. I have three different kinds of ice cream. I have about twenty different colors of nail polish. I have Kool-Aid for Lyla …” she leaned in closer to me, whispering, “… and wine for us.” I grinned and nodded my approval. She straightened up and brought her voice back to the excited pitch it was a second ago. “And tons of junk food. What do we do first?”