Paula Morris (21 page)

"Really?" This sounded too melodramatic to be true.
Wouldn't the police start investigating if girls kept dropping dead in one
particular house?

"There haven't been many girls born to the Bowmans through
the years," Aunt Claudia told her, pacing back and forth like a polar bear
in the zoo. "But each one dies before her seventeenth birthday. Even the
ones who are sent away from the house to live with friends and family in other
states."

"And what about this ghost that they say the girls can
see?" This was what Rebecca really wanted to know, and the question seemed
to snap Aunt Claudia out of her trance. She stopped pacing and stared at
Rebecca.

"Have you seen this ghost?" she asked, the color
draining from her face. A cockroach scuttled along the kitchen floor, inches
from her foot, but Aunt Claudia didn't appear to notice.

"Of course not!" Now wasn't the time to tell her,
Rebecca decided. She wasn't sure why she felt this way, why she wasn't ready to
confide in Aunt Claudia about everything. Maybe it was because she didn't want
anyone telling her who she could and couldn't see, and -- from what she'd
learned this

180

evening -- Lisette had kind of a bad reputation in this
neighborhood. "I don't believe in ghosts, you know."

This might have been true a month ago, but now it was a lie. A
necessary lie, Rebecca decided.

"You are my own sweet skeptic," Aunt Claudia said, her
face relaxing. She walked over, running a soft hand over Rebecca's hair.
"That's good. It's a good thing."

"Really?" Rebecca smiled at her aunt. This was the woman
who collected voodoo charms and read tarot cards for a living. Maybe Aunt
Claudia was admitting she was a fraud.

"Yes, it is. Seeing that ghost ... well. There's nothing more
to say about that. Now, it's time we were both in bed. Far too much excitement
for one evening. You were very disobedient to go to that party but ... but
let's talk about all that another time."

"OK," Rebecca agreed, stifling a yawn. She'd save the
rest of her questions for tomorrow: Tonight had been exhausting and tumultuous
in every way. The kiss from Anton seemed like a distant dream.

In the morning, Rebecca was awakened by rain drumming against the
window, and then by what sounded like rain inside the house: It was her aunt,
tapping on her bedroom door.

"Rebecca," she whispered, cracking open the door, her
frizzy gray hair escaping from the head scarf she always wore to work in the
Quarter. "Your father called."

"He's on the phone?" Rebecca sat up, rubbing sleep from
her eyes and pushing back the covers. She wondered why her

181

father hadn't called her cell phone or sent her a text the way he
usually did when he wanted to get in touch.

"Oh, he's not on the phone now, baby," Aunt Claudia told
her. She leaned over to fiddle with the straw doll hanging on the wall,
straightening it: Rebecca hadn't even noticed it was back there. "But
hurry -- you have to get up and get ready. He's just arrived back in New York.
He wants you to go home for Christmas."

"Home? New York? Really?" The rain outside was loud,
slapping against the gutters. Had she misheard her aunt?

"Yes -- now! He's booked you onto the late-morning flight. So
hurry and get up. You'll just have to throw some things together. We should leave
in ... oh, half an hour?"

Rebecca was out of bed in a flash, wide awake and practically
ricocheting around the room. She pulled the duffel out from under her bed, and
started stuffing whatever she could grab into it: sweaters, jeans, underwear,
socks.

"I'll fix you some eggs and grits," Aunt Claudia said,
closing the door, and Rebecca didn't even bother to tell her -- for the
hundredth time -- that she didn't eat grits. There was no time for talking.
There'd be no time to go looking for Lisette in the cemetery, or to talk to
Anton again. There was no time for any more confessions or any more questions
or any more stories. Rebecca was going home.

182

***

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

***

Although she'd only been in new york city for three weeks, Rebecca
felt as though she'd journeyed to another world. Sleeping in her small bedroom
in the tenth floor apartment, greeting the doorman, riding the elevator,
hearing car horns along Central Park West: This was her real life. New Orleans
was a strange dream of a place, extreme and claustrophobic, where her universe
was confined to a few blocks -- school, the coffee shop, the cemetery. In New
Orleans, she wasn't just in exile.- She was practically incarcerated.

This wasn't something she could discuss with anyone. Her father was
so delighted to see her, and so miserable when she was about to leave again,
that moaning about her life in New Orleans seemed both selfish and pointless.
He didn't want her to be there any more than she did -- that was clear. As for
her friends, they were more interested in filling Rebecca in on school
scandals, romances, and dramas than hearing much about her temporary home in
the Deep South. To them, New Orleans was just a place that used to be in the

183

news and the only New Orleanians they were interested in hearing
about were Juvenile and Lil Wayne.

So telling them how she'd seen -- and made friends with -- a ghost
was out of the question. Nobody would believe her. Rebecca couldn't really
believe it herself. Back in New York, much of the past month seemed incredibly
surreal.

One thing her friend Ling said made Rebecca feel a little guilty
-- not about what she was doing, but about what she
wasn't
doing in New
Orleans.

"So," Ling said, stopping on the sidewalk outside the
big H&M on Fifth Avenue to count her shopping bags: The post-holiday sales
had just begun. "Are you doing one of those Habitat for Humanity things?
You know, rebuilding houses or whatever it is they do? I saw something on TV about
all these school groups from other states flying down to help, and how all the
schools and colleges in New Orleans have to do community service now."

"Urn -- I don't know about
our
school," Rebecca
said. Maybe after the storm Temple Mead girls had volunteered to help gut
flooded houses and clean up the debris-strewn parks, but Rebecca was ashamed to
admit she'd made no effort to find out if these projects were still going on.

"It could be fun, right?" Ling pulled on her fluorescent
orange angora gloves. "You might even get to meet Brad Pitt. He's down
there all the time, building eco-houses or something -- I saw it on the
Today
show."

Rebecca nodded, promising herself she'd investigate possibilities
as soon as she got back to New Orleans. This didn't mean she was looking
forward to going back. If it were up to her, she'd stay right here in New York,
hanging out with Ling

184

and other people who actually liked her. In New Orleans, Rebecca
knew what to expect now -- and the prospect of an entire semester as social outcast
at Temple Mead wasn't very appealing.

"It's not that much longer now, honey," her father said
at the airport. He was trying to smile, but his eyes looked anxious, and he
seemed older, somehow, and more stressed. "Before you know it, it'll be
summer, and you'll be back home."

"Next you'll be telling me the worst is over," sighed
Rebecca, watching her bag sail away and thinking how much she was dreading that
first day back at school.

"No." Her father's voice was quiet. The look on his face
was grim. "No, I wouldn't say that."

Rebecca stopped shuffling her boarding pass and ID, and looked at
him. There was something ominous about his tone of voice.

"I wish I could come down with you," he said, almost to
himself.

"But ... you're going back to China, right?" she asked
him. She didn't know what he was talking about. If her father was in the
States, Rebecca could just move home to New York. There was no need for the two
of them to be exiled in New Orleans.

"Yes, yes," he said. "Of course."

Then he pulled her into a hug so tight it took her breath away.

The New Orleans Rebecca returned to was gray and damp, with a
chill in the air to remind its inhabitants that

185

the season was, officially, winter. But her first morning back,
walking to school, Rebecca saw the colors of the city were defiantly bright.
Front gardens were already dotted with blowsy red or white camellias, and a
dense bush of pink azaleas bloomed outside the Vernier house; their scent hung
in the still air, pungent and overwhelming. And on the houses themselves,
holiday decorations were gone: Now front doors and hedges and fences were
decorated in the garish Mardi Gras colors -- purple, green, and gold.
Mysterious flags hung outside various houses, some sporting a letter, some a
symbol, some a crown.

"What does it mean?" she asked Aurelia, pointing to one
of these enigmatic banners.

"I guess those people belong to a krewe," Aurelia told
her. "That one is Comus, I think. They're one of the ... you know
..."

"Old-line krewes," Rebecca said, able to finish the
sentence without any problem. Of course the families around her belonged to
old-line krewes. They wouldn't dream of joining one of the brash new
super-krewes that let in "just anyone," as Amy had explained.
"And that one over there?"

She nodded at a flag striped with purple, green, and gold, with a
golden crown at its center.

"That's Rex," Aurelia said. "Major-league
Patrician. Like, Julius Caesar. But you have to have been a king or a queen to
have that flag outside your house. That's the Chesneys' house -- Mrs. Chesney
was queen."

"Aren't the Chesneys really old?" Rebecca thought she'd
seen them sitting on their front porch back in what passed

186

for the fall, on rocking chairs that were chained to the railings
so nobody could steal them.

"Oh, yeah." Aurelia nodded, tripping over a lumpy tree
root. "She was queen about fifty years ago. That sea horse flag across the
street is Proteus, I think."

"And what is that?" Rebecca had to twist her head to
make out the silver symbol on a white flag drooping from one pole. It looked
like an upside-down ice cream cone.

"That's the Septimus flag," said Aurelia, and they both
paused to gaze up at it. That was a strange sort of symbol, Rebecca thought,
because it didn't seem to make any sense.

"It looks like it's fallen over," she said.

"Or all burned down," suggested Aurelia, hopping from
foot to foot. She shot Rebecca a conspiratorial glance. "I know what the
theme is for the Septimus parade this year."

"Do you?" Rebecca was still looking at the flag.

"Don't you want to know?" Aurelia was puzzled.
"It's the most top-secret thing ever, but Claire's godfather, this is his
first year riding, and he was so excited and all that he blabbed it to her
father. If I tell you, you have to
promise
not to say a word. Except to
Mama, because I told her already."

"OK," Rebecca agreed, laughing as Aurelia stood on
tiptoes to whisper in her ear. This was clearly a big deal.

"It's the phoenix rising from the ashes," Aurelia
murmured.

"More mythology!" Rebecca said. "But not Roman,
right?"

"Egyptian, then Greek," said Aurelia. "But the
Romans knew about it as well. They took all sorts of things from other cultures
and made them their own."

187

Walking the rest of the way to school, Rebecca spotted the
Septimus flag several times -- including outside the Bowman house and, waving
on a flagpole she'd never noticed before, high above the cobbled parking area
in front of Anton Grey's house.

Anton. He hadn't replied to a single text or voice message the
whole time she was away. Maybe everything between them was over. Maybe he
wished that kiss outside the Bowmans' house had never happened.

It wasn't really a surprise. His friends had frozen him out at the
Christmas party; his parents probably looked down at Aunt Claudia and her
family just like the woman at the party had. There wasn't any old-line krewe
flag hanging outside the Vernier house; there was just a tired-looking Mardi
Gras wreath on the door, its thin purple ribbon wilting in the humidity.

The first class of the new semester was math, and everyone seemed
way too excited considering the time of day, the day of the week, and the
subject matter. Before the second bell rang, the Debs were clustered in a
corner, talking about the ball they'd attended that weekend: It was January, the
height of party season. Someone's older sister was making her debut this year,
which meant a whirlwind of party invitations, lunches at Galatoire's, dinners
at country clubs, Saturday afternoons at the racetrack, and Sunday afternoon
teas at large private homes on Audubon Place or State Street. At this weekend's
ball the Debs claimed to have all danced with guys who went to universities
like Ole Miss or the University of Virginia or Duke, which was even more