Paula Morris (8 page)

"What are you doing?" Aurelia had followed her across
the street. She gazed up at Rebecca, wide-eyed.

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"I wanted to say hi to that girl," Rebecca explained.
Aurelia looked puzzled. "What girl?"

"The black girl standing right here. Didn't you see
her?" Aurelia shrugged.

"There's nobody around," she pointed out.

"Not now -- she ran off. She's somewhere in the cemetery, I
guess. Didn't you see her?"

"I didn't see anyone," said Aurelia, slowly shaking her
mop of curls. "And the gate's locked."

"But you must have seen her!" Rebecca insisted.
"She was standing there at the gate! I waved to her, and then she
disappeared. She had long hair, and she was wearing ... you
must
have
noticed her!"

Aurelia shook her head again.

"Is this a game?" she asked Rebecca. "Are you
trying to trick me?"

"Maybe you're going blind," said Rebecca, rolling her
eyes.

"Or maybe you're seeing things," retorted Aurelia.

Maybe the girl had taken off so quickly that Aurelia didn't have
time to notice her. Or maybe, Rebecca thought, her little cousin was right.
Perhaps all those voodoo charms had worked their magic on her already, and she
was going as crazy as Aunt Claudia, seeing things that weren't really there.

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***

CHAPTER EIGHT

***

That friday night, rebecca waited until her aunt was asleep and
then crept into the front parlor. As soon as Helena and her friends unlocked
the cemetery, Rebecca was going to sneak back in.

All week, Rebecca had been planning this. If the strange girl was
sleeping in the cemetery, she wouldn't want to be found out. That's probably
why she ran away when Rebecca saw her during the day: Maybe the girl thought
Rebecca was trying to get her into trouble or report her or something. But if
they met again at night, when the cemetery was locked up and nobody else -- no
adults, at least -- were around, she'd know that Rebecca was acting in good
faith. Both would be somewhere they weren't supposed to be.

Sure enough, not long after midnight, the little band appeared
again, headed for the Sixth Street gate. There were more kids than last week --
eight, Rebecca counted -- but no Helena. This wasn't really surprising: Helena
had been out of school all week with the flu.

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Once again, Anton let them all in with his key. Rebecca watched,
holding her breath, to see if he would lock it this time. But after everyone
stepped through the gate, Anton closed it and then, after a moment's
hesitation, opened it again, leaving the gate slightly ajar. At first, Rebecca
was relieved, but then she wondered if this was a trap. Maybe Anton was luring
last week's intruder in, lying in wait to surprise her. She decided to hang
around for a while, checking the time on her phone every few minutes until the
longest quarter hour of her life had passed. Then she left the house, closing
the door behind her quietly, and creeping down the street to the open gate.

This time Rebecca came prepared for her cemetery adventure. At the
hardware store down on Magazine Street she'd bought a small flashlight. She
paused at the entrance to the cemetery, shining her light in to see if anyone
was around, and breathing a deep sigh when it revealed nothing but magnolia
trees and tombs. Trying to make as little noise as possible, Rebecca made her way
to the Grey family vault.

As she approached the tomb, Rebecca could hear the girls and boys
talking and laughing as usual. Toby Sutton's obnoxious barking laugh boomed
out, and she was well acquainted with Julie Casworth Young's annoying giggle by
now -- she sounded like a hyperventilating mouse. Rebecca clicked off her
little flashlight, and ducked into the narrow, dank space between two tombs to
make sure nobody could see her. All she wanted to do was make sure they were
all there, all eight of them: Rebecca didn't want to bump into one of them when
she began her exploring. And yes, the eight people she'd

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seen slipping into the cemetery all seemed to be there -- nobody
was waiting by the open gate to catch her, after all. Anton sat on the steps,
his long legs stretched out, wincing at something Marianne was saying.

"I don't see what the big deal is," he said. "We
spend all our time obsessing over these stupid things, when they're exactly the
same every year."

"Excuse me if I don't see my best friend's party as
stupid."
Marianne sounded offended.

"What I mean is, all we talk about is Helena's party and the
Septimus parade and the Spring Dance as though they're earth-shattering events,
when the same people go to them every year and the same things happen every
year. And there are so many other things we could be thinking about, you
know?"

"Like what? Something manly like college football, I
suppose?" Marianne was only pretending to be annoyed, Rebecca realized;
really, she was trying to flirt with Anton. So much for Helena being her best
friend.

"Look around you," Anton said, his voice serious.
"This city is a mess. Three years after the storm and everything's still
in chaos. Businesses are shut, houses are empty. Stoplights don't work. There
are potholes as big as ponds in every street. The population's half what it
used to be."

"Good riddance," sneered Toby. "We don't want poor
people or criminals coming back to the city, anyway."

"You mean
black
people," said another guy,
snickering. Rebecca tensed: These people disgusted her. How could Anton hang
out with them? He seemed so much smarter.

"Oh my god," said Julie. From her hiding place, Rebecca

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could only see Julie's feet; she was still wearing her school
shoes, with their usual -- decidedly nonregulation -- purple laces. "You
know, our gardener is living in Atlanta now, and the new guy my mother hired is
from Mexico."

"Honduras," said someone else. "He's the same guy
my
mother hired."

"Whatever! He doesn't speak a word of English. I'm totally
sure he's an illegal."

"Who cares? Someone has to cut the hedges!" said Toby,
and Anton rolled his eyes, stirring as though he was about to get up. Marianne
settled one long, pale hand on his leg.

"You can't drive yourself crazy about all this," she
said in her silkiest voice. A slight breeze lifted wisps of blonde hair away
from her face. "Remember what Helena says. We can't fix all the problems
of New Orleans. They were there long before the storm, and long before we were
born. But we
can
make New Orleans prettier and more fun."

"More fun for us, anyway," muttered Anton. He stood up,
dusting down his jeans. "And that's all that matters, right?"

"I know you think parties and parades are silly...."

"Yeah, but he still goes to them, don't you, buddy?"
said Toby. He cracked open a bottle of beer and handed it to Anton. "He
just likes to look down at everyone else."

"Shut up, Toby," said Marianne. Clearly, there wasn't
much love lost between the Sutton siblings, Rebecca thought -- or maybe
Marianne really did have designs on Anton, and needed to take advantage of
Helena's absence to make her big move.

"He's right," said Anton. He looked pensive, almost
depressed.

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"Don't say that!" cried Marianne, tapping him playfully,
but Anton seemed morose now, swigging from his bottle and not saying anything
else. This was Rebecca's cue to leave: She wasn't here to ogle Anton, however
good-looking he was, and she certainly hadn't come here tonight just to
eavesdrop on this horrible conversation. She was here to retrace her steps from
last week, to try to find her mystery friend. Stiff from crouching behind the
grave, she crept away.

It was hard to find the route she'd taken a week ago. Suddenly,
Rebecca was in a blind panic, running and twisting and turning around,
desperate to find the gate. Now she had more time, but even with the help of
her miniflashlight, the cemetery in darkness seemed to have grown into
something vast and mazelike. It took her a long time to come upon a stretch of
concrete, and she wasn't sure at all if this was the spot where she'd fallen
the week before.

Rebecca shone her pinpoint-sized light around, hoping to see
something familiar. The light picked out some words etched into white stone --
aha! She was standing at the foot of the Bowman family tomb.

With the moonlight obscured by a nearby oak tree, the Bowman vault
seemed to tower even more than the Grey's. Its high walls were a sheer cliff
face of white plaster. Rebecca lingered on its broad steps, shining a light up
at the carved angel balanced on the vaulted roof. The angel had a pouty face,
kind of like Helena, and she seemed a little cowed by her carved wings, as
though they were too heavy for her slender frame. From this vantage point, the
angel looked almost as big as Helena -- and, Rebecca thought, just as stuck-up.
She couldn't help laughing aloud at the thought of

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Helena standing on the roof of the tomb, pinned down by giant,
heavy wings. Helena was too lazy and spoiled to even carry her own umbrella to
school.

"You don't think she's pretty?" said a voice from deep
within the darkness, and Rebecca jumped, so startled that she almost dropped
her flashlight.

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***

CHAPTER NINE

***

Peeping at her from around the side of the tomb was the black
girl, her eyes wide, her long dark braid velvety as the night sky.

"Who ... who are you?" Rebecca stuttered. The girl
sidled a little closer, still touching the side of the tomb. She gazed at
Rebecca, apparently more curious than scared.

"My name is Lisette." She sounded kind of foreign,
Rebecca thought, but not in the same way as the French teacher at school.
"Don't you remember me?"

"Yes! I tried to say hello to you the other day, when you
were at the gates of the cemetery. I thought you saw me, but you
disappeared."

"Oh." Lisette stopped moving. Rebecca waited for her to
explain, but Lisette just stood, gazing at Rebecca's face with frank interest.

"I just wanted to thank you," said Rebecca. "For
telling me how to get out of here last Friday night. That's why I came back
tonight, to look for you."

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"Aren't you with the others?" Lisette gestured with her
head in the general direction, Rebecca assumed, of the Grey tomb.

"Them? God, no. I don't want them to know I'm here. That's
why I was trying to get out, last week. I didn't want them to see me."

Lisette looked puzzled.

"You didn't come with them last week?" she asked. Her
accent was hard to pin down. It was different from others Rebecca had heard so
far in New Orleans -- softer, in a way, and drawlier. Some of the Cavalry at
Temple Mead sounded like they could work in the Brooklyn dockyards, but Lisette
had a much more musical accent.

"No -- I followed ... Well, it's a kind of long and stupid
story. I'm Rebecca, by the way." Rebecca stuck out her hand, but Lisette
made no attempt to take it. She gave a shy smile, though, and at least this
time, Rebecca thought, she wasn't running away. "Do you live here -- in the
cemetery, I mean?"

"Yes." Lisette nodded.

"Was your house destroyed in the storm?"

"Yes -- well, it was damaged." Lisette seemed uncertain.
"Part of the roof is gone. And there was some water."

"How awful!" It was bad enough being away from home for
six months, Rebecca thought. But how could Lisette have slept in the cemetery
for so long without anyone finding out or coming to look for her? "What
about your family?"

Lisette shook her head. "I don't have any family. There was
just me and my mother, and she's been dead a long time."

"I'm an only child, too," Rebecca told her. "It's
just me and my father. We live in New York -- well, we do usually. He

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had to go to China and I had to come here. That's another long and
stupid story. Is your house -- I mean, was it close by? I thought this area
didn't flood."

"It didn't," said Lisette. "My house is a long way
away, on the Creole side of town. It might be all right now. I don't really
know."

This confused Rebecca. She didn't know New Orleans well enough to
know where, exactly, the Creole part of town was. Maybe Lisette had to walk all
this way just to reach dry land, though that seemed unlikely. And why take
sanctuary in a cemetery, of all places? Why not go back to see if your house
had been fixed? Maybe Lisette was hiding from someone. Maybe she was too scared
to go home.

But before Rebecca could ask any more questions, Lisette's sweet
smile disappeared and she held a finger to her lips. Above the steady singing
of insects, there were other sounds -- the crunch of leaves and twigs
underfoot, the hum of talk and laughter, the clinking of bottles. Rebecca
flicked off her flashlight.