Southern Ruby (33 page)

‘I'm not a livewire,' I said.

He pulled a mock-serious face. ‘You underestimate yourself, Amandine. You're calm and considered like your father, but I think deep down you're a maverick like your mother. Every so often an impish smile comes to your face and I say to myself: “Oh, there you are, Paula!”'

Blaine's words struck a chord with me. I'd often suspected that there was another person in me trying to get out. I remembered my mother's letter about the woman hula-hooping in the French Quarter and how the image had appealed to me for its sense of freedom and pure joy. I'd never experienced those things. I'd always been so restrained in Sydney. Maybe that was why my mother had fallen in love with New Orleans: perhaps she'd been able to be herself here. ‘I feel like I'm coming alive,' I said. ‘If you're a passionate person, New Orleans is the place to be.'

T
he scenery changed from sugar-cane fields to gnarled cypress trees covered in Spanish moss. They cast sharp, pointed fingers of shade across the road. The chirping of crickets was thick in the air.

A few miles along, the road dwindled to a track. Blaine stopped the car and pulled the roof over. Then he wound up the windows. ‘You'll be right at home here, Crocodile Amandine. They've got it all in the swampland — alligators, poisonous snakes and spiders . . . even Bigfoot.'

‘Is that why you put the roof up?' I asked, smiling ironically. ‘Because of Bigfoot?'

‘Well,' he said, easing the car down the track, ‘mostly I'm afraid of the swamp people. Those fur-trapping, gator-eating rednecks are barely human!'

‘Are you kidding me?' I started to feel uneasy. I had no fear of supernatural beings, but gun-toting, drunk, antisocial humans were another matter.

Blaine glanced at me and laughed. ‘Yes, I'm kidding.' He
opened the glove box and handed me a can of insect repellent. ‘It's the mosquitoes I'm trying to avoid. They're relentless out here.'

A short while later we came upon a wooden cabin on the edge of a green lily-covered bayou. Twilight had fallen and long-legged water birds searched for food along the water's edge while fish sporadically jumped above its surface. Several other cars were parked at the end of the drive.

‘Zeline is a white witch,' Blaine explained, as he opened the door for me. ‘Every August she invites her non-Wiccan friends to her cabin for a special wish-making ceremony. I thought you might like an insight into the superstitious side of Louisiana.'

‘Thanks,' I whispered, getting out of the car. ‘When Grandma Ruby said you'd show me around, she wasn't kidding!'

I knew of Wiccans and Pagans back in Sydney, but they lived in terraces in Newtown and Enmore and had jobs in advertising and fashion. This roughly hewn cabin out in the sticks was plain eerie. I wrapped my shawl tightly around me and followed Blaine down the grassy path towards the cabin. Before we reached the stairs, a strange, prehistoric growl broke the air, followed by a gurgling sound like an outboard motor struggling to start.

Blaine stopped to listen. ‘Well, I'll be! Zeline must have called him up especially for you. Do you know what it is?'

I shook my head.

‘It's an alligator — a big one. He's somewhere nearby. Well, actually if he's growling there's probably another one around too.'

It wasn't something I wanted to hear when I was surrounded by foot-high grass. ‘Just get up the stairs, will you,' I said, prodding Blaine in the back.

A murmur of voices came from inside the cabin, and the porch screen door was unlocked. We wiped our feet on the doormat which had written on it
Blessed Be
instead of
Welcome
.

The inside of the cabin was cosier than I'd been expecting from the exterior. A potbelly stove stood in one corner with an ironwork pentacle above it, the walls were sage green, and the upholstered furniture looked like it had come straight from a 1960s yard sale. My nose twitched at the strong scents of pine, lemon . . . and wax. Drippy candles covered every available surface from the hall table to the bookshelves, turning the cabin into what my health and safety lecturer at Sydney University would have termed a ‘quaint fire hazard'.

A dozen smiling faces turned in our direction. Zeline's guests had come from all walks of life judging from the variety of ages. Most were wearing normal street clothes, but a couple of black women wore traditional African dress, and one Caucasian woman had donned a sari and an Indian nose chain.

‘Blaine, you're here!' a woman called out.

She was about fifty years of age with wild salt-and-pepper hair and gypsy black eyes. One look at her burgundy velvet dress with crisscross front lacing and I knew she had to be Zeline.

‘So nice to see you too!' said Blaine, kissing her hand. ‘This is my friend Amandine, from Australia.'

Zeline took my hands firmly and peered into my eyes. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Amandine.' Leaning in closer, her gaze became more intense and her grip tighter. ‘I hope tonight will be fruitful for you.'

A meal was set out on a wooden trestle table on a screened porch facing the bayou. We filled our plates with rice pilaf, spicy butternut pumpkin and sweet potato fritters, before sitting down on tie-dyed cushions to eat.

‘Who is the swamp supposed to be haunted by?' I asked Blaine.

‘Ghosts of escaped slaves,' he said, taking a bite of a fritter. ‘They were known as maroons. If they were found, they were whipped or made gruesome public examples of in Jackson Square. So they used their voodoo to make themselves invisible,
create curses and terrify their white masters from pursuing them.'

I thought of the advertisement I'd seen in the Oak Alley gift shop calling for the return of an escaped slave. I wondered if she'd ever been recaptured and what happened to her.

Once the meal was finished, Zeline called us back into the living room where she'd set up an altar of white candles. Sandalwood incense wafted in the air. She rang a tiny bell and the chatter in the room fell silent.

‘The temple is about to be erected,' she said. ‘The circle is about to be cast. May all who are gathered be here of their own free will.' She lit the candles and blessed the four directions of the room — north, east, south and west. ‘I evoke the God and Goddess and invite you all to participate in peace and love in this ritual for the non-initiated.'

I glanced at Blaine whose shining eyes were fixed on Zeline in rapt attention. For one nervous moment I thought she was going to ask us all to take our clothes off and dance in the moonlight. Instead she passed around a basket with pieces of paper and pencils in it.

‘We are going to use the natural energy of the moon to assist our own powers of manifestation to help us on our path. I want each of you to take a few moments to write down what it is that you most long for in your life.'

When everyone had a piece of paper, Zeline turned on a CD player and Celtic music filled the air. I watched the others scribbling down their desires while I couldn't think what it was that I most wanted in my life. I'd never asked myself that question so directly before. Up until her death, what I'd most wanted was to please Nan. I'd enjoyed my architectural studies, but wasn't convinced that architecture was what I most wanted to do with my life. Would I like to be a musician like my father? Would I like to fall madly in love — perhaps with Elliot — and stay in New Orleans?

I noticed Zeline watching me. She pressed her palms together and closed her eyes as if she was trying to help me. As corny as I thought the whole exercise to be, I closed my eyes too. Slowly an idea appeared like the sun rising on the horizon. Gradually the form gained clarity. The words had been there for years, buried in my heart, but I'd never articulated them.

I picked up the pencil and wrote:
I want to truly belong somewhere.

When everyone had completed the task, Zeline opened the kitchen door and revealed a path into the woods lit by hurricane lamps and fairy lights.

‘Each of you will follow the trail one at a time,' she explained. ‘As you travel, I want you to think about your desire and what its granting would mean to you. Along the trail is a clearing with a cauldron. I want you to read your wish out loud then drop it into the cauldron and let it go. Trust the energies to bring your desire to you. Then continue along the trail and it will eventually bring you back to the front door of the cabin.'

I stared down the path. It was pretty but unearthly. We must have all taken leave of our senses if we were each going to walk out into the swampland alone.

Because Blaine and I were at the back of the room we were the last to go. As each person set out on the path, I strained my ears, waiting for a blood-curdling scream. But when they returned to the house, the guests' faces were calm and thoughtful.

Zeline selected Blaine to go before me. When he'd set off on the path, I tugged Zeline's arm and asked: ‘Does this wish-making thing really work?'

‘It sure does,' she said, resting her sage-like gaze on me. ‘But be aware that your desire will come to you in a way you never could have anticipated.'

When Blaine returned, he sat in a corner by himself with his eyes closed and a blissful smile on his face. I wondered what he
had asked for, but I guessed part of the exercise was to keep our wishes to ourselves.

When it was my time to walk the path, my stomach tightened and I wavered. Zeline sensed my fear, linked her arm with mine and guided me towards the path.

‘Walk calmly and slowly,' she said. ‘Don't rush. The spirits will keep you safe, but whatever you do, don't touch the trees.' Don't touch the trees? I wondered why she had instructed that so adamantly, but before I could ask she whispered in my ear, ‘Be brave. You are a young woman on the verge of a breakthrough,' and gave me a gentle shove onto the path.

The moon was bright in the sky and the trees loomed overhead like dark phantoms. The owls hooting added to the spookiness of the atmosphere. Every rock and tree root jabbed through the thin soles of my sandals. A pair of yellow eyes glinted at me from the darkness, then disappeared. Had they been real or a figment of my imagination? I stopped and glanced over my shoulder. I was tempted to turn back, but as nobody else had chickened out, including Blaine, pride overcame my fear and I stumbled onwards.

I saw something move in a cypress tree ahead of me. The hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end. A speckled snake was coiling itself around a branch. Was that why Zeline had instructed me not to touch the trees? Because they were infested with snakes? I wrapped my arms around me and walked gingerly on until I reached the clearing where the cauldron was burning.

I read my wish out loud as Zeline had said to do: ‘I want to truly belong somewhere.' A shiver ran through me as I dropped the piece of paper into the cauldron and the flames flared.

A chirping behind me made me spin around. I found myself exchanging stares with a fuzzy creature, about the size of a small dog, with a black band marking across its eyes: a racoon. I'd never seen one for real before, only in books and movies. His
bright eyes glistened as if he was trying to tell me something. Then he sniffed the air and scampered away. The animal's appearance had been special somehow. I returned to the house buoyed by the hope that perhaps my wish really could come true.

As I was the last of the guests to have made a wish, the chatter in the room had resumed.

Blaine beamed at me. ‘Honeybun, I was starting to worry about you! I wasn't kidding about Bigfoot — there have been several sightings of him this year.'

Zeline approached me. ‘Did you like your journey into the swampland?'

‘I saw a racoon,' I told her. ‘In the clearing where the cauldron was.'

‘Ah,' she said thoughtfully. ‘Racoons are magical creatures to the Native Americans. They symbolise secrets. His appearance could be foretelling that something very important is about to be revealed to you.'

Blaine and I didn't say much on the trip home because he needed to concentrate on the dark road. When we reached the Garden District it was well after midnight, but I wasn't tired.

‘Thank you for taking me out today,' I told him. ‘It was fun!'

The light in the dining room was off and Grandma Ruby had already gone to bed. She'd left a lamp lit in the entrance hall for me, and the sconces that led to my bedroom were on, guiding me like the fairy lights and hurricane lamps had on the path through the swampland.

I climbed into bed and thought about all the things that had happened that afternoon. Zeline had said that I was a young woman on the verge of a breakthrough. Then I thought about her prediction that my desire would be fulfilled in ways I could
not anticipate. ‘Good ways, I hope,' I said before drifting off to sleep. ‘I'm not a fan of surprises.'

I slept heavily and probably would have dozed most of the following day if I hadn't been woken by the beeping of my mobile phone to alert me that I'd received a text. I saw the message was from Elliot:
I found some of your father's recordings. Would you like to meet at my place this afternoon?

I looked out the window: the sun was high. Then I glanced at the time. It was nearly one o'clock. I dressed and went downstairs to find Lorena dusting the parlour.

‘I overslept,' I told her.

She smiled and sprayed some vinegar solution on a cleaning cloth and began wiping the mirror. ‘Your grandmother has gone to a doctor's appointment Uptown. She didn't want to wake you because you came in late last night.'

I was torn between wanting to hear my father's music and waiting for Grandma Ruby to return so I could listen to the rest of her story. ‘Do you know what time she'll be back?'

‘Usually when she goes Uptown she visits some of her friends and returns around five o'clock.'