Cauchemar Read online

  “Are you sure?” James asked, and Hannah looked at him in surprise.

  The coroner folded down the white sheet. He tapped two fingers steadily down Mae’s stomach. “There’s something here,” he said, massaging a slightly swollen area on her belly.

  Hannah stepped forward and touched Mae’s stomach. It felt like a bad bruise, gathering momentum to grow beneath the skin.

  “And here,” the coroner added, his gloved hands roughly moving Hannah’s to another bloated area. When his fingers brushed the copper bracelet that now wound around her wrist, he flinched as if scalded. Hannah had spent so long with Mae’s superstitions that she’d forgotten about other people’s.

  “Could be there was a small tumor metastasizing. Living out where you do, you don’t exactly come in for regular check-ups. We could know for sure if you wanted her opened up.”

  Hannah blinked back tears as she nodded slightly, and James made a small, chastising sound. The coroner simply said, “Sorry,” in the flat voice of someone who didn’t know or care what he was apologizing for.

  It wasn’t the words that upset Hannah, but the way this man touched Mae, as if testing a melon at the market. Still, Mae’s stomach held Hannah’s eye. Unbidden, an image of a bird’s nest camouflaged in the moss came to her mind.

  “We’ll just take a quick poke around,” the coroner said, as Hannah nodded. “You’ll be wanting a cemetery burial?”

  Mae’s toes peeked from under the white sheet. Hannah still struggled to understand that she was dead. “Who do I speak to about cremation?”

  “That’d be Manny Ardoin and his wife. They run a little funeral home.” Hannah blinked and then Mae was covered. “James can take you down.” The coroner let out a long breath and gripped the steel table with both hands as he wheeled her into a corner. His work was done.

  “I’ll be right out,” James said, and she felt his hand on the small of her back, acute as a bee sting. It propelled her down the hallway and back out into the afternoon sun.

  The street was mostly empty. The trucks that shuffled in and out of parking spots could’ve been alligators, gliding through the water. The twang of a steel guitar floated out of a bar, and a curly haired girl in an oversized denim jacket winced under the weight of a laundry basket.

  Hannah crossed the street to the corner store, and heard a bell ring as she stepped into the shop. She moved through the stacks, idly touching candy bars and bags of chips, before pulling open the cooler door in the back and holding a cold can of orange soda to the back of her neck.

  The teenage boy behind the counter had a sweet smattering of pimples on either side of his nose. “I haven’t seen you around before,” he said.

  “I live on the swamp,” she answered, and placed the can onto the counter. “Or I did.”

  “You’re moving into town?” His hopeful brown eyes plumbed the neckline of her buttoned jacket.

  “My mother just died,” she said, and her heart skipped a beat. It was the first time she’d spoken the words.

  His face fell, and he pushed the can back across the counter. “Shit,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. It’s on the house.”

  “Get back, Rodney.” An older man appeared out of a back room, and snapped his fingers. “Now.”

  The boy, Rodney, smiled hesitantly at Hannah. “I’m with a customer, Dad.”

  “She’s no customer of ours. I said now, boy, or do you need me to pull you by your damn collar. And you,” the man added, glaring at Hannah, “should leave now.”

  Hannah held up her empty hands. She’d never mastered the art of bracing herself against people’s anger. “I’m just getting a soda,” she said, trying to smile.

  The man nodded stiffly. “You’ve got it.”

  Rodney rubbed his neck, his wide eyes moving back and forth between them.

  Through the window she saw James, shielding his eyes against the sun as he searched the street for her. “Right. Thanks.”

  The bell rang on her way out and she heard Rodney say, “Take care.”

  James waved her over. “I can take you over to Manny’s now if you want. Or are you hungry?”

  “I couldn’t eat,” she said, honestly. She opened the can of soda and took a sip. The orange was too artificial, the sweetness unnatural. “I want to go home.”

  “Are you sure? There are just a few things that need to be taken care of. And besides, you’re all alone out there. Shouldn’t you stay here for a while?”

  Hannah wondered whether he worried for her or his investigation, and shook her head. “Tell them to cremate her and send me the bill. If there’s a will, just have them open it and call me with the details. I want to go.”

  “Hannah,” James said softly, “it’s just a few more hours.”

  “No,” Hannah said firmly. Her shoulders hunched forward and she was aware of the people half-hidden on the streets. A pair of women huddled in the shade beneath an awning, their bespectacled eyes squinting at her. How many of them knew who she was? How many of them had entertained thoughts of harming her? “Please. Have someone take me back. They have the body. They can do the rest.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  The house was silent, sapped of the thousand noises, the openings and closings, the coughs and steps, that announced another human body. Sitting in the living room in her stiff black dress, Hannah felt gnawed by loneliness.

  All the mourners were late. The cremator’s wife had called early that morning to confirm the guests. “So, we’ll send the bill to you, then?” Manny’s wife asked, her rasped voice betraying years of chain-smoking.

  “Yes, and thanks for doing this.”

  “Oh, we do all sorts of things, honey. Callum’s the boat captain. He’ll be ferrying in the mourners, and,” she lowered her voice, “the urn with the remains. He’s going to bring along some business cards as well. Just fan them out on a table there, if you don’t mind.”

  The doorbell chime echoed through the house. Hannah rose and took one flat look at her sharp-boned face in the mirror, pinching color into her cheeks. Her collarbone peeked out above the boat neckline of her dress. Her strawberry blonde braid made her look like a teenager, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Sighing, she opened the front door.

  “Hannah, sweetie?” The large, huffing woman was a stranger. “My goodness, how you’ve grown!”

  Hannah let herself be wrestled into the woman’s perfumed neck, who sobbingly introduced herself as an old friend of Mae. “Here I am!” She brandished a photo frame off the mantel, her every sentence ending in an exclamation.

  Some were like that. Old friends, coworkers, and admirers of Mae. James arrived in a gray dress shirt, his dark brown hair parted to the side, and offered her a neat bouquet of daisies. “I heard that lilies are the thing, but these have some cheer to them.” Hannah fingered the papery edges of the blooms and smiled.

  James touched her elbow. “I need to talk to you about something, but I’m not sure this is the place.”

  A tall man bore a platter of food into the house, which was suddenly thumping with footsteps and voices. Hannah raised her eyebrows at James, but he shook his head at her, mouthing the word “later.”

  “I’ve got some deviled eggs and cornbread salad,” the tall man said. “There’s nothing that’ll go bad too quick, but you’ll want to keep them cool. And little sandwiches, too. Do you have plates?”

  Hannah gestured toward the kitchen. She spied a thin stack of business cards on the edge of a cellophane-wrapped platter, the words “funeral home” and “catering” nestled beneath the petals of a pixelated flower.

  The last guest caught Hannah’s eyes instantly. His white collared shirt, with sleeves rolled to the elbows, stood out like a beacon in the swarm of black. Fibrous was the word, Hannah decided, for his body. Sinews and muscles stood out on his arms as if his skin were inches thinner than most.<
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  “Hi there,” he said. His light blue eyes showed sympathy. “I know we’re late. I had a bit of trouble finding the place.”

  “We don’t get many visitors.” Hannah stared down at her pointed black flats. There was no we anymore.

  “Sorry,” he said, and touched her hand lightly. “Could I trouble you for something to drink?”

  “I made lemonade,” she said, and led him into the kitchen. James grabbed the man’s arm, and whispered something in his ear, but the man only shrugged and pulled out of James’s grip. He took the tall glass from Hannah and emptied it. “Thanks,” he said through puckered lips. “I like it sour. I’m Callum, by the way. My condolences.”

  “Hannah,” she said, suddenly conscious that the kitchen was full of watchful faces. “We don’t have much, but help yourself to whatever looks good.” Hannah’s eyes fell to the ceramic pot nestled in his armpit. Markings had been carved along the mouth of the urn.

  Callum followed her gaze. “Sorry, this is yours.”

  Hannah wormed her hands under his arm and grasped the urn. A tremor went through her. Mae was inside the squat pot, reduced to ash. It didn’t seem possible.

  Martha, who lived in the next house over, put a long arm around Hannah’s shoulders. In her fifties, Martha was statuesque. The local men claimed she was the only lure needed to make her living as a fisher. Her motorboat returning to the next dock over was a noonday chime, fishing tack and hooks glinting like an hour hand. A long, elegant line of scar tissue ran down one cheek and she smelled, as always, of briny fish. “You should eat something, dear.”

  “I have.”

  Martha narrowed her eyes and slid her hand around Hannah’s wrist. Her fingers latched. “Eat more, then.”

  Over Martha’s shoulder, the locals were beginning to spin tales. Young Mae standing vigil all night during a storm, or making poultices out of herbs and greens. Mae’s singing as she hung the laundry to dry.

  Hannah swallowed hard and turned away. Every mention of Mae’s name was an incantation, every story a failed resurrection. Then, as if she’d willed it, a hush fell over the room. James stepped forward, his hand reaching blindly for a holstered gun that wasn’t there. Hannah watched mouths tighten and eyes narrow around her. She turned and blinked in surprise.

  Christobelle stood just inside the back door, her eyes trained on Hannah. She was swaddled in a heavy wool sweater and thick cable-knit scarf, in stark contrast to the mourners in their dresses and light shawls. Hannah took a pointless step forward as if to push her out. The woman didn’t belong in the house. My house, Hannah thought, with a ferocity that startled her.

  “She’s hiding,” Mae had said of Christobelle. “She doesn’t want to be tracked and she’s got no last name I know of. Christobelle can make up whole rich histories for herself this way.”

  “What’s her real history, then?”

  Mae had snorted. “Who knows. She came from Alabama to have you, I know that much. Back then, she was just a young, frightened woman who needed help. Everything else—the church, the hoodoo—grew out of the powers she was just then discovering.”

  “What powers?” Hannah had asked, worming her foot into Mae’s lap to be massaged. Mae’s nails felt like cattail husks, tickling her toes.

  “Some abilities invite people into your life, others push them out. Hers do the latter. It’s been a lonely life, and loneliness, in great quantities, has a way of eclipsing one’s God-given morals. If you ask me, I think she stayed here because she knows the people, knows how to needle and mold them. And, of course, to keep an eye on you.”

  When Hannah frowned, Mae had given her a hard look. “Child, the only connection you’ve got to that woman is that you came out of her. The rest is your own making.”

  When she’d first found out who her real mother was, Hannah hadn’t slept for weeks, panicked that Christobelle would want her back. She’d told Mae about that side of her fear but kept quiet about her deeper worry—that someday, Mae might choose to give her up. But Mae had stayed, until death took her.

  Conversation in the room had stilled, and the mourners busied themselves with folding their cocktail napkins and moving the stuffed eggs across their plates. Callum turned on the kitchen faucet in a gush, prompting a scatter of startled giggles, and he winked at Hannah.

  Christobelle noted this exchange, then nodded her head toward the back door and glided out.

  “Mae was an amazing nurse,” a woman said as she drifted back from the bathroom, her hands clapping together as if in animated prayer. “I saw her heal injuries in less time than it would’ve taken someone to diagnose them.” She fell quiet and covered her lipsticked mouth. “Are we having a moment of silence?”

  “Excuse me,” Hannah muttered as she squeezed past the sandwich-holding throng. She tucked the urn into a nook between the toaster and a rotating spice rack, patting it on her way out the door.

  Christobelle waited by the water, tall and frail, her voluminous skirt heavy through the grass. She seemed to track the fog with her eyes as it crept over the bayou, alighting on the tips of ferns. It moved like a spirit, sly and slow, parting to either side of cypress trees. A lone heron, standing rigid on one slender leg, watched them from beneath his mantle of speckled feathers.

  “Why did you come?” Hannah asked, rubbing her arms against the cold.

  Christobelle turned, her joyless smile like a pasted cut-out. “I wasn’t exactly invited. But yes, someone let it slip. Naughty of you to overlook me. You remember Samuel?” Christobelle gestured to the man, who rose out of the boat and moved unsteadily onto the dock. Although already quite skeletal when Hannah had first met him, he seemed almost mummified now. His skin had a sick, moist tint to it as he arrived at Christobelle’s side, his arm winding around hers.

  Hannah shrugged. “I didn’t think Mae would want you here.”

  Christobelle’s smile faded, and her face became eerily androgynous. The dappled sun played tricks with her lips, her eyes. She was man and woman all at once.

  “Don’t lie to me, child. You didn’t want me here, although that wasn’t your decision to make. Mae and I were close once. I did something for her, something she may have neglected to tell you about. She was indebted to me, and now she’s passed.” The word came out sibilant, snake-like. One hand suddenly shot straight to the side, all the tendons in her wrist tensed to vibration. “But not gone.”

  Hannah’s mother closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her lips parted and she sighed from some deep crevice inside herself.

  Some glint of consciousness entered Samuel’s eyes, and he imitated Christobelle. He let out a groan. Christobelle opened her eyes and calmly removed his hand from around her arm. “I’ve told you before, Samuel. Don’t pretend,” she chided him. “That’s the surest way to block it. You have to accept it entirely. Its presence and absence, and the pain of both.”

  The man’s mouth dropped open, and color rushed into his gaunt cheeks. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

  Hannah watched this exchange, a choking anger rising in her. “Don’t,” she snapped. “Call on the dead in your own church. Do your song and dance. But not here, not for Mae.”

  “The dead are everywhere, child. No structure can contain them, or keep them out, forever. They are blessed by the patience that comes with existing outside of time.”

  Hannah’s heartbeat pounded in her neck and thumbs. “Do me a favor and spare me the theatrics.” She turned to leave.

  “You’ll stay here,” Christobelle commanded. “Samuel, give us a moment.”

  Hannah remained frozen until Samuel disappeared around the edge of the house. Steeling herself, she turned back. “What do you want?” The woman gave off a musty smell. It was the scent of things chewing under the surface of water or brush.

  Christobelle’s head was cocked back unnaturally. “I came to pay my respects. After all, she p
rotected you, didn’t she?”

  “She did, after you left me.”

  “Then she did as I asked, girl, but I was not as absent from your life as you’d like to think. And now there are certain dangers I can’t control, some forces I can’t guard you against. Some things have noses attuned to find you, no matter how deep in the trees you hide.” Christobelle’s gaze descended slowly, her eyes filmy and amphibian-like. She knit her fingers together over her stomach. “People will come into your life,” she said, as though declaring that the earth was round. “You’ll be tempted, but they’ll make you vulnerable. You mustn’t bend.”

  “You can see the future now, as well?”

  “I know that you’re out of my hands, child, and unprotected. There’s a whole flurry of them circling you, hungrier than ever now that Mae’s passed. You’re a dandelion seed spinning in a storm.”

  Hannah’s jaw locked, and she balled her hands into fists. “Don’t think I don’t know the parish’s opinion of you. As long as we stick to our land, they’ve left us alone, and there’s no reason to think they’ll do differently now.”

  “There are many things to fear that aren’t done by the hands of men,” Christobelle said, bitterness in her voice.

  Hannah rolled her eyes and turned again to face the house. The white exterior was broken by small windows, and the black roof shone like onyx. She spied the bright red feathers of a tanager as it traipsed over the shingles. Hannah could visualize the wood floors, the old eggshell-colored tiles in the kitchen, the walls that warmed with an apricot hue at noontime, and they were an antidote against her mother’s disquieting words.

  “That used to be my house. Our house.” Christobelle sidled up to Hannah. “You were born here, twenty years ago. Right in there.” She pointed to the large windows of Mae’s bedroom. “Sixteen hours, and you took a full minute before you screamed. The longest minute of my life, which has been full of long minutes.”

  Hannah imagined being nursed by the bay window, mother and child encased in light. The thought of Christobelle tracing Hannah’s just-born features with her lips was almost painful. “Mae never told me.”