Rising (35 page)

I was still staring out the window,
trying to calm myself down.
 
I couldn’t
help but think of my old friends in New Orleans, desperately packing their
entire lives into one car before leaving their home behind.
 
This kind of goodbye was more heartbreaking
than most, because you didn’t know what would be there when you got back,
if
you got back.
 

My eyes lifted to the clouds.
 
They hovered low and moved in wispy
gusts.
 
What was coming?
 
I had only seen the reapers in one or two dreams.
 
They were always elusive and faded beyond the
more distinct shadow scouts that haunted me.
 
It didn’t seem real.
 
A prickling
fear crawled up my spine.
 
My eyes
finally focused on what we were passing.
 
It was the only Lowe’s in a 30-mile radius.
 
There was a huge 18-wheeler near the garden
center, handing large boxes out to a swarm of people.
 
A hazy blur of gray, black, and a dull
crimson aura hung over the entire mass like a sludgy pool of grime.

“Oh, no,” I mumbled.

“What?” asked Gabe quickly.

“That’s not good,” I said.
 
“Their auras are horrible looking.
 
All of them.”

“What are they getting off that truck?”
asked Jeremy.

“Generators,” said Gabe.
 

Gabe suddenly banked hard right onto
one of the many solitary roads without a sign trailing off the highway that cut
through Beau
Chêne
.

“Where are we going?” asked Ben.

“Melanie’s.
 
We need a plan, and she needs to be in on it
before I take you home.
 
We also need to
figure out how we’re going to explain to our parents that we have to stay together
when the storm hits.”

“Stay together?” asked Ben.

“Yes,” said Jeremy with a heavy sigh,
“the reapers will be here soon, and we’ve got to stay together.”

Ben was silent for a few seconds.
 

“I guess you’re right.
 
Man, my mom’s gonna be pissed that I’m late.”

“I thought you said she already was,”
said Jeremy.

“Yeah, but she’s not used to me not
doing what I’m told.
 
I’m not like you,
Jeremy.
 
I actually listen to my
parents.”

“Well, Goldie Locks, nothing like the
present to engage in a little teenage rebellion, eh?”

***

I was sitting in one of the rocking
chairs on Melanie’s porch staring at her opposite me in the other one.
 
The boys stood back, watching.
 
I guess we were waiting for her head to pop
off or something.
 
She was just sitting
there in her khaki shorts and “save the whales” t-shirt, studying all of us
from those dark, almond-shaped eyes with her long curly hair waving loosely
around her shoulders.
 
We had obviously
caught her off-guard, because she didn’t look quite as prim as usual.
 
She was prettier this way.

“So, what you’re saying is that I’m one
of these
Setti
, and that one of my ancestors was a
Viking?”

We all nodded dumbly.

“Have any of you noticed the color of
my skin?
 
I doubt seriously that I have a
giant, blonde-haired, blue-eyed great, great, whatever.”

“No offense,” said Jeremy, “but you
look a little café au
lait
to me.”

“I’m Creole,” snapped Melanie.
 
“We’ve got Spanish blood mixed in our
family.”

“Well, somewhere along that family
line, a Spaniard took a detour and got busy with a Norse woman.”

“Melanie,” interrupted Gabe softly,
“haven’t you ever noticed your own abilities in healing?
 
I know you said your grandmother is a
traiteur
, but you
should’ve sensed something of your own power at some point.”

Melanie’s thin black eyebrows dipped
down into a broken V.
 
Her hands were
clasped calmly in her lap.
 
She opened
her mouth to say something then the screen door creaked open.

“Mel?
 
Your friends want some lemonade or something?” asked a white-haired
woman with smooth, tawny skin peeking out the door.

“No, Gram.
 
We’re fine.”

“You kids better get home soon before
the winds pick up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ben.

She nodded, gave us a closed-mouth
smile then returned to the television that was blaring the latest on Hurricane
Lucy.
 
We all turned back to Melanie who
was staring out across the yard.
 
I
followed her gaze.
 
A line of maple trees
along the drive shook their leaves in a flurry of wind.
 
The clouds felt even lower than before.
 
The outer bands of the hurricane were already
sweeping over Beau
Chêne
.
 
Melanie let out a soft giggle like someone
who’d just heard a shameful joke.
 
I
turned back to her.

“It
was
me then,” she murmured to herself.

“What was you?” I asked.

“One time, when I was very young, we
had a dog named Moonshine.
 
He was an old
beagle that my grandpa used for hunting.
 
My grandpa used to love to hunt.
 
That was his favorite thing to do, and the only thing he loved more than
me and Gram was that old dog Moonshine.
 
Well, one late afternoon when he’d come back from the woods, he was
carrying Moonshine in his arms.”

“What happened to him?” asked Ben.

“He had gotten bitten by a water
moccasin back in the swamp.
 
There wasn’t
much hope for him.
 
His whole leg and
abdomen was swelling really bad with the poison by the time Gram started to
work on him.”

“What did she do?” I asked.

“I’m not supposed to reveal
traiteur
secrets,
but mostly all she did was cut the wound and draw out what poison she could
with a small suction, sort of like a mini-plunger.
 
She stitched him up, put her herbal salve on
it, then left him with me.
 
My grandpa
couldn’t even be in the room with him, he was so upset.
 
I remember curling myself up next to the old
dog. I loved Moonshine because my grandpa loved him.
 
This was after my grandpa had been diagnosed
with cancer, and we knew my Gram couldn’t do much to stop the inevitable.
 
I didn’t want that dog to die.
 
It would’ve broken my grandpa’s heart. So, I
laid there on the floor, stroking Moonshine’s head.
 
His little eyes blinked at me, while I
whispered to him.
 
And, I remember
wishing with all my heart that I could cure him, that I could make him better
like my Gram made other people better.
 
After about an hour, I fell asleep on the floor.
 
I woke up to Moonshine licking my cheek and
wagging his tail, completely cured.”

“Wow.
 
What did your Gram say?” I asked.

“She said it was a sign that I had the
gift of a
traiteur
.
 
So, I started seeing patients with her.
 
And, every time she prayed over patients when
they left, I wished strongly, just like I had with Moonshine, that they would
get well.
 
Gram even let me lay my hands
on them in the parting prayers.
 
It’s
funny how when we prayed together, not one patient ever returned with the same
illness.”

I was thinking that it was not a
coincidence at all that the patients she put her hands on were all miraculously
healed.
 
It seemed to dawn on Melanie,
too.
 
She sucked in her breath sharply.

“Oh,” was all she said.

“I don’t think it’s your grandmother
with the true gift of healing,” said Gabe.
 
“It’s you.”

Melanie didn’t say anything at
first.
 
Her mouth lilted into a small
pout.

“That would break Gram’s heart if she
found out,” she said softly.

“Mel, we have much more serious things
to worry about than that,” said Gabe sternly.
 
“We’ve got very little time to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“How are we going to convince our
parents that there are like these monster death-dealers coming?” asked
Ben.
 
“My mom’s gonna freak.”

My phone started buzzing in my
pocket.
 
I had turned it on vibrate when
we got to Homer’s, not wanting my mom to interrupt.
 
It wouldn’t have mattered since there was no
cell service out there anyway.
 
I saw
Jessie’s pic on the front when I pulled it out.

“It’s Jessie,” I told everyone, now
staring at me.
 
“Hello.”

There seemed to be no one on the other
end at first then I heard a hushed whisper.
 
It was Jessie’s voice sounding more shaky and panicked than I had ever
heard in my life.

“Clara, Clara?
 
Are you there?”

She was panting heavily.

“Yes, Jessie, it’s me!
 
What’s going on?”

Gabe hopped off the porch railing,
staring intently down at me.

“I think those things are here,” she
whispered, “the ones from last night at the game.
 
Wait a minute . . . .”

“Jessie?
 
Jessie!
 
Tell me what’s going on!”

“
Shhh
.
 
I’m looking out the window.
 
Oh, my God.
 
What in the world
is
that?
 
Our neighbor, Miss Cindy,
something’s dragging her—”

There was a distant scream and Jessie’s
voice got louder.

“Mom?
 
Mom, what is it?”

“Jessie, for God’s sake,” I was
yelling, “what is happening?”

For a split second, she talked directly
to me.

“I don’t know, Clara, but I need you,”
her voice choked into a sob.
 
I had never
heard Jessie cry in my entire life, not even when she broke her arm falling off
my trampoline when she was ten. “Hunter, stay here,” I heard her say to her little
brother, suddenly quiet again. “Get in the closet, and don’t come out until I
come back.”

There was utter silence, but I could
still hear her breathing very low on the other end.

“Jessie, we’re coming right now,” I
said, practically leaping off the porch.
 
“Just hang on.
 
We’re coming.”

There was no sound at all on the other
end, and I thought for a second that I’d lost the connection.
 
Then, I heard a soft, desperate whisper.
 
It didn’t even sound like her at all.

“Hurry, Clara.
 
They’re in the house.”

Before I could say another word, the
call ended.

***

I had vaguely heard Gabe give
instructions to Melanie that she had to persuade her Gram to go out to his
Pop’s cabin on the bayou where we would all meet back up.
 
Melanie hadn’t protested at all, but seemed
convinced that she could get her Gram to go.
 
If Gabe was driving like a bat out of hell leaving Homer’s, he was now
flying down the road like a bee on crack.

“Did she say anything else?” he was
practically yelling at me.

“No, no, nothing else.
 
Something had dragged her neighbor outside,
but she wouldn’t say what.”

I was biting my lip so badly, it had
started to bleed.
 
A bitter salty taste
filled my mouth.
 
Jessie only lived a few
minutes away, but every second felt painfully too long.
 

“Ben,” said Gabe, “call Zack and Mark
and tell them to get their families out to my Pop’s camp.
 
They know where it is.
 
And tell them that their lives depend on it.”

“On it,” said Ben, thumbing through his
phone contacts.

We rounded the corner of Evergreen
Lane. Only one more block.
 
The wind had
picked up speed, rocking the Jeep at every turn.
 
As we passed a yellow house on the corner of
Azalea Street, something caught my eye in the back yard beyond a white picket
fence.

“Oh, God, stop the car!
 
Stop the car!”

Gabe screeched to a jolting halt.
 
Three shadow scouts were dragging a man
across the yard to a tree.
 
No.
 
It wasn’t a tree.
 
The tree started to move.
 
Its limbs were long, almost majestic, in
their purposeful movements.
 
It was a
reaper—tall, slender, and shrouded in a dark cloak.
 
The man was cursing and kicking out violently
around him.
 
The reaper stabbed him
through in a quick, unyielding motion.
 
Gabe jammed the Jeep into first and tore down the road toward Jessie’s.