14. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
E lijah was washing his plate when Samuel came into the kitchen. "Hey, we're having a bonfire with s'mores for dessert. Join us."
Elijah didn't know what that word was. Some mores? But his heart lit up at the offer of a fire and company. He smiled. "Sounds fun."
"It is, for true. Dress warm though. It's cold enough to snow out there tonight."
Elijah went upstairs and put long johns on under his pants and shirt. He didn't wear them while working because the physical labor kept him warm, but he'd need them now. Everyone was already gone by the time he got downstairs. He put on his coat, hat, and gloves from the mudroom and went out into the night.
It was very dark, with the moon providing only a stingy crescent of light. He considered going back for a flashlight, but he knew where the firepit was—west of the barn near the fruit orchard. And the barn had exterior lights that beckoned him on.
The firepit was normally a circle of dirt with a central rusty grill and a few rocks, but tonight, it had been transformed. Had Jon done this? When? There were hay bales around to sit on, some lawn chairs, and a cheery fire blazing in the grate. Everyone sat around it dressed like snowmen, their faces shining in the firelight. The Talbot kids—Emily, age seven, and Luke, age nine, were stuffing marshmallows from a bag onto long metal skewers. Mrs. Talbot was chatting with Mrs. Gringold while their husbands, and Eddie, sat in the lawn chairs drinking beer.
Such drinking was not allowed among the Amish, and it lent the night a tinge of lawlessness. Elijah smiled.
Then he noticed Jon was sitting to Eddie's left. He wondered how much arm-twisting Jon's presence had required. But Jon didn't look as sullen as usual. He even glanced Elijah's way and didn't look angry. As if he, Elijah, was expected rather than resented.
"Grab a skewer," Samuel said, holding one out. "Toast a few marshmallows over the fire. Try not to burn 'em. Then you eat 'em smooshed between chocolate bars and graham crackers."
"Thank you." Elijah took the skewer and Luke helpfully put two marshmallows on it for him.
"You never made s'mores?" Luke asked with surprise, as if it was hard to believe anyone had reached Elijah's age without doing so.
"Nah. Can't say so."
"Wait 'til you taste them," Emily gushed. "They're the best thing ever."
" Ever ," Luke agreed.
Elijah took time to toast his marshmallows carefully. Jon, apparently, preferred them burned, because he lit his on fire and watched them glow a moment before blowing them out and sticking the blackened masses in a chocolate-and-graham-cracker sandwich. Elijah was the last one to bite into his carefully constructed s'more. Dear Lord, Emily was right. He ate one and required very little encouragement to make another.
Many s'mores and sticky fingers later, Eddie said, "We need a ghost story. Who's got one?"
Mr. Gringold told a tale involving a car and a hook hand, with much dramatic embellishment. It was scary, and Elijah looked around nervously. He edged a little closer to the fire on his hay bale. Luke, at his mother's urging, told a story from a movie called Sleepy Hollow that involved a headless horseman. Also scary, but Luke's enthusiasm and childish imping made it fun.
Then Jon said, "I've got one."
Everyone looked at him in surprise. Elijah thought maybe the unseasonable cold had made Hell freeze over.
"This is a Cajun story," Jon said, a distant look in his eye and a barely-there smile on his face.
"Awesome. Let's hear it," said Eddie.
"This is the absolute truth, now. Cross my heart and hope to die." Jon made a cross over his chest, looking at Luke and Emily. They sat forward with anticipation. "There was a voodoo priestess named Julia Brown. Julia was born in New Orleans, but she moved to a tiny Louisiana town named Frenier and bought her some land with money she'd made in the city doin' voodoo."
Elijah loved the way Jon said the name of the town, Fren-ee-AY, in that kinda sexy accent of his, which had deepened to tell the story.
"There weren't no doctor in those parts. So everyone with troubles went to Auntie Julia. She brought 'em into the world as a midwife and sent 'em out when she attended death beds. Did all kinds of healin's. And she had a reputation for havin' great power."
Elijah shivered. It was a shock to realize Jon was talking about a braucher. Or something very like it. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Did Jon know?
"Now Auntie Julia used to sit on her porch and strum a guitar and make up songs. People were afraid to pass by her house and hear the words of her songs, because the lyrics she sang? They just might foretell your death. Or worse."
Luke and Emily gasped and clutched each other’s hands.
"Auntie Julia and the folk thereabouts got along real well for a long time. But eventually, the people became more demandin' and greedy, wantin' this or that from Julia's power. Gettin' mad if she didn't cure a cow or if a loved one died unexpectedly, even pressurin' her to make 'em rich."
"So Julia, she got tired of being put upon. She was old by then, and one day, in 1915, she sat on her porch and sang a song. The lyrics went like this: 'I'm gonna die soon, and I'm takin' you all with me.’"
Elijah gasped, able to picture it clear as day, only in his mind it was Dawdi sitting on the porch, singing the song, and that was terrifying. Because if Dawdi said it, it would be true.
"Well, Julia Brown died, and they had a funeral for her at her house, with the casket and a viewin' and food and music, the whole nine yards. In Cajun country, a funeral is a kind of party. Only while this funeral was goin' on, the weather got worse and worse. By the time that funeral was over, it had turned into a full-blown hurricane."
Jon said it with great dread. He raised his hands and blew, sounding just like a mighty wind. Elijah hugged his arms over his chest as a gust of wind ran its fingers along his cheek right at that moment and made the fire dance.
"Now that hurricane was so terrible, and so strong, it's like had never been seen in those parts before. It blew and blew, and the water came, and the whole town of Frenier was wiped off the map, just washed away. Only two people in the town survived. Everyone else was drowned or lost under debris. They're still finding skeletons in the swamp from that hurricane to this very day."
"Yikes," Eddie said, with a delighted grimace.
"Cool!" Luke said. "Mom, can we go look for skeletons there?"
Mrs. Talbot snorted.
"That whole place is now nothin' but a graveyard," Jon continued. "And you don't wanna talk disrespect about Julia Brown, or be misbehavin' anywhere near the Manchac Swamp. 'Cause Julia's spirit may just pull you under the water, too, and you'll never be seen nor heard from again."
He turned abruptly to Luke and grabbed his ankles. "Like this!" He tugged and Luke squealed and jumped about a mile. Everyone laughed and Elijah did too.
"Not fair!" Luke said, but he was giggling.
"Who ever said I was fair?" Jon sat back with a contented air. He looked so handsome in that moment, with the firelight dancing on his skin, and the pleased little smile on his face, that it hurt Elijah's heart. He wished he could take a picture or make a drawing so he could have it forever.
"Excellent, Jon," Eddie said. Everyone else murmured their appreciation.
"Elijah, do you have a ghost story?" Mrs. Talbot asked.
Elijah blinked. Who me?
"Nah. Amish don't have ghost stories," said Samuel.
"No, I got one," Elijah said impulsively.
"Let's hear it." Eddie smiled and rubbed his hands together.
Elijah hesitated. Why had he said that? He'd had a notion to say something about braucherei, since Jon's story reminded him of it. But, on second thought, he didn't want to get too close to that subject. Fortunately, Dawdi had told him some strange tales from his many years of practicing.
"All right. This story is also for true. It happened." Elijah sat up straighter. Jon was watching him, but he couldn't look that direction or he wouldn't be able to get the story out. "There was a woman, an Amish lady. She was older, and most of her kids were grown. Well, she began to lose her mind. Sayin' and doin' things that made no sense. It got so bad her husband couldn't leave her alone in the house for fear she'd burn it down. Couldn't trust her not to dig up the garden or harm the livestock. So he sent her off to a special house where they cared for people such like. She didn't wanna go, and put up a huge fuss, but her husband felt that he had no choice, and they dragged her away."
Elijah paused to arrange the tale in his mind and the only sound was the pop of the fire. He had their attention.
"After she'd been gone a few days, strange things started happenin' around the farm. The door to the root cellar would be left open, and jars smashed. Strange mold was growin' on their food. Her husband found snakes in the house. Things were knocked over and the fire in the wood stove wouldn't start. There were a couple of older children still livin' at home, and, at first, the farmer thought maybe one of them was playin' tricks. But things kept happenin', and the children were scared."
Elijah hesitated. He'd come to the point of the story where there was braucherei, and now he wondered if this was such a good idea.
"Sounds like a poltergeist," Eddie put in.
"Maybe." Jon shrugged, like he knew better. When Elijah glanced at him, he found Jon's light brown eyes were fixed on him. Elijah's neck grew warm.
"So…" he began again. "They, uh, had to call in someone. They called in a man who knew all about curses and such like. He stayed in the house overnight to see what was goin' on for himself. One night, then two, then a week. He saw milk sour right in front of him, fresh milk just got that mornin'. He saw a pie that had just come out of the oven swarmin' with flies and maggots after he'd left the room for a short while. Glass jars with relish blew apart on the counter. A cow went lame. He saw a tangle of snakes fighting to get in a basement window. All this he saw with his own eyes. He told the family they were haunted."
"The older lady they'd sent away—she died?" Eddie asked.
Elijah shook his head. "No. She was still livin' at that special home. But she was hauntin' her house just the same."
Eddie frowned like he didn't get it. But Jon said, "You say this is a true story?"
Elijah nodded solemnly. "Ja, true. It happened."
"So what did they do?" Luke asked.
"The man they hired, he put up protections around the house and the whole farm, hex signs and such like, but it didn't help none. He went to see the lady. She wasn't able to talk or anythin'. It was like she was in another world. But the man did blessin's and a healin' with her, only she didn't get better, and things kept happenin' at the farm. So the man prayed and prayed, askin' God what to do. And God told him to bring the lady home."
"Yeah, no," said Mrs. Talbot with a shiver.
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?" Mr. Talbot murmured with a nervous laugh.
Elijah went on. "The husband listened to his advice. They brought the lady home, and set her up in her own bedroom upstairs, and the farmer hired a girl to sit with her and watch over her at all times. After that, the bad things stopped happenin' around the farm. They stopped the very day they brought that lady home."
"Wow," Eddie said.
"My Daw— I mean… I heard that the lady got better after a time. Her mind returned. And eventually she didn't remember none of it. Not being sick, nor what happened in the house, nor any of it."
"Weird." Eddie looked at Jon. "Can that really happen? Can you be haunted by someone who's still alive? How do you explain it?"
Elijah wasn't sure why Eddie thought Jon was an expert, but he was curious to hear the answer.
Jon considered it. "My Aunt Jolie knows about this kind of thing better 'n me. But I'd say the human mind is way more powerful than we know. Maybe the woman's illness gave her access to parts of her brain we don't normally use. She was angry and wanted to be home, and some part of her mind was able to project there. That is, assumin' it's true." He looked again at Elijah, but his tone was more teasing than challenging.
Elijah shrugged. He knew what he knew. That was one of Dawdi's stories. And Dawdi might be a lot of things, but he never lied.
He realized Jon's gaze was lingering on him. In a moment of bravery, Elijah met and held it. What did he see in Jon's eyes? Curiosity, maybe. Sizing him up. Something else, some emotion Elijah reached for but couldn't quite grasp, like a dream that slips through the fingers of your memory.
It was almost unbearable to be under Jon's gaze. Elijah's stomach swirled around the s'mores, and his skin flushed hot in the cold October night. He wanted Jon's attention. But, at the same time, it was terrifying.
He was glad when Jon looked away.