Chapter 20
Twenty
“I can’t just leave the shop to go over to your place,” Allison said, her tone exasperated, her gaze averted as she stood behind the counter of her shop. “I have to go pick up Hayden from school in a little while.”
Samson leaned against the wall beside the register, arms folded over his chest. “Just for a few minutes,” he said, his voice low and coaxing, as if sheer persistence might wear her down.
He added his weight to Erielle’s earlier plea.
“We found some things. Stuff we don’t understand.
We think you might.” He tilted his head, watching her.
“Come by, and then you can leave straight from there for Hayden.”
Allison’s lips pressed into a thin line. Finally, she looked at them—but not for long. Her eyes flicked past Erielle’s shoulder toward the street beyond the window, as if expecting someone to walk in at any second. “Why didn’t you just bring it here?”
Samson glanced over at Erielle, who shrugged. “There’s a lot of it, and honestly, that didn’t occur to me. Really, just a few minutes.”
Allison glanced at her wristwatch, then the clock on the wall. “I can give you fifteen minutes.”
That response puzzled Erielle, since it was not quite one o’clock. She didn’t know what time kids got out of school, though. Allison had agreed, yes—but why did it feel more like she was buying time?
“You’re coming now, right?”
“I just need to lock up.” Her hand hovered by the keys behind the counter.
But Allison still didn’t meet Erielle’s gaze. Erielle glanced at Samson, who shrugged one shoulder, pushing himself away from the wall in the same motion. He touched Erielle’s arm to urge her toward the door.
“We’ll see you in a bit.”
The bell over the door jingled as they stepped out, swallowing whatever Allison said in reply.
Erielle couldn’t settle. She drifted from the locked room to the kitchen, where the open journal mocked her with its unreadable symbols, before finally ending up on the front porch. Her arms hugged tight around her middle as she scanned the street.
Had Allison decided not to come? Or worse—had she lied?
She went back inside, determined to do something, anything.
The stack of boxes called to her. That would be a good, mindless task.
She carried out an armload of titles—they had the book now, so she didn’t have to be careful about what she got rid of—and tossed them one after another, from the porch, the repetitive motion keeping her from crawling out of her skin, the repetitive thumps soothing.
Behind her, the screen door creaked. Samson came out, boots heavy on the porch boards. He didn’t say anything at first, just leaned against a post and folded his arms, his gaze on the dumpster. His steady presence should have been reassuring, but instead it made her nerves hum.
“You’re wound tight,” he said finally.
“I’m trying not to think.” She walked past him to gather another armload of books, which she tossed two at a time into the bin with too much force. “What if she’s not coming?”
“Then we think of something else. Go to New Orleans if we have to, talk to someone there.” The post creaked against his weight and he glanced up, grimaced, and pushed himself away.
The hum of an engine distracted her, and she turned to see a familiar sedan pull into the driveway. Samson’s mother step out of the car. Mrs. Guillory offered her a strained smile before glancing quickly down the road, as if expecting company.
Samson was already moving, stepping off the porch as his mother’s car pulled in. She got out slowly, clutching her purse like it might protect her. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Hi, honey. Hi, Erielle.”
Erielle forced a polite smile. “Hi, Mrs. Guillory. What can I do for you?”
“Oh…ah…” The older woman’s eyes kept straying toward the road. Her grip on her bag tightened until her knuckles whitened. “How’s the house coming?”
Samson stepped forward, suspicion in the hard line of his jaw. “Mom. Why are you here?”
The sharp edge in his voice startled Erielle. Mrs. Guillory flinched. “I just…just came to check.” But her glance flicked down the road again, quick and guilty.
Erielle followed her gaze and straightened. Hattie hustled down the sidewalk, her stride businesslike, her dress snapping about her legs. She pushed through the rickety gate like she was being chased and marched toward them.
“Marie here yet?”
“Marie?” Erielle’s mind flashed to the tiny woman with the steel spine from Rumrunners. Did they know her?
Hattie mounted the steps and took Mrs. Guillory’s hand, forcing the other woman to meet her gaze. “You doing okay, Leslie?”
Mrs. Guillory rolled her eyes and inclined her head slightly toward Sam, still waiting for a response in the doorway.
Hattie turned and gave him a look, but before anyone could say anything, a motorcycle roared down the street and stopped in front of the house.
The woman in the back, wearing a familiar flowy skirt, unhooked her helmet and shook out her cloud of hair.
She dismounted, resting the helmet on the back of the bike as the second woman, tiny blond Marie, hopped off and marched toward the house, Allison trailing behind.
“Well, let’s go on in,” Hattie said, waving her hand in the direction of the door.
Samson hustled out of the way, making space for the women, but Hattie stopped directly in front of the empty nail where the bayou painting had hung.
“Where’s the painting?” Hattie demanded.
Erielle’s head was spinning. Why were all these women here?
How did they even know each other? She wouldn’t have put two of them together if she’d had everyone in Phantom Bayou in one room.
Something tickled the edge of her mind, but she couldn’t fit it into the puzzle because Hattie was glaring at her, waiting for an answer.
“It’s—on the kitchen table.”
The women and Samson followed Hattie into the kitchen. She clearly knew her way around the house. She walked straight to where Sam had left the picture on the closer side of the table, passed her hand over it without touching.
Marie circled the table to the journal. “I was wondering where she left this,” she said, her voice low, reverent.
“What is it?” Erielle’s curiosity outbid her confusion and her anxiety over what was going on. “Can you read it?”
“It’s been a while,” Marie murmured, her finger lightly moving over the page. “It’s probably in here, don’t you think?” she asked Hattie.
Hattie made a noise in her throat and flipped the painting over. At that point she saw the sketch on the cardboard, the rubbings on the napkins. She looked at Erielle.
“So you do know what’s going on? Or you don’t?”
Erielle shook her head. “I don’t know. I just—” Her throat tightened, and she forced the words out in a rush. “The painting moved on its own. We found symbols carved over the windows. Then this—” she gestured toward the journal, her hand unsteady “—hidden in the back of the frame.”
The silence that followed pressed against her chest. It was the first time she’d strung all of it together, the first time she’d admitted out loud how impossible it sounded.
She drew a sharp breath, bracing for disbelief, for laughter.
But none of the women even blinked. Their faces remained unreadable, calm in a way that made her stomach dip. Not shock. Not surprise. Almost…expectation.
“Then we found the room today. But we don’t know what any of it means.” She looked from one unreadable face to the next. “Why do you?”
Hattie pressed her lips together, gathered up the napkins and put them back on the table in a star shape.
No. A pentagram. Fear clawed its way up Erielle’s throat. What was happening here?
“I need someone to tell me what’s going on.”
“In a minute.”
“How do you all know each other?”
Hattie looked up at that, and a softness came into her eyes. “Let’s take a look at the room, then we’ll have some tea, how about that?”
Erielle exchanged a glance with Samson as this time, his mother led the way through the foyer and into the library, without being told where to go.
Erielle noticed she held her purse a little tighter to her side, ducked her head a bit as she entered the hallway, though she had plenty of room.
Erielle felt like she should be up in the front, but the other women followed, Sam last of all.
He hadn’t replaced the busted bulb, but somehow it was intact overhead. Allison inspected the jars on the wire shelf, Leslie and Marie were at the workbench, and Hattie inspected the paintings. This time she did touch the bottom painting, and a smile curved her lips.
“Miss you, Angeline,” she murmured.
“She’s been gone seven years,” Marie said, her voice low and respectful. “That seems about right.”
“What does?” Erielle was reaching the end of her patience.
“Let’s go have a seat in the kitchen. You can make us all some iced tea, can’t you?” Hattie replied, putting a hand on the small of Erielle’s back to guide her out. Well, not gentle enough to guide. More of a push.