Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Sam hadn’t been to his grandparents’ house in Baton Rouge since the Christmas before last. Well, that wasn’t all his fault, because his grandparents hadn’t been in town last Christmas—they’d gone on a cruise with their friends last year.
They’d wanted the whole family to go, but Sam had no interest, Susan couldn’t get away, and his parents didn’t want to be away from the church for a week during the busy Christmas season.
Now, standing in their parlor, Sam had to mask his surprise at how fragile they looked.
His grandparents still greeted him with the same enthusiasm as always, their hugs warm, their smiles genuine, but he couldn’t shake the thought: he needed to make time for more visits.
Baton Rouge wasn’t far from New Orleans.
And it was even closer to Phantom Bayou.
He didn’t want to carry the same regret Erielle did—that guilt of missing the last years of her grandparents’ lives.
Susan was there too, on the end of the settee. Yes, his grandmother used those words. Susan stood once he’d hugged both grandparents, and pulled him into her embrace.
“You have lots of explaining to do,” she murmured. “What is going on?”
“Later,” he promised, because his grandmother was already leading them into the dining room.
He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the scent of roasted chicken and baked bread filled the air. He had to stop himself before he devoured it, forcing restraint into every bite.
His mother had seemed steadier on the drive up, more alert, less weary. His father had been calmer, too—whether out of genuine peace or simply for Leslie’s sake, Sam couldn’t tell. Either way, the reprieve gave Sam space to think. Though the thoughts circling him weren’t comforting.
Even now he let conversation flow around him, everyone talking about unimportant topics.
His thoughts drifted to the ritual this morning.
All day, the image of the woman he loved standing in the heart of that ritual had haunted him, words he didn’t understand spilling from her mouth, her eyes gone black as night.
By the way power had rolled off her in waves.
A power that terrified him.
Almost as much as admitting she was the woman he loved, even if he had only admitted it to himself.
Later, when the older adults had gone to bed, Susan turned to him, her gaze sharp. “So tell me what on earth is going on, that I had to come here and help out.”
Sam had to battle back some of the resentment he’d felt against his sister, who’d been living her own life while he’d been helping their parents in Phantom Bayou.
He knew her absence wasn’t neglect—her new job wasn’t flexible—but logic didn’t matter when he was bearing the weight alone.
She hadn’t seen the exhaustion in their mother’s face, felt their father’s frustration and temper as they negotiated his recovery.
But that wasn’t what Susan needed to know, not right now. She needed to know the new threat to her parents.
“Remember the ghosts in the bayou?” he began.
Susan’s expression slid through disbelief, into annoyance, and finally settled into wary doubt.
He laid it out piece by piece—how their mother had always been drawn to the ghosts, how she’d turned away from it because of their father’s pleading, and how it had all come back since Erielle’s return.
He explained the Benoit house, its history of haunting, and their mother’s determination to get her hands on the journal—her certainty that its contents could heal their father.
Susan’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t interrupt. Sam searched her face for flickers of memory—had she ever seen Millicent? Heard whispers during those childhood nights spent with Erielle? But her expression remained unreadable.
He pressed on, describing the journal, the red book, their mother’s insistence, and finally, the thing that still haunted him, and always would—the church.
He stopped short at what he himself had taken part in this morning, and what he saw happen to Erielle.
“So Mom’s here to…what?”
“Dad wanted to get her away from the bayou, away from the temptation of returning to magic, I guess you’d call it.”
“Witchcraft,” Susan murmured. “Our mother. Who would have guessed?”
Sam let out a dry chuckle. “It was sure the last thing I thought I’d be dealing with when I came home.”
Susan stood and walked over to the bar cart her grandparents that had sat under the window as long as Sam could remember. She poured each of them a tumbler of whiskey from the crystal decanter and carried one to her brother. He let the glass rest on his knee, not ready to numb his brain just yet.
“What else aren’t you telling me? You said the Benoit house was haunted, but you didn’t tell me what ended up happening.”
Right, because he’d been focusing on how all this affected their mother, not Erielle. Not him. He rubbed his thumb between his eyebrows, finding himself unable to look at her. She and Erielle had been friends, after all.
“So when Erielle came back, I was helping her out. Like, she was all by herself, didn’t have anyone.”
“Mom told me,” Susan murmured. “I’m sorry for her, but she did put a lot of people off.”
“She’s independent to a fault,” Sam said. “You remember how her parents were.”
Susan nodded reluctantly. “Right, but I’m saying she pushed people away. Me, for one.”
He remembered how heartbroken his sister had been, the summer after Erielle’s parents had come to get her, the summer he’d turned them in for sneaking off to the party. He’d felt guilty, even though he’d known it was the right call to protect the girls.
“She was probably mad at me, in trouble with her parents. I’m sure she missed you as much as you missed her.”
Susan made a doubtful hum. “Go on. You helped her.”
“She didn’t want me to help her. She was still mad at me for getting her sent home.
But she couldn’t do all this on her own.
The house had been empty a while, and it was in bad shape.
And working out at Rumrunners, you know, I was worried she might not get home safe.
So I hung out while she worked, then came by the house in the mornings to help. ”
“Protective big brother mode,” Susan said.
“Ah, well.” He looked down at his hands folded in front of him. “Not the big brother part.”
Susan’s eyebrows rose and humor lit her amber eyes. “Mom may have mentioned that part too.”
“I wasn’t sure if she knew. But I’d catch Erielle sleeping in the back seat of her car, and…she finally told me she was hearing voices, seeing things move around, stuff like that. So I spent the night and…you know the legend of that house, right?”
“The woman who killed her kids?”
“I saw her that night.” He decided now wasn’t the time to tell her he’d seen Millicent another time. “And last night. And this morning, we…ah. We put a binding spell on her.”
“You what?” Susan’s voice rang in the open space of the parlor.
He met her gaze, and tried to figure out the most sane way to say this.
“Some of the women in town, and Erielle’s grandmother Angeline, they…
know how to read spells. Perform spells.
Rituals. Whatever you want to call them.
And we--they, I, Erielle—did that this morning.
” He was leaving out so much—the secret room, the paintings.
Otherwise they’d be here all night. “And Erielle did the reading of the spell, and…when she did, she looked like Mom. She had the same…power as Mom.”
Susan slumped back in her chair. “No kidding?”
“I don’t know how to deal with that, what to think about it,” Sam said.
“Is it…something you think she wants to do again? I mean, do you think this is something she might pursue? Might do again?”
“I don’t know. I was so freaked out, and I was worried about Mom, and so I just took that as a sign I needed to get out. Put some space between us.”
“So let me get this straight.” She held out her hand to tick on her fingers. “You’ve fallen in love with her.” She looked up at him for confirmation.
“Yes,” he admitted with a sigh.
She ticked another finger. “You don’t know if you like her witchcraft.”
“I—don’t know. It caused problems for Mom and Dad.”
“Dad is a pastor,” Susan pointed out.
“You seem to have wrapped your mind around all this a lot faster than I have,” Sam said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Susan lifted a shoulder. “I’m just going with the information I have here. So you ran away to Baton Rouge.” She ticked a third finger.
“I told her I needed some space. You have to realize, this all took place really fast, like the past few days, learning about Mom, seeing her, then seeing Erielle in the same state almost right away.”
“All right, I’ll give you that. But have you told Erielle you’re in love with her?”
“Of course I haven’t.” He’d barely admitted it to himself.
“Why not?”
“I don’t even know if she plans to stay, Sis. Surely this town won’t be enough for her for long. She already misses cooking. She’s going to want to go at some point.”
“And you? You don’t live in Phantom Bayou. Why can’t she go to New Orleans with you?”
“She might not want to do that either.”
She rolled her eyes so hard she fell back against the couch again.
“You know how you can work that out? Con. Ver. Sa. Tion. You know, the things grown-ups do? Talk to each other. Not hide behind responsibilities? Not run out of town at the first chance? I’ll stay here with Mom and Dad for a few days.
You go back to the bayou and talk to Erielle.
” Susan pushed to her feet. “And you might start with telling her that you love her.”
But Sam couldn’t get away for a few days, and when he finally made it back to the bayou, Erielle was already gone.