Midnight Bayou

you what you did tonight. Repeat it.”
    “I—I went into town.” He licked his lips. Swallowed. “I drank, then I went to a brothel. I came home and went to bed.”
    “That’s right. That’s right.” She stroked his scored cheek. “Now we’re going to pack some of her things—some clothes, some jewelry. We’ll do it quickly, as she did it quickly when she decided to run off with a man she’d been seeing in secret. A man who might very well be the father of that child upstairs.”
    “What man?”
    Josephine let out a long sigh. He was the child of her heart, but she often despaired of his brain. “Never mind, Julian. You know nothing of it. Here.” She went to the chifforobe, chose a long black velvet cloak. “Wrap her in this. Hurry. Do it!” she said in a tone that had him getting to his feet.
    His stomach pitched, and his hands trembled, but he wrapped the body in velvet as best he could while his mother stuffed things in a hatbox and a train case.
    In her rush she dropped a brooch of gold wings with a small enameled watch dangling from it. The toe of her slipper struck it so that it skittered into a corner.
    “We’ll take her into the swamp. We’ll have to go on foot, and quickly. There are some old paving bricks in the garden shed. We can weigh her down with them.”
    And the gators, she thought, the gators and fish would do the rest.
    “Even if she’s found, it’s away from here. The man she ran away with killed her.” She dabbed her face with the handkerchief in the pocket of her robe, smoothed a hand over her long, gilded braid. “That’s what people will believe if she’s found. We need to get her away from here, away from Manet Hall. Quickly.”
    She was beginning to feel a little mad herself.
    There was moonlight. She told herself there was moonlight because fate understood what she was doing, and why. She could hear her son’s rapid breathing, and the sounds of the night. The frogs, the insects, the night birds all merging together into one thick note.
    It was the end of a century, the beginning of the new. She would rid herself of this aberration to her world and start this new century, this new era, clean and strong.
    There was a chill in the air, made raw with wet. But she felt hot, almost burning hot as she trudged away from the house, laden with the bags she’d packed and weighed down. The muscles of her arms, of her legs, protested, but she marched like a soldier.
    Once, just once, she thought she felt a brush against her cheek, like the breath of a ghost. The spirit of a dead girl who trailed beside her, accusing, damning, cursing her for eternity.
    Fear only made her stronger.
    “Here.” She stopped and peered out over the water. “Lay her down.”
    Julian obeyed, then rose quickly, turned his back, covered his face with his hands. “I can’t do this. Mama, I can’t. I’m sick. Sick.”
    He tumbled toward the water, retching, weeping.
    Useless boy, she thought, mildly annoyed. Men could never handle a crisis. It took a woman, the cold blood and clear mind of a female.
    Josephine opened the cloak, laid bricks over the body. Sweat began to pour down her face, but she approached the grisly task as she would any other. With ruthless efficiency. She took the rope out of the hatbox, carefully tied hanks around the cloaked body, top, bottom, middle. Using another, she looped the line through the handles of the luggage, knotted it tight.
    She glanced over now to see Julian watching her, his face white as bone. “You’ll have to help. I can’t get her into the water alone. She’s too heavy now.”
    “I was drunk.”
    “That’s correct, Julian. You were drunk. Now you’re sober enough to deal with the consequences. Help me get her into the water.”
    He felt his legs buckle and give with each step, like a puppet’s. The body slid into the water almost soundlessly. There was a quiet plop, a kind of gurgle, then it was gone. Ripples spread on the surface, shimmered in the moonlight, then smoothed away again.
    “She’s out of our lives,” Josephine stated calmly. “Soon, she’ll be like those ripples. Like she never was. See that you clean your boots thoroughly, Julian. Don’t give them to a servant.”
    She slid her arm through his, smiled, though her smile was just a little wild. “We need to get back, get some rest. Tomorrow’s a very busy day.”

2
    Manet Hall, Louisiana
    January 2002
    H is mother was right—as always. Declan Fitzgerald stared through