 
# VEILED EYES

## A Lake People Novel

## C.L. Bevill
VEILED EYES

by _C.L. Bevill_

Published by CL Bevill LLC

Copyright ©2010 Caren L. Bevill

_Veiled Eyes_ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

# Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

About the Author

Other Novels by C.L. Bevill

Also by C.L. Bevill

Also by C.L. Bevill

# Prologue

_Twenty-three years ago_

_They say that it is dangerous to speak aloud of an expected baby. If the fairies hear of the child's coming, they might be tempted to steal it at the moment of its birth. Instead, old women whisper that an expecting mother should refer to her baby as something so trivial that no discerning fae would dare mess with it._

The young woman climbed out of her rusting car. She held onto the doorframe and stared intently at the dilapidated cottage in front of her. It hadn't changed in the months that she had been gone and full darkness couldn't conceal its present flaws. It was a three-room cottage with peeling paint and several broken windows covered by duct tape and cardboard. The yard was overgrown with weeds, and the rotting carcass of an unidentifiable vehicle rested to one side.

The lack of light and the absence of the truck showed the young woman the cottage was empty. She brushed chestnut hair from her forehead, and her blue eyes focused on the task at hand. She'd driven half the day from Baton Rouge to come to this tiny speck of a town to deliver a message. She'd braved the idiosyncrasies of an unreliable vehicle and an infrequently traveled road. She hadn't wanted to do it. She was quivering with trepidation inside, but a nagging sense of honor had forced her to come.

Petite and slender, she smoothed her shirt down in front and carefully shut the car door with a slight noise. For months she had been living in a Catholic women's shelter in Baton Rouge and the nuns there had convinced her that she had to perform this task. One in particular had been persistently adamant. "They have the right to know," the sister had said, "unless you think you would be in danger."

_Danger?_ The young woman hesitated beside the car. _Isn't all life dangerous?_ When she had met her husband two years earlier, she knew that there was something wild and primitive about him. Living in the back of beyond only added to that perception. The cottage sat along the bluff of a lake with creeping ivy and Spanish moss swaying from each oak tree. Cypresses emerged from algae-covered waters like the legs of giants.

It was a world beyond her reckoning. Coming from a middle-class family in Natchitoches, the comparison was a one hundred eighty degree turnaround. The people in this place were poor, some worse off than others, but they were proud and isolated. Welcoming outsiders went against their grain, especially someone like the young woman, someone who married one of their own too fast, too swiftly, to retract or counteract against. The priest came to her days after the wedding and spoke solemnly to her, warningly, in a manner that she didn't understand. At least she hadn't understood then.

She understood now. Touching the car's pitted exterior, she looked at a saint medallion that hung from her rear-view mirror. Dressed in her best clothing, she licked her lips and tried to collect her strength. She didn't have to face her husband yet. She could walk to that favored place overlooking the bayous and search for strength.

Looking into the back seat of her car, she knew she had a half-hour or so before she would be needed. So she vanished into the tranquil shadows, breathing in the scent of forest and bayou, understanding that she had missed the stillness of a place that didn't move like maddened bees.

And when she reached the place where she had regularly met her lover, she stopped to listen to the night's denizens. Before long, she also realized that someone must have seen her come through the small town and that someone had rushed to meet her. She was no longer alone in the darkness, and there was no one to hear her scream.

A man pulled his truck up to the ramshackle cottage and stopped the engine. He stopped ten feet from his door and stared at the car that was parked in front of his home. He didn't recognize it. Louisiana plates were mounted on the back, and a parking sticker stated Baton Rouge College. He paused, and his face wrinkled into confusion. His wife had fled from his horrid temper six months before, and she had relatives in Baton Rouge. Could it be?

Then there was a cry, not unlike a small injured animal. His head shot up, and he looked around frantically. "Who's dere?" he called. "Who's playing games?"

But there was no one there. His head dropped again, and the noise came once more. A soft cry in the darkness, something was begging for assistance. His head swiveled slowly toward the car. He took a tottering step toward it and peered inside. He saw the saint medal first and muttered under his breath. "Arette?" Then there was a movement from the back seat that caught his eye. What he saw there made him gasp with shock.

A car seat was attached to the passenger side facing backwards. He opened the driver's door and leaned in. The baby in the car seat gurgled at him.

The tiny light that had come on with the car door being opened showed him that the baby's small thatch of hair was jet black and that the tiny eyes that stared at him were the burnished shade of gilt.

"Ah sweet _Dieu_ ," he prayed. Realization flooded through him, a realization that escaped him until that very second. He knew what he had to do. He would protect her child even though he hadn't been able to protect her, even from himself. "Please forgive me."

# Chapter One

## Sunday, December 14th – The Present

_Old lore dictates that seeing the front of a black cat is lucky and the back of a black cat distinctly unlucky._

Anna St. Thais cocked the thumb of one hand as she stood at the entrance ramp to Interstate 20 and gathered her coat closer with the other hand. Although it was Texas, she was chilled by a northern wind. The local meteorologists were calling it an arctic blast and warning people to bundle up.

The truth was Anna was lucky she had the coat. In addition to the coat and the clothes on her back, all she had left was a backpack stuffed with a few meager possessions from her car before it had been repossessed in Midland. The repo man had generously allowed her two minutes to collect her goods. So in two minutes she had taken what she considered most precious; all the clothing she could grab and stuff in the pack, a coat because the weather was threatening to bite, a Bible, her wallet, and the scratched Wayfarers perched on her nose because they had always brought her luck.

A week later, on her way out of Abilene, she had been robbed. Some clever thief was probably still counting the twelve hundred dollars she had in her wallet. She remembered the man brushing up against her in the bus station with a halting and seemingly sincere apology and chastised herself for not knowing what he'd done. He'd even pinched the Greyhound tickets, a little Christmas cheer to make her day and his too.

So much for the scratched Wayfarers being lucky.

Anna didn't have a driver's license or any other form of identification, nor more than twenty-three cents to her name. She had her thumb and a friend in New Orleans who would help her get back on her feet. Certainly, she could call Jane in the Big Easy. Jane had spent years with her in the orphanage, as well as in two foster homes. They had banded together like warriors in a supreme conflict and come out the stronger for it. Jane had a restaurant in the heart of the French Quarter and made money now, an almost obscene amount of money, a testament to her personal determination. Jane even had a friend who was willing to give Anna a job as a personal favor. However, Anna was reluctant to allow her friend to see how dire her straits had become. She'd already asked so much of her closest friend.

_So here I am. Hitchhiking. That's much better than calling my friend for help,_ she thought caustically. _I can starve for a day or two. No biggie._

Anna adjusted her Wayfarers on the tip of her nose. She knew she didn't look like much. Five foot four inches tall. One hundred fifteen pounds, sometimes twenty when she'd been eating well, which had been less and less of late. Her short black hair curled around her heart-shaped face, framing what she thought was her best feature, full ruby red lips that never needed lipstick.

Given her profession, she wished she weighed fifty pounds more and had a foot more in height. Getting work was difficult unless the man hiring had an open mind. Usually they didn't, or they wanted favors.

_Stupid._ Anna considered. _I'm a better mechanic than ninety percent of the men I know. I could strip an engine in an hour and put it back together in two. Running better than ever._ Her mechanic abilities hadn't been the problem at the last job. The manager hadn't cared if she were a woman or not. He had questioned her closely on her ASE certifications, asked her knowledgeable questions about various tasks that she would perform, and given her the job. The pay wasn't great but included the back room that had a clean bed and a clean bathroom. It wasn't bad. Not a cockroach in sight...until the manager's son had shown up.

Because the son had wanted the job to go to a friend of his, he sabotaged Anna. Dropped an auto lift on her, all the while professing innocence. Then he got really nasty, dumping a barrel of recycled oil on the floor while she was under a Toyota and then slammed a hood on her fingers. Anna glanced down at her left hand. She still had a straight half-healed cut running across the upper part of her fingers.

Bruised but not broken, she had shown the manager's son that she wasn't going to put up with a load of his crap. A dropped transmission on his chest while Anna peered through the engine compartment got his undivided attention. Later that night she'd used a pipe wrench to dissuade him from doing her bodily damage in retribution. Of course, he'd lost two teeth and would be eating his meals with a straw for the next month. But that hadn't actually stopped him. It had been her foot planted solidly in his groin that had brought him to his knees. _Played soccer for ten years, bucko. Know how to kick._

Regardless, that was the end of that job. Anna agreed not to file charges against the manager's son in exchange for her last week's paycheck. Nor would the manager's son be filing charges against her, if she left town soonest.

The wind began to howl. Anna blinked underneath the sunglasses. It felt like it had dropped ten degrees in a moment. There was a large truck stop sitting kitty-corner to where she was standing. Open twenty-four hours a day, it proclaimed in orange neon so that truckers could see it from miles away.

Anna had spent the last hour in the restaurant with a bottomless cup of coffee trying to fill the ache in her stomach until a waitress had cocked a thumb at the door. The waitress thought Anna looked like a hooker. Glancing down, Anna couldn't agree. The jeans were tight but old. The t-shirt was clean but worn. The leather coat was probably as old as she was, something she'd obtained in a flea market years before. Ragged Nikes on her feet didn't look like stiletto-heel boots. And she didn't even have any makeup to her name, much less any painted on her face.

The word the waitress would have used would be desperate. Anna could read it like she was speaking it. She was thinking, "The girl's desperate." It was that sixth sense that came to Anna sometimes. That little bit of something that told her what song would be played next on the radio or when to buy a scratch-off lottery ticket, which never got her more than a hundred bucks. Sometimes it worked with people, although it hadn't with the pickpocket. It was a beacon on the older woman's face. So Anna left.

Anna parked herself in a convenient location for someone coming from the truck stop to be able to pick her up. Truckers tended to pick up more hitchhikers, but a girl had to be careful.

Screwing up her face, Anna grimaced. Three big rigs had already passed her up.

Her little helper, as she called it, was getting a little wonky lately. Her second sight wasn't as Johnny-on-the-spot as she needed it to be, especially as it related to the people who stopped to offer her rides. She'd had about twenty rides from Abilene to here. Mostly from people who were not going far. There had been a few truckers who'd stopped for the night or for other reasons. Overall, she'd refused three. They had a certain vibe coming from them. She wasn't getting that feeling anymore. The last man, who had deposited her at the truck stop and headed due north, had suggested she come along and participate in a threesome with his wife. Anna had threatened to jump out of the truck before he actually slowed down enough to let her get out, cursing at her for being a "little straitlaced princess."

_Not exactly the worst insult I've ever had_ , Anna decided. He had a dead-miss in his engine, and she was glad she hadn't shared any mechanical expertise with him. Despite the weirdness, Anna was a little freaked that she hadn't gotten an inkling from the man. Not even a little tickling feeling of danger; there hadn't been anything that told her the man wasn't to be trusted. She usually had a pretty good personal ruler for that. True, he hadn't attacked her, but just the same she should have had that feeling.

Instead, if she began to lose her concentration there was an odd picture that popped into her head. A lake. A huge lake with fingers of water stretching out into deep woods. A lake with water blacker than night even in the brightest of day. There were dozens of cypress trees growing in the lake, tall and proud, the legs of a Titan walking through a sea of darkness. Their branches were laden with Spanish moss, like angel's hair draped over twisted fingers. She could feel the air that was heavy and pregnant with moisture. There was a compulsion to reach up and wave away an annoying gnat or mosquito. An aura of expectation. Of longing.

_They are waiting for me. He is waiting for me. He is. Waiting_.

Anna shook her head violently. _Who the hell is waiting for me?_ She ran a cold hand over her face. She'd never been this far east before. She had lived in West Texas her whole life, in a world of dry earth, of dusty winds, and warm nights where coyotes howled at the night sky. Far away, at the edge of Fort Worth, the world changed rapidly. Even in winter, it was greener than West Texas. Even with leaves still falling and blowing to every corner, the world had become more humid. The bite of the wind only emphasized the moisture in the air.

There was the strangest feeling of déjà vu. Anna shook her head again. If she let her mind wander, that odd image would come to her again. The lake. The black lake. And the man who was thinking about her. His thoughts seemed to be linked with hers. With his manly thoughts and his manly manner and his manly dreams. Dreams that sometimes embarrassed Anna to the core.

She hadn't been sleeping well the last few weeks, almost from the day she'd left El Paso and headed east. She tried to justify the insomnia, attributing not being able to sleep the last two days to being worried about what crazy person would next offer her a ride. Every time she closed her eyes there was something very peculiar, even for Anna, who believed in the otherworldly, and that was the real cause. She was rotten with fatigue and afraid of what was going to manifest itself next in her mind's eye.

A large rig pulled out of the truck stop with its diesel engine reverberating. The driver had spent the last half-hour getting a fill-up and having something checked under the immense hood of the vehicle. She perked up as he climbed aboard the truck and slowly began to move out, clearly headed east.

Anna looked up into his face and saw that he wore a baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses. Then she glanced at his truck and almost stepped back. It was a Peterbilt. She knew that much about trucks. It was one of the older models that had the long snout-like metal shroud for the engine. It extended outward like an animal's mouth and had an extra-decorative feature that accentuated it. The shiny metal add-on was attached to the front of the grill, framing it appropriately. It was the shape of a snarling set of teeth with large canines ready to rip and tear. The truck had a mouth on its grill ready to bite down on its next quarry. Except in this case, its prey was already in its mouth.

The truck driver had attached a Barbie doll to the grill, right in the middle in the widest part of the jaws. It was a little blonde Barbie with windswept hair, dressed in a polka-dotted outfit with a single black shoe dangling off one of her tiny little feet.

The truck rumbled to a stop just in front of Anna, and she noticed that the rest of the Peterbilt was black. Black like the color of the lake in her imagination. At least she thought it was her imagination. A deep, glossy black that didn't seem to reflect anything. The chrome words that indicated the make of the truck were attached to the metal shroud, but there wasn't anything else painted on the side to display the company and town of origin. There were the standard USDOT numbers as well as a VIN, but nothing else. Only the front license plate showed the truck to be from Louisiana.

_Louisiana is good. At least I know he's headed for the right state._

The driver waved at her. He waved her over to the passenger door. Anna hesitated. She waited for that feeling to come, for the little Barbie doll to talk to her, to tell her why she was wired to the grill in the middle of a snapping dog's jaws. She ground her teeth together and demanded the feeling to come. All she got was a brief vision in her head. A man's hand was reaching for the wheel of a small boat. It was a strong hand, a tanned hand. He was a man who was whistling a tune, some tune that she couldn't quite place. She'd heard it before, something that sounded happily Cajun. No, not quite happy. Wistful. Not discontent either, but wishing for something he didn't have, something that was on the edge of his consciousness. _You,_ something said. _I want you._ And a shiver of comfortable warmth swept through her body.

Then it was gone. The truck driver was staring down at her, white teeth in a friendly grin. Anna broke herself free. She was cold, and the sun was starting to head down for the count. She took a step up on the Peterbilt and opened the passenger door with a tired grunt. "I'm going to New Orleans," she said clearly. "Appreciate a ride as far as you go in that direction. And I'm not a hooker."

The man laughed abruptly. "Darling, I didn't think you were. As a matter of fact, you look like a little lady down on her luck. Going to Shreveport, sugar. You can catch a ride down 49 to Interstate 10, which will get you all the way to New Orleans, sure 'nough." He drawled out the city's name, saying, "N'ah leens." Then he sighed. "Get in before that cold does my bones in. I ain't gonna eat you up." He held up two fingers like a Boy Scout. "Swear on my old black and tan's grave."

Anna laughed reluctantly. The Barbie doll still wasn't talking to her. She hauled herself up, shut the door, and settled into the captain's chair. Then she looked at the trucker. He was in his thirties, late thirties with brown hair under a New Orleans Saints baseball cap. A good-sized man, he was six feet tall if he got out on flat ground, wearing a black western shirt with pearl buttons and new Lee jeans. Western style boots made of dark brown leather were on his feet. He put the Peterbilt into gear and checked his mirrors. "Mind you put that safety belt on, darling."

Not looking away from his face, Anna reached for the safety belt. She arranged it over her shoulder and waist and clicked the fastener home. "My name is Anna," she offered. "I didn't catch your name on your rig."

"Work for a whole lotta fellers," said the trucker. "Some of 'em don't want me advertising for myself when I'm driving their stuff. Easier to leave it off. 'Sides which I got my big dawg here to let me know who it belongs to." He reached forward and lovingly patted the dash of the truck.

"I saw the jaws in front." Anna took her sunglasses off and hoped the man would do the same. He didn't. "That's your handle then? Big dawg?"

"Mad dawg," he chuckled. "Don't you fret about Miss Barbie. She done runs and runs, and she ain't never gotten caught by the dawg yet." He glanced at her and started. "My laws. I ain't never seen eyes that color before."

Anna shrugged. She'd heard it before. Her eyes were the shade of an aged bronze coin. Not yellow but ancient gold, the kind that made people look twice. She finally looked away from the trucker and made a casual observation of his working environment. Everything in the cab was neat and tidy. The surfaces were polished. The CB radio above their heads was freshly cleaned, and a little bouncing bar of green and red light let them know that other people were actively chatting, though the sound was turned down. The rug-covered floor was clean. No trash to speak of, not even a little speck of dirt. Nothing was out of place.

Between their seats was the entrance to the sleeping room in the back. A black curtain hung over it. Anna reached out a hand to take a peek, but the trucker said quickly, "Anna, my dirty laundry's back there, and I shore don't want a lady to see that."

Anna pulled her hand back. The trucker grinned genially.

"Sure. I know what you mean," she said. She put her hands in her lap and hoped he couldn't hear her stomach growl again. But he did.

"You hungry, darling?" He didn't wait for her to answer but produced an apple from a compartment on his side. "You polish that bear up and remember what they say."

Anna took the apple and almost drooled. She used the edge of her shirt to clean the granny up. Then she bit into in with great anticipation. "What's that?" she asked with her mouth full but not caring.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away." He chuckled with his own good humor. "Name's Dan Cullen. Truck driver and philosopher." He ducked his head and tipped the bill of his cap gallantly.

"Think that's an old superstition," Anna offered after swallowing what was in her mouth and sighing with pleasure.

"Maybe," Dan the truck driver answered her solemnly. "But superstition keeps us all on a track next to Godliness. I done avoid walking under ladders and crossing the path of black cats."

Anna shrugged and continued eating the apple she had been given. The cab of the truck was warm, she was headed in the right direction, and so far, Mr. Dan Cullen hadn't made a wrong move. She settled back into the leather captain's chair and enjoyed a moment of respite.

She agreed with the truck driver one hundred percent. Anna had had enough bad luck lately to sink a hundred cruise ships in a calm sea, and she didn't care to make the gods angry if she could otherwise avoid it.

Then Mr. Dan Cullen gave her a thermos of coffee to drink from, and that was the last thing she remembered.

# Chapter Two

## Sunday, December 14th

_Common folklore dictates that if a knife falls from a table, then a stranger is certain to come to your door._

* * *

In the town of Unknown, Louisiana, the General Store sat a hundred feet from Twilight Lake. The store had been there since 1958, since the one before that had burnt down because of a lightning storm. That one had been there since 1895. The Benoit family, who owned the store, bragged to the everyday tourist that they had settled the little town in the 1700s, when France and Spain fought over every inch of soil to be found in the region. Sebastien Benoit had told the story more than a few times in his lifetime. He liked telling the story. He liked telling stories.

Of course, the Benoit family had their hands in many areas of enterprise. From the old salt mine to the oil industry, there had been Benoits involved in all. However, in the weakening economy of small-town business, the general store was Sebastien's last stand.

Several tourists over from Dallas were staying in one of the nearby bed and breakfasts in the area. They came to the general store for that authentic air and because Sebastien knew the most about the history of the area. The truth was that he didn't know the most, but he could tell the story the best way, and that was what really counted. Plus, they stopped at the store for bait, maps, and recommendations for the best guides in the area. He supplied it all.

Sebastien sat at the counter, looking all of his years and then some. White hair spilled down to his shoulders and gold eyes examined his visitors closely. A tall man in his sixties, his hair belied his strength. He knew that he was just as able as when he had been thirty years younger, but sitting inside his store on a comfortable stool next to the cash register, he knew the picture he presented and played up to it.

The family from a suburb of Dallas listened avidly. Only the youngest one, a boy of fifteen, was getting antsy. The mother said, "What about the name?"

"Oh," laughed Sebastien. "One day in the '40s the townsfolk got a mind to incorporate. Don't recollect why. Something to do with getting a traffic light out there." He waved at the single traffic light just outside the store. "Maybe they wanted some revenue from giving people tickets when they ran it."

The parents laughed along with him. The teenage boy glowered.

"Well, they had to fill out an application," said Sebastien, ignoring the teenager. "And they couldn't decide on a name. Some of 'em wanted to name it after Roosevelt. Some of 'em wanted to name it after Huey Long. A few even wanted to name it after Harry S. Truman, God rest his soul. But no one could get a majority. So they put unknown down on the application. Always meant to pick a name later and fill it in." He paused for effect. "But Unknown is what stuck. Unknown, Louisiana."

The teenager mumbled under his breath. His mother half turned and lightly slapped the back of his head. "I heard that, Robert Henry Webber."

"Ma," protested the boy, "it's getting dark already. Can we please go home now? We can get home in time to watch _The X-Files_. They're having a marathon of repeats."

"I like _The X-Files_ ," announced Sebastien.

"Huh?" said the kid with great surprise.

"Shore. As a matter of fact, I reckon the lake out there, one of the few natural lakes in this area was caused by something that would go well on that show." Sebastien nodded solemnly.

Robert glanced outside at the black lake. They'd gone on a guided tour yesterday and spent hours on the lake, a much bigger area than the young man would have imagined. The guide, another one of the locals with his odd gold eyes, had told them it was caused by a log jam in the early 1800s. "What's so supernatural about a log jam?" demanded the teenager belligerently.

"That what Gabriel told you?" sniffed Sebastien. "Well," his voice lowered to a conspiratorial level, "the truth is a little different. The local Indians knew the tale and avoided the area after that time because they knew what might happen if they came around the black lake. That's what they called it. The black lake. With a surface the color of pitch and so dark a feller couldn't see below to know if a fish or a gator was about."

Robert was slightly interested. His parents smiled grimly.

"They say it was Goujon." Sebastien pronounced it the Cajun way- Go-zhan- emphasizing the second syllable. "Goujon was a huge catfish that ate just about everything he could. He grew and grew and grew and pretty soon he got himself so big that he had to eat some of the deer and gators that wandered too close."

"A catfish?" Robert repeated disdainfully. "Catfish don't eat deer."

"Catfish'll eat anything." Sebastien smiled politely. "Even a little boy who happened to fall into the water."

The teenager took half a step backwards. His doubtful expression faltered.

Sebastien went on. "So Goujon lived in a lazy little fishing hole, and he had eaten up everything there. He knew he needed more. And since he had grown so big, his brain had gotten big, too. He was one smart catfish, to be sure. He thought about it and thought about it. So he set about blocking one side of the river by pushing a deadfall into place, dragging it with every bit of his being, and soon he had a huge lake and a whole new hunting ground."

"And he's still in there?" said the boy skeptically.

Sebastien looked out the window at the lake, to the dock where a small fishing boat was pulling up to the pier. The deepening purple of the sky was lost in the black surface of the lake, leaving it smooth and calm. He pointed out the window with one hand. "Shore. You can see him if you look real careful."

Robert raised an eyebrow and turned to look. His parents turned to look as well. "Where?"

"You just got to remember that Goujon is real hungry-like," added Sebastien, standing up slowly. He silently stepped around the counter and put himself just behind the teenaged boy. "Ifin he's a mind, he'll crawl up to shore to get hisself something better to eat."

"I don't see anything." Robert craned his neck.

"That's because he's ALREADY HERE!" yelled Sebastien and gave Robert's shoulders a little shake.

Robert yelped and jumped. He twisted around, but Sebastien had already retreated behind the counter. "Jesus Christ!" the kid yelled. "Ma, he scared the crap out of me!"

His mother was thinking that Sebastien had scared the crap out of her too. The soothing Louisianan accent and intriguing storytelling had lulled her into a false sense of security. She giggled nervously and chastised her son, "Oh, stop with the swearing, Rob. So he got you good. Give you something else besides sucker-faced sewage monsters and cigarette-smoking men to think about."

Sebastien smiled to himself. He watched the three people leaving after the mother had purchased some t-shirts and other trivial tourist junk. He added for the boy's benefit, "Really, son. Goujon's out there to this day. Longer than Gabriel's boat, as thick around as a horse, waiting for some hapless tourist to take a swim." Then he grinned widely, showing all of his yellowed teeth in a smile big enough to eat even skinny, little teenaged boys.

Robert scowled at Sebastien before the door swung shut.

Sebastien's wife, Aurore, came out of the storeroom. She was almost as tall as he was, with gray-streaked black hair and looked far younger than her fifty-odd years. As healthy as he was, she would probably outlive him by a quarter of a century and knew it well. She'd given him two fine boys and stood by him loyally for the entirety of their adult lives. "Lord have mercy, Seb. You think that boy ever come back here? You have him fearful to dip his big toe in the bayou."

Sebastien rubbed his forehead, grimacing as he did. "Aurore, someone sick round here?"

Aurore frowned. "I ain't heard tell of no one sick. Come to think of it, I got a little tickle in my head, like something heavy. Must be getting it from you, though."

"Yes," confirmed Sebastien, "like that. Excepting like someone slipped me a bit of moonshine that Alby LaGraisse makes or the like. But it's not real obvious."

A push broom that had been resting against the back wall suddenly slid to one side and hit the floor. "Broom fell," he said. "That means we're gonna have a visitor."

Dan Cullen was leaning over Anna with a leer on his face. The mirrored sunglasses were gone, and it turned out that his eyes were as brown as his hair. The leer disappeared from his face so fast that she wasn't sure she had seen what she thought she had seen. Trying to mentally claw her way out of a dead sleep, she jerked backwards, blinking rapidly to clear her head.

She realized the Peterbilt was motionless and tried to look outside. Her vision was too blurred to see beyond his face. "Sorry," she said, her lips stumbling over the words. "You scared me."

Dan laughed. "Lordy, chile, you been on the road too long. That other place you just sat and drank coffee."

"You noticed me before?" Anna asked curiously. The words wouldn't come out right. The world seemed to be swaying, and all she could think of was the dream she had been having before she had awoken.

The dream. _That dream_. That man, the whistling man, had been there again. It had been as if she was inside his head, looking out of his eyes, watching his world, and there had been that awareness of her. He knew she was there. There were other people in the dream, people who were on the boat with him. People fishing, laughing, talking. The sun was shining down, on the decline from its long day in the sky, and they were enjoying themselves greatly. The whistling man had turned away with a laughing grunt and focused on the wheel of the boat. Then he'd said it, the thing that implied knowledge about her, just a whisper of sound so that only his ears could hear, "You're getting closer. So close..." It was a brush of sensation across her lips that trailed down her flesh and skimmed the shape of her breasts, leaving her aching inside.

But it was Dan's face that Anna had woken to, with a twisted expression that she didn't like. She didn't have her little helper, but she was quite sure she wouldn't be voluntarily setting foot in his truck again. She would find another way, even if she had to call Jane. Then she discovered something worse.

Anna was chained to the bed in the back of the truck. Dan saw her comprehension and laughed. A moment later, he withdrew and the truck started. "Got a long way to go," he said cheerfully. "Make yourself at home, sugar."

When Anna looked frantically around, trying to cast off her inexorable lethargy, she saw the Polaroid photographs Dan had taped to the walls. They were pictures of other victims he'd had before in the back of his truck. That was when she screamed.

Dan reached back and struck her with a closed fist. Blackness welcomed her again.

Just as the sun was falling behind a line of oaks and cypresses, Gabriel Bergeron steered the _Belle-Mère_ up to the side of the dock. The boat gently butted against the tires attached to the wood pilings as he cut engine power. His sister, Camille, threw a rope over a support. Over her shoulder, he recognized the tourists leaving the general store and gave them a wave. Nice people even with the sullen teenager.

Better than the group he had today. There was Mr. Glenn, first name unknown, who was a fisherman and braggart. He'd caught a twelve-inch trout and thought he had a trophy fish. There was Mr. Glenn's friend, who liked to tell jokes about Polish men he hadn't met, and then when he had drunk all the beer they'd brought on board, he retold the jokes, the second time far worse than the first. Then he'd tried to pinch Camille's butt, and Gabriel had to discourage him. And then there was Mrs. Glenn, whose first name Gabriel didn't want to know. But she wanted to know his first name and some things he didn't want to share. She wouldn't have minded a few more minutes alone with him in the galley of the _Belle-Mère_ with her hands running all over Gabriel's upper body.

Mon Dieu, he thought. _Sometimes these people should be locked away for their own damn protection, else I push them into the bayou for Goujon to eat and giggle my ass off when I do it._ Gabriel shook his head and turned to listen to Mrs. Glenn say, "All you people have gold-colored eyes. I don't think I've ever seen the like."

Gabriel pocketed the keys from the boat and checked to see that Camille was tying off the stern. There was a certain heaviness in-between his eyes, and he flinched at Mrs. Glenn's sudden closeness. He muttered, "The families around here have been here a long time. Gold eyes runs in the area."

"...Something wrong?" the woman's voice came from a long distance away.

Camille touched his arm. She'd finished with the ropes and leapt back on board with the grace of a gazelle. Her brother's normally tanned flesh had turned the color of ash. "Never you mind, Mrs. Glenn," she soothed. "Sometimes he gets a headache. He just needs to sit for a moment and let it go away." She took his arm and led him below deck to the tiny table in the galley, pushing him into the cushioned bench seat.

Gabriel leaned over the table, resting his elbows there, putting his face into his hands. Camille rubbed her own forehead, concerned about her older brother. All she could see was his curling black hair and his hands, but she touched the back of his tanned neck and it felt clammy. "What is it, _cher_?" she whispered.

" _Dieu_ ," he muttered. "It's _her_ again. Something's wrong. Ah Jesus, my head. It's like someone slipped me a mickey."

"I can feel it," Camille muttered back. She moved his hands from his face and stared into his handsome features. At thirty, he was two years older than she. For years there had been intermittent dreams of a girl he'd never met. There were just tidbits of a life that seemed foreign and bizarre to the Bergerons. The girl must be somewhat younger than he was, the Bergeron family knew about it, but it was like a fantastical piece of imagining for Gabriel. Some wistful chimera that wasn't quite real. But she was real. He just didn't know her name, and he didn't know where she was, only that her location wasn't close.

Two weeks ago, the situation had changed. She was moving closer to him. The dreams had increased. That will-o'-the-wisp that tinkered with his subconscious was stronger and more active. Gabriel had shared a little of it with his younger sister, his only sibling, but he kept it close to his chest, hoarding it like a precious treasure. Camille knew how he felt. She had known when she was sixteen, and she had dreams of her own just before she had met Mathieu, _un home de la Louisiane_ and a Southern family member.

"I told you," Camille whispered in Gabriel's ear. She could hear Mrs. Glenn moving around the hatchway listening to them. "You spilt the milk this morning. Nothing good can happen after spilling milk."

"Anh!" exclaimed Gabriel. He stood up so quickly that Camille almost bumped her head on a cupboard. He flexed his broad shoulders angrily and gestured with frustrated fingers. "Gone again. Dammit. What's wrong with her?"

Camille rubbed her forehead again. She knew that Gabriel thought the girl was playing games, but she thought this time was different. It was like someone had thrust a spike through her head for a brief time. And she didn't know if it was the girl's pain that she was feeling or something that had been conveyed through her brother.

_Something is wrong_. Camille knew it, but there was nothing to be done. _At least not yet._

# Chapter Three

## Sunday, December 14th

_It is told that a shooting star tells of a man's death._

" 'I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus,' " sang someone on the edge of Anna's consciousness. She thought inanely. _Oh yeah. Christmas. Merry Christmas. I'm getting a load of bad luck this year._ Then she remembered.

She was afraid to open her eyes. After a floating moment in time where she struggled through a thick waterfall of spiderwebs, she realized that she was still in a vehicle, and it was in motion. She could hear the sounds of a car passing, the wheels against the asphalt, and the rumble of the diesel engine.

Moving was good. It meant that Dan Cullen couldn't be doing things to her while he was driving the truck. On the other hand, this was bad, because he was probably driving her to someplace where he would have privacy to do exactly what he pleased with her.

Anna shivered. She opened her eyes and saw a little low-wattage yellow light bulb above her. Dan had left the sleeper light on, and she was lying on her back on a fairly comfortable mattress in a narrow space designed for one or two people to sleep. There were storage bins above her. Her eyes felt heavy with whatever he'd used to drug her and it was hard to focus, much less to concentrate. Her mouth felt like it was full of sand, and her perception was delayed. Her arms were above her head, posed unnaturally, and she pulled at them twice before she remembered that her wrists were connected to something. She pushed her head back and saw handcuffs attached to her wrists. They were threaded through a thick eyebolt that had been screwed into the metal walls of the sleeper.

Swallowing convulsively, Anna stared at it. The loop and the handcuffs implied premeditation.

Anna looked at her feet, which were bound with duct tape. She glanced to her right and saw the black curtain between the sleeper and the cab. It was still shut, the edges almost closed together. Dan was listening to someone singing about mommies and Santa Claus doing the naughty while children watched surreptitiously. The CB was blasting out noise as well.

She yanked at the handcuffs and felt skin give. Anna had small wrists and hands. She'd used them to retrieve dropped screws in the deepest parts of engines and to reach places most men's big blunt-fingered hands couldn't ever dream of getting into. She yanked at the handcuffs and hoped that a little blood would make them slick. But she felt like she was treading through a sea of molasses in the middle of winter, and her arms had lead weights on them. No matter how she pulled she didn't seem to make progress.

The CB blared. "Break one-nine for an eastbound. Need a Smoky report. Gotta long way to go, boys, and I gots to get back to my hot mama."

Dan moved around. After a moment he said, "Got an eastbound here, fella. Ain't seen a Smoky since Dallas. Although I heard someone said they saw a county car around mile marker 556."

_And he's looking, too_ , thought Anna. She pulled harder at the cuffs.

"Where ya headed, eastbound?" asked the other man genially.

"Shreveport, fella," answered Dan happily. "Got a date with a gal."

"Oh yeah? I know what you mean there. Warm woman. Warm bed. Enough to make a man go ten miles an hour faster."

The CB started to sputter with white noise. "Losing you, westbound," said Dan. "Good luck with your haul. I'm out."

"You too, man," replied the anonymous voice above the crackle. "Don't forget to practice safe sex," he threw in and laughed. Then the CB went silent.

Dan didn't say anything, and Anna stilled, not wanting him to know she was awake once more.

She didn't want to look at the back wall to her left. The Polaroid photographs were blatantly conspicuous. The light had been left on back there for her to look at the pictures that Dan had taken before. _Dan's an out-and-out sadistic psychopath_ , she thought before she looked again. The photograph that her eyes settled on was so horrifying that Anna screamed. She didn't stop screaming until she passed out again.

Cleaning the _Belle-Mère_ was usually the hardest part of any trip. Especially after two men like Mr. Glenn and Mr. Glenn's joke-telling friend polished off the better part of two cases of beer, leaving crumpled cans like little dead soldiers after a fierce battle. Mrs. Glenn had merely sipped at several wine coolers and tapped her manicured nails on the mahogany rails while leering at Gabriel. On this occasion, he was glad to be rid of the trio, particularly when the missus had slipped her phone number into his hand as her husband and his buddy tottered unevenly down the gangplank.

Camille offered to help him, obviously concerned with the pallor of his skin. He waved her off. "Go see your husband and sons, _p'tite._ I can pick up aluminum cans as well as anyone. At least they didn't decide to pee on the deck."

" _Maman_ was asking about you, yesterday," Camille said, not budging from the bow. Gabriel paused with one hand on a garbage bag. He looked at his sister. She was two inches shorter than he, hardly the small one he frequently called her. Her black hair fell to her waist when it was loose but now was caught up in a French braid that ended in the middle of her back. Her gold eyes gleamed in the puddles of light that came from the floodlights on the dock. It dawned on him that his little sister was all grown up. She was the mother of twin boys and wife to a good man, not someone who should be worried about her brother and the strange idiosyncrasies that went on inside his brain.

"And so?"

"She thinks you should go to the _conja_ woman."

Gabriel's mouth tightened. The _conja_ woman was one of the family who lived above the dark bayou near Debou's bluff. She supposedly worked gentle magics, things that healed and potions that helped, never to hurt another, but he had never trusted her because of the avaricious thoughts that lingered behind her eyes. However, if Gabriel's mother was bringing it up, it meant his own people were talking about him behind his back. "I think _Maman_ should mind her own beeswax."

"Anh. She doesn't want to see you hurt, Gabriel. No harm in that."

"What happened to it being a rite of passage for all men? Something we all go through in one way or another?" Gabriel reached for an empty can of Coors and tossed it into the bag with the others.

" _Bonne chance_ with that," replied Camille, with a lopsided smile. "Seriously, Gabe. She'll have you hog-tied and out to the _conja_ before you can spit three times."

"I'm all right, Cammy." Gabriel straightened up. "Go make some supper for your children before they starve to death."

Camille watched her brother carefully. "They won't starve. Mathieu ordered Papa John's an hour ago."

Gabriel paused in his work to rub a hand tenderly over Camille's cheek. He pulled a bit of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "We'll have to wait and see what happens. Try not to worry."

"It's that you've waited so long, and it's painful to watch your unhappiness."

"I'm not unhappy," he said, dropping his hand. He looked out the window at the lake. It was full dark, and the waters consumed the light of the floodlights like a hungry animal.

"No, of course not." Camille frowned despite her words.

"Go home," he repeated. "I'll be done in an hour."

"Come to the house," Camille offered. "The boys will have left a pizza and then some."

"Maybe, _p'tite_." Gabriel's mouth flattened again. It wasn't the thought of joining his little sister's family. He loved his nephews as if they were his own. Nor did he dislike his brother-in-law, Mathieu. They got along as if they were brothers. It was the lingering feelings that he had experienced before. It haunted his brain like little worms of dissension crawling around, seeking out each hiding place to plague him later. He wouldn't be fit company for man or beast.

Camille shot him a discerning look before she went down the gangplank and disappeared into the darkness beyond the floodlights. A minute later Gabriel heard the purr of her Toyota pick-up truck as she started it up and wheeled it out of the parking lot behind the Benoit's general store.

Gabriel concentrated on cleaning the _Belle-Mère_. A half-hour later he heard his other boat come into range. The _Beau-Père_ was two feet smaller than the one he stood on. A slightly older model, it was used exclusively for daytrips and fishing parties. Jereme Villian brought the other boat in with all the expertise of a man well used to operating such a vessel. Gabriel met him on the dock and helped to tie the boat up. Two stinking fishermen laughed as they lumbered off the _Beau-Père_ carrying a cooler full of fish between them.

One of the fishermen, a man from Little Rock, Arkansas, laughed again as he handed a wad of cash to Gabriel. "Sorry about the smell, Mr. Bergeron. We got carried away with trying out some of those cheeses that that guy from the general store recommended."

Gabriel nodded, wrinkling his nose. _Sebastien Benoit again. What a_ diable p'tit. _He sure likes his little jokes._ "And did the cheese work?"

"Sure. Caught our limit," chuckled the other man.

Trying hard not to smell, Gabriel watched them as they went up the dock and toward the little parking lot.

Jereme turned to him with a smile. A small man with dark brown hair, he was about five years younger than Gabriel and perpetually good-tempered. "Funny men. They didn't mind a little smell as long as they was bringing in the fish."

"Hey," said Gabriel, counting the bills, "they tipped you fifty bucks. Little extra for Christmas, _mon padna_." He handed it over to the other man.

" _Mais oui_." Jereme strutted like a peacock. "I am a happy man. The tourists they become happy too. No?"

"Sure. Take off."

"Really?" Jereme blinked. "Won't ask again, Gabe. Going to Bossier City tonight. Going to play the slots until I go broke or win a million."

"Really," Gabriel sighed the word. "I'm in a cleaning mood." It wasn't the only kind of mood he was in. He didn't want to shut his eyes and have dreams of a woman he couldn't quite see and visions of slender hands performing work that he couldn't quite understand. Slender hands he wanted stroking his flesh instead, touching him in places that hadn't been touched in months.

Jereme disappeared like a wraith into the mist. Gabriel shrugged and started on the _Beau-Père_. The smell from rotting cheese seemed to permeate the boat, and he had to spend extra time with a bottle of Mr. Clean to get rid of the odor. He was nearly finished when there was a familiar thickening that colored his vision.

_Her_ again. Gabriel gritted his teeth. He was going to get a bottle of Jack Daniels tonight and drink every ounce, if that was what it took to get that woman out of his head. The song came to his lips, " 'I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus...' ". He sang it under his breath. "Ah _merde_ ," he swore. "Christmas songs now?"

But oh dear _Dieu_ , his head felt like it was stuffed full with bundles of cotton. The skin around his wrists began to burn as if something was cutting into them. And there was the fear. Stinking dread began to leach through his mind, like bits of water siphoning through the sides of a levee. He closed his eyes and dropped a handful of rags he had been holding in his hand. In the middle of his head he had a clear vision of the small, well-shaped hands pulled over her head and couldn't help the blast of rage that surged through him at the second of his comprehension.

She was handcuffed, and her wrists were bleeding. She was endlessly yanking at the restraints. Then she stopped and listened to something, her head moving to one side. Her mind was as open as a sieve, allowing what she was seeing and feeling to pour into his at a rate he couldn't control.

Something else happened. She turned her head to look at something on her other side, and abject horror washed over her, an unreasoning panic that brought Gabriel to his knees. "Jesus God!" he yelled hoarsely as he perceived what she had just seen, and his eyes flew open like blinds that someone had suddenly let go.

# Chapter Four

## Sunday, December 14th

_Never tell a dream before you've broken your fast, or it won't come true._

When Anna came around she could see that she was still in the back of the truck, that the truck was still moving, and that it was still dark outside. The curtain between the front and the back was pulled open. The greenish glow from the instruments in the dash cast odd shadows across Dan's face. Then they passed a huge green sign over the road. It told her a few things. They were still on Interstate 20. One side of the sign had the huge blue and red shield with the number 20 on it. The other part of the sign said Eastbound to Shreveport. She couldn't have been unconscious very long. "You really going to Shreveport, Dan?" she asked almost too softly.

Dan didn't seem to mind. "Shore. I ain't lied to you yet, Anna. I said I would get you to Shreveport and put you down someplace you dint need to worry about getting no other ride."

"You know what I thought you meant," she whispered. She tried to clear her throat, but it was like it was full of some harsh dry material that threatened to choke her. "People are going to be looking for me."

"And there you go sounding like all them others," Dan chastised her mildly. "Here I thought you was different. You gets real calm-like and starts using your brain. I gotta say, sugar, a woman who's been drugged ain't usually in a frame of mind to start thinking."

"Your...photographs." Anna closed her eyes briefly. She didn't want to look at the Polaroids again. She didn't dare because those uncontrollable screams would slip out of her mouth with abandon. Then something unexpected happened. She closed her eyes, and there was that intrusive presence again. It filled her mind with a black shadow that obliterated the pictures in her mind. There was only this man there. The one she was afraid of before, the one that had frightened her into sleeplessness. There was an inexorable need that overwhelmed her inner self. Now he certainly wasn't as frightening as Dan; in fact, his presence comforted her minutely.

_Where are you?_ he commanded.

"What about 'em?" demanded Dan from the front of the cab.

Anna's eyelids rattled up with a small gasp she couldn't restrain. She tried to swallow again, to try and get some moisture into her mouth, but she couldn't get her salivary glands to work. Her mouth was as dry as a bone. "They shocked me," she finished with a harsh whisper.

"Who's gonna be looking for you?" It wasn't a question but more of a skeptical gibe. Dan chortled. "A gal like you. Some little homeless waif hitchhiking on the side of the freeway. Any kind of fool knows a little girl like you ain't got no business getting into vehicles with strange men. Didn't your momma ever tell you that?"

_My momma left me on the steps of an orphanage. What did your twisted-ass momma tell you? "Danny-boy, make sure when you rape and murder a gal, she's not likely to be missed"?_

There was another sign that went flashing by. Large and green with white letters, it was on the side of the road. Anna twisted her neck to see it. It read "Marshall, next three exits." "My friend, Jane," she said. Her tongue felt like ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag. "She's waiting for me in New Orleans. She'll call the police."

"Well, hol-ee crap on a Popsicle stick. I reckon I ought to let you out on the side of the road right here." Dan chuckled to himself again.

Anna shut her eyes again.

_Goddammit! Tell me where you are!_ The thought was like a hammer pounding on her head, the demand a bolt of lightning on her consciousness. _Don't deny me! Tell me!_ it urged seemingly without compassion or pity.

"Where are we?" she said, opening her eyes. _Marshall_ , she thought. _Marshall. Marshall! MARSHALL!_

"You planning a getaway, sugar?" Dan said slyly. "I think you better pray a policeman pulls me over. That's about the only way you're gonna walk away from me."

Anna's eyes drifted shut like weights were tied to the lids. She let herself float away in a manner she had never allowed before. And _he_ was there. Questioning. Demanding. His need was a runaway train.

_WHERE! ARE! YOU!_

_Marshall!_ she screamed back inside her head. She bit her tongue with the effort, and there was the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. The voice went silent. It was jarring and abrupt. The silence flattened every other thought in her head.

_Thank God_ , came the thought pattern, all grating masculinity. _I was sure that you wouldn't...Marshall? In Texas?_

"Anna?" said Dan.

"I believe you're too smart for a trooper to pull over, Dan," she said. Her eyes were open now, and she was trying to think, but her thoughts were like pieces of cement trying to float on water. She stood on the edge of a cliff. Jagged rocks on one side, enough to pierce her flesh and rend her to pieces. Turbulent waters and sharks were on the other side.

"Damn tootin'," he said cheerfully. "Doing 60 MPH, right as rain. As a matter of fact, I happen to know that the scales on the Louisiana border ain't even operational right now. Them boys are trying to get the most of the holidays. They ain't even gonna stop me to see how much my load is weighing. Not that it matters because I done dropped it off it in Amarillo. Nothing back there but a big empty freezer." He giggled, and she winced from the uneven noise. He waited for some feedback from the CB to die away, and he added, "I could put a hundred gals back there, and they wouldn't smell until Mother's Day, ifin I had a mind to do it."

Anna's eyes closed again. _A truck. A big truck. Eastbound toward Louisiana._

There was flow of furious emotion equivalent to an enraged snarl. She realized the mental picture in her mind of a hundred dead girls hanging from hooks in the back of a custom-made trailer was still present. Their frost-beaded bodies had frozen rivers of blood that spilled across their breasts causing crimson icicles. _No, no, no,_ she thought urgently, trying to correct the image. _Not me._ She wanted to cry out with frustration. It wasn't like talking. It was thinking and the words came to her brain so rapidly she wasn't sure if she was getting through.

_Is this some kind of drug-induced delusion?_ She wasn't sure if what was happening was even real. It was as surrealistic as a barely remembered dream.

_There are a thousand trucks on the road_ , came the muted roar that was a twisting mire of feeling and essential need. It whipped out at her. _What road? What truck?_

"A hundred little gals hanging up in the back," Dan said reflectively. "Shore I'd like to see that. Teach all you little bitches a lesson."

_Misogynistic bastard_ , she thought. Anna shivered and clinched her eyes shut. The picture wouldn't leave her mind no matter how she tried. Then she got the feeling that the other one, the one in her mind, the man who whistled wistfully, happily, while he worked, suddenly understood her dilemma. _He's talking to you about that?_ came to her.

_Yes._ She wanted to yell it. _Yes. Yes. Yes!_

_I'll find you. I won't let him hurt you anymore. Just tell me what road you're on._ It was gruff but gentle, trying to persuade her. But there was an underlying message of urgency, as if he could feel the fear she was experiencing. _Tell me. Tell me, dammit._

Her eyes snapped open, and she saw another sign flash by. She closed her eyes again and focused on that picture. _Interstate 20. Eastbound to Shreveport. 20 to Shreveport,_ she thought. She took a deep breath. _20 to Shreveport, please tell me you understand._

Finally, it came to her. _Got it. Interstate 20, headed east to Shreveport. Just past Marshall. He's not stopping until Shreveport, am I right? You're afraid of Shreveport. That's where he's taking you._

_Yes. Yes. Yes! Help me. He's insane. Pictures of women...dead women..._

_Forget that!_ trumpeted soundless thoughts teeming with anger. _The truck. Think about the truck._

Anna tried to open her eyes again. Dan was saying something else, something about stupid little girls who went too far. She could hear the vicious content of his voice, even while the other one seemed to whisper almost violently into her ears. It seemed important to try to keep up with Dan Cullen, to understand what was driving him so that she could talk him down, find his weak spot, do whatever it was that she had to do to get herself out of this, but her eyelids were so heavy. Every ounce of fatigue seemed to weigh down upon her. The drug's effect hadn't worn off at all it seemed.

A hundred dead girls were wailing to her. Their bodies were hoar crowned, and their mouths moved with frost-fettered motion. Their lips were blue with cold, their fluttering warbles were bleakly sharp.

_The truck!_ one demanded, her voice shriller than the others. _Tell us about the truck!_

_It's the big dawg,_ she thought. _He chases after the Barbie doll, and he never catches her. But he doesn't have to. He catches the real thing._

_Ah_ mon Dieu! _Wake up! Damn you! It's not too late until he strangles the life out of you! Fight the drug!_

_For a dead girl, she's pushy_ , thought Anna.

_The truck! You want to die? What color is it?_

_Black, black like the lake._ Anna almost giggled. It's what she had thought. The truck had the same impenetrable blackness. _No name on the side. No company logo. Just USDOT numbers._

_Good,_ chère. _Black like the lake. What else? A big truck? An eighteen-wheeler? A compartment in the back? That's where you're at?_

The same kind of blackness was creeping up on her senses. She opened her onerous lids and found they would only go half-mast. "Do tell, Danny-boy. What do I got to do before you let me go?" Her voice was a thready noise, but he heard her. Anna tried to reach her eyes with her hands and discovered she couldn't raise her head anymore. All she could do was turn it to the side and slowly blink as the slit of light got smaller and smaller.

_No! No! Fight it!_ Chère, _dammit! Fight it! You have to stay awake..._

The last thought kind of flickered through her mind like a trout jumping for a fly at twilight. Then she heard Dan's voice from far, far away. "Ain't gonna let you go, sweetness. Never let you gals go."

"Over my dead body," Anna muttered, and her eyes shut again. There was nothing but the deepest dark of night in her mind, where nothing lived or moved.

"Whatever tug pulls your barge," replied Dan indifferently.

"DAMMIT!" Gabriel roared.

Camille was at the wheel of his truck. She had leaped into her little Toyota the moment her brother's knees had hit the deck of the _Beau-Père_. Mathieu hadn't bothered to ask why. The twins' eyes had been as large and round as the full moon.

By the time Camille reached the general store, Gabriel was stumbling toward his larger truck, a Ford with a bigger engine. He'd tossed the keys at her, even while he tried to hold his head in his hands. "You drive!"

"Where?" she'd demanded.

"Toward the interstate!" he'd growled. He had crawled into the cab of the F-150 and braced himself against the dash. Camille had started it up and automatically turned the radio down. All around them people emerged from the shadows into the pools of light that lined the dock and the circumference of the general store. Their silent forms ringed the truck and they waited.

Sebastien Benoit was there. So was his wife, Aurore. They approached the truck and paused as they watched. Gold eyes burned in the night.

"Where?" muttered Gabriel. He twisted his hands through his black hair, ignoring the throbbing pain in his wrists, her pain from yanking at the handcuffs.

Camille's gold eyes caught Sebastien's, and she shrugged helplessly. Sebastien turned around and motioned at people. "Get your cars. Get them now. Follow Gabriel's truck when it goes."

The waiting was intolerable. It was a sigh tarrying on the cusp of his breath. "Where are you?" Gabriel repeated. Then he cursed. "She's ignoring me."

Camille grasped the wheel with her hands so hard that her knuckles turned white. She could feel the fear. The reverberations through Gabriel were so frightening, so terrifying, that she wanted to dive into a hole where all sides could be protected. She wanted to cradle her head in her hands just as he was doing.

"Goddammit!" Gabriel yelled. "Where are you!" He pounded his hands on the dash. The truck shook with the repeated hits. Camille flinched. There were pictures in her head. Pictures of women, posed obscenely, obviously dead. Horrified, she fought to block her thoughts. She didn't want any of this trickling back to her twins.

Then it came. It was an unerring shot that pierced every bit of blackness. _MARSHALL!_

Camille shook her head. She whispered, "She sounds like she doesn't know what to do. Oh Gabe, what's he doing to her?"

"He hasn't done anything...yet." Gabriel's hand slammed against the dash. His eyes glowed at her. "Freeway. Now. Cammy. I-20, and screw getting a ticket!"

Tires spun with a cloud of dirt ejected heavenward. The truck's back end skidded around until she gunned the fuel pedal. Camille hit the pavement and rubber burned as it connected with hard asphalt. "What about the family?" she yelled.

"They'll catch up," he gritted. Gabriel caught himself as the vehicle surged forward. He barely avoided banging his head against the windshield.

They blew through the only stoplight in town, and Camille stomped on the gas pedal. Gabriel muttered, "Eastbound toward Louisiana. A big truck." He made a noise and ground his teeth together. "A semi. She means a semi." He paused as he absorbed something, and Camille caught his rage peripherally as parts of the vision trickled through to her.

"Oh dear God," she said. The picture appeared in her head. Dead women hung from hooks inside a freezer, their poor frozen bodies were a study in pain. Camille glanced up and saw a set of headlights pop up behind the truck. A moment later and another car joined them. Then another. Beside her Gabriel was fighting to rein in his temper. His fists clenched and unclenched.

"Not real," he said at last. "It's _him._ The truck driver. He's talking to her about that. It's in her head."

Lights of homes were a blur as Camille's foot renewed her attack on the gas pedal. She knew the road as well as anyone; she had been down it a thousand times day and night. She turned on the brights and prayed that animals would choose this night to listen to their instincts.

Gabriel's hands were braced against the dash, and his head lowered as he fought against the girl. "She's drugged," he said. "She's drugged and her mind is blurred. Ah Jesus. She can't get that picture out of her mind. Women who've been gutted and hung out like trophies."

Camille felt sick. The truck passed a sign. Like the one in the girl's thoughts. White lettering on a green background announced it was fifteen miles to the Interstate. She said quickly, "If they just passed Marshall, we can get to them, Gabe."

"They're on the interstate," he announced with triumph. "Good girl. Just a little more."

Feeling his riotous unchecked thoughts, Camille recoiled. "Slow down, Gabriel. She's frightened."

"I know she's frightened!" Gabriel yelled. "I just don't want her dead!" He threw his hands up. "Something about a big dog and a Barbie doll! What is this crap?"

Camille rolled around a corner doing 45 MPH. She slammed her foot down again and the truck surged to 60, passed 70, and leveled out at 80. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw six vehicles' lights following her at a similar pace. Even the next bit came to her. _Black, black like the lake. No name on the side. No company logo. Just USDOT numbers._

Gabriel sat straight up and screamed, "No! No! Fight it! _Chère,_ dammit! Fight it! You have to stay awake..."

Nevertheless, the nameless girl was gone.

# Chapter Five

## Sunday, December 14th

_If one wishes to live and thrive, then let the spinning spider stay alive._

_Wake up!_

The dangling Barbies alternated shrieking with grim whispers of the wretched death that was to come. The words insinuated themselves in Anna's subconscious, working into the roots of her soul, recalling every vision of hell that Catholic nuns had instilled into a child's growing fears.

_Wake up! Dammit! Wake up!_

_I don't want to wake up,_ thought Anna resentfully. _This is a living nightmare, and not waking up is much better than the alternative._

_Don't give up! Don't! Give! Up!_ Chère _, you're so close. I can almost feel your breath on my cheek._

That sounded nice to Anna. Someone who wanted something so simple and basic couldn't be evil. It didn't sound like Dan Cullen's idea of a normal relationship between a man and a woman. Her eyelids fluttered reluctantly.

"What'd you say, darling?" said Dan. She blinked and saw that he still sat at the wheel of the Peterbilt, his attention on the highway unraveling in front of him. It was still nighttime outside. She was still handcuffed to the side of the sleeper.

"When does this stuff wear off, Dan?" she said weakly. The world was spinning around her. Her stomach rolled with nausea.

"Pshaw," he threw back at her. "It's just a little drug. Keep you quiet and not all riled up-like."

The message Anna got from that was that she was probably going to be dead before the drug had a chance to work its way completely out of her system. She ignored the implication. "Jane isn't the only one looking for me," she said. Her voice sounded far away to her, high-pitched and strange in her own ears. "They're coming. _He's_ coming."

Dan swiveled his head to look at her. The green light from the instrument panel made him look like a devil out of a ten-cent carnival ride. He glanced back at the road, his hands grasping the steering wheel. "Whatchu talking about, Anna? Ain't no one coming for you."

"They know about you," Anna chanted. She tugged at the handcuffs and was rewarded with a fresh surge of pain emanating from her wrists. A fresh trickle of blood made its way down one of her arms, making her realize that the breath of life was hot against her icy flesh. She was just like one of the Barbies in the freezer. "They know and _he_ knows and he's mad. God, he's mad. When I shut my eyes, it's like a great wave of anger breaking over my head."

"Shut up," said Dan. It was a mild command.

Anna was as high as a kite. Although everything felt encased in a wrap of fuzzy material, she looked out and saw another sign. _Still on Interstate 20._ A moment later there was another sign. "Welcome to Louisiana," it announced cheerfully.

"Welcome to Louisiana," repeated Anna, not so cheerfully. "Never been here before. It's not what I thought it would be like."

"Shut up!" Dan snarled at her, reaching out a hand to slam it against the wall of the sleeper.

Anna blinked confusedly. _What the hell is he upset at?_ "What, don't you like me anymore, Dan?"

"If I pull over before we reach my house, Anna, you're gonna regret it," Dan warned her, his voice a barely contained growl.

"What? You're going to kill me? Maybe rape and torture me too?" Anna giggled. "Well, damn. I thought that was the plan to begin with."

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" yelled Dan.

Biting her lip, Anna complied. She sighed and pulled at her wrists once more. Her eyelids floated down, and immediately _he_ was there again. Bigger than Dan, the mad trucker, he was large and dark, filtering through her mind. Was this some kind of perverse vision of hope for her? But his thought patterns were as clear as crystal to her. _What does the truck look like?_

_Black. Black. Black_. Anna almost giggled again. _Big and black. With a monster in it. He doesn't look like one. But he is. He's got pictures to prove it. A monster that wears a New Orleans Saints cap._ "Ah, there it is," she said, as another raging swell of emotion billowed up and threatened to drown her. "He's so angry. You got nothing on him, Dan."

Dan made a derisive noise. "Just the drugs," he said. "Ain't nothing but drugs messing up your mind, girl. You seeing things."

_Tell me about the truck!_ the voice inside Anna's head demanded. _There's got to be something else besides the color! Has it got a trailer on it? What kind of truck is it?_

_Peterbilt,_ Anna grasped it. It was so hard to think properly. Was there really someone out there trying to help her or was this some bizarre hallucination? It seemed more likely that whatever drugs Dan had given to her were making a weird impact on her cogitative processes.

_Good. A black Peterbilt. With a trailer on the back?_

It didn't seem to matter if she answered the questions her persistent imagination was asking her. It didn't harm anything. Better than talking to Dan Cullen, who had plans for her that didn't involve identifying the truck they were driving in. _A trailer. A long white trailer. No logo on it. Think he owns the whole kit and caboodle._

C'est bon! _Good_ , ma p'tite. _Do you know where you are?_

_Crossed the state line. I saw the sign. I've never been to Louisiana before._ Anna tried to open her eyes, but it was too hard.

_Never been...never mind that. Have you seen other signs?_

_Signs that I'm having a bad day_ , thought Anna inanely. _Saw an owl this morning in full light. Got out of bed on the wrong side this morning, except it wasn't really a bed. Just deep grass on the side of the road. Forgot to say my prayers yesterday. Got into a truck with a psychopathic truck driver named Danny boy. Bad signs._

Ah, Dieu. _Road signs! Look for them. Can you see any road signs?_

_Oh, those kind. Silly me. I'm a little bit preoccupied with the serial murderer in the front of the truck._

There was an instantaneous blast of nameless emotion. Anna might have called it angry frustration coupled with furious helplessness. She suddenly found the energy to open her eyes, and she looked for what was being demanded of her.

There were billboards. She could see those passing swiftly by, flashes of lettering, colors, and light. She could hear more traffic around them. Clearly, they were getting closer to Shreveport. Anna shut her eyes and shivered.

_Forget Shreveport! Look at the damn signs! How long before he stops?_

_I don't want to know that,_ thought Anna. _I don't want to know how long it's going to be before he pulls out his trusty hunting knife._

_Ask him_ , Chère _. Ask him. Get him to tell you how long before he gets off the interstate!_

Anna's eyelids opened. "So Dan, we going to do some gambling? Take in a show? I hear Wayne Newton does Bossier City sometimes."

Dan chuckled. His good humor was instantly restored. "I love Wayne Newton. But I think I hear tell that Gladdys Knight was playing this week at one of them riverside casinos. We're going right by there. Maybe we'll see something we like."

Her eyelids dropped. _Going through Shreveport and Bossier City. Not getting off the freeway until after._

_Are you sure?_

_I think so._

Dieu. _You have to be sure!_

"So, Dan, where do you live? Inside the city?" Her eyes opened, and she stared at his brown hair that looked black in the obscured light of the truck's dashboard components.

Dan flicked a look across his shoulder at her. "Whatchu want to know that for?"

"Just being realistic, Dan. Like to know how long before I can get out of the truck. I've really got to go to the bathroom."

"The bathroom?"

"Hey, you don't want me peeing all over this nice bed. Stink it right up."

There was a pause. "You can hold it. I'm on the other side of Bossier. Near Barksdale. Twenty minutes more."

Anna didn't waste her time asking him to stop to let her go to the bathroom. She already knew Dan wouldn't do it. He didn't dare. He'd rather clean up her urine and buy a new mattress if he had to do just that. She shut her eyes. _I'm sure. Somewhere near some town called Barksdale._

_Barksdale is an Air Force Base_ , Chère. _Don't worry._

_Easy for a figment of my imagination to say._ Anna directly felt a sense of relief within the other one. Something had changed. She didn't know what it was, but he was reassured, and it soothed her as well.

_Figment of your imagination?_

"Just a figment of my imagination," Anna repeated aloud.

"What?" said Dan.

"Just your fucking drugs you slipped in my coffee," Anna said. Her eyes were still clenched tightly shut. "I think they're screwing with my mind."

Dan snorted. "If you think that's the worst part, you gotta another think coming."

_Shut up! Don't make him angrier. He might stop before we can..._

"Is this the only way you can get a woman, Dan? 'Cause it's pretty pathetic. God, you can get a hooker that's into S&M and not worry about anything except some morals law, and well, hell, you live in Louisiana. Prostitutes pay the cops and judges out of their own pockets..."

Her eyes jerked open as she heard Dan say something incoherent. He unsnapped his safety belt with a seamless motion and leaned backward and to his right. One of his hands streaked outward and knocked her head soundly around toward the back of the sleeper. When she brought her head back around Dan was settling his body back in the captain's chair, the same hand on the seat belt, bringing it home with the same uninterrupted movement. His foot wasn't even off the pedal long enough for the truck to slow.

"Don't mess with me, Anna," Dan said. "I can make it worse than it's gotta be. Instead of being with me a few days, you can last a month in my cellar. Believe me, sweetness, it'll be hell. You'll be begging me to kill you."

Anna spit out a mouthful of blood. "I think you made a mistake, Dan. I think you picked the wrong girl."

His head spun around. "What?" he spat out. "You gonna stop me?"

"No. I don't think it's going to be me at all." She shut her eyes again.

_What did he do?_ the voice in her head shot out.

_He's driving. He can't do anything to me._ Anna felt silly, reassuring something in her mind, but it seemed necessary. That residual surge of furious emotion that came calling when the whistling man thought she was being hurt was almost worse than Dan smacking her in the face. _Nothing at all until...he stops driving..._

Two cars and two trucks sat on the wrong side of the road on an overpass. One man stared down at the interstate below him, watching vehicles pass underneath him. He could see that a van and a Mustang sat on the shoulder of the road with their engines running. The exhaust made little clouds in the cold air. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees since sunset, and the wind was picking up causing a wind-chill that had most of the people waiting trembling and huddling by their car heaters.

Gabriel didn't notice. He stood with his hands resting on the concrete walls that prevented man and car from falling onto the freeway below him and waited. He ground his teeth together and knew that his jaws would soon be aching with the pressure he had exerted on them today. It didn't matter.

She flickered in and out as they drove like a bat out of hell. Camille finally had reached the overpass and screeched to a halt on the side overlooking eastbound traffic. _Still on Interstate 20_. Still headed toward Shreveport, which frightened the nameless girl, almost as badly as the photographs she had seen. Gabriel persisted and was rewarded by her identifying the type of truck.

"A black Peterbilt with a sleeper. No company name on the side. No logo. White USDOT letters. A long white trailer. He probably owns it outright. An independent contractor." Gabriel's voice was hoarse.

Camille nodded. She turned to the CB radio in Gabe's truck and relayed the information to the van below. Normally, she wouldn't have bothered with the equipment, but Gabriel's seething wrath combined with worry and the unknown girl's broadcasting fear was making normal family communication impossible. The van belonged to Sebastien's son, Gaspard. He responded, "Sure, I got it. Make sure you stay on channel 12. We don't want him hearing us and turning off the freeway, no?"

"They aren't far," gritted Gabriel. "She saw the state line. Her mind is like a jar of spider webs. It's so hard to fight through it." He made a fist and slammed it against the wire fence. It rippled in response. "She wanders."

He paused and concentrated. "Good. Fifteen miles away. Still on 20. Coming this direction."

Camille stared at the oncoming traffic. Sitting in the driver seat of the truck, she kept the engine running and waited. "How will we get him to stop, Gabe?"

"If I have to call the police I will. If not, we can follow him to his house. We have to stop him."

"I know, Gabriel," she soothed, biting her lip at the unfamiliar grating sound that was her brother's anxiety. "I know. We will. He won't do that to her too."

She watched as her brother stood outside in the chill. He had discarded his coat while working on the _Beau-Père_ and the _Belle-Mère._ When the first rush of information had come to him, all thoughts of protection from the cold had escaped him. Ignoring the temperature, he stood against the retaining wall and stared down into the lights of eastbound traffic.

Bits and pieces of what he was getting from the girl came through to Camille. Gabriel was too rattled by the images she was projecting to maintain his customary blocks and walls. His sister wasn't sure which one was which in the scramble of thoughts and emotions. _You have to be sure! Barksdale. A town? Don't worry! Figment of your imagination? Don't make him angrier! What did he do? He's driving. He can't do anything to me. Nothing at all until...he stops driving..._

They waited. Gabriel grew increasingly edgy. His eyes began to burn as he stared at the countless pairs of headlights passing underneath them. "She's hallucinating," he said at last.

Camille shivered in reaction. She couldn't do anything to protect her older, stronger brother now. She had tried to in the past, telling him the girl would come to him, that she would realize her fate and succumb to it, but she hadn't. Now Camille realized that the nameless girl hadn't known what she was supposed to do. There was no explanation, no reason for that to be so. Gabriel had come to the conclusion that she was playing games with him, that she wanted nothing to do with the family, and consequently had started to develop a hatred for her. However, he was a kind man with a good heart, and when necessity had reared its horrendous head, he had come running.

"There's a Peterbilt," he yelled, pointing at a semi that passed underneath him.

Gaspard came on the CB. Static crackled in between his words. "It's blue, not black. And there's a logo from Saint Louis. I think they sell left-handed widgets." It was a weak joke, and no one laughed.

Gabriel's mind was racing. She was fading in his mind like she was growing distant from him, but there was an itchy sensation on the back of his neck, as if he could have turned, and there she would be standing, waiting for him to notice her. He had no idea of what she looked like. She could have warts on the end of her nose and pink-dyed hair, but it would be her all the same.

Two more trucks passed under him. One was red and a Freightliner. Another was a dump truck. Then there was a black one. _Black as the lake._ It had a white trailer and Gabriel craned his neck to see if there was a logo. He saw none.

Gaspard's voice came clearly through the CB, through the open window to Gabriel, "Black. No logo. Has a sleeper, _mon frère_. I can't see the man, but there is a driver. Funny."

Gabriel snapped at Camille, "What's funny?"

She jerked the microphone to her and repeated her brother's words.

Gaspard came back. "It had some kind of thing on the grill. Like the _cocodrie's_ mouth. Wide open with big fangs." He laughed. "And a little doll in the middle."

Camille didn't see Gabriel move. Then he was beside her, slamming his hands on the dash, yelling, "That's her! Dammit! Move, Cammy! Move!"

"Gaspard!" she yelled in turn. "It's them! Follow them! Follow them now!"

When she dropped the microphone she heard the vehicles below them peel out and the angry horn of a car that had been cut off. There was the sound of brakes being slammed down and then Gaspard was shouting back, "I'm on it! Follow us!"

Gabriel's eyes were on the road as Camille did a U-turn. The truck slid out in a half-circle, and the tail end had to compensate before it caught up. Then she was on the entrance ramp, and they could hear the others following them.

"Not _le cocodrie_ ," Gabriel said, his voice a thread of barely restrained temper. "Not the alligator's mouth. _It's the big dawg, He chases after the Barbie doll, and he never catches her. But he doesn't have to. He catches the real thing._ "

Anna drifted in and out of consciousness. People were talking to her. The Barbie dolls told her weird tales. Jane wondered where her good friend had gone. The nuns came to tell her that they had always known she'd come to a bad end. Good little Catholic girls didn't become auto mechanics. And there was _him_. The whistling man. When he didn't know she was there, he seemed to whistle a lot. Still, he hadn't been whistling in the last hours at all. _Why aren't you whistling? You have a good tone. I bet you can whistle anything you want. I can't whistle at all. I never learned how._

_Calm down_ , came his mollifying patterns. There was resilience there now. His level of frustration was receding, and there was a rising sense of promise.

_I suppose you can't exactly whistle in my mind_. Anna's head lolled to one side. _Can you?_

_Are you all right_ , Chère? _Keep quiet, and let us help you._

_I thought we already went through this,_ thought Anna. _A figment can't do a damn thing._

There was an intrusive noise on the edge of her consciousness. It was another demanding voice. A man's voice, hard-edged. It broke through the soft-boiled edges of her fragmented state of senselessness and caused her to open up her eyes. And it was so hard to do the little task. Anna fought hard, and her lids threatened to revolt but up they went, and she saw Dan fiddling with the microphone of the CB. He glanced over his shoulder at her and said, "Keep your trap good and shut, darlin'."

The voice on the CB said, "Break one-nine for the big, black Peterbilt with a white trailer. You got problems, buddy." She suddenly knew that the voice was repeating itself, waiting for Dan's response.

Dan replied, "This is the Mad Dawg, feller. Whatchu talking 'bout?"

"I got your backside, Dawg, and you got a couple tires out. You must have run over something. Didn't you feel anything?" The voice was cold, and Anna fought with her monstrously leaden eyelids. It sounded so familiar to her. She should know that voice. Opening her mouth she tried to talk but nothing came out.

"Huh," said Dan. "I'll wait 'til I get home. It ain't far. Thanks feller. What'd you say your name was?"

"Gabriel," the other one responded. "Just like the angel."

"The divine messenger," announced Dan. "I done read my Bible when I was a young 'un." He said it as if he should receive some sort of special recognition.

There was a hesitation on the other end. Then Gabriel said, "I got a message for you, Dawg. You can't wait until you get home for this one."

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" Dan chuckled to himself. Then he muttered, "This guy just wants to make a buck off helping me change a tire."

"Your brakes on those flats just caught on fire," said the other man. "Better stop before you lose your trailer."

"Son of a bitch," swore Dan, immediately downshifting. The truck protested loudly, but the air brakes started to catch, and they slowed down. When it stopped, Dan unfastened his seat belt and turned to Anna. "Sorry, darlin'. Can't have you making a lot of noise." He lifted his hand up and it slammed it down on her thigh. She didn't even have time to protest.

There was a sharp prick in her flesh. A slow moving burning sensation followed it and radiated outward. She didn't see Dan throw the empty syringe down beside her nor hear him mutter, "That'll shut you up, won't it now?"

Gabriel was waiting by the door when Dan Cullen climbed out of the Peterbilt. Gabriel carefully studied the man with the New Orleans Saints cap. Dan leapt to the asphalt with the agility of a fifteen-year-old. He sprinted past the man with the black hair and the gold eyes and headed for the back of the tractor-trailer. He didn't notice the vehicles parked behind the trailer on the shoulder of the interstate. Nor did he notice the people waiting for him in the deep shadows cast by the eighteen-wheeler.

"Where's the goddamned fire?" Dan demanded. He crouched on his knees and scanned the underside of the trailer and saw nothing. There was only the glow of the parking lights. He couldn't even see the ruined tires that the voice on the CB had mentioned.

The man that had been waiting for him was standing behind him when Dan straightened up. Gabriel watched as Dan turned around angrily and opened his mouth to issue a blistering tirade. Gabriel interrupted him with, "You're a Saints fan." He motioned at the cap on Dan's head. Her words came back to Gabriel, _A monster that wears a New Orleans Saints cap._

Dan took a step backwards, bumping into the edge of the trailer. The other man was too close, and there was a glacial expression on his face. "Hell, yes! I live in Louisiana," Dan snarled as he swiftly noticed the gold color of Gabriel's eyes. Lights from westbound traffic sporadically lit up his face. Puzzled, Dan turned and bent again to look at the wheels of his trailer. He noticed the other people there and growled, "Who the hell are—"

Dan didn't say anything else.

# Chapter Six

## Wednesday, December 17th

_A person with an ailment of the skin can rid themselves of their condition by plucking nine hairs from the mane of a gray stallion and then wear it in a plaited braid around their necks for nine days._

Anna woke up again, and the accomplishment actually surprised her. She came to consciousness through a slow process that was not unlike fighting her way through an impenetrable patch of briars. When she finally realized that she was truly awake, she was afraid to open her eyes.

_I've never been afraid of anything in my life before this_ , Anna thought. Not when a bully from the orphanage broke her arm nor when she had to move into another foster home by herself without Jane at her side. _Not when Mother Superior told me I would have to leave the orphanage because I had graduated from high school, and it was time for me to find my own way in the world. Not ever._

Without opening her eyes she listened as carefully as she could, just as if listening could tell her how secure she was. She felt her own breathing. Not excited or anxious, just even and slow as if she had awoken from a natural sleep. There was a humming noise, a low humming from something mechanical. It sounded like a space heater. Then there was something really strange. The chattering noises of birds came from only a short distance away, excited about something that had disturbed their serenity. It was as if nothing untoward had occurred, as if all was safe and well in the world.

Memories assailed her. _Dan stopped the truck. Someone on the CB had told him the trailer was on fire. Then he drugged me again. Jabbed me in the thigh with a needle. What the hell happened?_ Anna's eyes shot up. She saw a ceiling. It was a plain ceiling with popcorn spackling. A motionless ceiling fan made from wood and brass was centered on the ceiling. She reluctantly rolled her eyes. The room was dark but only because the shades were drawn over the windows. Enough light spilled in from the sides of the curtains to show a small room with a large sleigh bed made from some dark wood. A matching dresser sat on one side. The walls were wood paneled, made of another dark wood that had a faint golden glow. The space heater was on the floor by the window, still humming.

_Is this Dan's house? His little plain bedroom? Is he all talk and no action?_

Anna moved gingerly and discovered an old patchwork quilt covering her from the end of her chin to the tips of her toes. It gave her pause. Somehow she knew that Dan wasn't the type to blanket his victims with some family heirloom. It appeared decades old, perhaps carefully stitched in the light of the fire by some industrious granny. It was a beautiful multi-colored piece of art. She pulled it out from underneath her chin and moved it carefully away from her body.

Dressed in a cotton nightgown that she had never seen before, Anna also discovered that she bore vivid reminders of her nightmare experience. Her wrists were covered with gauze and taped into place. There were also colorful bruises. _Would Dan have cleaned me up? Wrapped my bloody wrists? Put me in a nightgown? Put me to bed?_

Moving her legs to the side of the bed, Anna sat up, and her head spun sickly. Her right leg was a leaden lump of flesh. She waited until the dizziness passed and pulled the gown above her thigh. There was a lump there the size of a baseball. It was a rainbow of yellow, green, and blue extending out from a dried spot of blood in the center, the spot where Dan had stuck her with the needle.

Anna didn't stop the little moan of distress. Anything could have happened while she was unconscious. She instantly stamped her distress down. _I'm alive. It's all that counts. I'm alive, and I want to stay alive._ She brought shaking hands to her face and saw a pile of neatly folded clothing in a chair sitting next to the dresser. Her ragged tennis shoes were perched on top of the clothing, a pair of socks tucked into one. _Those are mine!_ They were freshly laundered and pressed, waiting for her.

Launching herself to her feet, Anna immediately caught herself on the side of the dresser with one hand while the world spun nauseatingly about her. _Mary, mother of Jesus, what did he give me? Something that put me out so fast I couldn't scream or bang my legs against the side of the sleeper. How long have I been like this?_

Slowly she began to feel better, and she shed the nightgown without pause. Anna looked down upon her body with apprehension, uncertain what she would find. There were more bruises on her arms. There was some soreness in her shoulder sockets from being in an unnatural position in the sleeper for hours. There was the huge blackened bump on her thigh. Her jaw ached a little from being hit in the face. Dan had caused her teeth to cut the inside of her mouth. Her body ached as if she had been running a high fever that had suddenly abated. Still, there didn't seem to be anything else wrong. She forced her legs into her jeans and sat on the edge of the bed to lace up her Nikes.

As clothing went on, Anna began to feel an incredible amount of relief flowing through her body. All those twisted nightmares and hallucinations in the hours of her kidnapping were just that, nightmares. Then there had been the voices in her head, demanding her location, reassuring her. The same voice that was the one she dreamed about. _His_ voice. _His_ thought patterns. She paused in the process of yanking her tee shirt over her head. _Only my subconscious playing tricks on me. Only that. Nothing more._

Anna finished pulling the t-shirt on and buttoned her jeans. She was standing next to the closet. Hesitantly she reached out and opened it. Maybe she had been expecting someone from a horror movie to leap out at her, but there was only men's clothing hanging there. Work shirts, some were flannel and some were cotton. There was a large leather coat that wasn't hers. And there was one that was hers. She almost smiled. Her coat was hanging sedately in the closet. She looked down. There was her backpack on the floor of the closet, next to three pairs of men's shoes and one pair of steel-toed leather boots.

Yanking the coat off the hanger, she pulled the backpack out at the same time. She tried to pull her coat onto her arms while she tried to unzip the bag. One sleeve hung off as she found out that everything was still there. The Bible. Clothing. Even her battered sunglasses were present. She paused to clutch the backpack to her chest and closed her eyes momentarily.

_Relax._ It came to her as a gentle brushing against her mind. Soothingly probing. Seductive.

_The whistling man_. Her eyes rocketed open as the thought whispered sinuously through her mind. _No, that's not possible. An aftereffect of the drug._ She held the backpack to her chest, and her lips flattened into a grim line. One step brought her close to the window. One trembling hand parted the curtains.

Anna dropped the backpack just as her mouth dropped open. One leather sleeve of her jacket was on her arm, and the other flapped across her back.

It was the lake. _The black lake_. It stretched far and away. Its surface was as dark as pitch. Cypress trees as large as Greyhound buses towered along its length. A flock of long-necked snow-white birds took flight from one. A cloud of frosty wings obscured the blueness of the sky above. She went to the door of the bedroom.

Ignoring the tidy house, with a tiny living room and attached kitchen, she found the front door and stepped outside. There was a cinnamon-speckled spaniel with soft brown eyes that woofed quietly at her and then put his head down on his paws. She noticed him peripherally. She could only stare dumbfounded at the lake. It was bigger than her dreams. The other side was a dim shape of trees lost in a haze of clouds. But the deep color of the water made her want to step closer and closer until she could reach one hand out to touch it.

A fish jumped fifty feet out and Anna started. The leather coat slipped off, and she absently let it drop to the ground in a brown puddle. She walked across a green lawn, passed a bench that was positioned to look out upon the same lake, and came to the edge of the water. There was no beach here. Grass went to the edge and then there was tar-colored water that lapped with the movement of an unseen moon.

She knelt and touched her fingers to the water, dipping them under and bringing the liquid up to her face to study it closely. That close it didn't seem so dark. Just lake water. The top layers were as warm as the winds, heated by the sun's now-friendly light. Finally, she looked away and saw a house a hundred yards to the side. There was a small dock there with a large fishing boat moored to it. The house was almost lost in the thickness of pine trees and oaks. To the other side was another house, a little further away. Small and trim, it had a small boat turned upside down on its lawn. Behind her was the house she had woken up in. Like the others, it was little with cedar flashing and a tidy lawn.

Looking back at the deep dark waters, she thought about it. Anna wasn't positive, but she didn't think that Shreveport had lakes like this near to the city. There was a river. The Red River. She knew that, but she wasn't sure about bayous and lakes near there. This wasn't just a lake; it was a huge bayou, looking as old as if God had created it on the sixth day. No one had come to cut the cypress trees, to crop them to the level of the water where they would remain as ghostly remnants. No one had built casinos on its shores. There were only the people who loved its visceral wildness, whose homes blended into the forest, who relished the quietness.

_It's breathtaking_ , she thought. _It's everything I dreamed of, and yet, it's like nothing I ever imagined._

"Why did you wait so damn long?" came an intrusive voice that disrupted Anna's train of thought. She spun around so quickly that the world started to tilt on its axis. The man reached out to steady her, but she waved him off.

Anna's vision settled down, and she looked at him. Not Dan Cullen. Perhaps five years older than her, he was about the same number of inches taller than she was. Wide shoulders braced his torso, a worn t-shirt showed off muscles used to hard work. He had a flat belly and strong legs encased in faded Levis. Boots covered his feet. Every inch of him vibrated with nameless emotion. It was his face that drew the most attention. Framed with black curly hair, it was a substantial face with expressive features, a long jaw line, and a straight nose. It enthralled her. This man had some kind of energy behind the façade that drew her into his physical presence, making her forget everything else.

It was the eyes that froze her into place. Those gold eyes. Piercingly gilded, they stared at hers in turn. A color Anna had only ever seen in a mirror. _We could be related,_ she realized _. We could be...brother and sister?_

"You're not my sister," the man snapped. He reached out to grasp her shoulders, and he jerked her toward him, leaning into her at the same time. She saw his head duck toward her, and her eyes shut automatically as he ground his mouth against hers. Anna couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. There was a weight on her chest that seemed to sink into her body cavity, threatening to carry her away with its heaviness. It was a feeling that she didn't dare identify. An eternity passed, and the man let go of her shoulders, reaching around to press against her back, pushing her against his chest, as if he wanted them to forget where one started and the other one ended.

Anna's eyes tore open. She brought her hands up and shoved the man away from her. He jerked backward, and his gold eyes burned at her.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she shrieked at him. Then with all of her strength, she pulled her leg back and kicked him on his shin. His eyes opened wide with the sudden pain in his leg, falling backwards onto his butt with a grunt. Then he toppled into the lake.

Gabriel knew the moment she woke up. There was a waxing sense of black fear that gurgled ever upward to full wakefulness. He was stripping the teak deck of the _Belle-Mère_ with steady strokes of an orbital sander. Just because she was unconscious and lying in his cabin didn't mean he had to dance attendance on her motionless form.

"She's been that way for three days," he'd hissed at Camille that morning.

Camille had rolled her eyes. She sat with the young woman for several hours while Gabriel took care of his business, but today there were no tours, no one to guide, and as Christmas speedily approached, the tourist industry began to lull.

"I have work to do," Gabriel had protested, grumpy from having slept on his undersized couch for the last three nights.

"So do I," Camille had snapped back. "Children to raise. House to clean. Another job, _mon frère_. And she's your problem."

Mutinously, Gabriel had stayed in the house for precisely two hours before he'd fled to the comforting security of the _Belle-Mère_ , a half-mile away at its dock near Benoit's General Store. Two more hours of working on the deck had settled his mind. He hadn't even paid much attention to Sebastien Benoit wandering out of the store every fifteen minutes to stare at him as he worked.

"Anh," Gabriel had ducked his head down to steadfastly ignore the unsaid message. _She's unconscious. What the hell am I supposed to do? Hold her hand and whisper that nothing else will harm her?_ He hadn't realized that he had let his guard down when the thought came flying into his mind, as smooth as silk, as soft as a _bebe's_ behind. _That's exactly what you're supposed to do._

_Get out of my head, Cammy._

_Don't want to be there, Gabe. You left yourself wide open._

The door had slammed shut and the connection vaporized. Gabriel had shoved so hard against the orbital sander that the motor started to whine and smoke with the pressure being applied to it.

Then _she_ had woken up. They didn't even know her name. She didn't have a wallet. Nothing was written on the label of her jacket. There wasn't a name on the Bible inside her pack. There was pretty much nothing. Just the girl herself. Short black hair, skin the color of an antique ivory cameo, and her eyes as gold as their own. A face that was as close to the most beautiful he'd ever seen and a figure that made his flesh groan for relief.

Gabriel paused, his mouth a grim line. The little handcuff key had been on the key ring in the truck's ignition. When he had stuck his head in the back of the sleeper, he thought for a moment she was dead, and he clearly remembered the thought that went skittering through his head. _She can't be dead_. And there had been an instantaneous echo of thoughts bolstering him. _Not dead. Not dead. Not. Dead_.

Carrying her out of the semi, Gabriel couldn't even see the rise and fall of her chest. She had been cold and still in his arms, virtually the next thing to being dead. It had only been hours later when Dr. Quenelle had left Gabe's bedroom with a sigh and a smile that Gabriel had relaxed, and that interior wall had gone back up to protect his psychic being from the rest of the family.

"Drugged. Only drugged. Probably have some side effects. No need to counteract the drug. Her pulse is strong. Her injuries are minimal." Michel Quenelle's words filtered back to Gabriel as he had picked up on her state of alertness. He paused as he perceived the unspoken question in Gabriel's mind. "No, not that. But she's going to be afraid. We know what that means."

So at the moment that she had woken up, Gabriel picked up on that fear. He had turned off the sander, reluctantly waved at Sebastien, who had immediately stuck his head out the door of the store, and trotted off in the direction of his cabin.

Five minutes after that he had watched her as she stared at the lake. He had previously examined her face while she lay unconscious. Now that she was awake and standing in front of him, there was a significant change in his attitude. He studied her shapely form. Alive and animated, she was as enthralling to him as the lake obviously was to her. Silently he willed her to turn around.

Then it came to him _. It's breathtaking_ , she had thought. _It's everything I dreamed of, and yet, it's like nothing I ever imagined._

_She's never seen it before?_ It was curious. Gabriel had dismissed it with a growl, "Why did you wait so damn long?"

She spun around and clearly the effort cost her. Her face was the color of salt, and her body wavered on its feet. One of his hands shot out, but she motioned him off. Her face was a thousand times lovelier when she was awake. The curiosity in her gold eyes, the curve of her bow-shaped lips, the lively rush of half-concealed thoughts that roared across her consciousness, all made her breathtakingly gorgeous.

Then came the thought that really rattled him. _We could be related_ , she thought. _We could be...brother and sister?_

"You're not my sister," Gabriel snarled before he had really screwed up.

He watched her run into the house while bobbing in the waist deep water. One hand rubbed his throbbing shin under the water's surface. For someone who was probably as weak as a newborn kitten, she had clocked him good. "Well, _merde_ ," he said to himself. "That'll show you what that gets you."

Phideaux the spaniel watched the young woman slam the door and then looked interestedly at his master climbing out of the lake. Gabriel hopped around on one foot while he simultaneously rubbed his shin with one hand and glared at the house. Water dripped from his flesh. He abruptly put his foot down and stood up straight when he clearly heard her throw the deadbolt on the door. "That's _my_ house," he protested. He looked down at the dog, which sat in a sunny spot with his speckled head up and his eyes big. He hadn't bothered to move from his assigned location. "Some guard dog. You can't keep a little woman like that out of my house."

Phideaux woofed and put his head down.

Gabriel approached the door and hoped she hadn't found his shotgun in the back of the bedroom closet. He hadn't thought that she would think he was some kind of twisted pervert like the one who had her handcuffed in the back of a semi-truck. Consequently, it hadn't occurred to him that he would need to protect himself from her. His shin pounded like the devil had come up from the Gulf for a bit of crawdaddy gumbo and play the steel drums until he got what he wanted. Slowly he came to the door and rapped on it. "Girl?"

There was nothing but silence from the other side. He knew what Camille would say. She was frightened. She had woken up in a strange place with only a strange man around, someone who had straightaway tried to maul her. Gabriel took a deep breath. He'd never had a problem keeping his hands to himself before. "Girl?" he repeated. "I know you're scared. You got nothing to worry about now. That man. Well, he's not going to hurt no one for a long time, least of all any little girls."

Silence.

"Or big girls," he added inanely. Gabriel opened his mind up. Nothing answered there except a red rippling sense of anger. Anger could be an effective block. Just as fear opened the mind like a sinkhole, anger could shut it down like the heaviest metal doors on a bank vault. Anger was good. Anger was better than stinking fear. He ran a frustrated hand through black hair and looked around. Spotting her leather jacket on the lawn, he limped over to pick it up. He returned to the porch and hung it over one of the Adirondack chairs sitting there. "Girl," he said louder. "You want to call your _maman_? She might want to know that her _bebe_ is all right. I know I would want to know if my child was okay. It's been three days since you came here. The _docteur_ said something about side effects. He didn't know what that the truck driver had given you..."

"Three days?" came her insistent voice full of disbelief, muffled through the door.

Gabriel sighed with relief. " _Oui._ You slept for three days." He crossed his arms over his chest and thought about what a fool he felt, standing on the outside of his own house while the impertinent young thing stood inside, questioning his motives. "I will call _le docteur_ again. Then maybe you'll feel..."

"Call whoever you want," she growled, "but I'm not staying here. Not with you."

"Oh Christ," he swore fluidly. _Camille! Dammit! Get over here right now!_

_Oh for the love of_ le diable, _Gabriel! What have you done NOW?_

# Chapter Seven

## Wednesday, December 17th

_If one wishes to protect their family, a priest should take a Bible and circle the house thrice, waving the Good Book while it is open, and loudly entreating the Lord to watch over those who dwell within._

Sebastien Benoit knew that business was poor in the days immediately preceding Christmas. Shrugging, he didn't really care. He stocked what the family needed and novelty items for the tourists. His was the only general store within twenty miles. In fact it was the only convenience store within the same area, and the money was consistent. He didn't need the Christmas rush. So his only amusement had been going out to see the predicament that Gabriel Bergeron found himself in.

The boy had worked on his boat for two hours, producing a sheen of sweat that Sebastien could see all the way from his door. An hour into Gabriel's enforced labor, a labor that was obviously a concerted effort to forget about the pretty young _mam'selle_ lying in his bed, Gaspard came into the store.

The eldest son of Sebastien, Gaspard closely resembled his father. Six feet tall, he was as broad as any man in Unknown, and he worked hard to maintain his welding business in a slowing economy. Often he traveled to Shreveport and Bossier City for work. These were irregular jobs that kept the bankers at bay. His hair had the same raven's wing luster as many of the other family members and his eyes the same burnished shade of gold. His features were a duplicate of his father's. A squared face with high cheekbones attested to Indian ancestors.

On his way to a job in LaValle, Gaspard had motioned toward Gabriel systematically going over the wooden deck with the orbital sander. " _Maman_ says that he's in for a rough ride with the _jolie femme_."

His father had moved his shoulders noncommittally. The entire event had been troubling to everyone in the family. There had been anxious calls from as far away as New Orleans from those who had felt the unchecked fear bursting forth from her. No one was looking for a pretty young thing hitchhiking her way east. No one knew her name, but the word had gone forth to check with others out of the immediate area for the by-blows, and the distant relations who might have recessive genes coming to light.

Sebastien himself had searched her belongings. The Bible in her backpack had looked so familiar to him that he was disappointed there was no family name inscribed there, perhaps denoting a relationship to one of the many family names that populated the area and therefore solving the mystery. _Le docteur_ had pronounced her fit, but recommended that she sleep off her anxiety as long as someone stayed nearby, someone being Gabriel, of course. But Gabriel, like many men in that situation, was digging his heels into the sandy soils with the fierce determination for which he was known.

Gaspard had left before Sebastien began to feel the same thing as Gabriel had. The girl was waking up. There was that rushing sense of abject dread that came to her when she floated up into full consciousness. Sebastien couldn't help sticking his head out the door just after that to see what Gabriel would do. The boy had fled the sanctuary of his boat and trotted toward his cabin. Sebastien nodded firmly, rubbing his head where the pain seemed most intense.

Minutes later it had stopped. Then there was a gush of mottled anger that blocked everything else, and Sebastien couldn't help a reluctant chuckle. He didn't know what Gabriel had done, but it must have been a doozie.

Deliberately going about his typical business, Sebastien couldn't get the child out of his mind. She had the delicate features of an angel, a characteristic that put him in the frame of reference of someone he'd known long before. It was the curve of her lips and the shape of her eyebrows that suggested a likeness. Perhaps she was an offshoot of the branch of the family who'd vanished into the north around the time of the Civil War.

Sebastien shook his shaggy white hair in denial. The girl was clearly a member of the family. The black hair, gold eyes, and her untutored level of abilities all attested to that. Not a throwback but someone only recently removed. Perhaps she was untrained or naïve, but one of them all the same. And Gabriel, well...Sebastien chuckled to himself. He was stuck with her, for better or worse.

Almost an hour after Gabriel had been dunked in the drink, the three women appeared like angels of mercy. Gabriel had parked himself in the Adirondack chair with the girl's leather jacket hanging on the armrest and waited, shaking lake water off his skin like Phideaux. Anxiously he rattled the tips of his fingers across the aged wood and watched his spaniel chase his own tail around for a full twenty minutes.

Not wanting the girl to disappear, he didn't take the chance of leaving the front porch. Neither did he want her to be upset. He couldn't hear anything from inside. And there was nothing from inside his head. She seethed with internal wrath. Bits of red haze surrounded her consciousness and made it impossible for him to penetrate it.

Gabriel blinked and closed his mind. Listening to her for the briefest of moments was like sitting in the middle of a nest of rattlesnakes. He didn't even try to communicate with her again. It didn't seem like there was much point to it.

Then Camille drove up in the little truck with sufficient backup to aid in whatever Gabriel had done or had not done. She didn't have the twins, so he knew they still must be at school. She did have Aurore Benoit, and worse, she had Cecily Bergeron, their mother. Camille clambered out of the little Toyota pick-up truck, dressed in denim overalls and a flowered shirt. He knew she had been working in the garden, preparing the soil for the early growing season. Gabriel frowned. Every cent counted with Camille and Mathieu. Extra pennies went into a college fund for the twins.

Cecily got out of the passenger side and was dressed in her own work clothes. A neat cotton shirt patterned with stripes, a plain navy skirt, low heeled blue pumps. She'd come from work too. Her youngest child had driven all the way to the small construction company where she was a secretary to get her. Gabriel sank down further in the deck chairs as he contemplated the situation.

The third one was Sebastien's wife. Aurore Benoit had been sitting in the cramped middle seat and uncoiled her long legs from the driver's side as she exited. She was dressed in patched jeans and an old football jersey and carried a plain brown sack. Gabriel would have guessed she had been doing inventory in the back of the general store when Camille had requested her assistance. Of the three, he knew that she would mind the least. She was like an Earth mother, dedicated to the family and taking in strays as if they were her own children.

Gabriel shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Everything was damp, and even though the wind had shifted from the north to the south, he was still chilled. More so with wet clothing. Nevertheless, everything he owned was inside the house with _her_. And what was he going to do, frighten her more by pounding on the door demanding entrance. Already he felt like the monster that had drugged her and handcuffed her to the back of his truck.

Yet, he still couldn't help the errant wanting to taste her lips again, to feel her flesh pressed up against his own, all softness and feminine mystery, while their tongues wound together. Gabriel shifted again in the chair, uncomfortable for another reason.

Camille put a hand over her mouth. Gabriel's eyes narrowed. His sister was trying to keep from laughing at him. The porch around his feet was wet. His boots lay upside down in a sunny patch. His socks were draped over the railing. "Oh Lord, Gabriel," she uttered at last with a suspiciously amused snort. "Shoes upside down invites the devil to come try them on. _Ça va mal._ What did _you_ do?"

Cecily put her hands on her hips and thoughtfully surveyed her son. Near the same height as her son, she never backed down at an opportunity to play the mother with him. He would always be her first born and only son. "Never mind," she pronounced. "The girl. She will let us in."

It was Gabriel's turn to snort. "Better hope she hasn't found Grandpapa's shotgun. I think it has salt rock in it. Could be birdshot."

Camille hesitated as she considered whether Gabriel was telling the truth or trying to get a rise out of their mother.

"Anh!" exclaimed Cecily. She stepped onto the porch and thumped solidly on the door. " _Mamselle_!" she said imperiously. "I am Cecily Bergeron, and with me is Camille Landry, my daughter, and Aurore Benoit, our friend. We are not going to harm you. We merely wish to give you aid and comfort you in this terrible time."

Gabriel studied his dog. Phideaux had left off attempting to catch his tail and was trying to eat a praying mantis. The praying mantis wasn't happy about it.

Silence ensued from the house. Gabriel said, "Maybe she slipped out a back window," knowing perfectly well the girl was still inside. He would have known if she so much as moved in the opposite direction. He could smell her fragrant scent as if it were burned into his senses.

"Is she insane?" muttered Cecily. "Clearly we aren't axe murderers." Her voice got louder. "We aren't axe murderers, _mamselle_!"

Gabriel added sarcastically. " _Mamselle_ , we don't even have an axe out here!"

Aurore sighed loudly and stepped up on the porch. She shooed an outraged Cecily away with one hand. Holding the brown bag so that it could be seen from the windows at the sides of the front door, she rapped loudly on the door and said, "I am Aurore Benoit. I have beignets. Café au lait? And some pralines for the sweet tooth?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. _Ah_ Dieu. _That would work just as well as_ —

Her voice sounded loudly through the thickness of the door. "You have something to eat?" The deadbolt sounded as the girl inside unlocked it.

Anna listened apprehensively to the man moving around the porch. After throwing the deadbolt, the first thing she had done was raid his kitchen for the biggest, sharpest butcher knife she could find. It only took her thirty seconds to find one that would do him serious bodily damage if he tried to get into the house with her. In the meantime, she simmered with fury.

Men with grabby hands were the worst. The fact that she had an appealing appearance had been made clear to her at a young age. There had been enough covetous men, who reached out with unhesitating, avaricious hands instead of simply asking if their advances were desired, to give her sincere pause.

And _him._ The one outside. If he had helped to rescue her from what she knew to be a sadistic murderer, then he should know that the first thing Anna would want upon waking up from being drugged was NOT to be grabbed again.

Anna sat down in a large worn-leather chair that was positioned in front of the fireplace and reached for the telephone that was nearby. She kept the butcher knife in the other hand, balanced the handset between shoulder and head, and dialed with the other hand. Nine. One...then she stopped. What was she going to tell them? She had woken up in some strange house with no one in attendance, with only a speckled cocker spaniel outside, her cuts bandaged, and her belongings safely within reach. The handcuffs were gone, and no one apparently was about to threaten her until Mr. Kissy Face came up to ask her why she'd waited so long and to say that she wasn't his sister...just as if he could read her mind. She put the phone down, slamming it into its cradle.

_Jane!_ Anna picked up the phone again and listened to the dial tone. She could call Jane. Jane would move heaven and Earth to make sure that everything was all right with Anna. She would send money. She would send a car. _She would...three days? Jane must be worried sick. How can I make her worry more?_

Struggling to force her anger away, Anna put down the phone and sat for a while. The truth was that she didn't feel that good. Whatever drug cocktail had been forced on her made her feel as sluggish as a worm and about as active. Walking out to the edge of the lake and the brief tussle with him had caused her to realize that her legs trembled weakly, and her arms were limp spaghetti noodles. Her stomach groaned with the state of its emptiness and alternately rolled with nausea.

Anna sat in the chair and listened with one ear. The man moved around a little and then threw himself down in one of the chairs on the porch. There he stayed, obviously dripping water and cursing her roundly under his breath, until she heard a vehicle pull up outside.

Curiosity got the better of her. She got out of the chair and went to the window, barely parting the curtains to observe what was happening outside. Three women got out of a small truck, and the man in the chair shifted his body in a way that suggested he was uncomfortable with their presence.

The youngest one was a tall woman with French-braided black hair, dressed in denim overalls. She paused to say something to the sitting man, but there was a tilted curve to her lips that hinted at her amusement. The next one was older, with more gray in her hair than black, attired in semi-professional clothing as if she were on her way to work or on her way home. The third was a little younger than the second, with the same kind of gray-streaked black hair. Dressed in shabby jeans and a black and gold jersey, she appeared as though she had stepped out of doing some kind of manual labor. She also held a brown bag in her hand.

Anna withdrew and pondered on her situation. Serial murderers, as far as she was aware, didn't involve their entire families. Furthermore, the oldest one, with her hands akimbo, looked distinctly put out with something.

Conversation followed until one female voice said something that made Anna's mouth drool. It was obvious that these women weren't going to let the man harm her or even look at her sideways. Anna couldn't keep the desperate note out of her voice when she said, "You have something to eat?" Until the woman named Aurore had mentioned beignets and coffee, Anna hadn't realized that she was outright starving.

She unlocked the door. One hand on the doorknob, she kept the butcher knife in her other hand. Anna pulled the door open about three inches and peered out. One of her feet blocked the edge of the door in case someone started to force it open, but no one moved. They hardly even breathed as they stared back at her. Finally, she said, "You can come in, but _he_ has to stay out there."

The three women looked at each other slowly. The man grumbled something under his breath. He threw his hands up in the air and said more loudly, "Fine. I go back to the boat. I have clothes there." He threw himself out of the Adirondack chair and stalked off around the side of the house.

Anna waited until he was out of her vision and slowly opened the door. She lifted her head up and regarded the three women solemnly. Then she said, "I'm really hungry, and I wasn't sure what would be in _his_ refrigerator."

Cecily looked stern for a moment and then chuckled. " _Chère_ , no one in his or her right mind goes into Gabriel's icebox."

Aurore entered first and only gave the butcher knife the briefest glance. She held up the brown bag and said, "The kitchen is warmest this time of day. Lots of sun coming in the windows there. I'll make tea, and you can drink the café au lait before it gets cold."

Anna put the knife down on a table beside the front door. "You know I'd really like to know how it is that you all have the same color eyes as I do."

Camille shut the door behind her and motioned toward the small connected kitchen. "So would we, but first we would like to know your name."

"My name?"

"To be sure. For three days you've been as still as a corpse, and no one knew anything about you. No missing persons reports about you. No family members pounding our doors down in search of you. Not a bit of identification on you." Camille glided into Gabriel's kitchen and pulled out the chairs, waving Anna into one. Cecily followed with an odd expression on her face. Aurore yanked open cupboard doors until she found a bright red teakettle with a small "ah," of success.

Camille sat in the chair opposite Anna and glanced at her mother. Aurore paused in putting water in the kettle. Anna didn't notice either action because she was staring at the brown bag sitting on the kitchen table.

Anna said, "Can I have a beignet? I'm quite sure I haven't eaten since Dan the twisted truck driver fed me some drugged coffee somewhere in eastern Texas."

Cecily flinched. Then she opened the bag, deftly passing two beignets and a cup of café au lait to the young woman. Anna took them eagerly and hesitated as she looked at the other women. "You're going to eat something too?"

Understanding came to Camille first. "You want me to taste your café first?"

Anna stared at the cup for a moment. "No, of course not. You people helped me out. I know that. Otherwise I wouldn't have woken up here...or at all." She lifted the lid off and drank the coffee and milk mixture with pleasure. Then she dug into the sweet square donuts that were heavily covered with powdered sugar. While Anna was finishing those, Aurore poured hot water into mugs she had located. Tea bags were in a basket next to the stove and quickly made use of. She passed the mugs around and sat in the fourth chair.

"It was Gabriel who found you," said Camille softly. "He was responsible for saving you and no one else." It wasn't quite true. The family would have never let him face down such a monster by himself, but only he could have located her. He and possibly some close relation.

"You mean Mr. Grabby Hands out there?" Anna mumbled. She discovered a praline and chewed it contentedly. "However did he do that?"

Cecily choked on her tea. Her golden boy had grabbed this pretty young woman? The level of blame shifted in her mind. _Mr. Grabby Hands? Oh, Gabriel_.

Gabriel came back to her instantly, outraged indignity tinged with guilt. _I didn't mean to...oh, the hell with this._ Then his mind shut right off.

When Anna was done chewing on a praline, she sat back in the chair and said, "My name's Anna. Anna St. Thais. From El Paso. I'm on my way to New Orleans. I had to hitchhike because someone stole my wallet in Abilene. But I can get some money to pay you people back from a friend I'm going to see. You don't have to worry..."

"Good God," said Aurore horrified. "No one wants your money here, Anna." She glanced at Cecily and Camille, unsure on how to proceed. This young woman didn't know anything about her heritage. She didn't know anything about her gifts. And she didn't know anything about her connection to Gabriel. Aurore knew they had no family in the farthest reaches of Texas. Indeed, the family preferred the moist climes of the Deep South, especially Louisiana. She patted the girl's shoulder, and Anna restrained herself from flinching. "You're obviously one of us, and we're all as curious about you as you are about us."

# Chapter Eight

## Wednesday, December 17th

_It is said that the number of magpies that one sees at a time can calculate one's fortune. One for sorrow, two for luck, three for a wedding, fourth for death, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret not to be told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, and ten for a witch..._

"Anna," Gabriel repeated thoughtfully. "Anna." _She doesn't look like an Anna. Isn't an Anna tall and blonde and willowy? Not short with a cap of midnight hair that curls around that infuriatingly innocent face. With her full cheekbones that show off her delicately pointed face and frame that wonderful mouth. Those lush, full lips that have a hint of raspberries._

Aurore held out a Tupperware bowl full of something he tentatively identified as gumbo. There was a lingering scent of Andouille and red pepper that made him recall that he hadn't eaten for hours. On top of the bowl was something wrapped in foil. "Bread for the soup," she qualified. "You should be thanking me."

Gabriel took the bowl and the bread and put it on the galley table. Aurore had called aboard the _Belle-Mère_ a few minutes before, hours after he had angrily squished away from his home, changed on board the _Belle-Mère_ , and continued sanding the decks.

"I brought you something to eat, else you starve, _non_?" Aurore was tacitly amused. She knew Gabriel was teeming with questions that he was too proud to ask.

Instead he went back up on deck with the older woman following him and retrieved a gallon of deep-soaking marine stain out of his equipment box. Then he fumbled for a brush. Aurore scuffed her tennis shoes across the stripped deck and noticed that Gabriel's hands were scraped and raw at the knuckles. He hadn't been paying close enough attention to what he'd been doing. "I have stuff to eat," he protested mildly, wondering if pork rinds and a box of Ding Dongs counted.

"What, Moon Pies? A bag of Cheetos? What exactly were you going to feed that poor girl when she woke up?"

Gabriel's lips tightened into a flat line.

Aurore hid a knowing smile. "So you want to know what her last name is?"

He didn't say anything. So Aurore added, "St. Thais. Anna St. Thais."

Digging through the equipment compartment for a screwdriver with which to open the can of stain, Gabriel said, "St. Thais? That's not a family name."

"No, it's not," Aurore agreed.

"Anh. Aurore," Gabriel turned to face her. "Just tell me the rest of it."

"She's an orphan from El Paso. Grew up in orphanages and foster homes. She's lived there her whole life. And..." Aurore paused as Gabriel opened his mouth to interrupt with a question that she already knew he was going to ask, "she doesn't know who her mother and father are. Apparently some godless one left her on the steps of an orphanage." She reverently crossed her breast. "The authorities never found out who she was. Weeks old, they looked for years."

Gabriel shut the lid of the equipment compartment and sat down on top of it, a stunned look on his face. "She doesn't know anything about herself? She doesn't know anything about the family?"

"During the time she was kidnapped by _le diable,_ it was a blurred nightmare of drugged confusion. She said she heard voices in her head. She attributes those to the drugs. She assumed that we noticed something suspicious about the trucker and found her after he stopped to see about the fire on the back of his tractor-trailer."

Gabriel let his chin dip and closed his eyes. Not daring to open his mind up, he quickly opened them again. "Then what are we to do? She must belong to one of the family? It's happened before. Someone with an illegitimate pregnancy?"

"Ah _cher_ ," Aurore softly stopped him. "We already know she is one of us. Of that, there is no doubt. But the elders need to decide to accept her or deny her." Then she hesitated. "Anna was going to leave."

Gabriel's head came up again. "She can't—" he bit it off with an aggravated snarl. He stood up and started hunting in the compartment again, busily trying to conceal his emotions. Tools rattled noisily in his search.

Aurore wished that his sister could be the one to tell him, but Camille was busy with Anna. "Which is why you have to thank me."

There was a brief hesitation in the rattling of tools. "I can't ever find something when I want it," he muttered. "Why should I thank you, Aurore?"

"Because I convinced her to stay," she said triumphantly. "She will call her friend in New Orleans and stay for a few weeks. She thinks that the eyes and the hair color are no coincidence and that her origin must be from here."

The noise of metal against metal abruptly stopped. Gabriel emerged from the compartment with a large flathead screwdriver in one hand. "She'll stay?"

" _Le docteur_ has told her that she's not well enough to travel for at least a week. An exaggeration, but between your _maman_ , your _soeur_ , and I, we have said we will find her _maman_ and papa, if only she'd stay until she was well enough to leave on her own two feet. Until after the New Year." Aurore shrugged expressively. "The elders will get to meet with her, decide on her trustworthiness, and you can _try_ to get to know her _. Mr. Grabby Hands_." She tittered, raising one hand to cover her mouth.

"Thank you, Aurore," Gabriel grated, his teeth grinding together. "I will endeavor to not scare her away again."

"She had a butcher knife, you know," Aurore mused, spreading her hands apart to show the exact length of the blade. "I think she might have gone for your manhood."

"I have a lot of work to do," he said. "Sure you do too."

The older woman shrugged again. "I always have work to do, Gabriel. Perhaps you can come to dinner tomorrow. We're having court-bouillon and cornbread. Enough to feed an army."

"I have a group coming tomorrow. Some Rotary Club from Dallas," Gabriel demurred. "They usually stay late and drink enough beer to float a Louisianan governor's ego."

_When it comes to the girl, the boy is as dense as a stand of blackberries_. Aurore turned to go but said over her shoulder, "Anna will be there." She didn't need to look at Gabriel to know that she had gotten his undivided attention again.

"She's not at the cabin?"

"She's staying with Camille for a few days."

There was silence, and then Gabriel bit out, "Good, I like my home to myself."

Stepping on the gangplank, Aurore almost paused. _Pauvre p'tites_. She saw that she was leaving the _Belle-Mère_ on the left side and checked herself. Her father, a fisherman from Terrebonne Parish, had often said that one should always board and depart a ship from the starboard side even in an inconvenient state. She shook her head and vowed to say an extra prayer at Mass.

Gabriel stared at the deck of the _Mère_ for a long time before he began working. The stain needed to set at least twelve hours before his charter could go prancing around the decks, and he knew it was going to be a close thing. On the positive side, work could always clear his mind of things he didn't wish to think about.

The doctor's name was Michel Quenelle. He introduced himself to Anna when he showed up an hour later at Camille's house. Camille and Cecily had bundled Anna up into the antique quilt, not listening to her stumbling protests. Camille had made a disgusted noise, and Aurore had spent fifteen minutes convincing Anna that she needed to stay.

Camille had Anna over at her own house in minutes. Minutes after that, she was back in a nightgown and in a small but comfortable room, lying on a narrow bed, covered by the same quilt. In truth, Anna was grateful because sitting at the tiny kitchen table and talking about genealogical histories had worn her out quickly. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes burned with fatigue. Still she protested, "But I already slept for days."

"Not a real sleep," Cecily had answered. "We've called _le docteur_. He said he'd come when he gets a chance."

Camille had taken her mother back to work. Then Anna dozed. She heard children come into the house and their mother caution them to play quietly because they had a guest.

The doctor rapped softly on the bedroom door a few minutes later. A tall man in his forties, he possessed the same traits that made them all clearly related, black hair and gold eyes. There the similarities stopped. He had a round cheerful face with pink cheeks and a smiling disposition. He meticulously examined her and then sat back on the edge of the bed with a sigh. "Everything seems to be as it should be."

Anna took a breath. "I was afraid."

"Yes," he agreed. "I think everyone knows that you were exactly that, _chère_."

"The man who kidnapped me, he drugged me for hours, I think." _Hours in which he could have done anything to me._ "Did you examine me...did he do anything to me?" Anna couldn't prevent the tear that edged out of the corner of her eye, nor her teeth from clenching in helpless anticipation.

Michel patted her hand, keeping his eyes on hers. "No, _mamselle_. I don't wish to be cruel, but he was waiting to get you to his...lair, if you would call it that."

"I wouldn't call it anything," Anna said dully. The relief that she felt was stunted. "Thank God."

"Rest is the best cure," Michel pronounced. "And you should expect some distressful memories. You can conquer your fear. You have much sympathy from the family here. They know it was no easy feat to survive being in the clutches of an unbalanced man."

Anna didn't want to talk about her fear or the nightmares that she knew that she would be having in the days to come. So she changed the subject, "I thought all the Creoles lived in the southern parts of Louisiana. Your accent is so pleasing to the ear."

"Cajuns, _mamselle_. Creoles are generally persons that are intermingled French, Spanish, and sometimes from the blacks who settled in Louisiana. Cajuns are a different thing altogether, and the truth is, we are neither. We have close ties to those who are descended from the Acadians who fled Nova Scotia centuries ago. Many of us have married into their families and the family spread and the accent and some of the language along with it. Our home is here. Near the lake where the great catfish lives. You know the story of Goujon? Some have said that Goujon is our father and that we are his children's children." The doctor smiled down into Anna's face.

Anna smiled back. "Goujon being what? A catfish?"

"A giant catfish that grew so big he had to create the lake so that he could continue to exist. A very smart fellow, this catfish. And very dangerous. If you hear a great splashing noise in the night, you might very well be listening to Goujon roaming through his kingdom." Michel couldn't help the curve of his lips as he related the story. "He is why the family has such an affinity for water. Some of us live near the gulf to ply our trade on the open sea. Many of us prefer to stay near the fountainhead of our people. Some of us leave to pursue professions, like myself, but most return. Like yourself. You've been drawn here."

"A strong affinity to water?" she repeated. Anna couldn't help looking toward the window that was open, showing a thick stand of oak and pine and beyond that, the brilliant iridescent reflection of light upon blackened waters. "I've been dreaming about it. The lake. _That_ lake."

The doctor rose up. He gave her a last look. "Remember fear is only an emotion. Something we can control if we wish. You've nothing to fear from that man now." Michel paused by the door. "Dreams are an indication of what our souls are trying to tell us. Perhaps you should listen to them, Anna."

Anna slept through dinner and woke up in a darkened house. There was no digital clock to tell her the time. There was only a sliver of a waxing moon that spun little strands of yellow light inside the room. The rest of the house was quiet and still. A few minutes after she woke up she heard the cough of a child, and then all was silent.

She pulled the quilt from her body and realized that the temperature hadn't dropped, showing how peculiar Southern weather could be in the wintertime. Anna pulled off the borrowed nightgown and jerked on jeans and t-shirt once more. She followed with her ragged Nikes. She paused to look out over the thick trees and the yellow light of the crescent moon bouncing off the mirror-like surface of the lake.

Hesitating, she glanced at the quilt. The same quilt from the man's house. The man who had kissed her so knowingly. _His name is Gabriel._ He was Camille's brother. If she looked closely she could see the likeness. Cecily was their mother, and there was a familial resemblance there as well.

Anna hadn't expected Gabriel's reassuring presence in the dreams. Not after what he'd done. Perversely, his was the calming influence there. His existence there was what made the fear spill away, and the image of Dan Cullen was banished into a smoggy exile of her dreams where he could cause her no more unrelenting dread.

_But the lake_? The lake was always there, ever present, seemingly omnipotent. She could almost see the mythical creature that the doctor had mentioned, a giant who wandered purposely to find whatever he was seeking.

Anna dismissed her leather jacket and went out the bedroom door. She ignored the rest of the house, just as she had done in Gabriel's small home, and went to the door closest to the lake. Passing through an empty, darkened kitchen she paused beside the kitchen door. There was a small blue-lit nightlight in an electrical outlet. She opened the door. A small orange cat slipped into the door with a tiny meow of contentment and ran to its food bowl on the opposite side of the kitchen. The little cat ignored her as he ate.

Anna looked toward the lake again and shut the door behind her. When she came back inside she would let the cat out again.

The sliver of moon showed a worn path through the trees and brush going in the direction she desired. She listened to the night sounds as she went, her feet hardly making a noise on the ground. There was the soft hooting of an owl seeking its midnight repast, and crickets called noisily to each other in the distance. A tiny creek gurgled as it wound down to the same place she was heading. A breeze shuffled the pine needles above her head and whispered along the oak branches full of Spanish moss.

Within moments Anna reached the edge of the lake and took in the magnificent sight. No less amazing in the night than in the day; it was ancient and feral and called to something deep inside her. If she was any more superstitious than she already knew she was, she might have fallen for the doctor's story. As it was, Anna knew it was only a legend brought up to distract her from thinking of the events that had brought her here.

If she closed her eyes, she might very well be the only person within a thousand miles of this spot. _Well, the only person awake_ , she amended with a small smile. Anna took a deep breath and relaxed every inch of her body. Perhaps she could stand here for just a little while until she understood what was happening to her. Perhaps...

There was the rattle of brush behind her and she jumped. Anna turned, dismayed that someone had found her so quickly. A guilty thought shot through her mind, and she couldn't stop the errant wish. _Gabriel?_

The man stepped out of the intense black shade of trees. He was wide and broad, but after the shadows passed from his flesh, Anna saw that it wasn't Gabriel at all. He was almost a foot taller than Gabriel and twenty years older. Gray shot through the shaggy black hair, glowing from the yellow light that slithered down upon them. The same limited light showed the flecked gold of his resolute gaze. All for her.

"Leave this place," he said, his voice full of granite-like grit.

Anna almost stepped backward into the water. She couldn't help the waiver of fear that fluttered through her body, bringing on an immediate surge of resentment that Dan Cullen had caused her to be ever afraid; no longer sensible and able to protect her own well-being. She had been a woman who had fought off creeps before, and she would be again. And she didn't care if this man was almost a giant and twice as broad as a barn door. "Why should I?" she demanded and squared her shoulders doggedly.

Solid gray eyebrows slowly met together in a frowning stare. He wore shabby pants that had unraveling cuffs near the tops of his boots. His coat barely covered his wide shoulders and showed darkened stains at the wrists. He seemed like a homeless man, but he had the eyes, and Anna could see them as clearly as if it were daytime. "Because," he rumbled deep in his chest, "you'll be sucked down. Drowned in a place where you cain't escape. It won't be no giant catfish who wolfs your rotting flesh down, it'll be stuck in a tomb of sandy soil with all those others who done gone before you."

"Who are you?" she whispered. The vivid image he spoke of reverberated in her mind, a picture of twisted limbs caught in a dirty trap of death.

"I'm Gautier," he muttered, "but you got to leave, child of Arette. You got to leave afore it's too late. He dint know about you. Now though...oh, little girl...the man in the truck might have been kinder to you."

Anna bit off an exclamation of disgust. "God, what are you talking about? He's a psychopath. He wouldn't have been...kind to me." She paused, suddenly realizing what name he'd said with no small amount of shock. "And how do you know about Arette?"

The big man faded into the shadows and left Anna alone, biting her lip in consternation, wavering as she thought about it. She knew the name he'd mentioned. She'd known it for about two weeks. It was part of the reason that had influenced her decision to join Jane in New Orleans. She'd found a yellowed piece of paper hidden in the binding of the bible. The very same Bible that had been left in the basket she had been in when she was dropped off on the steps of the orphanage. The paper was a carefully folded birth certificate. The father wasn't listed, but the mother was Arette Tuelle. And more interestingly, the birth location was listed as Baton Rouge, cinching Anna's decision. Baton Rouge was only an hour and a half drive from New Orleans.

Unambiguously, Louisiana was a state that Anna didn't remember ever having visited, much less being born there. Her natural reticence caused her to keep her personal business private. She knew she needed to keep the name of her mother secret for the time being, until the reasons for being abandoned on the far side of Texas could be divulged.

Then the deep voice of the man who'd called himself Gautier wandered back to her to answer her last question, "Because I was married to her, _chère._ "

Anna froze in shock. There was a loud splash behind her in the lake, and she turned to see a riot of turbulent water marking a spot where some large creature had just passed. She fought between staring out at the lake and looking back into the deep, shadowed forest where the man had vanished. When her limbs had stopped their incessant quaking, both were gone.

# Chapter Nine

## Thursday, December 18th

_While walking the deep woods at night, if one closes his fingers over the thumb that is pointed into the middle, then the powers of evil spirits and ghosts are diminished from doing harm to him._

Gabriel woke up with sweat running off his body in great rivulets. Despite what he'd alleged to Aurore, he'd stubbornly slept in the single tiny cabin of the _Belle-Mère_. It had a built-in bed with a paper-thin mattress that wasn't fit for Phideaux to lie on. Groaning loudly, he tried to unfold his legs from an unnatural position. One cramped leg was screaming with protests of shooting pain when he froze. Afterimages of a wretched night came flooding back into his mind. Nightmares last night. Not all night. Just for a few hours. Not his own dreams, but _hers._

_Anna_. He let the name slide over his thoughts. _And if Aurore thinks I'm going to fall over like a row of metal ducks at the shooting gallery, then..._

He rubbed the calf of his leg and absently caught sight of the empty bottle of whiskey he'd overabused the previous evening. After finishing with the decks, he had found the sour mash that Jereme hid in the engine compartment.

_But the nightmares. Anh_. Gabriel's face twisted. She had haunting dreams about the other one. The one who had kidnapped her with such malevolent intent. Even in a drunken state of slumber, Gabriel had only to drift off before the apparent connection was in full force once again. _She lets her guard down when she's asleep_ , he realized abruptly. _Like a child. Like I did when I was five years old. Or what the twins are doing now. The last vestiges of learning the control they need to pass into adulthood. She never used it before. She never had to._

Images of dark dreams flickered across his mind. The truck driver was omnipresent. Pulling helplessly at the handcuffs until her wrists burned with pain and blood trickled down her flesh was a moment of vulnerability that would plague Anna as well. Then there was an odd dream that was so real that he considered whether it was before dismissing the notion. Anna was standing at the side of the lake, the moisture in the air tangible, and there was a big man in the shadows warning her. _One of the family,_ Gabriel thought. _Warning Anna to leave before she would be "sucked down into a tomb of sandy soil?"_

Shaking his head sadly, he'd much rather forget, much rather _she'd_ forget. But Gabriel knew she wouldn't for a long time, if ever. But she could move past them. He felt another emotion then, one he didn't want to attach a name to, but it spiraled up unwelcome and undesired. _Pity for Anna_. She might have found a family, but she also found something she'd never dreamed about before.

" _Dieu,_ " he swore as he glanced at his watch. Another hour and the men from the Rotary Club would be showing up on his ship, chipper and ready to drink and fish themselves into oblivion. Of course, Gabriel knew what that was like, at least the drinking part.

Anna got up from the narrow bed feeling better than she had in the past twenty-four hours. Cecily had been correct. She had needed a restorative sleep. Despite her experience with the man named Gautier the previous night, she had returned to the house and crawled into the little bed again, falling asleep without further incident. There had been no return of dreams, although when she woke up, she had a brief muzzy feeling of being thick in the head, and a faint smell of sour alcohol tickled her nostrils, as though she had imbibed too much the evening before.

Camille had left clothing for her on a chair in the small room, saying, "I know you don't have much. I have plenty, although it'll hang on you. But it'll be clean. Let me know if you need anything else."

Showering brought a sense of pleasure to Anna that let her know she hadn't been truly clean in weeks. And she had felt less than clean after being in close contact with Dan Cullen. She luxuriated in the hot water and reluctantly exited only when the water started to go cold. Once dressed with her hair towel-dried, she hesitantly appeared in the kitchen apologizing to Camille, "I'm sorry I used the last of the hot water."

Camille chuckled. She was flipping pancakes with the skill of a short order cook. "I'm surprised there was any left, _chère_." She threw a pancake into the air and expertly caught it on the griddle with a whoop. Then she jerked her head to indicate the twin boys sitting at the table.

The two boys had paused with food loaded on forks in midair to stare at Anna. Lanky young men on the brink of adolescence, they had the familiar black hair and golden eyes. It was like staring at minted coins. They both had a dark cowlick that curled over their foreheads but which did not detract from their handsome faces. "The one on the left is Pierrot, and the one on the right is Phillippe. Or red t-shirt is Pierrot. Blue is Phillippe. Never let them wear the same things, or they will play games with you." She stopped to consider that. "Although sometimes they switch shirts to play with us."

Anna said, "Pleased to meet you."

"You took my bed," announced Phillippe. He reached for the syrup and poured it liberally over what was remaining of his pancakes.

"I'm sorry?"

Camille put the griddle down with a loud rattle. "Phillippe!"

Phillippe's eyes went large. "Not that I care. I slept in 'Ro's bed. He's so skinny it don't matter."

" _Doesn't_ matter," Camille corrected. "Don't insult your brother."

The twins appeared about the same weight to Anna, but perhaps Pierrot was a few pounds lighter than Philippe. "Hey!" said Pierrot, trying his best to finish his stack before his brother finished his. "She's got gold eyes! Just like us."

"Don't talk with your mouth full of food. And I told you, she's a member of the family." Camille finished what she was cooking and put it on a plate with four other large pancakes. She handed it to Anna with a grin and said, "Dig in. Butter and syrup's on the table. Orange juice and milk in the fridge. Unless you'd rather have coffee."

"No coffee. I think milk would be fine." Anna sat opposite the twins and attempted to ignore them as they stared fascinatedly at her and ate at the same time.

"She's cute," said Phillippe. "Wait 'til I go to school and say a hottie was sleeping in my bed."

Camille made another sound of indignant protest. She had taken a big bite of her own plate of pancakes and was chewing furiously to clear the way to motherly speech.

Pierrot said knowingly, "She's taken already."

"Hardly," Anna said dryly, "and I wouldn't advise you to go bragging about something like that unless you were absolutely sure."

"Sure I'm sure," answered Pierrot, knowledge gleaming in his gold eyes. "I don't think you are though."

"You did _sleep_ in my bed," added Phillippe. "I didn't say anything else."

There was a honk from outside and the rumble of a large diesel engine. "The bus!" cried Pierrot. Both boys abandoned their plates, launched themselves up, and grabbed book bags, disappearing out the kitchen door faster than pickpockets at a policeman's ball.

With a shrug Camille sat next to Anna. "They're so young and so old all at the same time."

Anna wasn't sure what to say, but Camille had no problems filling in the gaps. She went on about several of her favorite subjects, her husband, her sons, her garden, and how happy she was to have another young woman like Anna around.

When Anna had put away about half of the pancakes, she pushed the dish away and said, "I can't eat anymore, but it was good."

"Listen, I've got to go," Camille said. "I need to help Gabriel load up the _Belle-Mère_ for a charter, and then I'm off to my part-time job. Lord, I just remembered the boys have to go to a practice for a Christmas pageant. What a day."

"I'll do the dishes," Anna announced.

Camille looked skeptical. " _Le docteur_ said rest. Not doing of the dishes. And I heard you get up last night, so I know you need rest."

"I'll only do the dishes," Anna sighed. "I'm not an invalid. Just a little...tired. I came back to bed an hour later and slept all the rest of the night." For some reason Anna wasn't sure if she wanted to broach the subject of the inexplicable Gautier hanging out at the edge of the woods so near to Camille's back door.

" _Mais oui_. It's just..." the other woman suddenly had a lapse of words. She tried again, "It's just..."

"Awkward talking about it?" Anna supplied helpfully. She would ask Camille about Gautier later, when things weren't so ill at ease between them.

"I can't imagine what you must have gone through," Camille said. She uncomfortably brushed an errant lock of black hair away from her face. _Because we all know most of it, not that it could be helped._ Pauve p'tite. "We just want to help."

Anna nodded and began picking plates up. Camille helped until she noticed the time on the mantle clock over the fireplace. "Oh coo! I have to run. I'll come back at lunch. Try to rest."

After Anna finished with the dishes, she picked up the kitchen and discovered that she had no inclination to rest whatsoever. She found a key to the house hanging on a key rack and went back outside, locking the door behind her. She wanted to know more about mysterious Gautier, who had been waiting for her to appear so he could warn her off. She knew her general location and set off toward the central part of the tiny town, figuring that the store they'd passed would be open and that the owner or the customers might know who Gautier was. Perhaps they might know where to find him.

The store wasn't far, and the temperature had climbed into the low sixties with the sun shining brightly outside. Anna didn't even need her coat. She let the sunshine pour over her, and it was like someone from above was stripping away layer by layer the dirtiness she felt.

There were a few cars and trucks that passed her as she walked along a single-lane country road that paralleled the edge of the lake. Some waved to her. Most of them had dark hair. She saw several sets of curious gold eyes and marveled silently.

Perhaps a mile down the road she came to the store. A hundred feet from the shore, it sat next to a large gravel parking lot filled with vans and Camille's Toyota truck. The store itself was plain and unadorned, making it almost unnoteworthy. There was only a simple sign on the exterior that marked it as such. A few additional signs advertised bait, fishing licenses, and tourist information.

Anna paused as her eyes found two white boats bobbing at the end of a dock. There was a crowd of men loaded with ice chests and fishing gear. They had baseball caps on, and many wore bright orange life vests. She could hear their laughter all the way from the edge of the piney woods. Yet, it was Gabriel's figure on the bow, directing the men into the two boats that captured her glance.

She knew who it was. Anna had known almost before she recognized him. Her little helper, she realized with some gratification, was seemingly coming back to her. _Something about_ him. _Now what is it?_

Gabriel stopped as he saw her. Camille was loading trays of food on board the _Beau-Père_ and hesitated in turn. She turned to look, shrugged, in what Anna was recognizing as a purely Bergeron trait, and went back to loading food.

_Stupid_. Anna berated herself. _This place is as strange as I've ever seen. Even with close bloodlines, why would all these people have gold eyes? And him. I want to stare at him like a little ninny._ She deliberately broke her gaze and saw an older man come out of the general store. He was tall with white hair and looked to be in his sixties. He went to a blue pick-up truck and climbed inside. A moment later, the truck whined in protest as he tried to start it. It bleated like a lost sheep, and the engine didn't do a thing. He stopped and tried it again with the same result. A third attempt made it sound as though the battery might be dying from it.

Intentionally looking away from the dock, Anna walked to the man in the truck. He saw her and smiled broadly as if he were genuinely happy to see her. He had white-white hair that might have once been black with those now-familiar gold eyes. She said, "I can take a look at it if you want."

The truck was an old Ford, '70s era, and she could tell right away that there was trash in the carburetor. The fuel jets were blocked in the carburetor's bowl. It was a common problem with that particular vehicle. And luckily for the man, simple to fix.

The older man didn't reply but simply pulled the keys from the ignition and leaned down to pull the latch for the hood. The lid popped open a few inches. He got out of the truck as Anna reached under the hood to disengage the secondary latch. A second later she had the hood up, and her head was tucked under it. The man was watching her intently with an amused expression, but she ignored him.

"You got a flathead screwdriver?" she asked politely. "A regular size. Not too big."

"I got one on my knife," said the man. He produced a Swiss Army knife out of his jeans pocket and extracted the right tool, carefully handing it to her.

Anna looked at it. She sighed. "It'll work." Five minutes later, she had blown the fuel jets free of the garbage that had been blocking them and said to the man, "Trash in the carburetor. What you need to do is put another fuel filter on your truck. Replace the one you have and put another one near the fuel pump. And possibly clean the carburetor out every six months to a year." She started putting everything back into place.

There wasn't a reply, and Anna cast a glance over her shoulder. The man was still standing there watching her. So were Aurore, Camille, and two men she didn't recognize. Both had the revealing gold eyes. She had a passing strange moment as she saw a group of people who all had the exact same color of eyes regarding her with a forceful intensity she found disturbing.

"You a mechanic?" asked the older man. His eyes flickered down to her hand with the knife, and she realized he was looking at the bruises and marks on her wrists. "An automobile mechanic?"

Anna sighed. "Yes," she answered slowly. "I've got ASE certifications on automobiles/light trucks, and I was working on medium and heavy trucks. Lots of work in that area."

"I'm Sebastien Benoit," said the older man with the white hair. He glanced at Aurore. "You met my wife yesterday. My sons there, Gaspard and Raoul." They looked at her oddly, as if she was some kind of sideshow exhibit. Then both of them nodded at her.

Aurore said, "Ah, _chère_. A wonderful skill to have. We lost an automobile mechanic two years ago. There was a girl in Houma, I believe. It was true love, and well, one can't ignore that. So off he went. And he doesn't even write."

"I've got to go to work," said Gaspard. He gave Anna another peculiar look and disappeared around the side of the store. Raoul sighed and followed at a more leisurely pace, saying, "See you later, _Maman_. Nice to meet you, little girl."

Anna focused on the carburetor. She attributed the men's abruptness to the fact that most men were uncomfortable with a female mechanic. Dismissing the thoughts, she made short work of the repair, and then when it was done, she turned back to Sebastien. He was alone again.

"Try it now," she said, standing up and stretching her back muscles. The Ford was high enough to tax her back. She needed a footstool to be able to work in the engine compartment without climbing up on the bumper and hanging over the side of the radiator like a sack lying over a fence.

Sebastien smiled when the engine caught after the first time. He let it run and watched her shut the hood. Handing the knife to him, she was silent.

"You say another fuel filter will help to prevent that?" Sebastien asked.

"Replace the one you have and have the carburetor cleaned. It won't take a decent mechanic long, and it won't cost much if he's honest."

"You'll do it for me?" Sebastien considered her. "I think you could find other things to do here. There are many engines that need work of some kind or another. Tractors. Trucks...boats?"

Anna couldn't help the glance that she shot over her shoulder. The two boats were casting off. Camille was on the end of the dock waving cheerfully. Two groups of men on each ship were milling around on the decks, pointing out toward the depths of the lake where the water seemed the blackest. Gabriel was nowhere in sight.

"How about an exchange?" she said as she looked back at him. Sebastien's expression suddenly changed from subtly satisfied to curious.

"Like you fixing my old pick-em-up truck for what?" He said with a broad smile. Yellow teeth showed but didn't detract from his general good looks. Sebastien was a striking man, and she was thinking that he reminded her of something, but she couldn't quite get what it was.

"I want to know about the lake," Anna started. She was trying to be clever. Perhaps by starting on something innocuous, she could move to a subject she really desired to know. Like Gautier.

"About your own history perhaps?"

"If this is where I'm from," she said.

"Oh, _chère._ We all know that you're one of us." Sebastien chuckled and patted the wheel of the Ford. "It was meant to be. We need a mechanic. La, a mechanic arrives."

"You have some tools I can use?" she said. "I don't suppose your store stocks fuel filters? It doesn't have to be the same for both. The extra one is just to protect your carburetor from excess trash that you inevitably get from bad gasoline." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "The gas companies don't filter out the crap as much as they should. Very bad for the older cars with carburetors. Not even good for vehicles with fuel injection."

" _Oui_ , I have some, but I think I don't have the one I need for the truck. No matter. There's an AutoZone twenty miles from here. We can get what we want from there." He indicated the seat beside him. "And we can talk on the way. Is this not so?"

# Chapter Ten

## Wednesday, December 17th

_If a corpse's eyes shut themselves, it is a good omen, but if the corpse's eyes remain open, then he is waiting for the next poor soul to join him in the hereafter._

Anna didn't get to bring up the subject of Gautier until they were almost back to Unknown. In between, they had purchased the necessary items at the auto parts store and stopped at a McDonald's for something to drink. However, throughout the two hours she spent with him, she knew she was in trouble because there were areas that Sebastien simply did not want to address. When she pressed him, he eluded her with the skill of an accomplished politician.

"We are the family, as we call the ones who have lived about this lake for centuries, from the time of Indians, you can still find the pottery shards along the lake, _non_? There are many of us. No one has counted. There is no box for us to check on the census. There are some who call us Cajuns. We ain't." Sebastien kept his eyes on the road in front of him, but he tapped the steering wheel in emphasis. "Shore, some of us speak like a real Louisianan. The language of a _bon Francais,_ but we are _La Famille_. Do you understand, Anna?"

"You mean you stick together?" Anna's bemused answer pleased Sebastien.

" _Oui_! We are cement. We are stone. We are rock."

"Then you know each other. All of you." Anna saw an opportunity.

" _Mais oui_. We are brothers and sisters. The flesh is like steel. We cannot be parted from each other. Even with those who wander to distant places, we always come back. Hence, your blood called to you. It was that which brought you to us."

Anna had forgotten Dan Cullen for the moment. She wasn't sure that it was the blood calling that had brought her back but instead, a man with reprehensible purpose. She made a face and ignored the disconcerting thought. "A man was waiting for me last night outside Camille's house."

Sebastien's head twisted toward her. "What man? What did he do to you?" His questions were angrily concerned. Or was it indignant outrage?

"He didn't touch me. He seemed to think I'm in some kind of danger here." She watched as his troubled gaze returned to the highway.

"Danger? From whom? Who would hurt a child of Goujon?"

"I think he knows who I am, who I was." Anna tried to decipher Sebastien's expression and failed. From their conversation to and from the auto parts store, she discovered he possessed a wealth of information about the area, from the oil platforms which had once drilled into the bottom of the lake, to the time in the '40s when a man from Japan had grown pearls in the shallows of the black waters. There was a great salt dome that the lake sat partially over, which had been mined, but the mine had closed two decades before. He knew what she needed to know. She was certain of that.

"Who is this man?" Sebastien's voice regained its slow drawl, and Anna glanced at him to discover a little flush on his face.

"He didn't do anything to me," she protested. "He said he was married to my mother." Anna bit her lip. She hadn't meant to say that.

"What does this man look like?" Sebastien's hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles going white. Anna felt a little twinge of alarm. Why wouldn't he want someone to tell her about her parents?

"A big man. In his forties. Maybe fifties? A strong man," Anna deliberately left his name out. She didn't know if Gautier would talk to her again if she told anyone that he had approached her to begin with. There had to be some reason he had waited until he could catch her alone in the darkness.

"Anh." Sebastien's tone became reflective. "I think I know of whom you speak. He's a giant, yes? With eyes that might seem a little crazy?"

Anna shrugged noncommittally. _Crazy or not, he knows who Arette is. He might know where she's at now. I'll have to track him down some other way._

"Best to ignore what that one says, Anna. He lost his wife many years ago when she ran away to be with another man. We shall speak no more of him."

Anna realized she was tired again and almost cursed aloud. How long before she returned to normal? She glanced down at the scabs that had formed around her wrists and then put her head back against the bench-seat's back cushion. Her eyes fluttered shut while Sebastien said, "Ah, you are still recovering, yes? I'll drop you off at Camille's doorstep. She'll feed you some lunch, and perhaps tomorrow you'll come back and fix my truck."

_What are you doing_? came his voice almost instantly. _You've got a secret in your head. I can't quite get it. Anna._ It was a slanting bend of emotion that glided through her thoughts. _An-na._

Anna had an immediate rise of anger as a result. Her eyelids shot open, an incoherent gasp escaped her lips, and she sat straight up. Sebastien glanced at her curiously. She said, "I _am_ tired."

Stopping the truck in front of Camille's home, Sebastien nodded pleasantly. "Tomorrow, you'll sit in the store with me when you're done, and we'll drink a co-cola and talk about salt domes and pearl diving in a bayou, _oui_?"

Anna couldn't prevent a smile. "Yes."

Sebastien Benoit was the kind of person she liked to talk with, a storyteller, a man who had lived his whole life as if death was a myth only to be taken seriously by little children. Whether or not he wanted her to talk to Gautier was beside the point, Sebastien could still provide her with an abundance of knowledge. Some of it would come to her without him being aware that he had supplied it to her.

Gabriel listened to two Rotary Club members argue about the best way to catch bass. "Spinnerbait works best!" said one defiantly. The other one replied heatedly, "Red rattle traps will always catch the biggest bass."

With a smile floating across his normally saturnine features, Gabriel ignored both of them and helped with another Rotary Club member's tangled line. After the headache from last night's alcohol abuse had faded, the fresh air and strong sunlight had brought him to a better frame of mind. The Rotary Club men were amicable and friendly to each other, as well as to Gabriel and Jereme. Good-natured and easy going, they were eager to enjoy the trip and appreciated the lake's innate beauty.

"What about the giant catfish?" asked the man whose line Gabriel was untangling. "The really big one that's supposed to be in the lake?"

Gabriel's eyebrows went up. "You've been talking to Sebastien Benoit. Just a legend. A big fish story to get the fishermen to come back."

The man smiled. "Hey, I'd come back anyway. This place is beautiful. I can see why some of you people live here."

Gabriel glanced at the water. The _Belle-Mère_ sat in the shallows where the bass would bite more. Not fifty feet away, its sister ship, the _Beau-Père_ , sat, with its own group of Rotarians. The water was temperate here, and the fish kept to the area until a warming trend occurred in the deeper water. "You should see it in the spring. Water lilies and lotus cover acres of water and spatterdock with its huge pads, it's almost as if you could walk across the lake without ever getting your feet wet. Then there's the goldenclub and yonqupin. Some of the yonqupin reach up to two feet in diameter. The world here really comes alive, a place like you've never seen before."

The man freed his line and said, "I'll try to come back in the spring. Bring the family. The kids will love it."

"Good. Make sure you get a business card and reserve a guiding tour in advance. It gets busy in the spring. People anxious to get outside after wintertime. And the fish, they love to bite in the spring, yes?"

With a grunt of pleased assent, the man resumed his fishing.

Gabriel was going to see about lunch for his passengers when he felt _her_ again. He had promised himself he would keep out of her uneducated mind until she had a chance to become accustomed to the family, but there was a secretive flicker of something that promptly piqued his interest. There was a man she needed to find for answers. The picture came clearly to him.

He frowned once he realized that part of the dreams from the subsequent night hadn't been merely dreams. She had been standing by the lake, and someone had been warning her away, someone with a deep, gravelly voice and who towered over her. _What was the phrase? Something about being sucked down into a tomb of sandy soil?_

Anna hadn't been afraid exactly, which was why Gabriel had confused the event with a dream. She hadn't been afraid because the man had said something that surprised her. He'd known something she hadn't expected him to know.

Secrets. _What are you doing? You've got a secret in your head. I can't quite get it. Anna. An-na._ Then she unexpectedly opened her eyes and straight away the connection was broken. Gabriel snorted to himself. This was too new to him. This was playing a game at which he was a novice. He was supposed to be the expert.

He abruptly realized who had been standing so close to Anna in the darkness at the edge of the lake. It was Gautier who had warned her. Gabriel's good mood disintegrated. _Gautier. What the hell?_

After Sebastien dropped Anna off, she entered the Landry house with a tiredness she couldn't ignore and rested for an hour until Camille had returned. Camille fed Anna some chicken soup and gently berated her for trying to do too much too soon. "Stubborn like Gab...stubborn like a bulldog. Can't you simply rest, Anna?"

Anna tried not to be amused by Camille but failed. Camille reminded her of Jane. She suddenly dropped her spoon into the fragrant chucky chicken soup. "Oh, Jane! Oh God, I forgot about her."

"Jane?" said Camille. She glanced at the clock. "Goodness. I've got to go again. Listen, _p'tite,_ will you tell the boys to do their homework, or I'll chop up their bodies and bury them in shallow graves where no one will ever find them." She paused. "Call your friend, then. Tell her you're fine. And be glad that you can call her instead of feeling guilty."

"I'll tell them that it's really important about the homework anyway," Anna said with a doubtful tone.

Camille grinned, grabbing her purse, and headed for the door.

Anna did call Jane, who was much relieved. She told Jane what was happening. She skipped over the part about Dan Cullen because she wanted a moratorium on the subject at that time. There would be time to give her friend all the information later when Anna felt like she could talk about it. She excitedly moved onto the family and the people there.

"They all have gold eyes just like yours?" Jane said suspiciously

"But that's not the best part," Anna answered quickly. "I think I might have found my father."

Jane sighed. "You just happened upon the spot, 700 miles away from where you grew up, that contains your parents, or at the very least, your father. Why did he dump you on the steps of the orphanage then? Or why did he allow your mother to do it?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that, Janie," replied Anna honestly.

"Sweetie," said Jane consolatory, "I want good things to happen to you. Bad luck seems to follow you around like the plague. Quick, knock on some wood, but don't get your hopes up. There's a reason he did what he did. Or maybe it was your mother or your grandparents or whomever. And you may not want to know why."

There was a deep sigh that came out of the bottom of Anna's lungs. Jane didn't have hope for long-lost parents. Hers had died in a fire when she had been eight years old. No relatives had been willing to take her in, and older child adoptions were rare. When she came to the orphanage, Anna had been her first friend.

"So you're staying for a while?" Jane said. She kept her tone neutral although Anna was fully aware that she did not approve.

"Yes, Jane. I'm just going to find out what's going on and then I'll be down there ASAP."

"The job will wait, sweetie," Jane said, acquiescing to her friend with a note of censure. "You have to call me. Call me collect. I want to know everything."

After Anna had finished talking with Jane, the twins came home. They were a whirlwind of activity and noise, moving at the speed of light and chattering like maddened squirrels. They said hi to her while one went immediately to the TV. The other one approached the computer in the corner of the living room. She was resting on the couch, silently damning her imposed frailty, reading a book she'd found on the lake's history. She watched them for an amazed moment before saying, "Your mother said to tell you to do your homework."

Phillippe made a noise. Pierrot made the same noise a second later. Both boys contemplated their untouched book bags for another second. "Did she make some kind of threat, Anna?" asked Phillippe knowledgeably. Anna was dumbfounded at how intuitive the eight-year-old appeared to be at that very moment.

Anna nodded slowly. "Something about shallow graves."

"Aie," complained Pierrot. " _Maman's_ got eyes in the back of her head, her." Both headed for the books without further objection.

Some little imp of mischief entered Anna's mind. _Oh now, I'm going to grill children for information. That's just a real asset to my character_. "You guys know everyone around here, right?"

Phillippe dumped his books on the kitchen counter. He plucked one up and turned to look at Anna. "Sure. Unknown is about as big as a postage stamp."

Pierrot followed suit. "Not that big." He giggled at his own joke.

"You know a big man. Tall man. Broad like a linebacker. In his late forties, maybe in his fifties. One of the family. Dresses like, well, he doesn't dress really well."

"You mean he dressed like a bum," discerned Phillippe adroitly. He opened a mathematics book and grimaced. "I hate math."

"She means Gautier," said Pierrot. He opened the same book and took out a notepad. "He lives over to the bluff. Debou's bluff. That's 'cause his name is Debou. Gautier Debou. It's his bluff, you know. His family has lived there for ages."

Phillippe nodded solemnly. "Gautier Debou. _Grandmaman_ says he's a druggie and a drunk, too. Smells like Gabriel when he's gone to a bar." Pierrot poked Phillippe in the ribs, and his brother quickly amended, "Not that Gabriel goes to bars very often."

Anna didn't want to think about Gabriel. She wanted to think about Gautier. She was feeling a thousand times better after resting for a few hours and eating. If it wasn't far to the bluff the twins were talking about, then she was going for a post-lunch stroll. "Where is the bluff, guys? If you tell me, I'll show you how to make a go-cart that will make your mother wring her hands in agony every time you roll it out of the garage."

"A go-cart?" Phillippe's eyes got big as saucers. Pierrot emulated his brother straightaway. "You can build a go-cart, _mamselle?_ "

"Well, we might have to get your father's permission at least. But I bet we can get enough parts out of your uncle and your father to make it almost cost nothing at all." Anna reminded herself to say a prayer in retribution. She didn't think Camille was going to be happy about it, but it wouldn't take more than a day's worth of work, and she knew that the spare parts that would work for such a project were usually abundant.

"The bluff's easy to find!" cried Pierrot. "We can start the go-cart this weekend. It's Christmas break. Yippee!"

Anna felt a moment of guilt before she listened to the twins' instructions on how to find Gautier Debou's home.

Phillippe and Pierrot would have joined her except that they only just remembered homework and the Christmas pageant. "I have to be a tree," complained Phillippe. "Mrs. Bonin says that I have ants in my pants." He looked down at his pant. "I so do not have ants in my pants."

Pierrot added, "I get to be one of the Wise Men. What's myrrh?"

As Anna left the house, Phillippe said, "Myrrh is a secret power that the baby Jesus needed. _Cretin_! Like veiled eyes."

There was a well-worn trail that coiled around the edge of the lake. She noted that the sun was just starting its descent behind the dark silhouette of tall trees and made a small moue. Anna didn't wear a watch, and she had no idea when the sun would set. From the looks of it, it would be within the hour. The twins had assured her that the bluff was only a mile away and easily located, so she continued her trek, determined to speak to Gautier once more.

_Gautier Debou_ , she amended. Now she had a last name as well. It was a reasonable assumption. If Gautier had been married to Arette, then he should be her father. Yet, what were the reasons that she ended up on the far side of Texas, far and hell gone from this place?

Years had passed since Anna had any hope of finding someone who resembled her, someone who was related by blood. The birth certificate had been the first instance of something that gave her an overt optimism that she couldn't quite contain.

She passed several homes hidden away in the thickness of vegetation. Some had lights on. Others were dark and silent. Eventually, she came out on a narrow dirt lane. "Phillippe said go right here," she said to herself. The shadows were lengthening around her as the sun was setting, elongating into substantial shapes that danced in conjunction with the branches above moving in the dying breeze.

It was a darkened tunnel surrounded by a line of trees that was as solid as a brick wall. Spanish moss was draped across each side, like curtains flittering across a considerable barricade. In the lingering light of sunset, Anna felt distinctly alone. The birds had gone silent. No insects called to each other. No nocturnal thing rattled about in the brush in search of sustenance. Utterly alone, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, not exactly cold but not exactly warm either, and continued down the lane.

There was a sudden disturbance that gave her pause. The distant sound of a shot fired, and she remembered a quick warning from the twins to keep on the trails. Deer season had started in October, and she didn't want to get shot by mistake. She waited, but there were no further shots.

A hundred yards into the secret heart of the forest primeval, she found a simple mailbox at the end of another line bisecting the first. The name on its rusting hull was painted by hand as though by a child, but it was readable as Debou.

Anna turned down that lane and began a gradual climb, walking up a path that showed ruts from rains and vehicles that passed this way when the road had been a congealed mass of mud. When she emerged from the forest into a small clearing she was surprised that it really had ended. She almost expected the lane to meander through the black forest forever.

There was a cottage sitting there. No picturesque fairy-tale dwelling was this. It wasn't as tidy as some she'd seen. It was a three-room building with peeling paint and broken windows covered by bits of duct tape and cardboard. The yard was overrun with weeds and saplings that longed to make this cleared area return to what it once was.

An old, desiccated truck sat in the driveway in front of the cottage. But Anna had an expert's eye, and she knew this one actually ran. At least it did most of the time.

She looked over the cottage and saw no lights on. There was nothing there to give her any indication that anyone was home. Gautier could be out gigging frogs for all she knew or hunting a white-tail deer because it was the cheapest way of getting meat.

Anna patted her pockets. She didn't have anything to write with or anything to write on. She could leave Gautier a message, and he might get in touch with her. She approached the cottage slowly and raised a fist to knock on the front door. Before she could move another inch, the wind came up, and the door swung open about two inches. Its rusting hinges gave a protesting squeal that caused a riot of goose bumps to ripple down her forearms.

"Hello?" She considered the half-open door for a moment, and then said, "Okay then, I'm pushing the door open. Please don't shoot me with your trusty, handy-dandy shotgun, if you've got one. I'm the one you talked to last night."

Her hand opened up and touched the paint-flecked door for a second before she pushed it open. There was another dissenting wail as the hinges reluctantly did their job, and Anna found herself looking into the living room of the cottage. Straight in front of her was a stone fireplace, empty and cold, only ashes remaining. To the side, a moldering couch sat with piles of newspapers stacked on it. Another chair sat facing the fireplace, as if someone regularly sat there losing him or herself in the glow of a flickering fire. There was a set of fireplace matches spilled on the floor next to that chair and a pile of crumpled paper. There was also a cardboard box filled with kindling within reach.

When Anna took a step inside the cottage, she could also see that someone was sitting in the isolated chair as if he intended to set a fire against the impending chill of the evening. When she took another step inside, she could see that he was dead.

It was Gautier, and someone had shot him in the back of the head.

# Chapter Eleven

## Wednesday, December 17th

_The superstitious one will never walk upon a grave. It's said that it's sinful in the day and terrible bad luck in the dark._

Anna didn't know what to do. Gautier Debou was dead. It was as if someone had approached him from behind and stood exactly where she was standing. Then the person had lifted his or her gun and shot him. She could see the spray of blood and brain material over the side of the fireplace now. Before it had blended into the growing pattern of shadows and she hadn't noticed it.

She swallowed convulsively and couldn't bring her shaking knees to move. Not some hunting accident was this. Gautier had been shot from inside his own home. He had turned his back on the individual with the gun and went to light a fire. Anna glanced around slowly as if she could fathom a reason for wanting to kill this man. There was a light switch by the door, and she reached for it with a quivering hand, quickly discovering that there was no electricity.

Glancing around, she realized something else. _No electricity and no phone. Going to have to go to some neighbor's house to call the police._ Anna trembled. She'd never seen someone dead before. In the light of day, Dan's little Polaroids on his wall of horror in the sleeper were a drugged vision and didn't quite seem real. But in Gautier's case it was up close and final. _The back half of his head is gone. Gone. GONE!_

Anna blinked. Had this happened because of her? _Had someone killed Gautier because they didn't want him to talk to me? Or was it more likely that someone who was described as a giant with crazy eyes would have enemies that have nothing to do with me?_

_Jane is right. Bad luck follows me around like I was dragging it attached to my ankle with a chain._ Anna couldn't help the impulse she felt. She knew she couldn't help this man. _He might be my father._ She stepped forward and knelt at his side. She ignored the terrible wound above and took his wrist in her hand. Shocked by the warmth, she checked for a pulse. _Can he possibly still be alive with that done to his head?_ Two fingers rested on the vein that would relay the beating of his heart. There was nothing.

Comprehension hit Anna like a power driver. He was warm because he had only died recently. Her head went up, and slowly her gaze circled the room. She eyed the dark shadows where someone could be standing, silently watching her. She had heard the shot. Only minutes before she had found his mailbox. Only minutes before she had stepped onto the porch. No one had passed her on the lane.

Anna came to her feet and looked around her again. Darkness had come. In one of the windows she could see deepening purple outside with the twinkling whiteness that was a single star. She stepped back and tripped over a stack of newspapers on the floor. Scrambling to her feet, her state of frozen apprehension had been broken. She fled outside and found a world full of obscuring murk, concealing any kind of person that might have been waiting and watching for her.

_Has Dan Cullen escaped from jail? Is this his twisted method of revenge?_ Anna bit back the cry that almost escaped her lips. Her sense of reason told her the answer to that. Dan wouldn't know that this man might have been her father. And if he had escaped, Sebastien and the rest would have surely told her. No, it was someone else.

She let the door shut behind her and restrained herself when the hinges made their unholy wail once more. Stepping toward the gloomy lane that would take her out of this place and down the bluff, she braced herself for the longest walk she might ever have to take. In the clearing she must be as visible as a bright, shining beacon, while whoever had shot Gautier was well hidden in a wealth of night-clad darkness.

_Watching me. Waiting to see what I'm going to do. Wondering if they'll have to kill me too._ Anna took another step. _I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. I refuse to be afraid anymore. Just another step. One foot in front of another. I can do this._

Then _he_ was there again. No figment of her imagination. Clear in her mind, no dream, and no passing fancy of an exhausted state. His thought patterns were as strong as if he stood beside her talking into one of her ears. It was an urgent note, and she abruptly knew he could feel her fear, taste it like it was something caught uncomfortably in his craw. _What's wrong, Anna? What is it?_

Anna jerked her head around as if he were there. Who could she trust? _The whistling man. Is he whistling in the dusk? Looking at her. Wondering if she needed to die as well?_

_What the hell? Tell me what's happened? I've never hurt you, Anna. I'd never harm you. It would be like stabbing myself with a machete if I did that. Can't you understand I just want to..._

She had been inching forward, silently willing her feet to move increment by increment. The voice in her head was real. She didn't even have to shut her eyes to hear it. Regardless, she didn't know if she could trust herself, much less an anonymous articulation in her mind. There was a sudden noise in front of her, directly in her path of escape. A large shape moved through the lane, the blackened figure of someone in a hurry. It moved inexorably toward her, intent on its prize.

Anna turned around and bolted. She didn't know exactly how she'd done it, but the cottage slipped behind her, and she was suddenly on a well-used trail carved out of the impenetrable shrubbery of the forest above the lake. She didn't stop to question why it was there or how it was that it was as smooth as a cement-lined sidewalk. She flew over its curves and listened to her breathing grow harsh with distress. Someone followed her through the forest.

The trail twisted back and forth and Anna did not hesitate. She prayed her feet would hold true to the path. After long minutes, she thought she was making ground. The path began to lead downhill as if coming off the bluff Gautier had called home. She thought she might surely run into some other residence. Even some little shack where protection might be meager at best, but there was nothing but an opaque barrier that prevented her from hiding in the shadows.

She paused for a moment and cocked an ear. There was nothing there. No sound of another person's heavy breathing, no animals moving in the night. There was nothing to tell her if she had been successful in eluding who was pursuing her. There was only the unremitting sound of her breaths laboring for oxygen. _I should take up jogging. Apparently men are dying to chase me around._

_That's not funny._

_Who asked you?_ Anna came back with the thought before she could bite it back.

_Where are you?_

_In the woods. Dark. Deep. Miles to go before I stay alive._

There was a silent note of derision. _Can't help you if you don't let me. I liked it better when you were drugged. You were a lot more cooperative_. Behind the acerbic words was a biting edge of worry.

_Reminding me of that particular event isn't going to get you anywhere,_ Anna thought. _I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid._

_You're not afraid,_ the voice reassured. _Why should you be afraid?_

_Whistling man._ Anna heard movement back along the trail. Someone had caught up to her. _The hell I'm not afraid._ She twirled and ran. Something seemed to throw itself into her path, and she tumbled to the ground.

Instantly there was someone there, yanking her to her feet, insistently saying, "Are you hurt? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Anna struggled with the man until he shifted his grip to her shoulders and shook her briefly. "Stop wiggling. I'm not going to hurt you."

Then she realized who it was. Gabriel stood there, holding her shoulders, gold eyes staring down into gold eyes. "I'm not hurt," she said finally. The quiver in her voice was back, and she found it distasteful. "Someone was following me."

"That was me," said Gabriel. His chest was rapidly rising and falling with exertion. "Didn't you hear me calling your name? You run like a deer."

"Gautier..." she stopped for a breath, and then started again, "Gautier is dead."

Gabriel was hooded in shadows, but she saw his mouth open wide. He turned his head in the direction of the cottage and seemed to silently regard the unseen abode. He twisted back to her, adjusting his grip on her shoulders. "Why were you were running?"

"He was still warm," she said faintly. "He was still warm, and there was someone there, coming up the lane, chasing me. Was it you?" It occurred to her that Gabriel was wearing nothing more than jeans and a t-shirt. He didn't have a weapon with which he could have shot Gautier, and there was no place on his person to hide it. _He could have dropped it. Hidden it? But why do that?_

"I came up the bluff trail," he jerked his head over his shoulder. "It intersects this trail just after you enter the forest. You ran right by it, but that's understandable; it's not as well-worn as this one. You probably didn't even notice it."

"We need to call the police." Anna couldn't quite understand why Gabriel wasn't alarmed. She had told him that Gautier was dead. Didn't he understand?

Even in the darkness she could see his gold eyes. They glowed in the night, almost as brightly as the stars that had begun to pop up in the skies above them. "The police? _Pourquoi?_ I mean, why?"

Anna broke loose of his grip and stepped back. With a small cry she realized what it was that she had tripped over in the first place. It was a gravestone. A large gravestone made of dark granite with a cross on top of it, all alone in the forest with a well-worn trail leading right to it. She shivered involuntarily, not wanting to think about what it meant, for some reason not daring to kneel closely enough to read the name carved there. "He was murdered," she said softly. "Someone killed him."

A bat fluttered by them in search of insects, and Gabriel stood frozen. Anna looked down at the gravestone and shuddered again. "That's why you were afraid?" he asked gently. "You think someone killed Gautier?"

Anna looked back up. Her mouth opened, but she couldn't bring herself to say the words. She didn't know if Gabriel had been close to Gautier, been a friend, fished with him, had him to his little cabin, but these people had already given her an indication of what it meant to be one of the family. Gautier might have been crazy but he was still _La Famille. Like cement..._

"I think he was my father," she whispered.

Gabriel sighed. "Perhaps he had a heart attack, Anna. He must have died suddenly. No one..."

"I heard the shotgun blast!" she shouted. "And most of his head is on the wall, so I'm damned well not mistaken about it! It didn't fly off by itself."

Gabriel jerked backward as if he had been pulled by something invisible. "I would have known," he muttered. "It's because it's Gautier. _C'est tout_." His head came up. "His body was warm, you heard a shotgun? You ran because you were afraid of someone else in the forest." He speedily made a decision. "It must have been quick. He must not have seen who it was. He wasn't...afraid."

The words jumbled in her head. There were the other words there as well that interfered with the ones coming out of Gabriel's mouth, words that rattled around compulsively in her brain. _It's the bloodline. Gautier didn't have veiled eyes. He was of_ La Famille _, but he didn't have the gift. When he needed help, no one could hear him_.

Anna focused on one phrase. She'd heard it before from the twins. She repeated it, "Veiled eyes?"

Gabriel was slowly looking around them, paying close attention to the depth of woods and the soft breeze that fiddled with Anna's hair, pushing her bangs into her eyes. He sharply turned back to her. His voice became harsh. "You know. You don't want to admit it, but you know. Veiled eyes are what the family calls the gift of second sight. You call it your little helper. You've had it for as long as you can remember. Sometimes you dream of being someone else, a man whose face you can never see. A man who waited for you."

One foot went behind her carefully. She bumped into the gravestone, not able to go any further, and made a distressed noise. She didn't want to admit that Gabriel was right. The words seemed incomprehensible to her ears. "How do you..."

_Because I am he. The man you've dreamt of all your life_. Viens avec moi, chère. _Come with me. We can't stay here anymore._

The parish sheriff's department came after that, and Anna could see their flashing lights as Gabriel guided her out of the forest. The last vestiges of fear faded from her, and Gabriel sighed loudly.

"How did they get here so fast?" she said.

Gabriel glanced at her. His eyes were visible in the lights that were quickly filling the open patch of land that contained Gautier's wretched little cottage. He looked at her, and his eyes rolled. "How can you be so dense, _chère_? Are you mentally deficient?"

Anna yanked her arm out of his grip. "Hardly," she snapped. "At least I have some manners. I don't pretend to know everything there is about 'the family.' And I'm not going to pretend that this so-called gift is something to be taken for granted."

Uniformed men were setting up lights in the yard. Gabriel looked at them. "I know you're not...deficient," he said, grating his teeth. "I will tell you what you need to know. And the first rule of the family is that outsiders don't know about the gift." He nodded toward the sheriff's deputies. " _Le shérif_ and his _députés_ , they do not know. True, there has been family in law enforcement, but not now. _Le shérif_ respects our community. He has worked with us in the past, but he doesn't know about that. And you will not tell him."

"I don't like to be told what or what not to do," Anna snarled back. "You could have simply asked me. Emphasized its importance."

_Please, Anna_. It wasn't his voice or his thoughts. It was someone else, someone who had a soft lilt and a delicate frame of mind. Anna couldn't help but look around her as if to see if someone else was standing there.

Gabriel sighed loudly again. "Camille," he said in answer to Anna's unasked question. "She called _le shérif_."

"Can you people do that all the time?" Anna barked.

"And you, if you want."

"To anyone in the family."

"You weren't listening before," Gabriel admonished her with annoyance in his tone. "Not all of us have the gift. Those with the strongest bloodlines are those with veiled eyes. Relatives and close loved ones are...blessed with the strongest connections."

Anna digested that. "Relatives?" she repeated. "And you say Gautier didn't have it."

" _Oui_ ," Gabriel's voice became thoughtful. He swiftly realized that Anna had missed the point he'd been so clumsily trying to make and focused on something else prominent in her mind. He wanted to throw his hands up in the air in disgust, but unexpectedly she let something slip through her control. He read her as clearly as the sound of a church bell. "Ah _, non_. Your mother did not have the gift."

"I don't like you knowing everything I'm thinking about," Anna gritted.

"Stay angry then," Gabriel advised. "I cannot hear a damn thing when you're angry. It's an effective block to me."

"You were the one who found me," she marveled abruptly. "It wasn't any kind of hallucination. It was you. Asking me where I was, what the truck looked like. You saved my life that night." She stared at him. He had turned away to look at the police vehicles and was steadfastly ignoring her. The line of his profile was mulishly stubborn as if he didn't want to discuss that topic. "You were so angry. I told him that. And he thought I was delirious."

" _Oui_ ," Gabriel whispered. "I was angry. I could have ripped his lungs from his body. That miserable son of a bitch." His head turned slowly to look at her, but it wasn't her face he concentrated on. It was the scabs and bruises that circled her wrists. "I'm sorry I couldn't get there faster."

Anna's mouth opened. Nothing came out, but her thoughts said it all.

Finally, she said, "And Gautier?"

"Gautier has done things in the past. Drugs. Gambling in questionable games with questionable men. He has been in jail a half-dozen times for assault. Once he beat an outsider to within an inch of his life. There are men who would have cheerfully slit his throat for a carton of cigarettes. Trust me, this is coincidental." He held out his hand. "I— we need you to not tell the police about our gifts. You can understand why this is so. After all, you've never shared your own abilities with anyone. Not even Jane."

Anna stared at his hand. There were things he wasn't telling her. And she knew it was a lot more than he had already told her. Finally, she put her smaller hand in his much larger one. His warm fingers closed over hers. "I won't tell them."

"I know," he said. "I think I've always known."

# Chapter Twelve

## Thursday, December 18th - Saturday, December 20th

_Some old women whisper that a child born with a caul will have veiled eyes or more commonly known as the gift of second sight._

Within an hour, the parish coroner pronounced Gautier Debou's death a homicide. Police officers littered the little clearing and most of them were grim-faced and taciturn. Having already seen what they were seeing, Anna was not surprised.

The sheriff questioned her intently about her presence on the bluff, asking her specifically about the shotgun blast she'd heard before she'd turned down the lane. "You say you heard something before you reached the cottage," he reiterated.

"It sounded like a gunshot to me. I've heard a few before. One of Camille's twins said it was hunting season," Anna answered, "and that if I stayed on the trail, I wouldn't get accidentally shot. I thought it was a hunter. Don't they hunt deer at dusk?"

"Why did you want to talk to Mr. Debou?" the sheriff asked her, his face unfathomable.

Some people were easier to read than others. _Like the waitress in the truck stop in Texas. The one who thought I was desperate, a prostitute_. She had been as plain as a signpost. The sheriff, however, was like a _tabula rasa_ , a blank slate. There was nothing there except an unerring interest in the answers she was giving him.

Anna realized that she was drained. The walk up to Debou's house and the fear she'd felt were both contributors to her exhaustion. She thought she might melt into the ground if she hadn't been sitting down in the backseat of a patrol car.

"I thought he might know something about my parents," Anna sighed.

Gabriel was standing beside her, his arms crossed over his chest. He dropped them to his sides as he said, "Sheriff _, la p'tite_ is exhausted. Can you not speak with her just as well tomorrow? She's staying with my sister."

The sheriff stared at the pair of them. "Yeah, I guess we can do that, although I don't think it's going to be necessary. Debou has a regular pharmacy of illegal drugs inside hidden in the crawlspace. Unless this young lady has a shotgun or a criminal history, it's not going to be an issue."

Anna sighed again. She had never touched a shotgun in her life, and although she probably should have been arrested for assault in Abilene, she didn't have a criminal record that was going to bother the sheriff.

A deputy was designated to drive her home. Gabriel was staying to talk to the sheriff.

Gabriel's thoughts came unmistakably to her. _I'll talk to you later, Anna. Rest and be well._

Anna doggedly refused to answer. The deputy started the patrol car and let it rattle down the rutted lane, ignoring his passenger. Once acceptance of the ability had come, she realized that she could catch bits and pieces of conversations in her head. It was as if a door had suddenly swung wide open for her. It was like listening in on a party line. Most of what she understood was mundane and simplistic. These were crumbs and fragments that the family didn't care if someone overheard, like a conversation about pickles in a supermarket. _You coming over? No, watching Star Trek. T-Bob, where you at? Not in front of the computer. Sure. Anh._ Merde! _Don't do that. Why not? He's a worthless_ Carencro. _Boss hates me. Hate him back._

_Imagine a wall_ , advised Gabriel, coming out of the blue. _Build a wall in your mind,_ chère. _That will take care of the chatter until you can better control the gift._

Camille and her family were waiting for Anna. So were Aurore and Sebastien. As Anna got out of the patrol car with a wave at the deputy, she slapped a hand against her forehead. "Oh, Aurore, I forgot about dinner."

Aurore brushed a hand through her black and gray hair. She turned halfway to Sebastien, saying, "She forgot about the supper. It's supper here, _chère._ Dinner is lunch. But supper be damned. We worried about you." She grasped Anna's shoulder softly.

Anna hesitated. Despite what had happened this evening. Coming out and talking about what she had experienced was something she found difficult to do. Her face twisted as she searched for the words.

_Don't worry_ , came Camille, repeating Aurore's words. _Get used to it first. It's a gift. And you're with family now. No one will judge you here._

There was another ruthless thought that cut into that. _She's wrong about that. You will be judged. By the elders and by he who guards the family. Just like Gautier._ Anna started. It wasn't a new thought pattern, but she didn't think it was Gabriel and it wasn't Camille's dulcet tones. Immediately she understood that she wasn't supposed to have caught it. A rush of shielded emotion followed the thought, just like the wall Gabriel had encouraged her to build in her mind. It slammed down.

With a little note of shock she looked at the others. Mathieu Landry was guiding his sons inside while motioning at Sebastien and Aurore to join them. He said, "We have plenty, friends. The boys only eat half the buffalo tonight."

Sebastien chuckled in reply. "Aurore said she could eat _le cocodrie_ whole."

Camille waited for Anna, a little bemused expression on her face as she watched her sons scamper inside already complaining that they were starving to death. None of them paid particular attention to her.

"Why not?" she heard Aurore ask a moment later. "I invite people to supper, and no one bothers to show up." She laughed pleasantly. "Not even my own husband and sons. You'd think they prefer Taco Bell, _les imbeciles_."

Phillippe picked an inopportune moment to say, " _Mamselle_ promised to help us make a go-cart, Papa. Won't that be exciting?"

Camille paused at the door and glanced at Anna. "Oh Lord. Just what we need. Anna, you didn't."

"With your permission?" Anna responded feebly. She had a weakness for children. She wanted them to be happy and have the things she never had in the orphanage and in the foster homes. _Possessions and uninterrupted playtime and time to enjoy their childhood._

"Oh." Camille understood that. _I see._

"I'll keep it to a reasonable speed, Camille," she said. "Did you hear someone else just now?"

"What do you mean?" Camille waited for Anna to come through the door. She shut the door, and together they watched the twins attack the kitchen. Mathieu was pulling paper plates out of a cupboard.

"You said something about how no one will judge me," Anna said it softly. She was lost now. Obviously it could be anyone present with her or within range of her. And who knew how much of a range the gift had. _After all, didn't Gabriel say he knew about me all the way over in El Paso? Clear across the border of Louisiana and Texas and then across the entire state of Texas?_ "And someone else said you were wrong. That I would be judged by...someone else."

Camille snorted. "Nonsense. Someone is just messing with your head, _p'tite_. Ignore them. Like all human beings they like to have their little jokes. Wait until Sebastien pulls some of his fast ones on you."

Anna regained her normal physical self within days. If there weren't fading bruises on her body and fast-disintegrating scabs on her wrists, she might have said nothing at all had happened to her. The nightmares had crumbled into pieces of nonsensical wonderings and Dan Cullen had fled the world inside her dreams.

Several things had happened. She had moved out of the Landry house and into a small apartment above a garage. The apartment was clean but small. Anna especially liked how the second floor had a little balcony that looked out over the lake. It also had an astonishingly unhindered view of the general store and the dock where Gabriel kept his two boats.

It was the same garage the former automobile mechanic had plied his trade in and was owned by one of the family. They hadn't found someone to replace the young man and had been taking their car problems to Shreveport for the better part of two years. The equipment was limited, but already Anna had fixed several vehicles, including Sebastien's old Ford truck.

Curiously, she felt some of their thoughts when they came to her with their repairs. It was obvious that some of them did not expect her to "hear" them, and she did not bring it into the open because she thought some of them would have been embarrassed at what she'd caught them thinking. They were coming to look at the new one. The one who'd been separated from the family at birth, brought up by outsiders. _Can we trust her? Will she support us? Is she really one of us?_

There were a few who were worse. _Outsider trash. Never be one of us. Should turn her out._ And Anna discovered that the family was just like any other group of human beings with their own biases and prejudices. Good and bad. Judgmental and nonjudgmental.

The day before Jane had overnighted an envelope containing five hundred dollars and a bus ticket. Anna left the ticket sitting on the nightstand next to her bed, uncertain of the outcome there. She didn't know if she would go to see her friend anymore. She rather suspected she didn't know anything about anyone. At least it was how she felt at the moment. She called Jane once to explain her hesitation. Jane had been as she always was, understanding, "Anna, I just don't want you to hitchhike like you were before."

Anna had interrupted, troubled by something she couldn't identify. "I won't hitchhike anymore, Jane. I've learned my lesson." Then she had quickly pled fatigue, promising to call again within a few days.

Gabriel had unfalteringly ignored her presence for the last three days. She only caught a hint of him once, that same morning. Thinking of her while he stood at the bow of the _Belle-Mère_ , he whistled cheerfully. He had lost his abject concentration while he was working. He was enjoying the late Indian summer and whistling that same lively tune. Then he stopped whistling and started singing the words, all in French, undoubtedly content for the moment.

Anna had allowed an errant thought out, and she wished immediately that she hadn't done it. _Happy?_

He'd hastily stopped singing. _Anna_. Then there was a rush of emotion, desire wrapped up in helpless wanting that caused an answering surge within herself. However, something else had called for his attention. _Later, Anna. When you're more used to it._

For some reason Anna felt rebuffed, and she bit back a cutting retort. An arrow of hurt feelings shot through her. She'd heard him then thinking protestingly in immediate reaction to her hurt feelings, _Anna! I didn't mean..._

Then her own wall she constructed slammed down. In Anna's mind it was a garage door for the most well-protected shop equipment a business could possess. It was reinforced steel, and she could raise or lower it in her mind at her whim.

Even now the apparent rejection stung. She cleaned up a set of wrenches and put them back in their place, methodically arranging them in order of size. Then she glanced out the open doors and thought, _It's Saturday, and I don't have to be in here_.

The twins had spent half the morning there constructing the new go-cart. It sat half-finished on the floor behind her, occupying one of the stalls inside the garage. Anna knew it would be finished within a few days. Phillippe and Pierrot were like little obsessed madmen. Even their father had tired out before they had. "Oh _mon Dieu_ ," Mathieu had complained piously. "Please give me more strength. Come on boys. Your papa has other work to do today, and you've promised to help."

Pierrot had protested, "But it's almost done." Phillippe had vehemently agreed.

"It won't be finished for a few days," Anna explained patiently, knowing exactly whose fault this was. "We can't finish it in a day. It wouldn't be worth having."

Both twins had considered that and decided that it was a good reason to quit without further objection. Mathieu had mouthed the words, "Thank you," when the twins' backs were turned.

After they had gone, Anna felt oddly alone. She cleared the tools from the floor of the garage and decided she needed fresh air.

She had a million questions for the family and finally had a minute to herself to think about what she might say. They acted like normal people. She knew that mostly that was what they were, normal families with a little extra going on upstairs. They had a touch of clairvoyance. Like her, they could have little hints of what was to come, but it was never earth-shattering events that were foretold. For the most part, they were simply able to communicate with each other.

After washing her hands thoroughly, she changed into a clean t-shirt and headed outside. With a quick glance toward the dock, Anna ascertained that Gabriel and his boats were nowhere in sight. She headed toward the trail that circled the lake. At first she didn't know where she was going, but it suddenly dawned upon her that she was headed directly for Gautier Debou's cottage again.

Gabriel had mentioned another trail that ran up the bluff. Anna found several paths, most of them trailing off into dead ends, nothing more than locations for hunters to lay in wait for their prey. Then she located one that seemed to be heading in the right direction and began a gradual climb. He _must know every trail. Every little bit of the forest and bayous. He grew up here. He wandered every inch of this land._

Anna couldn't help but feel some resentment. Who hated her enough to take her across the state of Texas and away from her home? It brought to the forefront of her mind the questions that had been clattering around there waiting for answers that were not to be given. At least not yet. Gabriel had said, "Not all of us have the gift. Those with the strongest bloodlines are those with veiled eyes. Relatives and close loved ones are blessed with the strongest connections." And then to her thoughts about her father being one without veiled eyes, he had responded, "Ah _non._ Your mother did not have the gift."

She wanted answers, and she did not want to wait any longer, and she didn't even have to stand face-to-face with him to get them. Stopping in the middle of the trail, she shut her eyes. The metal garage door inside her mind jangled up. Anna demanded of Gabriel, _HOW do you know my mother didn't have the gift?_

He didn't like the sudden command for an answer. Didn't like it one damned bit. She could feel the irritation behind his eyes, souring his disposition as he steered the _Belle-Mère_. There was someone else there. A tourist was asking him questions and Gabriel couldn't focus on both of them at the same time. For one instant she could see from his eyes. The black lake stretched out in front of the boat, and the iridescent refraction of the bright light from the sun bounced off the waters. The tourist said, "So the old guy in the store said there's a giant catfish in the lake."

" _Oui_ ," replied Gabriel. Anna could feel him more than she could before. It was the oddest sensation. She was standing in the forest, the branches of the pine trees muting the light trickling down upon her, with squirrels chattering and birds chirping. Yet, she was also standing on the bow of a boat, the air blowing around her head as they headed for better fishing grounds. "It is Goujon."

_Goujon the great_ , Anna added. _Builder of dams, and whose tail is so large, when it came down upon the ground, it caused the earthquakes of 1811._

Gabriel stuttered. Anna's sudden loquaciousness was rattling his cage. "It's just a b-big fish story. Why don't you go on in back, Mr. Porter? I'll be stopping the boat presently, and you'll want to have your gear unloaded and ready to fish, _oui_?"

"Absolutely," agreed Mr. Porter enthusiastically and departed the bow.

_Answer the question_ , Anna demanded. _How did you..._

_Know that your mother didn't have the gift?_

Didn't _have_ , she thought. Anna hadn't questioned the wording of his statement before. _You mean she's no longer alive._

_No,_ chère. _She's no longer alive_. He felt her immediate disappointment, and she could feel a rush of sympathy. _I'm sorry, Anna. You used to dream about finding them._

_Did you know my mother?_ Anna stuffed the sympathy aside and went with what she'd always known... forceful demands. It made up for her lack of height and weight. It had always protected her self-esteem. _Did you know Arette?_

_Arette?_ Gabriel repeated the thought. There was concern there. _You told me, Anna, it was there in your mind like a great flashing sign. Be careful. Guard yourself. There are others who would listen to you. No matter how well I try to protect the connection, there are some who can "hear" us. And you, you cannot protect yourself at all. Not yet._ Then he forced his own wall down and cut her off, leaving her frustrated.

Her eyes opened, and she found the forest in front of her. The light still streamed from above. Something rustled in the brush ahead, and she saw an armadillo wander out, give her a disinterested look, and wander into the brush on the other side of the trail. Birds prattled in the trees. It was as normal a world as normal could be.

Anna had somehow managed to find her way to the top of Debou's bluff. If she turned left on the smooth trail she would come out into the little clearing and find the empty cottage. Yellow tape would be cordoned around the place indicating that something terrible had happened there. She shuddered and turned right.

She found the trail beginning to dip as it led off the bluff, winding back and forth. Not remembering the twists and turns from the night she'd found Gautier's body, she was amazed she had made it as far as she had without breaking her neck. It was much better in the daylight. The path was well-worn, as if hundreds of trampling feet had passed this way on a daily basis, but she had only seen Gabriel here. Beginning to wonder if she'd remembered it wrong or she'd taken the wrong path, she finally came to an area where the bayous that were part of the huge lake reached like tentacles into the hills.

The path widened, and another little trail headed off as if it was returning to the bluff. Through the trees Anna thought she could see a little shack up the side of the hill, nestled into the hill. Further on, she could see where the earth and forest had been cleared away. There was the distant glitter of a chain-link fence. She thought about it and decided that it must be the edge of the salt mine Sebastien had mentioned. It was on the edge of the bayou that was fed by the lake, and the workers had inadvertently tunneled under the lake making it unsafe to continue.

Anna stuck with the original path, positive that she was on the same one she had been on before. She soon discovered she found she wasn't positive after all. It seemed like she was walking forever, but when she had been running from whomever had chased her it had only seemed like scant minutes.

She hesitated. At least she would see where the trail ended up. It curled and twisted down the bluff, finally meeting bayous on each side of the spit of land. Almost at the very edge, Anna had come to the conclusion that she had been mistaken. There was no gravestone in sight. Nothing to indicate that one had ever been here.

Then it was there. Under a towering oak tree with Spanish moss waving delicately in the balmy breeze, was a marker. It sat elegantly there, as if someone had carefully chosen its location so that the occupant of the grave could look out upon the incredible beauty of the bayous that surrounded it.

Anna approached it slowly. When she read the name there, she took a deep breath. The stone read in full, "In memory of Arette Tuelle Debou, beloved. Rest in peace."

There weren't any dates on it, but the stone was smooth and not aged. The letters on it were as clearly cut as if the stone had been set the previous day. Anna tried to restrain feelings of disappointment and dismay into manageable components that wouldn't cause her harm.

"She was an outsider, you know?" said a polite voice. Anna jumped before spinning to face whomever it was.

# Chapter Thirteen

## Saturday, December 20th

_The old ones mutter that a body should spit three times on the ground before crossing a stream of running water after the sun has set. Thus, spirits' and witches' evil powers will be turned aside._

The woman standing behind her was small and capped with a head of white hair. Hardly larger than a mythical fairy, she didn't weigh more than ninety pounds and was ethereal in appearance. Perhaps in her sixties, her spine was arched at the base of her neck, showing the insidious progression of osteoporosis. Despite that, she looked at Anna with level eyes.

_Green eyes_. Anna noticed them last. _The color of grass after a lush rain, just as unique as the gold in their own way. Not one of the family?_ "Who are you?" she asked softly. "And how did you know about Arette?"

"Anais was the name she gave you." The old woman motioned at the marker. "It was her mother's name."

Anna's mouth gaped at the name. It was a French variation of Anne, pronounced ah-na-ees, and her own name had been purely coincidental. The nuns at the orphanage had preferred traditional Catholic names, but there were far too many Marys and Catherines to name another child the same. One of the sisters had Dutch ancestors and didn't mind catering to a personal whim.

Glancing over her shoulder at the memorial, Anna realized something else. On the birth certificate the mother's name was Arette Tuelle, not Arette Tuelle Debou. Her long-dead mother had admitted no marriage, not giving her grown-up daughter any kind of lead to follow. _For whatever reason._

"My name is Anna now," she told the other woman.

"Of course it is," she proclaimed cheerfully with an amused chuckle. "The winds whisper it. Goujon mutters it under his breath in the night and _him._ Him of course. He knows it, too." She lowered her voice to a calculating whisper. "He dreams about you."

"If you knew my mother..." Anna said after a pause. _Does she mean Gabriel? Or the one who wants to judge her? Or are they one and the same?_ But there was something she wanted to know more than the other... "I'd like to hear about her?"

The old woman with the curved spine gathered an ivory-colored, hand-crocheted shawl closer around her shoulders. "I guess you would, Anna. You can call me Meg."

"That doesn't sound like a family name. They seem to prefer things of French origin." Surprised, Anna glanced down at her right hand for a moment. It suddenly burned with pain. She could have sworn something had slashed open her palm, a slit that went from one side to the other. She fully expected to see a gaping wound there, but the flesh was only angrily red. After another moment, the pain began to fade, and she looked back up at Meg.

"Meg Theriot," she completed the name with a wrinkling of her upper lip. Meg noticed Anna's lingering glance at her hand and didn't mention it. "Marguerite Theriot, that is, but I'm not exactly one of them. My mother was an outsider too. I have her eyes."

Meg's little shack was the same one Anna had noticed before sitting in the lee of the bluff. It had two rooms. A living room with a little kitchenette showed its economy of space, and another open door led to the bedroom. An iron bed with a wedding ring quilt was visible.

Anna looked around the small room. Meg had photographs of her children and her grandchildren hanging on the walls and sitting on the few tables. There was a prominent but aged photograph of a man in an Army uniform.

"That," said Meg, pointing at the service photo, "is my husband, Laurant. He died in Vietnam. They gave him a medal after he was dead, you know. They said he was a hero. I expect Laurant had a little tickling of something or other before he joined our Father. Truth, he was a good man." She touched the black-framed photograph reverently. "You know about people sometimes."

The photographed man had the same black hair, shorn closely to his head in a traditional buzz cut for the military, and those self-same gold eyes. He had a large white smile. Anna thought he seemed wistful.

"The family," Meg went on. "They make good soldiers. Good lawyers too. Damn fine doctors. Most of them good with people, but they feel too much. Some of them lock out the world because they never learned how to shield themselves. That's why many of them stay close to the lake where our spirit lies, close to Goujon."

"Do they hold it against you?" asked Anna. "You said your mother was an outsider. Do they not trust you because of it?"

The older woman lit a slender ivory pipe. The smoke was pleasantly fragrant, and she thought she detected a hint of apple. When Meg had the pipe going to her satisfaction, she added, "La, people have been letting their thoughts out of their heads, hmm?"

"You didn't come from here, originally," Anna deciphered. Meg's accent wasn't the same. It was true she had some of the phrases down, but most of the time she sounded more like Anna herself, than other members of the family.

"Nope. California. My mother's people lived there, and that was where I lived. My father didn't like it. Too many people. Too many voices in his head. He left her when I was three years old. I came here when I turned eighteen." Meg's eyes went to the solitary window in the shack. It looked out over the lake. "I suppose you know exactly what I mean when I say the lake was calling me. I never wanted to leave the lake." She abruptly looked away. "My children are here, too. That's where I was on Wednesday night when you found Gautier, you know. Visiting with my children's children. My little blessings."

"And what am I?" Anna was aware of what Meg was trying to tell her. Meg hadn't been in the shack when Anna had ploughed down this trail. Meg had been away, unable to help her.

"An unknown quantity," judged Meg. "They don't know what to do with you. Sure, you a mechanic and all. Good one from what Al Bonin says. You done saved him $500 from some fancy dealer up at Shreveport. He says you're the best."

"Just a short in the fuel pump. They wanted him to buy a whole new one." Anna shrugged. She _had_ heard them in her head. Loose tongues might have fit if they had been speaking. _Loose thoughts are more apt._

Meg chuckled as she blew smoke out at the ceiling. She pulled a chair out from her little dinette set and carefully sat down. "Loose thoughts," she repeated. "That's about right. You got 'em too, little girl." She waved her hand at the other metal chair.

"So I gathered," Anna said dryly and sat down.

"Maybe that's why some people don't want to talk with you." Meg took the pipe out of her mouth and rapped the bowl on the table. "My mama knew what I was. She told me about the feelings. Although I was eighteen before I heard someone else speak to me up here." She tapped the side of her head with her index finger. "Scared me right to death. I thought I had the devil himself talking to me. Instead, it was just Laurant."

She sighed loudly. "Oh, I miss him. Knew the moment he died too. Felt like I was dying inside. Had a funny sense of humor, he. Tall and strong and handsome and as good as an angel. Made alligator stew like a chef from New Orleans." Meg put the pipe down on the table and looked at Anna thoughtfully. "But you'll learn."

"Learn?" Anna repeated doubtfully.

"Sure. They say you've gotten a good grip on it already. When you want to, ain't no one can get inside." Meg looked pleased with herself. She picked the pipe back up and checked the tobacco. Then she struck a match and lit it again. "Most folks around here are plenty kind. Some well, they the ones you need to avoid."

"You mean the wall inside my head. My little garage door," she said.

"Garage door," Meg chortled. "That'll work. Yes, they say you learn too fast. Your gift is too strong. Many of them already suspect you're the issue of the family and an outsider. It's the nature of where you grew up. They say some young lad fooled around with an outsider, and the girl became pregnant. It's happened before. Then the baby was sent to an orphanage. It's not what the family would have done, given the choice. Sometimes the gift doesn't develop for some time so such indiscretions keep private until the powers start to come up. It's most powerful in the strongest bloodlines. It's not that you have them or that you've returned, it's whose daughter you are."

"I thought Gautier was..."

"Never," answered Meg firmly. She blew a smoke ring and then blew another littler one that passed through the first one. "Gautier didn't have the gift. Some families don't. There are those who look down upon them, but again, most of the family is kind, and it doesn't matter to them. They're still family. However, everyone with even a little trickle of the gift within the state of Louisiana heard you the night you were kidnapped. Lord Almighty, not that one of them blames you, but you were like a woman with a bullhorn standing a foot away from our ears. Only the elders have that kind of gift. They're frightened of it."

"Of me?" Anna was astonished. "What could I do to them?" She was more astonished by what she had just learned. Her mother had been married to Gautier Debou, and this woman was saying that Arette must have been having an affair with someone who had a powerful bloodline; the resulting pregnancy was the beginning of her life.

"It's not you, exactly. It's what you represent. And perhaps what that representation has caused. Someone has broken the rules. Someone has slaughtered one of our own. And worse, someone has done it without perception from the rest. Fear is what binds the family together. Fear and love. Don't forget it, Anna."

"I don't think I understand you," Anna persisted. "Why can't I..."

Meg put her pipe down. Her green eyes blinked. "I'm real tired now, child. I've got to take my afternoon nap to make sure my old bones keep on working like they're supposed to." She hesitated, and her vivid green eyes sought out the bruises and half-healed scabs on Anna's wrists. "Why don't you come back and visit me? Some folks call me a _conja_ , a conjuror. They say I can heal things. Maybe I can help you out. We can deal in trade. You get something from me. You fix my son's truck, maybe?" Her green eyes became calculating. "Or you might just bring me some money, hmm?"

Anna realized she wasn't going to get anything else out of Meg Theriot. She stood up and said firmly, "I'll be back. I want to know about my mother."

Meg raised herself up as well, showing for a moment that she was merely an aging woman with infirmities. She went to the door and opened it. "Some things are best not talked about," she said. "Just a kindly warning, dear."

From Meg's door Anna could plainly see the clear-cut area of forest where she had surmised the salt mine was located. It showed evidence of re-growth. Pine trees dotted the land, demonstrating nature's intent to reclaim the area. A road wound its way to the edge of the bluff, where there were more gates and fences and an enclosure that butted up to the edge of the hill as if it was one with it.

"Is that the old salt mine?" Anna said. She could see that once flat-bottomed barges had made their way up the narrow bayou to a crude dock. There, workers would have loaded salt into them to be taken away for refinement at another location. The dock was crumbling into the bayou, and if she followed the length of water out, the lake showed its iridescent reflection beyond a seemingly impenetrable wall of giants.

Meg looked toward the mine. "Yes. Laurant once worked there. So did I. Closed up not long after he died. The owner gave me a pension. Maybe he don't want me talking about no secrets. The pension still pays regular-like." She took a breath. "Of course, it don't buy what it used to, but with social security and such, a body don't got a problem."

Anna stared at the mine entrance and felt a surge of uncomfortable emotion. It was a dread that crawled up her back with extended claws, an animal with sharp little talons that bit into her with each movement. It was a heavy weight that pushed at her soul. It was something that called to her to come and investigate and at the same time told her to run away lest she see something she didn't dare to acknowledge.

Meg said, "That place isn't for exploring. Some of the shafts have flooded, and only our Father who art in heaven knows when the rest of them will go."

"Why would I want to go in there?" Anna asked off-handedly, speaking with a little more bravado than she felt. _It's just an old mine. Nothing there but salt and lake water_. She mumbled goodbye to Meg and started down the bluff. She would go back the way she came and cut down the trail off the bluff, avoiding Gautier Debou's house.

Despite the weather being moderate, Anna couldn't shake the feeling of cold that tickled the tips of her limbs. She wrapped her arms around her body and hurried down the path, taking a left at the first intersection and heading back up another part of the bluff. The pace warmed her, and soon she could feel her heart beating fiercely with the effort. She looked back over her shoulder once and saw Meg's shack disappear behind the thickness of the pines and oaks. After another moment, Anna might as well have been utterly alone in the forest.

_No one is ever alone in the family._

Anna froze. It was the same thought pattern, the mental voice that had warned her that she would be judged. _Like Gautier._ She shut her eyes and knew that her guard hadn't been let down. She had been focused on it for hours. It was almost becoming second nature with her. Someone had slipped by it nonetheless. _Who are you?_

There weren't any words in reply, just another swirling eddy of aggravated irritation that sharply denied her. She wasn't supposed to be able to respond to him, whomever he was. _Could it even be a she?_ Anna didn't know. _It's just as likely, compared to Aurore's and Camille's. But what do I know?_

Then there was silence. Anna shrugged it off. It wasn't an overt threat but perhaps a warning. What was she being warned about?

Anna stopped at Camille's house and found Mathieu chopping wood outside. The twins were piling the chunks into neat little stacks close to the kitchen door where they could easily be retrieved. Each stack had a tarp over it to prevent rot and invasion from insects. She found Camille inside making dinner.

"Red beans and rice," Camille said happily. "With cornbread made in an iron skillet, _oui_? And okra, pan-fried, of course. Followed by peach cobbler. We will put meat on your bones, if it's the last thing we do."

"I wasn't trying to—" Anna bit off what she was trying to say. She hadn't come to the Landry home for supper. She had wanted to continue reading the book she had found in the house before. The book that had an interesting history about the lake and the people who had chosen to live there for so long. There was a chapter in the book about the salt mine that she particularly wanted to read.

"No arguments. Food is good for the soul." Camille whipped eggs in one bowl, adding them to the cornmeal and flour in another. She turned the oven on with her other hand. "Is that not so, Gabriel?" She smiled secretively. "Supper in half an hour."

Anna hadn't heard Gabriel come up from behind her. His hair was wet from a recent shower, and his shirt showed bits of moisture. There was a fresh cut on his jaw from where he'd nicked himself shaving. His handsome face didn't give anything away as he studied her in turn, noticing the way the bruises on her wrists were beginning to turn yellow and green and the wind-swept state of her short hair. She abruptly looked away from his keen gold eyes and said to Camille, "Can I help you?"

" _Mais, non_. Too many cooks in the kitchen are bad luck. We would eat the beans and Chicken Little would begin to scream that the sky is falling." Camille put a heaping spoonful of butter into a huge iron skillet and thrust it into the oven. She returned to another skillet on the stove, removed the lid and stirred a redolent mix of red beans and rice. "Go outside. Talk. Have a beer. Mathieu keeps some foreign stuff in the fridge in the garage. He thinks I don't know, but oh, we know everything, don't we, Gabe?"

Gabriel uttered a noncommittal grunt.

Anna was about to ask about the book on the history of the lake when she noticed something else. There was a thick bandage wrapped around Gabriel's right hand, looped over his thumb, with thick padding was centered on his palm. It was the same place on his palm as the searing pain she had felt after she first had met Meg, the pain that she had noticed and then slowly went away. She said, "What happened to your hand?"

His eyes flickered to his palm. "Fishing lure from a silly tourist ripped it open. That's why we had to come back a little early. Not that they minded much. They'd already caught their limit. They were throwing the ones they caught back in the lake." Gold eyes caught hers. Gabriel said, his voice lower, "What is it? What's wrong now?"

"Nothing," Anna muttered. She bent her fingers over her palm surreptitiously since she could still feel the residual pain there. Her palm felt as though it had been cut open. _What is this connection I have with him? Of all people. Why him?_

Gabriel's eyes glittered. He had caught that. _I don't like it much either,_ chère.

Anna didn't say anything else but spun on her heel and went to find the beer.

# Chapter Fourteen

## Saturday, December 20th – Sunday, December 21st

_An old superstition charges that if a lady's hairpin falls out of her hair, then someone is thinking about her._

_They don't trust me._ Anna stood with her arms crossed over her chest. One hand grasped a bottle of Corona. She watched the twins play with a Frisbee. Gabriel's dog, the cinnamon-speckled spaniel, actively and cheerfully tried to get the toy from them. _Because of their secrets. Their gifts._ My _gift._

She unfolded her arms and took a sip of beer. It wasn't bad as far as beer went. _Screw the beer_ , she thought resentfully _. I've felt like an outsider all of my life. And now when I've got this one chance, I still feel like one._ One of the twins tugged the Frisbee from the dog with a shout of triumph.

Anna didn't even have to turn her head to see the sheen of the lake through the trees. The light was casting deep shadows over it, making it seem blacker and deeper than usual. She knew she could be looking at the exact spot where she'd seen the large splash of something big, the same night Gautier had warned her.

They wanted her to give to them. _Give what? Do what, prove myself worthy to be a member? And what about these mysterious elders? When do they show up and start inspecting me? Do they take out a checklist? Check to see if all my teeth are present? Make sure I can have babies? That I didn't sully the family name?_ She simmered silently. _Is it too much to ask for answers?_

Mathieu rushed the twins and toppled one into the deep grass and stole the Frisbee from the other. Both boys and the dog all wailed with protest.

Then _he_ was there. His physical presence was almost as apparent as his mental one. Gabriel was standing behind Anna with his gold eyes focused on her. She couldn't prevent the rush of umbrage she felt, and she deliberately tried to concentrate on something else.

Meg had said that someone among the family killed Gautier. She had said, "Someone has slaughtered one of our own. And worse, someone has done it without perception from the rest. Fear is what binds the family together. Fear and love."

And Gabriel had said, "Those with the strongest bloodlines are those with veiled eyes. Relatives and close loved ones are blessed with the strongest connections."

_Fear and love_. Fear had brought Anna to this place. Her fear had guided them to her. It had guided Gabriel to her. She understood that now. But she didn't understand the rest. _Too many secrets. Too much is hidden behind those veiled eyes._

Anna took another pull at the bottle of beer. She could feel residual pain on the palm of her hand. It had faded and felt like it was rapidly going away, but it was tender, as though she had experienced Gabriel's pain through their minds. _Is that what it is?_

Gabriel answered her aloud. "Yes, that's part of it."

"Do you know where I was this afternoon?" Anna didn't turn to look at him. Why was it that he could slip so quietly into her mind? Without preliminaries or without her awareness, he was just there. The wall she constructed mentally didn't seem to be such a barrier to him. She took a deep breath and watched Pierrot yelling happily at his father. Phillippe was on his father's back, his little arms wrapped around Mathieu's neck, and Gabriel's dog was bounding around the group in happy-doggy circles of joy.

"When you saw her marker, I felt it," he said softly.

Anna tried not to flinch. He was right behind her; his breath moved the curls of her hair. She tried to remember exactly how she'd felt when she'd read the name on the gravestone and failed. It had been a shock, something she knew she couldn't have controlled. Without any kind of forewarning she had suddenly been standing on her mother's grave. "How did she die?"

"A sinkhole. They never found her body."

"That's not her grave then," Anna said the words but wondered at the odd relief she felt. She hadn't been standing on her mother's grave. Behind her she sensed that Gabriel shrugged his wide shoulders in answer. The air shifted minutely around them. Her skin prickled because of the fluctuation. It was as if his fingers trailed gently down her flesh, causing a storm of goose bumps.

"Just a marker," he replied. "Even if..."

Anna spun around then. "Even if what? She was an outsider?"

Gabriel's eyes burned with some unnamed emotion. "There are outsiders who know us." His mouth thinned. "Some of them have been very important to the family. They've married into us. They run in our blood. They've died for us. Still..."

"You don't trust them," Anna finished the thought for him. "And I'm half of _them_ , raised by _them_. I might as well be one of _them._ Isn't that right?"

"You're not one of them, Anna," he whispered. "You can't be. You have the family coloring. You have the gift. You have..."

Anna stared at him. "I have what? What is it you won't tell me?"

"You have to figure that out for yourself, _chère_ ," he told her. "As for the elders, well, they don't need to be in your immediate presence to judge you."

Anna was shocked. She was used to her three-dimensional world. Face-to-face contact had always been necessary in the past, and she had wrongly assumed it would be the case here. But the elders' powers were the strongest, which was what Meg implied. Because they thought she was strong as well, that her gift might be something to be feared?

"If they can look inside my mind," she said at last, regaining her composure, "then they'll know I'm a good person, and they have nothing to fear from me."

"If you could look inside mine, you'd know the same from me," Gabriel barked.

Anna glanced over her shoulder and saw Mathieu frozen in place. One twin was on his shoulders. The other was looped around his legs. All three stared at Anna and Gabriel as they stood on the patio. After a moment, the dog woofed loudly and swiped the Frisbee out of Pierrot's hands. Pierrot yelled out something in French and let go of his father's legs, scrambling after the thief. Then Mathieu and Phillippe looked away, resuming their sham struggle, a grin on both their faces.

Gabriel rolled his eyes upward. He threw his hands out. "Oh _Dieu._ I didn't mean to yell at you. I just wanted you to understand."

"Did he kill her?"

"Huh?" The abrupt change in subject brought his eyes back down to Anna's face. His hands came down to his sides.

"Did Gautier kill Arette?"

Gabriel studied Anna's face intently. "Some have said so. Me, I think not. She lost her way in the darkness."

"So where was I?"

"I was six years old, Anna. I don't remember any baby. My mother, you remember her?" Gabriel went on after she nodded shortly. "She says that Arette left Gautier months before she came back. No one knows why she came back or where she'd been. Then she came back and she died. They had men searching the bayou for a week. But there was nothing to be found. And then Gautier went away himself. He only came back after several months, his beard long, his eyes wild. Too long among the outsiders and people he didn't know. Even before she died, before he left, he was isolated, a little strange. Afterwards he was worse."

"You talked to your mother about Arette then?"

" _Oui,_ she can be trusted to keep that to herself." Gabriel frowned. "But how did you know your mother's name? How can you be so sure that Arette is your mother?"

"There was a birth certificate hidden in the binding of the Bible which was in the bassinette I was dropped off in. Someone included the Bible. It must have been hers."

"And your father's name?" Gabriel's question was grim.

"Blank," she said. "A mystery. I assumed it was Gautier, but..."

"He didn't have the gift. Many of the Debou's didn't have it. It's like some of the gene is missing from their line, even when they married with someone who did have it." Gabriel was thoughtful. "Of course, you could be a throwback, but then why would Arette have left the name blank on the birth certificate?" He hesitated and then he added, "An affair with someone else?"

"That's what M—" Anna cut herself off.

"You talked to the _conja_ woman?" Gabriel became grim again. "Oh _mon Dieu_. What in the name of god prompted you to talk to that old rattletrap?"

"She's not a rattletrap," Anna spit out. "What, because she's an outsider, you want to talk about her like—"

Gabriel put himself right in her face, bending his head to emphasize his point. "It doesn't have anything to do with her parents," he growled. "Meg Theriot does anything for money. Money is what she desires. It's true she doesn't live in a fancy house in the best part of the city, but she misers it away so that she can leave her grandchildren a fortune. She harbors dreams of things they can never have. You should remember that, _chère_."

Anna put the half-empty bottle of beer on the patio table. "Would you tell Camille I decided I wasn't hungry after all?" she asked politely. She shut the garage door on her mind again, and her lips flattened into a harsh line.

"Anh!" Gabriel swept a lock of hair from his forehead. His gold eyes glared at her. "Never mind," he said. "I will leave. You, you should stay and eat. Eat a full meal. You don't need to lose any more weight."

He turned to go, but Anna was abruptly stricken with remorse. She saw a man who was being segregated from his own kin, something she would have hated to do to her worst enemy. She called, "Wait! Gabriel, don't go." She paused while he waited, and she stared at his broad back. He was wearing a blue shirt that showed off the breadth of his muscled form, and she suddenly appreciated how fit he was, how relentlessly he must work on his boats to keep himself this well-developed. If she looked at his hands, she knew she'd see the same thing as on her own hands, the calluses of a blue-collar man, someone who wasn't afraid of hard work. "I don't want to chase you off from your family."

"And yours," he said stiffly.

"It'll take a while to get used to that," she admitted slowly. "I'm not used to having anyone except Jane."

"And Jane has been your friend," said Gabriel. He still hadn't turned around.

"Yes. For a long time. My only friend."

"If we weren't your family, Anna, we wouldn't have gone after you...that night."

Anna sighed. "I know. Let's have a beer, and you can tell me about your dog."

"Phideaux?" he said doubtfully. He turned back to her with one eyebrow raised in curiosity. His stern face relaxed into neutrality.

"You named your dog Fido?"

"Well." Gabriel unexpectedly grinned and it was like a light was turned on for Anna. She caught her breath. It flooded through her body and centered on her womb, clenching and contracting with inexorable force. "It's the Louisiana spelling, of course."

Several times over the course of supper, Anna found herself looking at Gabriel. It was curious to her, this interest in him. She'd had boyfriends before. Most of them had been good men. Yet, none had lived up to some internal expectation that she couldn't even begin to describe aloud. If Anna could have said one thing, it was that she knew none of them was right for her.

And _him_. What made him so special? What drew her to Gabriel?

It was true that Gabriel was good-looking. Anna knew that all the little bayou girls had probably thrown themselves at him more than a few times. _But there's the grabby part_ , she thought. _Hasn't repeated that, unless I count him chasing me in the woods. Worried about me or_ worried _about me?_

He was laughing at some joke Phillippe had told him about two pirates in a pub when he glanced up and saw her looking at him. A little knowing smile licked across his face, and he winked wickedly at her.

Anna could have cheerfully knocked her own head into a wall because of what she did next. She looked away and blushed. She caught Camille's perceptive look, and Anna excused herself to go to the bathroom.

When she returned everything had returned to normal.

After supper Gabriel walked Anna back to the little garage apartment and did not do or say anything she could take out of context.

However, when Anna asked him who he thought could have killed Gautier, he wouldn't answer her. He never noticed the history book in her hands that she had borrowed from Camille. She didn't even remember to ask the other thing which had rapidly come to her. If Gautier didn't have the gift, then how had he known Anna was there? Someone had to have told him.

_Someone like Meg Theriot perhaps?_

Gabriel's last words as Anna let herself into the stairwell that led up to the apartment above the garage really shook her. They floated back to her, like Gautier's words had the night she had been warned to leave. "No one is ever alone in the family."

The same words the mysterious person used in her mind earlier in the day. She turned to watch him, but his form was already lost in the darkness.

On Sunday Anna went to church. She wore her cleanest jeans, which were her only jeans, and a borrowed white cotton shirt. After all, she hadn't had time or a vehicle to go and shop for something suitable. She was pleased to discover a few other people wearing similar clothing, although theirs tended to be newer.

Anna wasn't ashamed of her appearance. Her hair was combed. Her face was clean. She walked to the small white, spired church and made her confession to the priest before the Mass. The priest, she noted before she went into the confessional, had gold eyes. Despite that, she kept to the meager sins she had committed for which penance was required, sins that had nothing to do with the gift of veiled eyes.

After Mass Aurore waited for Anna and hooked her arm through the younger woman's. Aurore was dressed in a tidy blue dress with matching blue pumps and looked very sophisticated to Anna with her hair twisted back into a neat chignon. "Oh _chère_ , you look so much better today. Come and eat with us."

She led Anna outside to where Sebastien and his two sons were waiting. All three men were dressed in ill-fitting suits that seemed to make them uncomfortable. Sebastien smiled genuinely at Anna while Gaspard and Raoul watched expressionlessly.

"You all must have a plan to fatten me up," said Anna. Over Aurore's shoulder she saw the priest speaking with Camille and Gabriel. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder, and their eyes caught for a moment. Anna blinked and looked away.

The one thing she had noticed on this particular day was that the townspeople were looking at her a little differently. She caught a few errant thoughts but most were blocked by her or by their own protective features. No one glared at her back while she was turned. No one thought about her status as an outsider.

"It's true," said Aurore, correctly reading Anna's expression as the younger woman slowly looked around the people who were filing out of the church. Some stopped to speak with the priest or with each other. Sebastien had taken a few steps away to chat with Cecily Bergeron, who had waved at Anna with a look of dismay at the clothing the girl was wearing. "We are trying to accept you for who you are." Aurore chuckled. "And to fatten you up of course. You look like a stick. _C'est vrai_."

Gaspard stared at Anna, and she looked him back in the face, squaring her shoulders. She thought how much he must have resembled his father when Sebastien was younger. But the son seemed to have a harder edge to him; something pricked at his thoughts while he looked at her. "Is there something wrong, Gaspard?" she asked.

" _Non_ ," Gaspard replied gruffly. His gold eyes glanced away and looked at the lake in the distance. "It's nothing."

She caught his thought. At least, she thought it was his thought at first. It was the last half of a thought and something he didn't want her to know. Anna surprisingly discovered something else about herself. They didn't know she could get as much as she had been receiving. She knew that if they understood that, then they would trust her even less, and she kept her face carefully blank. The thought was _secrets in the graveyard_ , and it puzzled her.

Then Gaspard laughed loudly at something Raoul said, and Anna doubted herself. It could have been Gaspard. Then she glanced around her again and saw other people she'd met over the last few days. It might have been any one of them.

"You've been thinking about Dan Cullen again," said Aurore softly.

Anna looked at the ground and then said, "It's hard not to think about him."

"You're going to forget him," said Aurore. She directed Anna to their car. It was a sedan a few years old. Sebastien followed them, and their sons went to Gaspard's truck. "Gabriel's such a good-looking young man, you know."

Anna wasn't quite sure what to say.

# Chapter Fifteen

## Sunday, December 21st

_When the moon reaches its fullest state, then a man shall go mad, for the moon affects the flow of blood just as it affects the tide of the sea._

Sebastien boasted that he was the cook in the family and that he had cooked all morning before coming to Mass. He said to Anna, "It's called Wife-Went-To-Bed-Sick-Chicken Dinner." He chortled. "And she ain't even sick. I show you how, _oui_? I bet you don't know how to cook, and the good Lord above knows someone should know how to cook in a family, because—"

"Sebastien," interrupted Aurore. The food was good, and Anna enjoyed it, relaxing in the company of these people who had previously been strangers to her.

"I don't know how to cook much," Anna admitted, wondering what Sebastien had been about to say. She looked around their house and saw that it was spotlessly clean. With three bedrooms and a spacious living room with a vaulted ceiling, it wasn't as close to the lake as Anna would have thought. _Like the rest of them_. In addition, next to a greenhouse with verdigris glass that revealed the colorful variety of hothouse flowers, there was a well-worn trail that led into the forest in the lake's direction. If she looked hard enough, she could see the reassuring glimmer of the black surface.

Gaspard and Raoul had eaten like starving men, keeping their conversation to a minimum, scooping up the meal with forks and sopping up juices with French bread. Then Gaspard had excused himself with, " _Merci, maman_ and papa. Neither God nor man waits for a welding job in Shreveport. They want it done fast, fast, fast." He glanced down at Raoul's head. "You coming, little man?"

Raoul shoveled in a last mouthful and chewed fast. Finally, he said, "Keep your britches on, and who you calling little? You know, I got to call my wife. She spent last week with her mother in New Iberia. She thinks I've gained too much weight, _oui_." He paused to grab another piece of French bread.

They went out the front door arguing genially, and Anna helped Aurore clear the dishes away. When they were done, Aurore served café au lait on the back patio, and they watched the wind gently push the branches of the trees back and forth. The sun had come out, and only vague clouds in the east obscured the blue skies.

Anna felt suddenly uncomfortable, but she decided to go ahead with what she wanted to say. "I wanted to thank you both."

"You're one of us," said Sebastien. He swiped a lock of white hair from his forehead. Aurore merely crossed her legs delicately at the ankles and waited.

"I don't know if I can fit in here."

"You've only been here a week, _chère_ ," said Aurore, "half of that unconscious. It's hardly enough time to make a judgment."

Anna sat up straight in the wrought iron chair. "There are people here who believe I'm an...outsider." She stared in the direction of the lake. This was hard enough to say without looking into their eyes. "I catch the thoughts sometimes."

"I think they'll never accept me," Anna finished. "I'm not one to give up without a struggle, but I can't change other people."

Sebastien sipped at his café. He put the cup down on the wrought iron table and folded his hands in his lap. "I shall tell you a story."

Anna looked around, and a faint smile flickered across her lips. Sebastien was an innate storyteller. Every problem most likely had a solution in a story, including hers.

" _Oui_. A story. It ain't a happy story," Sebastien said firmly. "A sad story, for the heroine, she dies."

His tone was innocuous, but he had Anna's complete attention. She said, "Okay."

"There was once a beautiful young _mamselle_. Black hair, as black as the lake, as shiny as the blackbird's wings, and you'd think you held a bit of the night in your hand if you was to touch that lovely hair." Sebastien smiled mysteriously. "Her eyes were golden. Like the coins of long-ago kings, minted to celebrate their majesty and forgotten in the passage of time. And her lips." He chuckled to himself. "Well, men wrote songs about those lips. Full as pomegranates, like berries from the vine. Lush, curving, seductive." His voice lowered for the last word, and Anna's smile increased minutely.

"A wondrous girl then," she submitted.

" _Oui_!" answered Sebastien. He slapped his thigh. "Beautiful. _La jolie femme_. The men buzzed about her like she was Helen of Troy, Aphrodite, or some goddess who had done come too close to an Earthly realm. She was much sought over, yes?"

Anna nodded expectantly.

"But the _mamselle_ , whose name was Lisette, was already in love with a fine young fella named Varden. A handsome young man, rippling with muscles, fine of feature, with a steady income to boot. A man with a home already, waiting for its mistress to come to it."

"The salt of the earth," said Anna dryly.

Sebastien shot her a suspicious look and then cracked a smile at her. "What woman would not want such a man? Nonetheless, they were in love. And they were to be married." He waited for Anna to say something, but she wisely kept her mouth shut.

"One day Lisette traveled to Shreveport to have her wedding gown fitted. She was so happy about her upcoming nuptials. However, when Lisette drove alone to Shreveport that night, she did not come home." Sebastien's voice lost the playful tone and became serious. "She was kidnapped by men who had been told of the family's powers. They drugged her with opium so that she could not call for help and took her far away."

Aurore said softly, "You see, distance and drugs do temper the gift. Else, we would have known of your existence a decade ago."

" _Oui_ ," agreed Sebastien. "These men traveled by train to places like New York City and Chicago, and the girl was shown in sideshows, like an animal, forced to play little mentalist tricks to survive. We was told by Varden, her beau, her lover, later."

Anna was frozen. Reminded by her own ordeal, she could not help the dread that flowed through her body at the thought of what the young woman had endured. It was at that moment she knew that this wasn't some made-up story to impart a moral to her, but something that actually had happened to the family. "What happened?"

"She grew ill. Sick with shame and fear," Sebastien said. "She died in the '40s, and Varden spent five years tracking down each one of the men who had kidnapped her. They didn't want to tell him at first, but they did because the young man, who was crazy with rage, would have it no other way. Then he found out who had betrayed us, and that was the worst indignity. One of the outsiders we had trusted had a loose tongue and liked to brag about his friends with the unique gifts. At first, they didn't believe him, but well, Lisette was persuaded to show them the extent of her powers. Varden brought his beloved back to be buried in the cemetery behind the church, where she lies even now, ever a reminder to us." He paused, full of sadness and regret for what might have been.

Shivering, Anna clutched her shoulders.

"Varden returned to tell us. He told me this once when I was twenty years old, and he still mourned his lost love. You could see the rage in his eyes decades later as clear as day. He killed the outsider who had betrayed us. _L'ami_ , our trusted friend, with the careless lips, he vanished into the lake. Only Goujon knows where his restless spirit lies." Sebastien took a deep breath. "That is why we do not trust outsiders."

"And Gautier?" Anna couldn't prevent the question. "Whom did he trust?"

Sebastien cursed suddenly in French. "It's not a warning to you, Anna. It's only the reason why we have to be careful. We cannot hide from you the way we can hide from the outsiders."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "There's so much to understand that I don't understand. Surely, you get I'm confused by what's happened."

"Of course you are, _chère_ ," soothed Aurore. "We only want you to understand why we don't trust them. Why we didn't trust your mother. Why, look what she did to you? She took you far away from your roots and abandoned you to an orphanage?"

"And then she came back here to die?"

Aurore shrugged. "No one knows."

"I promised Phillippe and Pierrot I would work on their go-cart with them this afternoon," Anna said abruptly. Too many questions boiled in her mind, questions she wanted to demand answers for and questions she knew would not be answered if she did.

"I shall give you a ride," said Sebastien, standing up. She couldn't read his expression, and Aurore was calmly sipping her café. Neither of them seemed particularly bothered by the chain of events, and Anna wasn't sure what to think.

_Meg Theriot_ , went through Anna's mind. _Meg might know the answers. She must be the one who told Gautier about my return. And she might be the only one who will talk to me._

After helping the twins complete the go-cart, Anna watched them load it up in the back of a truck to take it to a place where Mathieu said it was safe to drive. Each eager child promised to wear a helmet and take it easy on the curves.

Anna closed the garage door and looked in the direction of the general store and the dock where Gabriel's boats were located. Of course one was gone, but she didn't know which one was which or if Gabriel was out on the lake with some clients.

She felt restless and called Jane with an update. Jane was concerned but accepting. "You got the bus ticket? You could be here for Christmas!" she said to Anna.

"Yes, Jane," Anna answered obediently. "I got it. I can make a little money first, and oh yes, I need to replace a few things I lost in my wallet. Driver's license, library card, blood donor card, you know, important stuff like that."

"Don't be sarcastic," said Jane immediately.

"Better sarcastic than crying," replied Anna.

"Why would you be crying?" asked Jane suspiciously. "What have they done? I'll come up and kick some—"

"It's not that," Anna said quickly. "I still feel like the one on the outside."

"Well, sweetie, of course you're going to feel like that for a while, even if you found your parents."

"I found one." Anna's tone was flat, and Jane understood straightaway.

"You mean one's dead," said Jane.

"Yes. My mother. I saw her marker. Funny, I almost tripped over it."

"You what?"

Anna told Jane everything that had happened so far, leaving out only the parts about the family's gifts. She knew it sounded odd to Jane, but for some reason, she wasn't sure if Jane would think her still sane if Anna told her the complete story.

"And this Gabriel?" said Jane.

"Intense. Brooding. Right out of _Wuthering Heights_."

"I always thought you read that damn gothic stuff too much." Jane unexpectedly chuckled. "So you think your father is there."

"He's one of them. I guess all I have to do is figure out which one."

"Probably still married," suggested Jane, "which would explain why he doesn't want to come forward."

Anna didn't say anything.

"And the dead guy," added Jane. "Whoa. That creeps me out. He warns you off. Says he was married to your mother and then someone kills him before you can question him more. What's up with that?"

"I wish I knew," sighed Anna.

"Keep calling me, Anna," Jane requested solemnly. "I actually said a prayer this morning for you and lit a candle at St. Benedict's. You know I hate going to church."

"Bad luck to go to church without a hat on," said Anna. It was clear in her mind suddenly, even over the distance between them. Jane had gone to Mass without a hat, and she had been thinking about it because it had bothered her.

"How did you know I didn't wear—" Jane bit the question off. "How do you always know stuff like that? I never could keep anything from you."

After a few minutes more, they said goodbye and hung up, leaving Anna still feeling restless. She was going to spend some time with Meg Theriot even if it killed the older woman to answer questions. Anna paused and thought about what Gabriel had said. _The conja woman. Meg Theriot does anything for money. Money is all she cares about._

Anna supposed Meg could have been hinting for a handout. She dug around her apartment for the money that Jane had wired her and took out a hundred dollars.

Anna set off for the bluff once more. She couldn't find the trail she'd taken before, so she ended up trudging up the dirt road that led to Gautier Debou's house. As she passed the little cottage, she saw that the doors and windows had been boarded shut and a seal put on the front door.

Trembling as she passed the cottage, Anna quickly made her way past and into the forest. The trail was as she remembered it, smooth and worn. How many times had Gautier made the trip to visit the marker of his deceased wife? How many times did it take to wear the trail so flat?

When she came to the part where she would take the fork that led to Meg's shack, Anna hesitated and went to the marker instead. It was just the same, situated underneath the large oak with Spanish moss wafting in the breeze. Still, there was something different. Someone had placed flowers in front of the marker, fresh red roses that Anna could smell as though someone had cut them from the garden just a moment before.

It made her think of an old superstition about roses. _What is it? Pick a rose on Midsummer's Eve and preserve it under paper._

_But someone else was thinking about roses recently_ , Anna thought. Roses were out of season, and the flowers had been brought to this place to mark the passing of a woman who died long ago. _What had Arette been like? Did she like roses? Did she ask too many curious questions that upset the family's equilibrium? Had one man taken her fancy after she married Gautier? And why had she borne his child, me, in silence_?

It was implied that Gautier was a loner, something of an oddity in the family. Perhaps the pair had married too swiftly, and Arette had turned to someone else for the comfort she desired. Anna shook her head sadly.

Anna gave the roses a lingering glance, the color of blood. She would remember those roses for they could provide her with a clue. Find the store from where they were purchased, and she would find someone who still thought about Arette. Or perhaps it had been Anna's return that had prompted the mysterious person to remember his dead lover. Whichever, he could help Anna. If Gabriel was correct about Meg, then it could not be her. If Gabriel was right, Anna might soon get some answers.

_Meg,_ she thought. There was a presence in her mind. It weighed upon her conscious like an anvil. She felt the soil slipping up around her ankles. It was in her head, the immediate pressing feelings of another person.

She remembered Gautier's warning, "You'll be sucked down. Drowned in a place where you cain't escape. It won't be no giant catfish who wolfs your rotting flesh down, it'll be stuck in a tomb of sandy soil with all those others who done gone before."

_Just like Arette?_

The presence was still there. It warbled at Anna's thoughts like a little broken bird, touching her, begging her. Anna opened up her mind and tried to be reassuring. The person was afraid. Not as afraid as Anna had been, but garbled, muddled somehow, like he or she had been drugged.

_It's not drugs_ , thought Anna. There was a throbbing pain at the base of her skull, just above the spine, where someone had violently hit her. _Not me. Hit her. Who?_

The person wasn't begging for help but instead, was trying to find her way out of the blackness. It enveloped her entire being, and there was nothing in the darkness. The slick feeling of dirt working its way up her ankles and the moisture soaking through pantyhose made her want to cry with distress. She was alone and confused.

Anna shuddered, closed her eyes, and focused. A shiver of dread went through her as she tried to comprehend. She knew this person. She had spoken with her.

_Meg. Alone in a black place, hurt, scared. Her ankles are sinking into the silt._

Anna thrust out a thought like a dagger striking home, _Where are you, Meg?_

The answer was dim, bewildering. _Graveyard. Anna? Beware, Anna. Beware._

Then Meg was gone. The heavy weight had vanished from Anna's mind.

Anna began to run. She made the turn toward Meg's shack, thinking that something was desperately wrong, that Meg might have fallen, or something else might have happened, the person who had targeted Gautier had also targeted the _conja_ woman.

_Did I do this? Did I bring death here with me?_ she asked herself desperately.

The shack was empty. The door was open, remarkably like when she had come to knock on Gautier's cottage door. Anna looked inside, checked the privy out back, and returned to the front door, looking around frantically. She finally yelled, "Meg! Meg!"

No one answered her.

Anna stood alone for a moment, listening to the sound of a jetliner passing over far above, and then called for Gabriel. _Whistling man_ , she thought, reverting back to the way she had originally thought of him. _Whistling man. Answer me!_

_Anna_ , came Gabriel's response. There was agitation in his thoughts, as he caught hers. _Now what the hell is wrong?_

Anna blanked out for a moment. She looked around her. Inside the house nothing was overturned. Everything was in its place. No pipe burned in its holder. No hot coffee steamed in its cup. No pictures were overturned. There was nothing wrong here. No overt signs of a struggle, nothing to prove that anything was wrong. What could she possibly say to Gabriel to convince him that something was going on with Meg? And why hadn't he felt it anyway?

_Anna?_

_I felt Meg,_ she answered slowly.

_The_ conja? His thought was derisive. _So what?_

_Something's wrong with her._

_Anna._ The tone in the thoughts became consolatory. _You're still getting used to your gifts. Perception is different in our minds. Emotions are sometimes exaggerated. Try to remember that._

_Okay,_ she snapped back at him, immediately angry. _I'm imagining it_. She slammed shut the garage door in her mind and shut him out.

_An—_ his thought, cut off in mid-stream, was aggravated.

Standing on Meg's stoop, Anna suddenly saw something she hadn't noticed before. In the cleared area of forest that was the salt mine, the gate was open. Its metallic links glittered in the sunshine, showing its position. The huge double doors of the main building were open, only blackness showing from inside. From this vantage she could unmistakably see it.

Anna thought about it. Meg was in a dark place without light with her feet trapped by dirt and sand. What had happened to her? Had she become fuddled and wandered into the mine by mistake?

Anna didn't even remember moving. Moments later, she found a little-used path that led to a gate on this side of the cleared property. The latch was open, and the padlock that probably secured it was missing altogether. She opened it and went to the main building with its large doors slid open on their tracks. Inside were the accoutrements of a typical working office. There was a place for men to stamp their timecards before they went into the mine and a place for foremen to get coffee. An old rotary phone sat on a desk covered with dust. Then there was another set of doors that led deeper into the bluff. These had been left standing open as well. Left open for something or someone? She noticed that the padlocks were unfastened and hung open on the door. Someone with a key had passed this way. Certainly, there were reasons someone could legitimately be in the mine, but why would Meg follow?

Anna leaned into the open door, staring into the blackness that concealed the tunnel's direction and yelled, "Hello?"

Only the echo of her own words answered her.

Finally, she rummaged around in the little building and found several miner headlamps. The batteries were still working. Despite that, she dug around in a desk until she found a pack of extras. She stuck the package in her pocket and walked into the mine.

# Chapter Sixteen

## Sunday, December 21st

_They say that no man or boy is to whistle, under pain of chastisement, while underground in a mine. The whistling will frighten away the ore or bring the roof down upon their very heads or bring the devil up to see what the matter is._

_Anna. Now what is she up to?_ Gabriel couldn't help the turbulent thoughts that cascaded through his mind like violent waterfalls. She was nothing like any woman he'd ever known. Full of doubt and uncertainty, she was also stubborn and willful.

But then she wasn't raised with the family. He'd dreamt of her for years. Throughout that time a smattering of her thoughts had trickled out of an intermittently dripping faucet, tantalizing him, maddening him. It had made him bitter so that when Gabriel was finally faced with her, he had allowed his frustration to get the better of him.

However, she wasn't a manipulative tormenting siren. When she thought no one was observing her, she looked at children longingly. She let dreams of permanence slip unfettered from her thoughts. She wanted what others had had all their lives, and it dangled before her, some tempting morsel on a fishhook just out of reach.

Gabriel slowly shook his head, trying to clear it.

Anna was thinking of Meg Theriot again. The _conja_ woman. The same one that his own mother had wanted him to see to seek relief from the increasing dreams of Anna, dreams of her as she had come closer to him. Gabriel knew about Meg. He knew what really enticed the _conja_ , and he knew he would never see her in that capacity. She was nothing more than a con artist with only a smidgen of the gift.

But Anna, what would she ask Meg? And worse, what would be the answers she would receive? Meg had never liked Gabriel because she knew he could see inside her black heart, and Gabriel didn't bother hiding his distrust of her. It was true some outsiders could be trusted, but Meg, like Anna, had been raised in a covetous world where money was a god, and only the rich were to be envied. It had warped the older woman. Grudging acceptance of her had come at a price. Meg was one of the family but had no friends among them.

Not so Anna. Gabriel had raged at her, but it wasn't her fault. She didn't know to come back. Not until it was almost too late. _Stubborn and willful_ , he thought. _Curious as a cat and dangerous. She is also naïve, trusting, childlike._ Anna was contradiction personified. True, she was an innocent to her gifts, and the young went through a stage of exaggerating the emotions from others they felt, but she felt so sure that something was wrong with Meg. She hadn't said exactly what.

Gabriel sifted around his thoughts searching for clues. _How can she possibly know what has happened to Meg_? If he concentrated, he could see the outline of her thoughts beneath their protective wall. A giant garage door, shining with its newness, a smile crossed over his face at her mental construction. This was a mechanic with a mental garage door, which only made sense. It blocked him just as effectively as if it had been a real door and stood between her and him. He frowned.

_Focus, fool_ , he told himself. Gabriel's head began to ache. _On her. On Anna_. There was just a glimpse that lasted but a moment. Darkness surrounded Anna. A solitary beam of yellow light lit her way, showing the glitter of a sparkling substance that seemed to glow in the murk. Was this real or something inside her mind, like the hundred girls hanging from hooks in the back of a tractor-trailer?

_Anna_ , he thought as the vision vanished. _Anna, what are you doing_?

Anna had never been in a mine before. She had seen some abandoned shafts in the deserts outside of El Paso on hiking trips with the nuns; holes in the ground where men had searched for some kind of ore. She didn't know what kind, but that's what they had been, mere holes in the ground.

The Unknown Salt Mine was different. The entrance was a simple set of doors where men had once passed through on their way to scouring away the treasures of the earth for their own profit. The plain building concealed a gaping hole in the side of the bluff where huge equipment must have been brought through. The building had been built to prevent unauthorized individuals from entering.

She tripped over something and looked down, seeing the remains of rails resting on the bottom of the tunnel. These had been placed to bring up the ore in railcars, she guessed, later to be replaced with vertical conveyer belts in other locations. The yellow light from the headlamp showed the glitter of white materials in the wall. Little dots of luminescent twinkles that looked like a thousand diamonds were studded there. This was not some precious jewel, although once it had been called white gold.

Anna was confused for a moment. It didn't look like there was enough salt there to bother mining. She remembered the history book she had borrowed from Camille. The salt dome started below the sand and earth on the top layers. She didn't remember the figure exactly. _Twenty feet down. Thirty feet_? Somewhere below her sat a massive salt dome, like many that dotted the earth beneath Louisianan's feet, and was a draw in others ways besides offering its bounty to miners. The Avery Salt Mine in southern Louisiana made more money on tourism than it cared to admit.

The shaft split in two directions. One led to an elevator that had only one direction. Down. Anna examined the elevator and saw that the large freight and passenger elevator was gone. She looked over the fenced-off shaft, directing the headlamp downward, and could see nothing but the heavy wires and buffers that guided the platform into place as it raised or lowered. Below was blackness. The headlamp didn't illuminate much beyond ten feet.

Above her was the complicated mechanical equipment that included the counterweights. Anna realized that the company must have had to dig out half the bluff above her to install the elevator equipment and then put it back to disguise the shape. Or perhaps to keep the bayou's shores looking natural for tourists or even to protect the components from the elements. There was a large gray box beside the gate mounted on a steel beam. She flipped it open and saw buttons. Up, down, emergency stop, and a master control switch. She saw that a key was necessary to use the elevator. The little keyhole was empty.

She looked down again. Did that mean that someone was below her? Or did it mean that the elevator had been purposely left on a lower level in case of trespassers? Or was there even an elevator left? Perhaps it had been salvaged in the years since the mine's closure.

The only other choice was the other tunnel. Anna went back in that direction and started down it. It was a large tunnel that led straight into the bluff at a slight descent that increased the further she traveled. Large enough to drive a dump truck through, it appeared as though this was the route that the larger equipment had to use to get into the lower levels of the mine.

After a hundred yards the tunnel had a switchback and continued down. All around her, Anna could see the sporadic glitter of salt in the walls. There were lumps of the white material, but it seemed like only a marginal amount of the substance. Then she went around another switchback and found a world of sparkling, snow white iridescence that threatened to blind her for a moment.

Anna's headlamp seemed to make the world glow with fire. She blinked and slowly scanned the ground before her, ignoring the magnificent radiance of the salt dome. There was no trace of Meg Theriot. Neither could Anna feel the older woman. The salt surrounded her like a blanket and left little evidence of anyone's passage.

She passed a niche carved in the side of the wide tunnel and hesitated. Someone had spent an inordinate amount of time sculpturing a Madonna formed from pure salt. It was an icy figurine with indistinct features that stared out into the darkness.

Here was the Blessed Virgin to watch over the salt miners and those who would go into the endless night below the surface. Anna cast a disconcerted look over her shoulder at the Virgin before she continued downward.

The salt beneath her feet was broken up, and she struggled at times. Clearly this route hadn't been used like the freight elevator; the rocks underfoot were large and unbroken with the passage of repetitive heavy vehicles. After a time and several switchbacks, she came to another even larger tunnel and began to follow the rails that led deeper. Here the path under her feet had smoothed out, and she realized that she was entering the main part of the mine where men had toiled.

She passed an empty railcar, fragments of salt rock sitting in it from years past. There were more tunnels that broke off from the largest passageway and she began to worry that Meg could have wandered down any of these. Yet, there was that internal instinct that was drawing her toward something else. Deeper into the earth. Something was down there that she needed to see.

The air became moist and full as Anna walked further. She began to realize that there were miles of tunnels down here. They twisted and turned and went to every part of the salt dome. There was reasoning behind the seeming insanity of the twists and turns. One simply could not mine a huge hole under the earth, or it would collapse. Instead they had tunneled into every part of the salt dome to bring the precious mineral up in as vast a quantity as was possible. Then the salt was transported to where it would undergo an evaporative process to separate it from the other minerals.

At this time it was only Anna here, alone in the darkness, with her breathing as the only accompanying noise. She began to doubt her own reasoning. Why would Meg be down here? And if Meg was in dirty silt, how could she be down in a salt mine? She looked down and saw a path of pristine white salt, where dozens of men had hauled tons of material ever upward. It was smooth from a thousand feet pounding it down. Only white salt lay beneath her Nikes, not muddy earth that threatened to suck her down.

"Meg!" Anna screamed. The sound echoed harshly back at her and she flinched. She'd made some errors in judgment before, but she suspected this was one of her worst. It was one thing to place herself in danger, but to put someone else like a helpless old lady in danger, was something else altogether. Then, Anna let her guard down and focused her mental concentration. _Meg! Meg! MEG!_

_Meg! Meg! MEG!_ The thoughts burst through Gabriel's mind like a dam breaking loose. For a reason he didn't want to put words to, he was unexpectedly afraid. He wasn't sure who he was more afraid for, Anna or himself.

_Where are you, Anna?_ he demanded. _Where are you!_ Then he comprehended her location and exactly what she had done. _Anna_ , he said silently, willing himself to be calm. _Don't move. Don't move, Anna. You're in danger. Oh_ Dieu.

Anna heard Gabriel, and she didn't need to tell him where she was. He read it through her thoughts. Nonetheless, someone else had heard her. _Anna. Don't move. Don't move, Anna. You're in danger. Oh_ Dieu. There was fear behind his thoughts. Fear for her. Fear that something was about to happen to her. She glanced slowly around her.

The tunnel had been silent. Only moisture dripped from the tunnel walls, trickling down its salty surface to the flattened path below, running off to somewhere far below in little rivulets of liquid that accumulated into pools as she went deeper.

There was a thud on the walls and Anna started. The entire tunnel vibrated once as if something had suddenly stirred at her bequest. She didn't know how long she had been down here, although it seemed like hours. The time dragged more as she stood staring into the blackness beyond the beam of her headlamp. Her thighs ached with effort and her knees trembled with the exertion of going continuously downhill. She froze in place and waited. A larger hole was scarcely discernible at the end of the passageway she stood in.

Anna took a step backward. The tunnel vibrated again. _Gabriel_ , she thought. _Whistling man! What is it?_ Something was coming. A huge shape slowly began to ascend the passageway in the blackness. She lost the form in the intense gloom.

_Anna_ , Gabriel's thoughts of dismay came to her. It included regret and longing.

_What's he regretting_? she asked herself resentfully. The passage shuddered again sharply. Anna had enough and reached her breaking point. She turned and ran. Abruptly, she tripped over something she didn't see and fell, stunning herself in the process. Her head hit the earth, and her jaws came down with an audible snap. She felt a spurt of blood in her mouth as teeth caught the sensitive skin of her cheek.

Without pause, she scrambled to her feet and started to move forward again. Anna caught sight of something next to the rail she had stumbled over, but the passageway pulsated again harshly. Something was down here in the darkness with her, and she was quite sure she didn't want to get up close and personal with whatever or whomever it was.

Anna had an impulse to snatch the object up just before she brought herself into a loping run. She stuffed its round shape into one of her pockets and concentrated on making tracks. The uphill passageway was not easy to ascend. Anna gasped with physical exertion before she had made two turns. At the third turn she looked back and saw nothing behind her. She came to a lumbering halt and listened to her own thunderous breathing. The walls weren't vibrating any longer, but on the edge of her consciousness, something seemed to shift.

Anna knew she wasn't alone in this place. What was worse was that she didn't know who or what was down here in this passageway with her. It knew she was here, and it could hear her thoughts. With a low curse, she began running again. She ran until her lungs threatened to explode.

_She's in the mine. She can't be in the mine! How could this have happened?_ Gabriel took a breath. Anna's fear was palatable now. He could taste her blood in his mouth, and something warm was trickling down her face. It wasn't like before. She was able to mask some of the fear. It wasn't broadcasted over miles as anxiety gone wild with terror, but it was still there. He closed his eyes. _Oh, Anna._

Anna hid behind a railcar while her breathing stabilized. It was an old iron car, half on the tracks that were mostly buried in remnants of salt. She slowly looked around her and realized that she was in a narrow tunnel that was getting smaller and smaller. Somewhere on her violent burst of speed to get away from whatever it was that had been lurking in the darkness, she had taken a wrong turn.

Soon all she could hear was a drip of water coming from above her. It splattered into the salt and made a little plopping noise. Anna looked back and could see nothing beyond the light of her headlamp. No Meg. There was nothing but a huge shape that jarred the walls of the tunnel.

Then there were whispers in her mind, insidious bits of thoughts that gnawed at her like a dog with a rat. _She almost saw. I know. So close. Why? Drawn to it. Must protect. Where is she? Must guard. Leave, Anna. Leave the mine. LEAVE!_

If Anna hadn't known that she could communicate with others, if she hadn't done it herself successfully, she might have thought she was going mad. The voices were two or three who murmured internally to themselves with urgent concern. Familiar but unidentifiable, they weren't directed at her. They spoke to themselves, and she knew that not only was there something huge and hulking in the mine with her, but others of the family who didn't want her to see something contained here.

There was also confusion underlying their tones. In her mad rush to escape, she had lost them in the maze of tunnels. Anna almost made a disgusted noise. _Lost them but lost myself too._

Anna stared behind her and knew that she didn't dare go back. She could only hope that this passage intersected something else and led to the larger tunnels that would take her to the surface. And, of course, there was Gabriel. He knew where she was. Unless, he was one of them, searching for her.

She rose up and headed up the passage, grateful to feel the slope going gradually upward. _Up is good. Anything up is good. Let them keep their secrets_. Then a nasty little voice asked her, _But what about Meg?_

Anna could only hope that she could convince the family to start searching for Meg, that something was wrong with her, and that she needed help. No matter what was hidden in the mine. No matter what they desperately wanted to keep from Anna. Certainly, the health and well-being of one of their own, even half an outsider, would be important to them. After all, they had gone out of their way to rescue Anna from Dan Cullen, and they hadn't even met her before.

_Fear is what binds the family together. Fear and love. Fear of what?_

After long minutes, Anna's own fear began to seep away. She could hear nothing behind her, and the passage led upward. On the other hand, the tunnel intersected with no others and grew smaller and smaller. Dark earth began to streak through the white salt of the dome's uppermost regions. Then it was red sand with thin streaks of salt marking the walls. _Closer to the surface_.

Anna squeezed through a bend and found a dead-end. _I have to go back_. The thought was demoralizing and frankly frightening. _Back into the black depths with unknown people and things._ She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the light from her headlamp was dimming. She reached up to tap the batteries, recognizing that she had been down in the mine for what seemed like forever, and the batteries had to run out sometime. When she slipped the spares out of her pocket and disengaged the headlamp, she saw that there was another light source in the narrow passage.

The dead-end slithered on a few feet and ended up as a rounded hole where someone had once dug his way with merely a shovel. Anna let her eyes adjust to the bleak gloom and saw that there was a crack in the earth above her, and a little bit of light spilled downward. It didn't look like sunlight but rather like fluorescent light from a store or some alternate light source. Water had drained through the little crack and made it wider, just enough to show some concealing brush growing at the very edge.

The headlamp and batteries dropped out of her hands as she doubled her effort into scaling the sides of the craggy tunnel. When she climbed out, knocking great clumps of sand away from the rim of the hole, she saw that the light was coming from a huge billboard on the boundary of the tiny town. She had seen the sign before, when Sebastien had taken her to the auto parts store to get the fuel filter for his truck. With bright lights illuminating it at night so that it was highly visible, it invited people to come back soon to Unknown to fish and to enjoy the lake and to have fun. The base posts, covered with ivy and brush, concealed the small fissure that had collapsed sometime in the past, uncovering a distant opening to the underworld.

Anna scrambled out and breathed a great sigh of relief. The stars shone above her, and the night air was strangely welcoming.

# Chapter Seventeen

## Monday, December 22nd – Tuesday, December 23rd

_There are those who say that if a homeowner hangs a sprig of rosemary at the entrance of a house, it will drive away devils and contagions of the plague._

At the entrance of the salt mine, Gabriel met Sebastien Benoit and his sons, Gaspard and Raoul. The road was mostly overgrown with shrubs, and the gates were locked. In the shifting light of a nearly full moon Gabriel could plainly see the mine buildings. A single floodlight by the closed, large double doors of the main entrance of the mine showed nothing out of the ordinary. No one was screaming; no one lay bleeding or dead.

Sebastien said, "I called Meg's son, and he said Meg had gone, but you know she's gone before." Gaspard walked to the gate and looked at it while Raoul followed. Raoul tugged on the padlock at the gate and it held firm, flakes of rust falling away at his touch.

"And the mine?" Gabriel stared at the locked gates. The rusted padlocks appeared as though they had been there decades. He bit back a sneer of disgust. They probably had been there for exactly that long. His gaze followed the chain-link fence as far as he could see. There were no breaks in it, and the razor wire at the top was still there to prevent the casual trespasser and protect the liability of the property owner.

"No one in there now," said Sebastien firmly. "Although some geology students wanted to go there last month. Said they'd bring scuba gear for the flooded shafts. Hee-hee-hee." Gaspard and Raoul remained silent. Each slowly looked around them as if searching for Anna and Meg, but neither was there. "But we'll search it if we have to."

"The back gate near the _conja_ woman's home was open," said Raoul. "The lock had been pried away, missing, _non_? I would have thought it was hunters wanting on top of the bluff looking for squirrel or rabbits. We looked, but the mine, she is closed up tight. The _mamselle_ , she could not be inside. It is tight like a drum."

" _Dieu,_ Sebastien. Was it ever like this for any of the children? Do they lose their minds while getting used to the gifts?" Gabriel ran an exasperated hand through his black hair. Anna's vision of the mine had seemed so clear to him, so lifelike. So had some of her previous thoughts; someone chased her down a blackened trail, which had only been him concerned for her well-being, and dead women hanging in the back of a truck like butchered meat, which had been the ponderings of a psychotic.

Sebastien sighed. "Do you remember what it was like for you as a boy teetering on the edge of adulthood, Gabriel?"

"I remember the thoughts running through my head at a thousand miles an hour," Gabriel said. "I thought that I could never turn it all off, and it would drive me insane."

" _Oui_. Like that exactly. And the dreams? Did you have the dreams?"

Gaspard rumbled, "Dreams of death. Dreams of flying like the hawk above us. Dreams that we could understand each man's innermost desires. So real."

"At eleven, I was so certain of a young _mamselle's_ love I went to her father to ask permission to marry her," added Raoul, "but it was all in my head."

"And we were but _les petits_. Little children unsure of our gifts, unsure what was real and what was a trick of the mind." Sebastien turned to the gate once more. "Anna never had that period of learning where she had only to ask an elder for guidance. She had only herself, and who can say what she conjured in her mind. She will adjust or..."

"Or what?" Gabriel's voice was fierce.

Sebastien shrugged. "She will adjust."

"You'll look around the mine area?" said Gabriel. He didn't want to think of what would happen to Anna if she couldn't make the adjustment to the family. It was incomprehensible. "I will check the roads near the bluff and perhaps see if she went back to the garage."

" _Oui_ ," agreed Sebastien. "We will keep looking for her. Just to make sure she hasn't hurt herself." He hesitated before adding, "There are sinkholes near here, like the one which took her mother, treacherous quicksand. We must be quick."

Gabriel was as tired as a dog after chasing a dozen rabbits and not catching a single one. He had searched every place he could think to look. He had waited at the garage for an hour. Finding her door unlocked, he looked in her apartment and saw that her possessions were still there. In fact, there was even money under the Bible. The fact that the Bible she had spoken of as a prized possession was still there made him both sigh with relief and break out in a cold sweat.

He opened the old book and saw that the birth certificate she'd mentioned was still tucked away in the back, hidden under the binding where it had been placed years ago. She hadn't lied to him. On the yellowed form, there was her name and the name of her mother, and that it was issued in Baton Rouge, twenty-four years before. Arette Tuelle. Anais Tuelle. _Anna._

He opened his thoughts up and could find nothing. A void of blankness answered him. It was as if she were unconscious or dead.

"Not dead," he snarled suddenly and threw the Bible down on her nightstand. Gabriel looked down and saw that his grandmother's quilt was carefully spread across her narrow twin bed, all creases smoothed away, shown to its best advantage. This was the same quilt he'd so carefully wrapped her in when he'd brought her inside his house.

Gabriel touched the quilt and almost brought up a corner to his nose, hoping to catch the faint scent that was so uniquely Anna's. Sunshine and woman altogether in one package. At that very moment he caught something else. A sigh of a thought that told him she was thinking of him _. Gabriel?_

_Anna? Where are you?_

For a single instant they connected; she allowed him back inside her head. Gabriel closed his eyes, and he knew where she was.

Stumbling down the side of the road, Anna had been positive that she didn't want to return to the little apartment above the garage. She was unsure of her safety. They, whoever they were, knew who she was, and they knew where she would be. _What was the saying? Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me. Time to trust someone. But who?_

She suddenly knew who it would be, who it had to be. Because that one person had sworn to her that they would never hurt her, that they couldn't hurt her. He had thought, " _It would be like stabbing myself with a machete if I did that." Gabriel?_

Anna was in Gabriel's bed. Phideaux was stretched out along her length keeping her warm, his cinnamon head resting on her thigh, his brown eyes studying his master without moving so much as a muscle.

Gabriel stood above her, watching her. Not surprised to find Anna in his house, he was, however, shocked to find her asleep in his bed. One of her arms rested behind her head, the other across Phideaux's body. She had a long scrape across her temple that had oozed blood down past her eye and a bit of dried blood at the corner of her mouth. Black rings of exhaustion circled her eyes, and her hair was wild.

_But still beautiful_ , he thought, tilting his head to examine her more thoroughly. Her eyes twitched in REM sleep as she dreamed about something that he couldn't quite understand. _Dark dreams. Blackness shifting on blackness. Confused. Tortured?_

Gabriel went to get a warm washcloth to wipe the blood away from her face, but first he stopped and called Aurore on the telephone. She would tell Sebastien that Anna was found and safe, to stop the men from searching. Gabriel knew that it was odd using the convenience, but he was tired of mental theatrics. Aurore spoke to him perfunctorily and was cordial, enquiring about Anna's health.

"I don't know. She's asleep. She looks...tired." Gabriel looked over his shoulder in the direction of the bedroom as if he expected to see her standing there listening to his conversation. "I think she's going through the same kind of changes we all did as adolescents."

" _Pauvre p'tite_. I will pray for her and light a candle."

Anna woke up in Gabriel's bed. Again. Same dark wooded sleigh bed. Same ceiling fan. The curtains on the window were shut as they had been before. The old fashioned quilt was missing, replaced by a newer blue one with appliqué stars and crescent moons made of reds and oranges. _The old quilt's gone because it's on my bed in the little room above the garage,_ she thought. _I kind of stole it._

There were a few other things different. Phideaux the spaniel was spread out across her shins taking advantage of bodily warmth. She felt like her body had been taxed to its limits, her lungs, like they had been severely tested, were sore in her chest. And Gabriel was sleeping in the chair beside the bed, his stockinged feet propped on the bed beside her legs and the dog.

Anna didn't move. She looked to one side and saw that Gabriel was lightly grasping her wrist. Dressed in jeans and a plain white shirt, he sat in a simple oak armchair that was tilted slightly backward. One hand was on her wrist, the other hand lay on his thigh. His chin rested on his chest and his eyes were shut.

She stared at him for a long time. Anna hadn't had the opportunity to look at Gabriel without being noticed herself. He had a five o'clock shadow, and she knew he had sat beside her bed all night long. She didn't know what time she had walked in through an unlocked front door with Phideaux greeting her happily, but according to the way the sunlight was slipping around the edges of the curtains, it was the better part of the morning she had slept through.

She felt stiff, aching as though she had run a race. _I did run a race. I won._ But Meg was gone. _Missing or dead_. Deep inside Anna knew which one, or she wouldn't have crawled into Gabriel's bed. She had known when Meg had sent her last thoughts out. _Graveyard. Anna? Beware, Anna. Beware_. Those were the thoughts Anna received before Meg had died.

Anna stared at Gabriel's down-turned head, watched his chest rise and fall. _He's going to say it's my imagination. Then where's Meg?_

_Gone._ His eyes were abruptly open. Gold eyes looked sleepily at Anna. _Her son says gone. A troublemaker that one. She played on your insecurities, Anna. On the state of adjustment that you're going through. She would con you for your last time to "help" you when she comes back._

Gabriel sat up, and the front two legs of the chair loudly hit the floor. He drew his feet off the bed, and Phideaux moaned with canine protest. "She knows about us." He cursed in French. "The whole world knows about us. Except _you._ "

"She was never in the mine?" Anna brought her hand to her face and felt the scrape left there, evidence to herself that she had tripped over a rail and fallen. The scrape had a Band Aid on it. "I heard her. It was so clear. She was dying!"

Gabriel's thumb caressed the pulse in Anna's wrist. "She has played these tricks before. She doesn't like me much. I've never respected her the way she wished to be respected. It's her petty way of revenge." He sighed. "The family, we are only human."

"Humans with a little extra," Anna said bitterly.

"It's true, we have the gifts, but we have all of man's frailties. All are present and accounted for, Anna. However, there is goodness among us. We trust in each other. We count on each other to hold us all together as a group, as a family."

"You have secrets," she said. His thumb burned along her flesh. She had an urge to slide her wrist up so that she could touch his fingers with her own, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

Gabriel sat forward and took her hand in his. He examined her fingers, pulled them apart and looked at them. His thumb touched the marks left by the handcuffs. "All of us have secrets," he said finally. "I told you our gifts are strongest between family members and ones who...love each other."

Anna's mouth opened and then shut again.

"We're not related to each other, Anna," he said. A faint blush stained his cheeks.

Her brow furrowed. "Are you trying to tell me that you love me? Gabriel, you don't even know me."

One of his hands shot out and captured her other hand. He pulled it around so they could both see the marks left by the man who had slammed a hood of a car across her fingers. "He wanted your job to go to another person," Gabriel said firmly. The lines on his forehead creased as he concentrated. "I thought he might be your boyfriend, and I was jealous. I felt your pain as if it were my own." He held up his right hand and showed her his palm where three stitches closed the wound there left by a lure. "Just like you felt my pain. If you were to die, I think that I might die too."

"Gabriel?" she said falteringly.

He went on as though she hadn't spoken. "You hit him with something. A wrench? I laughed because you were so alive with your outrage. I laughed, and then I was angry as well because you hadn't come to me yet." He paused. His fingers stroked hers. Heat flashed through her body, streaking like lightning, pulling at the depths of her soul. "It's been known to happen this way sometimes. Pairs come together as if assigned by _le bon Dieu_ Himself. Like Lisette and Varden, they were meant for each other. But each grew up knowing that the other was there and would be there for them as long as they lived. Sometimes these pairs happen to people we think are the least matched couples." His fingers tightened on hers for a moment. "You think I want a woman who knows almost nothing of our culture, who I believed waited deliberately to taunt me?" Gabriel's eyes rose to Anna's. Gold fire blazed there. She froze.

Inside she received a clear statement of the remainder of what he was thinking, and she finished it for him, the words he couldn't bring himself to say to her. "A woman whose imagination might be driving her mad?"

"Not your imagination, Anna," he said sadly. "It's only that you're not used to the veiled eyes. And Meg didn't help with her little trick."

Anna slowly sat up, pulling her hands out of Gabriel's and using them to lever herself upward. With a little blush, she realized she was wearing only her t-shirt and panties. Gabriel shrugged not very apologetically. "Your pants were filthy, ripped and torn, caked with mud, and your shoes looked like you walked through the bayou. I left the shirt and underwear. I could have taken everything off."

"And you slept in the chair beside the bed like a gentleman." Anna mocked.

"I can help you, Anna." Gabriel ignored the tone and gritted out the offer.

"Help me?"

"Your father won't appear to aid you. He won't want people to know that he slept with a married woman, got that woman with child. He won't come forward. But perhaps you'll be able to identify him in time. Remember what I said."

"The gift is strongest between relatives and loved ones," she repeated.

" _Oui._ I hear my mother now and again. But Camille and I can have a conversation between each other a hundred miles away from each other. No other has that ability with me, except..."

"Except me. You heard me hundreds of miles away," Anna said slowly. "I thought I was anxious over the trip. Fatigued with worry. I thought..."

Gabriel took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. "I felt you. Just like I feel you now. Your heart is racing. You want to believe. Oh _Dieu_ , you want to believe that I'm telling the truth but you're scared. Just a little girl inside who believes that no one will ever want her."

Anna was shaken. He was there inside her, and she couldn't do anything to prevent it. More heat sourced through her, hardening her nipples to insistent nubs and causing a vivid awareness to warm the place between her thighs. The things that Gabriel wanted to do to her were lingering on the cusp of her thoughts, visions of him licking her, suckling her breasts, stroking the flesh of her thighs, and finding the moist warmth that was making her uncomfortable. She didn't want to think of it. So she said rapidly, "And you think that eventually I'll know who my father is?"

"Changing the subject won't make it any easier, _chère._ But yes, you'll know who your father is. You'll know exactly what you wish."

"Meg said I was stronger than most. That some of the family, the elders, are afraid of me. Was she lying then, too?"

Gabriel's eyes opened. Slowly he reached out and took her hand again. "No, she wasn't lying about that. You are stronger than most. Your gifts are uncertain. You seem to be able to hear almost anyone within a certain range. It makes them uneasy because yours is so powerful but unchecked."

"You really think I'm so selfish. That I kept away because I wanted to tease you?" Anna's voice revealed her insecurity.

"I thought you were one of the family," Gabriel admitted. "I thought you were something else. I was wrong. That's why I was so angry with you that day."

_The day you grabbed me after I woke up._ Anna couldn't prevent the answer in her mind from veering outward.

_Yes. You thought we were related. Instead we are...connected. Tied to each other. But I can see the good in you. You help my nephews without want. You don't complain, not even in the depths of your mind. You defend your good friend Jane no matter what we say about outsiders. You accept your lot and keep as positive as you can. In spite of everything that's thrown at you, you endure. You're strong and intelligent and you can make your way through this obstacle too._ Then it came unbidden to her. Gabriel also thought her beautiful. It lingered behind his eyes the curve of her lips, the way she walked so defiantly, the sweet smell that endured well after she had gone.

_You...like me._

Gabriel couldn't stop the snort of amusement at the sudden mental image that had escaped from Anna. He half shrugged in a purely masculine manner. "Yes, I really, really like you."

"And the mine?"

"The mine?" His voice became instantly serious again.

"Was what I saw in the mine my imagination?"

"What did you see?"

"Something large, black, moving in the darkness."

_Anna. Let me help you_. His thoughts were earnest, demanding. _You couldn't have been in the mine. It was locked._

She wanted to argue with him. Pictures in her head raced; shapes moving, the sound of her ragged breathing, and the glow of the salt under the earth in the single yellow light of the headlamp. But there was doubt in Anna's head. After sleeping the night through and listening to Gabriel's explanation about Meg, she felt uncertain. Everything from the night before was a distant blur of frantic energy. _How can you help me?_

_Be inside my mind, Anna. Let me show you how I feel. What is real. What is not_. Never letting go of her hand, Gabriel slowly stood up and leaned toward her. One of his hands cupped her face and a thumb ran across her lips. _Come inside me. Know what I already know. Let me inside you._

Anna wrapped an arm around his neck and their lips met. Gently he kissed her and tried to prevent himself from crowding her consciousness. With growing trust she allowed herself into his hands and into his mind.

_You do. You really do_ , she thought with amazement after long moments.

_No more secrets from you._ Gabriel was resigned, but it was a jovial acquiescence.

_Not even one?_

"Well, maybe one or two," he whispered aloud, his lips making their way along her throat. "We're only human after all."

Phideaux leaped off the bed and headed for his doggy door, certain that the bed was no longer habitable for him.

Gabriel's agile fingers traced her face and her arms. He directed her arms around his neck as he pressed soft but arousing kisses along her collarbone. His clever hands made short work of the t-shirt she was wearing. He groaned as he took the weight of her breasts into his hands, lowering his head to touch one firm nipple with his tongue. Anna arched into his searching mouth and probing tongue.

His thoughts were decidedly erotic. Each was shared with her as a heated fantasy, bringing rush upon rush of heat to the center of her womanhood. Gabriel licked and tasted his way down to her belly button and rimmed the indentation with his tongue. One of his hands removed her panties and then worked at his own clothing. She arched again as his fingers parted the plump flesh at her apex and delved into her inner heat. Gabriel moved further down and followed his fingers with his tongue.

Anna moaned and let her defenses down. She shared with him her secret thoughts and her hidden desires. Gabriel lifted his head for a moment and murmured, "Never?" He didn't wait for an answer but let Anna feel the throbbing pulsation of his shaft as it demanded release.

He slid up her body and angled her hips for his entrance. He pushed gently and reached in-between their bodies to find the little nub that would give her greatest pleasure. When his manhood was about to breach the fragile barrier, he bent his head to her breasts and sucked hard at one of her nipples.

The pleasure broke like a dam within Anna. She reached the pinnacle with a harsh sob and waves of release poured over her. Gabriel stroked inside her and continued his powerful thrusts until his release followed hers. Together they collapsed into a panting mass of satisfied lassitude.

# Chapter Eighteen

## Tuesday, December 23rd – Thursday, December 25th

_On Christmas morning, the first one up shall take the largest broom to the doorstep, open the door to its widest, and sweep past and future trouble from the threshold. Else, trouble will take residence upon your steps; whenever you shall pass that way it will haunt you and all your kin._

Inside Gabriel's mind Anna found acceptance. Perhaps it wasn't unconditional, but it enveloped her like a warm blanket. She saw what he was and that he had kept little from her. He was the second person she found in her life that she could trust.

It gave Anna pause. It also convinced her she might very well have been wrong about Meg.

"You let my dog get on my bed," Gabriel said much later.

Her head was resting on his shoulder, her eyes on the window looking out toward the lake. A faint smile coursed across her features. "I didn't know he wasn't permitted."

"Well, most of the time he's not." He ran a hand through her hair and made a disparaging noise. "You need to take a bath, Anna. Normally I wouldn't mention such a thing to a lady in my bed, but well, you're dirty. Got mud on your face like a little child."

"That brings up two things in my mind. One is to ask you how many ladies have been in your bed." Anna rose her head up to look him in his face. She curled her fingers in his chest hair and pulled a little.

"Ouch," he said. "There hasn't been that many, you little wildcat. After all, you could have been—"

_Listening? How inconvenient for you. Whistling man_. Anna's smile became smug. _After all, you know exactly how many men there've been for me._

_I know_ , he answered her, his thoughts solemn. "What's the other thing?"

"I know you don't think so, but I _was_ inside the mine." Anna's head went back down, cushioned against his warm flesh. "When you warned me not to move, that I was in danger, why were you so concerned? What did you think would happen to me?"

Gabriel studied the top of her head, marveling that she could keep her thoughts away from him even after what they had done. "The mine's dangerous. It's been flooded on some levels for years. Two kids drowned in there a dozen years ago. They picked the locks off the doors, I think."

_Family?_

_No, outsiders. Just children. Found them a week later. A friend who hadn't gone finally told the police where to look. Sebastien took the police right to the spot where the kids were._

"Sebastien?" Her question was wary. "Why Sebastien?"

"His family owns the mine, part of it anyway. I reckon it's his now. His and the other elders. He doesn't want anyone to sue him over some needless death. That's why all the fences and gates." He reached down and tipped her chin up so he could look her in her face. "But Anna, if you were in the mine, then how could the doors be locked?"

"They weren't locked when I went in. Neither was the gate by Meg's shack." Her gold eyes flickered with some nameless emotion. Gabriel wasn't disbelieving; he was frankly concerned. "You said Sebastien was out looking for me too."

" _Oui._ He was worried about you. There are...dangers in the bayou, as well you should know." He didn't want to repeat aloud the fate of her mother.

"Then someone else with a key opened the mine's doors. And they must have locked them afterward. I never saw anyone. I thought I saw, you know what I thought I saw."

_A great hulking shadow that moved in the darkness making the walls shake like a god pounding his hammer against the earth._ Gabriel tried hard not to smile at the image that seemed ludicrous in the daylight. He thought Anna might hit him if he did.

Anna smiled at him. "Are you being sarcastic or just poetic?" She brought herself to her knees and wrapped a sheet around herself. "I'll take the shower now." She glanced around. "Where are my jeans?"

Gabriel put his hands behind his head and looked at her. It didn't matter if Anna was filthy or not. She had something that emanated from her that attracted him like a bee to the flower. However, she worried him as well. _Stubborn and willful are truly her catchphrases_. She said she was in the mine. There was no doubt that she believed it. But if the mine was locked, and he had seen it with his own eyes, then how had she gotten out? He decided to keep that bit of logic to himself. She wasn't insane, just under a great deal of stress. With Gabriel's guidance, he was sure that Anna would weather the storm. "They were tattered to pieces. Ripped at the knees. A little on your butt, which was very attractive, I'm sure, but no longer serviceable. I put them in my rag box."

"I liked those jeans," she complained. Actually the pants were the only pair she had left.

"I'll buy you another pair. I'll buy you a dozen pairs." Gabriel sighed. "You need something new to wear anyway. Since you lost it all when that man took your car."

"Is there anything you don't know about?"

" _Oui._ Way behind your eyes there is something that lurks like a redheaded stepchild. You keep it hidden. Something about stealing a dirty magazine from a 7-Eleven store in the seventh or eighth grade." Gabriel chuckled. "Jane was very upset with you. She made you go to confession the very next day. And the priest made you say a hundred acts of contrition. My little criminal."

Anna had climbed off the bed and was halfway to the bathroom. She looked over her bare shoulder. "That's what you meant by no secrets."

"The family has a saying," he said. "Sin alone and everyone knows anyway."

She looked at him for a long moment. "I said I'd help Mr. Lemoine with his transmission. He says it screams at him."

"Then we'd best hurry and get you those jeans then," said Gabriel amicably.

"What I am going to wear?" Anna's face was neutral.

"My sweats?" Gabriel smiled. "But you don't have to get dressed on my account."

Anna threw the balled-up sheet at him and escaped into the bathroom.

Gabriel took Anna out on the lake the next day. It was a cloudy afternoon, and the lake was like the surface of a mirror, glassy and reflective. She leaned over the rail and stared into the water. "What about the elders?" she asked him.

He had stopped the _Belle-Mère_ near the eastern end of the lake where a bayou splintered off to the north. "Mossy Brake is what they call this place," he told her. The oaks and cypresses grew so thick that the forest at the edge of the lake looked impenetrable. The moss covering the bases of the trees was a golden color showing it was languishing in the winter light. "When it's spring it's the color of emeralds." He pointed. "Once there was an oil rig there. You can still see the supports when the water level is low. I have to be careful not to snag the bottom of the _Belle-Mère_."

"They drilled for oil here?"

" _Oui_. Several areas of the lake. All over this part of the country. And Texas got some too. That was when they found the salt dome below." He looked over at her. She was wearing a pair of scratched Wayfarers perched on the edge of her nose. One of his shirts came to mid-thigh on her, and she had on a brand-new pair of Lees. Sparkling white Reeboks were on her feet. He nodded approvingly. _Wonder if I can get her to wear a dress?_

"Salt mines," she murmured. _I don't like dresses_. "Oil. Pearls. Fishing. Quite an industry through here."

Gabriel put his hands on her shoulders and directed her to look at the cypresses. Each hulking tree spanned yards around in circumference where they met the lapping edge of the black waters. "These trees saw steamboats come through on their way to the Red River, going to Baton Rouge, or New Orleans. Union soldiers once fought a battle against weary Confederates not a mile from where we're standing. You can find Minié balls if you look hard enough. And our last great industry is tourism, _p'tite_." _But you would look so beautiful in a dress_ , chère.

"Your ships. The bed and breakfasts. The fishing. The guide trips." Anna laughed shortly. _No dresses_. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"What?"

"You depend on outsiders for your livelihood."

"Yes, I can see why you would think that's ironic." Gabriel looked over her shoulder at the forest. "Most never stay for long, and the land all belongs to the family, every bit of it."

"Is that why there are no chain stores here? No big companies come to take over?"

"The lake is part of us, Anna." Gabriel rubbed her shoulders gently. "Remember it calling to you. We can't take any risk with such a company."

"Doing business with a bunch of telepaths might be problematic, it's true," Anna said complacently.

"Telepaths. Some clairvoyance. There are other gifts as well. You never played the lotto, hmm?"

Anna laughed. "It never seems to work for more than a couple hundred bucks. And even then, well, it's more like a twenty here on a scratch-off. Or a five or a ten."

"I have a Christmas gift for you," Gabriel said, suddenly changing the subject.

"Gabriel, you've already spent a ton of money on me. I can't—"

"Just one more thing. We were talking of the lake, and I wish you to have it." He reached inside his pocket and brought out a little white box. She turned around and stared curiously. He gently wrapped her hands around the box and then let go, allowing her to hold it by herself. "Open it, _chère_. It won't bite you."

Anna stared into his remarkable face for a moment before she slipped the satin ribbon off the little box. When she saw what was inside she made a little noise. A dainty gold chain draped elegantly over the folds of blue velvet inside the case. The pendant itself was iridescent like the surface of the lake. "It's a black pearl," she whispered.

"Grown in the freshwater mussels from this very lake. Given to my grandmother on the birth of her daughter, my mother."

"By your grandfather." She touched its polished surface with a finger. It felt like the cool brush of silk against her flesh. Anna thought she could stare into its exterior forever and lose herself in it. Finally, she tucked a finger under the delicate gold chain and held it up to Gabriel. "Will you put it on me?"

His fingers fumbled a little with the catch, and Anna thought it endearing. Gabriel wasn't perfect, after all. He was as human as the rest of them. When the chain settled around her neck, falling over her collar bones and letting the pearl pendant rest at the base of her throat, she reached up to touch it. It felt good, like it was part of her. "Did she die?"

"My _grandmaman?_ " Gabriel asked, but he knew what Anna meant. "A few years ago, praying that happiness would come to me at last. She always said that I should have patience, patience with you. And when I realized the whole of it all, I thought of her and her words. I think she would have liked to see you wearing her pearl. Now your pearl."

"Thank you," Anna said. She rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek.

Gabriel appeared surprised. He touched his cheek and stared down at her.

Anna realized that he had run out of things to say. "You don't have to say anything," she said comfortingly.

He smiled at her. _No, of course not_.

There was an image that popped into her mind. Anna flushed scarlet from the roots of her hair all the way down to her toes. In the picture in Gabriel's mind, she was lying completely naked on his bed except for the beautiful pearl necklace draped around her neck. The unreal self in his thoughts was lustrous with light, almost an angel who waited for him with bated breath. She saw herself from his perspective with full breasts, a trim waist, and hips that curved voluptuously, beckoning his touch. Her skin was like ivory, flawless and glowing with radiance.

Anna took a breath at the sheer eroticism of the thoughts. Gabriel blinked and realized that she knew exactly what was in his mind. Then he shrugged lightly. _Well_ , she thought, _that's one thing I can give you_.

The vision vanished. Gabriel's eyes became serious. _Anna, you've already given me something I've never had before._

"Pope Urges Peace on Day of Lord's Birth!" read the headline. Gabriel's eyes flickered to the headline on the bottom half of the page. "Manhunt Intensifies!" His eyes went over the story and he thought, _Shreveport. Oh shit! Not him. Not now._

He waited on Anna while she finished up on Herb Lemoine's transmission. Parts had come in late the previous day, and she hadn't been able to finish the job. Although it was Christmas Day, she knew the older man didn't have transportation to get to his son's house. Herb had protested that his son would come pick him up, but Anna could read in his thoughts that his daughter-in-law was soon going into labor. "April doesn't know it," said Herb confidently to Gabriel. "She's going to have the Christmas baby, _oui_."

Gabriel said, "Anna knows you need the car."

Herb looked through the open bay doors at Anna, who was tightening up bolts on the bottom of the car. "The old mechanic, you remember John Fleur, he wouldn't have worked on the Lord's birthday for an old man."

The newspaper wavered in front of Gabriel's face. The little headline popped out at him like it was taunting him. "Manhunt Intensifies!" The Louisiana State Police were searching for a man who had allegedly killed at least twelve young women and two young men and the count was growing. His backyard was virtually a graveyard. Some forensics teams were spending their Christmas with bones and death instead of their families. "Gracious God," muttered Gabriel. He looked up at Herb Lemoine and murmured, "Yes, _oui_. She caught the part about the labor. She wanted to make sure you were able to see your third grandchild."

Herb beamed. "Yes, I like that gal. Don't care what some of them no-accounts say about her. She's got moxie like the best. Good heart makes all the difference."

"You want to know if it's a girl or a boy?" Gabriel asked because it precipitously came to him, and he wondered if it was Anna who was feeling it or him or a combination of them both. He was hoping that Anna wasn't reading him back.

Herb chuckled. "Doesn't make a difference to me. I like the boys just as well as the girls and all them babies smell just alike to me."

"Seven pounds, seven ounces," Gabriel said. He folded the newspaper up. As soon as Anna was done, they were going to a Christmas dinner at Sebastien and Aurore's house. Half the family was invited. The other half was going to other family events out-of-town. Tents had been raised to cover the Benoit's large backyard, and the party would go well into the evening.

"What?" said Herb, still smiling at Anna. "And she's so cute, too. A little button. Gonna make you a fine missus."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "The baby's going to weigh seven pounds and seven ounces. Your son is going to name the child after...lost that part." He turned to look at Anna, who was peering up into the chassis of the car. "Anna'll argue too much. She's obstinate. A mule."

Herb shrugged. "Don't want a marshmallow, Gabriel. That would be _très terne._ Boring. Life should be exciting, _oui_?"

" _Oui_ ," Gabriel agreed. He couldn't prevent the glance down at the paper in his hand. There was a sudden urge to say a little prayer of thanksgiving because he had the oddest feeling that the other shoe was about to drop.

_What other shoe_? came her thought. Anna must have picked up on exactly what he was thinking because next came _Dan Cullen? The psychopathic truck driver? He's loose? How the hell did that happen?_

_No more secrets_ , Gabriel groaned out loud. _We couldn't take you to the police, Anna. We couldn't take the chance with a family member. Instead we took him. We left him there all tied up with the photographs in his lap. He made bail before they found the bodies on his land and then he vanished. He doesn't know where you are. Tell me you understand why we did this._

Her thoughts were turbulent and troubled. Gabriel sighed with relief as he realized that she did understand. And when Anna was done with Herb's transmission she cleaned up, and they went to the Christmas celebration. She was wearing the pearl necklace.

# Chapter Nineteen

## Sunday, January 18th – Friday, January 23rd

_Gossiping on the Sabbath bodes ill for the gossiping monger and no good shall come of the venial sin._

Anna fit into the family as if she were raised there. With her closer connection to Gabriel, came general acceptance of her from most of the people in Unknown. More people brought their vehicles to her to repair or to tune up. More of them treated her like a member of the clan. The mysterious voice that had warned her had been conspicuously missing, leaving as if Meg's absence had chased it away. Although there was still some grudging resentment from a few of the family members, it was beginning to fade, and Anna felt something she had never felt before. Trying to describe that feeling to Jane on the telephone was like trying to herd cats.

"They treat me like I belong here," she told Jane over the phone.

Jane made a noise. "Maybe they really needed a mechanic."

"It's not that small here. It's only thirty miles to Shreveport," Anna discounted her friend with a laugh. _Pessimistic Jane._

_He's unfaithful to her._

_What?_ thought Anna. Gabriel's matter-of-fact statement came to her clearly, although he was out on the lake with a fishing group, far away, and showing a man how to cast his lure underhanded.

_She's worried about a man. A man with blonde hair and blue eyes. He's got a scar on his chin. He's cheating._ Gabriel was plainly amused, not by Jane's predicament but by the fact he was discombobulating Anna.

"Jane," said Anna. She took the phone in the small apartment and went to the balcony. She looked out over the lake and could see nothing but the lake itself. The blue sky above disappeared into the black surface. Cypress trees wandered across its façade, meandering goliaths at peace in their environment. Neither Gabriel nor the _Belle-Mère_ were anywhere within sight. "Are you seeing someone right now?"

Jane was silent for a moment. "His name is Garrett," she said slowly. "Anna, you're not going to have one of those freakishly weird premonitions or something?"

"Oh, it's not that," Anna lied.

_Oh, you little liar_ , thought Gabriel amused. _Liar, liar, pants on fire. Did you confess to the Father this morning,_ chère?

"You sound a little preoccupied," Anna added after a hesitation. "Like something's on your mind. Or someone."

"It's so funny how you know that. I saw him last night with a blonde," Jane said flatly. "I was pissed. Mega-royally pissed off. Yesterday afternoon, he said he had another thing going on and so I went out with the staff to the French Quarter. They're really gearing up for Mardi Gras here. Anyway, there he was, with Miss Double Ds."

_His personal trainer. Too bad._

_Whistling man,_ Anna was a little confused. _How can you be getting this?_

_Don't know exactly. I've heard that some couple's powers increase once they come together. It's a little strange for me too._

_Little strange, like holding a conversation in my head at the same time I'm talking on the phone with my friend_. "Jane honey," Anna said, "perhaps you should just confront him."

"Really?" Jane said agitatedly.

"Did he kiss her?" _How can I say it to her without giving something away?_

There was a burst of emotion in her head that told her implicitly Gabriel really didn't care. He was amused by Anna's plight. He was even more amused that Anna was trying to keep her gifts a secret from her friend and at the same time trying to help her. In fact, Anna could tell the moment he started whistling while he put another lure on his client's fishing rod and tuned her out.

"No," Jane's voice was puzzled and angry. "He had his hand on her thigh."

"Well, then Jane," Anna said, "maybe you should just ask him. I don't think he should be going out with his personal trainer at the same time as with you."

Jane was as silent as the grave, and Anna nearly groaned as she realized what she'd said.

_Can she be any denser?_

_Shut up, Gabriel, and look who's talking, Mr. Grabby Hands._

_Well, she deserves better. Even if she is an outsider._

_Thank you, whistling man. Go stick your head in a bucket._

After Anna hung up, she heard the buzzer from downstairs and went down to find a man waiting that she hadn't met before. Like many of the family he was tall with black hair and gold eyes. Yet, he seemed oddly familiar to her, as if she had met him before. In his thirties, he smiled at her with a large toothy grin. "My truck, _mamselle_. She's a real whore today. Don't want to take any direction for no reason. Put gas in her and nothing. Pat her hood and nothing. You turn the ignition, and she goes chung-chung-chung like the battery's dead, but the battery, I had it checked. Had to push it the last half-block." He flicked a thumb over his shoulder at the '90s Chevy. Then he wiped some sweat away from his forehead.

"Let's take a look."

Ten minutes later Anna had eliminated the fuel pump as a problem and was looking at the battery connections. She cleaned the battery connections with a scrub brush and checked the ignition circuits down to the spark plugs. "You need a tune up," she said to the man. "I think an alternator too."

"Alternator?" the man repeated doubtfully. Anna caught a worried thought about cost. It flitted through her mind like a bat intent on insects by a fluorescent light. _Damn. Something expensive broke again!_

"Don't worry. A hundred dollars for the part, I think. Maybe I can find a rebuilt one at cost. It won't take me ten minutes to install it. But I'll have to order it."

"So, what, a hundred fifty bucks?"

"Yeah. About that. Definitely no more than that. Let me make sure it's the alternator with the voltage meter." Anna straightened up. "I can get it tomorrow. But the real cause is the battery connections. You've got to keep them clean. Clean them once a month at least." She held up the little connection brush. "It costs three bucks for this, and it'll save you from having to replace the alternator for ten years if you keep it up. Plus, the new alternator will have a limited lifetime warranty. As long as you keep the truck you won't have to worry about that part anymore."

"That sounds fair, _mamselle_."

The man followed her inside the garage and watched as Anna cleaned her hands with a rag. "Do I know you? Have we met before?" she said.

"My name is Laurant Theriot," he told her with a grimace. "You thought my _maman_ was lost in the mine."

Laurant had been named after his father. It was little wonder because he looked like him as well. If his hair had been shaved close to his head, then he would have been the living embodiment of his dead father's photograph.

Anna shrugged.

Laurant shrugged too. " _Maman,_ she plays the little tricks sometimes, although never one so cruel. She was not always treated fairly by the family. Not her fault that her mother was an outsider, no more than it was yours."

Anna put the rag down and crossed her arms over her chest. "Have you heard from her?"

" _Non_." His voice became flat. "That's not unusual for _Maman._ She leaves sometimes for weeks and then comes back as if she'd never gone."

Anna was curious. The moments that she had heard Meg in her mind, Anna had been completely convinced that the older woman had been dying herself, struck by someone, stuck in sifting mud, left to die in the darkness. The warning came to her. _Graveyard. Anna? Beware, Anna. Beware._

Anna had been positive that it was real. If she concentrated, she could feel the slick, gliding clasp of the sands pulling at her limbs, its grip inextricable and unyielding. It had been so compelling that she had gone into the mine itself, fighting her own personal demons to find Meg. And even now, despite what Anna said, Gabriel still didn't believe she had been in the mine itself.

The doors had been open, the padlocks missing or unlocked. Someone had wanted her to go into that mine. Anna had thought about it. It could have been Meg herself. She said her husband had worked there for many years. Somehow Meg could have had keys to the padlocks. It would have been some trick.

Laurant suddenly looked away from Anna. "I'm gonna go get Bill over to the drycleaners to give me a lift. You'll let me know when you've got that part in? I'll bring the cash in then."

"But I haven't even checked the alternator yet," she said, trailing off as she watched him walk away. Abruptly, Anna couldn't decide if Laurant Theriot was trying to hide something or if there was something integrally wrong with him. She reached for the voltage meter to confirm her suspicions. If she could phone the dealer in Shreveport before 3 p.m. about the alternator, they could usually have the parts she needed the next day. Any other thoughts flew away from her.

At dinner with Gabriel and his parents, Anna took a moment to whisper to Gabriel, "I had that dream last night again."

"I know," he whispered back sotto voce. "I had to shower twice to get that feeling of being covered with dirt off my flesh. Can't you dream about something kinky instead?"

"Funny, Gabriel." Anna had woken herself up with the dream. The same dream she had for five nights running. She didn't know what had spawned it, but it was becoming most bothersome.

"What dream?" asked Cecily, coming back into the dining room with a dish full of vegetables.

Anna looked at Gabriel's mother. She was almost as tall as her son. Her hair short and feathered back into a flattering cut. Her face was rounded with age, however she was no kindly grandmother type, but instead, shrewd, possessing a dry wit that often caught Anna off guard.

"Dreams go by contraries," said Cecily, placing the steaming vegetables on the table with a flourish. "Jean! Come to supper, you old fool!"

Gabriel folded his arms across his chest. " _Maman_ believes that if you dream of something negative, then it is a good omen."

"Dreaming of a funeral," said Cecily authoritatively, "means a wedding is coming." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "We need some butter. You didn't dream of death, did you, _chère_?" she asked of Anna hopefully.

"Does that mean the same thing as a funeral?" Anna said impishly.

"No, my dear. Dreaming of death means a birth." Cecily smiled smugly and went to get the butter, and she said over her shoulder, "Although I'd prefer you'd dream of a funeral _first_."

Anna glanced at Gabriel curiously. "Then what does clawing one's way out of the ground mean?" That was the dream she had. It hadn't been like when she had made her way out of the mine. Instead it was as if she had been buried alive, but strangely there was no fear involved. She knew that if she worked hard enough she could make her way to the light. Her hands ripped at the soil above her, tearing away clumps of dirt and roots, trying to reach the light above. Something waited for her there, something that she desperately needed to know, or worse, something that she felt she had forgotten and needed to remember.

Gabriel stared at Anna for a moment. His eyes went to the pearl necklace adorning her graceful neck. The dream disturbed him as well. He wasn't one to read into hidden meanings or the superstitious nonsense that his mother was apt to spout. Surprisingly, down-to-earth Anna repeated such wives' tales as gospel. "According to _Maman,_ it means the opposite. You will go down into the earth."

He discovered that he didn't like that interpretation any better. It was too much like remembering what he'd felt like when he had believed that Anna was lost in the mine. Or what was worse, was thinking that Anna would be buried in a grave.

"This thing that happened today," Anna said, "when I was speaking to Jane, and you got this vision of her boyfriend, it was unusual for the family. Yes?"

Gabriel looked over his shoulder into the kitchen and watched his mother rummaging in a cupboard for the right dish. His father, Jean, came in the back door and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek before reaching for the refrigerator door. "Unusual. Not unheard of," said Gabriel with a little wave at his father.

"Pairs become stronger," Anna mused. Jean Bergeron was an older version of his son. The same height and weight, from the back they could have been twins. From the front, the father's creased face and receding hairline showed the difference. It gave Anna an idea of how Gabriel would appear when he was his father's age.

"It doesn't happen much."

"I didn't see the boyfriend in Jane's mind. I wasn't really even thinking of Jane at the time. I was thinking about—"

"Last night," Gabriel finished for her; a satisfied smile flitted across his face. "I know. But today, as soon as she began to speak with you, it was like a sign appeared above her head in my mind. I could see her clearly and him as well. She was worried about him. Tomorrow she won't be. It must be very lonely not to have any family."

"It is." Anna looked at Gabriel. She wasn't lonely anymore. She was beginning to feel as though she would always be here in this place, close to the lake, close to the people who shared her roots. But her curiosity was piqued. "What other powers does the family have?"

"Telepathy you know about," Gabriel said, unfolding his arms. He reached around her shoulders and pulled her a little closer. "Clairvoyance, from personal experience. Case in point today. Jane and her erstwhile boyfriend. What was his name?"

"Garrett."

Gabriel touched Anna's nose with his index finger. "Once I heard them say one of the little girls down by the Atchafalaya basin had the power to move things with her mind. What do they call that?"

"Telekinesis, I think," said Anna, wrinkling her nose. "Couldn't move anything even if I tried it. Well, unless I actually use my hands. What about psychometry?"

"Psych-what?"

"If you touch something you know where it's been, who owned it, what its history is."

"I've never heard of that one before," Gabriel admitted. "They say some of us can see spirits."

"Ghosts?" That amused Anna, but she was also wondering if the family had even more unusual powers. Laurant seemed to have no control over what he said for a moment, as if he were forgetting about his own mother, like he had been brainwashed. "I'd like to see a ghost."

"Not like _Ghostbusters, chère_ ," Gabriel advised gravely. "Mostly they're more sinister than that. They say evil twisted ones are the ones who stay behind."

Gabriel studied Anna's profile as she turned to look at what his parents were doing. "Would you like to dream of a funeral, Anna?"

Anna almost stopped breathing. She immediately forgot that someone in the family could have some very unusual powers. "Not because your mother wishes it."

His fingers gently kneaded her shoulder. Gabriel leaned over and kissed her forehead tenderly. His only comment was, "Hmm."

Then when Jean and Cecily Bergeron came into the dining room, Gabriel pulled out a chair for Anna, and they talked about the upcoming Mardi Gras festival in Unknown. It was a big money maker for the town and brought tourists in from as close as Shreveport and as far away as Little Rock and Tallahassee.

It was a few days after the dinner with Gabriel's parents that Anna had an idea.

The family wouldn't talk about Arette Tuelle. She had learned that fact early on. Even Gabriel had said his piece and would comment no more. He'd shrugged at her and said, "I can't tell you what I don't know, _chère_."

What about Arette's own family? The birth certificate listed Arette's birthplace as Natchitoches, Louisiana. Anna's hope was that it was an uncommon name, and there might still be relatives in the area. Natchitoches wasn't far from Unknown, and Anna borrowed Gabriel's truck. Once she'd been able to get a copy of her Texas birth certificate and a duplicate social security card, she'd gone to get a driver's license using Gabriel's truck. He didn't mind her taking the vehicle while he worked on his boats to run various errands.

While she drove to Natchitoches, Anna berated herself silently. _Now why didn't I think of this sooner?_

_Because you're not a private detective._

_Whistling man._ Anna tried to let her thoughts go blank and failed miserably.

_Secrets. Someone's got a secret. You might as well have lit fireworks over your head, Anna._

_You know I want to find out as much as I can about my parents._

_I know. Go and look, little girl. Maybe that will bring you some rest._ Gabriel's thoughts were resigned. He was getting used to Anna's way of thinking.

_I'll drive carefully_ , she thought, but he was gone. It left her feeling a little alone, something she hadn't felt for some time now.

It only took Anna twenty minutes to find Arette Tuelle's sister. Her name was Geneva Tuelle, and Anna got directions from a gas station on how to find the house. It was an older section of Natchitoches, which wasn't saying much since the whole town dated from the 1700s. It was the oldest permanent settlement in the entire Louisiana Purchase, a decorative anachronism sitting on the Cane River Lake, with its narrow roads and brick streets.

Anna pulled Gabriel's truck up to the sidewalk and looked out the side. It was a two-story house which appeared as much as a century old. The style was a combination between art deco and old plantation that distracted Anna for a moment. The boxwood hedges and great hedge balls along the walkway were neatly trimmed, and the yard maintained its emerald green color despite the time of year. All of it broadcasted the middle-class wealth of the owners.

When Anna rang the doorbell, she didn't know what to expect. But it wasn't the woman with the dyed brown hair and blue eyes who glared at her and said, "I should have known one of ya'll would come a-calling one day."

# Chapter Twenty

## Friday, January 23rd – Saturday, February 21st

_They say that when the rain falls on a gravestone, it can tell the future. If it collects on the north side, then it is a good omen for the first person to visit. If it collects on the south side, then let that man beware because death follows his heels._

Geneva Tuelle was somewhere in her forties. Anna's mother would have been forty-six this year. Arette's sibling could have been a year older than that or a year younger, Anna simply couldn't tell. The other woman was a few inches over five feet with dyed hair the color of lightly roasted chestnuts. Her blue eyes were a shade that would turn bluer or gray depending on the clothing she wore. She invited Anna inside with a condescending wave of her hand.

Inside the foyer Anna hesitated. She looked around and saw a polished wooden floor covered with a Persian rug. The cream-colored walls were decorated with small painted portraits of people dressed in garb Anna guessed was a century and more old. Spindly-legged tables perched against the walls, buffed, glossy wooden creations that would only hold the weight of a single book.

For a moment Anna was cowed. Her mother had come from people who were strongly middleclass. All around her was the evidence that glittered, glistened, and glowed with its wealth.

_Anna,_ came Gabriel's reassuring thought. _Being rich doesn't mean goodness of heart._

_I can handle this,_ she gritted inside her mind. Gabriel's thoughts vanished.

When Anna finally turned back to Geneva, she found the older woman studying her in turn. "They have a phrase for you people," Geneva said and her chin went up imperceptibly.

Anna looked at the elegant blue dress that Geneva wore and would have glanced down at her t-shirt and jeans if Geneva hadn't continued. "Lake People. They call ya'll Lake People. It's a quaint phrase. I know a sociologist over to the university who says he's tried to study the society of the lake for years, but ya'll have shut him out. That isn't very southern-like, dear."

"Your sister was Arette Tuelle," said Anna at last.

Geneva folded her hands over her midriff, and her lips pursed with distaste. "It's a pleasure to know you have the ability to speak." Then her face creased in curiosity. "But you don't sound like the rest of your brethren. Damned if you don't sound like a Yankee."

"I was raised in West Texas," said Anna. "Far West Texas. Not much of an accent there, unless you happen to be first-generation Hispanic."

"Let's go into the parlor, dear." Geneva's face became seamless again. She motioned gently with her hand, allowing Anna to precede her.

The parlor was like the foyer except more so. More antiques. More polish and gloss. Gold edging decorated everything. Anna thought it was very pretty but momentarily found it difficult to believe its practicality. _How does one use anything without worrying if they will break it?_

"Sit down, please," said Geneva neutrally. Anna picked a gilt-framed couch with velvet cushions the color of blood. She carefully perched on the edge while Geneva selected a similar styled chair across from her. The older woman smoothed her dress and sat, delicately crossing her ankles as if she were sitting down for afternoon tea. "I'd offer you something to drink, dear, but I don't think you'll be staying long." She hesitated and added, "I thought you people always stayed near the bayous or near the lake itself. Such a dark, mysterious place that lake. I saw it once with my sister, back in the day. Right before she met one of your kin, I suspect. I've forgotten his name."

"Gautier Debou," Anna said flatly. Any hopes of useful information from this cold-hearted woman were quickly fading away. She was a wall of ice that was seemingly impenetrable.

"Oh yes. A close relation?"

"I don't think so," Anna said. "My name is Anna St. Thais. My mother was your sister."

Geneva's eyes went wide for a single moment. Then she composed herself, becoming the society matron once again. "Well, Anna, is it? Anna, you're not going to get any of Papa Tuelle's money. He disinherited your mama the day after he found out she married that coonass." She smiled grimly. "You'll forgive the defamation, but one recognizes trash when one sees it."

Anna ignored the dig. "I make my own money. And I'm certainly not interested in being associated with a tight-ass aristocracy that wouldn't know how to change a light bulb if one were to break."

Geneva stared at Anna. Then she laughed. "I believe you might be 'Rette's child after all. She never backed down from a fight."

"Did you know she had a child?"

"I knew her husband scared her. Something else about the Lake People scared her too. She fled clear across the state of Louisiana to get away. I 'spect you were born in Baton Rouge when she spent all that time down there. I found out where she'd been when the woman's shelter contacted me about her belongings. They sent a box to me, oh goodness, some twenty years ago. Some clothing. Some other meager things. I don't recollect exactly what." Geneva's eyes went a little bluer as she remembered. Suddenly Anna knew that the older woman had some fondness for her sister. She could see it in her mind. The snobbish act was just that. "But the dumb little chit went back to him for some reason."

Anna didn't say anything. There was more than just a fondness for Geneva's sister. There was a twinkle of the gift. Anna's eyes got wide. It seemed that Geneva Tuelle had a little of the gift, not so much that she was actively aware of it, but it was there all the same. Had Anna's mother also had a little smattering of veiled eyes?

"The sheriff told us that she had been lost in the bayou, in quicksand or something of the like. They searched for her but never found her body." Geneva's eyes glittered. "I never believed that, of course. After all, look where she spent the last months of her life and the fact that her husband up and vanished right after she disappeared. But one doesn't talk of these situations. My family certainly never did. Not after that. Hardly before that either."

"Not very forgiving, are you?"

"The Tuelles have never been merciful," said Geneva arrogantly.

"Did you talk to her while she was with her husband?" Anna ignored the statement, wishing she hadn't spoken her thoughts aloud. The ice that had begun to melt was quickly beginning to re-freeze again.

Geneva stared at Anna again. She grimly contemplated the younger woman, trying to decide what her motives could possibly be and how they related to her in the present. " 'Rette called me several times in those two years. I was the only one who would speak to her. I was much younger then and much more naïve."

"I need to know who else she was friends with."

"She didn't have any other friends, my dear." Geneva looked around her and focused on a little silver clock on the table. "And it's far past your welcome."

Anna's hands shot up, palms outward pleadingly. "Wait. This is important. My father wasn't Gautier Debou. And that spot was left blank on the birth certificate."

Geneva took this in, with her lips narrowing into a severe line. "So little Arette found another playmate. How interesting."

"Why don't you cut the hardhearted act?" Anna snarled suddenly. She could see the turmoil inside Geneva's mind. The older woman was feeling regret and guilt. She hadn't wanted to be cast out of her family for supporting her younger sister, but she hadn't wanted to cut her only sister off without so much as another word. Arette's death had taken a part of Geneva, as well. She had severely missed Arette, and she had mourned her passing. "You cared for her. She talked to you, and I'm not asking for national secrets. None of this goes beyond me. I won't bother your family. I won't broadcast it to a newspaper. Bastards are born and die a thousand times a day now, and frankly, no one gives a good goddamn anymore."

"Well," said Geneva haughtily. "I think you bear a little resemblance to your mother. I see it in the curve of your face, in the bow of your eyebrows, but it's most definitely your mannerisms that show you to be her child. And dear, the cursing, well, it's just not _de rigueur_."

Anna stared back, waiting while Geneva made up her mind.

"I have the box the shelter sent me," said Geneva at last. She shrugged. "It doesn't have much in it, and it probably won't answer your questions. You can take it with you."

"Thank you," said Anna. "I won't bother you again."

An eyebrow rose. "I should hope not."

After Anna was holding the tattered cardboard box in her hands, Geneva held the door open for her. Anna thanked her again and started down the walk, wishing there was something else she could say to this wintry woman. Geneva said from the doorway, "Something happened to 'Rette."

Anna paused and turned back. The older woman's voice had become a little forgiving; a quaver had become perceptible. Geneva took a step out and said, "A few months before she went to the shelter in Baton Rouge. She was upset. 'Rette said she prayed to God every day for guidance."

Anna scrutinized her aunt. "Did you suspect something in particular?"

Geneva chewed on her lip, her troubled visage apparent. "If you didn't know who your father was, then who raised you?"

"Someone dumped me on the steps of an orphanage in El Paso," Anna said frankly. "I was raised by nuns."

Geneva gasped. "The saints preserve us."

"Did you know what she was praying for guidance about?" Anna was insistent.

"There are topics best not discussed in polite society," said Geneva, regaining composure with a disdainful expression on her face. "It's shameful. Something not spoken about in the open."

Anna took a step back toward the other woman. Geneva held up a warning hand. "You said you wouldn't bother me anymore."

Anna made a noise of disgust. "I just want information. Why would she dump me in an orphanage hundreds of miles away? What could possibly motivate her to do that?"

"I don't believe 'Rette would ever abandon her child," Geneva said, her tone soaked with sincerity. "And since you were raised by nuns, you know what it's like to be a Catholic. The Church doesn't allow for abortions, even when your husband is not the father of your child."

Anna scrutinized Geneva, wishing the other woman's mind was more obvious. "There were implications about my mother. Not having known her, I don't know what to believe."

Geneva looked at the ground. "Her husband couldn't conceive. She said he was sterile from having the mumps as a child. So when she became pregnant he naturally thought she had taken a lover." Her face twisted. " 'Rette was all the things I always wished to be. Brave. Forthright. Ready to stand-alone when she had to and terribly impulsive, romantic. Her husband didn't trust her. He lost his temper with her. Called her a whore and worse. He was a big man then. Since her death I read that he was caught doing questionable things. Drugs. Assaults. In fact, he recently was murdered— "

Her eyes rose up and caught Anna's again. "When did you return here?"

"I didn't kill him, if that's what you're implying," said Anna. "The sheriff of St. Germaine Parish seems to think it's related to a drug-deal gone bad. If you doubt that, I suggest you call him. His number's in the book."

Geneva stood stock-still. "I suppose it could be so. Goodbye, Anna."

"Goodbye, Aunt Geneva. If you should change your mind about getting to know me, you can call the general store in Unknown. You know the lake."

"It's a small place, dear." Geneva folded her hands over her midriff again, struggling to maintain her façade, "and I think it might be more dangerous than you think."

Anna found a small parking lot in downtown Natchitoches overlooking part of the scenic Cane River Lake. She dug through the box and found some clothing. It was dated clothing with a little mold on some of it. There wasn't anything in the pockets, and Anna found the disappointment overwhelming. At the bottom of the box were two books. One was a well-used paperback on pregnancies. The other one was the same book that Anna had borrowed from Camille, a history of the lake.

Holding the book up, Anna stared at it curiously. Then some photographs fell out. She picked them up by their corners as if they would bite her. One was a photograph of two people at their wedding. The man was large, black haired and gold eyed, dressed in an ill-fitting suit. It was a younger version of Gautier. The woman was petite with the same chestnut-colored hair Anna had seen only minutes before. Her eyes were blue, and she laughed into the camera. Dressed in a simple white dress with a lace veil over her hair, she was a pretty bride. Her mother. _Arette._

Anna flipped the photo over. Nothing was written there. She frowned.

The next photo showed a group of people on the lake in a boat. Gautier was there again. So was Arette. There was a woman that Anna didn't recognize, although she was clearly a member of the family. There were two men who looked dour and unforgiving. Anna checked the back of that one and found nothing.

The final photo was a single man. Anna's eyebrows came together in confusion. _Why would my mother have a photo of Gaspard Benoit?_

That night as they sat on Anna's little balcony watching the lake, Gabriel said to her, "It didn't help, did it?"

"Yes and no," Anna answered slowly. "She's so snobbish, my aunt. She thought I was after the family money."

_She thought you wanted the silver._

_You got that?_

_"Oui_ , at first. She changed her mind. It was like being inside the mind of a maddened poodle. The dog doesn't know whether to nip you or lick you." Gabriel grimaced at the image that presented.

"She told me something."

Gabriel tugged on Anna's arm forcibly. Her head came around to look at him solidly. "Tell me."

Anna swallowed convulsively. _The illegitimate child of an adulterous relationship, the child of an outsider. What if you don't want me anymore when you find out?_

"I swear," he said slowly. "I will always want you." A little pained smile crossed his lips. "It cannot be any other way, but rest assured, I'm not unhappy with the situation, _chère_."

"You said Gautier disappeared after my mother went into the bayou," she said. "What if it was him that put me on the steps of the orphanage?"

There was puzzlement on Gabriel's face. "Why would he do that?"

"If he knew whose child I was, if he thought that a child of Arette's was in some sort of danger, then wouldn't he do something?"

"Like drive you all the way to El Paso and deposit you in an orphanage, with only your mother's Bible as a companion?" Gabriel was horrified at the thought of someone deliberately isolating Anna in infancy from the family.

"Proximity," Anna explained. "You don't feel babies. They haven't developed their gifts yet. Not until they start into adolescence. They don't speak to you until then, right?"

"Most of the time," Gabriel admitted. His gifts had come to him early. He had felt Anna from almost the time when she was born, but he had been too young to know what to do or say about his visions, and she had been so far away.

"That's why Gautier took me there. So the family wouldn't know of my existence. Gautier assumed I would be safe there?"

"Why would Gautier want to protect you?" Gabriel was perplexed.

"He warned me, didn't he?" A mental image of the photograph came to Anna, and it was broadcasted clearly to Gabriel. The wedding picture where Gautier stared down at his bride, the love in his face, the complete worship he had felt for Arette had been unambiguous. Gautier had loved his wife, even when something wretched had happened, and he had wanted to protect her child even if the baby wasn't his.

"Protect you?" Gabriel said. "From what? The family won't hurt you. We don't hurt our own."

"That's what I've got to figure out," Anna admitted.

There were no answers for Anna. She had already discovered that people in the family didn't remember or didn't want to remember what had happened with Gautier and his outsider wife. Anna also discovered that they most definitely didn't like to speak with her about it.

There were the clues that Anna had. Arette had taken a family lover and that had resulted in Anna's birth. Geneva had implied that Arette was upset at what her adulterous relationship had accomplished. Someone had killed Gautier with a shotgun, possibly to prevent him from saying any more to Anna. Someone had orchestrated a trick on Anna and lured her into the mine; possibly it was Meg playing games with Gabriel's one true love. Someone else had left roses on Arette's memorial marker, in spite of the fact that everyone professed hatred for outsiders. Someone had told her that she would be judged, just like Gautier had been. Meg had thought something about a graveyard to her, if only Anna could tell if that had been real or imagined or some kind of deception. Someone else had thought something about the graveyard, and Anna concentrated on thinking about who it had been.

The only graveyard Anna knew of in the area was the one behind the church and the priest wouldn't divulge any information about Arette Tuelle. He said that his information came from an uncle, and it was all secondhand and questionable at best.

Anna had spoken with the priest and then walked through the cemetery, finding nothing but cold stones and names of people distantly related to the people she was beginning to know. No answers presented themselves on the smooth surfaces of the markers. She did see one great memorial dedicated to Lisette Simoneaud and hesitated. Next to Lisette's marker was Varden Comeaux's. Anna had wondered if the story was true and here the gravestones confirmed it.

As Anna walked out of the silent cemetery, she thought about going back to see her aunt, but she knew she had exhausted the tiny bit of welcome there.

Days faded into weeks, and before Anna knew it, it was time for Unknown's Mardi Gras festival. The town held the event the weekend before Fat Tuesday to maximize the potential for tourism. There was a parade in the daytime that went around the town twice, all the people on the floats throwing candy and beads to tourists and children alike. Then there would be a grand party in the evening. Tents had been erected along the lakefront property with booths for games, food, and trinkets. Fireworks, a Zydeco band, and a huge crawdaddy boil would culminate the evening.

Everyone in Unknown was recruited to assist. Anna had helped with the floats, and she had driven four truckloads of food from Shreveport using Gabriel's vehicle. She was glad that she wasn't going to be stuck in one of the booths for the remainder of the evening, unable to participate in the planned activities.

Anna was helping Camille with a tub of crayfish when Gabriel appeared out of the crowd. "Anna!" he exclaimed. " _Chère_ , you're the only one who can get Alby's truck running. There are about ten cases of co-cola's in our garage we have got to have down by the general store." She really enjoyed the "our garage" part.

Passing her end of the steel tub to Gabriel, Anna laughed. "Alby only wants to go get more of his moonshine so he can sell it to the tourists as genuine lake liquor. They'll be lucky if it doesn't poison them."

" _Non. Non_ ," Gabriel protested. "Sebastien made him promise. No homemade stuff. Just the cola out of my garage. You can go with him, _oui_? Make sure he doesn't run over my dog. Phideaux thinks trucks are something to play with, especially while they're moving."

Anna sighed and watched Gabriel poke fun at his sister, saying something about how the twins were going to give her white hair before she was thirty-five. _Don't tease your sister._

_Why not?_

_She knows all your secrets._

_Not anymore_ , Gabriel thought slyly.

The hood was up on Alby LaGraisse's antique Dodge. Alby himself was kicking a tire in frustration. "Anna!" he called happily. "You fix. Thank _le bon Dieu_ Himself."

"What's wrong with it?" she asked as she stuck her head under the hood searching for something obvious.

"It flooded, and I cannot get it to start."

Anna's nimble fingers worked with the carburetor. She looked over her shoulder and saw dozens of people passing by, laughing and talking. Some were in colorful masks, others had dozens of ropes of multicolored beads around their necks, and others had full-blown costumes on. A dozen random thoughts trickled into her mind making it hard for her to concentrate. "Where do all these people come from?" she muttered, half to herself, suddenly understanding why some of the family had difficulty living in the outside world. It hadn't been like that for her before, and she was still adjusting to the change.

Alby patted her back. He was an older man in his seventies with hair the color of snow, and his eyes the duplicate of hers. "They bus them in from Shreveport, from Dallas, from Alexandria. _Oui,_ some even from Arkansas. I swear I saw a man with a t-shirt that said New York City. I bet he don't know what to do with a crawdaddy, _oui_? Probably thinks it's some kind of strange cockroach."

"Why don't they go to New Orleans?" she asked as she worked.

"Because we have a safe area. Designated drivers and family events." Alby's voice lowered to a grumble. "Not since I got to sell my own homemade liquor." He brightened. "But the tourists, they buy everything anyway. And we have the best fireworks show in all of northern and central Louisiana. _Oui_."

"How does the family stand the voices?" she asked curiously. Alby's carburetor was full of sand. "What have you been doing with this truck, Mr. LaGraisse? Four-wheeling in the bayou?"

Alby shrugged. " _Non. Non_. We only went to the dark side of the forest to get some mushrooms. You know they pay in the city for some of those. Up to twenty dollars a pound. My son, he got the old truck stuck in the sand. I guess he sucked up some sand, yes?"

"Yes," Anna said severely.

"And the family, they who can't take the voices in their heads, they aim for the hills, Anna. You'd be surprised what some dirt between you and a big crowd can do. The ones who don't mind as much, they work the festival while the people are here." He stuck his head under the hood and looked at Anna curiously. "Sometimes I forget you ain't from around here. Well, you are but then you ain't."

Anna pulled her head out and said, "Try it now, Alby."

Just as Alby was turning the ignition in the old Dodge, a family passed Anna, and the father asked her where the main tent was located. A father carried a toddler in his arms, and a mother led another little girl behind her. The little girl had flaxen blonde hair, and her face was painted like a ladybug's shell. She held onto her mother's hand as if it would save her life. Her other small hand held onto a doll.

Anna pointed in the right direction. "Down this street. It's on the right, next to the general store. If you hit the band, you've gone too far."

"Appreciate it," said the father and adjusted the toddler on his hip.

Anna smiled at the family and turned back to Alby. "Crank it again. Once you've got the stuff out of— " She stopped as she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned away from Alby and scooped up the Barbie doll that the little girl had dropped. "Hey!" she called. The mother paused and turned back. "Your little one dropped her doll!"

Anna trotted up to the mother and the little girl and started to hand the doll over but she hesitated. She looked down at the doll in her hand and saw that it was a blonde with its hair swept back, like the girl had brushed it back too often for it to regain its natural style. Dressed in a blue jumpsuit with high heels, the Barbie looked like she had been played with hard, the participant of many an imaginary tea party. _Her hair looks windswept._ The words popped into her mind _. Don't you fret about Miss Barbie. She done runs and runs and she ain't never gotten caught by the dawg yet._

"Miss?" said a voice.

Anna's eyes came back up. The mother and daughter looked at her expectantly. She shook her head with a little snort and said, "Sorry. Got lost in thought there. I was thinking about another Barbie doll I saw recently."

"Thank the lady," commanded the mother.

The little girl took the doll and held it protectively. She hid behind her mother's leg and said faintly, "Thank you."

"Uh, sure," said Anna.

Then Alby got his Dodge started and whooped loudly.

When Anna looked back the family was walking away, and she wasn't sure what she was supposed to think.

# Chapter Twenty-One

## Saturday, February 21st

_The most superstitious of folk will look around before retiring for the night to see if anyone will cast a headless shadow; should anyone cast such a shadow then it is said that they will die before the next New Year's Eve._

Anna opened Gabriel's single-car garage door and thought about him saying, "our garage." It slid up its tracks with a squealing complaint that attested to its advanced state of rustiness and general lack of use. She made a mental note to fix it for him. In the driveway, Alby was backing up the truck so they could easily load the cases of Coca Cola. She found the light switch just as Phideaux wandered around the side of the house and affably nosed her ankle with a wet schnozzle. "Hi Phi," she said off-handedly. "You're a good dog, aren't you?"

The dog sat on his haunches, brought his front paws into the air, and begged prettily. Anna had taught him one trick, how to beg for a Milk-Bone. Phideaux was smart only when it came to the issue of food. He knew exactly where Gabriel kept the Rubbermaid container of dog treats; in the garage right next to the washer and dryer where the animal couldn't nose at it until he managed to open it, as he had done before. Anna popped the lid open and gave the dog one of the treats. Phideaux took the prize in his mouth and vanished around the corner of the house to consume his delicacy in private.

Alby lowered the tailgate of the truck with a loud clank. The cases of coke were sitting on the side of the garage. Anna lifted one up and slid it into the back of the truck, watching as Alby did the same. Minutes later they were done and Alby said, "Come on, gal. They already started cooking, and I'll be damned ifin I miss a meal in my old age." He chortled. "A little more cholesterol ain't gonna kill me off before I hit eighty."

Not really listening to him, Anna had an image stuck in her head. A windswept Barbie doll was talking to her, whispering wretched things into Anna's ears. She shook her head slowly and focused on Alby. "You go on without me, Alby. There's something I need to do."

"What's that?" Alby asked curiously, his hands on the door of the Dodge.

Anna grinned weakly. "You know, female stuff." On the spur of the moment it was the only excuse she could come up with, and it sounded feeble even to her. On the inside of her mind, she was reinforcing her thick garage door. Over the past weeks she had become accomplished at keeping private what she wanted and what she needed to keep private. But she was preoccupied, and she didn't want anything to slip out to Alby, or to Gabriel for that matter. "I'll walk over when I'm done."

"Sure, Anna." Alby chortled again. She watched him drive off and turned back to the garage. The single light in the garage cast long shadows in the driveway and revealed all the junk that Gabriel had delegated to the garage. There were a few old chairs, a black and white television, a table saw that hadn't been used in years, often-painted lawn furniture, and nearer the front, the stuff he used regularly, a lawn mower, some ice chests, and equipment for his boats. On one wall was a rack of shelves with various and sundry items. Tools that Anna didn't recognize littered one shelf, and she knew these must have to do with the boats' maintenance. On the bottom shelf was a large cardboard box with an open top.

Anna looked at it and pulled it out. Her muddy, ripped jeans lay on top of the pile, just where Gabriel had said he had put them. She hesitated and then put her hands on the jeans, pulling them out. She didn't know why he kept them. It seemed to her that they were almost useless as a rag, but Gabriel tended to be frugal, recycling all manner of items when he could. She wasn't interested in the jeans themselves, only in the item that she had found in the mine.

_Anna had caught sight of something next to the rail she had stumbled over, but the passageway had pulsated again harshly, almost making her disregard what she'd seen. She had an impulse to snatch the object up just before she brought herself into a loping run. She stuffed its round shape into one of her pockets and concentrated on making tracks._ Then she had forgotten about it, lost in the mindless dash away from the thing that haunted the tunnels of the mine.

Her hand shaking, Anna found the pocket of her jeans and slowly pulled the object out. Gabriel hadn't bothered looking into the pockets of the jeans. Her hand was closed around it, and for a moment she didn't dare open it. When her fingers slowly opened, she exposed it to the meager light inside the garage. It rested on her palm like a viper waiting to strike its prey.

It was the head of a Barbie doll, its windswept hair pushed away in a permanent style that had been forced upon it because it had been fastened on the front of a Peterbilt truck. It was a blonde-haired Barbie that Anna had seen before. She didn't need to see the rest of its body attired in a polka-dotted dress or the single shoe that had hung from one tiny foot to know where this Barbie had come from.

This was Dan Cullen's Barbie, the same one he had attached to the grill in the middle of the steel dog's fangs about to chomp down on her little plastic body.

Anna shuddered and knew that someone was walking over the place where she someday would be buried.

When she had been rescued from Dan Cullen, Anna had assumed the man had gone to jail. She had wished him all the hell of being in such a place. However, no law enforcement officer had ever come to question her about her experiences, and she hadn't given it a thought. She had never even wondered why. Gabriel had revealed the grudging truth that Dan Cullen had been turned over to the police but anonymously. Through some blunder on the police department's fault, the twisted individual had made bail and apparently fled.

Only after Dan Cullen's bail had been met did the police pay attention to the photos that had been left with him and start looking around his property for evidence of the crimes. There they had found remains of his victims. The police were trying to discover which murders might be attributable to Dan Cullen. Regardless, he was still missing and actively being sought. His name had been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.

It was so stupid that Anna felt like she would choke on the emotion. She forced a rising sense of anger and guilt down her craw. If she had gone to the police initially, would Dan Cullen have been able to make bail? Would he be out to prey on other young women?

Anna closed her eyes on the Barbie doll with wounded eyes that were gazing up at her sightlessly. Hadn't she wished Dan Cullen to the worst level of hell where he would burn forever? The family had taken his fate into their hands themselves. The doll was in the mine because that's where Dan Cullen was now, where his truck was; the tunnel was more than large enough to get a tractor-trailer down into it. Had the mine been used as a convenient depository for something they didn't dare face? Could Dan Cullen have exposed them?

It came to Anna in a flash. It wasn't exactly Dan Cullen they had been afraid of; it had been her and how they had been able to rescue her from the man. In her drugged state, they didn't dare risk allowing her to speak with law enforcement who would ask uncomfortable questions and threaten the family's position. _Remember, outsiders are not to be trusted. Anna is an unknown quantity. Wait until the elders get her measure. Besides she's the other half of Gabriel._

Anna opened her eyes again and stared at the Barbie doll. The little girl's dropped doll had prompted her memory. Suddenly she knew that the repeated, odd dreams of escaping the earth, clawing for some unknown thing, were come true, were about to come true. And what Gabriel had said was going to come true as well, she would be returning to the earth.

Anna stared at nothing at all.

There wasn't a better time to go back down into the mine than now. The festival occupied everyone or else they had gone away to wait until the people had cleared from the town. No one would miss her, except perhaps Gabriel, and he was occupied with the boat. He was taking a group of tourists out on the _Belle-Mère_ to watch the fireworks from the deck. She was supposed to meet him later but he wouldn't worry until much, much later, if she didn't give him a reason to be concerned.

All Anna needed was a few hours. She dropped the Barbie doll head on the floor of the garage and looked for the items that she needed to take with her. She didn't even need Sebastien to open the gates of the mine for her. Anna had her own private entrance, the same one she had used to come out.

No matter what was waiting for her at the bottom of the mine, no matter if it were some great hulking creature that moved in the shadows and threatened her, Anna had to find out what was hidden there.

Anna easily found the sign that invited tourists to come back soon to Unknown. Its lights were brilliant as it illuminated the large appealing words on the billboard. She had walked the distance in twenty minutes with her pack over her shoulder. Cars passed on the road. A few who had obviously already made merry honked cheerfully at the solitary pedestrian far from the festivities. She had faded into the shadows after that, wishing to be inconspicuous. Most of the people who were coming to the Mardi Gras festival were already there, only a few stragglers were dragging in for the fireworks and the crawfish boil. The tourists weren't an issue, but any family members might wonder why Anna St. Thais was off by herself on a festival night.

In the distance Anna could feel Gabriel talking with someone. He was drinking a beer and laughing at a joke that Mathieu Landry was telling him. Gabriel was a different man than the one who had first grabbed Anna after she had woken up. She now realized that it was the concerned man that had relentlessly sought her out, intent on rescuing her from her abject horror, who was the man she cared about. His desperation that other day had masked his confusion. Inside he was good and caring. Her conclusion made her wonder who else was privy to terrible secrets.

_Anna?_ Gabriel began to sense her interest, and Anna retracted the thoughts, sliding away before he could perceive any of her intentions. She arranged herself accordingly, pulled a flashlight out of the pack, and slithered down into the earth, allowing it to swallow her up.

A niggling feeling of alarm cast its shadow over Gabriel, making him glance around uneasily as if he could immediately find the cause. Mathieu was helping him load some supplies on the _Belle-Mère_. Camille was rounding up their children. Cecily and Jean Bergeron were talking to some people on the dock. Everyone that he cared most about was here with him, except Anna.

_Anna?_ She didn't answer. It didn't mean anything in particular. He knew that she probably heard him, but her closed nature went hand in hand with her upbringing. She wasn't used to sharing all that she was with a group of strangers. She shared with Gabriel, and there were times when she shut him out. He didn't hold that against her, although it was an irritating trait to which he'd have to adjust. He knew that it would become easier for her and that in time she wouldn't have the fear of closeness with the rest of the family.

_But that isn't quite it, is it?_ Gabriel frowned. She had that wall up, the same mental one he wished a thousand times that he hadn't told her how to construct and the one that prevented him from understanding what she was doing.

Sebastien said something to Gabriel. Then the older man tapped him on his shoulder. "What's up with you, _cher_? You ain't heard nothing I've said."

"The sodas are coming, Sebastien," Gabriel said. "Alby and Anna went for it about forty-five minutes ago. If Alby didn't make a pit stop at the German beer tent."

"Well, they started singing beer songs about an hour ago," Sebastien said laughingly. "If Alby heard that, then, well, there's no accounting for what might happen." He looked up. "Well, look at that. The moon's full. You know what they say about people when the moon is full?"

"Uh-uh," Gabriel muttered. He looked around, and his eyes scanned the crowd. He could tune out the voices that trickled across, but he couldn't find Anna. Then a little bit of something came to him, slipping out beneath her imaginary door. The smell of dirt was heavy in his nostrils as if he had dug his hand into the earth and held it up to his nose. Furthermore, it was dark where she was, far darker than the night around Gabriel, without the colored lights flashing from the tents with the games and the floodlights that had been set up for the band, with the bright light of a full moon shining down upon the surface of the lake.

"They say the really crazy ones start to howl," finished Sebastien, and he howled just to show Gabriel.

Gabriel focused on the older man. "If you see Anna, you tell her to talk to me, _oui_?"

" _Oui_ ," replied Sebastien in a nonplussed manner. "Sure, I tell her. But," he winked at Gabriel, "it's that full moon. I'm a-telling you. Oww-whooo."

Gabriel stared at Sebastien for a long moment before turning away. _What now, Anna? What are you doing now?_

He didn't see the odd look that passed over the older man's face.

Being inside the mine gave Anna a case of goose bumps. Once she was past the dead-end where there was illumination from the fluorescent lights of the sign, there was nothing but blackness, blacker than the lake. Deep and forbidding, it was as silent as a church five minutes after Mass was concluded.

Anna could have reached out to touch the darkness; it seemed as solid as any substantial object. She used the flashlight to find the headlamp she had discarded on her last trip, but its batteries were dead. The spare batteries she had dropped were lost in the soil that she disrupted climbing out and then back in. She dropped the headlamp and knew that the flashlight with its own spare batteries would have to suffice. A Maglite 4-Cell D, it could be adjusted to a tight beam or a broad span to shed light on as much as possible.

The flashlight was adjusted so that it was the broad span. She wanted to see as much as possible. Anna took a breath and began to thread her way down the narrow passage. It didn't really seem like a mine to her. It was just a constricted burrow someone had once dug looking for something to mine. Whomever it had been could probably see that the sand on the walls indicated the closeness of the surface and that no more salt was to be found here. Was it to make an airway for the miners? Was it a construct so that some industrious miner could steal salt from the mine on his own time? It didn't really matter. She set her shoulders and went deeper.

If she concentrated, she could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. Anna was so sensitized to herself that it seemed like her breathing was as loud as the speakers at a rock concert. She suspected that no danger was presented to her unless she lingered too long, and she wanted, no needed, to see what was being hidden from her. She needed to see what was being hidden from much of the family as well.

White streaks of salt on the rough-hewn walls indicated that she was headed in the correct direction...downward. The passage widened, and she saw a rusting piece of rail half buried in the floor. Minutes later she found the railcar she had hidden behind while recovering her self-control and attempting to conquer her rampant fears.

Anna shuddered again and knew this wasn't going to be easy. Once she had said to herself that she had never been afraid of anything in her life before the experience of Dan Cullen. She suspected that she had never allowed herself to fully live before that either. _Being afraid isn't a crime. Being afraid to challenge yourself, being afraid to ask questions that you need the answers to, that's a crime, but it isn't mine_ , she thought determinedly.

She came to the first cross section of the mine. A tunnel bisected the one she was in, and she knew which way she needed to go. She couldn't explain why she knew this, but she continued straight. First, Anna took the pack off her back and opened it. She retrieved what she had put inside it and began to swiftly shake the object in her hand while glancing around her. _No breadcrumbs for me to lead my way back through the forest. No skein of twine to mark my passage through the labyrinth. No, I've got three cans of Gabriel's marine-quality primer. The color...battleship gray._

Anna sprayed the wall of the tunnel with an arrow, pointing the way out. She wanted no confusion in case she was in a hurry upon her exit.

Gabriel looked around the crowds of people and grimaced. All of the extraneous thoughts tended to baffle his gifts. He'd experienced it before. He'd caught her voice thinking something very odd, and he repeated it to himself, attempting to understand what Anna could possibly be thinking about. "Battleship gray?"

He caught sight of Alby LaGraisse and called, "Alby!"

Alby meandered over to Gabriel with a silly grin on his face. "I bin to the German beer tent and the Australian beer tent and I gotta tell you, those Germans don't got shit on the Aussies. I mean, the glasses are this big." He made a gesture with his hands indicating the extreme size of the beer.

"You're not driving home tonight, are you, Alby?" Gabriel asked ruefully.

"Hell, no. My daughter-in-law's driving." He hiccupped. "She doesn't drink. She's a prissy little thing. Dreams about white posies and mittens on kittens and stuff like that. Good girl, though. She'll make certain I go to sleep in my bed instead of on the side of the road."

"Where's Anna?"

"Anna?" Alby's tone was innocuous. "Oh, Anna. She stayed at your house for a minute. Said she'd walk back."

"At my house?"

Alby's voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper that wasn't a whisper at all because half a dozen people heard him anyway. "Female stuff, she said. You know, she _is_ a female. Though I don't think she dreams about white posies."

"I've noticed," said Gabriel dryly. Feeling a little twinge of relief, he thought, _Female stuff? Anna, what are you doing?_

# Chapter Twenty-Two

## Saturday, February 21st

_The practice of opening all the doors and the windows of a house while a man is dying will ensure that his soul will have free egress upon his death. A locked door or a closed window will keep his tortured self near the place he passed, and he will haunt the living thereafter._

Anna knew the way. She didn't stop to ask herself how she knew the way, but she knew it all the same. All she had to do was to pause at an intersection, and it came to her which way to go. The tunnel became increasingly snowy white as she descended into the mass of the salt dome itself, finally losing all vestiges of the dirt and sand that lay far above her. Passages became larger as men had once cleared the way for removing the white gold to the surface. The world transformed into a glittering cosmos of spectacular walls the color of glistening milk pouring down into the deepest chasms of the earth.

At each junction Anna took the spray can from the pack and marked her exit. Within an hour she had used up one can. She passed through tunnels she was positive she hadn't seen before, even in the confusion of her past exit, but now she was sure of her route. The passages became cavernous with vaulted ceilings where salt had been taken from every crevice, and she saw remnants of the mining process as it had been before. There were machines down here, left to rot in the humidity, and air ventilation units that were silent in the musty closeness. Metal shrouds disappeared into the salt, eventually finding their way to the world above, to allow fresh air to circulate below the ground.

Like the Madonna she'd seen before, there were other carvings. Some were crude caricatures of figures. One was obviously a woman someone had admired greatly, judging by the size of her basketball-sized breasts. Another was a large cross upon which an almost ambiguous Jesus hung, demonstrating the fundamental Catholicism of the region. One wall had a virtual roster of men who had worked this mine carved into the salt, only perceptible when the shadows were cast diagonally across the surface. There were names scratched there and dates accompanying them. Theriot was there. So was Bergeron. Benoit was another. She recognized some of the names. Alby LaGraisse had carved his in September of 1945. She lingered only for moments and went on.

Anna didn't hear anything but herself moving and the drips of moisture as it gathered at points of the mine's tunnels and dropped down, causing funny echoes to ring through the passageways. She looked down at her watch and discovered that it had stopped at 7:35 p.m., not giving her any indication of how long she had been down here or how long she had before Gabriel started waving the red flag of distress.

Her internal sensor guessed about an hour or perhaps two. She didn't know how far it was to where she was going. The salt dome was crisscrossed with shafts making it a literal maze of tunnels. Meg had said that some of the shafts were flooded, that only God above knew when the rest of them would go. Anna hadn't seen any sign of flooded tunnels, only the relentless drip-drip-drip of water working its way downward, just as she was. Little rivulets of water showed her the way.

The shadows danced around her as she walked. Holding the Maglite in one hand, the beam of the flashlight bounced with her movements. She kept looking over her shoulder finding nothing but darkness following her. Keeping her seeping anxiety under her personal lock and key, she further forced it down where it couldn't be used to alert any of the family to her activities.

Abruptly, Anna was standing in the same place she had been before. The pristine white of the salt path beneath her feet had leveled out, showing a long passageway that ended in a dark hole. Her knees were shaking with exertion of climbing downward. Her thighs burned with effort. Pausing, she knew she had stood here before in the very same spot and watched something huge move in the shadows beyond her, something that had threatened her with its sheer force and will.

_Imagination? Or someone playing psychic games?_

The broad beam of the Maglite revealed only the opening to another room in the mine. The residual refraction of the light bounced off the salt in that cavernous area and revealed nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that shifted and moved like a giant beast intent on eliminating the unwary intruder. Anna forced her tired limbs to move forward. One achingly slow step after another, she worked her way down the last part of the passageway until she reached the edge of the opening.

Inside there were dark shapes that remained completely still. Trembling, Anna brought the flashlight up and saw vehicles. There were dozens of them. _Mining equipment? The bones of a once-grand operation left to rust in the bowels of the earth._ She caught herself and remembered something she'd seen contained in the book that featured the lake's history. There had been a photograph on one of the pages showing the interior of the mine, deep inside where it hadn't been practical to tote broken equipment and machinery back to the top to be disposed of properly. So the miners had designated a huge well-worked tunnel for all of their garbage and began to put what didn't work or was no longer needed in there. The caption on the photograph called it what the miners had laughingly named it... _the graveyard_. Meg's thoughts came back to her. _Graveyard. Anna? Beware, Anna. Beware._

_Here it is. The graveyard. Not an actual cemetery, but a graveyard of misbegotten apparatus, of parts they couldn't use anymore, of disabled tools, and vehicles too old to rebuild._

Anna stepped inside and found a huge room full of items dating from the '30s, the '40s, and so on. She saw a Ford Model-T, mostly whole, its rubber tires falling away from its skinny metal rims. As she followed a cleared path into the room, she noticed that the oldest things were in the front, as if the miners had deposited it in the closest area with the minimum amount of effort, then worked their way to the back. There was other miscellaneous equipment that she couldn't identify, and there were parts of cars and whole cars covered by falling mounds of salt. There was a tractor off to one side and a funny kind of car that looked like it dated from the '40s with a third headlight centered on its grill. She brought the flashlight all around her in a slow sweeping arc and made a disturbing discovery.

_Not enough mining equipment. Too many cars._ Anna chewed on her lower lip. _Maybe some of these people got rid of their cars this way instead of leaving them to rust in their yards. But..._

She approached an old sedan from the '50s. Black and once sleek like the lines of a great sea animal, the window was half open and its prominent, oversized steering wheel was visible. The seats were shredded by time and dry rot, but the vehicle itself was complete. All the tires were resting flat on their rims, but Anna knew that if she opened the hood, she would find the engine there, and only a little rust discolored the body.

Anna froze into place. There was a leather purse sitting on the passenger seat. A black lady's purse rested there as if a woman had put it down only a moment before. She unfroze her limbs and reached for the purse. A wallet fell out of the top, and she touched that instead, pulling her hand slowly back out of the window with her prize. Bracing the flashlight between her arm and her body, she opened the wallet and saw that it belonged to Liza Trent of 13411 Harrowway Street, Los Angeles, California. The driver's license expired in 1954, but the money inside the wallet was still good, some seventy-six dollars of it. Most of the bills were dated in the '40s and one twenty-dollar bill was dated 1952.

Anna dropped the wallet back inside the car and looked in the rear. There was nothing there. _Who had Miss Liza Trent been, and why was her car and her purse at the bottom of a salt mine?_

Casting the beam of the flashlight around, her eye caught on a 1950 Nash Rambler. It was a roll-top convertible. The top was missing off this model. It was once white with its funny little car shape so distinctive. Anna had worked on one once in El Paso. A man with a t-shirt shop owned it, kept it pristine, and drove it to work every day. There was a suitcase in the backseat of this one. An old-fashioned, plaid suitcase, it had a tattered nametag attached to its handle. She flipped it over and read the name. Jared Slate had lost this suitcase, and probably this car, as many as fifty years before. He had lived at 211 Oakville Manor, in Memphis, Tennessee, and there was a five-dollar reward for the return of the suitcase.

There were others. A '60s Mustang still had its wide white streak running down its hood. A Jeep Scrambler sat next to a flame red Cadillac Seville with a prominent dent in the hood. Anna saw some purses and belongings sitting in the vehicles just the way they'd been left. As she approached the far side of the yawning hollow in the earth, the vehicles became newer. There was a '90s Mazda Miata that almost completely hidden behind a nearly new Dodge 3500 pickup. Both appeared as though Anna could start them up and drive them out of this place. She looked in the back of the truck and saw scuba-diving gear. Tanks, masks, flippers were all were accounted for, and she shook her head in confusion.

Suddenly, the confusion was forgotten. Beyond the Dodge, parked against the far wall was a Peterbilt truck. There was no name or logo on the sides of the truck only its USDOT numbers. Blacker than the lake, it still had the metal fangs attached to the grill. The Barbie doll was missing. _Perhaps it got knocked off when the driver was negotiating some of the tighter passages in the mine,_ Anna thought reasonably _. And if I open the door, what am I going to find? Had Dan Cullen fled from the authorities to find someone else waiting for him? Someone who worried about Cullen talking about what a drugged Anna St. Thais had said to him?_

Anna shivered. Silence echoed back at her in the darkness that stretched out around her. The police and law enforcement from every state in the union was looking for Dan Cullen. Border crossings into Mexico and Canada had been alerted to watch out for this psychotic whackjob that had a proclivity for strangling hitchhikers after he was done with them. It didn't matter. He was down here with Anna.

She glanced around her. No bodies. There was only a graveyard of dead cars and trucks, each with their own story. _I know why Dan Cullen had to vanish. But what had Miss Liza Trent done to the family? Saw something she shouldn't? And Jared Slate of Memphis with a Nash Rambler? Had he come probing into the family's business and had to be eliminated?_

"He was a reporter," said a voice that echoed through the chamber and Anna started wildly. "Someone who was following up on Lisette and Varden, you remember the story that Sebastien told you. God's truth was that Varden couldn't go around killing men without someone taking notice. Not like your trucker. He killed a dozen girls, and no one paid him a lick of attention."

Anna's fingers shook as she turned off the flashlight and ducked behind the Peterbilt. _Aurore. It's Aurore Benoit speaking_. Her gentile southern tones were unmistakable.

"It won't make any difference about the flashlight, Anna," she said kindly. Anna looked around the fender of the large truck and saw a faint glow on the opposite side of the huge void of the mine. "It took five years for Varden to track down the men who had taken Lisette. Took another seven years for Mr. Slate to track us down. It seems his brother was one of the men that Varden killed. I reckon it wasn't a pretty sight; Varden was very angry. He was still angry when he told Sebastien about it years later. And Mr. Slate, he wasn't happy about it either."

Aurore's voice stayed in a single place. Anna's eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she could see the vague shapes around her, but there wasn't much light to go by. She tried to reach out to Aurore's mind to find out what it was that was motivating her and discovered she couldn't find anything at all.

"That won't help you, _chère._ You've been thinking about how the family has different powers. You're a strong one all right, but I've got decades of experience on you. No one will hear you, not unless you really want them to." Her voice became sly. "And you don't really want Gabriel charging down here to rescue you, do you?"

"Why not?" she finally found her voice in a quavering question that amused Aurore.

"I'd have to kill him, too. You see, the whole family doesn't need to know about our business. My father's business too. And Sebastien's as well. Sebastien's father is the one who got Mr. Jared Slate down here, not I. I was only, oh, about eleven years old at the time. What's good for the family isn't necessarily something they all ought to know about. And well, Gabriel, he isn't one to keep a secret."

_Gabriel dead?_ The thought of it brought Anna's rampant thoughts to a raging halt. She struggled for internal control and found it with the barest rein on her emotions.

"There's no need for that," Aurore called to her. "No need at all."

"And Meg?" she called back. "You killed her, too?"

Aurore was silent for a moment. "It's so interesting about bloodlines here. The strongest ones are able to do the most. The strongest ones become elders and protectors." A brief silence followed that, and then she added, "Despite that, neither of my sons could ever find their way down here without a map. _Like you can_."

The photograph Arette had kept in the book came back to Anna's mind. She had thought it a photograph of Gaspard Benoit. She hadn't accounted for the simple issue of time. The photograph was at least twenty-four years old, and Gaspard would have been a child. It wasn't a picture of the son, but of the father, of the man that Arette had secretly loved, a younger Sebastien. "Sebastien was my mother's lover."

"Ah, _oui_. Apparently she was too much for Sebastien to resist." She paused. "Arette had a little tingle of the gift. I think maybe her family might have had a distant relative to us. Some great-granny perhaps."

"Jesus Christ!" Anna swore. "Did you have to kill her, too?"

Aurore's silence was telling. "It was the only way to protect the family. Arette liked to talk to people. She was a friendly one. And they liked to talk to her. Some outsiders can be like that. Like your friend in New Orleans. But Arette was curious about the mine. And she found her way down here, just like you. What she discovered in this room caused her to take her unborn child and flee to some far-off place. I had known of her presence but thought her husband would tend to it. I asked Gautier about her, but he simply said she was gone. When Arette came back, several people saw her and recognized her as she made her way to her husband's home. She didn't know that word tends to get around and how quickly it does." There was a significant pause. "It had to be done, and Gautier would never betray us. We didn't know about the child. About you. Gautier must have found you inside Arette's car, and it was he who took you away. Took you away to protect you from me."

Her voice seemed to be coming closer. Anna realized Aurore was stalling while she searched for her. The gift wasn't like radar unless Anna chose to tell her where she was.

She began to low crawl through the vehicles and hunks of machinery, trying to work her way around to the other side of the room where the main opening was located. Feeling her way with her hands, she hoped that she wouldn't slice some of her flesh wide open with a rusted piece of metal. Keeping the glow of Aurore's light on her right side, she moved cautiously.

"I think maybe you've got me wrong, child. Best to come clean with you and hope blood runs true in your veins. I forgave Sebastien for the slight of your mother years ago, but even he wasn't sure if you should be privy to every little secret the family possesses."

_What are you saying, Aurore? You don't intend to kill me like you did all of them?_ She felt the bumper of a car and wondered whom it had belonged to and what isolated, innocent act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time they had committed.

_I don't want to kill you. Not unless I have to. Stand up, Anna. Show me you trust me._

It was the same voice in her mind that had warned her that she would be judged, judged like Gautier Debou. "Oh, God!" she said. "You killed him, too? And if I hadn't come along, his body would have vanished into the mine, as well?"

"He kept Sebastien's child away from me, away from the family," Aurore snarled. "He and that bitch of a woman, Meg Theriot. She wasn't one of us. Not really. She only had a smattering of the gift and was far too greedy to suit anyone."

"What did Meg have to do with it?"

"She helped your mother run from the family, taking you with her. Gautier wanted to protect you. He knew that..."

"What? Gautier knew what?" Anna kept moving. The light was almost to the Peterbilt truck now. Aurore didn't know where Anna was, but if she kept moving she might be able to outsmart the older woman. Outrun her too. She had marked every passage. Aurore wouldn't know where Anna was going until she had fled. There were too many tunnels for Aurore or her sons, if they were there as well.

"As Sebastien's child, with the amount of power you have, you become the next guardian. Not Gaspard. Not Raoul. Neither have the right gifts. It was always yours. The elders knew that you would do this. We all knew."

Anna was instantly outraged. "You mean I'm supposed to be some kind of official assassin for the family, taking care of problems like the ones that fill this cave?" She paused. "You've got a helluva step up on the mafia. Casting huge shadows that move like monsters? What do you do with the bodies? Feed them to Goujon?"

"The outsiders have ruined you," Aurore said sadly. Her voice echoed weirdly over the chamber, and Anna knew that she was almost to the opposite side. She barked her shin on an old conveyer belt and held the limb with her hands, dropping her flashlight to the ground while the pain radiated through her leg. Biting back the curse that would have flown out of her mouth, she realized Aurore was talking again. "There's another mine shaft with a sinkhole in it. It's a fitting resting place for those who've betrayed us. And those outsiders who would have done us harm." There was a hesitant pause. "It's where you'll go too. Unless you want to change your mind. Convince me that you care about the family."

Anna saw the sinkhole in her mind as Aurore allowed her to see it. It sat deep in the salt dome, well below the water table. Men had once gone too deep there, and they had died when the floors under them had collapsed in a dry year. The sand at the bottom of the salt dome began to suck away at the surrounding walls and the miners had closed off that part of the mine. Sebastien and Aurore's kin had found another use for it. Whatever went into the ravenous soil of the sinkhole never came out. It was where Dan Cullen had gone, and where Meg Theriot had ended up, and the vision of sinking in the silt was prominent in Anna's mind. "And what are you going to tell Gabriel and the rest?"

"Why nothing at all," Aurore replied surprisedly. "You just up and went off by yourself. Again. You died down here as a victim of your own curiosity. A tragic...accident. I expect Gabriel will take it hard, but he's a tough man. He'll make it through the night. Mebe one day he'll even find another family girl to marry."

"And who will you get to be your guardian then?"

"There are others who will take my place. Not as strong as you, but loyal to _La Famille_." Aurore's voice had shifted again. Her light suddenly went upward and shone on the high vaulted ceiling of the giant room they were in. "This place, well, if you look up, Anna, you can see where the waters have seeped in from the lake above. We're sitting right under the deepest part of it. It's easy to get mixed up in the tunnels, but most of the salt dome sits under our beloved lake. That's where these engineers sank an exploratory oil shaft about fifty years ago. They plugged it up with a cement cap, but I do believe this whole room will collapse one day. Especially if I give it a little assistance."

Anna looked upward. Aurore's light revealed drilling apparatus in the ceiling. Water dripped from the rigging. Seeping black water ran down cracks in the ceiling, confirming the weakness there. She glanced back down as the light Aurore held moved. "What are you telling me, that even if I get out of here, no one will believe me because you're going to close this place up? You've got to be joking! All I have to do is call out to Gabriel." _But I don't want him to come chasing after me, to put himself at risk, to possibly get himself killed because of me. Oh God. I can't do that to him._

"I won't let you do that," said Gaspard. His light flickered on and immediately blinded Anna. He'd been waiting for her at the other end of the hollow of the mine. A fist struck her jaw and Anna lost consciousness.

# Chapter Twenty-Three

## Saturday, February 21st

_If salt is spilt, then no one must speak until it is thrown over one's left shoulder or else awful bad luck will ensue to the transgressor._

Gabriel staggered with the abrupt shocking pain that exploded in his head.

Without a doubt, he knew it was Anna. It was well after 10 p.m., and he hadn't seen her since asking her and Alby LaGraisse to retrieve the cases of cola from his garage. There had only been that little sense that told him she had been thinking about him and then the rich smell of raw earth, heady in his head, just as if he really smelled it.

The fireworks show had gone off on schedule at 9, wowing the audience with its spectacular effects, lasting a lingering forty minutes in its entirety. After the show, Gabriel had brought the _Belle-Mère_ back to the dock and unloaded his passengers so they could eat at the crawfish boil. He had begun helping with some of the other events because there were still crowds of people eating and drinking.

The families with smaller children had begun to leave, trickling out after the big event, and the parking lots were showing empty slots as they slowly left. However, it was the Saturday night before Fat Tuesday and revelers were in a mood to party before Lent. Empty buses still waited for their passengers. He knew from past experience that the town of Unknown would be shooing off merrymakers until the wee hours. There were tents with coffee and breathalyzers for those who wished to be safe and three tow-truck companies had volunteered their services to those who had overindulged. Three sheriff's deputies directed traffic and made sure that the partygoers didn't go overboard.

Helping out in one of the coffee tents, Gabriel and Camille didn't have a lot of business at the moment and didn't expect any for a few more hours. In fact, only two designated drivers were having a card game with two of the bus drivers at a table in one corner of the tent. Even Camille, who normally had an easy time with outsiders, was having a difficult time with all the noise. She didn't notice Gabriel's hand at the back of his head because she was slowly rubbing her forehead with both hands. "Aie, so many people," she said. "And you know what they're thinking when they're drunk. I hope I never sound like that when I drink. It's enough to become a teetotaler." She removed her hands from her face and looked at her brother.

Gabriel's eyes were closed, and his head bowed forward. His teeth were clenched in an unholy grimace of pain. His hands gripped the back of a folding chair until his knuckles turned white. "What is it, _cher_?" Camille said, her hand touching him gently. "All these people? It never used to bother—"

When he opened his eyes, she saw that his pupils were enlarged, eliminating all but a sliver of the antique gold color. Camille almost jumped backward because he looked so wild. She was reminded of another time more than a month before, when she had been in the same situation with her brother. As she opened her mind to her sibling, the ache transferred itself to the side of her jaw and to the base of her neck. One of her slender hands went there. "Anna," she murmured. "That girl has bad luck. Alice Tremoine said the priest knocked over the communion cup today. It's a bad sign."

Suddenly Gabriel straightened up, ignoring Camille's statement. "Gone. She's gone. It's like before. Like she's..."

"Not—"

" _Non_!" Gabriel snarled. The sober card players paused in their game and looked over curiously. His voice lowered. "Not dead. Just not...transmitting."

They were silent for a moment. The card players resumed their game. One said happily, "Hah. Queen-high straight. Beat that." Zydeco music could be heard in the distance playing _Allons à Lafayette_. The aromatic smell of meat cooking was prominent in the air, revealing that the grills were still operating and feeding tourists and townspeople alike. People were laughing and singing along with others in the German beer tent that was adjacent to the coffee tent.

"Something is very wrong," Gabriel muttered.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know. She was troubled by something earlier." Gabriel ran an anxious hand through black hair, swiping it away from his forehead. He glanced around him, looking out through the openings of the tent into the groups of people hurrying past. Some were dancing, dressed in festival costumes. Some had colorful masks on their faces. Others merely had dozens of ropes of glittering beads draped around their necks. None of them were Anna.

_Anna?_ His eyes drifted shut as he concentrated over the thrall of outsiders' thoughts. Some of the outsiders couldn't help the noise they made; it slipped out of their heads unbidden. More of the family couldn't help but listen to it; it was like having a blaring radio that one could not turn off. Most of the time, Gabriel was good at tuning them out, like ignoring a persistent gnat.

_Anna?_ He hesitated as a vision of roses poured over his body. The roses were so richly red, so scarlet, that he mistook their velvet petals for drops of blood falling around him. Gabriel felt a surge of fear and knew that it was his own.

_ANNA!_

The blood red roses consumed his mind, and he shuddered as he opened his eyes.

Anna was lost in her thoughts. Words and phrases drifted around her as she fought for understanding. _Fear is what binds the family together. Fear and love. Don't forget it, Anna. I've never been afraid of anything in my life before this. You'll be sucked down. Drowned in a place where you cain't escape. It won't be no giant catfish who wolfs your rotting flesh down, it'll be stuck in a tomb of sandy soil with all those others who done gone before you. Relatives and close loved ones are blessed with the strongest connections. I was angry. I could have ripped his lungs from his body. That miserable son of a bitch. Someone placed flowers in front of the marker, fresh red roses that Anna could smell as though someone had cut them from the garden just a moment before. I told you our gifts are strongest between family members and ones who love each other. No more secrets from you._

The soft brush of a thousand fragrant fingers spilled over Anna's face. In the eye of her mind she saw dozens of roses spilling over her head, engulfing her in an ocean of crimson. She lifted her arms out to feel their silken texture wash over her, enjoying the sensation.

_ANNA!_ It seemed like Gabriel's beloved thoughts, but while it was clearly a plea for her attention, it was also very far away as if dulled by time and space in its most infinite form. She couldn't bring herself to answer because she knew that it would garner him undesired knowledge that would draw him to his death.

There was a prick as a thorn bit into her flesh. It brought Anna careening into the present with a vicious stab of pain.

These were his roses, Sebastien's roses. She had seen the greenhouse in his backyard herself, the variety of color that could be seen through the iridescent color of the glass. The flowers had not been purchased in any store. He had left the roses at Arette's marker, and it was his feet that had trodden the path smooth. He had honored Arette's memory even while staying married to the one who had murdered her.

The pain of the thorn began to move along her body, moving into the side of her face and to the back of her head where it had hit the ground when she'd fallen. The vision began to move away, drifting like the fog pushed by a demanding wind. Anna heard voices, and she wasn't sure if they were those in her head or those of men talking not too far away from where she was laying.

The ground under her shifted, and Anna almost moaned, but she bit it back and allowed her body to sink into a state that was the equivalent of a well-boiled noodle. Consciousness had intertwined with her visions and then returned in full force, leaving her in a state of confusion. Rose petals continued to rain down on her thoughts, and she was helpless to stop them.

" _Merde,_ " said one, dropping Anna's feet to the ground. He had been carrying her, his hands braced under her ankles. "She's one of the family. She hasn't harmed anyone. Perhaps we can convince her?" The same sentiment repeated itself in Anna's head as the man thought, _Must convince her to keep quiet. It's her birthright._

Another familiar voice erupted with rage and let go of Anna's shoulders. She felt the gritty surface of a salt-laden path under her shoulders. "Don't do that! I can only suppress so much before someone else will hear your thoughts. Control them."

"The rest of the elders would not approve," the first one warned the familiar voice.

" _Oui,_ I'm aware of that. They haven't got the Rocky Mountain oysters for this. That's why I do it. I judge those who must be judged, and it is up to us to tend to that business."

There was a brief silence. The first voice said, "Anna's not an outsider, no matter who her mother was. She has kind thoughts. She ain't going to hurt the family no matter what she's seen down here."

"It's her kindness that makes her the most threat, _cher_." The familiar voice became entreating as it attempted to convince the other one. "She doesn't have the stamina and the temperament to protect the family. _Oui,_ the gifts are there, but she's never learned how to use them. And look how she found her way down to this place. Looking for something she won't understand, or worse, she'll refuse to understand." Aurore Benoit became like ice as she spoke to her son, Gaspard.

Gaspard said, "We can convince her. We can make her one of us. Do you know what this will do to Gabriel? His pain will be like a fire that will burn through our forest, each of us will be blackened and smoking for years to come. The agony will be senseless."

The gnashing anger was perceptible in Aurore's reply. "Yes. Yes. We all make sacrifices. You think I wish your half-sister dead? What I don't wish is to stand here and convince you that I am right, that this is best for _La Famille_." There was a momentary pause. "You did not wish to touch those geology students, but they had found the graveyard. They were looking in each of the vehicles. They had used boltcutters on the fence and broken the locks on the main doors. Another few minutes and they might have found the hidden opening to the sinkhole. The one said to me that he specialized in diving sinkholes. Anh. He would have found much to occupy him there."

"Get rid of these vehicles then, _Maman_. They only point to us."

"It used to be safe." Aurore's tone became thoughtful. "No one dared to come down this far into the mine. Not the miners. Not even the odd tourist. Never one of the family." Her voice altered as she changed direction. "Just her. Looking for Meg. Who would have thought that Meg Theriot had enough of the gift to call to her? _Oui,_ even the best of protectors becomes lax at times."

Gaspard didn't reply.

"I hear Gabriel," said Aurore after a moment. "He's faint. But he calls for her. And she, she dreams of roses. Roses the color of blood spilling from a fresh wound. The roses Sebastien leaves for Arette's memory." Her voice came closer to Anna. "Anna? Anna? So close to consciousness, _oui_? We'll have to work quickly. We won't want her to suffer."

"It's a mortal sin," said Gaspard piously. "Thou shalt not kill."

"And _thou_ shalt not kill," said Aurore. "The sinkhole. That'll do the job."

Rose petals caressed Anna's cheeks. She let them flow over her in an endless rain. They protected her from Aurore's knowledge.

Gaspard made a disapproving noise that bordered on horror. "It's the same thing, _Maman_. And my own sister. May _le bon Dieu_ watch over us. May He watch over her as well."

"Help me move the conveyer belts out of the way of the opening. We need to hurry."

The voices moved away from Anna, and she cracked open her eyes. Gaspard had a flashlight in his hands. Aurore put her lantern down on the hood of an old Chevy. They moved to the side of the huge hollow and began to move pieces of metal and equipment away from the walls. Grunting noise accompanied their work.

Anna let the rose petals fall in her mind, wishing them to cover her furtive movements. Gaspard had knocked her unconscious with a single strike of his large fist. She didn't want them to know she was moving before she had increased the distance between them.

The walls suddenly vibrated with a tremendous shudder of movement. She froze in place, her eyes still cracked, and watched as Gaspard and Aurore halted their activities. "It's nothing," said Aurore. She reached for a larger piece of a conveyer belt. "Help me with this."

Gaspard was staring upward, remaining as still as night. "They say Goujon will cause another earthquake one day," he said, his voice eerily echoing in the chamber. "He will come to protect his children from those who would do the family great harm."

"Superstitious rot," growled Aurore. "Goujon is a myth made up by our grandfathers to keep us in line. Help me with this and be quick."

The walls of the mine shuddered again. It rippled down, and Anna felt the earth shift under her body. She felt a fine spray of moisture whip over her face and wondered if this room was about to fall into itself, filling with lake water that would rush in like Niagara Falls, forever washing away all sins from its path. Almost immediately she felt more water rushing around her hands and her bottom, as if sluice gates had hastily been opened.

Gaspard dropped the large piece of metal in his hands. " _Non. Non_. It's him. He knows what we are doing." His voice became increasingly agitated. "We don't kill our own people. First Gautier, then the _conja_ , and now Anna. He is angry with us."

Anna began to crawl backward, like a crab, trying not to splash the water as she crept. Aurore's attention was rooted on her eldest son. "We should be speedy about this," said Aurore calmly. "She'll drown or suffocate quickly. She won't suffer, and this place is no longer sound for man or beast. I had Sebastien put the explosives along the ceiling last week so that we could flood this place. It's no longer safe here. There are things here that could expose us, expose the family to the wicked eyes of the outsiders. Better it is collapsed, covered with silt and lake water."

Anna bumped into something behind her, and the slight noise alerted Gaspard. His head swiveled down to look at her, gold eyes connecting with hers. Not startled or dismayed, he looked at her steadily, and then back at his mother, who was struggling with a larger chunk of engine. "I won't help you, _Maman_."

Aurore straightened up. "What?"

Folding her body into the deepest shadows, Anna took this as tacit permission to haul ass for the surface and the safety that waited there. The walls shook again, and she felt another splash of liquid run across her forearm. In a minute she knew she might be swimming for it.

"I ain't going to have any more to do with this, _Maman_. The family don't know about this. The elders, they don't know what you've done. They won't condone murder. Not even the murder of outsiders. They won't condone _her_ murder. They know she's special. You've lost your reason. You don't have no common sense left." Gaspard's voice became pleading. "Think about what you're doing. Even Goujon is questioning you. Listen to him." The walls of the mine trembled again. The sound ricocheted along Anna's backbone.

She couldn't see Gaspard anymore. She trusted her instinct and headed in the direction she thought she'd dropped her flashlight. She passed the shape of the Mazda Miata and knew she was headed in the right direction. The hidden opening to the sinkhole was just about opposite to the opening of the graveyard and the way out. She rose up on shaking legs and stumbled over something else.

Aurore's voice echoed through the chamber. "Then don't. Leave, boy. I don't need your help." There was a brief pause. " _Dieu_ , where is she?" Another pause and Anna hurried to her feet, her hands out, and feeling the way. "You let her go?"

There was a rush of anger that Anna felt in her head. It was Aurore's utter rage at being thwarted for the moment. It pulsated over her like the leading edge of a shock wave, making her momentarily reel.

Gaspard cried out and was silent. There was a splash that revealed something had fallen down.

Anna stopped at another obstacle and didn't dare look back. The pain went deep into her chest, and she knew that she was feeling her half-brother die. Aurore had stabbed Gaspard with a knife. Gaspard's thoughts shifted and slanted in her head, and she couldn't move. _Sorry_ , it came weakly. Mon Dieu, _I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against—_

_You, whom I should love above all thing_ s, Anna finished it for Gaspard because she knew that he couldn't finish it, _I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, suffered and died for us. In His name, my God, have mercy. Amen._

"Amen," said Aurore. "He will forgive me for doing what I had to do in order to protect the family. If that's what one should have to do to protect the rest, to ensure our survival, then that is what shall be done."

Aurore was on the move, searching her out. Anna cut Gaspard from her mind. He was beyond her help now. She couldn't feel Raoul in the room. Perhaps only the one son had been recruited; Raoul had seemed naïve to her when she had spoken with him.

"True," Aurore answered her thoughts. "It's just you and I now. And look what I had to do because of you."

"You killed him all by yourself!" Anna yelled. Using her hands, she felt about and moved around the side of an unseen vehicle. On the far side of the room, the lantern was moving. Gaspard's flashlight remained motionless where his dead hand had dropped it.

She stopped as the walls around them shuddered again, twice as forcefully as before, as if some massive monster was slamming its fists upon the ground above their heads. Anna could almost see the great tail of a giant catfish pounding the silty bottom of the black lake, causing waves to roll into shore and the world to shift on its axis.

Aurore's lantern halted in place. Suddenly Anna could feel a twinge of fear coming from her. She fed upon it, absorbing it with glee, unexpectedly happy that Aurore was scared as well. "You should be afraid, Aurore! I think this place will become your grave too! You'll share it with all the people you murdered! With all the people your father and grandfather murdered!"

"Be silent!" she screamed back. "It's nothing! It's just the mine!"

Anna had resumed searching with her hands. It was with relief that she felt the cool metal of a flashlight under her fingers. It was right where she'd left it. The meager light from Aurore's light refracting off the salt had allowed her to find it even in deep shadows. She looked over her shoulder, at where Aurore's lantern showed her to be, and pushed the button of the flashlight. The light revealed the exit and Anna took it, happy to test her lungs, jovial that she would see how fast she could run again in this maze.

She fled up the tunnel, her ankles sinking into water that was rapidly running downhill. At the first turn she realized that Aurore had outsmarted her. She had seen the marks Anna had left with the spray paint primer. She had taken some time to knock the marks from the walls. The end of a flashlight would have done the trick in a few minutes, knocking the painted salt off so that a few gray-spattered hunks of rock showed Anna that there was once a mark there, but certainly not the direction that would lead her outward.

Aurore's voice reverberated through the tunnel. "Silly Anna! Silly little outsider girl! No way out, _chère_! And I won't chase after you. No, I'll just set the explosives, little foolish girl! You'll be trapped in here until you drown! And there'll be nothing you can do! I'll make sure you can't call out to Gabriel until you die! You should have let me kill you, Anna! It would have been less painful!"

# Chapter Twenty-Four

## Saturday, February 21st

_Among the lake people, water drawn from where the dead and the living traverse is powerful_ gris-gris _against the goings-on of all devilish beasties and their dreadful evil deeds._

Alby LaGraisse was drunker than a dozen Irish alcoholics on St. Patrick's Day. He couldn't find his prim daughter-in-law to drive him home nor could he find anyone to point him in the right direction. In fact, he couldn't find his truck, even if he could have driven it anywhere. In his current state of inebriation his gifts had temporarily failed him, and he wasn't exactly upset about it.

Sometime later, Alby was still stumbling around looking for some purpose in his evening. "That's a helluva outsider," he slurred amicably to someone wearing a carnival mask. The large detailed mask resembled a wolf's head with huge teeth protruding over an open voracious mouth. Normally it would have frightened someone as drunk as Alby, but he thought it resembled a rabid Scooby-Doo and almost giggled at the thought.

The wolf said, "Huh?"

"Imagine that," added Alby. "He could drink and eat crawdaddies. And he's from New York."

"He's drunk," said the wolf to another mask. That one was Little Red Riding Hood. The rose red cloak allowed two blonde pigtails to hang loose. A little girl's bright smile was permanently fixed on an elaborate mask.

"Well duh," said Little Red. It was a woman's voice and plainly sarcastic.

Alby lurched over to the edge of the lake to take a breath. It was patently true that he shouldn't mix a dozen forms of alcohol on the same night, but it hadn't bothered him at the time. However, it was coming back to haunt him now.

"Should we do anything?" asked the wolf. Alby thought it was very solicitous of him considering he was supposed to be the Big Bad Wolf, although he wasn't actively eating up Little Red Riding Hood like he was supposed to be doing.

"Well," said Little Red, "let's get him to one of the aide tents so he doesn't fall in and drown himself. I mean, jeez."

"Look at that," said Alby wonderingly, staring at the blackness of the lake that he'd lived next to all his life.

"What is it?" said Big Bad.

"He's drunk," said Little Red. She put her arm around Alby's shoulder and turned him away from the lake. Big Bad took Alby's other side and added, "You'll feel better when you've gotten some coffee in you, mister."

"Coffee?" Alby repeated, disgusted. "Coffee sucks. It tastes like moose piss, not that I've ever drank moose piss." He chortled and paused. "But really, did you see that?"

Little Red guided Alby into the tents looking for one of the aide stations she'd seen earlier. Some people didn't know when to quit. "See what?" she asked, not bothering to keep the condescension out of her tone.

"The lake's beginning to recede. Saw it just now. Looks like it's slowly draining away."

"Oh Christ," said Big Bad. "Is he blotto or what?"

"It was," protested Alby indignantly. "It's down a couple of inches. I'm not that drunk."

"Come on. This man needs an injection of caffeine and somewhere to lay down for about a hundred years," said Little Red. "Once we give him to them, we can get back to the band."

"Anna," called Aurore soothingly. She had regained her composure and any remaining fear that was in her had slowly faded away as the thumping vibrations in the walls had come to a halt. "I ought to give you one last chance. I can understand why you'd run. After all, it isn't easy to make the decisions I've had to make. Killing family members isn't a cakewalk."

Anna had turned the flashlight off, so Aurore couldn't track her in the darkness by following her light. She had a plan. The strategy was to find where Aurore had chipped away the gray paint on the walls by looking at the gray-splattered rocks of salt on the level part of the tunnel. She might not get the turns correct every time, but eventually she could eliminate the tunnels, and odds were that she wouldn't have to do that every time. Ultimately, she would find that she hadn't had time to trace her arrows all the way to the surface. She would find them in the upper echelons of the mine, still complete, and still pointing the way out for her.

_Let Aurore leave_ , she prayed to herself. _Let her go to the elevator and leave. I can find my way._

But Aurore heard Anna's thoughts. Aurore's voice vibrated down the tunnels, not allowing her to know exactly where the other woman was. "Sorry, _chère!_ There are hundreds of miles of passages down here. Hundreds. This mine was worked for many, many years! There's no way you're gonna make it to the surface before I can flood the place out. And believe me, it'll be quick. Water will fill up almost to the surface. It's a physics thing, you know. The water will meet the level of the water outside. I've heard tell of another salt mine down south doing the same thing, excepting a drilling rig found a salt mine. They lost a whole drilling platform and two barges into it! Never recovered them. Now it's one damn deep lake! No one is going to find anything when I'm done. And there'll be two unfortunate deaths. Family members who done got caught up in the misfortune. I can hear it now. My son and Miss St. Thais were somewhere by the lake and must have been sucked down with the rest. I'll put a marker next to your _maman's_."

Anna held perfectly still in the darkness. She could hear Aurore, but no light was visible. Anna knew that the other woman was trying to trick her. Aurore knew the ways around this place. She'd probably grown up here, playing in these tunnels, trying out the part of understudy.

Anna began to inch herself away from Aurore's voice, trusting that she could find the exit if only she tried hard enough. The longer Aurore tried to convince her to give herself up, the longer Anna had to find the way out before she followed through with her threat.

When she couldn't hear Aurore anymore, Anna turned her flashlight on and discovered that she was well and truly lost in the labyrinth. She'd made so many turns that she had completely lost track of her marks back to the surface.

_Anna._ Aurore's thoughts came clearly to her, sad, accepting of her fate. _I tried to warn you, Anna. Now it's too late. The outsiders have truly spoiled you. Gautier and Meg'll burn in hell for what they've done. You can let yourself die now. There's no escape. You can't get out. Not before I set off the explosions_. N'est pas?

There was a loud clanking noise that reverberated through the tunnels. Anna heard it and froze into place. She thought she knew what it was. Aurore had reached the elevators, and the lift had been geared up to bring her to the main level, where Anna had passed on her way to find Meg Theriot. Aurore had the key for the elevator. After all, it was the family's mine.

_We can make one last deal_ , chère, thought Aurore. In her mind Anna could feel the elevator moving slowly upward, the gears and pulleys squealing with age and disuse. She shifted her weight so she wouldn't lurch around on the platform. _I can block you from Gabriel's mind. In your last moments of death, well, I can have little control there. Fear, after all, calls to all of us. But you're strong, Anna. You can die without letting him know. And he is your beloved, isn't he? I felt it. You have strong feelings for him._

A surge of anger threatened to overwhelm Anna. She wanted to scream with frustration. Good guys were supposed to win. Bad guys were supposed to lose, and lose dramatically in a flaming ball of fire that clearly showed their pain-wracked deaths. And the bad guy was certainly not supposed to threaten the life of the man she loved after her own wretched death had occurred. _It isn't fair._

Aurore's amusement was evident. _Fair?_ Mais non, _nothing in life is fair. Surely, you've guessed that? But Gabriel doesn't have to die._

_In exchange for what?_ Anna couldn't prevent the thought _. What is it that you want me to do?_

_Die alone. Die with only your thoughts. And I swear I won't touch a single, solitary black hair on his precious head. You have to die. He doesn't._ Aurore's thought patterns became vicious. _And I won't be kind to him. Sebastien's with him right now. He'll take care of him. You'll be a faint memory that troubles him only in a blue moon. He'll live a long life._ La Famille _is like stone. Like cement. We stick together. We last._

Anna's chin came up. _That's a tired metaphor, Aurore. It loses its strength upon repetition. You might want to remember that._

_You agree, Anna? It's you and him. Or just you?_

_Just me then. I'll die alone._ Anna gritted her teeth and willed herself not to be afraid. It would be quick. She would drown. All she had to do was to suck the water back into her lungs. She leaned back against the salt walls and slid to her bottom. The flashlight dropped to the ground and rolled away from her.

_Good girl_. Aurore was approving. Her own personal protection came down before Anna could tell the other woman that she could be no more wrong than if she had tried.

_Hardly,_ she thought, but no one could hear her. _And the fact that you're a member of the family is purely incidental, you veiled-eyed bitch._

"You smelled earth?" repeated Camille.

Gabriel and she sat in the coffee tent on the farthest side from the card players. Another bus driver had wandered in to sit in on the game, and they were all giggling about the hand one of them had gotten. "I mean," said one designated driver, "could I get anything worse without having a baby straight? The gods of poker must hate me."

Gabriel nodded tiredly. His jaw had ceased to ache. For a brief time it had felt like someone had sucker-punched him with a 2x4 piece of wood. The ache had transferred itself into the back of his head, as if someone had followed up with another 2x4 from behind. "It was like someone was turning the ground with a spade. Rich soil. Sandy and wet. All around me. All around her."

Camille's eyebrows almost met in a frown. "Then roses?"

"Much later. Hundreds," Gabriel reiterated. "Thousands of petals pouring over her. It wasn't real, but the color was like blood. All in her head like the women hanging in the back of the tractor-trailer. Then she stopped. No, not just stopped. It wasn't like her wall came down. It was like someone else's wall came down. All heavy, black stone covered with barbed wire. Like someone with a lot of experience, one of the family."

"Someone killed Gautier," whispered Camille. " _Le shérif_ said it was drugs. They found evidence inside his house. You know this. But Anna thought—"

"That Gautier was killed to prevent him from telling her something." Gabriel finished the thought. "I've thought of this before. Gautier risked his neck for criminal ventures. We all knew, and more than a few of us tried to reach out to him, but after Arette went missing in the bayou, he wouldn't have it. Nevertheless, he came to Anna and warned her. Something about the soil sucking her down. No, it was worse than that." He hesitated and then repeated it to Camille, not realizing until that moment that he could recall the words almost verbatim. " 'You'll be sucked down, drowned in a place where you can't escape. It won't be a giant catfish who wolfs your rotting flesh down, it'll be stuck in a tomb of sandy soil with all those others who have gone before you.' "

Camille shivered. Her skin went icy at the thought of Anna hearing such a warning, something that was clearly intended to frighten her away. _What if—_

All the outsiders' excess thoughts in their heads were jumbling their gifts. It was like this every year. Sometimes it was difficult to hear another member of the family who was standing right next to you. Still, Gabriel received that thought clearly. He answered her aloud, "What if he really was murdered by someone who didn't want Anna to know something important."

"She's as curious as a cat," said Camille.

"And we all know what happens to a curious cat," Gabriel said quietly.

"What's changed in the last weeks? What's so different about today?"

"It's like she suddenly realized something and couldn't live another second without seeing if it were true."

"The mine," Camille announced. "She was so caught up in what was in the mine, that the _conja_ woman was down there."

Gabriel's face tightened into an angry look. Camille had seen the look before but only when her brother was very angry. The last time had been when he'd seen what Dan Cullen had done to Anna, how she'd been chained in the back with those horrible photographs to torture her. His fury had been so palatable; she had felt the sheer enmity of his feelings like something she could reach out and touch. Gabriel had wanted to throttle the man on the spot using his bare hands, but that wasn't the family's way. Instead Sebastien and Gaspard were to take the man and his truck to someplace he would be handcuffed in the back of the truck, and an anonymous phone call would tip off the authorities.

Confusion passed over Camille's lovely features. It had been in the news lately. It was a wretched business with the missing truck driver who murdered mostly young women and buried their misbegotten corpses in his backyard like some Louisiana version of John Wayne Gacy. Her mouth opened wide. It had been so visible, headline news that made national news. Bodies equaled press. Many bodies of young women equaled national press. She shook her head, even while Gabriel did the same thing.

Gabriel's frown intensified. He jumped to his feet. _The mine. The mine. Anna's in the mine. Why can't she hear me?_

"Oh children," said Sebastien, who was standing behind them, "don't fret so. Aurore's taking care of Anna, and as for you, you're not going to say or think anything out of place, are you?"

Alby started loudly singing a love song in French. He paused and encouraged his helpers to sing along. The couple with their oversized masks both sighed simultaneously. "We don't speak French," said Little Red.

"Where in the name of God is that aide tent?" asked Big Bad. He adjusted his grip on Alby's shoulder and added, "This mask is making me sweat like a pig."

"Did you know that there's a giant catfish out in the lake?" asked Alby nonsensically.

"Giant catfish," repeated Little Red. "I'm never coming to this fest again, Fitch. Flying across the country again with the Jumpmaster, just to see some old guy nearly drown himself and hear big fish stories. Wow. That's my idea of fun."

"This was your idea, Teddy," said Big Bad. "You said," and his voice went to a poor high-pitched imitation of his companion, " 'Let's get him to one of the aide tents. So he doesn't fall in and drown himself. I mean, jeez.' "

"A giant catfish who protects all of the family," slurred Alby. "I think mebe he's really, really pissed off now." He chortled. "Of course, it's better than being pissed on." He laughed at his own poor joke.

"And you can forget going to see your parents next month, Fitch," added Little Red. "All they want to know is when I'm going to produce five grandchildren. Chop. Chop."

"What the hell do my parents have to do with helping him?" Big Bad protested. "They just want to hear the pitter-patter of little feet around the house."

"Hah." Little Red snorted. "Then let them get a dog. A little dog."

"Hey," said Big Bad. He pointed. "There's one. It's the only tent that's mostly empty."

As they guided Alby to the tent, a tall man with snowy white hair stood talking with another man and a woman. The tall white-haired man wore a simple blue t-shirt with a white Unknown logo that showed him to be one of the concessionaires at the festival. His hands gestured elegantly at the other two, who were both wearing the same t-shirts. In the background, a group of five played cards at a table, blissfully ignorant to everything else.

Little Red heard the tall white-haired man saying, "—children. Don't fret so. Aurore's taking care of Anna, and as for you, you're not going to say or think anything out of place, are you?" Teddy would have said, "Duh?" in utter confusion, but Alby had pulled away from her arms and was teetering forward.

Little Red turned to glance at Big Bad and found that he was attempting to pull the awkward and heavy papier-mâché mask off his head. It seemed to be stuck on something. He grunted and pulled harder. She looked back.

The tall white-haired man was talking to a handsome black-haired man, who said vehemently, "You're blocking us? How can you do that? _Mon Dieu_ , what kind of tricks have you played on all of us?"

Little Red glanced at Big Bad again and then looked back in time to see the black-haired man leap to his feet. Under the fluorescent lights she could see his gold eyes burning with rage, and Teddy was taken aback.

Alby muttered something to himself.

The other woman who had remained sitting appeared horrified as she watched the tall white-haired man shrug and say, "Do you want your families to die? Do you want to be responsible for them as well?" The black-haired man raised a fist as if to strike the older man and froze at the words.

Little Red was really confused. She occasionally liked to imbibe, but these people around here had clearly been doing more than drinking. Smoking, swallowing, snorting, and apparently anything else their little hearts had fancied. Teddy turned to her husband. "Fitch, why don't we get back to the band?" she said solemnly. She could still hear the strains of the Zydeco group. Accordions and fiddles battled with a guitar in a bouncing tune that threatened to drown out anything around it.

Fitch finally had his big bad wolf mask off, holding it awkwardly under one arm. He was wiping sweat from his forehead while he looked in the direction of the people in front of them. Suddenly, his eyes went wide as he said, "Hey. Hey! Hey, don't do that!"

The old drunk they had helped had picked up a large red fire extinguisher that was sitting against one of the braces of the tent. Fitch lurched forward as if to stop him, but Alby had already lifted the extinguisher up, swinging it like Babe Ruth at the bottom of the ninth inning and with the bases loaded.

Little Red said, "Oh my God!" as the extinguisher felled the tall white-haired man like a sack of potatoes.

# Chapter Twenty-Five

## Saturday, February 21st

_When the superstitious one sees blue flames in a fire, it is a portent of calamity. The agitation of embers only rouses the spirits of the hearth more. When the blue flames are seen, children must whisper three times, "Fire burns blue, spirits in the room, turn away to escape doom."_

A sheriff's deputy was arresting Alby LaGraisse. Alby took it in stride, saying to Camille and Gabriel, "Sebastien's been a bad, bad person. It ain't the family's way to do that to another member of the family. You can tell him I said that when he wakes up. And I'd do it again." He lifted his wrists up so that the deputy had better access to fastening the handcuffs. "There ya go, boy. Don't want me getting away. I'm the scourge of the seven seas." He laughed jovially to himself. "Hey, do they still have that cook from Terrebonne Parish down to the jail? He knows how to cook, _oui._ "

"I'll tell him, Alby," Gabriel said, his tone grim. "I'll tell him a few other things too." He watched as two paramedics carefully lifted Sebastien Benoit onto a stretcher. Riotous thoughts swirled in his head that he tried to comprehend. A crowd had gathered to watch the ambulance thread its way through tents and throngs of people to reach its objective, a person in need of medical attention. It was rare at Mardi Gras to avoid some person in such need, but the manner of Sebastien's complaint had spread through the means of widespread whispers.

"I'll call your son, Alby," Camille yelled over the crowd as the deputy started to haul the older man away, "so he can post your bail."

Gabriel stared at Sebastien. His face was a wretched color of gray, as he lay motionless on the stretcher. His eyes were closed, and only a little blood from the back of his head had made it to his face. He wasn't going to wake up anytime soon, but he wasn't dead. His pulse was strong and his breathing was regular. He knew what would happen when Sebastien did return to consciousness. The family would ostracize Sebastien. He knew where Anna was, and he knew that Anna was about to be murdered by Aurore.

"He's not going to need bail," Gabriel said to Camille, and she strained to hear it. "I'll make sure Sebastien doesn't press charges." Then he spun away, roughly brushing past the man and woman who had helped Alby over to the tent. Both held papier-mâché masks in their hands and goggled at the turn of events. Behind them the card playing designated drivers and bus drivers stared openly, having left their hotly disputed game on the table.

Camille didn't need to ask where Gabriel was going. She could hear it in her head, regardless of the slow eruption of fury that was threatening to blow him up, a virtual Mount St. Helens of angry molten rock. _Find one of the elders,_ his thoughts relayed to his sister. _Tell them what Aurore and Sebastien did. Make sure_ Maman _and Papa can hear you. They can't silence all of us, can't kill us all. Tell them Anna's in the mine, and Aurore is going to kill her because she's discovered their secrets. Tell anyone you can. Something is hidden in the mine. Both Gaspard and Meg were murdered to protect it._ Dieu, _I'm sorry I ever disbelieved Anna._

Camille looked around to see many pairs of gold eyes blazing in the crowd. Family mixed freely with outsiders, looking similar in form but vastly different in temperament. She didn't need to tell anyone what Gabriel had said. They had heard it. Despite the outsiders' turbulent thoughts, he was broadcasting like the strongest beacon imaginable. People who received it rocked on their feet with the inconceivable astonishment of the unwelcome awareness. Then the information began to move through the family like a wildfire out of control.

She saw their faces change with knowledge. Anger and horror mingled together as they realized what power had done to one of their own, what the Benoits had been doing with the salt mine for decades. She heard their comprehension in waves of thoughts. _Missing people? That girl from Detroit. Her mama said her credit card receipts stopped in Unknown. Remember that couple ten years ago? They said they wanted a look at the salt mine, wouldn't take no for an answer. Twenty-something years ago, that man from New Orleans up and vanished. Outsiders disappeared, and we never even cared...and Gautier Debou. And Meg Theriot. Not only outsiders...in the mine?_

As Gabriel shouldered his way through the crowd, not bothering to be polite, his mind on one thing, on one single person, others turned to follow him, not hesitating as they moved. Camille cast a lingering look at the paramedics situating Sebastien in the ambulance and disappeared into the horde of people who were watching the unanticipated show with no little amount of interest.

In a matter of minutes every person with a blue Unknown t-shirt had disappeared. Some who had simply come to the festival and were not concessionaires had gone as well. Not one soul with black hair and gold eyes remained.

Anna was watching the water rushing by her feet. A little trickle of dark water coursing over pure white salt had become a stream. It bubbled and pushed the pebbles of salt before it, insistent and resolute in its determination. The flashlight was about to be engulfed in it. She absently stuck her foot out and moved the Maglite back so that it wouldn't be washed down the passage.

_Explosives in the ceiling of the mine. What do I know about explosives?_ Anna considered. _Nothing. Nada. Zipola. Engines. I know engines. Explosives were not in my instruction._

The water pushed by her, reaching out black tendrils to toy with the tips of her shoes. These were the same white Reeboks Gabriel had purchased to replace her worn tennies. She looked solemnly at the shoes, trying to divine the meaning of life from her footwear.

Then she looked down at the bottom of the excavation. Many other shoes had trod this path. She thought about what she'd overheard from Aurore and Gaspard. Even those of geology students who wanted to look at sinkholes, had come down one of these passageways. For sure, they hadn't anticipated being killed for their scientific curiosity. They'd even brought their gear with them, expecting to find an amicable mine owner who didn't care what they did as long as they didn't sue him. When he'd refused them entrance they'd gone on in anyway, had a quick look-see, and found something more interesting and terrible than they'd ever dreamed of discovering. _What's the point in diving a silt-filled hole of water anyway? You can't see beyond the tip of your nose and..._

The vision of a nearly new Dodge truck appeared in Anna's head. It sat near the ominous black Peterbilt almost hiding a Mazda Miata. Not a particularly out-of-the-ordinary truck to Anna, but its bed was full of scuba equipment. _Masks, flippers, and air tanks. Everything a growing geologist and diving enthusiast needs to play in a deep, dark hole of sand and water._

_I went scuba diving once. Jane dragged me down to the Sea of Cortez and made me go through a whole day of training called Resort Scuba so I could watch her play with the fishes and outswim hammerheads. I didn't like being attached to an air tank. It didn't feel...right._

Anna jumped to her feet _. I said I'd die alone, but what if I don't have to die?_

Whatever Aurore needed to do to collapse the ceiling of the graveyard, would have to be done with her safely out of the mine. She wouldn't want to take the risk of trapping herself. Anna scooped up the flashlight and looked down the passage again. Lost she was, but she could find the graveyard again. She had to find it before Aurore reached what she considered to be a safe location to blow up the explosives.

Anna began to run.

Gabriel didn't stop for the gate. It was locked with the same rusting padlock that he'd seen on it before. He knew that Sebastien had deliberately placed an old lock on the gate to make it seem as though no one passed that way frequently. Gabriel shoved the gas pedal down with his foot and let the truck roar through the chain-link fence.

The truck engine screamed with protest due to the abrupt extra tension that was placed upon it. Cement plugs that had held the supporting poles of the fences were yanked up and thudded against the doors. One thundered down on the hood and broke the windshield open. A thousand spider web cracks appeared in front of him, obscuring his vision. One of his fists lashed out and violently shoved the glass away. It fell forward and then was dragged off the hood by the fence when it was yanked back.

He didn't look back to see it fall at the side of the narrow dirt track. Nor did he look back to see other vehicles following him, full of the family, all silent, their thoughts wordlessly condemning the actions of Sebastien and Aurore Benoit.

When Gabriel reached the main building of the mine, the huge double doors stood ajar. Aurore hadn't worried about re-locking these. The Benoit's '70s era Ford sat around the side of the building out of sight of the gate. The engine of Gabriel's truck blew up with a loud explosion, and he was stepping away from it before it stopped moving. In the single floodlight of the mine, black smoke billowed up, pouring from the engine compartment and out of the vents. After moments, flames started to appear, and the paint on the hood began to bubble and turn black.

A dozen cars stopped behind his. People stepped out of them, ignoring the smoke of the burning truck. Gabriel could see that more lights were following them up the little road that led to the cut-off for the mine. At the edge of the bayou, two flat-bottomed boats were being pushed to shore, disregarding the dilapidated dock. Shapes moved along the edges of the fence.

Gold eyes burned with fury in the darkness, a thousand angry animals intent on retribution.

Anna wanted to scream with frustration. The last two times she'd found her way to the graveyard it was as if it had pulled it toward her with the tractor beam out of a Star Wars movie. Now it seemed like the tunnels had begun to tangle their Gordian knot into a more twisted version of a ball of yarn well-played with by a horde of hell-bent kittens. She'd run into three dead ends and was panting with exhaustion. _Maze designers could learn a thing or two from this mine._ She gritted her teeth. _Not that they'll be swimming through it anytime soon._

Water was leaking down into the lower chambers and slowly beginning to fill up the tunnel she was wading in. Up to her knees, it pulled at her limbs as if it had a life of its own, slowing her down to a veritable crawl. Worse, the water seemed cold. Colder than the lake above, it sapped the strength from her limbs.

Whatever had caused the cracks in the earth had succeeded. The mine was flooding. However, Aurore wouldn't be satisfied with that. She wanted to collapse the graveyard to hide her sins. Not that she thinks of them as sins; she's only "protecting" the family.

Anna forced her legs to continue working. Not only was the water hard to work against, it was moving and threatening to pull her down with it. She came to a bend in a passage and put her arm up to steady herself as the water poured down the manmade channel. The water pushed at her thighs, urging them to go with the flow. _I don't have much time here._

She took another step, and the water took her down.

Camille ran through the gate, dragging one of the elders with her. She had found him near the Zydeco band, already troubled because of the raging thoughts that were running wildly through the family's minds. _You see_ , she thought to him. _See. See. See._

His name was Lee Vildibill, and he was visiting from Houma. He was just as angry with Sebastien and Aurore as the rest, but his anger was tinged with disbelief and sheer incredulity. He'd known the Benoits for thirty years. They'd stood side-by-side during many family crises. As one of the elders, he'd even asked Sebastien what he thought about Anna St. Thais and her tremendous display of power. Her fear when she had been kidnapped had been incapacitating to many of the family, and her range had stunned the elders.

Sebastien and Aurore had always been supportive members of the family, ones who cared about how the outside world affected them, ones who eschewed the entrance of chain stores and outside influences that would warp the family. Sebastien had told Lee to wait and see about Anna. She would grow to become part of the group. She was one of them. Sebastien's words came back to haunt Lee in the current situation. "She's with us, or she's an outsider _, oui_?"

Lee shifted to the present, answering Camille's thoughts with his own. _I see nothing but many people listening to unchecked thoughts._ He looked around him slowly. Gold eyes glowed in the dark, reflecting the light of the moon and the state of the family's fury. A man in his sixties, he had been an elder for ten years, and never had he been aware of such a dire circumstance. _Sebastien and Aurore, my friends, murderers, how can this be?_

Camille gave up thoughts for spoken reason. Her voice was a heated snarl. "They teach us. Family does not hurt family. _La Famille_ never harms its own. Anna is one of us no matter where she was raised."

There were other voices, too many to listen to within Lee's head, all jumbled in tense purpose to be heard. "Out loud!" he said stridently. "I cannot hear all of you at once!"

Laurant Theriot spoke up, " _Maman_ is dead. I can feel it now. It's like a curse in my blood. She died without me knowing it. What kind of cruel trick is that?"

"Anna knew Meg was in the mine," insisted Camille. "Knew she was dying."

The other voices spoke up, their thoughts twisting into Lee's, angry, virulent, determined to understand. _She's stronger than most. Anna discovered the secrets. People missing for years, decades. No secrets in the family. Outsiders. The lake is receding. No secrets. The lake is wrathful. Goujon is angry._

Lee Vildibill glanced at the edge of the bayou, the black waters glistening with the light of the full moon. If he looked further, he could see the lake stretching out into the night. Not so calm now, he knew the waters churned with chaotic emotions. _Peace_ , he thought. _Serenity. We are with the lake. Goujon is not angry with us. He only tests our world._

_Now_ , Lee continued when control started to seep through the uncontained thoughts of vengeance combined with earnest attempts to understand a situation gone so badly, _where is Aurore Benoit?_

Lee saw that Gabriel Bergeron was yanking at the huge double doors with all of his might, pulling the heavy metal back, thrusting it out of its tracks. _Gabriel, wait._

Gabriel twisted around. _Wait?_ His thoughts failed him. A clutter of rage pooled with condensed threats rained upon all of the family within reach. Several flinched with the amount of vehemence barely contained there. "Anna's in there. And she's not dead, yet, so I can—"

"It's already too late," said Aurore Benoit. She stood at the entrance of the mine, framed by the large double doors, and looked out at the crowd of people. Tall and proud, her white-streaked hair glimmered in the night. Her gold eyes burned with the answer.

Thoughts stilled. Voices silenced. There was only the sound of Gabriel's truck burning, with paint crackling and the whoosh of flames as it bit into combustible areas of the vehicle.

A hundred pairs of gold eyes turned to Aurore. They shone in the darkness, reflecting the single floodlight back at him. Her calm façade did not change. "And Sebastien?" she said. "I felt his pain for a moment. I can't feel him anymore?"

Gabriel's face smoldered with fury. "Sebastien's not dead," he grated.

_Not dead. Not dead. Not dead_. The thoughts suddenly repeated in the family's minds.

Raoul Benoit appeared beside Gabriel, his face fraught with confusion and anguish. " _Maman. C'est moi,_ " he said. "It isn't too late. We can fetch Anna out and make things right. I don't know what you were doing, but please, merciful _Dieu_ , don't let her die in there. There's something wrong with Gaspard. I felt the pain in my chest as if his heart was torn in two," his voice cracked. "What have you done, _Maman_?"

"Why can't I reach Anna?" demanded Gabriel. "What are you doing, Aurore?"

"At first, it was me that prevented you," said Aurore. "Now it's her. She won't let you. You didn't trust her. Now you can't help her. Truly you can't." She smiled sadly at her son. "She could have been the strongest of all of us."

Gabriel lost what tatters of his temper he had remaining and went for Aurore. Two men pulled him back before he could reach the older woman. Aurore cried out, "I am sorry for nothing! I protected all of you from the outsiders! Even now you judge me. She would have betrayed us! She would have betrayed you!" She pointed a finger at Gabriel.

Gabriel growled under his breath and lurched forward. Two men yanked him back.

Aurore cast a sly look over her shoulder. "Judge me but not Gaspard. Not Gautier and not Meg Theriot. And certainly not Anna. She doesn't need any prayers now."

The ground began to shake as the explosives Sebastien had set began to go off. The earth shuddered in protest, and the bluff above them began to shift.

# Chapter Twenty-Six

## Saturday, February 21st

_It is said that seeing a blind man is good luck. Helping that same blind man brings fortune to the obliging one. Ignore his needs, and the devil will come calling at your door._

Anna was helplessly sliding along a corridor, struggling to get upright and find her footing on the slick floor, as water roared ever downward. She clutched the flashlight with a death grip, and the fingers of her other hand scraped powerlessly along the walls searching for something to grasp. Her body crashed against an abandoned rail cart, and she grabbed on for dear life. Water rushed around her body and the cart, flowing past to deeper regions. It was draining down the mine to the lowest levels and beginning to fill up.

Dripping with water, Anna pulled herself upright. She panned the flashlight around, coughing water, clearing her lungs. She wasn't sure how far she had traveled in the flow of water, but she'd swallowed more than she'd wanted, and some of it had gone down the wrong pipe. She glanced down at the Maglite. It was still working and she nodded in mute admiration. _If I get out of here, I've got to write a letter to the manufacturer._ She considered that. _Fat chance._

Anna grasped the edge of the cart and pushed forward, lurching with the leading force of the water's current. She was near the bottom of the mine, where most of the water from above was converging. After shoving herself through a tunnel with water waist deep, she found herself at the entrance to the graveyard once more. She waded through the opening and immediately realized more than a few things.

The strong beam of the flashlight showed the cap at the top of the cavernous area was leaking heavily. Black liquid spilled continuously in an arching waterfall. The water was beginning to fill the room, the vehicles floated like weird bumper cars, some of them tapping against each other and against the walls, making odd clanking noises that echoed above the spill of the water. Gaspard's flashlight had vanished, washed away or gone dead because of water, and the only light was hers. Finally, Anna could smell the strong stench of what seemed like sulfur. It was as if someone had fired a gun near her, but she hadn't heard the retort.

Anna pointed the flashlight upward and saw nothing. She remembered that Aurore said they had planted explosives in the ceiling. Something gently tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, she spun about, nearly ducking herself again in the process.

A little round tube was hanging from the side of the opening. It swung gently back and forth where the air pressure was pushing it. It had a small pull ring on one side and was connected to a narrow rope-like material that led upward, attached to the walls with what looked like long staples that bit into the salt. Anna reached up and grabbed it, bringing it close to her nose. It was this thing that smelt of sulfur. She dropped it and followed the line of rope with her flashlight. It led to a central spot on the ceiling near the draining cap where it attached to several other cords which all spread outward in a wagon wheel shape to various parts of the top of the mine hollow. Each went to little holes drilled into the salt, disappearing inside, covered with putty that held it in place. A line of little rope led to dozens of holes. One was almost directly above her head where she could examine it in detail. It looked small and insignificant as if no harm could come from it.

Anna's mouth opened. She looked at the little tube with its pull ring. This was a fuse igniter that had already been activated. It was connected by safety cord to the detonation cord in the rough center of the ceiling. There the cord splintered off to the explosives that had been strategically placed in the ceiling by Sebastien. The holes could hold explosives of some kind. She had no idea what a salt mine would use to break great chunks of salt from the earth. Aurore hadn't been making light when she said she wanted to collapse the room and leave no evidence. When the roof went, the salt would bury this place, and everything in the room at the time would be buried.

All this time she had assumed Aurore would go to the surface and push some imaginary button that would bring the mine in on itself, like something out of a movie. A laughing villain would stand outside and say something vile as he detonated the explosives, and the audience would flinch in reactive pain. The truth was she'd set a specific amount of safety cord that was burning away to the detonation cord; so much cord would burn in so many seconds. When it reached the detonation cord, the explosives would blow. She had already set it in motion before she had gone to the elevator.

Anna couldn't reach it to yank it away from whatever explosives were set into the ceilings. Even if she could, she wouldn't have time to remove the two dozen or so cords that were attached to the safety cord. She glanced around her, seeking out the equipment that the Benoits must have used. A cherry picker was the only thing that could have gotten them up to the vaulted ceiling, and Anna knew that if she could get her hands on something that had an engine in it, then she might have a fighting chance.

However, whatever they had used to place the multitude of explosives was long gone. Ladder or mechanized vehicle, perhaps it had been returned to wherever Sebastien had gotten it. Anna dismissed her idea and went wading for the Dodge, intent on the scuba gear. At the very least she could extend her life, perhaps finding a way to swim out of this place. Threading her way through a current that wanted to rip her away and through floating debris that bobbed and swirled, it felt like it took her forever to cross the chamber. She reached the Dodge truck, watching as its lighter bed bumped into the Peterbilt, ripping away the metal jaws that had been attached to the grill. The front end of the Dodge was weighed down by the engine and sat in place, while its lighter back end pivoted around, pushed by the water.

Anna shoved away a piece of wood that was thrust into her by the current and groped for the side of the truck.

The water was being drawn through the chamber into the area where the opening to the sinkhole was located. Anna studied it minutely and decided that the sinkhole was sucking up water, causing water to course through the graveyard on its way to lower ground. It couldn't be long before the water started to fill it up and overflow backed up into the lower sections of the mine, at least meeting the lake's level. This place would be one large watery cave, unless the explosives blew first.

Anna grappled with the strong force of the water as it streamed through the bigger hollow of the graveyard. It threatened to yank her legs out from underneath her and pull her down to join those who had gone before her. Dan Cullen. Gautier Debou. Meg Theriot. Her mother, too. Gautier's fateful warning was coming back to plague her.

_Perhaps Arette's husband had a little gift, after all,_ she thought. _A touch of clairvoyance?_ Anna dismissed the thought and clutched the side of the Dodge. She nearly smiled to herself as she came so close to being successful.

The explosives above her began to go off in thundering blasts that made the water ripple over her body and sent great shavings of salt plummeting toward her. She would have screamed had her head not been forced under the churning waters.

The two men holding his arms yanked Gabriel backward. One of them murmured in French creole reassuringly. Gabriel stared in stunned disbelief as the building that concealed the opening of the mine crumpled like a tin can under the fist of a colossus. The people around them began to hurry backwards. There was a great whooshing noise as air was sucked into the mineshaft as pressure from below began to equalize. The single floodlight went out with a great popping noise as it was yanked from its wires. The earth continued to shudder in massive protest of what had been done to it.

Aurore, the closest person to the opening of the mine, stumbled before them, going to her knees. Gabriel yelled, "Aurore!" He reached out a hand toward the older woman, the headlights of the cars behind him revealing that the bluff was moving like a monster about to issue forth an ultimatum of death to all who dared to pass in front of it. There were shrieks of dismay and fear from behind Gabriel as the others perceived what was happening.

The mine belched out a great cloud of salty white smoke that enveloped the crowd of people, leaving whiteness behind wherever it touched them. The two men who had been holding his arms moved away, trying to find their way out of the murky impediment. Gabriel fought his stinging eyes, rubbing his fists against them to clear his vision. The earth continued to shake beneath his feet. The ominous shift of the terrain sounded like a garbled shriek of pain in his ears.

"Look!" someone behind him yelled. The white cloud of salt and sand began to settle, making them all look like pasty ghosts walking around in a pale ocean. "The lake is boiling! _C'est vrai_! The lake is boiling! What is this?"

Gabriel cast a hurried glimpse over his shoulder. His burning eyes followed the tongue of the bayou out toward the lake and saw what the rest of the family was seeing. In the deepest area, the lake was bubbling up, the water began to surge against the shore in large dashing waves, spray splattering upward like black fingers reaching for the bright moon. It was as if the water was fighting the air, seeking dominance, but he knew the surface under the lake was undergoing changes. The mine was beginning to fold in on itself and was sucking the water down into it.

When Gabriel looked forward again, he saw that Aurore was back on her feet. Every inch of her flesh was covered with white dust, and she stared puzzledly at the devastated building as if she couldn't quite comprehend what was happening. Gabriel blinked furiously to clear the salty obstruction from his vision. The earth began to shift again. The large silhouette of the bluff moved visibly behind them, obscuring the stars.

"Aurore!" Gabriel yelled. Aurore turned her head to look at the younger man. Gabriel added, "Come away from there!"

The bluff began to disintegrate into a mass of muddy material and loose sand. Trees and roots aside, it collapsed into an accumulation of loose dirt with nothing left to support it. It rolled downward with nothing to prevent its exodus.

Gabriel saw Aurore move her head back and knew the second the older woman realized her immediate danger. Gabriel spun on his heels. He didn't pause. He rushed toward safety, yelling, "Run! Run! RUN!" One of his arms picked up a woman who had fallen, and he shoved someone else along.

He couldn't help looking back, almost expecting to be turned into a pillar of salt for his transgression. The bluff had become a hulking creature that hunched precariously for a long moment and then began to fall, spreading further and further out, a tidal wave of grit and sand. Gabriel saw the whiteness that was Aurore's shape, her hands reaching out as if she were entreating God for mercy, and then she was gone, buried under the mass of dirt rolling forward.

Then the heap of sand and dirt swelled toward the lake, with no other course left to it. It was a gush of earth in a fluid movement that streamed downward, a graceful motion that nothing outside of nature could match.

The water plunged from the ceiling of the graveyard like an impenetrable wall, dropping from every inch of the cracks made by the detonations. Anna saw the explosives go off in a rush, and the water swallowed her whole. She could feel it tugging at her flesh, drawing her into the opening where the sinkhole was sucking the water away, an unimaginably powerful siphon. She tumbled weightlessly, precipitously colliding against an unmovable object. The flashlight cast circles of yellowish light into the swirling murk, and a huge chunk of salt slid by Anna's side, slicing along her arm.

Her head popped up, like a cork in the water, and she brought the flashlight out in a wide circle, panting for breath, and the coldness seeped into her bones. The huge Peterbilt shifted its position as she fought for purchase, dog paddling in the water, one foot braced on some piece of equipment that hadn't been budged by the water. Chunks of ceiling, pieces of salt rock that resembled fragments of a mammoth glacier, showered down striking the water all around her.

The water began to rise, and the current almost ceased at once. Anna stared upward at the lake water that was gushing into the cavity. She shone the light up and could see that not all the explosives had gone off. It was the reason that she was still alive. The ones on one side had been set off, causing a rippling crack through which water was exiting like a tremendous geyser pointed downward.

The earth continued to undulate and swell and the water around her was a billowing mass of debris that jarred every inch of her body. Anna looked around her frantically, but the Dodge, along with its precious cargo, was gone in the frenzied soup. She caught onto the Peterbilt and yanked herself upward, lying across the black hood of the long snout. For an instant, the irony struck her, and Anna almost giggled. Dan Cullen's truck was helping to extend her life for a few minutes.

Then the entire chamber began to shiver, and a resonant thud made the waters sway with little waves that knocked everything in their path about. Anna grasped the windshield wipers and hung on with all of her might. The flashlight fell to her chest and she pressed against it, trying to keep it from falling into the roiling waters. She brought her chin down and held it in place, praying for the mine to stop its movement for just a moment.

Water continued falling into the excavation at an amazing rate. The roar of it almost overwhelmed everything else. Anna felt the earth finally stop its movement, and it was then that a wretched pressure abruptly applied itself to her head. It was like something had fallen on top of her, something that she couldn't move. It pressed down inexorably, and she almost let go of the truck to reach up and try to push the invisible force away.

_Sebastien_ , she realized. _Sebastien is hurt. I can feel you, Sebastien._

Almost unwillingly, Sebastien's mind opened up to Anna. The pain contained there pushed against every inch of her body. It heaved against her, compressing her lungs, causing her to gasp for air, and there was none to be found. The smell of bleach and blood permeated her surroundings, as though she was drowning in it instead of water. _The explosives?_ It was a weak thought as he lay inside an ambulance, the blood in his brain beginning to swell and crush the fragile matter.

Anna wanted to scream at him. He was dying. Sebastien deserved whatever he got. But her anger ebbed away. She could feel that it was too late for him. There was no escape for her father, and his mind couldn't quite grasp it. His thoughts were almost childlike, desperate for a last note of approval. _They went off_ , she answered him. _All along one side. Not on top. For some reason those didn't._

_The det cord,_ he thought. It was weak and pulsed in and out of her mind, as if he didn't know what to think, trapped in the darkness, alone with his thoughts and with Anna's. _Doesn't always burn at the same rate. If one side blew earlier than the rest, then it might have gotten the rest wet, and those wouldn't explode at all. Shoulda thought of that._

_Sebastien,_ she thought desperately. _Dying. You're dying. Something's wrong with your head. Pray for absolution, Sebastien._ The Peterbilt was beginning to fill with water, and it began to sink, bubbles escaping from the windows at the sides. The water started to climb over her shoulders. Anna could feel the pressure in her head starting to ease. She let go of one of the wiper blades and grasped the flashlight again. Groaning with Sebastien's pain, she scrambled on top of the semi-truck, her feet slipping over the slick surface. Moving the flashlight around, she was amazed that it was still working. She could see the graveyard was half full, and the water was rapidly mounting.

Somewhere far above her and a distance away, Sebastien's heart was beating its last beats. For a moment, Anna closed her eyes. His were closed, and a tunnel of white light appeared before him. She didn't know what was on the other side but she urged him. _Sebastien, pray before it's too late._

_Heavenly Father_ , he thought, struggling for one last breath. _Please forgive..._ And he died.

Anna watched the water swirling around the Peterbilt. _God have mercy on his soul_. Something in her suddenly let go, and all psychic walls dropped away. She reached out, seeking something, seeking someone special.

_Anna_? It was another thought pattern that reached out to her. Not available before, Aurore's thoughts had blocked hers, and then she had blocked her own not willing to have Gabriel risk his life. Then she caught the full force of his vast relief. _Anna! Oh thank God._

The tide of dirt and sand knocked Gabriel from his feet and pushed him along for a dozen feet before coming to a rolling stop. The woman under his arm crawled out and wiped mud from her face. A dozen voices could be heard in his head, asking if anyone was hurt. Camille was prying Mathieu out from under a pine tree, but both had escaped with only scratches. Someone else, Gabriel couldn't tell whom, had a broken arm and was reassuring his wife. The remainder was helping those who needed it. Some were looking at half-buried cars, and Gabriel noticed that the dirt slide had put out the fire in his truck by simply enveloping it in earth.

Gabriel climbed to his feet. The slide had chased them all to the edge of the bayou, but the bayou was gone. The water had been sucked out into the lake and his eyes grew wide as he saw the slow circular spin of the water. Even with only the moonlight, he could see the lake turning in a counter-clockwise motion, like a giant drain with its plug pulled. The nearest cypresses appeared like huge plants that had been pulled out of their pots. The two flat-bottomed boats sat on muddy earth, sadly beached. The water trickled away in a hurry to be elsewhere.

" _Maman_!" cried Raoul Benoit. Gabriel turned to see the youngest Benoit digging at the mudslide with frantic hands. There was a residual feeling of pressure in Gabriel's chest, as if he could feel the woman being crushed by the earth and buried alive. Gabriel looked around him, knowing that Anna was still inside the mine, cut off from him, cut off from all of the family, but she was still alive. Why, Gabriel wasn't sure, but he could feel her.

Others began to help him, using their hands and sticks to dig.

It was a long minute later that Raoul stopped digging with his bare hands and cried out with his pain. Aurore had died. The people around Raoul grasped him and comforted him as best they could.

At that moment, Gabriel knew that he could reach Anna again. She popped into his head and his relief was like a stone dropped on his head. _Anna? Anna, oh thank God._

Then Gabriel realized she was cold and wet and had no place to go. She wasn't dead yet. But it wouldn't be long.

_Gabriel._ Anna looked around her. The water was climbing the sides of the Peterbilt. She could stand on the roof of the cab or on the air dam that covered the sleeper of the truck. _Sebastien_ , she almost choked aloud, looking at debris floating around her. _Sebastien and Aurore. Gaspard is dead. Oh God, they killed all of these people. They killed my mother. Meg. Gautier. And the mine..._

_Where are you?_ There was a twinge of desperation in his thoughts.

_You can't help me, Gabriel_. Anna panned the flashlight up. The water still poured in. It wouldn't stop until the chamber was full, and then it would move up the tunnels until the level of the water in the mine equaled the level of the lake.

The earth began to shudder again.

# Chapter Twenty-Seven

## Saturday, February 21st – Sunday, February 22nd

_The Lake People say that seeing Goujon at dusk always brings luck, seeing him at dawn foretells ruin, but seen at night means that he watches over you, and good fortune will rain down upon your head._

Anna wasn't afraid, although she should have been. The crack on the far side of the chamber was letting water pour into the graveyard like a broken faucet. The only source of light she had was a simple flashlight that had been submerged numerous times and had been on constantly for what seemed like hours. There wasn't a perceivable way out of the ordeal. Regardless Gabriel was alive somewhere far above her and apparently healthy. She propped herself against the air dam of the truck and worked to keep her balance as the big truck shifted ominously under her. Somehow, somewhere, she'd regained her ability to work through even the toughest of circumstances.

_Anna, dammit_. Gabriel was so incensed and worried that it was difficult for her to get what he was thinking. It was a garble of thoughts that shot at her like a weapon.

_Not now, Gabriel. I've got a little situation_.

There was nothing for a moment. Then he must have concluded that honesty would help her most, and his thought came through clearly to her. _The mine opening has collapsed up here. The bluff fell in on it._

_Oh? I think Sebastien and Aurore would have appreciated the irony. Thinking of irony, you'll never believe whose truck is saving my ass right now._

Gabriel was slowly garnering control over his emotions. Anna thought she could feel Camille's subtle influence aiding him, both Camille's and others beside. They stood as one, more of a family than ever. _Anna, goddammit. Where are you?_

An air tank bobbed by, and Anna made a noise. She let go of the air dam with one hand and reached out to snag it. It was a standard Aluminum 80, designed to hold slightly less than 80 cubic feet of air. She couldn't remember how long 80 cubic feet of air would last her, and it wouldn't do her much good unless she found a regulator. She was going to have dive down and see if she could locate one.

_The graveyard_ , Anna answered Gabriel.

There was a roar of muted emotion that was her response. Others' thoughts sought to calm him.

Anna felt instant remorse for having let that nickname go to him. She concentrated for a moment, trying to reassure him. _It's not exactly a real graveyard. Just old trucks. New trucks. Junk from the mine._

_And more. You can't hide it from me, Anna. The Benoits deposited the vehicles and belongings of the people who vanished there before they...got rid of their bodies in a sinkhole. Oh_ Dieu. _You're on top of that bastard trucker's truck!_

_And I thought you wouldn't be able to guess_. Anna gauged her location in the chamber. _Beggars can't be choosers, whistling man._ The Peterbilt had been close to the Dodge. However, there was no guarantee that anything was remained in the back of the truck. The water was sure to have washed some or all of it away, down into the sinkhole or to any number of places inside the graveyard.

_Men are going for tractors, Anna._ Gabriel's mind was almost chaotic. _Digging equipment. We can clear the opening. And your arm is stinging. What's wrong?_

Anna glanced down and remembered the falling piece of rock salt that had gashed her arm open. Blood was spilling down her flesh, and the salty content of the water was making the wound burn. She ripped a piece of t-shirt off and speedily bound it. _Gabriel_ , she thought, trying not to let what she already knew get out to him. He was yelling at the family, urging them to hurry. _Oh Gabriel._

_The chamber's filling with water_ , he thought, realizing what she was trying to keep from him. _So quickly, you're going to drown far before any of us will be able to reach you._

_I'm so sorry, Gabriel. It called to me. Something wanted me to expose this secret. It's been going on far too long, and it was escalating. Aurore had lost her mind and taken her family with her._ Anna searched for the right words. _It's like some other force wanted me, no, needed me desperately, to bring this out into the open. I didn't intend to be killed in the process. I'd never do that to you._

Gabriel's thoughts were a jumble of feelings. Anger and rage mixed with fear and longing. Desperation coursed through his mind combined with a hope for the extreme reversal of her circumstances. He had lost the ability to think coherently for a moment.

Camille's soft thoughts came to Anna. _Anna, is there any way out for you?_

_There's an opening. On the far side of the excavation. I don't know how far it is, but the current might be too strong for me. Water is rushing into the mine from different places, draining down the shafts like rivers._

_Go now,_ Camille urged her. _Hurry._

Other voices of reason aided Camille's. _Yes. Hurry. Find a way out. We'll help you. If you can reach the elevator shaft, there's a ladder that leads up to the 500-foot level. Help you._

Anna tucked the Aluminum 80 canister in the cowl of the air dam. She shoved it in securely so it wouldn't budge. _There's another entrance outside_ , she thought. Gabriel perked up immediately, grasping for straws. _By the sign. The big sign when you leave town. It's in the bushes under the sign. Right under it. If I can get out of the water-filled tunnels..._ She didn't want to think about what was going to happen if she didn't do just that. Then Anna took a dive.

"Sign?" repeated Camille. "What sign?"

"The one Alby tried to burn down last year. He said it was scaring him every time he drove by." Jereme Villian spouted off the answer, pointing with one hand. "I think he must have been _très_ intoxicated on his own moonshine."

Camille turned to Gabriel, but he was already gone. Men were following him. She looked back at the lake and saw the slow rotation that was unlike anything she'd ever seen before. The moon above illuminated the waves where the force of nature was causing the water to spin. Phillippe and Pierrot stood beside her, looking out as well. All of them would start helping dig out the mine. If there were any chance they could get to Anna before she died, then they would try everything they could.

Dr. Michel Quenelle was moving among the family who remained, checking injuries, issuing quick instructions to relatives. He had rounded up someone's SUV, which he had planned to use as an ambulance, when Gabriel took it, letting the back doors fly open as the vehicle scooted through loose dirt and sand. The doctor looked after Gabriel and shook his head. "I need another four-wheel drive!" Michel bellowed. "Truck. SUV. Freight train. I don't care. Someone get one!"

Anna found the Nash Rambler. She found a backpack that wasn't hers. It had clothing in it and a waterlogged Hustler magazine. She found a tire that was floating. The bumper of another car had found her head and grazed her temple. What she hadn't found was a regulator or the Dodge truck. Now she sat on top of the Peterbilt once more, with her teeth chattering. It was true that the water wasn't like being in the deep ocean or in an icy mountain stream, but it was much cooler than her body, and her body was reacting in the only way it could.

She looked resolutely across the rising waters at the opposite side of the hollow. Perhaps there would be an air pocket somewhere up the mineshaft that she could breathe in. Cradling the flashlight under one arm, she judged where she needed to go and tried to brace herself to return to the water.

Somewhere above her Gabriel was doing something intense. He concentrated on it fully, trying to ignore probable outcomes, sure that if he tried hard enough, he alone could change them.

Anna jumped into the water. She dog paddled to the far side of the chamber, wincing as she went under the pounding waterfall and touched the distant wall. When she located where some of the explosives had not gone off, she followed the wires with the flashlight. _I think I'm in the right spot._

She forced her head down and kicked her feet once at the surface.

The sign was large and invited tourists to visit Unknown again soon. Lights had been placed strategically so that it could be seen a half-mile away, its huge lettering blasting an advertisement inducing visitors to return to spend their money in this friendly town.

Gabriel screeched to a halt on the road closest to the sign. Rubber from the tires smoked as he stopped. A fire truck from Shreveport roared past him, headed into Unknown. A little thought tickled his brain for a scant second. The tourists at the festival had probably called en masse. Explosions. The lake was boiling. Now the lake was draining away. Some of them probably thought the apocalypse had come. He rushed out of the SUV, leaving the door wide open and abruptly came to a stop.

The large sign still had its lights on, but they showed that the sign was tilted strangely. It had shifted in its foundations. He frowned and thrust himself down the embankment next to the road. Another fire truck went past, its lights and sirens ablaze. He didn't look to see where it was from. Two vehicles pulled up behind the borrowed SUV and men got out, following Gabriel.

When Gabriel reached the sign, he already knew that the entrance Anna had somehow located was sealed up. The explosion had caused a collapse here as well. He stared at it helplessly.

_Maybe it's only a few dozen feet deep_ , thought one of the men. _The earth isn't so shaken up here. Perhaps we can find the tunnel after all._

Gabriel went to find something with which to dig. He ignored the feeling of coldness that had begun to seep into his bones, causing his teeth to chatter, knowing full well that Anna was beginning to feel the effects of hypothermia.

The flashlight worked under the water. Anna continued to be amazed at its resilience. Positive that this wasn't part of the manufacturer's intent, it was almost miraculous that it continued to operate. Contrarily, what the silty beam of light revealed wasn't so encouraging.

Whatever their intent, the Benoits had managed to seal this room. The explosives on one side had gone off and buckled the salt dome into a pile of rubble that concealed the opening to the graveyard. Anna gave it a lingering look and then pushed upward with her feet. A moment later she found the air above and was stunned at how fast the chamber was filling. She pointed the flashlight and discovered she couldn't see the top of the Peterbilt anymore. She struck out toward the middle of the room, trying to get out from under the rushing water that was coming through the cracks above her.

An idea germinated in Anna's head. She shined the light up and examined the cracks. They were about a foot in width, enough to let water sluice through, not wide enough for her to escape. _If I could only make them bigger._

_Explosives, Anna_. It was another thought pattern, one she didn't recognize, all slurred as though the sender was drunk. _All the explosives didn't go off, right?_

_No, more than half of them didn't. Sebastien said it was because the det cord must have gotten wet._ A vision of a jail appeared in Anna's head. Bars blocked her view. Someone was snoring behind her. _What the—?_

Oui, _Sebastien was always a poor explosives man. Once he almost blew up his own foot. Never had the respect for the power of the bang. You know I shouldn't be able to help you like this, but the entire family is broadcasting like a satellite dish,_ non?

_Alby? What are you doing in jail?_ Anna dog paddled. _I don't have a lot of time for an arbitrary discussion. I got big troubles._

Oui. Oui. _I can feel it. But you can use the explosives to blow the cracks bigger. There's only a little problem with that._

_The explosives,_ Anna sighed with the pleasure of a new doable idea. _Excepting that I don't know jack diddlysquat about explosives._

Alby's thoughts were dismissively patronizing. _Tut. Well I do._

_Alby, tell me what to do quickly. The clock is running down._

Gabriel was peripherally aware of what was happening. He was digging with a small collapsible military shovel that someone had produced out of the back of a truck. It was less than the size of a dessert plate but he was making some progress. Then he froze _. The explosives,_ Anna thought blissfully. _Excepting that I don't know jack diddlysquat about explosives._

Then came Alby's response. _Tut. Well I do._

_Alby, tell me what to do quickly. The clock is running down._

Non! Gabriel would have screamed it if he could have. Non! _Anna, you'll blow yourself up. Alby, don't do this!_

Someone put a hand on Gabriel's shoulder, and he angrily shook it off. He resumed digging, brushing the dust off his face with a forearm. "Trust Alby," came Lee Vildibill's calm voice. "He was an expert in explosives when the mine was closed. He could have worked anywhere in the country, but you know why he didn't wish to leave the lake."

_The water's rising, Gabriel_. Anna's thoughts were serene, accepting. _Ten feet, and I won't have any more air. I can try this, or I can drown. The opening is blocked by a ton of salt rock. We have to try._

_Don't you die on me, Anna!_ Gabriel returned, finding a new source of anger from which to draw.

Anna's thought was amused. _I'll do my best_. There was a hesitation. _Whistling man_. The nickname was meant to be reassuring but came out heartfelt. _Tell me what to do, Alby._

_Safety cord will burn underwater, Anna,_ came Alby's immediate response. For someone who had consumed an amazing quantity of alcohol his thoughts suddenly became remarkably organized. _Find some of the safety cord that isn't ignited, if you can. There will be secondary fuses on the ends of the det cord which did not go off. We'll use that to blow it up. Did he use dynamite or something else?_

_I wouldn't know dynamite if it bit me on the ass, Alby._

_Okay then. Float on over to the ceiling and find some of that stuff what ain't blown up, and I'll tell you 'xactly what to do with it._

Anna was following Alby's directions when the walls began to shudder again. It was a rhythmic thud, as if something was beating on a drum. Instantly it reminded her of her first time inside the mines where something huge had stirred in the shadows of the tunnel and caused a great boom of noise as it moved. It was as if it had waited for Anna to come, and it had waited for Anna to return.

She hesitated and thought, _What the hell is happening up there?_

Gabriel didn't answer right away. The family was waiting, expecting something new to occur, as the earth was going to renew its frantic struggle to overcome man. _The earth is shaking again. They say the lake is draining away into a great hole even while the rest of the lake turns in a great swirl. Two news copters from Shreveport are lighting it up with spotlights. Everyone at the festival can see it._

_That's not the earth shaking,_ Anna thought. _Someone's knocking at the door._ She dismissed it even while bits of salt rock rained down upon her head, and she worked, holding the flashlight between her shoulder and neck and frantically kicking her legs to keep her afloat.

When she was finished, Alby thought, _You'll have five seconds, Anna. With nothing to light it, I can't do no better. Sorry gal. Cover your ears after you pull it and kick off. The water will protect you some._

_Anna_ , came Gabriel's warning thought. Regret floundered there, accompanied by the pain of impending loss.

_Don't, Gabriel_. Anna plugged the hole with the same putty she'd pulled out and grabbed the flashlight with her left hand. _Don't have time for regret_. She took a deep breath and yanked at the fuse igniter that had been attached to what Alby had told her was C4 in the holes. There was an immediate smell of sulfur, but she was already turning away, her feet shoving her away from the wall, her arms speedily pinwheeling her body as far away as possible. Her feet kicked once and then twice. There was a countdown in her mind. She wasn't sure if it were Gabriel or Alby or someone else.

_Five_. She kicked again hard and found something in her path. It was the top of a vehicle that was still floating close to the surface. _Four._ Anna found the strength to shove herself across the roof of the car. _Three_. She dipped under the surface of the water. _Two._

There wasn't a one. The C4 blew up.

The ground shuddered again, and Gabriel stopped moving. The little shovel dropped to the ground and he waited. There were distant screams. The people at the festival were thinking it was some kind of terrorist event and other bombs were going off. They were half-correct, anyway. There was an intense pressure that he felt, Anna's pressure. Something shoved against her body and cartwheeled her head over heels until she smacked against something else. The flashlight dropped out of her hand, knocked by something she never saw and then came utter blackness.

Gabriel dropped to his knees. He closed his eyes and wished for the moment to pass him by so that he would never be in that place again. Then his eyes shot open. He glanced around him, looking at men and women who were frozen in place, waiting, watching him. "Oh _mon Dieu_!" he cried out.

Anna floundered in the water. There was a terrific force that shoved her body away, thrusting her into something else. The water rippled under the surface. Something knocked against her hand, and the flashlight plummeted away. She shot upwards, powerless to stop herself and found a tiny air pocket in the apex of the excavation. Full of salt dust, she choked on the air as she breathed it in. It began to settle after a moment and she blinked several times, trying to adjust to the darkness.

It wasn't completely dark. Anna blinked again. There was a light that was sporadically filtering through a large hole that she'd created. It fluttered as if someone was casting a light around searching for her from above. It wavered and flickered but stayed bright.

The chamber was full except for Anna's little pocket of air. Her entire body hurt, and she thought her eardrums might have burst, but she was alive, and there was a great hole through which light was showing. She took a deep breath, pushed it out, and took another one. A third one, pulling all the air she could into her lungs, she ducked into the water headed for the hole surrounded with a halo of bright white light.

Anna kicked as hard as she could. She exhaled a little as she went up, passing through areas of collapsed mine where the salt had systematically been removed, and only salt pillars had remained to hold up the weight. The light became brighter, and an inane thought crossed through her mind. _Have I been down there all night? Is that sunlight above?_

She kept kicking. The light became even brighter. Then something large moved above her and came between her and the light. For a second, Anna thought it was a piece of debris, but the light billowing down from above disclosed its specific shape and its identity. In shock, she opened her mouth for a second and closed it just as fast to prevent her air from leaking away. She floated in space, stunned into motionlessness for a moment.

A dozen feet long, as big around as an elephant's belly, it obscured everything and paused above her.

Goujon's yellow eyes burned at her in the blackness of the lake. A leisurely flip of his tail, and the light reappeared, causing the great fish to vanish into the blackness. Anna forgot to kick. She exhaled a little air, a remnant of her training from that day of Resort Scuba diving, and resumed her ascent. Looking up at the light so far away, it seemed like it would be forever before she reached the surface.

Then a great shape moved to one side of her, and the giant catfish was beside her, one eye upon her rising figure. Anna forgot to kick again. A slimy surface touched her skin as he slowed to a stop beside her. His fantastic whiskers tickled at her flesh. Not at all afraid, one of her hands went out to touch him. As soon as her fingers touched his smoothly scaled skin, he moved, swifter than she would have ever imagined. One second he was at her side, a vast behemoth with eyes the color of a burnished coin, the next he was under her, pushing her upwards.

_Helping me,_ Anna thought curiously. He _wanted me to discover the Benoits' secrets. It was he who pounded on the walls, crumbling the earth away_. Her body rushed upward, propelled along with unimaginable force. Her lungs burned with effort. She was almost out of air. Then her head popped out of the water, and she took a wondrous gulp of air. It was like manna from heaven.

She looked around her inquisitively and found she was floating in a great crater, sixty feet in diameter and growing. It was the top of the collapsed mine and the bottom of the lake. A new level was forming. Water spilled in over the edges of the crater, a gigantic circular waterfall, gradually filling the crater. It roared around her, the cry of a colossal animal, while she bobbed up and down in the center of it, relatively safe from being pounded by the rushing water.

Anna tried to look into the water around her, but she already knew that Goujon was gone, exploring the realms of his new kingdom.

Far above her head, two helicopters circled, the sources of light that had guided Anna. Their spotlights were focused on the crater and the massive event that was taking place. One spotlight flittered over her, stopped abruptly and swung back to her, fixing squarely on her form. Anna floated in the water, incapable of doing anything else. Suddenly, a car seat made of vinyl and foam bobbed to the surface beside her. She sighed. It was ragged and looked filthy, but it would support her until someone managed to pull her out. She hooked an arm through a hole in the upholstery and let her aching legs rest from their concerted efforts.

_Anna?_

_Still here, Gabriel_. Anna's thoughts were weary. _These life-threatening things. I think we need to stop these. They make me very tired. You won't believe who swam by to give me a hand._ She almost chuckled _. Not a hand. A fin. No, a tail_. The spotlights were blinding her, and she blinked for a moment. She waved at the helicopters to let them know that she really needed assistance.

_Huh?_

_Gabriel, there's a really big hole in the middle of the lake._

_Yes, I noticed._

_I'm in it. Dog paddling. Get me out. Did I mention that I love you?_

_I'll be right there. I know you love me, just the way you know that I love you too._

Anna sighed again. He could feel her innate relief. He knew that while she was not out of the soup yet, she was out of the depths of the mine and far safer than she had been. He almost felt like whistling. _Go ahead_ , she urged him. _Whistle. You have a nice whistle._

_Anna. Shut up and dog paddle._

So she did.

# Epilogue

## Saturday, March 20th

_It's said that a young woman can bring the rain by dipping a twig made of oak in shallow water and sprinkling it over dry land._

"It's raining again," said Anna. She stood on Gabriel's porch and looked out over the lake. In the last month the water had filled up the great depression of the collapsed mine, and then to everyone's surprise, it had risen over the crater, and the lake had begun to fill again. An early season of rain had helped. In a few more weeks the lake would almost look the same as it had before. Its only difference was that it was hundreds or so feet deeper.

"Good," said Gabriel. He sat down in the Adirondack chair and stared at Anna. She wore a blue dress that complimented her curving figure, and he was suddenly reminded of how grateful he was to have her. A vision of her being pulled up out of the crater by the Coast Guard's rescue unit came to him, and she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder.

"That was hardly the worst part," she said.

His lips tightened for a moment. _It was_ all _worst_. "At least the tourists have started to trickle off now. The reporters have gone on to their next big story."

Anna chuckled and turned her head back to look at the rain coming down. "I've heard more than a few of the family complaining about the sheer number of visitors to the area. Come to see the lake that drained away down a hole. Right in the middle of a Mardi Gras festival. It makes for a great story."

"And Jane came charging up that very day," added Gabriel, "wanting to know why I'd thrown you down into a mine. She was determined that it had to be all my fault."

"She thinks I'm keeping something from her." Anna rested a hand on the column that supported the roof of the porch and smiled out at the rain filling the lake. "She was so shocked when she saw the footage of the Coast Guard getting me out. Didn't even recognize me at first. Wanting to know who hit me in the jaw."

Gabriel muttered something under his breath. Anna's smile increased. She said, "I'm sure you could have rescued me, if you'd been given a little more time."

He muttered something else.

Anna said, "What?"

"I said, _I_ called the Coast Guard."

"And a damn fine job you did too," she said sincerely. Anna continued to gaze at the lake, wondering if she should tell Gabriel a really big fish story. He caught the thought.

_A really big fish story?_

_Almost as big as your boat._

Gabriel frowned. He looked around her lovely form at the lake. _I don't know how many fish are left in the lake now._

_One anyway._

Gabriel shrugged behind her. She felt his movements rather than saw them. Phideaux was playing on the lawn trying to bite raindrops. The dog bit at a rain drop and then bounced off, all cream- and cinnamon-colored fur.

"You know, you haven't fixed my truck yet," he said.

"Uh – maybe if you could find it first."

"Well, the elders have got you so busy practicing with your gifts anyway. Which reminds me, you know Lee Vildibill? He's got a cancerous lump on his arm. You need to tell him about it. If he gets it taken care of in the next month, it won't be a problem. I caught that the last time you were working with him."

Anna turned around and plopped herself down in Gabriel's lap. "That's a useful gift."

Gabriel made a face. He reached up and toyed with the black pearl hanging around her slender neck. "Sometimes. Last week you were talking to Jereme, and you don't want to know what's going to happen to him."

"What?" She poked his chest. "Something bad?"

"Let's just say the next time he fools around on his girlfriend, he's going to wish he looked a little closer at the 'girl' he picks up."

"Oh dear."

" _Oui_." Gabriel kissed Anna's ear. "I'm going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut."

Anna leaned back against his chest and let him nibble along her earlobe. "You know I dreamt of a funeral last night."

Gabriel froze. "Really?"

"Yes. Maybe you did too."

"I admit nothing," he said resolutely.

"Your mother hints every time she sees me. She thinks it's me who's holding back."

Gabriel sat up straight, and Anna almost fell off his lap. She grasped his biceps and pulled herself back upright. "It _is_ you who's holding back," he protested vehemently. "I've asked you a half-dozen times."

"You know," she said as he settled back in the chair. One hand stroked her hair gently. "I've been wondering something."

"What's that?" Gabriel was eyeing her delectable earlobe again.

"So what happens when I give birth to a child?"

Gabriel turned her head with his hand and stared intently at her ingenuous face. "Are you pregnant?"

"Just wondering. You know. I felt your pain in your palm. You felt the scratch along my arm, among other things. They say that giving birth can be very...painful." Anna was the epitome of innocence.

"I think I'll visit China," he said at last.

Anna smiled to herself. "Look," she said, "a rainbow. You know, seeing a rainbow while it's still raining is supposed to be good luck."

Gabriel tightened his grip on Anna and muttered, "We'll see about that."

– THE END –

# About the Author

C.L. Bevill has lived in Virginia, Texas, Arizona, and Oregon. She once was in the U.S. Army and a graphic illustrator. She holds degrees in social psychology and counseling. She is the author of _Bubba and the Dead Woman_ , _Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas_ , _Bubba and the Missing Woman_ , _Veiled Eyes, Disembodied Bones_ , and _Shadow People_ , among others. Presently she lives with her husband and her daughter in Alabama and continues to constantly write. She can be reached at www.clbevill.com.

# Other Novels by C.L. Bevill

**Mysteries:**

_Bubba and the Dead Woman_

_Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas_

_Bubba and the Missing Woman_

_Brownie and the Dame (3.5)_

_Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note_

_The Ransom of Brownie (4.5)_

_Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies_

_Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies_

_Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness_

_Bubba and the Curious Cadaver_

_Bubba and the Curse of the Boogity-Boo_

_The Bubba Mysteries Collection_

_(Novels 1 -6 and the Brownie Novellas)_
_Bayou Moon_

_Crimson Bayou_

* * *

**Paranormal Romance:**

_Veiled Eyes (Lake People)_

_Disembodied Bones (Lake People)_

_Arcanorum (Lake People)_

_Death Twitches (Lake People)_

* * *

**The Moon Trilogy (Novellas):**

_Black Moon (The Moon Trilogy 1)_

_Amber Moon (The Moon Trilogy 2)_

_Silver Moon (The Moon Trilogy 3)_

* * *

**_Shadow People_**

* * *

**Sea of Dreams:**

_Mountains of Dreams (Dreams 2)_

_Forests of Dreams (Dreams 3)_

_Ruins of Dreams (Dreams 4)_
**Cat Clan Novellas:**

_Harvest Moon_

_Blood Moon_

_Crescent Moon_

_Hunter's Moon_

_Dragon Moon_

* * *

**Suspense:**

_The Flight of the Scarlet Tanager_

_Blackteeth_

**Black Comedy:**

_The Life and Death of Bayou Billy_

_Missile Rats_

* * *

**Chicklet:**

_Dial 'M' For Mascara_

* * *

**Urban Fantasy:**

Deadsville

* * *

**Steampunk Fantasy:**

_The Bureau of Extraordinaires_
