Dark and Shallow Lies(14)

“It’s the big black trunk from Honey’s shed.”

I haven’t seen it in years.

When we were little, we used to play magician. Hart would be the magic man, and Elora his beautiful assistant. The others would be our captive audience. And I’d be the one to climb inside the trunk, trying not to breathe while Elora covered me with a blanket to make me disappear.

Eventually, it was the trunk that disappeared, though, pushed into a back corner of the storage shed and covered over with a decade’s worth of junk and spiderwebs.

And now Elora’s disappeared.

And the trunk’s come back into my life. Almost like magic.

“I’m not sure what it means,” Sera says. “I’ve been trying to figure that out since I drew it. But I know it has something to do with Elora.”

“It could mean she ran away,” I say, and I feel a little hope surge through me. “Packed up and left.” I look up at Sera. “Right?”

Sera and Sander exchange another look. “Maybe,” Sera says. “But we don’t know that for sure.”

“Why haven’t you shown this to Hart?” I ask.

“Grey, you don’t know how low Hart’s been.” Sera gives her head a little shake, and that braid swings behind her back. “He feels responsible, I think. Like he should’ve been lookin’ out for Elora. That night.” Sander nods in agreement. “We didn’t want to get him all worked up when –”

“When you can’t say what it means.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I keep this?” I ask.

“Sure,” Sera says, and she rips the page out and hands it to me. “There’s more, though.” She passes the sketchbook over to Sander, and he flips through until he finds what he’s looking for. Then he places the open book in my lap. “Sander did that one.”

I shiver when I see the bold pencil lines. Like someone walking over my grave, Elora would have said.

“This one is about Elora, too?” Sander nods and runs his fingers over the sketch.

The page is filled with a figure. The shape is human. Arms and legs. Normal enough. All except the face. That’s not normal at all. Because where the mouth and the eyes and the nose should be, there’s nothing. No features. And the more I stare at that emptiness, the more it scares me.

I flip the notebook closed.

“We don’t know what that one means, either,” Sera says, and she shoots another look at her brother. “But Manman thinks she does.”

“What does she say?” I hand the sketchbook back to Sera. I don’t want to hold it any more.

“étranger,” Sera tells me. “A stranger. Someone we don’t know.”

Fifty or so people live in the little houses that dot the boardwalk. That many again, roughly, out in the swamps nearby.

And I know every single one by sight. By name, too. And they all know me. There are no strangers here.

Not in La Cachette.

Delphine yells something in our direction. A Creole word. And the twins stand up. So I stand up, too. “We have to go,” Sera says.

“Thanks for sharing these with me,” I tell them.

Sera studies me for a second, then she asks, “You really don’t feel her at all?” The question throws me for a loop. I’m not ready to tell them about those flashes I’ve been having, so I shake my head. The twins stare at me with two identical sets of amber-colored eyes.

“Your mama had deep power,” Sera starts. “Manman says –”

Delphine yells at them again. “Asteur!” And that word I know. It means now.

Sera yells back that they’re coming, then Sander hugs me goodbye and Sera leans close to whisper in my ear. “There’s bound to be some magic in you, Grey. You need to know that.”

Then the two of them hurry across to the dock and into the boat. That leaves me staring at the drawing in my hand and wondering what Sera meant. About my mother.

And about me.

Honey calls me in for dinner, so I fold up the sketch and slip it into my back pocket. She’s made my favorite. Fried catfish with dirty rice. Homemade pralines for dessert. Sweet-N- Low sits between our chairs, drooling in a puddle and hoping someone will drop something. And it all tastes like heaven, but I can’t enjoy the feast. Because I keep thinking about that big black trunk.

As soon as I help Honey clear the plates, I make an excuse to get away. It’s starting to get dark when I slip out the kitchen door and follow the short bit of boardwalk that leads to the little storage shed out back. It’s low tide, and I can smell the sickly sweet odor of exposed mud and rot.

The door to the shed is never locked – none of the doors in La Cachette are ever locked – so it opens right up when I turn the knob. There’s a bare light bulb in the ceiling, but when I pull the string, nothing happens. It must be burned out.

I should’ve grabbed a flashlight. The sun isn’t all the way down yet, but there are no windows in the shed, so that just leaves the last of the grey light coming in the open door to see by.

I push my way through the junk and the cobwebs toward the back of the shed. The light is fading fast, and I can barely make out the writing on the cardboard boxes stacked shoulder high.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

CAMPING GEAR