Wild, Beautiful, and Free(11)

The man at the door had something wrong with his left leg. When he stepped into the house, it was like the leg forgot to follow, and he had to drag it into the room. Wisps of thin gray hair hung from under his hat and framed his thin, sharp features—a strange chin that came down straight until the very last moment, when it turned slightly upward like a pig’s. I’d never seen him before. He removed his hat and bowed his head at Madame.

“Madame Bébinn,” he said. “Got your message. Came soon as I could.”

“Thank you, Mr. Amesbury. She’s in here.”

He followed Madame into Papa’s library, but he looked at me and stopped at the threshold. “She’s a light one.” He rubbed a scruffy chin. “How old is she?”

“On her way to twelve.”

“You sure you want to sell? A few more years you could get a lot more for her at one of the fine houses in New Orleans. They always lookin’ for new fancy girls.” He reached out to touch my face, but instinctively I stepped backward. I know he didn’t like that, because then he put his whole hand on the back of my head, above my neck, and pulled me toward him. He smelled of whiskey and rotted food.

“She can’t stay around here.” Madame said it like that notion was all too obvious. When Amesbury looked at her, she followed that with, “My husband favored her. I’d rather she go somewhere far from Louisiana, where Jean Bébinn isn’t known.”

Amesbury nodded, looked at me again, and seemed to understand the situation was different from his expectations. “What’s your name?”

“What does that matter?” Madame tried to cut me off, but I spoke over her.

“I am Jeannette Bébinn!” I thought he would hear the name and go away. I could see a question in his eyes, and that made me think he would not lay hands again on a daughter of Jean Bébinn. But it was not the question I expected.

“Can she read?”

“No, she cannot.” Madame walked toward Papa’s desk as she said this, like she thought the lie would work better if she kept in motion. But I cut in front of her and made it to the Bible that Papa always kept open on a table near the window. I placed my fingers on the lines of a psalm and read aloud.

“‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my . . .’”

“Stop it!” Madame shoved me to the floor. She went to Papa’s desk and spoke urgently while she wrote on paper.

“I understand your concerns, Mr. Amesbury. I am prepared to compensate you for your troubles.” She opened a drawer in the desk and removed money. She offered it to him along with the paper. “Take this for your travel expenses. Here is my permission for the sale. You may keep forty percent of whatever you get for her.”

His eyes widened.

“But you must take her tonight.”

Reading the paper and hearing her words made him grin, and he looked like a pig who had eaten his fill—satisfied.

“Madame, don’t you worry. You’ll never have to hear about this gal ever again.”

I got up from the floor. If she was never going to see me again, then she would have my words. I would tell her everything. “Madame, you are evil,” I said. “And all your evil will roost in your bad heart and torment you, because my papa will know what you’ve done. He may be dead to this earth, but Papa is still here and all around me. He will go with me now, and he will stay here and haunt you. I swear to you, Madame, you won’t have any peace on this land until I step foot on it again. Papa’s soul is bound to this land, and so is mine, and so is Calista’s. You will never be anything but a trespasser. I will go with this man because the sooner I go, the sooner your evil can turn in on you and poison you like the witch you are!”

Her face went dead white. Her fingers pulled at her skirt as though itching to reach for my throat. Amesbury grabbed me by the arm and shook me until it felt like he would pull the arm from my body. “I don’t know what you’ve been learned, but you have to obey now.” He pulled me toward the door, and I caught a glimpse of Papa’s casket in the parlor. I pointed at it and yelled.

“Bury him, Madame! Bury him soon! Or he will rise up and strike you down for what you’re doing!”

Madame looked all around her as though Papa were about to walk in the room. “I will bury him,” she said. I saw her moving toward the parlor. Perhaps she was going to do it right then and there, with her bare hands. But that was the last I saw of her. Amesbury dragged me outside, and the door floated shut behind us.





Chapter 3


Amesbury struck me. He struck me so hard that when I hit the ground, I was shocked I hadn’t blacked out. I remember thinking about the force it must take to make a person lose consciousness if that blow of Amesbury’s couldn’t knock me cold. But then maybe I was just hardheaded like my papa.

“I don’t want to hear you say another damn word. Ever.”

He pulled me up and into a cart. He tied a rope tightly around my ankle. I gasped. “That hurts!”

Whomp. Another blow. I fell backward in the cart.

“You don’t listen too well, do you, smart gal?” He clutched the front of my dress and held me close enough to smell the stink of his breath. “I said you will never say another word.” He got in the cart, picked up the reins, and went on like he was talking to himself.