Chapter 26

 

Darkness draped the island with the muffled glow of a witch's moon as time approached to visit Mama Toukee's. Yet another storm, a progression of dark clouds racing across the sky, brewed in the distance. Buck finally broke the silence as he and Wiley watched from the veranda.

“How early did people marry when Bessie McKinney was alive?”

“Younger than now, I'd guess,” Wiley said. “Why?”

“According to what you and Lila said this morning, Bessie McKinney's sister Francine was fourteen or fifteen years older than Bessie.”

“So?”

“Bessie's mother was forty-one when Bessie died at fifteen. Francine would have been twenty-nine or thirty. Unless I'm botching some important calculation, it means Bessie's mother was only eleven or twelve when she conceived Francine.”

Buck's conclusion seemed so obvious that it perplexed Wiley, having obviously never thought of it himself. “That is strange. What are you getting at?”

“Just that Bessie's mother wasn't likely to also be Francine's natural mother. Maybe she was adopted.”

Wiley scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Could be, I guess. What difference does it make?”

“Don’t know yet. Remind me to ask Lila.”

Pearl interrupted their musings with coffee and home-made apple pie. After finishing his last lip-smacking bite, Wiley left the table, not waiting for a second cup of coffee. “Think I'll relax in the den until we're ready do leave.”

“Better take a walk with me and work off some of your mom's good cooking.”

“You go ahead. I need a quick nap.”

“Suit yourself,” Buck said as Wiley sauntered into the lodge.

Buck savored the last drop of coffee before taking the path to the marina. Walking at an aerobic clip, he quickly began to feel better about the empty but delicious calories he'd eaten. He found the marina dark and deserted but had the eerie feeling that he wasn’t alone. Seeing nothing to fan his paranoia, he continued at a more leisurely pace around the lake's edge, finally retracing his steps to the lodge. Lila met him on the porch before he had a chance to catch his breath.

“Let's go, slowpoke. Everyone's waiting for us at the dock.”

Grabbing her arm, he wheeled her around. “One question before we go. Was Francine adopted?”

Lila didn't have to think before answering. “Of course not. What made you think she was?”

“Curiosity. You're sure that Elizabeth and Larkin McKinney were her natural parents?”

Lila stared at him. “I'll show you the family tree in our Bible next time you visit the house if you don't believe me.”

Hearing the injured tone of her voice, he said, “Whoa, I’m not calling you a liar. I’m just curious about the sequence of events leading up to Bessie’s death.”

“That’s why were visiting Mama Toukee,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Let’s move along, or the others will go without us.”

Lila hurried toward the lake beneath the semi-darkness of a quarter-moon. Buck followed her as lightning illuminated the clearing in momentary bursts of frenetic energy. He didn't need a barometer to know that another large storm was approaching the island.

“Come on,” Wiley said, lifting Lila over the gunnel of the boat.

Wiley steadied the hull as Buck climbed in. The noisy engine cranked into life as he pointed the bow away from the island and followed a narrow channel through the corridor of cypress trees. They exited into open water after a hundred yards of arboreal maze, the lake already growing choppy. Summer lightning back-dropped the lodge behind them, reminding Buck of a lonely lighthouse overlooking a stormy sea.

Once they'd cleared the moat of cypress trees encircling the island, Wiley followed the shoreline, maneuvering the boat through a hazy mist curling up from the lake's surface. Amid tangled brush and submerged debris, glowing eyes followed their progress.

“Are we almost there?” Sally asked.

Wiley laughed. “Nervous?”

Sara gave him a friendly punch in the ribs. “I think you're having too much fun, buster.”

“Sorry,” Wiley said, the return of his humor signaling an end to his former somber mood.

They soon reached an opening in the rows of cypress trees bordering the island. Wiley pointed the boat into it. Following a distinct path through a maze of roots and vines, they reached a small cove. In the distance, a tar paper shack occupied a small clearing overlooking the cove. Wiley let the boat drift ashore.

Mama Toukee's shanty was tiny, its weathered porch creaking with age. They found the old woman sitting in a wooden rocker, watching as the group approached along the path. A black cat moved beneath her feet, rubbing its arched back against her legs. Neither seemed surprised by the unannounced appearance.

“It's Wiley, Mama Toukee.”

A crooked grin appeared on the old crone's lips. She answered in an accent straight from the swamps of south Louisiana. “You come back for more love potion on such a night?”

Wiley gave Sara a knowing glance before embracing the little woman. “Just had a craving for a big hug.”

Mama Toukee encircled her bony arms around Wiley's neck and imparted a toothless kiss on his cheek. She had only one eye. When she pulled away from his grasp, an empty socket stared up at them. Her one eye seemed to have a life of its own and Buck had no doubt the old woman could see their every movement clear as day.

When Wiley stepped back from the rocker, she asked, “Who you brung to see me?”

“Friends, Mama. I didn't think you'd mind.”

Mama Toukee turned around slowly and glanced at Sara, her ensuing laugh sounding like a tubercular cackle. “Mama's potion work good, yeah?”

Wiley grinned. “Guess it did at that.”

“What for you come tonight, Mon Amie?”

“To visit the dead, Mama,” he said.

Mama Toukee's cackle became a coughing wheeze. “You brung the pretty girls to protect you?”

“Don't need no protection with you here Mama.”

The old hag's wrinkled skin was stretched across her face like a rubber mask pulled over a skull. Muted thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Maybe not”.

The front of the shack was no more than an extension of the dirt pathway from the lake. A large cauldron occupied the clearing. Beside it sat a stack of hastily gathered firewood. Mama Toukee gazed at Sara with her one good eye.

“Cain summon no spirits when one doan belieb.”

Sally and Brice were standing close together on the edge of the porch and the old woman's admonition made Sara fidget.

“Afraid you'll have to stay outside on the porch,” Wiley said.

“No way. It's dark out here.”

“Then you'll have to think more positive thoughts,” Lila said.

“I'll do my best, Mama. Please don't make me stay out here all by myself,” Sara said, edging closer to Wiley.

The old woman nodded her assent as Wiley helped her out of the chair and pointed her toward the door of the shack. Supporting herself with a gnarled cane, she led them into the shack, where the reek of mold and burned oil accosted their noses. When Mama Toukee struck a match and lit a coal oil lantern on the table, its glow revealed a Spartan interior.

Old newspaper and cardboard lined the walls for insulation and black patches of mildew caused by moisture dripping through the roof, spotted the walls. Smoke, mingling with other sweet and rotting smells, snaked up from the lamp. It made the shack seem more like an animal’s den than a house.

A musty bedspread hung from a wire stretched across the back wall, partially separating the tiny room from the cot behind it. Mama Toukee's bedroom. The room's only appliances consisted of an old two-burner stove and a white ice box jammed against the wall. Mama Toukee interrupted Buck's examination, pulling up a chair at an old kitchen table and beckoning Lila to join her.

Dim light from the coal oil lamp barely illuminated the table and created shadows that danced across the walls. When Mama Toukee's cat stationed itself between her legs, Buck saw it also had only one eye. A perceptible chill crept into the room as the old crone raised her head and stared at the ceiling. Buck felt the chill. Lila’s folded arms suggested he wasn’t the only one to notice it. He also felt the power of the old woman's penetrating stare when she pointed her bony finger at him.

“You brung somethin' for Mama Toukee?”

Buck assumed at first she was asking for money, but Wiley quickly interpreted her real meaning. “The brooch, Buck, give her the brooch.”

He took the crusty old cameo from his pocket, handing it to Mama Toukee. Her hand shrank when she touched it. Her frail body began to shiver and the shiver quickly became a full-blown shake. In the throes of the ensuing convulsion, her fragile arms and head slammed against the table. Buck thought she’d knocked herself out. She hadn’t, and Wiley shook his head, grabbing his arm when he moved to help.

Everyone sat transfixed as Mama Toukee's arms drummed against the table. A high-pitched drone began to emanate from deep within her lungs. It sounded like air escaping from a punctured tire and continued until her gyrations became increasingly muted. When her extreme convulsions finally subsided, and the high nasal sound of escaping air ceased, her bony old hand rose slowly up from the table top and spread into an open palm. As it did, the exposed chalcedony brooch emitted a dull but perceptible glow.

Now a different sound came from Mama Toukee's lips—a voice that seemed derived from another world. Though it spoke no more than a dozen words, Buck had no doubt he was hearing the voice of long dead Bessie McKinney.

It said, “Mother, sister, daughter, death? The answer lies in an icy grave.”

A clap of distant thunder broke the ensuing silence.

The words spoken through the old woman echoed in his brain long after Mama Toukee's trance had ended. When the old woman opened her good eye, Lila grabbed her shoulders, shaking her gently until she regained her senses. Wiley brought a ladle of water from a bucket by the stove. Kneeling beside her, he held the ladle to her lips as she sipped the warm liquid.

“You all right, Mama?”

Cackling like a lunatic, the old crone said, “Mama fine. I tink you the one done heard the ghost.”

The old woman was right. Buck glanced around the room, realizing he wasn't the only one with an open mouth. Brice and Sally were huddled against the far wall. Sara's eyes drew wide, her mouth agape. Lila's mouth was also open, her hand partially covering it. Wiley was smiling and Buck had the feeling of deja vu.

“Mama, we brought you something.”

He carried in two grocery bags from the porch and retrieved a block of ice from one of the bags. He placed the block in the ice box, and then showed Mama Toukee a large ham, a dozen eggs and various other goodies. Buck helped him load the ice box and stack assorted canned goods in the cabinet.

“We gotta go now, Mama,” Wiley said.

“Smoke with me first,” she said, grabbing his wrist.

Mama Toukee removed something from beneath the table. Buck squinted to see the plastic baggy filled with what was probably marijuana. When she formed a joint in her hands and lit it he was sure of it. After taking a puff, she handed the joint to Wiley.

The old hag cackled when Wiley took a deep pull from the joint. When he handed it back to her, she fingered it a moment before handing it to Lila. Lila took a quick puff and passed the joint around until it was gone. Then Wiley began herding them toward the door.

“Thanks, Mama. It's late and we better go.”

“Doan forget the brooch,” Mama Toukee said, slipping the baggy of marijuana between her tattered blouse and flat chest for safe keeping.

When Buck took the brooch, he noticed a lustrous glow not present before the old woman had touched it. Dizzy and light-headed from the drug, he banged his head against a rafter on the porch. Even the drug's mind-altering properties could not disguise the approaching storm.

Wind whistled through the pines, and lightning played across the sky as they hurried down the dirt path to the boat. They quickly found it had drifted away from the bank, the storm already whipping froth on the lake. Wiley didn't hesitate. Wading into the water, he grabbed the front of the boat and pulled it back to shore, steadying the bow until everyone had climbed aboard. Pointing the boat toward the lake, he gave it a push and jumped in behind. Engine noise melded with nearby thunder as Wiley maneuvered them through the cypress brake. Buck leaned back against the boat, still dizzy and disoriented by Mama Toukee's marijuana, the storm and drug combining to launch him into a giggling fit.

“Something funny?”

Wiley's voice caused him to laugh even harder. He continued to laugh uncontrollably until they were out of the narrow channel and into open water. The wildly rocking boat finally quieted him, and he sensed something in the air other than the storm—a reddish glow looking for the world like a giant Lava Lamp pulsating above the trees. He sat up, feeling suddenly sober, as Wiley yelled above the wind.

“Something's on fire.”

“The marina,” Lila said.

Wiley throttled the engine, slicing the boat through choppy water, everyone holding on as they tore through the waves. Within minutes they rounded the last bend of the island and saw flames, whipped by gusty winds, licking the darkened sky. The marina was on fire and being consumed by flames. Docks, boats and the marina of Fitzgerald Island were ablaze and burning out of control.