Chapter Eleven

Laura arrived just before the starting time of the program. She could not quite face the sympathy and curiosity of half of Chapelle. The bonfire blazed on the green under the careful supervision of Chief Fontenot and his assistant. Its scent covered the charred odor from the ruins of Domengeaux’s store, and its light drew youngsters like moths. Some arrived still swathed in homemade costumes of bed sheets and old shirts stuffed with straw. Others came encased in plastic cartoon characters bought at the Dollar Store. The crackle of the fire and of candy wrappers filled the tepid night air.

Oldsters in light sweaters had moved aluminum lawn chairs under the oaks after Mass ended. Black parents shoved their small children toward good seats on the grass before the fire then faded back into the shadows to listen at a distance to tales they already knew.

Laura introduced herself and opened the program with the story of Will-o-the-wisp, the blacksmith so mean the Devil gave him a coal to start a little Hell of his own. She felt as if she glowed like the flames at her back, the aura of the fire and the color of her blouse reflecting redly on her face and hands. She set the stage and gave way to Father Ardoin, a contrast of black and white, his face like the full moon in the October sky, his glasses small shining stars in the flickering light. With relish, the priest told the one about the traveling preacher in the haunted house. Hands trembling and familiar face grotesque with imaginary fright, he evoked laughter from the children and smiles from the parents. The little ones clapped when he ended.

All fell silent as Tante Lu made her way to the fire. Its diminishing flames yellowed her face to the hue of old ivory. Father Ardoin placed a rocking chair and seated the old woman who had wrapped her sparse white hair in a red bandanna as if recreating a scene from another time—black woman, red tignon, yellow firelight. Rocking slowly and beginning softly, she told the tale of the loup-garou, the werewolf. This story, it happened right here in this parish about seventy years ago—for true.

“There was this rich planter, name of Grayson Darby, who loved a black girl, name of Mary. Each night she came to him along the cane field road and each night returned the same way to her cabin. Now, Grayson Darby warned her not to come to him on nights with a full moon because a full moon brought out the evil in men. Mary, she thought he was just ashamed ’cause she wasn’t a white, and he thought the nightriders might come and make an example of them both. Or maybe, Grayson feared his beloved sister would see her walking the road in the bright moonlight and figure out that they was meeting. That girl, Mary, though, had lots of spirit, and she was determined to go to her lover whenever she wanted. So, one full moon night, she set out along the cane field road.”

Tante Lu threw back her head and howled over and over. Small children fled back into the crowd to hug their parents’ legs, and older children shivered with anticipation. Adolescent boys took advantage of the howls to place their arms around their dates and pull them tight against their sides.

“The field hands found Mary’s body in the morning, savaged, the throat torn open by a wild animal. Crazy with grief, her lover took his dogs out the next evening to track the beast.” Tante Lu sent another series of howls ululating off the church walls.

“When they didn’t return, a search party organized to find Grayson’s body. They found Darby unconscious among the torn bodies of his hounds, blood in puddles everywhere. He could not remember what had attacked him.

“On the next rainy night with the still nearly full moon peeking in and out of the clouds, Mary’s brother, who had tried to keep the lovers apart, died in his own cabin, bitten all over by big fangs. There were no footprints in the mud by the open window, just the pad marks of a huge dog, a loup-garou everyone said. A werewolf had done the deed. Well, pretty soon everyone who had any silver was melting it down to make bullets against the loup-garou since that is the only way you can kill one—in the heart with a silver bullet. Grayson Darby made some himself to hunt the critter down. Now his sister was a mighty religious woman and said God would protect them, but Grayson locked her in the house the night he went to kill the loup-garou.”

Tante Lu howled again, but this time, it came out long and sad. “Grayson’s sister heard only one shot late that night, and in the morning when the servants came and let her out, she found her brother dead on the cane road. He had put a silver bullet through his own heart. After that, no one else was killed by the loup-garou. That family is gone now. The sister entered a convent to pray for Grayson’s soul. I nursed her on her deathbed, and it’s she who told me the story—but me, I remember those murders well.”

The crowd thinned slowly as children became sleepy or scared and were carried home by their parents, but the adolescents drew closer to the fire and waited for more. Tante Lu began a second story.

Leaning against an oak on the green, Laura could see the ruins of her apartment. She had lived there such a short time and yet impressions of the place stayed in her mind—of sitting by the window on these autumn nights listening to the low whispers of boys, the nervous laughter of girls beneath the trees. These old live oaks were made for lovers with low-slung branches to recline against and thick evergreen canopies touching the ground to form private nooks in their shadows. Over by the fire, Tante Lu spun a tale of supernatural love.

Laura half listened to the old woman, half listened to her own body, so empty, so bereft. She recognized him, despite the darkness, as soon as he stepped from the crowd and came toward her. “What are you doing way back here?” he asked. “Tante Lil took Pearl and Angelle home a little while ago, but Pearl asked me to watch out for you. She didn’t like the look in your eyes when you drove here.”

“I’m fine.” Laura’s voice quavered and she turned her face deeper into the shadows.

“You’re crying.”

With a touch of his hand, Robert LeBlanc turned her face back toward a sliver of moonlight coming through the branches. “Don’t do this. Be the woman who took a tough job in a strange place despite Tante Lil. Be the one who Vivien can’t grind into the dirt. I want that woman. I’d give her back all she lost and more.”

He placed his lips against her partly open mouth, licked the salty tears from the rim and deepened the kiss. He pressed her pliant body between the hardness of his and the rough bark of the tree. Tonight with the rush of the festivities, the man who should shave twice a day hadn’t, and the abrasive texture of his beard rasped seductively against the skin of her cheek. So male, so close, for a moment she could not recall her dead husband’s name or face. When she did, he felt the change—the stiffness of her body pulling away from the trunk of the tree, the turning of her head, the closing of her lips.

“I’ll wait until that woman comes back,” he said and left her alone beneath the tree in that little sliver of moonlight. She recognized the sound of the engine when he started his old truck and returned to Chateau Camille.

Out on the green, the fire died to embers. Other elderly folks had taken Tante Lu’s place by the coals and swapped yarns. Father Ardoin helped the old woman to his car for the drive back to Nebo. The youth of Chapelle, paired off, lay together beneath low slung branches. Laura tripped over one couple as she stumbled toward the fire.

“Hey, lady, watch where you’re going,” the annoyed boy shouted in a voice that cracked at the end of the sentence.

Back on the green, Chief Fontenot and his assistant killed the embers of the bonfire with a fire hose. She thanked them and the remnants of the crowd for coming and drove out to the Chateau, alone and chilled by the night air.