Chapter Sixteen

sixteen

JEMMA WANDERED THE STREETS OF Tremé unaware of what was going on around her. She didn't see the running children, the lounging cats or the honeybees. The sounds of laughter and sharp curses didn't penetrate her walled mind. It was fully consumed with other things.

Magdalene was angry at her—unfairly, Jemma thought. Her friend's venom seemed misplaced—something she'd work through when she returned to the Duchons', but at the moment Jemma wanted to be as far from the property as she could get.

Once again, the family avoided her. Jemma didn't care much about Simone or Honorine treating her like a pariah, but even Fosette and Laurence looked at her with dread. Her brother hadn't helped her with any translations from the ledger in a week, and Jemma felt as stuck as she ever had, as if she had no chance of breaking the curse.

Before she knew it, she was in a familiar alleyway, and the welcome sight of a collection of dolls in a window drew her inside Lulu's. The café felt more like a home to her than the grand house where her family lived. Lulu bustled forward.

"What can I get you today, baby?"

Jemma opened her mouth to say tea with ice or a cup of gumbo , but her true desire intervened: "Something to keep the spirits away."

A frown settled on the other woman's face only briefly before she took Jemma's hand and led her to a small table away from everyone else. Lulu left her there for a few minutes, and returned with a tall glass of tea and put a cool hand to Jemma's cheek, breaking her out of her daze.

"Drink that, now."

Jemma obeyed, and with each swallow, she became more aware of her surroundings. She wanted nothing more than to stay here, to not return to the Duchons'. Maybe she could work in the café with Lulu, sleep in a back room.

But she knew that no matter where she went, the ghosts would follow.

"You feel better now?"

Jemma nodded. Physically, she was all right, but mentally, she wasn't.

"What did you mean when you said ‘to keep the spirits away'? They bothering you?"

Lulu's evident concern was so welcoming that Jemma couldn't stop the tears from flowing. She covered her face while the woman tutted and patted her arm.

Yes, the spirits are bothering me, Jemma wanted to shout. They always have and I don't know what to do. My family hates me, or some of them don't hate me, but I don't think they love me. They just need me. And when they don't need me anymore, what then?

Jemma didn't realize that Lulu had left once again until the woman was back, pressing something into her hand. A small cloth pouch cinched at the top with a long leather cord rested in Jemma's palm.

"What is this?"

"It's for your protection. You wear it around your neck and them spirits won't bother you no more."

Jemma stared at the nondescript item in wonder. Could it really do what Lulu said? Why hadn't anyone given her something like this before? She squeezed the bag between her fingers, hard and soft items giving way beneath her touch.

"What's inside?" she asked, resisting the urge to open it.

"Some High John root, lavender, things like that. You pray on it, just hold it and ask that the spirits stay away."

Fresh tears sprouted at Lulu's generosity. Jemma embraced the woman, crying and thanking her in equal measure.

—

LATER THAT NIGHT, JEMMA STROKED the pouch before tucking it into her nightgown and lying back in bed. Once she'd left Lulu's she'd opened the bag to find a small pile of assorted items inside. She recognized the dried purple buds but nothing else, including what appeared to be a small rock, fluffs of cotton and small leaves. She grasped at a bit of relief, although she didn't feel completely relaxed or safe. She told herself it was because this was a new thing she hadn't gotten used to yet. With time, she'd become accustomed to it, and she'd have to trust the pouch to do its job.

"Protect me from the spirits around this place. Help me to not see them, please."

Jemma didn't know what else to say. After the brief plea, she stroked the pouch as sleepiness began working its way across her body. Right before she fell into dreams, heavy uneasiness pushed the tiredness away.

Her eyes popped open just as the cord tightened around her neck.

The inability to breathe came so quickly that Jemma's mind struggled to understand exactly what was happening. In the next instant her fingers moved to the cord, trying to create a gap, but it was pulled taut.

She fell out of bed, wriggling back and forth. Her foot connected with the nightstand, sending the lamp crashing to the floor. She continued kicking. Black spots appeared before her eyes. With the loss of air, she weakened, her fingers falling away.

Jemma couldn't accept dying here like this, but whatever was choking her had snatched away her voice to plead for her life.

And then just like that, the cord loosened.

Her hands fell by her sides as she fought to remain conscious, gulping for air.

It was Fosette throwing the pouch aside, kneeling over her and calling her name.

"Are you okay? What's happening, Jemma? Oh, what's happening?"

Her cousin cradled her like a baby. Jemma was too weak to resist or reply. She only held on to Fosette and wept.

—

LATER, AFTER FOSETTE HAD RETRIEVED a glass of water and Jemma had finished it off despite the stinging in her throat with each swallow, the two of them sat next to each other on the floor, their backs against the bed.

Fosette had saved her from…something.

Jemma's eyes fell on the pouch, tossed into a corner.

Not like this, she'd been warned before.

This was another warning. She'd done something wrong, something the spirits didn't like. Trying to ward them off with the pouch hadn't worked. It had almost gotten her killed.

She rubbed her neck, glancing over at her cousin. An apology rested behind Jemma's lips, although she didn't know what she'd be apologizing for. If anything, the family owed her an apology for what they'd done to Inès. The image of her mother's name blacked out in the Bible mixed in with other pictures: the pouch, inert yet seemingly harmful; smoke pouring out of the Duchons' mouths in the dim parlor; "BONES" on the walls.

"Ever since you came here, strange things have been happening," Fosette said in a low voice. "We weren't exactly happy here before you came, but we'd gotten used to how our lives were. We'd accepted things. But the other night, when we thought we were dying…and this…I don't know anymore, Jemma. Grandmère brought you here to help us, but it seems like you're only making things worse."

Fosette said what Jemma felt, and it stung just as much as she expected.

"Can you really break the curse?" her cousin asked, an edgy urgency in her voice.

Jemma looked at her and answered honestly. "I don't know." After a beat, not wanting Fosette to leave anytime soon, she added, "If you weren't awake, who knows what might have happened to me? I hear you humming sometimes at night. What's that song?"

Her cousin stared for a moment. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Jemma gazed back at her, and before she could say anything further, Fosette wished her a good night and left.

There was no lullaby that night.

—

JEMMA CRUMPLED THE HALF-FINISHED LETTER to Betty and dropped it in the small wastepaper basket beside the desk in her room, where it joined several others.

She hadn't contacted her friend since that interrupted phone call. Before she'd left, she said she'd write often and call when she could. But that was before she'd learned the truth about the family who'd hired her.

So now what could she say in a letter that didn't sound as mad as the people she was related to? Jemma was terrified that the insanity was catching. Certain things ran in families, and lunacy seemed like a fitting condition. She tried to find comfort in her parentage. Although her mother came from a too-closely connected line of family members, she didn't think her real father had. If she could get a name, perhaps she could find his family here.

If she had a name.

If Inès would tell her.

Jemma turned her attention back to the letter.

Dear Betty,

I hope you are well. My job is keeping me very busy here. The family I am working for is all right. Once I am finished tutoring their son, I may return home to Chicago. I miss it very much and I miss you, too.

Jemma read over the few lines, hoping her words wouldn't alert Betty to any distress. She thought about mentioning Marvin—as in, Please don't tell me anything else about him —but decided to leave him out. She scribbled a couple more sentences.

It's very different here. Sometimes I feel like I did before, when I had that trouble.

After debating starting over again, Jemma asked after Betty's family and then closed the letter.

Over the next couple of weeks, the weather changed from warm and sticky, just a shade off high summer, to less warm. She welcomed the break, but looked with longing at the wool jackets hanging in the chifforobe, which would probably remain untouched while she was here.

She went to dinner every evening, to avoid Honorine's punishment. Jemma sat there, next to mad Fosette, across from Laurence, avoiding any eye contact with Simone. Once, she caught herself gripping her dinner knife so hard, she'd almost bent the handle. Only Russell's faintly amused "Good God, girl, are you all right?" brought her out of a disturbing reverie.

And watching Agnes/Inès serve at the table, as if she hadn't once sat here as a member of her family—it was almost too much. More than once, Jemma had to bite back words that would reveal what she knew. She had to hold it all inside for now. When it was time to tell her own little nasty secrets, she'd know.

She didn't feel like she could visit Magdalene, which made everything worse, but her friend had shocked her during her last visit, her disdain for Jemma's need for acceptance evident. If she hated that about Jemma, maybe she hated Jemma as well. So long days seemed even longer, without the distraction of Magdalene's friendship.

One morning, the biscuits she'd eaten at breakfast sitting heavily in her belly, she looked up from the desk by the window to see Dennis cutting the grass across the back lawn. She hadn't seen him in a few weeks, with no explanation from the family as to where he might be. Jemma realized she had no idea where he slept, like Agnes. There were no servants' quarters that she was aware of. A sudden curiosity overcame her, especially because she knew that he'd gone with Magdalene to place Jemma with her adoptive parents.

Why hadn't he mentioned that to her before? And why hadn't he mentioned Magdalene?

Jemma placed the legal pad she'd been scribbling in on the desk and made her way downstairs, glancing in the parlor to see Honorine and Russell playing solitaire. They watched her exit the back door, but bent their heads back to their games once she stepped out.

"Dennis!" Jemma called, raising an arm as he pushed the mower toward her. There was no way he could hear her over the racket the machinery made; she only hoped he could see her. The smells of gasoline and fresh-cut grass mixed with spent gardenias gone brown. The gardener looked up, stopped and shut the mower off, the ensuing silence falling like a soft clap.

"Didn't hear you over Ole Clem here," he said, pulling a soiled rag from his back pocket and dragging it across his forehead, pushing his hat back. "Ain't seen you in a bit."

"I haven't seen you, either. You've been on the grounds?"

"Yeah. But work gets slow round here once the weather turns, so I spend time on a couple other properties close by, but I always come back by nightfall."

"Where do you sleep?" Jemma turned to take in the whole of the back lawn. "I didn't see any quarters or anything for you and Agnes."

"Agnes sleeps in the big house. It's a little room off the kitchen. Most nights, I bed down in the old washhouse." Dennis pointed to a rickety wooden building opposite the carriage house; Jemma couldn't imagine anyone sleeping in it. "But when it's too hot, I just sleep rough, out here under the stars."

Jemma didn't realize that she'd been gazing at the washhouse for several moments without actually seeing it until Dennis cleared his throat.

"You didn't come out here to ask me about where I sleep, though, did you?"

She looked at him, his kind face dotted with sweat, the only truly free person in this whole place.

"Why do you stay?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I got a job and—"

"No." She made him look at her. "Why do you stay? Unlike the rest of them, you can leave, but you choose to stay here. Why?"

His gaze roamed across the ground beneath their feet, his shoulder moving up and down in a half shrug a few times. He didn't seem to want to answer her, but since he didn't outright refuse to, or assuage her with a quick lie, Jemma waited, hoping for the truth.

"I…I look out for Agnes."

"Look out for her?"

"She doesn't have anybody, and what with her, you know, her not being able to speak, I try and look out for her. I guess I'd be afraid of what might happen to her if I wasn't here."

"You love her," Jemma breathed, the fact crystallizing in her mind right at that moment by the way Dennis spoke her mother's name.

He shot her a sharp glance but didn't deny it, simply exhaled heavily and wiped his face again.

Did her mother know? Jemma wondered. She'd already asked him some personal questions; she wouldn't embarrass him any further by asking that. Besides, Agnes's knowing or not knowing wasn't important to Jemma. It was enough that Dennis cared about her and stayed on for her sake. Who knew what might have happened to her if he hadn't been around all these years?

"Somebody got to love her, I guess," he said. "Might as well be me."