Whispers in the Night (3 page)

When the water splashed in the tub, they all looked down at Lola. Danielle didn't look away this time; she just felt her body coil, ready for whatever was next.

Lola's face was moony, upturned toward Danielle with the same intense gaze she had followed her with all morning. But the water around her still looked clear. No more leeches. Lola had only changed position slightly, one of the rare times she had moved at all.

“That thing I saw . . .” Danielle whispered. Her fingers were trembling, but not as much as they had been up until then. “Was it a demon?”

Uncle June shook his head. “What you saw . . . the leech . . . that ain't it. Just a sign it's visiting. Evidence. They crawl for dark as fast as they can. Slide through cracks. No one's been able to find one, the way they scoot. Probably 'cause most folks head in the other direction.”

“It's under my bed,” Danielle said.

“Not anymore, it's not. It's halfway back to the swamp by now.”

Danielle shivered for what seemed like a full minute. Her body was rejecting the memory of the thing she had found in her baby's diaper. She waited for her shivering to pass, until she realized it wouldn't pass any time soon. She would have to get used to it.

Lola, in the tub, wrapped her arms around herself with a studious expression as she stared up at Danielle. Lola was still smiling softly, as if she was going out of her way not to alarm her, but her creased eyebrows looked like a grown woman's. On any other day, Lola would be splashing water out of the tub, or else sliding against the slick porcelain with shrieks of glee. This creature with Lola's face might be a child, but it wasn't hers. Water wasn't novel anymore.

“If that isn't Lola . . . then where is she?” Danielle said, against the ball of mud in her throat.

“Lola's still in there, I expect,” Uncle June said. “Dottie Stephens's baby was touched by it for a month . . . but come fall, it was like nothing happened. And Dottie's baby is a doctor now.”

“Unnnnh-hnnnh . . .” Odetta said with an encouraging smile.

Danielle's heart cracked. A month!

“Course, you don't have to wait that long,” Uncle June said. He stood up, lifted the toilet lid, and spat into the bowl. “I've got a remedy. They'll eat anything you put in front of them, so it won't be hard. Put about six drops on a peanut butter cracker, or whatever you have, but no more than six. Give it to her at midnight. That's when they come and go.”

“And it won't hurt Lola?” Danielle said.

“Might give her the runs.” Uncle June sat again.

“Lola's gonna' be fine, Danny,” Odetta said, squeezing her hand.

Kyle's nickname for her was Danny, too. She should call Kyle to tell him, she realized. But how could she explain this emergency to the Red Cross?

“What if . . . I don't give her the remedy? What would happen?” God only knew what was in that so-called remedy. What if she accidentally killed Lola trying to chase away the demon?

Uncle June shrugged. “Anybody's guess. It might stay in there a week. Maybe two. Maybe a month. But it'll be gone by the end of summer. I know that.”

“Summer's the only time,” Odetta said.

Danielle stared at Lola's face again. The baby's eyes danced with delight when Danielle looked at her, and the joy startled Danielle. The baby seemed like Lola again, except that she was looking at her with the love she saved for Kyle.

“So how many is it now, Odetta? At McCormack's place?” Uncle June said. He had moved on, making conversation. Unlike Danielle, he was not suffering the worst day of his life.

“Six. Turns out they'd counted one too many. Still . . .”

Uncle June sighed, grieved. He wiped his brow with a washcloth. “That's a goddamn shame.” The way he said it caught Danielle's ear, as if he'd lost a good friend a hundred years ago who had just been brought out to light.

“Nobody has to wait on
C.S.I.
experts to tell us it's black folks,” Odetta said.

Uncle June nodded, sighing. “That whole family ought to be run out of town.”

Six dead bodies on McCormack Farm. Six of Graceville's secrets finally unburied.

The other one, in the bathtub, had just been born.

 

 

“
Tel-
e-vi-sion.”

Lola repeated the word with perfect diction. “
Tel
evision.”

All morning, while Danielle had sat wrapped up in Uncle June's blue bathrobe on the sofa with a mug of peppermint tea she had yet to sip from, Odetta had passed the time by propping Lola up in a dining room chair and identifying items in the room.

Lola pointed at the bookcase, which Uncle June had crammed top to bottom.

“Bookcase,” Odetta said.

“
Bookcase
,” the Lola-thing said. She pointed up at the chandelier, which was only a skeleton, missing all of its bulbs.

“Chan-de-lier,” Odetta said.

“
Chandelier
.”

Danielle shivered with each new word. Before today, Lola's few words were gummy and indistinct, never more than two syllables. But Lola was different now.

Odetta laughed, shaking her head. “You hear that, Danny? Ruby's baby did this, too. Like damn parrots. But they won't say anything unless you say it first.”

The baby pointed at a maroon-colored book on the arm of Uncle June's couch.

“Ho-ly Bi-ble,” Odetta said.

“
Ho-ly Bi-ble
.”

At that, honest to God, Danielle almost laughed. Then she shrank farther into a ball, trying to sink into the couch's worn fabric and make herself go away.

Lola gazed over at Danielle, the steady smile gone. The baby looked concerned.
Mommy?
That's what the baby's face seemed to say.

“Your mama's tired,” Odetta said.

Tears sprang to the baby's eyes. Suddenly, Lola was a portrait of misery.

“Don't worry, she'll be all right after tomorrow,” Odetta said.

All misery vanished. The baby smiled again, shining her big brown eyes on Danielle. Just like Odetta's joke on the day of Grandmother's funeral, that smile was Danielle's only light.

“Ain't that something else?” Odetta whispered. “Maybe this ain't Lola, but they seem to come here knowing they're supposed to love their mamas.”

No, it sure isn't Lola
, Danielle thought ruefully.

A deep voice behind Danielle startled her. “Gotta go to work,” Uncle June said, and the door slammed shut behind him. Danielle had forgotten Uncle June was in the house.

“He never gave me the remedy,” Danielle said, remembering.

“Later on, we'll carry Lola with us over to his gas station. It's just up the street. Besides, I'm hungry. Uncle June's got the best burgers under his warmer.”

Some people could eat their way through any situation
, Danielle thought.

After a time, Odetta turned on the television set, and the room became still. The only noise was from the guests on
Oprah
and a quick snarl from Uncle June's dog as he slunk past Lola's high chair. Lola didn't even notice the dog. Her eyes were still on Danielle, even when Danielle dozed for minutes at a time. Whenever Danielle woke up, Lola was still staring.

“What do they do?” Danielle asked finally. “Why are they here?”

“Damned if I know,” Odetta said. “They don't do much of anything, except smile and try to learn things. Ruby said after she got over her fright, she was sorry to see it go.”

“Then how do you know they're demons?”

“Demon ain't my word. I just call them leeches. What scares people is, they're unnatural. You don't ask 'em to come, and they take your babies away for a while. Now, it's true about that crib death, but Cece can't say for sure what caused it. Might've happened anyway.” Odetta shrugged, her eyes still on the television screen. “They don't cry. They eat whatever you give 'em. And after that first nasty diaper, Uncle June says they hardly make any mess, maybe a trickle now and then. I bet there's some folks who see it as a blessing in disguise, even if they'd never say so. Lola, can you say
blessing
?”

“
Bles-sin
g,” Lola said, and grinned.

Danielle had never been more exhausted. “I need a nap,” she said.

“Go on, girl. Lie down, and I'll get you a blanket. You could sleep all day if you want. This thing won't make no noise.”

And it was true. Once their conversation stopped, the Lola-thing sat in the high chair looking just like Lola, except that she never once whined or cried, or even opened her mouth. She just gazed at Danielle as if she thought Danielle was the most magnificent creature on Earth. That smile from Lola was the last thing Danielle saw before she tumbled into sleep.

 

 

Uncle June had owned the Handi Gas at the corner of Live Oak and Highway 9 for at least twenty-five years, and it smelled like it hadn't had a good cleaning in that long, filled with the stink of old fruit and motor oil. But business was good. All the pumps outside were taken, and there were five or six customers crammed inside, browsing for snacks or waiting in line for the register. The light was so dim Danielle could barely make out the shelves of products that took up a half dozen rows, hardly leaving room to walk.

Uncle June was busy, and he didn't acknowledge them when they walked in. Odetta went straight for the hamburgers wrapped in shiny foil inside the glass display case by the cash register.

“You want one, girl?” Odetta called.

Danielle shook her head. The thought of food made her feel sick. She had ended up with the stroller, even though Odetta had promised her she wouldn't have to get too close to Lola. But Danielle found she didn't mind too much. Being at Handi Mart with the truckers and locals buying their lunch and conducting their business almost made Danielle forget her situation. As she pushed the stroller aimlessly down aisle after aisle, hypnotized by the brightly colored labels, she kept expecting to feel Lola kicking her feet, squirming in the stroller or screaming at the top of her lungs. Her usual antics.

Instead, Lola sat primly with her hands folded in her lap, her head turning right and left as she took in everything around her. Odetta had spent the rest of the morning braiding Lola's hair, entwining the plaits with pretty lilac-colored bows alongside the well-oiled grooves of her brown scalp. Despite her best efforts, Danielle had never learned how to do much with Lola's hair. Mom hadn't known much about hair, either. This was the best Lola had looked in ages.

“I'll get to you in a minute,” Uncle June called to Danielle as the stroller ambled past the register line. “I know what you're here for.”

“Take your time,” someone said, and she realized
she
had said it. Calm as could be.

Although Odetta was kin to Uncle June, she had to stand in line like any other customer. She'd helped herself to two burgers, a large bag of Doritos, and a Diet Coke from the fountain in back.
It's no wonder she was still carrying her baby weight eighteen years later
, Danielle thought. With nothing left to do, Danielle stood beside her cousin to wait.

“Well, ain't you cute as a button?” a white woman said ahead of them, gazing back at Lola in the stroller. The woman was wearing an ostrich feather hat and looked like she was dressed for church. Was it Sunday? Danielle couldn't remember.

“
But-ton
,” Lola said, the first sound she'd made in two hours.

The woman smiled down at Lola. Danielle almost warned her not to get too close.

“Thank you,” Danielle said. Lola didn't get many compliments, not with her behavior.

“How old is she?” the woman asked.

“Thirteen months,” Danielle said, although it was a lie. As far as she knew, the thing in Lola's stroller was as old as the swamp itself.

“Lovely,” the woman said. She turned away when Uncle June asked her pump number.

And Lola
was
lovely today, thanks to Odetta. There was no denying it. Maybe that was why Danielle could touch her stroller without feeling queasy, or getting goose bumps. The nasty thing that had crawled out of Lola's diaper that morning was beginning to seem like a bad dream.

“One minute,” Uncle June said when it was their turn in line. He vanished through a swinging door to the back room. As the door swung to and fro, Danielle saw a mess of boxes in the dank space, and she caught a whiff of mildew and ammonia. Danielle felt her heart speed up. Her fingers tightened around the stroller handles.

“You sure you don't want your own burger? These are mine,” Odetta said.

Danielle only shook her head. A fly landed on one of the ribbons on Lola's head.

Uncle June came back with a brown iodine bottle with a black dropper. He set the bottle on the counter next to Odetta's hamburgers. “Remedy's free. Odetta, you owe me five-fifty.”

While Odetta rifled through her overstuffed pocketbook, Uncle June leaned over, folded his hands, and stared Danielle straight in the eye. His eyes looked slightly bloodshot, and she wondered if he had been drinking that morning.

“Remember what I said,” Uncle June told her in a low voice, so the man in the Harley Davidson T-shirt behind them wouldn't hear. “Six drops. No more, no less. At midnight. Then you'll have your baby back.”

Danielle nodded, clasping the bottle tightly in her hand. She had questions about what was in the remedy, or how he'd come to concoct it, but she couldn't make her mouth work. She couldn't even bring herself to thank him.