Wild Swans (15 page)

“Come on up on the veranda with me
chere,
” she said as Althea walked up the insect infested steps toward her aunt.

“What happened here
Tante
?” she asked.

“Something awful has happened,” Cally said, fumbling with her hands as if she didn’t quite know what to do with them. “It’s poor old Mrs. Ramsay,” Cally said. “She left the window open even though we told her not to.” She rambled. “We thought she’d sleep through it, just sleep through it.” Cally broke off, wiping tears from her eyes with a shaky hand.

“
Tante
?”

“Oh it was a terrible sight. You mustn’t go inside. Stay out here with me while Mr. Lindt takes care of everything.”

“What happened? Did she have another stroke?” Althea asked. Cally, having returned to vigorously rubbing her arms, looked back into the open doorway. She could see Ruby at the phone, which began operating normally after the fireflies disappeared. She heard her tell Lily, the operator, they needed an ambulance and the sheriff out right away.

“What happened?” Althea repeated. “And what is the deal with all the
morte moiselles?
Did Mr. Karris get out of hand with the DDT again?”

“Nah,
bay-bay
,” Cally said, her Cajun accent deepening as it did when she was very frightened. “Stay here while I go see to Mr. Lindt. Whatever you do, don’t touch those things; they burn like wildfire. We need to clean off the veranda before the ambulance gets here. They won’t be able—” Cally choked on her words, sobbed and said, “They won’t be able—” Shaking her head, Cally turned and rushed into the house. “But
Tante
,” Althea protested, as she disappeared down the hallway. “Tell me, what happened.”

****

Althea was very frightened, and unwilling to stay outside alone even though her mother and aunt were inside the house. She looked out at the lawn, at the tall cypresses lining the banks of the bayou, down to the little dock beyond. Those trees looked sickly as well. Their limbs drooped as if they were starved for water. Pine needles browned before her eyes and fell like rain onto the forest floor. Spanish moss crumbled in the soft breeze and blew away. A sudden, sharp crash told her that one of the older trees deeper in the woods lost its footing in the rich moist soil and collapsed.

Althea recalled the creature in the woods and what it did to the nutria. She gazed back up at the trees.
Whatever it is, it sucks the life out of everything it comes in contact with. What kind of being is capable of that?
And how is it, that that thing didn’t suck the life out of me as well?
She cast a glance at the door.
Did it get inside somehow and kill Mrs. Ramsay? Is that what all this commotion is about?

“They’re ankle deep in the hallway,” Althea heard Cally say. “And they don’t sting now that they’re dead so that’s a blessing. Mr. Lindt said it’s best not to sweep them up lest the sheriff wants to see. But I don’t see the harm in clearing off some walking room on the veranda. .Besides, I can’t abide looking at them.”

“What happened here,
Tante
Cal?” Althea called from outside.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s over now,” Cally replied from the doorway. “I’m just glad we have a man around the house who can attend to some of life’s unpleasantries.”

She heard her mother respond and then heard a sharp, nervous retort from Cally as the women moved deeper inside the house.

Nervous, yet curious, Althea moved toward the door. It was partly opened, but blocked from opening completely by heaping piles of dead bugs. The screen door took the brunt of the abuse, having been ripped out of its casing, the screen hanging listlessly from the frame.
Strange
, she thought.
What could have caused
that? Surely not les petite moiselles
.

When Althea was six years old, a black bear made a habit of raiding the trash cans, until Ruby called the sheriff and he came out with what he laughingly referred to as an elephant gun and shot the thing. While it lived, the beast tore up the cans as well as the burn pile, but it never actually tried to get into the house. Althea could see a bear or other large animal tearing off the screen door, but as far as she knew, no bears had been spotted in the area since Sheriff Bordeaux killed the trash can raider. Her gaze took her back out toward the docks, then to the general store. A gigantic buzzard roosted there not long ago. She bit her lip.

Cally
said that something happened to Mrs. Ramsay
, Althea noted.
Something dreadful.
She looked at the thick blackish brown mass of dead bugs and bit her lower lip, considering
,
Whatever happened to Mrs. Ramsay didn’t have anything to do with the old woman’s age. She may have been blind and suffered a mild stroke a few years back, but the old lady enjoyed good health despite the setbacks.

There’s only one way to find out
, she told herself,
and that’s to go inside and take look at whatever it is a lady ain’t supposed to see.

She stood at the threshold and looked into the dimly lit hallway. There were more dead fireflies on the floor, and on the stair casings. They lay in great heaps; some of them were ankle deep. Althea shuddered. She stepped inside. The house was dark, still and quiet. Frighteningly so. For an instant, Althea considered running back outside.

“Mom?”

Althea heard the faint voices of her mother and aunt upstairs. She went to the stairway, and found the steps covered with dead bugs. She felt her gorge rise. Althea could smell them now. It was a strange, somewhat meaty decaying odor mixed in with the crumbling aroma of ancient wallpaper. She turned around to leave, but hesitated when she noticed Mrs. Ramsay’s door.

The door had already been pushed open once, she noted, because the area in front of the door was reasonably clear. She took a giant step, which reminded her of the game ‘Mother May I?’ she played as child.
Mother may I take a step
? she thought.

Yes
, Althea responded.
I can take one giant step and four baby steps.
Althea strode wide, clearing the piles of bugs before her and landing on the cleared spot. She pulled open the door, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Mr. Lindt was in Mrs. Ramsay’s room kneeling beside the bed as if in prayer. The screenless window, Althea saw, was open. The curtains sucked and pulled in and out of the window, sweeping carcasses of dead insects off the sill. The floor was ankle deep in fireflies in some places, and the bed... Althea put her knuckle in her mouth and bit down on a scream.

Mr. Lindt hovered over a large blackened lump on the bed, tenderly wiping away insects from what remained of Mrs. Ramsay’s face. Althea’s mind reeled. She watched as Mr. Lindt retrieved a large lace doily that was buried next to the night stand. He stood, grunted in disgust and shook the dead creatures off.

Althea’s stomach heaved. She turned, vaguely hearing Mr. Lindt cry out as she caught a glimpse of him placing the elderly lady’s doilies on the red, seared and bloated face. The face without eyes. The eyes and mouth packed beyond capacity with bugs.

Althea bolted onto the veranda, leaned against the railing, and vomited into the azaleas. She felt Mr. Lindt’s hand on her shoulder, gripping it as a father would to comfort his daughter. Althea, who had never known her father, and supposed in an offhanded childish way that she must have had one at some point, otherwise she would have sprang like Aphrodite from her mother’s forehead, put her head against his chest and wept.

She asked that very question once when she was eight years old and Ruby said yes and she’d had a headache from it ever since. As a child, Althea had taken her mother literally. But now she knew that was just her mother’s acerbic wit, and she realized as she pressed her face into Mr. Lindt’s chest, felt his strong arms around her as she wept bitterly that she had missed that male presence her whole life.

With the exception of Jake, no man had had the nerve to touch her, much less in this manner, as a father would his daughter.

Althea uttered muffled screams into Mr. Lindt’s chest. She wept for poor Mrs. Ramsay. For the poor old blind lady who was slightly addled but a dear old thing that wore badly tailored dresses and made the world’s most awful gumbo. Poor Mrs. Ramsay who, in her confusion, opened the window to let some fresh air in and was assailed by a horror she could neither see nor defend herself against.

Althea heard hurrying footsteps and knew at once that her mother was coming and would get the wrong idea. She’d make Mr. Lindt turn her loose, scream at him for taking advantage of a girl in a weak moment, and would send him packing. She knew her mother oh too well.

Althea felt her mother’s hand on her back and she turned, sniffing, and her eyes red and swollen, long clear tendrils of snot oozing from her nose and onto his shirt. Althea braced for the impact of her mother’s rage, and was stunned when it didn’t come. Ruby’s expression was soft and concerned as she dabbed her daughter’s eyes with a white handkerchief.

“I’m sorry about the mess, Mr. Lindt,” Ruby was saying. “I’ll see your shirt is properly cleaned.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. Lindt replied as he gently removed himself from Althea and stepped away. She felt so vulnerable then, and somewhat hurt, feeling that his turning away was something of a rejection. Yet his countenance, filled with compassion and concern, said otherwise. “I was most fond of dear old Mrs. Ramsay as well. What a terrible, tragic thing to have happen.”

“She was complaining about the heat,” Ruby said, her face pallid, her eyes wide. “But I was scared of those lightning bugs, the way they flashed the wrong color, the way they were trying to get into the house. I told her to keep her door and windows shut. I thought we’d be safe with all the doors and windows shut. Then the phone quit working and then started ringing as soon as the fireflies left and that
thing
—”

She broke off, and Althea looked at her mother, startled, that the woman who was such a formidable force in her life was showing signs of cracking.

“I should have known she would have opened that window,” Ruby was saying. “I should have known it. I ought to have made her come into the kitchen with us. She’d have been safe there. She would still be—”

Ruby broke off, turned away, and like Althea did earlier, bit down on her knuckle to keep from screaming.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lindt said. “It was no one’s fault. Please, Miss. Ruby, don’t beat yourself up over this. From what Cally said, you acted bravely in light of what happened.”

“Thank you,” Ruby whispered.

“The sheriff and his deputies are here,” Cally said quietly as she stepped further out on the porch and looked past the mourners.

They looked up, seeing that indeed, the sheriff’s patrol car was coming slowly up the drive. Ruby straightened, absently ran her fingers through her short curly hair and said, “Who called?”

“You did,” Cally replied. “Darling don’t you remember?” she said, her voice trailing off.

“Yes, of course I do. I’m just a little rattled right now,” Ruby said.

“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Cally asked. “You did fall today.”

“Of course I’m sure,” Ruby snapped. “I’m fine. I just got a little confused that’s all. And who wouldn’t be? It’s been a terrible day.”

“Momma?” Althea asked.

“Althea,” Ruby said softly, “go wash your face and rinse out your mouth. You’ll get lie bumps after being sick like that.”

“I’ll go with her,” Cally replied, taking Althea by the upper arm and motioning her toward the house. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Mr. Lindt and your Mom will take care of everything else.”

Chapter Ten

A few days later, the municipal judge ruled the incident an act of God and the coroner’s office concluded that Mrs. Ramsay’s death was due to natural causes.

Poor old dear, everyone on the bayou clucked. She must have gotten confused by the swarm, tried to swat them away but there were too many of them. She had a heart attack and died right there on the bed, not a few feet from Ruby, Cally and Elly, who were in the kitchen when the unthinkable happened. Why nobody heard her cries for help was a mystery, but since it was such a frightening crazy experience, nobody thought about the possibility of foul play.

After all, the intense summer heat does strange things to both man and beast. Didn’t a swarm of buffalo gnats kill one of the Lincoln’s horses when they overwhelmed their barn two years ago, causing the poor old mare to panic and smash through the stall, breaking her neck?

And what about all those frogs that rose from the riverbank on an eerily warm January night and climbed onto the road by the thousands, infesting the bayou like a Biblical plague? Why, it wasn’t that altogether strange to find a wayward alligator sunning itself on the docks in mid September. And
les moiselles
must have grown too numerous and they, like other creatures, found their way from the murky banks of the river channel and up onto dry land.

Or so everyone assumed.

Ruby, Elly and Cally wisely did not mention the vague humanoid shape standing at the edge of the lawn shortly after the lightning bug attack. Nor did they mention the buzzard, or Ruby’s bizarre experience at church. And Althea didn’t see any reason to mention that trees along the river looked ill. Nobody, they all silently agreed, would believe them. As the old saying goes, some things really are better left unsaid.

Four days after what was now referred to as ‘the incident,’ Mrs. Ramsay’s only living relative, a niece from Baton Rouge, arrived with two muscular Negroes and a U-Haul truck. They took away all of Mrs. Ramsay’s things while Ruby, Cally and Althea stood on the veranda and watched.

The niece, a middle aged taciturn school teacher wearing a beige suit, said nothing to the women, and ignored the sweet tea that was placed on the table for her. Mr. Lindt, who was clearing away firefly carcasses with a grain scoop, tossed them onto a burn pile by the docks. He stopped his work, removed his straw hat and placed it respectfully over his heart as the last of Mrs. Ramsay’s things were loaded into the U-Haul.

Moments later, the niece left in her little pink and gray Nash Rambler, with the truck and the workmen following along behind her.

“Well that was a fine how do you do,” Ruby snorted. She raised her arm, shielding the sunlight with her elbow as she watched the small caravan leave. “Not a word. Not a single solitary word.”

“She actually huffed when I tried offering my condolences, as if we had something to do with that poor old lady’s death,” Cally replied. She gasped slightly. “You don’t suppose she’ll sue, do you?”

“I don’t care if she tries or not. She ain’t getting anything,” Ruby said as she finished sweeping the last of the insects off the veranda. “The coroner ruled it as an accident. There ain’t nothing that old creep can do about it.” She shrugged.

“Besides, this ain’t our house, we’re just tenants. The only one who could possibly be sued would be Mrs. Bristow.”

“She could get the plantation house from her.”

Ruby laughed. “And who’d want an old dump like this?”

“Revenge,” Cally replied.

“That’ll never happen.”

”Dunno. Some of those old biddies are downright spiteful. But what if she does sue, and gets the house and that bright shiny Cadillac you like to drive, what then?” Cally asked.

Ruby huffed. “Don’t borrow trouble, Cal. We can’t pay off the loan for what we’ve already got.”

“You’re right.” Cally paused, and then said, “Besides, that scrawny old spinster can tell it to the judge. It won’t make any difference in the world. Mrs. Bristow has the best lawyer in the parish. If she cared for her
tante
at all, she wouldn’t have left her living alone like this. And old Judge Kaplan would tell her that too. Right to her ugly spiteful little face.” She straightened from her work and added, “I’m sure gonna miss Mrs. Ramsay though. She made the worst
boudin
in Rapides Parish.”

“Bless her heart; she did try so didn’t she?” Ruby agreed.

“The least her niece could have done was hold a memorial service at the church instead of dragging her across country to be put in that family mausoleum,” Cally complained. “A little mass wouldn’t have hurt any. She was part of our family too.”

“It makes me wonder why she was in such a rush to get away. It’s not like the old lady had anything of value,” Ruby replied.

“I don’t know about that,” Cally corrected. “She could have had her mattress stuffed with hundred dollar bills for all we know.”

Both women laughed and resumed their work.

Althea said nothing while her mother and aunt scrubbed the porch. She sat on the railing with a dust rag lying limply in her lap as she watched Mr. Lindt work. She sat with one leg tucked up underneath her and the other swinging casually alongside the railing. She watched Mr. Lindt as he scooped up another load of insects and tossed them onto the burn pile. The little carcasses sparked, and were carried upward by a soft breeze. She noticed that, as they burned, they became fireflies once again as their remains floated in the cornflower blue sky.

“You’re not getting any work done lazing up on that railing like that,” Ruby said.

Althea shifted on her perch, her mind a million miles away. “I got the bugs off of the railing like you asked.” She sighed. “I’m resting now.”

“For what?” Ruby asked, smiling faintly at her daughter. “I don’t see how cleaning off the porch rails could have made you that tired.”

Althea sighed, breathing in the acrid scent of smoke, cypress and cedars. “I’m just daydreaming a bit.”

“About what? The wedding?”

“I suppose.”

Cally laughed. “So you’re ready to get hitched after all aren’t you?”

“No, not especially,” Althea said folding her arms across her narrow chest. “I just don’t have any say in the matter.” She shrugged. “I guess I’m just accepting things for what they are.”

**
Things change in the blink of an eye
**
.
Mr. Lindt’s voice echoed in her mind. She jolted and turned toward the man who was steadily tossing shovelfuls of dead fireflies onto the burn pile. She was shocked. Although she’d heard him in her mind before, it had been somewhat faint. This time his mental voice was so clear, it was as if he had spoken directly to her.

“What got you?” Ruby asked. “An itchy, bitchy bug?”

“I thought I heard something.”

Cally and Ruby stopped working, alarmed. “What did you hear?”

“I thought I heard someone call my name,” Althea lied. She shivered slightly as she watched Mr. Lindt continue to work. His back was turned to her and he stopped momentarily, removed a handkerchief from his back pocket, mopped his head with it and returned the handkerchief to his pocket. He returned to shoveling. In her mind, she could hear Lindt laugh. **
Why should you be surprised now?
** he asked her. **
After all, this isn’t the first time you’ve heard me.
**

“I guess I was just imagining things,” Althea said, staring out across the lawn.

“That’s why you shouldn’t be doing no daydreaming,” Cally said. “All it’ll do is addle your brains.”

“He really shouldn’t be doing that,” Ruby said, gesturing towards Mr. Lindt. “I told him I’d hire a man to come do it but he insisted.” She frowned slightly. “He said it’d take his mind off things. I wonder what he meant by that?”

“I supposed he’s just as upset about poor old Mrs. Ramsay as we are,” Cally replied. “He was quite fond of her. They spent all their afternoons out here on the veranda, just talking.”

“Talking nonsense if what Mrs. Ramsay said before she died was true,” Ruby stated as she took a bucket of water and a mop and began swabbing the porch.

“I wouldn’t hold much to anything Mrs. Ramsay said about that, Sister. She was just a confused, lonely old lady, and Mr. Lindt liked to humor her, that’s all.” Cally straightened as she dropped the sponge into a bucket of pine cleaner and water. She looked over her shoulder at Mr. Lindt, who was still hard at work. “I figure he told her some funny stories, though. Maybe to keep her amused. She might have gotten everything mixed up in her mind. You know how old people get sometimes.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” Ruby grunted as she scrubbed at a large purple stain. “It’s still tragic though.”

“Very,” Cally agreed as she retrieved the sponge and, wringing it out, resumed scrubbing bug specks off the wall. “It’s odd,” she grunted as she scrubbed. “The front of the house looks terrible, but the sides and back of the house are not so bad. I could get Althea,” she hinted loud enough for the girl to hear, “to take the garden hose and wash off the rest of the house.”

Althea grumbled at the suggestion. Cally laughed good naturedly at her. “I know you did the bulk of the inside, dear,” she said. “We’ll let you slide on the outside work.” She winked at her sister. “This time. But that’s only because you’re finally getting interested in the wedding.”

“Interested in getting out of it,” Althea grumbled. Cally gave her a startled look. Althea smiled and shrugged. Cally wrung out the sponge as if she were strangling a chicken. Ruby rubbed at another dark purple blotch on the floor, muttering to herself as great dollops of sweat poured down her nose and dripped onto the floorboards.

Althea shrugged again, and gazed back up at the milky blue sky. A small flock of birds were spiraling lazily in the distance. Watching them made Althea’s eyes water. She blinked.

Althea was indeed thinking about wearing white, but not the white that her mother and aunt were considering. Earlier in the day, Althea rummaged around in her closet and found the nurse romance novels that she managed to spare from her mother’s latest purge.

She sat down with Sue Barton and absently flipped the pages, thinking back to the time she had come home from school and discovered to her horror that her mother had loaded up all of her books and donated them to the library.

Althea begged and pleaded with the librarian to let her have the books back, but she refused. However, the librarian did give Althea a library card and told her in a cutesy voice that she could come and visit them any time she liked.

Althea was furious and screamed at her mother for the first time in her life. Ruby simply stared at her from over the rim of her coffee cup and proclaimed that those books just put silly ideas into girl’s heads.

Althea had let that dream die out, but Mr. Lindt in his subtle wisdom had managed to dust the ashes off and rekindle the embers smoldering underneath. Now it seemed as if the idea of becoming a nurse wasn’t so farfetched after all. The idea went from the pleasant afternoon daydream of an eleven-year-old girl to a reachable goal to the now eighteen-year-old-Althea. A goal that was not only attainable but highly desirable.
College costs money
, Althea thought.
And I don’t have any
,
and
I won’t be able to get any either.
She cast a glance at her mother, who had put away the mop and began wiping down the round wooden tables.
Even if we could afford it, she’d never let me go. Not ever.
Althea frowned.
Would Hank let me become a nurse
? She laughed to herself.
Of course not. He’s just as broke as I am, and going to school would shatter his parent’s illusion of affluence. Besides,
Althea added,
you can’t be married and a nursing student
.
Beverly Mayhaw, the nurse who works out at Sunny Hills Nursing Home, told me that herself.

**
There are other possibilities,**
Mr. Lindt’s voice filtered through her mind,
**some you’ve already considered, but only in a visceral way. . Remember the bus trip?
**

She focused on Mr. Lindt. He was still shoveling dead insects into the fire pit. She frowned, confused and vaguely frightened. Not of the voice in her head, which was wise, fatherly and comforting, but of the knowledge that her life didn’t have to take the course her mother had set. For an instant she knew what Eve must have felt when the serpent offered her the forbidden fruit. And yet, on some level, she found her mother’s plans for her were somewhat comforting as well. There were no variables to play with, no fears of the unknown to contend with as long as she went ahead with the wedding.

**Uncertainty is to be embraced, not feared**
Lindt’s thoughts projected out to her. **
Things can change in a blink of an eye. There’s no guarantee you will be married soon
,
despite all your mother’s machinations. You can create your own destiny. The question is, do you have the courage to do so?**

**
That doesn’t make a damned bit of sense
**

Lindt chuckled. **
Of course it does. You know what you have to do. You’ve been thinking about it for quite some time now. All you need now is to find the strength of heart to make it happen
.**

“Did you say something Althie?” Cally asked.

“No
Tante
. Just thinking out loud I guess.”

“That’s a bad sign, talking to yourself,” Ruby said.

“Nah, that’s only if I start answering myself.”

Ruby laughed, shook her head, and returned to work.

“Mr. Lindt looks positively exhausted,” Cally said, changing the subject. “I’m going to take him some nice sweet tea,” She scooped up the glass neglected by Mrs. Ramsay’s unpleasant niece, and with a swish of her skirts, walked down the steps and out onto the lawn.

“That gal,” Ruby muttered as she straightened. “I swear she’s as man hungry as they get.”

“I think she’s just lonely,” Althea said as she watched her aunt catch up to Mr. Lindt and offer him the glass. He removed his hat, wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm, and accepted the glass gallantly.