Blue-Dark Bayou Ch. 02

(This is written somewhat in dialect; reprehensible spelling and grammar are completely intentional- This includes the word "trepidacious", which is not a word at all, but if it were, wow. It'd be one of the swellest words ever.) XXX Mademoiselle

* * * * *

What now, was there to say of it?

Morning did break, bright and balmy, but all too soon it would be vicious day, wrathful with heat- just let the noon hour chime.

She woke early, at the first petulant shaft of sun that thrust itself through the many-paned windows, and rose wearily at its insistence.

Marie'd slept fitful in the horsehair chair by the hearth, legs pulled up tight and curled beneath her, like a child- afraid of the monsters that roiled beneath the bed. Or in it.

The madness of the night before had not gone far from her mind. Even her dreams had been permeated, soaked through by that dark stain, and rendered disjointed and jagged.

She felt listless, blunt-stunned.

Even so, there were things to attend, it wouldn't bear forgetting.

Marie dared not so much as creep into her bedroom to fetch her housedress, mindful as she was of what lay there. The house, by morning, was cast in blessed silence; it was hers not to disturb it.

Instead she went out, onto the dry, sparse grass of the side lawn and took a dress off the line. It was one of her better ones, and not meant for rough use, but no matter. A ruined sundress was nothing beside a wracked, wrecked soul, was it now? Marie thought not.

She took herself into the kitchen and hasty shed the trappings of last night's shame in favor of this morning's laundry, wind-dried fresh and crisp. When she was done, the sullied nightgown lay over the kitchen chair-back, sweet in pale blue but tainted with invisible sin.

And Marie, why, she was clad in red gingham check and felt ever so much the better for it, if not exactly virtuous. For the bare truth of it was, there was no divesting herself of what was now tainted irreversibly- her very flesh. The thought made her weak, and she cast it off, turning her thoughts to the morning chores.

She lit a fire under the stove and put on the kettle, then made her way out to the hen-house and gathered the eggs. Last night's bread had risen, so she put it in to bake, all the while dreading what particular hell would come down with that sound of a step on the stair.

Trepidation coiled up and sat, indolent in her belly like a cottonmouth snake, until she could scarcely bear it.

But the morning did go on, as her apprehension grew, almost to a fever, and she worked harder, taking down the big cast iron pan where it hung on a horseshoe nail and scrubbing it out with coarse corn meal. When she had done, she rubbed it out with a smear of grease and set it on the stove.

It was all there, ready at her hand. As every morning, she was jenny-on-the-spot with Jesse's breakfast- yet she dared not wake him.

The words he'd said, oh Lord- but she couldn't think of that now. All because he'd et that wretched apple. Oh, make no mistake, that's what it was. Conjur' woman reveled in such thick draughts of badness, and Marie was certain as she ever had been that this was a sickening trick 0f the old witch's vengeful nature.

It weren't Jesse, she told herself, firmly. Them weren't his words, what come out his mouth. Get a handle on it, Lucy-Marie, and be gracious, Saints alive. He's bound to feel right mortified o'er it.

After all, hadn't he told her-

Just what she wanted to hear?

Heaven above and Lucifer under! It would never do to think like that. She reproved herself, all the while knowing it was a study in futility. Why, Jesse might have been innocent, that much was true- and blameless, because of it- but she, well now, she wasn't. She done lusted after her own brother, and weren't no b'witched apple to blame.

None to blame but Lucy-Marie, to put a fine point on it.

It was real near eleven by the grandfather clock, and not a stir from above.

She drank black coffee from a cracked china cup, wincing at the taste, but forgoing all sugar and cream. She needed to be sharp, not lulled by pleasant distractions.

The clock had struck noon by the time Jesse came down, in time with the chimes of the angelus. The slow and steady creak of the wooden stairs betrayed his halting steps, and there he was, him, every bit the fallen angel descending, hand at his temple, rubbing his brow, his hair in rumpled spurs and curls of gold.

Marie swallowed- everything, all things- pride and fear and prejudice, and poured him a cup of coffee.

"Lord Christ," he murmured. "Lucy-doll, what time is it?"

He looked-

Well, now, he looked rueful.

Certifiably, he looked rueful.

But he didn't look all too ashamed.

"Well," she stammered, fixing a bright smile over her face, for him, "Well, now- it's...twelve noon. I reckon you'll want your breakfast."

Jesse drew up, sudden.

"Noon?" he exclaimed. "I got to get out in the field, I done missed the boys, hours ago- didn't cousin Beau come by to fetch me?'

"I sent them on," said Marie, "I told them you wasn't feeling altogether well."

Jesse nodded, slowly, and sat down at the table.

"All right then."

He shook his head wryly.

"Just as well, I guess, you drove Beau off- he wouldn't have been so all-fire pleased with me this morning, considering all I done to his little sister."

Marie felt a blush creep over her jawline, and her shoulders felt all drawn-up, funny, as she cracked eggs into the pan. Jesse weren't one to gild the lily, of course, but- to be so cavalier in the face of what he done, why that was pure brass. If that was to be the way of't...

Ought she say something?

"I s'pose you got back early- last night, that is." She said, vaguely, keeping her back to him.

"Yes'm, I suppose I did, at that." Jesse's voice was sheepish.

He gave a short, clipped laugh, followed at the heels by a groan.

"God's presents, Lucy- I feel like I been hit with a sledge. Almost like I been drinkin' still water."

She risked a glance at him. His blue eyes were good-naturedly bleary.

He looked over at the stove, gave her a plaintive smile.

"Say, I sure could use some coffee. Take pity on a boy, Lucy-Marie."

'Course she'd already poured it. Ages ago, now. She'd just forgotten, and who could blame her, things bein' what they were.

She handed him the cup.

"I daresay there's a good deal of 'shine sickness about," she said, hesitantly, trying to make light of it. "That's a prime malady in these parts."

Jesse took a long drink of his coffee, his eyebrows drawn up like he was pondering something real tricky, and Marie could see what Manda Jane'd said about him, movie stars and whatnot. All the same-

Don't think on't, she thought. You don't want to think about that, or Manda Jane neither.

Jesse sighed.

"Well, I reckon I know what it feels like, and this is a real fair likeness. I'll say that much. I'm strung up like a hung puppet."

He exhaled slowly, and leaned back in his chair.

Marie couldn't believe him, his audacity- to saunter down midmorning as if nothing much'd come of it, clad only in worn denim, and no, she would not look at his chest, thank you all the same.

She took up her wooden spoon and stirred the eggs with a vengeance.

"Where's Manda Jane, then?" she managed to ask, hoping her voice sounded common normal enough.

Jesse couldn't help but laugh, just a little, though it was a wan laugh, to be sure.

"Sleeping justified," he said. "I don't guess we'll be seein' her for some hours yet."

Marie threw in some sausages and crumbled-down soda crackers along with the eggs, unable to ask what plagued her like locusts- why did he act so? Like that? The boy was unruffled, that much was plain, as if it weren't no thing that he'd almost had his own baby sister up under him, that she'd almost been prey to his lust.

"I surely don't know what come over me," Jesse said, rubbing his hair slowly with his hand. "I ain't never so much as looked crosswise at Manda Jane- and not like that, for certain. I can't believe I done her like that, I surely can't." He paused, shrugged. "But I did, sure 'nuff- there ain't no doubt about that."

"No, I don't guess so."

He turned to her, his eyes opening a little.

"Oh, Lord, now Lucy- you got to forgive me...I oughtn't have got up to that kind of thing with Manda Jane... even as she's kin, she is your friend, withal."

Jesse shook his blond head, perplexed.

"Thing is, Lucy- I don't know's I could've stopped it. I wasn't even in my head- or at least, couldn't hardly have been right in it. I don't even rightly know how we got to your room- I woke up on your bed, and I'll tell you, that was a shock near big as wakin' up twixt the wall and Manda Jane."

Marie drew in her breath, suddenly.

Could it be he didn't remember at all?

"Do say something, Lucy- we've allus been straight with one another, now, ain't we? It weren't a-tall decent, what I done, I know that- why, come to think of it, Lucy- where'd you get off to, that I could get up to anything with Manda? You sleep down here all night? I must have missed seein' you when I come home, I reckon."

"Why, yes," she said, slowly, pouring the rest of the hot coffee into the pan and stirring everything up altogether. "I reckon that's exactly what I done. Truth to tell, I ain't so fond of sleeping with Manda Jane- there's times she snores something awful."

Jesse laughed.

"That ain't all she does, I guess." He paused. "Hell's kitten, Lucy- I'm awful sorry. I oughtn't talk like that around you, about them kind of things. It ain't right."

Marie smiled as she set a heaping plate down in front of him.

"Don't fret o'er it, Jesse-boy. I ain't exactly delicate."

"I know that," he said, uneasy. "All he same, it's hardly fit conversation."

He sighed.

"After this I reckon I'll go down and mend fences around the hutch. They been broke for a while now, and now's as good a time as any, seeing as I got a free day and all."

He smiled at her.

"Maybe it'll put the sense back into me."

He fell to, and ate like a ravenous man, like he hadn't had a meal in days, handily dispatching what all was on his plate- and after that, finished all that was left in the skillet.

"Now that's something more the like," he said, stretching. The muscles of his torso gave her pause as they rippled coyly under his flesh.

He went for his boots, glancing back at her with a grin.

"I feel near human again, Christ almighty."

"Well now, what else would you be?" Marie said, with forced cheer, mustered up from the depths of her gut.

Jesse made an incredulous face.

"Can't say's I know- I felt, almost b'witched, I reckon- if'n a man could know what that was like."

Marie laughed, too loud, she thought, too jubilant for what it warranted.

"G'won- you."

When he had left, Marie sank down into his chair.

He didn't know. How could it be?

Where were you, then, Lucy-girl? Reckon I didn't see you, lying there, not a stitch, with that flame-headed Manda Jane lappin' on you like a barn-cat to a saucer of cream-

Oh, she'd been there, sure enough.

She'd looked into his eyes, right into them, and he'd said-

He'd said, "I'll take you next."

Just see if I don't.

The chair was still warm from his body- his body- and Marie leapt up as if scalded, intent on putting a distance between herself and whatall might harbor his essence.

She turned, first this way, then that, wringing the hem of her dress.

All a sudden, a thought occurred, and she glanced up at the staircase.

Would Manda Jane recall what they done- or like Jesse, would she plead that strange amnesia?

Marie didn't feel inclined to linger and fret on it. It had been trouble enough with Jesse. On the spur of the moment, she ran outside, down the weathered porch steps and onto the land.

In the distance she could see the form of her brother as he labored with the fence, wiping his brow and lifting rail after rail as if they were no more than straw. His body was accustomed to such work- welcomed it, in fact-

What about last night's work? Purred something delicious and vile from the nether and ether of her mind. Not his customary fare, but he took to that like a duck, now, didn't he?

Marie winced, and willed it away. Lust, again- the demonized voice that spoke out of turn, the bane of her piety, the scourge of all her days.

She veered down the loamy path that led away from the homestead and into the swamp. Marie kept on, as the depths enclosed, and the light grew less and less, blotted out by the relentless vine and vegetation. And presently, as the path threatened to fade away altogether, she was presented a new path- narrow, and overhung with rampant green.

The road to Conjur' woman's place.

Here the kudzu was thicker, the trees monolithic, but Marie scarcely hesitated. She wasn't afraid of Conjur' woman, so much. She kept to herself, withal, save for the occasional summons- a pregnancy, a well divining- things that found use in her art. And it found use in many things; she could predict seasons with fair insight, or advise in planting the year's crop- it was even said she could speak a sort of bastardized broken tongue to the beasts of the hearth and field, though Marie couldn't attest to't herself.

And, it mustn't be left out- Conjur' woman dealt in witchery proper; omens and curses and spells, potion and poultice. A body could seek her out for goodwill- herbs and cures- or for bad, whatever that dark ill-wish might be.

Conjur' woman weren't necessarily bad in the marrow of her bones, but she was bad with necessity- didn't take well to bein' crossed, or stole from, like most folks- only she had considerable more power in vindication than most unfortunates. If it were anything, she was possessed of a wicked temper, and a humor more wicked still, but it wasn't pure undiluted evil of the bottled variety, not a-tall that. She herself, now, had only a mild malevolence- pity for the weak, contempt for the self-made fool, and disdain for the wicked.

Marie was none of these, to her own mind, least not as Conjur' woman saw it in her particular view.

At last the conqueror kudzu parted ways with the path, and her eyes did behold Conjur' woman herself, in the living flesh, settin' up on her porch like a queen on a rickety throne of oak.

She was old, it was hardly told how old. Her origin race wasn't rightly clear to the eye, save for that she was human- her skin was burnished, tarnished, folded like an Indian blanket- brown as dried apple. Her eyes were pallid and of no color a body might recognize. She wore gypsy rags, and jangles- maybe less for their charm than their charms, Marie thought, rapt with the sight of her.

"Come 'ere, come 'ither- you," she said, as interest sparked up in her deep-buried eyes. "I don't guess you've come out fer nothing, Miz."

Marie drew close in, watchful, but not wary.

She reached into her apron pocket- and there it was, the apple core. She'd hastily thrust it away, out of sight, before Jesse came down to the kitchen and saw- and suspected the nature of his affliction.

"I have this," she said, halting. "And I come by it honest enough- though it weren't gotten that way. I 'spect you might recognize it."

Conjur' woman took it from her hand and turned it in her fingers, gazing at it, slow and thoughtful.

"Eh. And you et this apple, child?"

Marie swallowed and found it bitter, but best to dispense with it.

"No ma'am, not me. But my cousin Manda Jane- she et one- and my brother too."

A grin creased Conjur' woman's face at that, and she seemed real amused, all a sudden, like it was the funniest, most intricate joke ever told.

"And you found yerself in yer brother's way, is that it, girl? Him under the influence of that apple, I don't doubt it much- if she be pretty, it wouldn't matter who she was, once she got in his eye."

She leaned forward.

"Whatsit you want, girl- what d'ye seek from this ol' witch o' the wood? Revenge? You want he should pay fer what he done?"

She paused, licked her beveled lips.

"Or is it- somethin' else?"

Marie shook her head, violent with the spin and churn of her thoughts.

"No, that ain't it- not precise, nohow..."

She struggled to capture her thoughts, now that Conjur' woman had made her head reel.

"I was in the way of Manda Jane, I reckon- "

"Ah," Conjur' woman intoned. "Yer girl-cousin, then."

"Yes," Marie said, shame-faced, but pressed on. "When Jesse come upon us- and I didn't know it, but he'd took up and et that other apple, the one I didn't- Manda Jane must have left it on the table."

She took a breath.

"And he done come upon us, and we- we were in the throes of sin, Conjur' woman- and he done took Manda Jane, took her like demons had hold of his shoulders- and I slipped away, as I was able- but not before-"

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"Not before he said he'd take me too."

"And he would've." Conjur' woman agreed, without philosophy.

"Won't you help me?" Marie cried, agonized.

Conjur' woman eyed her.

"What would you have me do- Lucinda?"

And Marie blanched back at the use of her given name, that it should be so known to this old mother of the swamp.

"Oh, yes, I know ye by name, I know the all of ye- its tiresome business, it is. I see it all. Go and look in my well, if ye don't believe it-" she chuckled. "No, don't- if ye value yerself, that's a better thought- don't ye ever do what this old witch tells you."

"Please, you needn't do a thing, jest tell me- what's the nature of this curse?"

Conjur' woman frowned at that.

"Curse? Hmmph, girl- it ain't no curse."

"Sure it is," protested Marie, incredulous. "Set by you to teach the apple-stealers, and rightful so- but I've gone awry of't, and I 'spect you can tell me how long it'll plague us-"

"Hmmph, girl, and hmmph agin. Them apples ain't curst- far from! Why, they're blessed, I daresay, in a manner of speakin'..." she chuckled again. "Surely to some."

She gestured to the tree.

"Them's love apples, girl- though true to tell, they got precious little to do with love in a poet's sense- ain't you never heard of 'em? It's a charm, bought by some to win over the will of another's desire, if it ain't freely giv'n."

Conjur' woman shook her head and cackled.

"No, them apples ain't curst, but whosoever thinks to pluck in Conjur' woman's garden best tread with care, that's certain."

Marie faltered.

"But- how's the spell broke, then? What remedy?"

Conjur' woman leaned back in her chair, sighing.

"Why, it's more than likely gone already- it ain't an enduring charm, though it burns plenty hot- packs a bit of a wallop that'll catch you on the return, true 'nuff, but it wears thin in a matter of hours- don't you fret on't, child. Yer sweet brer Jesse-boy, he'll be right as rain from now on. He won't recollect a thing 'bout you."

"He didn't," Marie said, slowly. "Not a thing- but he recollected Manda Jane, withal- recollected her plenty."

"Well, you said she et the apple, too- so they'd remember each other. Now accourse he won't be remembrin' you, girl- as you ain't et none of't. What good for the giver of the apple, if the unwillin' can recollect the deed?"

"I reckon that's true, though none of that figures here."

"Still, there it be."

Conjur' woman smiled, a curious smile.

"Tell me child, whatsit now? Is that all ye want of me?"

Marie bit her lip.

"It's what I done come for."

"Then what's keepin' you from walkin' right on home? Now you got yer answer, girl- ain't you a-feared of this ol' witch?"

Marie shook her head, relieved at the question- it took her out of herself, didn't it? Out of the darker thoughts that dared to rear their heads now that she knew all there was to know.