Water Witch (13 page)

Suddenly, a flash of mustard-yellow light,
caught out of the corner of his eye, stole Olm’s attention. It was
the size and shape of a basketball, had a tail like a comet, and
hovered over the water a few hundred feet to his right.. He
blinked, and in the fraction of a second it took his eyelids to
flutter, the ball of light was beside him. It circled his boat,
rushed out a couple hundred feet ahead, then stopped and hung in
mid-air—pulsing—pulsing.

Olm had been so shocked by its abrupt
appearance that he’d let go of the throttle, which killed the
engine. While gawking, it suddenly dawned on Olm that he was
looking at a feux fo lais, something he’d heard about since
childhood but had never seen before. Fishermen and trappers spoke
of them often, eerie, illusive swamp lights that taunted and
mesmerized boaters to follow it, then leading them into the deepest
parts of the swamps, where it kept them until daybreak…if they
survived the night . . .if they didn’t wind up lost forever.As
legend had it, the only way to outsmart a feux fo lais was to stick
the blade of a knife in the ground or in the heart of a tree at the
time it was spotted. Supposedly this would send the light dancing
around the blade instead of around its intended victim.

And there was little question in Olm’s mind
that he was indeed this
thing’s
ultimate target.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Watching the yellow sphere, Olm felt himself
being drawn into its dance—the swirling, whirling, so beautiful, so
brilliant—its tail wavered and flickered like a silk scarf in a
breeze. Although it emitted no sound, he could have sworn on
anything and everything holy that it spoke to him. Called to him
seductively—“
Follow me . . .follow meee.”

That call tugged at something deep in Olm’s
chest, making him want to, ache to respond. Every nerve ending in
his body felt awakened by the glow before him, and he found himself
desperately wanting more of it. On a barely conscious level, he
knew he was coming dangerously close to the point of no return,
falling under the feux fo lais’ spell. He gripped the throttle
hard, then purposely snapped his teeth down on his tongue to regain
charge of his senses.

As soon as Olm broke eye contact with the
feux fo lais, he felt stronger, more in control. He leaned over
towards the back of the boat to a tool chest, opened the chest and
grabbed the utility knife he kept inside. He opened the knife and
cranked up the motor again.

Seemingly perturbed by the sound of the
engine, the feux fo lais did a furious twirl about the boat, then
stalled and floated up closer to him. Keeping one eye on it, Olm
aimed the bow of the skiff towards a cypress tree and inched the
boat forward a foot or two. The twirling ball of light followed,
maintaining only a slight distance. For a moment, Olm feared they
might collide before he reached his destination.

Holding his breath, he counted to three, then
cranked the motor up to wide open. In an instant, he slalomed
right, skimming the side of the cypress tree, and as he flew by it,
Olm jammed the pocketknife deep into its soft bark. A second later,
the feux fo lais hit the right side of the boat, nearly jostling
him off his seat, then it flew in an arc over his head towards the
knife. The cry that followed sounded like a thousand female cats in
estrus, and as soon as the feux fo lais hit the handle of the
knife, it burst into a million tiny embers that fell to the water
and died.

With a nod of satisfaction from a job well
done, Olm revved the motor up again and shot off towards the knoll.
He made it there in record time. As soon as he nosed the skiff onto
the bank, he grabbed the gallon of blood near his seat, got out of
the boat, then secured the skiff to a nearby cypress tree with a
rope. Adrenaline had his blood racing, his heart knocking out of
its natural rhythm. The contentment he’d felt only a short time ago
had been replaced with a growing anger and agitation. Nothing was
going to stop him from his mission. Not the feux fo lais, not the
swamp, not the universe itself.
His
destiny was all that
mattered.

Gritting his teeth, Olm hurried to his
special hiding place behind a giant willow, where he kept the mud
bucket and the other tools he knew he’d need for his sacrificial
ceremony. Once there, he placed the gallon of blood near the base
of the tree, picked up the bucket, then marched over to the side of
the knoll and filled the bucket with sludge. Ignoring the painful
weight it placed on his arms, Olm stormed over to the foot of the
hole where the boy sat. Even in the deep purple haze of dusk, he
saw fear in the children’s eyes. That pleading, desperate look
infuriated him all the more.

“You
will
die,” he said, then dumped
the bucket of mud into the boy’s hole. It moved the level of sludge
higher up on the kid’s chest—but not high enough. The girl
whimpered, the boy let out a sob.

Determined, Olm did an about face, went back
to the edge of the knoll, scooped up another bucket of sludge and
carried it back. That one he dropped over the girl, which moved the
level of sludge just under her breastbone. She let out a
bloodcurdling scream, so satisfying to his ear. Looping his arm
through the handle of the now empty bucket, Olm stood before the
kids and pointed to each in turn.

“You will go down in history as the ones
chosen for the Great Olm, his first and final sacrifice to the
Great Tirawa. I am Skidi bred, of the Pawnee Nation. My people are
a great people. My fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, all
strong leaders. So magnificent will be this offering that the
Morning and Evening star will bow before me as they bowed before my
forefathers.”

“I wanna go home!” the boy cried. “Please,
don’t hurt us . . .Mama! I want my mama!”

Olm snorted. “So pathetic. Here you have a
chance to go down in history books, and what do you do? Cry for
your mother’s tit. You’re a pathetic little shit, a sad, sad—”

“Stop!” the girl suddenly yelled. “Leave him
alone! You’re a horrible man, and you’re the shit! You’re the shit!
Nicky didn’t do anything to you. Leave him alone!”

Taken aback by the girl’s outburst, Olm stood
silent for a few seconds with his head cocked. When he finally got
his wits about him, he clenched his teeth and said, “Brazen little
bitch, huh?” With that, he did another about face, went back to the
edge of the knoll for more sludge, then returned to her.

“No, please, she didn’t mean anything,” the
boy cried. “Stop! Don’t hurt her, please! No more—please, no
more!”

Ignoring his pleas, Olm dumped the mud
directly over the girl’s head. She gasped, immediately shook her
head to fling off the muck, her mouth hinged open so she could
breathe.

“No!” The boy’s scream was so loud and shrill
it sent a covey of quails whooshing out from nearby brush.

Olm grinned, watching the sludge ooze down
over the girl’s face, down her shoulders, settle into the pool
already at her chest. When he was sure she was able to breathe
normally, he set the bucket down on the ground and did a series of
little hops and steps, turning in a circle as his people would have
done during a victory dance.

Feeling like he could bend iron with his bare
hands, Olm lifted his arms in the air and let out a triumphant
whoop. Then he lowered his arms, clapped his hands to make sure he
had the children’s full attention, then pointed to a nearby hollow,
cypress stump and the thin shoots of green sprouting from its
middle.

“Do you see that? That dead, rotted cypress
tree, that hull of nothing? It holds
nothing
in and of
itself. There’s nothing left of it but a shell of its former self.
Yet, within its center grows new life, new birth. Do you see that?
Do you see it
? That new life is called an Olm.” He slapped a
hand against his chest. “I am Olm, that which is born from what was
once thought dead. I
am
like that new growth within that old
dead stump. I
will
be reborn. That is the power of my
ancestry, of my tribe, of my people!”

No sooner did he finish his proclamation that
Olm saw a flicker of yellow off to the east. He froze, watching.
The kids were crying, screaming, slobbering all over themselves now
in pathetic, useless supplication. He hated their crying.

“All good,” Olm said. “All good. It will all
be good.” And it would be because they were so very afraid. That’s
what he needed—he neededthem to be afraid. He needed that fear for
Tirawa. He desperately wanted to add more mud—
now
.

Turning his eyes from the orange light in the
distance for only a second, he glanced down at the kids. He
couldn’t add more sludge. Not now. It would take him too far into
the process too fast. Now wasn’t the time to offer them. It wasn’t
time for their deaths. He had to wait. He
had
to. Or all
that he’d worked so hard for would be stolen from him. Everything
in the ceremony had to fall in just the right order with the apex
of Brother Moon as it swelled to glorious fullness.

Olm peered up, saw the dot of orange light
suddenly blink out, then before he was able to draw his next
breath, more lights appeared. Feux fo lais? Dozens more. Some much
closer now. They were the size of marbles and glowed like gator
eyes did in the dark—yellow-orange, steady, intense. But the lights
couldn’t be the eyes of alligators. There were too many of them,
and they were too high off the ground. And they began to dance for
him—call to him—were circling him.

He forced himself to look away, down at the
ground, forcing his thoughts to the number of buckets he would need
to complete the ritual.

Six buckets . . . six each.Six more
buckets and the kids would be gone
. . .

Before Olm knew it, he was scooping sludge up
from the edge of the knoll. He ran back and dumped it over the boy,
his mind spinning.
Don’t look at the lights! Don’t look!

He ran back for more mud, sweat trickling
down his face, heard the kids crying—the whine of insects around
his ears. “Five, just need five for the boy, six for the girl . .
.six.”

The bucket seemed to fill on its own. He
didn’t remember dipping it, scooping up anything, yet he was
already running back towards the kids, grunting, panting, sweating,
the bucket full.

He threw the sludge over the girl. “Five
more! Five!”

Again he found himself racing to the edge of
the knoll, only this time his brain seemed to hook onto a different
frequency in order to admonish him
You’re going too fast. It’s
not time for them to die, stupid! Wait for the moon! Wait!

But he couldn’t wait—couldn’t.

Insects whining—kids crying . . .

“Four buckets now, four!”

Four
. . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Poochie had made good on her promise, serving
up a shrimp stew that would have made Paul Prudhomme envious.
Although it was the best thing I’d tasted in years, getting it past
my throat and into my knotted stomach had been a chore. But then
again, the simple task of breathing had become a chore since my
encounter with the dark figure earlier. Even now, sitting at the
dinner table with my sister’s family, thinking about it, the sound
the thing made—those crying children—haunted me, made my breath
catch. I still heard those children so clearly in my mind, vividly
remembered the thick, dark hand reaching for me. I don’t know if it
was my loud gasp that caused the entity to vanish or the fact that
my eyes went from slits to saucers, but vanish it did, almost as
quickly as it had appeared. Had it not been for Angelle assuring me
over and over that she’d seen it, too, heard it, witnessed
everything I had, I would have thought I’d gone bonkers and
hallucinated the whole thing. Both of us had been so shaken by the
incident, Angelle had to pull out heavy artillery to calm our
nerves—a bottle of Jose Cuervo. Two shots each eventually did the
trick. And I could have used another one right about now.

Although a few hours had passed since the
shadow episode, and I hadn’t seen the thing again since we’d
returned from collecting Poochie at the Bloody Bucket, I still
couldn’t keep from looking over my shoulder—like now.

My next breath was one of relief. Still
nothing. I felt wired for sound. Not only was I anxious over some
goddamn
thing
possibly, suddenly popping up in my face out
of nowhere again, I was worried about the covert operation Angelle
had concocted while downing tequila. She’d hinted at it again on
the drive over to the Bucket, then haphazardly fleshed it out when
Poochie wasn’t underfoot, which was hardly never.

The plan was to get a skiff, which I learned
was an eighteen-foot aluminum boat with a pointed bow, and take
that boat out into the swamp.According to Angelle, it was crucial
to have a pointed bow. Otherwise they’d never get the boat through
the flats, which were filled with water lilies and marsh
grass—whatever the hell that was. And it was important that we
waited to run at night. There was too much activity in the bayous
during the day, men crawfishing, trapping, checking trout lines,
and she was sure they’d get nosey seeing two women out in a boat
alone and undoubtedly ask questions or follow them out of blatant
curiosity. With that in mind, Angelle planned to wait until Trevor
fell asleep tonight, then take his boat. It didn’t matter that the
man was her husband, being an accomplice to grand theft, much less
thieving something I knew nothing about, like boats, made me
nervous.

Poochie slapped a hand on the table,
startling me out of my reverie. “And you should’ve seen dat cow,”
she said, then whisked a hand through the air. “It just took off
down de bayou like somebody was reeling it in wit’ a fishing pole.
No head, its belly all open and its guts hangin’ out. Talk about
something to see, yeah.”