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Her cry rang out in the darkness, but there
was no one there to hear. Another dream. Not frightening enough
to be called a nightmare, but powerful enough to draw her from the bowels
of deep sleep. What was it? She could hear the tick of
the grandfather clock downstairs as it counted off the seconds in the empty,
silent house. She imagined she could hear the drums. The place
beside her in the large brass bed was as empty as the house. Another
night spent alone. Where was he? He should have been
here.
It all came rushing back then. He was gone. He wasn't coming home tonight. Or any night for that matter. Sitting up, letting the covers fall to her waist, she drew her knees to her chest. Was he here? Watching over her? "I love you." she whispered to the darkness. But tonight, the darkness was silent, save for the clock. Tick.... Tock..... |
Rachael wandered downstairs, drawn by something deep within herself, to a place she knew she would feel closest to him. Mule. God, how she missed him. Had it only been two days? This was not the first time the hand of Death had touched her, but it was the closest the scythe had ever fallen to her heart.
"Death ain' de en'. Never were an' nevah will be."
She could still hear the words he had spoken just a short time ago. Had he known he would be leaving her?
Tick.... Tock ....
"Now, you ought close yo' eyes. Nof'ing harm you heah, nof'ing harm you while I heah. Close yo' eyes, be quiet, listen..."
But he wasn't here. Or was he? She entered the small room she had only just recently visited for the first time as something other than an interloper. Everything was as it had been on that night. Everything still in it's place, as if waiting for someone. In front of the mirror she stood, gazing into the reflection of herself.
Tick .... Tock .....
"It de Mirrah, Rachael. Legba's Mirrah got a rythym all it's own... it all of creation, dis side an' de next. De side mos' folk will nevah see save by dyin'."
How had she come to this point? A question one asks oneself many times in a lifetime. She smiled faintly, knowing he would not want her to grieve too deeply. But grief is not for the dead, it is for the living. And.. Rachael was still very much alive, despite the empiness of loss that filled her. She sat down in the old leather chair he had placed in her on 'that night', drawing her legs up to her chest.
Tick..... Tock.....
"Keep yo' feet on de flo'. Don' mattah how small you make yo'se'f, dey's no hidin' from de spirits of de dead."
Feet back on the floor, another smile creeping to her lips as she relaxed into the comfort offered by the the chair. She could still smell him here. The smoky musk of his cigar. The faint residue of spilled rum. He was here. If only in her memory. How had she come to this point? The question echoed in her mind as she closed her eyes and reflected on the events that had brought her to sit in this very chair. At this very moment.
Tick.... Tock....
Tick.... Tock....
Tick.... Tock....
How she got there....
Rachael had an exceedingly average life. Parents who stayed married. Acceptable grades. Moderately popular. Active in sports. Experimental drug usage. A few meaningless relationships based on sex and attraction. A few one night stands. Typical 20 year old college student. Typical until she discovered the nightlife of the French Quarter.
Never much of a partier, she'd been to a few places on Bourbon. Got the drinks to go. Wandered the streets like a tourist with her giggling college girlfriends. But slowly, the magic and mystery that comes alive in the Quarter at night began to call to her more and more, and soon she fell prey to it, letting it absorb her. Staying up to all hours. Missing classes. Partying till the sun came up. Sleeping till noon.
Then she met Clarence Labourteaux. Animalistically charismatic. She saw him, and had to have him. She was full of attitude she could only pretend to when she plopped her barely concealed bottom down on a chair at his table, but by the time the pair left, it was she who was being taken. Taken into a world she had only read about in books. He killed a man for her. A man, who in a drunken stupor mistook her for another and attempted to take what she likely would have given without a struggle. Faithful? No. Clarence never required it, and she never offered it. Loyal? Definitly. It was how she was raised, and even were it not, had she not been, she wouldn't have lived long. Clarence met his end at the wrong end of a sharpshooter's sights, holed up in a warehouse down by the docks. By the time that chapter of her life closed, the attitude was as much a part of her as anything could be. No longer pretended to, but a part of what she was, and what she had become.
Enter Mule Henderson. Oh how she hated the man.
**** Unfinished Work. Stay tuned. ****
