Chapter 1
JORI TRAHERN
May 2006
Moon glowed through pine and cypress, the tree branches forming gnarled, twisted shapes that cast daggers of black in the silvered darkness. The litany of a million insects triggered a Disney-esque Fantasia light show in my mind.
My particular form of synesthesia, colored hearing, had its perks. Muted hues of green, blue, and yellow burst onto a black canvas. Mosquito buzzes morphed to pointed-star formations. An occasional long spherical column formed as a frog croaked its guttural song.
But that night, the delight in my mental smorgasbord of sound and color was interrupted by annoyance. And hurt. Deacon Cormier, my boyfriend of eighteen months, had stood me up, and I was determined to discover why.
Friday nights were our standing date night at Broussard’s Pavilion, along with many other of our senior classmates from Erie County High School. We both enjoyed the lively zydeco band with its fast tempo featuring an accordion, scrub board, and guitar. All my shyness and reserve melted away when Deacon would pull me onto the wooden deck and we danced. Actually, to say we danced is being generous. More like we stomped around with little grace but lots of enthusiasm.
I trudged on across the boggy bayou ground, making no effort to hide the noise of my boots breaking twigs and cones beneath my feet. I slapped at the limbs and vines that diligently, maliciously snaked over the cleared trail no matter how often Deacon’s dad hired locals to keep it trimmed back.
These woods had a wild determination that no man could tame. But not being from around here, Louis Cormier didn’t understand this land or its personality. South Alabama natives like me knew we were the trespassers and the swamp reigned supreme over us mere mortals—not the other way around.
“Damn it,” I cursed as a wisteria vine scratched against the side of my face and neck. I didn’t bother keeping my voice low. Why should I? All that was on my mind that evening was talking to Deacon.
At last, lights from the Cormier house appeared, sparkling like a beckoning fairyland promising magic. The large log, rock, and glass structure glowed as though it contained a fallen star within.
Someone was home that evening.
Even after dating Deacon all this time, I was still awed by his house. Our parents’ homes might be less than a quarter mile apart, but the white-columned grandness of his house was a stark contrast to our modest old place, so small that Mama and I had to share a bedroom. As a prominent attorney, Mr. Cormier commanded and received a high salary for his services.
I walked up the wooden stairway of the wide front porch. Once I was halfway up the steps, a wave of unease prickled the nape of my neck. Despite the glow of lights flowing through uncurtained windows, the house was too quiet. No sound of a television or voices, or even pots rattling in the kitchen or footsteps from within. Why leave all the lights blazing if they’d gone out?
I could practically hear my grandmother’s tsk in my ear. “Such wastefulness,” Mimi would declare. At our home, every light was immediately turned off once a room wasn’t in use. The less we owed on utilities, the more we could spend on luxuries like store-bought clothes.
I peeked in the living room window, taking in the stack of schoolbooks Deacon had carelessly tossed on an end table. A pillow had dropped to the floor beside the sofa. I glanced to my right, spotting a few dirty glasses and plates strewn on the kitchen island. The slight messiness contrasted with the pristine neatness of the home’s interior, signaling that its occupants were confident there would always be someone else to clear the chaos.
That someone happened to be my grandmother. She wasn’t their daily housekeeper, but she came every Friday for the deep-cleaning tasks Clotille Cormier wanted to keep the home sparkling and suited for their many visitors. Their guests seemed impressed with the views of Magnolia Bay, yet whenever they roamed Bayou Enigma, the visitors nervously checked the ground beneath them for gators, snakes, and other unsavory creatures. While they appreciated the primitive beauty of our land, I imagined they were secretly relieved when they returned to Mobile or Montgomery or wherever else they flocked from.
“Wouldn’t want their designer shoes to slosh through mud,” Mimi would utter about the out-of-town guests. I found her rancorous remarks odd, considering that Uncle Buddy, her brother, was so wealthy. The sporting lodge and private fishing expeditions company he’d opened thirty years ago had prospered beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Louis Cormier did well as an attorney, but he was not in Uncle Buddy’s league—a fact I had pointed out to Mimi.
I shook off my meandering thoughts and rapped sharply at the door. Deacon should have been at my house over an hour ago. If he had a good explanation for why he’d ghosted me, we could leave then and still have a couple of hours to dance before I had to hustle home to meet my curfew.
“Go without him,” Mimi had urged. “Fancy people and their rudeness,” she’d harrumphed under her breath. “Everything’s all about them. Ain’t got no consideration for others.”
Unfazed, I’d let her comment roll off me. Deacon wasn’t fancy or stuck up, and I liked his parents, too, even if everyone else couldn’t stand them. Louis Cormier was universally despised for supposedly paying low wages to his household and yard crew and for his flamboyant lifestyle. Clotille Cormier was seen as glib and “artsy.”
Not one of us, the folks in Bayou Enigma whispered through tight-pinched scowls.
There was no answer to my knock. No rush of footsteps from within or a familiar voice calling out, “I’m coming.”
My skin tightened with another prickle of unease.
I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the den. No one roamed inside. It was one of the few weekends they had no planned guests arriving. Mimi had only worked a couple of hours that morning before being dismissed. Naturally, she’d grumbled about the reduced hours, which meant even less money.
Had all three of the Cormiers decided to travel to their Mobile home for some reason? Perhaps Deacon’s dad had unexpected urgent business in the city and had asked his son and wife to go with him. That had happened on a few occasions since I’d met them.
But why leave all the lights on?
Maybe they hadn’t heard my knock. I strode back to the door and rang the doorbell. Its chime echoed forlornly inside. Pressing my nose to the pane of glass by the entrance, I craned my neck from side to side to see if anyone might be in the hallway or kitchen.
“Hey,” I called out, knocking sharply at the door again. “It’s Jori. Anybody home?”
No answer.
Gingerly, I tested the lock, and the knob twisted all the way around with a click. I pushed the heavy door open, and it creaked as loudly as thunder. I stuck my head inside. “Anyone here?” I called out again.
I pushed my shoulders through the opening, drew a deep breath, and then took a tentative step inside. They knew me; they liked me. It’d be okay.
The delicious aroma of roasted chicken wafted toward me—they were home, then, or they had been recently. Underlying the scent of dinner was a very faint trace of some kind of disinfectant cleanser. I kept calling out “Hello?” and “Anybody home?” as I stepped cautiously from the foyer to the den.
Two half-full glasses of iced tea sat on the coffee table, one of them rimmed with Mrs. Cormier’s ruby lip gloss. Nerves on edge, I entered the kitchen and found the table set for three. Bright cherry-red plates on gold chargers, glasses of melted ice, a bowl of salad greens already wilting. A casserole dish of potatoes sat on the granite counter, and I gingerly touched the baking dish. It was cold. I opened the oven and found a slightly overdone roasted chicken; the oven setting had been lowered to “warm.” I turned it completely off, not wanting their dinner to go to ruin. They must have had an emergency call and left the house quickly, expecting to return shortly.