But as she thought about what Cree and Paul told her, she suddenly found the door, swinging open unexpectedly. It made sense out of Ron's inexplicable comments in the kitchen that afternoon. If you knew there was something I did – something that put me in danger. Something I could barely live with… something I could never even do again. Wouldn't you try to protect me?
He hadn't been talking about himself. He was talking about her.
She began to remember: believing Daddy had done it to her. Secretly making the poison from the wild cherry seeds and blossoms as Josephine had told them years ago, and putting it in his amaretto. Coming down later to find Momma with him on the floor, and all the feelings she'd felt. Though she'd been kind of crazy since that night with the boar-headed man, it was that moment in the library that she'd gone truly insane. That searing instant had cauterized her mind, closing the wound and sealing off her memory.
Knowing what she'd done, she wanted again to kill herself. After Cree and Paul had left the hospital room, she'd raged at herself, and at them for trying to deceive her yet again.
But the girl who had done it was so long gone; Lila could not fully blame her. The emotion was weary, it had worn itself out. And all around her now was the kindness of those who sought to protect her. Didn't she owe them the consummation of their kindness? That was what won out, what gave her strength. That much kindness was something of a redemption, wasn't it? People were at least sometimes capable of fine deeds and noble hopes, weren't they?
She made up her mind to pretend she didn't know. Cree had helped her at every step of the way, but this step she decided she'd take on her own. She'd see if she could find Daddy tonight. She'd ask for his forgiveness. She'd try to let him free. Then she'd keep the secret for the rest of her life.
Time passed. She wondered now how long she'd been in here; it seemed like hours, but in the dark it was hard to tell. Cree had said it might take a while, and that Daddy's ghost was a subtler sort of manifestation; she might not experience him as strongly as Brad's ghost, at least not visually. It might be only her heart that perceived him, so she'd have to observe her feelings closely. Be gentle with yourself, Cree had said. Be patient with yourself
She did her best. She tried to relax, and she stared open-eyed around her in the dark. The room wasn't totally black – a little light crept around the edges of the curtains. She could see the vaguest of forms: the dark flat of bookshelves, the lighter walls on either side of the fireplace, the looming lumps of darkness that would be the wingback chairs. Invisible at the far end of the room was the table that had scared her so badly and that throughout the many ordeals with the boar-headed man had lingered in her thoughts and figured in her nightmares. She'd worried that it would persist as the boar-headed man did, it would arise to torment her in some unforseen way. That other things in the house would start changing, too.
But Cree had explained that, too, along with the snake and the wolf. When Cree had asked Josephine about it, down in Port Sulphur, Josephine had shown her a book she'd kept since back then. Again, Lila remembered it the moment Cree told her about it. She and Ro-Ro would go to Josephine's room and huddle up in their pajamas on the quilted bed cover as Josephine read to them. Sometimes it was Bible stories, sometimes fairy tales, but their favorite was an old volume of supernatural stories, illustrated with lurid full-color plates, called Terrors of Devil's Bayou. Daddy called that kind of thing "pulp." The book had heavy, flaking cardboard covers, and just the smell of it when they opened its crumbly pages gave them a delicious thrill of terror. Josephine said it was from back in the 1920s. They'd make her read it, and though she'd always resist she always gave in. It would scare them terribly and they'd come trembling back into the main house to lie wide eyed and quaking in bed, imagining all its lovely horrors.
There was the gigantic water moccasin that dwelt deep in the cypress swamps. It came at night to the scattered houses of Cajun trappers to eat their children, right in their beds. Nothing could stop it: It was able to seep like smoke through cracks in walls, down chimneys, around doors. The old people knew that the black mist that sometimes gathered and glided along the bayous at sundown was the snake, beginning to take form, and that its appearance meant someone would die that night.
The wolf was a loup-garou that terrorized the swamps. He could lope through the night over land or water or swamp and turn into a man or a wolf at will. The scariest picture was when he was halfway between. When he came to the house of his victim, he became as stealthy as a shadow and took great pleasure in stalking his unknowing victim. Before he struck, he'd whisper the name of his intended prey at door cracks and keyholes.
The living table was pictured in the book, Cree said, claw feet and all. Lila remembered the story: An evil rich man in some small town oppressed the men who worked in his sawmill and was cruel to their wives and children. He lived alone in a huge house, and while his neighbors suffered in poverty he indulged himself by buying jewels and baubles, importing fine furniture from France, drinking only the most expensive wines. Eventually the townspeople asked a local witch to put a curse on him. The house and the rich things in it came alive, attacking him, driving him mad, and devouring his soul.
These things happened when you were really haunted, Cree had said. She had a term for it: "epiphenomenal manifestations." Your mind was triggered and generated other scary things, cobbled together from memories and imaginings. The proximity of the unknown could awaken a lifetime's worth of fears.
Lila shivered, remembering the nightmare of the snake's visit, the wolf, the table. But as Cree had predicted, once they'd taken a place in the architecture of her waking, normal world, their power had begun to ebb. She had some control of them.
Cree was very smart, Lila thought again.
But still there was no sign of Daddy's ghost. Cree had told her nothing about what the ghost did, what it felt or needed, only to say that Lila would emerge from the encounter strengthened and freed.
Lila's back ached from sitting on the hard rosewood bench, and a tension pain sank talons into her shoulders. She got up, stretched, took a few steps in the dark, turned to survey the room. The darkness was ordinary darkness, as far as she could tell. It wasn't about to explode at her, or strike at her like some snake. It was just a quiet room where her father had spent many hours of his life. Until that awful table had come alive, she'd always felt a nice feeling in here, safe and calm, and she felt a bit of it now. Did that feeling count as a ghost? She wasn't sure. Daddy used to read in here, smoking his cigar, and he often did his business at the big desk. Sometimes she'd come in here to be with him. Sometimes he'd let her pester him, sometimes he'd shoo her away so he could attend to his affairs.
She repressed the urge to look at her watch. Instead, she recited Cree's parting advice like a chant, a prayer: Don't worry about mechanical time. Take all the time you need. Just let your mind roam. Remember things, if they come to you. Feel what you feel, cherish each feeling, and then let it pass if it will. Keep your eyes moving in the dark, scanning, but remember it could start with a mood, an emotion, or even a smell.
You might get afraid, but just remember this was someone who loved you. His ghost still does, very much. You'll see.
But he wasn't coming. It made her very sad.
"I'm sorry," she said out loud. "We all went kind of crazy. No one knew what to do, did they?" The room just absorbed her words. "I'm sorry I poisoned you. I wasn't really sure it would even work. I didn't know about Brad. I didn't mean to betray you. I love you so much."
There didn't seem to be anyone listening.