Barbara shook her head helplessly. “Just go get a fast shower, and be at the table in ten minutes. Okay?”
Michael nodded, darting out through the dining room, calling a quick hello to his father and sister as he passed. He saw his father’s mouth open, but decided that whatever his father was going to say to him could wait — besides, by the time he got back downstairs, his mother would have straightened the whole thing out.
He paused at the bathroom to start the hot water running in the shower, then went on to his own room, stripped off the rest of his clothes, wrapped himself in a towel, and went back to the bathroom. Steam was pouring from the shower stall, and the mirror was already fogged with condensation. Still, as Michael glanced at the misted glass, the memory of what he’d seen there before leaped once more into his mind.
But why tonight?
He got into the shower, shampooed his hair, then soaped the washcloth and began scrubbing the perspiration off his body. Suddenly he froze, his skin crawling with the feeling that he was being watched. He shut off the water and listened for a few seconds, finally pulling the curtain open.
The bathroom was empty.
Feeling ridiculous, he turned the shower back on, letting the stream flow full force over his soapy body.
Less than a minute later he was done, but as he stepped out of the stall and grabbed his towel, he once more had the sensation of unseen eyes fixed on him. He dried himself quickly, trying to rid himself of the eerie feeling, telling himself it was all taking place in his imagination.
He started out of the bathroom, then paused, his eyes fastened on the clouded mirror.
There was something there.
He could feel it.
Reaching across the sink with the towel, he wiped away the moisture on the glass.
It disappeared almost as quickly as he saw it, but the image stuck in his mind.
A face.
An old man’s face, staring at him.
The face of a dead man, with empty eyes.
Michael stood rooted in front of the mirror, his mind numb. Where had the image come from? Had it even been real?
It couldn’t have been, for when he’d seen it, his own reflection hadn’t been there at all. It had been replaced by the grotesque image of the old man.
No, it had to have been some kind of strange refraction caused by the wetness on the mirror. He’d seen only himself, distorted by the steam in the room.
Yet as he hurriedly dressed and joined his family at the supper table, he found himself unable to rid himself of the dark image he’d glimpsed in the mirror, and when he finally went to bed that night, he stayed awake a long time, the reading light on, a book propped in his lap.
But the book remained unread, for no matter how hard he tried, the memory of what he’d seen in the mirror refused to ease its grip on him. Twice he went back to the bathroom, closed the door, and stood in front of the mirror, not only searching the glass for any remnant of the vision, but studying his own reflection as well, trying to see the old man’s face in his own features, trying to envision himself as a wizened relic of what he was now.
But all he could see were his own familiar features, his clear blue eyes and strong jaw, the hints of dimples in his cheeks, which deepened when he smiled, and his unruly blond hair, rumpled from the pillow.
What he’d seen that night — and the other times, too — had to be nothing more than tricks of his own mind.
At last, back in his bed once again, he put the book aside, switched off the light, and pulled the sheet over his body.
Outside, the moon still shone brightly, and the insects and frogs filled the night with their music.
It was a music that Michael had always before found soothing, but tonight he tossed restlessly, resisting sleep.
When sleep finally came, the face dominated his dreams, looming up at him out of the darkness, leering at him, reaching for him with gnarled clawlike hands.
Three times during the night he awakened, his body sweating, his muscles tense, still caught in the nightmare.
The fourth time he awakened, it was dawn, and the morning light finally seemed to drive the night specter away.
• • •
Clarey Lambert hadn’t slept at all that night. Clarey was past ninety, she was sure of that, but how much past she no longer bothered to reckon. After all, it didn’t matter. All that really mattered was that she was still alive.
Still alive, and still looking after things.
Clarey lived alone, five miles from Villejeune. Five miles as the crow flew, anyway. A lot farther when you went by boat. You had to wind through the bayous, watching all the landmarks, or you’d never find the place. And, in fact, very few people ever did find Clarey’s house. Often weeks would go by without Clarey seeing anyone, but always, just when she was running low on food, someone would show up and her stores of flour and rice, or whatever else she needed, would be replenished. For vegetables, she’d long ago cleared out a little patch on the island behind her house, where she raised okra and beans, and some sweet potatoes. Not enough to sell for money, but enough for herself, with a little left over to trade with the other swamp rats for whatever else she needed.
As the gray light of dawn began to brighten, Clarey stirred in the chair on her porch and stretched her bones. There were a few aches, but not too bad, all things considered. She heaved herself out of her chair, went into the shack she’d lived in most of her life — the shack in which she’d borne her children, and raised the only one who’d survived — and poked at the dying coals in the stove she used for cooking. She added a chunk of cypress to the fire, then put on a kettle of water.
Coffee — thick and black, well-laced with chicory — would drive the arthritis out of her bones.
She was still standing at the stove when she sensed someone approaching and she moved stiffly back out onto her porch, her still-sharp eyes scanning the bayous.
Sure enough, less than a minute later a rowboat emerged from the reeds and slid across the water. There were two boys in the boat, both of them in their late teens, both wearing dirty overalls held up by a single strap. Quint Millard feathered the oars, and the boat turned, drifting to a stop a few feet from Clarey’s sagging porch. From the bench in the stern, Jonas Cox gazed up at Clarey through eyes that barely seemed to focus. But though his expression revealed nothing, Clarey knew exactly what was in his mind.
George Coulton.
“It warn’t your fault, Jonas,” she told him. “You didn’t have no choice. You understand that?”
Jonas’s brow furrowed slightly. “Me and George was friends. I didn’t—”
“You done what the Dark Man made you do,” the old woman declared. “Ain’t nothin’ anyone can do about that. So you just remember that you didn’t do nothin’! You hear me?”
Jonas nodded mutely, and Clarey turned to Quint Millard. “You got somethin’ to tell me, too?”
“Saw someone new last night,” Quint replied.
Clarey’s body tensed. “New?” she repeated. “Where?”
“By the canals, where they’s buildin’ all them houses.”
The old woman’s countenance darkened at the mention of the development. She knew who the developer was — she knew who everyone in Villejeune was — and she didn’t like Carl Anderson. And it wasn’t just for what he was doing to the swamp, chipping away at it, draining a few acres here, a few acres there, ruining it for all the people and animals who’d lived in it peacefully for hundreds and hundreds of years. No, she had other reasons for hating Carl Anderson. His name had gone on her list years ago, long before he’d started encroaching on her beloved marshes.
“Who was the person?” Clarey asked, though after last night, she was almost certain she knew.