How lonely my world has become, and yet I have never been afraid to be alone until now, for now there is someone else to worry about and protect: my precious Pearl, asleep, dreaming baby dreams, waiting for her life to start.

It is up to me to make sure it starts with sunlight and not with shadows, with hope and not with fear. How will I do it? The answers linger in the darkness, waiting to be discovered. Were they left there by the spirits of good or the spirits of evil?


Book One

1

  Choices

The growl of Paul's approaching motorboat annoyed a pair of grosbeak herons that had been strutting arrogantly on the thick branch of a cypress tree, and they both spread their wings and dove into the Gulf breeze to glide deeper into the swamps. Rice birds flicked their wings as well and soared over the water to disappear into the marsh.

It was a very warm and humid Thursday afternoon in late March, but Pearl was very alert and active, twisting and struggling to break free of my embrace and crawl toward the dry domes of grass that were homes to the muskrats and nutrias. Her hair had grown faster this past month and was already below her ears and at the base of her neck. It was leaning more toward blond than brown now. I had dressed her in an ivory dress with pink fringes on the collar and sleeves. She wore the little cotton booties I had woven out of cotton jaune last week.

As Paul's boat drew closer, Pearl raised her eyes. Although she was a little more than eight months old, she seemed to have the alertness and awareness of a one-year-old. She loved Paul and took such delight in his every visit, her eyes brightening, her little arms and hands waving, her legs kicking to break free of me so she could rush to him.

Paul's boat came around the bend and he waved as soon as he spotted us on the dock. I had finally agreed to let him take us to see his grand new home, which was close to completion. Until now, I had avoided doing so, for I feared that once I set foot in the mansion, I would be tempted to accept Paul's proposal.

Perhaps it was only in my eyes, but to me Paul had grown leaner, more mature, since I had returned to the bayou. There was still that boyish glint in his blue eyes from time to time, but most always now, he was pensive and serious. His new business duties as well as the supervising of the building of his home, combined with his worrying about Pearl and me, kept a dark shadow over his face, a shadow that troubled me, for I was afraid I was dragging him down along with me. Of course, he spared no effort to convince me I was wrong. Every time I suggested such a thing, he laughed and said, "Don't you know that when you returned to the bayou, you brought the sunshine back into my life?"

Right now his face was full of smiles as he brought the boat up to the dock.

"Hi. Guess what," he said excitedly. "The chandeliers were just hung and turned on. Wait until you see them. It's a spectacle. I had them imported from France, you know. And the pool is filled and running. Do you know the stained glass in the Palladian fan window comes from Spain? I paid a fortune for it," he added without taking a breath.

"Hello Paul," I said, laughing.

"What? Oh, I'm sorry." He leaned forward to kiss my cheek. "I guess I sound a little excited about our house, huh?"

I looked down. I couldn't keep my heart from fluttering every time he said our house.

"Paul . . ."

"Don't say anything," he said quickly. “Don't come to any conclusions or decisions. Let the house and the grounds speak for themselves."

I shook my head at him. Would he ever take no for an answer? I imagined that even if I married someone else and lived to be a hundred, he would be coming to my door, waiting for me to change my mind.

We all got into his boat and Paul started the engine again. Pearl laughed as we spun around and into the breeze, some spray raining on our arms and faces. The early spring had brought the hibernating alligators out. They dozed on the mounds and in shallow water, their sleepy eyes barely showing any curiosity as we rushed past them. Here and there clumps of green snakes came apart and then entwined again like threads being woven together under the water. Bullfrogs hopped over lily pads, and nutrias scurried into the safety of shadows and small openings. The swamp, like some giant animal itself, seemed to stretch and yawn and take shape as spring arrived and marched its determined way toward the heat of summer.

"Number three well exploded this morning," Paul shouted over the roar of the engine. "It looks like it will produce four, maybe five times what was estimated."

"That's wonderful, Paul."

"The future couldn't look brighter, Ruby. We could have anything, do anything, go anywhere . . . Pearl would be a real princess."

"I don't want her to be a princess, Paul. I want her to be a fine young lady who appreciates the value of important things," I said curtly. "I've seen too many people fooled by their own wealth into believing they were happy."

"It won't be that way for us," Paul assured me.

Paul's rich acres of oil land and the homesite was southwest of my shack. We wove our way along, passing through canals that were so narrow at times, we could thrust out our arms and touch the shore on either side of the boat. We cut through some brackish ponds and into an entire new web of canals before turning dead south into his property. I hadn't been here since I had left for New Orleans, so when I saw the roof of the great house rising above the sycamores and cypress before us, I was overwhelmed. I felt like Alice being swept off to her own private Wonderland.

Paul had already had a dock built and there was a gravel path from the swamp that led up to the beginning of the house property. I saw the pickup trucks and vehicles that belonged to the workmen who were still hard at their labor, for Paul had put a rush on things and was willing to pay everyone time and a half to get the house completed ahead of schedule. To the east we could see the oil rigs at work.

"I bet you never dreamed the Cajun boy who motored about on his little scooter would own all this," Paul said proudly, his hands on his hips, his smile stretching from ear to ear. "Imagine what your Grandmère Catherine would say."

"Grandmère probably would have expected it," I replied.

"Probably," he said, and laughed. "Whenever she looked at me, I felt she could not only see my thoughts, but my dreams."

He helped Pearl and me out of the boat.

"I'll carry her," he offered. Pearl was dazzled by the vastness of the house before us. "I'd like to call it Cypress Woods," he said. "What do you think?"

"Yes, it's a wonderful name. It is overwhelming, Paul. The way it just pops up out of nowhere . . . it's magical." He beamed a broad smile of pride.

"I told the architect I wanted a house that resembled a Greek temple. It makes the Dumas residence in the Garden District look like a bungalow."

"Is that what you wanted to do, Paul . . . overshadow my father's home? I told you . . ."

"Don't take me to task just yet, Ruby. What good is anything I have if I can't use it to please and impress you?" he asked. His eyes hardened to rivet on me.

"Oh, Paul." I wagged my head and took a deep breath.

What could I say to counter his enthusiasm and his dreams?

As we approached the house, it seemed to grow even bigger and bigger before us. Across the upstairs gallery ran a diamond-design iron railing. On both sides of the house, Paul had wings constructed to echo the predominant elements of the main house.

"That's where the servants will live," he indicated. "I think it gives everyone more privacy. Most of the walls in this place are twenty-four inches thick. Wait until you see how cool it is in there, even without fans and air-conditioning."

A short slate stairway took us up to the portico and lower gallery. We walked between the great columns and into the Spanish-tile-floored entryway, a foyer designed to take away the breath of a visitor the moment he or she set foot in this mansion, for it wasn't only vast and long, but the ceiling was so high, our footsteps echoed.

"Think of all the wonderful art you could hang on these huge walls, Ruby," Paul said.

We passed one spacious and airy room after another, all opening onto the central hallway. Above us hung the chandeliers about which Paul had expressed so much pride. They were dazzling, the teardrop bulbs looking like diamonds raining down over us. The circular stairway was twice as wide and as elaborate as the one in the house of Dumas.

"The kitchen is at the rear of the house," Paul said. "I have equipped it with all the most modern appliances. Any cook would be in heaven working back there. Maybe you can find where your Nina Jackson went and convince her to come live here," he added as a bonus. He knew how fond of Nina, my father's cook, I had been. She practiced voodoo and had taken an affection to me from the first day I had arrived in New Orleans. After she was convinced I wasn't some sort of zombie made to look like Gisselle, that is.

"I don't think anything would tempt Nina from New Orleans," I said.

"Her loss," Paul replied quickly. He was so sensitive about the rich Creoles, interpreting any comparisons as a criticism of our Cajun world.

"I mean she is too attached to her voodoo world, Paul," I explained. He nodded.

"Let me show you the upstairs."

We went up the stairway to find four spacious bed-rooms, each with a dressing room and walk-in closets. There were two master bedrooms, something Paul had definitely designed with his proposal of marriage in mind. Each looked out over the swamps. However, there was an adjoining door.