"Yeah!" Jean cried.

"I don't know," Mommy said. Daddy looked to me for help.

"I'd love a change of scenery, Mommy, and we haven't been to the chateau for quite a while," I said. "I can get some of my college preparatory reading done, too."

She looked at me and nodded. "I suppose we could go," she said.

The boys were cheered, and the packing and planning did add some brightness to what had otherwise been a dark time. Despite her initial reluctance, Mommy dived into the preparations. No one had to wake the boys the next morning. They were already dressed and ready by the time Mommy, Daddy, and I went downstairs for breakfast. They had packed their own suitcases, but when Mommy inspected them, she discovered they had included slingshots, baseballs, shedded snakeskins, marbles, and jackknives.

"You'll have plenty with which to occupy yourselves at the chateau," Mommy told them. "No need to bring all this junk."

Daddy packed the car immediately after breakfast. I think he was even more excited than the twins about taking the holiday. As usual the twins talked a blue streak during the drive, asking questions about practically everything in sight. What were people selling on the sides of the highway? How did they make those baskets and palmetto hats? Why were the shacks built on stilts? Mommy had little time to dwell on her dark thoughts, so even though Daddy normally would have asked the twins to take a break, he simply smiled at me, winked, and let the questions go on and on.

It was a beautiful summer day. Bringing Mommy out to the rural world appeared to be the panacea Daddy and I were hoping for. The sight of her beloved Spanish moss draped from old cypress trees, the glistening goldenrod, the willows and cottonwoods, and here and there a pond covered with lilies and hyacinths filled her with pleasure and restored the glow to her eyes and cheeks. The twins loved to test her knowledge of birds, and she was more than eager to identify a grosbeak heron or a scarlet cardinal. They were fascinated by her description of a butcher bird and how it stored its food on thorns so it could eat the cured flesh during the winter. Everything about nature fascinated them. I decided they were the ones who had really inherited our grandmother's affinity for wild things.

"I hope we see snakes and alligators," Jean said as we drew closer to what had been the Dumas family's country home.

"Never mind about them," Mommy warned. "You two mustn't wander off exploring on your own. I want you close to the house except when Daddy takes you, hear?"

Reluctantly, they promised.

"There she blows," Daddy cried as we came around a turn and our country house came into view.

The building that my grandfather Dumas used to refer to as his ranch actually resembled a chateau. It had a steeply pitched hipped roof with spires, pinnacles, turrets, gables, and two oddly shaped chimneys. The metal cresting along the roof's ridges was elaborately ornamented. The windows and the doorway were arched. To the right were two small cottages for the servants and caretakers, and to the right, some thousand yards or so away, were the stables with the riding horses and a barn. The property had rambling fields with patches of wooded areas and a stream cutting across its north end.

Like some of the chateaux in the French countryside, it had beautiful gardens, and two gazebos stood on the front lawn, as did benches and chairs and stone fountains. When we arrived, the caretakers were busily trimming hedges and weeding.

"Can we go horseback riding right away, Daddy?" Jean cried.

"Let's settle in first, unpack, and get organized. Then we'll see about the recreational schedule," he said.

The twins put a cork in their overflowing bottle of excitement, but both looked as if they would burst as they feasted their eyes on our beautiful grounds, the ponds, the fields, and the stream that wove its way deep into the woods and promised adventures forever. They started to rush away as soon as Daddy stopped the car, but he hauled them back with a cry.

"You two help unload. Carry your own suitcases to your room. Come on. You're both big enough to take care of yourselves," he said.

They returned to the car and took their things, Jean proudly heaving his suitcase over his shoulder and helping Pierre unload his.

Mommy stood for a moment gazing around. Then she lifted her eyes to look at an upstairs window. Some memory brought shadows to her face. Daddy sensed her concern and moved quickly to her side.

"Let's have an enjoyable few days and let the past remain buried, Ruby. Please," he pleaded. She nodded, took a deep breath, and started for the front door.

Except for the inclusion of some of Mommy's paintings, my parents had done little to change the decor. The chateau had a short foyer decorated with drapes and large landscape paintings. The furnishings were a mixture of modern and the same French Provincial found in our New Orleans house.

After we all settled in, Daddy took the twins fishing, and Mommy and I went into the garden, where I read and Mommy set up her easel. Although we didn't converse much, we sensed and drew from each other's presence. Both reading and working on artistic projects required concentration and solitude. Mommy soon became lost in her project and I in my reading. Before either of us realized it, the afternoon had turned to dusk and we had to go in to prepare for dinner.

Daddy and the twins returned with their catch. The twins were so excited about the turtles and the other wildlife that they jabbered continuously through dinner. No one else had a chance to get in a word, but their excitement was infectious. All of us felt rejuvenated—Mommy especially. I took charge of getting the twins to bed and left Mommy and Daddy alone to enjoy the warm, star-blazing bayou evening. The twins reluctantly surrendered to sleep only when Daddy promised they could go horseback riding in the morning.

I enjoyed riding too, so the next morning Mommy went back to her painting while Daddy and I and the twins rode for nearly two hours. After lunch Daddy went up to his room to take a nap, and Mommy and I returned to the garden where she continued to paint and I continued to catch up on my college reading.

Toward the later part of the afternoon, a wave of dark clouds crept in from the east. The breeze kicked up, and Mommy decided to go inside. The wind played havoc with our hair, my pages, and Mommy's easel and canvas. We both laughed at our struggle to keep control of our possessions. As we packed up Mommy's brushes and paints, canvas, and easel, she suddenly paused, a half smile of confusion on her face. "What's that?" she asked.

I shook my head. "What's what, Mommy?"

"Didn't you hear it? It sounded like someone screaming." She turned slowly. Daddy had just stepped out of the house and was moving toward us when I heard the screams, too.

"Pierre," I whispered. I saw him flailing about as he struggled to run through the tall grass. He fell once, and Mommy cried out. Daddy started to run toward him.

"Pearl," Mommy moaned.

"It's probably nothing, Mommy," I said and started toward Pierre. But where was Jean? I wondered and felt my heart turn to cold stone when I heard Pierre cry out Jean's name and point to the wooded swamp area behind him. "Snakebite!"

His words were carried to us on the wind and reached Mommy who had followed behind me. She brought her hands to her cheeks and screamed at the fast-approaching storm clouds.

"Nina!"

I stepped back to embrace her just as her legs gave out.

The thunder seemed to come from both our hearts.


6

  The Curse Strikes

The water moccasin is a large poisonous olive-brown viper. Folks in the South often call it a cottonmouth. It coils itself on the lower limbs of willow trees and when it lies in the water, it can look like a broken branch floating.

Jean had waded into a pond to catch a turtle sleeping between the lily pads. Pierre had warned him not to, but Jean was fascinated. I knew that when Jean fixed his mind on something, he was sometimes like someone hypnotized. He would turn off everything around him and concentrate on what he wanted to do or see or touch. Pierre had remained on the shore screaming at him, but Jean had ignored him.

When he got too close to the snake, it struck.

"I thought it was a branch, Daddy," Pierre moaned. It would be something he would chant in his own mind, for a long time: "I thought it was just a branch."

Jean was floating face down when Daddy lunged into the water to get to him. He scooped him up, lifting him over his head. I had just arrived at the clearing and saw him rushing from the water as if it were boiling around him. There is nothing more frightening to me than the sound and the sight of a grown man screaming. Daddies aren't supposed to cry. There was no sight more heartrending and terrifying to me at the same time as the sight of my father, petrified at the prospect of losing his son, my brother. Daddy looked as if he had lost all sense of direction; he had lost his wits.

Daddy flooded Jean's face with kisses I knew he prayed would be magical; but the stitches that had drawn Jean's eyelids shut appeared unbreakable, and his beautiful little face, a face always animated, those blue eyes sweeping a room or a place to find some-thing interesting, was already growing as pale as a faded water lily.

Daddy turned to me with eyes I shall never put to sleep in my memory, frantic eyes.

I hurried to his side.

"He's not breathing!" he said.

I had him put Jean on a patch of soft moss. "Make him better, Pearl. Make him better," Pierre pleaded.