Loe raamatut: «Darkest Journey»

Prologue

West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana

High School

“What are we doing?” Charlene—Charlie—Moreau demanded, surprised that both her escorts—senior girls high up in the hierarchy of one of their high school service clubs, the Cherubs—had suddenly taken hold of her arms. “Where are we going?”

She’d started out blindfolded in a car with five of her friends—all of them giggling girls ready to claim the prestige of being a Cherub. They’d been accepted into the club. They’d gone through ridiculous weeks of pledging—running, fetching, even doing homework for the “older sisters” in the club, and now it was their final night. Their great hazing. But the five of them had been split up about twenty minutes earlier; she’d been put in a car with Nancy Deauville and Sherry Compton, who’d gently led her out a little while later.

Now both girls were gripping her arms, nothing gentle about it.

Nancy Deauville laughed softly. “They say your mama’s family has the ‘sight.’ We’re just leaving you where you’ll have to ask some of your ghostly friends for help.”

“Come on! What are you going to do? Tie me up in the Grace Church graveyard?” Charlie asked, feeling her temper flare.

“Oh, Charlie, no!” Nancy said.

Sherry giggled. “We’re tying you up outside the graveyard—in the unhallowed section.”

“That’s ridiculous. And dangerous,” Charlie said angrily, a spark of fear entering her. “Three girls have been killed close to here, just north of Baton Rouge!” Her mom had been emphatic about her being careful, about her staying in the company of friends. A serial killer was at work in and around Baton Rouge.

“Don’t be alone, Charlie,” her mom had warned sternly. “He’s preying on young women who are on their own. Make sure you stay with your friends.”

Charlie had thought these people were her friends. Now she wasn’t so sure.

She tried to wrench free, but someone stronger had her arms now, and she heard multiple footsteps nearby.

Nancy and Sherry weren’t alone. They’d met up with others.

The two were superrich brats whose dads held great positions with one of the local oil companies—while her dad was a hardworking historian!

She didn’t know why she was pledging anyway, except that Cathy Corcoran, her best friend, had insisted that they at least try. The Cherubs were respected at school, plus they had the best parties.

Charlie had managed to handle the weeks of doing what the older girls asked. She’d even shocked Nancy, dropping a pack of cigarettes on her lap after the other girl had demanded that she get them, even if she had to beg, borrow or steal them. Charlie hadn’t had to do any of those things; someone on one of her dad’s tours had left a pack behind on the dock.

But this...

She didn’t tend to be scared of much. Tonight, she was.

She wasn’t afraid of the graveyard. She never had been. But girls had been murdered—and not at all far away.

She was angry now, and that anger mixed uneasily with a fear that had nothing to do with the dead.

“You know what? Don’t bother. I don’t want to be in your club,” she said. “This is ridiculous. Where are Cathy and the others?”

“Cathy is taking a little swim,” Nancy said, and laughed.

Charlie felt her temper flare another few degrees. Cathy couldn’t swim—and she was terrified of water.

“That’s it. Let me go,” Charlie said. “I’m done with you and your stupid club.”

They didn’t let her go. She heard a male voice whispering—probably Todd Camp, Nancy’s football-star boyfriend. Or maybe it wasn’t Todd. At least three other people had joined Nancy and Sherry; she could tell where they were all standing by listening to where their voices came from. All told, there were at least five people there, probably including some of Todd’s football goon friends.

“We should just let her go. Come on, Nance.”

Todd was there, Charlie was certain. But he wasn’t the one who had just spoken. Todd did anything that Nancy said. Probably—as Charlie had heard whispered in the hallways—Nancy only “gave it up” for Todd when he behaved.

“Listen to whichever of your juvenile delinquent friends was just speaking. This is criminal. You should let me go this instant,” Charlie said.

“No way, so shut up, you whiny pledge. You’ll be glad when we come back for you. Everyone wants to be a Cherub, and tomorrow you’ll be glad you didn’t chicken out,” Nancy said.

Someone approached her and whispered into her ear. She recognized the voice. It was a friend. Jimmy Smith. “Charlie,” Jimmy said urgently, “it won’t be that long. Tomorrow you really will want to be in the club. I’m so sorry, but just go with this, okay?”

“I do not want to be a Cherub,” she yelled—and meant it. “I will never be a Cherub. You are the most immature group of brats I’ve met in my entire life. Let me go!”

“Chicken!” Nancy laughed.

Charlie was strong; she worked out in the dance troupe and was also on the gymnastics team. She could have easily taken Nancy and Sherry.

But the two girls weren’t alone, and whoever was holding her now was stronger than she was. Her captor forced her down to the ground, and someone tied her wrists and ankles around something cold and hard. A tombstone, she thought.

“Assholes!” she hissed, struggling against the ropes that held her.

“Watch your tongue, pledge,” Nancy snapped. “Or you won’t get to be a Cherub.”

“Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be in your damn club!” Charlie shot back.

“Maybe we should just let her go,” she heard Jimmy plead.

“Shut up! You’re ruining my speech,” Nancy said. “Oh, pledge. May all cherubs and angels everywhere look over you this night. For you are not in the sacred graveyard of the church but in the unhallowed ground beyond, where criminals—hanged for their sins—lie, where many a Yankee was hidden in the earth, where the most evil among us rest uneasily for all eternity. But you, should you survive the hours ahead, will rise triumphant, a Cherub for all time,” Nancy said dramatically.

Charlie’s blindfold was slipping; from where she lay she could just see Nancy’s arms upstretched to the night sky. She was wearing her cheerleading uniform, which seemed to be a disservice to the entire school at that moment.

Nancy’s arms dropped, and she turned, presumably to face the others. “Let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

“Damn you all!” Charlie swore. “Let me up! I don’t want to be one of you stupid people.”

Her words did no good. Laughing, the group hurriedly left, heading back to Nancy’s car and whatever vehicle Todd and the others had come in.

She screamed for a few minutes more—to no avail. Still, it made her feel better, and she realized she was at least ridding herself of the blindfold. It was just a piece of white cotton, probably someone’s ripped-up shirt.

She fell silent and worked harder at the blindfold. Eventually she dislodged it by rubbing her head back and forth against the headstone she was bound to. It finally came unknotted and fell down by her side. She laughed bitterly. Nancy and her crew weren’t even capable of tying a decent knot.

The boys were, though. She couldn’t dislodge the ropes around her wrists and ankles, which were secured tightly against the tombstone.

She let out a sigh, reminding herself that she wasn’t afraid of a graveyard. Even an unhallowed one. Her father had brought her here many times and told her of the injustices that had been perpetrated over the years. The townspeople had strung up an innocent slave instead of admitting to the guilt of a rich white man who had raped and strangled a young woman in the 1830s. His grave was unmarked. A horse thief—who was admittedly guilty but hadn’t killed anyone—was strung up in 1860. Apparently horse theft had been a major crime back then, since horses were needed for the militia units forming in the lead-up to the Civil War.

Charlie closed her eyes for a minute. She could hear the river—the mighty Mississippi—churning far below the bluff. She could hear tree branches swaying, the leaves rustling. She opened her eyes. Even though this was unhallowed ground, loved ones of those long gone had erected stones and monuments to mark their graves. A broken-winged angel looked mournfully down at her from a pedestal. Tombs and all manner of funerary art graced the area, some of it half-hidden by overgrown grass and shrubbery.

Time passed as she continued to fight with the ropes that bound her. She cursed out loud and then quietly to herself. She prayed that Cathy—who was truly terrified of water—was going to be all right.

Then she heard the sobbing.

“Hey!” she called out.

There was no reply. She inhaled, then let her breath out in a rush.

Yes, her family often saw ghosts or just felt their invisible presence. She’d known that Uncle Jessup had come to his own funeral; she’d seen him stroking her mother’s hair, as if trying to assure her that he was all right.

She wasn’t at all sure she was ready to see a ghost tonight, though, not while she was tied to a tombstone. Especially not here on unhallowed ground. Some of the people buried had been truly evil. There was even rumor that a vicious voodoo queen—a woman who had poisoned a number of people—had been brought out here, hanged and left to rot, then buried with no marker. It might only be a tale meant to scare away couples who liked to come to the cemetery and drink among the old tombstones, maybe do drugs or have sex...whatever.

She wished she could see her watch. She felt as if she’d already been there for hours.

More likely it had only been thirty minutes or so. Maybe she had imagined the sobbing.

No, she hadn’t.

Because the sound came again. She blinked hard. A young woman seemed to be materializing right in front of her, just to the left by the base of an old moss-draped oak tree. The woman’s hair was swept up, and she was wearing a pretty blue gown. For a moment Charlie thought that she had come from a different era in history, but then she realized that the blue dress was a beautiful and entirely contemporary formal gown. The woman bent down; she looked like she was trying to pick something up.

But she couldn’t. Whatever it was, it slipped through her ethereal fingers.

The woman seemed to sink against the tree and down to the ground.

And then she disappeared.

Charlie watched for a moment, then hung her own head.

Time was passing. Someone would come for her.

She looked up and blinked.

A Confederate soldier was walking toward her. He wore a frock coat lined in a yellow-buff color.

Cavalry. And an officer. She couldn’t be her father’s daughter and not know that.

He wore a handsome plumed hat, and his sword was encased in a sheath belted around his hips.

She closed her eyes, wondering what a Southern soldier had done to end up buried out here.

Please, please go away, she thought. Because she was afraid. The air here on top of the bluff was growing chilly in the dark, and she still felt as if she could hear—in her head, at least—the soft sound of sobbing.

The cavalryman was still walking toward her.

Screw the damned club. What an idiot she’d been.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to help you.”

At first she thought it was the ghostly Confederate who had spoken. But it wasn’t. It was someone made of flesh and blood, someone real, and that realization startled her so badly that she let out a horrified scream.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he protested, stepping closer and starting to work at the ropes that bound her. “It’s all right. I’m Ethan Delaney. I’m here to help you.”

She blinked. Ethan Delaney. She knew him, even if she didn’t know him well. His father was a teacher and had recently taken a job at a music school in New Orleans. His mother taught piano. Ethan had graduated soon after she’d gotten to high school; he was three years her senior. She’d really only seen him from afar. When she’d been about eight or nine, he’d gotten stuck babysitting for her and some other kids because their parents were all friends.

What she knew about Ethan—what everyone knew about him—was that he was considered special, but not in a bad way. In a good way, in fact. He’d excelled at sports and qualified for scholarships at a bunch of schools. He’d ridden a motorcycle—when he hadn’t been riding around on Devil, his dad’s big buckskin quarter horse. People nodded when they heard his name and said things like That boy’s gonna make something of himself.

He’d been gone from town for a while now. Gone off to college in New Orleans. Soon his parents would move to New Orleans, too, and there would be little reason for him to come back to town.

But—amazingly—he was here now and about to free her from her misery.

“Ethan. Delaney,” she said, still not entirely sure that he wasn’t an apparition. She hadn’t seen him coming; she’d been distracted by the Confederate soldier just in front of him.

She stared as he kept working at the ropes. She could smell him, and he smelled good. He’d been riding earlier, she thought. He smelled of leather. He leaned back, focusing on one of the knots. She watched him as he concentrated. He had cool eyes. They were a golden green color. He was tanned. He had a lean face, and a thick strand of dark hair fell over one eye.

He was gorgeous.

She wasn’t in his league.

But here he was, helping her.

“Thank you,” she managed to say.

“How the hell did you get here?” he asked.

“Pledging,” she told him.

“Stupid.”

“I know. I told them I’d had it, I didn’t want to be in their presence, much less their club,” Charlie said, her voice tight. “They didn’t listen.”

“I see that.”

She was suddenly freed, and immediately she tried to stand. Her legs wobbled, and he reached out to steady her. She looked up.

Suddenly she was in love.

She couldn’t let him see it.

Charlie cleared her throat and fought to quickly maintain her balance on her own as she forced a smile to her lips.

“Thank you, Ethan. I owe you big-time.”

“It was nothing...” He hesitated. “Nothing at all.”

He doesn’t even know my name.

Their parents were friends; he’d been to her house. But had he ever thought of her as anything other than a little kid? Did he even recognize her?

He was smiling at her. “Listen, I walked here. I don’t have a car. But when we get back to my parents’ old place—he’s in NOLA, and Mom is there picking up stuff, ’cause she’s in the middle of moving—I can use her car and drive you home.”

“I hate to trouble you. I can walk home now that I’m not tied up, thanks to you.”

His smile deepened. She noticed that he had a dimple in his chin. “I’m sorry, miss, but I was raised Southern, and my mama would probably still tan my hide if I didn’t see you home safe.”

He turned, holding her elbow—probably worried that she might trip on a gravestone, she thought.

“I have a name,” she told him, sounding more strident than she’d meant to.

He stopped and looked down at her, that shock of hair still covering one of his eyes. “Of course. I’m so sorry. It’s just that I don’t know—”

“Charlie. Charlene, actually. Charlene Moreau.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Moreau. You used to hang at my house when you were little. Our parents are friends. Your dad is Jonathan Moreau, right?”

“Yes.” She waited, afraid that somewhere along the line her father might have done something to bug him.

“Wow,” he said with admiration. “He’s brilliant. He knows more about local history and politics than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Yep, that’s him.”

“Come on, then. My mom can make you some tea or something, and then I’ll take you home.”

He started to walk, not holding on to her this time, and she followed. “How did you know I was here?” she asked him. “I mean, you don’t seem the kind to be spending his Friday night hanging out at the graveyard.”

He paused, his back to her.

“Was it the Confederate cavalryman?” she asked softly, not even worrying that if he hadn’t seen the ghost he might think she was nuts. “Did he lead you here? If so, I wish I could thank him.”

He turned then and stared at her. “You saw...a cavalry soldier?”

“I did,” she said.

He studied her intently. Then he nodded slowly. She felt the intensity of his gold-green eyes. He’d heard exactly what she’d said, and he seemed to accept her words at face value.

“Best not to mention such things,” he said simply, and started walking again.

And, once more, she followed. Except that the sobbing she’d heard earlier suddenly echoed in her mind again.

“Come on,” he called back.

“Wait!” she said.

“What?”

“There was—there was someone there before. By the tree. Give me just a second.”

She hurried over the tree roots, fallen branches and broken headstones that stood between her and the tree in question, hoping he noticed that she didn’t need any help, even in rough terrain.

“There!” She saw something shiny in the grass and sank to her knees—her jeans were already filthy anyway—then parted the weeds and grass to reveal a bracelet. It was gold, with a single gold charm studded with what might have been a diamond or might have been glass.

Suddenly Ethan was there, too, down on his knees beside her, reaching curiously for the bracelet.

She picked it up and handed it to him. “A bracelet,” she murmured, completely unnecessarily.

He looked up at her suddenly, those strange eyes of his intent on her. He flinched, staring at her.

“What? What is it?” she whispered.

He opened his hand. The bracelet lay on his palm, but she saw something else there, as well. Something gleaming and darker than the night.

“What is it?” she repeated.

“Blood,” he said quietly.

Charlie didn’t realize then that, for her, the night, along with the rest of her life, was just beginning.