Reawaken

11.

     "Where are we going?"

     The rain had picked up as Lucille tires drove through sludge and muddied roads of Eva Parish. I gripped the leather steering wheel with a burning determination as I tried my best to focus on the dark roads of the bayou bank, putting the whirring truck in park.

     Me and Reed had put Slick's old rowboat on the back of Lucille; and while I drove, my mind still swimming in dark corn whiskey and panic, I told Reed everything. It was the first time since arriving in Saint Eva Parish that I'd been so raw with someone. My Daddy and Nana, going off to school, and this quest to fill this emptiness in my heart to be closer to the things where my ancestors once were.

     I even told him about the torment I was put under being married to Clay, tears stinging my eyes as the familiar bang rung in my ears, the smell of blood filling my nostrils.

     That detail I had kept quiet about.

     The man had listened to me without uttering a word – a rarity for him indeed. But I knew in his silence stood an understanding.

     "Do you have a flashlight?" I asked Reed, watching the man rummaged in his glove compartment, pulling out two small flashlights. Clicking one on, I dug in my shorts and pulled out the picture of Daddy, beaming the light on the photograph.

     Reed's eyes stared at the photo in my hand, a small smirk growing on his face.

     "Ya look like him." He said, "Got the same eyes."

     "Ya see this house in the back?" I pointed, "It's just beyond those trees near the bayou. I found it my first few days in Eva, and it looks like someone still livin' in it."

     Anxiety was rolling off me like waves, I could see my hands trembling as I thought about how much closer I was to my Daddy's past.

     I turned to open the door when I felt Reed's hand grab my arm, and I looked at him.

     "Metria, what exactly are you lookin' for in them woods?"

     Reed's eyes studied mine, and I exhaled a long breath. I wasn't sure what I was looking for. All these years Daddy been gone, then Nana, and being stuck with Clay I had felt terribly alone. Being around the Mayfair's made me miss my family. Made me wish I wasn't all that was left of them. I wanted a piece of something, anything, that could be for me. Even if it was just an old house on a piece of land.

     But all that I could utter to the man was "Will ya help me?"

     The rain drizzling on our heads, and flashlights shoved into our armpits, me and Reed pulled the rowboat off the back of Lucille and the two of us carried it as we dragged through the tall wild grass to the symphony of the night, frogs and crickets singing a song as we walked in silence towards the bayou waters.

     I stopped as we reached the bank, my eyes catching the flickers of lightning bugs in the jet, despite the rain. I watched as a few hovered over me like stars, and suddenly I felt a hollowing in my chest.

      "Is that the house?" Reed asked me, his flashlight shining like a fallen star on the small shack across the water.

     I nodded, setting foot in the unsteady boat, it sloshing side to side as Reed hopped in after me. We slapped the oars in the Bayou waters, murky and thick. As we got a good momentum going, we were practically on the land.

     I squinted my eyes against the night, flashing the dull light of the flashlight around, looking for any sort of clue. Any evidence of life.

     "C'mon 'Metria, this place looks abandoned," Reed whispered towards me, his light aiming at the moss growing on the side of the home, paint peeling from the windowsill, "Any sign of any kin is long gone."

     There was uncertainty in Reed's voice. He was right, the house looked pretty hopeless. But something in my belly burned like a furnace, and a warmth like Nana's arms was wrapped around my spirit. Something is here.

     I crept slowly up to the house, aiming my light at the wooden door, right under the peephole rusting iron letters sat underneath: D. C _ A _ _ E

     "D Cae?" Reed asked, squinting, "That's a strange name."

     I stared at the door, feeling my knees get weak noticing the spacing between the last name, "Some letters missin'," I told him, "It ain't Cae."

     It's Claude.

     "Lord Jesus," I spoke, "He was here."

     All too quick, a window on the old house lit with light, a boom from a shotgun rung in the air.

     A yelp fell from my lips as I ducked low to the ground, Reed cursing behind me. I felt his hand grab mine in the dark.

     "We gotta get outta here!" Reed yelled, tugging me back to the boat. But like a boulder, my body refused to budge.

     There is a piece of me here.

     Another shot rang in the air, and the smell of gun smoke wafted in my nostrils.

     "Shit!" Reed hollered, shielding my body as we plopped lower in the wild weeds, our bodies getting covered in mud.

     Thunder boomed with the sounds of gunfire in the night, a symphony of chaos. With something mighty, the back door swung open, a halo of yellow light swallowing the silhouette of a man as he slowly walked forward.

     "Identify yourself or die." the mans voice boomed in the night, the barrel of his shotgun pointed dead on me and Reed.

     I steadied on my feet, my hands raised in the air, looking at the man behind the gun. His skin was dark, covered with wrinkles and a greying beard, his head was bald. A portly belly poked from under his night shirt, and he squinted as he moved the gun between me and Reed.

     "Say somethin' now or I'll shoot!" He warned, cocking his shotgun.

"Look, man, we don't want no trouble," Reed blubbered, "My friend and I – we got lost and we saw the house and just needed directions."

     I heard Reed stutter and stumble over his words, but me? It felt like my tongue had done fell out my mouth completely. I couldn't speak. I couldn't move.

     The man pointed his gun at me, a nasty frown on his face. I gasped, my eyes adjusting and finally being able to see his face full on. Aged, for sure, but he was definitely the man in the picture. His eyes told me so.

     What I saw in him, he musta seen in me because slowly, and quite uncertainly it seemed, the barrel of his gun began to lower. And we stood there, me and that man, like the rain wasn't pouring or even like Reed wasn't there. Staring at each other like we were the only two people left on this Earth.

     "Lord have mercy girl," He spoke softly, walking down the brick steps of his home to face me full on, "Ya got the same eyes Lincoln got."

Consider this a post-Christmas gift :). Also cannot remember the name of the photographer who captured the pic in the mm, but how he captured this bayou fits this scene almost perfectly.