Part XXVII

Part XXVII

The first stop we'd made was New Orleans. It wasn't for Pirate Jane this time, but to get a few things at the VooDoo shops that I'd not picked up last time I'd left Jane's. I couldn't go back there, no one could. As we rolled by, I noticed the place had already changed hands, and it looked as though someone was going to wash away the years of bad mojo by converting it into a nail salon. Somewhere Pirate Jane was cursing the heavens.

I knew a few other shops, ones that Jane had actually turned me onto. I didn't know the Priestesses who ran them, but we shared a few memories of Jane as they bundled up my purchases.

New Orleans faded fast as I headed down 23 to Plaquemines Parish and Port Sulfer. As we rode 23 down, it looked so different from the only other time I had seen it. This is some of America's best fishing country, but Katrina had rolled through like a mistress drunk on Gin, and had busted all the pretty vases.

I wasn't even sure the person I was looking for was alive, or even here. Last I'd heard he'd been building himself a home out deep in the marshes where he went by the name of Gater.

He'd been persecuted most of his life for the visual transformation the ichthyosis had performed on him. Grey scaly skin, and a yellowing of the eyes, that while unrelated, had significance. He'd lost his family in a fire, when some drunken good 'ol boys had tried to kill what everyone else referred to as the "swamp devil". Some said it was the beer that made them do it, some the heat, but in the end everyone secretly knew that what had made them do it was fear.

Plaquemines Parish is home to the first seventy miles of the Mississippi river, or the last seventy depending on how you look at it. It's where the river disgorges into the sea. It's what made all the Voodoo and witchcraft so prevalent in the area. With all the moving water, the dead could be handled with ease. So could just about anything susceptible to the pull of the mighty Mississippi.

It took a while to find anyone to talk to, not because everyone was skittish, but because there was literally no one in sight. I finally found a gas station, and after mumbling a little translation spell, I had a short conversation in creole with a man who looked like he'd lost weight recently so his clothes were loose and crumpled. Problem was, while his clothes where a a bit big, it was his skin that hung loose.

All it took in the end was a simple question.

Where's the swamp devil?

He raised a claw and pointed down the road a piece and told me we could rent a swamp boat and that if we took it 30 minutes west, we'd know it when we came to it. He said after Katrina rolled in, only one stilt house had remained, and that was were the Devil and his sister lived.

He tried to tell me not to go, but then just gave up and sat back down in his folding chair, lighting a hand rolled cheroot and coughing out the smoke.

It took a few more dollars than the rental to convince the proprietor I knew how to drive the boat and didn't need a guide. I asked him to look after the van and told him no matter how much the Old Man complained through the cracked windows, to not let him out. I lied and said I was afraid he'd wander too close to the water and get eaten by a gater. Truth was, it was the gaters I was worried for.

Carl smiled as the wind slapped him and we ran full throttle through what was left of the still recovering marshes. I hoped Gater would be able to help me, I needed to find someone he was close to. I needed to find his former home, the traveling Freak Show they called the Fabulon. I needed to ask the woman who ran it a few questions, a few questions about the Tall Man. Her name was Mother, and she knew the Tall man very well.

It was almost thirty minutes on the dot when the marshes started to become thick again and I had to slow down to maneuver more precisely through the tangle. Eventually, the Cypress appeared and we switched from the swamp boat to the small canoe we'd rented as well.

We tied the swamp boat to a tree and marked it by hanging the extra life jacket tied as high we could on the propeller cage. Fluorescent Orange stands out in a swamp of green and brown. It took a few minutes to balance Carl in the front of the little canoe, that reminded me of the ones I'd paddled on many times before in the camps my parents had always sent me to for the summer. I was going in the back. I didn't trust Carl to paddle well, let alone steer.

Ten minutes later, soaked to the bone with sweat and pretty sure that every mosquito biting me was going to give me malaria, the house on stilts rose into our sight. Carl kind of choked on some spit as he saw it, and I could feel the vibration of his nervous leg rolling through the canoe.

It's just a house.

Yeah, but what lives in a house that takes two kinds of boats to get to, through alligator and mosquito filled bong water.

A friend's house.

You really know this guy?

Well, I know of him.

The boat almost rolled as Carl shot back as though a snake had crested the side of the boat and slithered up his shorts.

Carl. you roll us and I will feed you to the first thing with teeth that pays a visit.

Carl raised his hand and pointed just to the right of the house.

I looked past his arm and saw what had spooked him. Standing on the little cross bridge that lead from the house to the patch of dry ground across from it was a little girl. She was dressed in a nice pink frilly dress and patent leather shoes as though just back from church. Through her I could see the trees.

She's not going to hurt you Carl. She's just a little girl.

A little transparent girl.

She's a runner Carl. She's Gater's sister. I think her name is Olivia.