Page 80 of A Boy Called Lovesong

“Because nobody ever goes to the bayou. Except the one person who lives there. Now come on, we need to get there and back before dark. You don’t wanna be in the bayou after dark.”

He hurried me down the stairs, again stepping over the cracks and holes, then out of the manor and onto the street without anyone spotting us. Maybelle was no doubt busy in the kitchen and Leroy was probably stocking the bar.

Side by side we walked hastily down the street, Lovesong’s hand on my shoulder.

The church door was closed. Whether or not the reverend and his wife were inside, who knew.

As we walked pastEarl’s Auto, Earl had his head under the hood of Joan Collins, tinkering away at the engine and oblivious to our swift exit out of town.

Within minutes we were skirting the edge of the bayou. The ground became soft beneath out feet. Trees draped in Spanish moss multiplied the farther we went, until they towered all around us.

Lovesong was not leading the way now. He was instead telling me where to turn as I described the changing terrain around us. He tightened his grip on my shoulder, and I noticed his step was slower, more uncertain, as opposed to the surety with which he moved around town.

“How often have you been down here?” I asked. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

“I think so. It’s been a while. I guess I was a kid the last time. Li’l Leroy and me were maybe twelve or so. He dared me to go as far as I could along the old boardwalk, and of course me bein’ as defiant and headstrong as I am, I took him up on it.”

“Why would you do such a stupid thing?”

“Because we thought there was a witch out there, hiding in the trees, lurking with the gators. At least, that’s what my parents raised me to believe.”

“And is there?”

Lovesong shook his head. “She ain’t a witch. But she’s there.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I met her that day when I was twelve. I cut my leg on a loose plank trying to feel my way along the boardwalk. She found me, took me to her cabin out there in the swamp and bandaged me up, but not before she rubbed some ointment on my leg. God, it stank, but that cut healed within a day. I remember she barely spoke a word, but there was one thing she said that I’ll never forget… ‘The Devil walks among you. Beware, for the Devil walks among you!’”

“What exactly did she mean by that?”

“She never told me. And I never came back. I guess now is the time to find out.”

Through the dappled afternoon light streaming down from the canopy of trees, I saw a dilapidated boardwalk ahead, a rickety structure leaning this way and that into the water, its planks rotten and carpeted with shiny green moss.

“I think I see it. The boardwalk. Although it doesn’t look safe at all.”

Lovesong grinned. “That’s the one.”

“You want us to walk on that thing?”

“I don’t want us to. Weneedto. She’s visiting us for a reason. We need to know what she’s trying to tell us.”

We stopped at the foot of the boardwalk. My eyes followed the battered path as it zigzagged deep into the bayou, disappearing amidst the trees that grew out of the dark water.

“Who is this swamp dweller anyway?”

“Her name is Henrietta, but according to my parents the only name she goes by now is Hoodoo Hettie. She was there at the crossroads when my birth mother made her deal with the Devil.”

Frogs blurped.

Birds screeched in the trees.

From above I heard a hiss and saw the bright scales of a serpent as it twisted itself around a branch.

And every now and then, something large and alarming swished through the water and I froze for minutes on end before daring to lead us farther into the bayou.

Lovesong’s hand gripped my shoulder.

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