Page 81 of A Boy Called Lovesong

I was constantly turning back to guide his step, then facing forward to try to choose the safest step ahead, then turning back again to make sure he was treading in my imprint in the moss and not about to step through a hole or off the side of the boardwalk altogether.

“That’s it. Left foot. A little further. Now right. Jesus, how the hell did you ever do this by yourself?”

“I was a kid. Even blind kids think they’re invincible. Besides, I was raised to believe Jesus would always keep me safe. Jesus was always going to protect me from evil, right?”

Bubbles surfaced from under the water nearby. I stopped in my tracks and waited for them to trail away into the swamp. “Ihate to tell you, but I’m not sure Jesus is about to jump in and protect you from whatever the fuckthatwas.”

Lovesong chuckled. “You make me laugh, you know that?”

“Oh good, because we’re heading into the black lagoon… surrounded by man-eating alligators… about to visit a terrifying hoodoo witch who may or may not want to cut us into small pieces and boil us in a cauldron. So, I’m glad one of us can see the funny side of things.”

He laughed even louder.

The board beneath him groaned and part of the boardwalk swayed precariously.

I turned and held him, squeezing him hard so that he might stop laughing and freeze. “Sshhh! Don’t move a muscle.”

He didn’t stop giggling. “Noah, we’re going to be fine. Just keep moving.”

“Are you kidding me right now? No! You wanna fall in the water? I think there’s something down there.”

“I think there’slotsof things down there.”

“Then keep… still!”

I held him tight and didn’t move again till the boardwalk stopped swaying, wondering all the while... Is this what it was like to have faith? To be able to do anything, and always assume someone up there had your back? I could see a real sense of freedom, of fearlessness, in that kind of thinking. I felt a pang of envy. Perhaps he was onto something.

Then again, there I was in a bayou surrounded by gators. Why? Because a blind man told me it was what we needed to do.

Perhaps I had faith and didn’t even realize it.

Only my faith wasn’t in the Lord above.

It was in Lovesong.

As we stood on the broken boardwalk, me clinging to him tightly, our bodies pressed together, I felt the bulge in his crotchbegin to surge and grow. Instantly, my cock twitched and started to swell too.

He leaned forward and kissed me. “Thank you for breaking down in the middle of Clara’s Crossing,” he whispered. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

Guilt and anxiety gripped my insides when I thought about the moment I would eventually tell Lovesong exactly why I was there. Had I bargained away my rage for remorse? Perhaps I had. Yet I wasn’t ready to confess my motives to Lovesong, for the simple fact that the moment I did would be the moment I’d have to let him go. So all I said was, “I’ve never met anyone like you before either. Now come on, let’s find Hoodoo Hettie before it gets too dark.”

The boardwalk continued to twist through the bayou, Spanish moss moving in the breeze like the bird-pecked hair of a spellbound woman who had been consumed by the swamp itself, transformed into the trees and cursed to spend eternity in the bayou.

Then, up ahead, I caught a glimpse of a lantern light, then another, dangling from the porch rafters of a tumbledown shanty resting perilously on splintering pylons in the middle of the swamp.

The boardwalk led directly to it.

“I think I see it,” I told Lovesong.

“Hettie’s cabin? Are you sure?”

“How many hoodoo witch cabins were you expecting to find out here?”

I was being serious, but Lovesong snorted and chuckled again. “Just the one.”

“Good.” There was another swish in the water. “Now, can we please get away from these alligators? I think word has got out that there’s fresh meat in the swamp.”

Quickly, carefully, I led Lovesong closer and closer to the decrepit shack on the water until, from inside, a gravelly, rusty voice called out.

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