Midnight Saints: Saints Mystery Series Hallwen Short Story Read online

  Midnight Saints

  Nicole Loughan

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover illustration and design by Genevieve LaVO Cosdon, LaVO Marketing and Design

  Book design and production by Little Spot for Stories

  Editing by Erin McNelis, MFA

  Author Photograph by Rikki Leigh Shepherd, Rikki Leigh Photography

  © 2015 Nicole Loughan

  Saints Mystery Series

  To Murder a Saint

  All Saints’ Secrets

  A Masquerade of Saints

  Halloween short story

  Midnight Saints

  “My grandmother used to tell me on Halloween you have to look out for rougarou. If the werewolf-like beast catches you out alone after midnight and you lock eyes, you’re doomed. If you’re lucky and you get out alive, you will turn into a rougarou at the next full moon. If the next full moon comes, and you haven’t been changed, you only have one year to live. You will perish from the earth one year from the date you met the rougarou. True story.”

  “Oh, Fanchon. That old fable is a bunch of bull meant to scare kids into behaving on mischief night. Even if there is such a thing as a rougarou, there ain’t one in this world scary enough to keep me from having fun on Halloween.”

  Josephine shrugged off my warning, walked past me and grabbed her make-up bag off of her night table.

  The two of us had been scurrying around her tiny room in oversized hoop skirts all afternoon trying to get ready for the annual Halloween Plantation ball. It was a hot day, but we had propped her window open. It looked out over the bayou and was allowing a breeze to pass through the room and keep us from overheating in our oversized skirts. The bed, made up with a floral bed spread, held Josephine’s little sister Lisette. Lisette had parked herself on the bed all day, moaning about being too young to go out. She was laying back dangling her feet over the side of the bed kicking out at us every so often to remind us she was still there.

  “It’s not fair,” she pouted.

  “Of course it’s fair, dumplin’. We have to go for work,” Josephine said. She was leaning forward into her mirror to swipe another layer of mascara over her already ample lashes. “When you’re older you’ll get your chance at fun too. Don’t worry, cher.”

  I pushed my giant skirt past Lisette’s dangling legs and jumped away before she kicked out at me. I made my way to the makeup table by Josephine.

  She looked me up and down and shook her head. “You got two problems, Fanchon. You are hidin’ your best assets in that corset, and your face looks white as a sheet. You need to push the girls up and rouge up. Turn around and let me show you how.”

  She unlaced my satin blue corset and told me to hold up my boobs. I threw off my satin gloves and covered myself with my hands. Josephine told me to bend forward, then she tightened the corset. When I stood and looked in the mirror, I blushed and the need for rouge became unnecessary. With my breasts moved up a few inches closer to my neck, I had what my grandmother would call an “unladylike display of cleavage.”

  “Now that’s how you wear a dress,” Josephine said. “We want to keep those cheeks pink like that. Now put on some dark rouge and slut it up. If you’re wearing this much fabric you need a little color so you don’t look like you’re no fun.”

  “I’m not out man catching,” I told her. “I’m working tonight. Plus, I already got Jori.”

  “Pish tosh. Jori’s boring. I got my eyes set on a soldier tonight. I saw that boy from Hillock Parish, the one on the football team. I saw him in his confederate uniform, his arms bulging out all over. There ain’t enough wool in the south to hide what defines him in that uniform.”

  She turned around and put a fan up to her face and waved it in front of her. Then she said in a deep southern drawl, “He gives me the vapors.”

  Lisette and I burst out laughing.

  Josephine turned back to the mirror and adjusted her top again. Not that she needed to. Josephine was blessed with a tiny waist and giant bosoms, a combination so powerful no teenager should ever have it. She had spent the better part of the afternoon curling her massive mane of dark hair so it was even bigger than usual. She pulled it half up and half down just as the style dictated at the turn of the century. The result, as always with Josephine, was stunning.

  We made our way through the living room of her rustic bayou house and then to the kitchen. There her father Clement and her mother Abolina were scurrying about wearing blood soaked aprons. When we walked into the room we saw that they had spread newspaper over the Formica table, which was strewn with fish. The two of them were using the sullied aprons to cover their clothes while they cleaned the fish. Clem was holding up a catfish which he slit in a long line down the belly before pulling out the head and spine. Then he passed it on to Abolina who deftly sliced it into fillets in seconds. When Abolina looked up from her task she smiled at us, pulled off her apron and ran to the sink to wash her hands. Josephine and I dared not walk much past the entryway as there was so little room between the satin skirts and the table full of dead fish. Lisette stood in the doorway making sure we didn’t forget she was there, huffing and stomping.

  “Well, aren’t you two just the belles of the ball.” Abolina beamed, running to us with her arms outstretched. We both stood a full head above her so we had to bend down to allow her to get her arms around us.

  She lingered looking at Josephine. “Well, I swear you got every last bit of beauty I had in me on your way out. And you got your Daddy’s fine green eyes to boot.”

  Clem walked to Josephine’s side giving her a kiss on the cheek, careful not to touch her with his blood-soaked smock. He turned to Abolina and said, “Don’t you fret. I ain’t never seen anyone prettier den you, boo.”

  Abolina kissed him back and then turned to Josephine. “You may have all the young men of Louisiana at your feet. But I got me the love of an old man wearing fish guts, and I still think I got the better end of the bargain.”

  “Sure did, Mama,” Josephine replied.

  “Now what’s the plan tonight, girls? I don’t want to hear of the two of you gettin’ into any trouble. Oh, and Fanchon, your mama called around again yesterday. She said you two keep missin’ each other. How bouts we schedule a time so you and your mother can get together?”

  I let out a long sigh and changed the subject. “Beau is driving us out to the Plantation tonight.”

  Abolina would not be swayed. “You are going to have to see your mama in the morning for All Saints’ Day when you visit your grand mammy’s grave. All the more reason you girls shouldn’t stay out too late.”

  I was trying as best I could to avoid my parents since I had started living with Clem, Abolina and the girls, but Abolina wasn’t making it easy. I had left my parents’ home for good a few months back, when my father had one too many drinks and I had one too many sassy comments. I wanted to tell Abolina all about our fight, how he had sent me to the Spanish Oak in our backyard and told me to grab a switch. How the moon shone over my naked body as he forced me to strip down and stand in the grass. I wanted to tell her how even the fireflies wouldn’t come near me that night, for they knew something wicked was to come. I wanted to tell her how the birds flew from the trees the moment the first lash hit my backside and I cried out. But I didn’t. I didn’t tell Abolina any of it. Instead I told her what she wanted to hear and res
pectfully replied, “Yes ma’am.”

  She looked satisfied that I would visit my parents, but I knew I would never do it.

  “Good girl,” she said changing the conversation. “So, who’s playing the ghosts of confederate soldiers out the graveyard this year? You know your daddy played a ghost back when we was in school?”

  “Some of the boys from our school are going to be out there, and the boys from Hillock. Jori’s going to be out there this year, too,” Josephine replied. “And I hope he stays lost out in that graveyard all night so I can have some fun with Fanchon.”

  A stern look crossed Abolina’s face. “You’re prone to too much fun if you ask me, Josephine. Don’t you have too much of it tonight. You girls be safe, and I’ll be waitin’ up.”

  “Yes Mama, but I can’t help my joie de vivre,” Josephine said, kissing her mother and blowing a kiss to her father before she started for the door. She gave Lisette a cheer-up tap on the chin before she left.

  Beau, Josephine’s cute but lazy cousin was on the dock waiting for us. He was leaning against a post, wearing an open flannel shirt with the sleeves cut out to show off his arms. His shirt left more skin exposed than not and his tight Levi’s left little to the imagination. I could clearly see that Beau had benefitted from the summer of hard labor on the construction crew. He had a cigarette in his hand, and when he caught sight of us he flicked it into the water and said, “Well shoot. Look at the two of you. Howdy doo, ladies.”

  “Don’t let daddy see you doin’ that,” Josephine said pointing to the cigarette in the water. “You know he doesn’t like it if you mess wit’ his snakes.”

  Beau ignored her and walked down the dock, which ran the length of the front of the house and down to his short aluminum fishing boat. He steadied it for us, but neither of us could sit properly. We each took a bench and sat on our sides holding the boat in precarious positions so we wouldn’t tip over. Before long we were whizzing down the bayou to Beau’s truck, which was parked in a thick of trees near the water.

  When we tried to get into the tight cabin of the truck, we realized our plan to go to the party fully dressed wasn’t well thought out. The hoops of our skirts wouldn’t fit in the cab.

  Josephine pulled up her silken skirt and whipped off her hoop with one hand. “Tie this down with a bungee cord,” she said to Beau, tossing her undergarments to him.

  I tugged at mine with some trouble, when Beau said with a smirk, “Looks like I’m going to have to get into your skirt, Fanchon.”

  Josephine rolled her eyes at him, stood behind me and whisked my skirt off with one flick of her wrist.

  Beau tied down our hoops with bungee cords, and we made our way to Oak Alley.

  The beautiful three-story retired plantation known as Oak Alley was known for its symmetrically planted rows of Spanish Oaks. The trees beautifully framed the house, which had wrap-around porches on the first and second floors. On that night, the plantation staff had set up tables and a tent in the front of the house. The tent was situated between the trees marring the usual majesty with a sea of white vinyl. The sun was going down behind the house, but the front yard was kept alight with torches and candelabras.

  Beau drove past the house and the main parking lot, which was filled with guests who had already parked for the ball. Once he found a space near the edge of the property, Josephine and I ducked behind and tree and shimmied back into our hoops. We started for the house, when Josephine stopped at a car to check her face in a mirror. I tried to hurry her along. “Josephine, we are already late. “Stop worrying about how you look.”

  She was undeterred and added another layer of lipstick.

  I looked on at the house and was surprised when I saw light on the second floor. It flickered like an oil lamp and not the electric lights which had been installed in the room years ago. The light was on in a room we referred to as the Lavender Room, and we had often been warned it was off limits after dark. Our manager told us it was because the room was said to be haunted, but I always suspected that rumor was to keep us out of the room because that’s where many of the home’s valuables were kept. Others swore they could feel a presence in the room. I stared up at it and watched the lights flicker for a moment before Josephine caught up with me and came to my side.

  “What ya lookin’ at, sugar?” she asked.

  I pointed to the Lavender Room and Josephine said, “You don’t believe that old haunting fiddle faddle, do you, Fanchon?”

  I shook my head, but kept my eyes on the room just the same. Beau talked as we walked, going on about how much he’d made that summer and Josephine dawdled behind listening to him brag, but I scuttled ahead, worried that we were going to be late. I looked back up at the room and was startled when I saw a woman in a black dress and black bonnet staring down at me.

  I stopped in my tracks and stared at her. While I was looking she didn’t move. Josephine nudged me with her elbow, breaking my concentration. “Come on, darlin’. We is gonna be late.”

  I looked back up at the room and saw that the light had gone out and the woman was gone.

  “Didn’t you see that?” I said.

  “See what?” Beau asked.

  I looked back at the room but there was nothing to see.

  Josephine, Beau and I made our way past the line of tourists, standing on the back porch waiting for the doors to open. They were all dressed in attire that would have fit right in on the set of Gone with the Wind. A couple of women wore the infamous dress made from drapes, finished off with fringe and gold tassels. After we were past them we went around the house to the kitchen entrance.

  Beau left us and said he was going back to his truck to smoke. He promised to come back after the cocktail hour to get some leftovers. Our manager, Stan, was leaning against the open kitchen door with a cigarette in his mouth. He was wearing a white suit and a tiny black tie, that coupled with his white hair and goatee made him look like Colonel Sanders. Though his high pitched voice betrayed his look of authority.

  “You girls is late,” he said setting his cigarette on the ground. He stepped on it with his shiny black loafer, picked up the butt and cupped his hand around it.

  Josephine jumped up on the steps next to him, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Ain’t nobody in here yet anyway so no harm done.” She strolled past him into the kitchen and didn’t look back to check his reaction. I followed and said, “Somebody was up in the Lavender Room.”

  He looked at me sharply, “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I saw the oil lamp on when we were walking up, and there was a lady in a black dress.”

  He looked at me angrily. “Are you messing with me, Fanchon? Did Josephine put you up to saying that?”

  “No sir,” I replied. “I saw somebody up…”

  Josephine grabbed my arm and said, “Stop messing around, Fanchon. Let’s get to work.”

  She strode away from him without looking back. I tried my best to look as confident as she did, but I couldn’t and I looked back to see Stan shaking his head at me.

  We walked through the small kitchen, where there was one lone silver tray of hors d’oeuvres sitting on the counter. Josephine picked it up and popped one of the tiny croissants on it into her mouth and walked down the hallway. She turned to the right just beyond the stairs into the main dining room. Normally that room was furnished with an elegant maple dining table and intricately carved chairs, but it had all been removed for the party. In its place were high top tables with white tablecloths and a long bar along the outer wall. I turned left at the end of the foyer into the drawing room and found my mentor and boss Mr. Talbot sitting at the piano warming up. He was wearing a black tuxedo with tails and a top hat.

  When he caught sight of me he jumped up from the piano and said, “Good gracious, girl. Hurry up and run your scales. They are going to open the doors any minute.”

  I jumped onto the bench and ran my hands up and down the keyboard as fast as I could.

  “Sorry,” I mouthed a
t him. Unable to speak over the sound of the piano.

  He shook his head, walked over to the window sill, picked up a book of music and brought it to me while opening it to the first page. “Monster Mash.” He ran back to the foyer and held up three fingers to me, and then he counted down, two and one and I started the song. He darted back to the piano and started singing “The Monster Mash” in his lively baritone. He winked at the guests and played to them as they walked through the door, never breaking his character or missing a beat during the song. Within moments guests filled the entire first floor.

  Once the outside porch was empty I saw Stan walk to the door, lock it, and turn his attention to the steps. He removed the velvet rope that was blocking off the second level and ascended the stairs two at a time.

  Mr. Talbot and I took turns playing different macabre themes. He took the more intricate pieces and the task of introducing each song with a dark story.

  With just two songs left in the program for the night I stood, ready to step aside for the two most difficult pieces, but Mr. Talbot put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down onto the bench. I looked up at him and he didn’t give anything away. He turned the pages in the booklet to the very difficult and fast paced “Ride of the Valkyries.”

  I looked up to him and whispered, “I’m not ready for that.”

  He stood before the audience and said, “We have a special treat for you tonight. Our youngest musician to play at the plantation, Fanchon Deveroux, will be performing “Ride of the Valkyries” for you this evening. I must tell you that it is a special and rare event to see the level of talent you will see tonight in one so young.”

  I turned ten shades of crimson as he spoke. By that time Josephine had made her way into the room, along with Stan. He had just walked over from the steps and the veins in his neck were bulging. I had to take my eyes off of him for the sake of my nerves.

  “The piece she will play for you tonight is beautiful but deadly. The words themselves are a clue to the power of this music. The name Valkyrie means “chooser of the slain” from the words val meaning “those slain on the battlefield” and kjosa meaning “to choose”. Fanchon will be the one who wields the power to be the chooser of the slain if she plays well enough. Who shall be slain, Fanchon?” he asked.