Excerpt: The Calling

Chapter One

The sultry song of the bayou played with my mind and left equal measures of icy panic and hot pleasure in its wake. I wove through shadows and listened to the plants breathe while I kept an eye on the Pitre brothers’ cabin. This is what I was born to do—not a’tall what I wanted to do.

Their conversation floated on the air along with the spicy scent of a traditional Monday supper—red beans and rice. Words settled against my ears and my stomach rumbled quietly in an insistent reminder that Grandmamma would have our supper ready soon. Their voices blended into the quiet of the night, but were distinct enough that I didn’t miss a thing. And neither did my recorder.

Avril Dupré’s contention that they buried her not ten feet from where I crouched behind a renegade banana plant was absolutely true. Not surprising, what with dead people telling me the details of their demise on a continuous basis. I glanced at the old wooden picnic table angled against a cypress tree. Hardly a fitting gravestone for Avril Dupré—at least not according to her.

I was done here.

I backed away, tucked the recorder in my pocket and faded into the trees. Avril’s obnoxious nattering pounded in my head. She was all about getting me to dig her up and move her remains to consecrated ground. When Avril was alive, she went to mass every morning—never missed a day unless she was birthing one of her eight children. Being dumped in the Pitres’ backyard rather than buried with a full Cajun funeral at St. Renatus didn’t sit well with Avril. Not a’tall well. And she was intent on driving me ‘round the bend until I remedied the situation.

And this is absolutely normal. Has been ever since I celebrated my thirty-fifth birthday thirty days, seven hours and sixteen minutes ago. What with murder victims wanting me to do something to rectify the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

As I got farther from the cabin, I stretched my six-foot frame into a full-out run and hoped the movement would quiet Avril down a bit. I shook my head, pressed the heels of my hands against my temples. Grandmamma Boulay didn’t have any sage advice about how to silence the dead once they started telling me about the particulars of their homicides. I was still miffed that her best advice was, “Do what they say, child. Just do what they say.”

When I got to my car, I eased onto the road, then gunned the engine and zipped off for her house—where I’d been staying for a little over a month. Avril nagged me every minute of the half hour trip and I’d about had enough by the time I pulled into Grandmamma’s driveway.

She sat on the porch, rocking in her favorite chair, keeping time with the clicking of her knitting needles. I bent to kiss her papery cheek, inhaled the sweet scent of baby powder, then dropped down on the top step of the stoop. “The Pitre brothers killed Avril.”

“Yes, ‘un tha’s what she’s a’ been sayin’ to you.”

“Quite. She has. And continues to natter at me on the subject, has been for two very long days.” I pulled the elastic out of my hair and shook my ponytail loose. “Tomorrow I’ll post a note to the sheriff telling him where to dig, send the recording of the Pitre’s chatting each other up about the murder and the money they stole from under her floorboards.”

“Avril will stop talking then, ché.”

“If she’s like the first three, yes. It's a bloody bit of bother having dead people chatter at me all the bloody time." I ran my hands through my hair and tried to massage Avril’s voice out of my head.

Grandmamma tsked. “Language, child. Be’in schooled in England is’n no excuse.”

“Um. No, rather a lot of other things, but no excuse. Grandmamma?”

“Yes, child.”

“Why is this my calling? Why couldn’t it be…shape shifting?”

“Oooh, now. We haven’t had a shape shifter for as far back as forever. Don’t know as I’ve ever heard of one ‘cept as legends. Why you asking ‘bout that, child?”

I rolled my shoulders back easing the cramped muscles. “Nia mentioned a bit of something about it when we were hunting Marcellin last month.”

She stopped rocking. “You told her, then? About the calling and this being your thirty-fifth birthday?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s the way of the women in our family and naught to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not a’tall ashamed of it. It’s just a bloody nuisance.”

Grandmamma’s eyebrows formed an elegant arch. I’d have to cull the bloody out of my language before she got out the soap and came after me. Even at thirty-five, I had a healthy respect for Grandmamma and her bar of soap.

I stretched across the rough, wooden porch to pat her bare feet. “Nia had enough to think about what with saving her parent’s lives and falling in love—”

“She’s stayin’ in your home with your friend, the attorney, yes?”

“Quite. Trace Coburn. They’re going to live in Minot, North Dakota. I think it’s a bit on the odd side, actually. They could settle in Honolulu. A house just down from mine came on the market.”

I gave my head a hard shake.

“Avril’s talking at you?”

The bottle of Aleve sitting on the bathroom counter called to me as I tried to rub the headache away. “She is, and it’s not a pleasing voice to have in my head. Grandmamma?”

“Um-hmm. What is it, Whitney child?”

“Why is it that my calling isn’t clairvoyance like you, or seeing mathematical patterns like mum?”

She tsked again. “Not always comfortable, clairvoyance. Oh, not like your discomfort with dead people talking at you, but it’s not an easy thing to see the future. Especially the bad things. Your mama had an easier time of it. Took to working for that government think tank like alligators take to marshmallows.”

Not much point chatting about my mum as she’d left me with Grandmamma when I was fifteen—the year she came into her calling. Not that she had much choice. It’s like that with the calling. I could either embrace it completely, or die trying to run away from the inherent responsibility that goes along with it. Death didn’t appeal to me, at least not my own, so I’d best get accustomed to the voices in a bloody big hurry.

I stood, brushed the seat of my jeans off. “I’m going to post the letter to the sheriff tonight. See if maybe Avril will leave me alone so I can get a bit of sleep.”

Her eyes met mine. “Anonymous, yes? Tha’s not the quickest way, child.”

A chill snaked along my spine, settled in my belly. “Quite. I could ring him up, but I’m not ready.”

Grandmamma pushed herself from the rocker. “Not’a gonna get any easier, accepting who you are.”

I swallowed a sigh. “I know, but it’s a bit much. I hardly have any peace from the dearly departed and if I tell anyone, the living will start nattering at me just like the dead. Only worse. I’d have to be polite to the living.”

She looped her arm through mine and I reached for the basket of lush purple yarn as we made our way into the house.