Healing the Bayou Read Free Page B

sickening smell of the rotting animal.
    I recognized Camille’s voice as it rose above the others. My eyes closed as I prepared myself for the worst. A sound that resembled a knife cutting through thick leather churned my stomach, and I opened my eyes in time to catch her finish decapitating a chicken as she hung it upside down and emptied the bird’s blood onto my torso.
    I screamed out in horror, but my cries were drowned by a deafening shrieking sound coming from out in the darkness. My hands covered my ears to muffle the penetrating racket.
    This wasn’t part of the ritual. Camille, Samuel, and all the others were mirroring my look of fright, and they each scanned their surroundings to find the source.
    I shot up to sit and closed my eyes tight, trying to hide within my own mind from the anxiety until the only deafening sound remaining was that of a grave silence suggesting I was suddenly alone. With some reluctance I let myself open my eyes.
     

Chapter Three
     
     
    The bright lighting of several florescent bulbs sliced through my eyelashes and I immediately snapped my eyes closed again as tight as I could. An ammonia smell burned my nostrils. Freezing cold, I tried to bring my arms up to cover myself, but a sharp pain nagged at my shoulder and radiated through my body. I groaned and someone gasped.
    “Charles, she’s waking up!” a woman squeaked.
    I knew the voice well, and the sound blanketed me in comforting familiarity. Forcing myself to face the assault of the gleaming daggers above me, I covered the top of my eyes with my hand to create a visor, hoping to lessen the impact. My heart swelled at the tearful, smiling face of my dear Aunt Patrice.
    My mother’s sister couldn’t make it to my parents’ funeral. Her flight had been delayed because of the horrible snowstorms in the northeast. Hearing her speak so resentfully of the cold winters in Massachusetts always made me feel grateful I lived Florida.
    I braced myself as she flew across the room and snatched me into her arms, pulling me up from the unfamiliar bed. She wore gloves of course, since she was one of the very few people who knew my secret ability.
    Once Aunt Patrice had thoroughly squeezed out what little breath I had, she pushed me back and held me by the shoulders. I smiled at her beautiful yet pity-filled blue eyes. I had always envied them. They were always shining and were so full of love. Mine were brown, the boring and far too common color of the modern, just-barely-average female. Her fiery red hair framed her smooth face, which looked much younger than a woman’s of fifty-two.
    “Oh dear. You look terrible, Eliza.”
    “I feel terrible,” I croaked.
    I looked past her at my surroundings—a hospital room. Behind Patrice, blue curtains separated my small bed from another, and in front of the sea green wall on the far side of the room, stood my Uncle Charlie. He wasn’t wearing the same welcome-back-to-reality smile that my aunt had plastered on, but it didn’t bother me. He was much more like me. We didn’t hide our feelings very well, and he had concern written all over his pale face. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.
    I tried to conjure what had happened. But still, just as in the dream, the last thing I could remember was leaving my parents’ funeral.
    Ugh, the damn dream. I’d had that dream every single night since my parents had died, and it was beginning to annoy the shit out of me. At least this time I made it past the steamy part—every other night it ended just before Samuel kissed me, and I would wake up in a hot and bothered haze. As I remembered my company, I blushed and decided daydreaming about that kiss would have to wait until a more appropriate time.
    “What happened?” I asked Uncle Charlie because I knew Aunt Patrice would sugar-coat the incident.
    “Oh, sweetie.” Patrice took charge of answering anyway. “You just had a little accident, that’s all.”
    “What kind of accident?” I