BODY LANGUAGE BLOGFEST

I'm on call tonight, and things are starting to heat up.

So I'm entering the BODY LANGUAGE BLOGFEST a little early.

And I'm truly happy to enter Harley D. Palmer 's BODY LANGUAGE BLOGFEST

http://thelabotomyofawriter.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-body-language-blogfest.html.

{My entry comes from my urban fantasy, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. At this juncture of the novel, Captain Samuel McCord, owner of the haunted jazz club, Meilori's, is heading towards the New Orleans Convention Center the first evening following Hurricane Katrina. Helpless women and children are being threatened by drunken gangsters in that maze of halls. He is going to do what he can.}

As I made my way down the flooded street towards the Convention Center, I looked up at the full moon. It seemed closer than civilization or any semblance of rescue. If there was to be any help for those suffering at the center, it would have to come from me.


As I waded along into the night, the black mists curled and creamed in the humid darkness like an unspoken fear trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness. A trick of the thick air, the moon of blood leered down upon its reflection on the dark waters of the flooded street. Ripples of its long bloody image flowed from the floating dead body of a cat, looking like fingers caressing its kill. The cat’s death apparently hadn't been pretty nor was its corpse. The night became colder than it should have been. Much, much colder.

I didn’t need Rind, the Angel of Death, to tell me that the night was not my friend. Too much death had happened too recently. Spirits, lost and angry, were walking beside me. Torn clothing. Hollow eyes of shadows. Sharp, white teeth. Long, writhing fingers slowly closing and unclosing.


Because of Rind's blood in my veins, I could see them slowly circling, hear their trailing, splashing steps behind me, feel the heat of their sunken, hungry eyes upon my back.


Were they soul-echoes, mere refracted memory of a will? Or were there such things as literal ghosts? Just because I could see them didn't mean that I understood what they were.


I turned the corner and came upon the startled, fragile grace of a too-white egret standing alert in the middle of the flooded street, staring back at me. Its long sleek neck slowly cocked its sloping head at me. Then, gathering its huge wings, it launched itself into the air with its long black legs. I saw the spirits of the dead around me longingly stare after its curved flight of grace and freedom into the dark sky.


I felt a tug on my left jacket sleeve. I looked down. My chest grew cold. The dead face of a little girl was looking up at me. Or rather the face of her lost, wandering spirit, her full black eyes glistening like twin pools of oil. Her face was a wrenching mix of fear and longing. She tried to speak. Nothing came out of her moving lips. Looking like she was on the verge of tears, she tugged on my sleeve again and pointed to the end of the block. I followed her broken-nailed finger. I shivered.


She was pointing to her own corpse.


I took in a ragged breath I didn’t need to compose myself. The Convention Center would have to wait. I had sworn a long time ago that no child would ever ask my help without getting it.


A haunted singing was faint on the breeze. Somewhere the dead had found their voices. I nodded to the girl’s spirit and waded to her corpse, the force of the rushing flood waters having washed it up onto the sidewalk and against a store front where it slowly bobbed in place. I saw the girl’s spirit out of the corner of my eye, studying the shell of flesh she had once worn. Her head was turned slightly to one side. The expression to her face was sorrowful and wistful at the same time. She pointed again.


I looked where her tiny finger was gesturing. She was pointing to her corpse, then to the sidewalk at her misty feet. She did it again. I frowned. What was she trying to tell me?


I looked up at the girl’s spirit. She just stood there frowning as if in concentration. Her brow furrowed, and her jaws clenched. I could swear beads of sweat appeared on her ghostly forehead.


She was silently crying by this time. Bending down, she kneeled by her body. She pointed again, then slid her hand under the water lapping at the sidewalk. She repeated the gesture. I frowned, not understanding what she was trying to tell me.

She made as if to scoop up her body, rose, then walked to the alleyway. She bent again as if laying something down. She turned to me, her eyes intent and begging. Her hands took the position as if she were holding a baseball bat or stick.

She cocked her head, the black tears flowing freely now. She bent again and made digging motions with the stick. I growled low at myself.

I was an idiot. She wanted to be buried. She didn't want to lie out here to be eaten by dogs ... or worse. I started to talk to her, then stopped. If she couldn't speak, maybe she couldn't hear. So I nodded.

She gave me back my frown. I pointed to her body, made my own digging motion, and nodded again. She looked like she didn't quite believe her eyes.

I gently took off my Stetson so as not to spook her, allowing the moon to show her my face clear. I put my right hand over my heart in a silent pledge, and nodded firm three times.

Her face lit up brighter than the full moon overhead. She smiled wistful and sad at me. And with that, she looked up into the night. I followed her eyes. She was looking at the retreating body of the egret slowly flying into a filmy, billowing cloud. I looked back to her spirit.

She was gone.

I sighed from the sudden emptiness hollowing out my chest. I bent down, picked up her frail corpse, and headed to the garden in the back of my jazz club. I blinked back hot tears.

I had a promise to keep.


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