Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

“It’s wrong to kill children, sir,” Malvina scolds. “If that’s really what you done.”

“Surely it is,” Noonday concedes. “But he was nearly dead already, I just guided him that last little bit. Long story. Tell ya all about it later, sister-if ya don’t mind. Lots of time later, not much now.”

Malvina tightens her face, never having cared for backtalk (much less shushing) from a person so much younger than herself. Noonday just smiles, takes her again by the hand, leading her past Typhus and the beautiful woman whose name is Gloria and not Lily, into a thick of gathering light. Malvina’s mind fills with uneasy questions as they walk past the night’s first reunion, recalling recent feelings of premonition. “Something bad gonna happen, Noonday. I just don’t know what.”

He squeezes her hand once more. “Now, whatever may come will do so on its own steam, and that don’t necessarily reflect on you or me or things we mighta done in our past and above water. Plenty of blame to pass around. Ain’t no one innocent here.” His smile fades. “Don’t be afraid ner concerned, but I want you to come with me.”

“Where to?”

“Some folks been waitin’ on ya. Be glad to see you, too. See if we can’t straighten out all this fear and bad feelin’.” A pause. “See if we can’t make things right once and for all.”

“What folks?”

“Will o’ the Wisps.” Noonday Morningstar looks down, slips his naked feet into the two shoes that had caused Malvina to fall. He places an arm around her trembling, transparent shoulders. “Just come along. You’ll see.”

The two walk forward into murky brown, towards a blue ball of light, a will o’ the wisp. As they get closer the light takes on the shape of a woman. Long dead, the woman is not a ghost in this place.

“Maria?”

“Hello, Auntie,” replies the slender young mulatto woman. She is cradling a small, white blanket in her hands-it is empty and unsoiled. Malvina has seen this blanket before.

“Child, child, I can hardly believe my own eyes.” Malvina is seeing and speaking with her long dead niece, her sister Frances’ lost child. Her heart is booming.

“Why so hard to believe? For you this is a dream.”

“But it isn’t,” Malvina says.

“I have to go.” Maria averts her eyes as she speaks.

“Don’t go, Maria. Stay and talk with me awhile. There’s so much I want to, that I need to-”

“I lost my baby, Auntie Malvina. Michael’s his name.”

“I know his name, Maria-”

“Have to find him. Have to go now.” Maria backs away, then turns-walks off into the thick brown of river.

“Let me help you,” Malvina pleads, moving to follow-but Noonday puts a firm hand on her shoulder, holds her steady.

“Let her go. She’ll be all right. This is something she needs to do. A pain she needs to feel.”

“But it’s my fault…” Malvina says weakly, just loud enough for Maria to hear.

Maria stops in her tracks, turns to face Malvina before going further. “No,” she says with conviction. “No, it isn’t your fault.”

“But Maria, please,” Malvina says. “What do I do? What do I say to your mama? What should I tell her?”

Maria’s expression is a mixture of exhaustion and resolve. “Tell her to come home. Tell her she needs to come home.”

Maria steps away quickly, her hands clutching the blanket tightly, disappearing completely in the murk. Malvina’s knees go rubbery with grief.

“So many things,” Noonday explains, “will not make sense to you in the Spiritworld. Not while you’re just visiting. But when you belong, your questions will be fewer, much fewer.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand.”

“Shh. Come. There’s someone else you need to see. Someone to make things right in your heart.”

He takes her hand and leads her towards a blue ball of light in the distance. Blue with a halo of red.

Malvina tries to wish herself awake, “wake up, wake up, wake up,” she chants aloud. Noonday strokes her shoulder, but offers no comforting words, says only:

“Stop that. Look at him. What do you see?”

Forcing herself to calm, she looks, sees, then speaks;

“He’s transparent. Like me.” Her heart fills with irrational relief.

“Yes, but not for long.”

“He’s dying.”

“In your world, he’s dying. Here, he is being born.”

The dying man falls to his knees. His eyes widen and blink. His hair is long and wild, his clothes are tatters. This is the Coco Robicheaux of Malvina’s dreams-but in the dream he has no eyes. This creature’s eyes are kind and soft.

When his eyes meet her own, everything changes.

These eyes she once knew, long ago and not in dreams. These eyes she had once loved.

Malvina remembers.

The beautiful boy who Malvina Latour had loved when she was a young girl was a free man of color. The boy had returned her love in kind, had brought her the greatest joy of her life. But when she’d found herself heavy with child, the boy had disappeared, as tender loving, beautiful young boys often do. She carried the child to term, had seen him through the agony of birth-but shortly after the child’s arrival she found herself unable to provide for him. She had brought her child, a son, to the steps of a Christian church-with a note pinned to his perfect, white blanket:

“Please help my boy. I cannot care for him.”

She had lingered on those steps, his little hand encasing her thumb, pressing firmly, his dark brown eyes looking into her own. So trusting, so assured by her presence. Those eyes, those little brown eyes. She sang to him softly,

Mo pap li couri la riviere,

Mo maman li couri peche crab

She’d hoped he would fall asleep before the time came for her to leave him, so that their parting might not be too painful. But her song had been too loud, had triggered footfalls from inside the church. With an acute agony of the soul, Malvina roughly pulled the boy’s hand from her thumb and ran to the safety of shadows. The sound of his cries pierced the night, pierced her heart. She sat and listened as a stern female voice called out to her:

“Come out and be seen! I know you’re there! I can hear you!”

Malvina didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. The wails of her son became muffled as the woman took him inside, away from her forever.

Now.

Here are those same eyes. Bigger, sadder, wizened, older.

“Thomas?” she asks, using the name she’d given him on the day of his birth.

The man remains on bended knee, no longer transparent, still staring. “They call me Beauregard now,” he says at last.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she says, then adding softly, “Beauregard.”

Beauregard stands, walks to her as quickly as he is able, takes her in his arms. “I love you, Mama,” he says simply. “It’s all right now. Everything is all right. Everything is as it should, and always has been.”

Malvina whispers in the ear of her child, her son, her divine burden, “I have to leave you once more, my Beauregard, my love. But I will be back very soon. There’s something I have to do above water. Something I need to finish.”

“I know.” Beauregard is smiling.

“Someone I need to say goodbye to,” she amends.

“Perhaps,” interrupts Noonday Morningstar, “‘goodbye’ is not the correct word at all. Perhaps the word you’ve been searching for all this time has been hello .” The holy man’s grin is a wild thing. “Just a thought. Hurry back, now.”