People are afraid to go there. It isn’t like Miss Laveau. Lezetta wasn’t a much respected woman. I don’t imagine that she had any followers. I am sure that there is a lot more to the story that I don’t know. That’s just what I heard growing up.”
Drew was afraid of that. “What about Brendan? What happened to him?”
“Look, I don’t know any more than I have already told you, I got to go. Why don’t you ask him yourself?” She opened the door to the library then she stopped and turned around, “He hung himself right after Lezetta and Mary Ann died. That really is all that I know. You may be able to find more information in public records or in old newspaper ads, but I doubt it. Most of that stuff was kind of kept quiet back then. What is known, or thought anyway, has been passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth. Urban legends you might say. Who knows what the real story is? Good luck with it though.”
“Thanks.” Drew said, but it was too late. The girl had already disappeared behind the tempered glass door.
She had a feeling that whatever else she wanted to know about what happened one hundred and fifty years ago was going to have to come from the sources themselves. Normally that would be impossible, not in her new world.
The ride home was a peaceful one. She knew in her heart that everything was going to work out just fine when she saw that the cab driver had neatly left her stuff inside the front door. She was finally home, a place that she belonged.
Drew’s world started to change even more. Sometimes the color would disappear while she slept leaving only the grays of the underworld and the bright red of blood. She could smell the metal and taste the rust in her mouth when she woke. Someone continued to watch her as she walked through the swamps and the woods, sometimes in a hurry, so fast that she could hear her own heartbeat. Sometimes she was the watcher and saw images that made her wake in sweats and screams. She never seemed to remember what it was that she saw when she woke though.
Yet, other times she danced. She held the man so closely and he held her tight in return. It was almost as if they were holding each other for the first time, and the last, cherishing every minute, and not wanting to let go. They were so close at times that they were like one, and in her dreams they made love, something that Drew thought would never happen, not in her lifetime, not to her. In her dreams it was natural, it was meant to be, and his eyes held her and told her everything she had ever needed to know.
The next few days flew by for Drew. The house was exactly the way she wanted it. The yard was getting there. Drew had already decided on what flowers she was going to plant outside next to the pool and around the cemetery. It was going to take some time, but she would get there.
Her ghost hadn’t bothered her too much since their confrontation at the staircase. She supposed that they had come to an understanding. Drew felt him watch her every move though. Sometimes it was annoying, sometimes a little freaky, and sometimes when she couldn’t feel his presence, she felt lonely.
The dreams that she had been having faded in and out of reality for her. She thought she was dreaming when she would see the man of her dreams out of the corner of her eye, but would catch herself wide awake. She would have to shake it off and go about her business. Strangely though, time had started to speed up, and one day ran into the next. Drew became a hermit. She was all alone (without another human) and was beginning to lose track of the real world.
“Drew? Hello?” Liza hollered through the front door. She had knocked several times, but there was no answer. She heard classical music being played on a piano from inside the house and it was obviously too loud for her to be heard. As soon as she stepped in the music stopped.
“Is anyone home?” Liza said again.
Drew came out of the hallway with paint covered everything. There was blue paint splattered in her hair along with dots of yellow, smudges of black and