"But surely, you must have loved Grandpère once. You must have seen something good in him," I insisted.

"I saw what I wanted to see," she replied. She was stubborn when it came to him, but for reasons I still didn't understand. That day I must have felt a streak of contrariness or bravery, because I tried to probe at the past.

"Grandmère, why did he move away? Was it just because of his drinking, because I think he would stop if he lived with us again?"

Her eyes cut sharply toward rue. "No, it's not just because of his drinking." She was quiet a moment. "Although that's good enough a reason."

"Is it because of the way he gambles away his money?"

"Gambling ain't the worse of it," she snapped in a voice that said I should let the matter drop. But for some reason I couldn't.

"Then what is, Grandmère? What did he do that was so terrible?"

Her face darkened and then softened a bit. "It's between him and me," she said. "It ain't for you to know. You're too young to understand it all, Ruby. If Grandpère Jack was meant to live with us . . . things would have been different," she insisted and left me as confused and frustrated as ever.

Grandmère Catherine had such wisdom and such power. Why couldn't she do something to make us a family again? Why couldn't she forgive Grandpère and use her power to change him so that he could live with us once more? Why couldn't we be a real family?

No matter what Grandpère Jack told me and other people, no matter how much he swore, ranted, and raved, I knew he had to be a lonely man living by himself in the swamp. Few people visited him and his home was really no more than a shack. It sat six feet off the marsh on pilings. He had a cistern to collect rainwater and butane lanterns for lights. It had a wood heater for burning scrap lumber and driftwood. At night he would sit on his galerie and play mournful tunes on his accordion and drink his rotgut whiskey.

He wasn't really happy and neither was Grandmère Catherine. Here we were returning from the Rodrigues home after chasing off an evil spirit and we couldn't chase off the evil spirits that dwelt in the shadows of our own home. In my heart I thought Grandmère Catherine was like the shoemaker without any shoes. She can do so much good for others, but she seemed incapable of doing the same sort of things for herself.

Was that the destiny of a Traiteur? A price she had to pay to have the power?

Would it be my destiny as well: to help others but be unable to help myself?

The bayou was a world filled with many mysterious things. Every journey into it, revealed something surprising. A secret until that moment not discovered. But the secrets held in our own hearts were the secrets I longed to know the most.

Just before we reached home, Grandmère Catherine said, "There's someone at the house." With a definite note of disapproval, she added, "It's that Tate boy again."

Paul was sitting on the galerie steps playing his harmonica, his motor scooter set against the cypress stump. The moment he set eyes on our lantern, he stopped playing and stood up to greet us.

Paul was the seventeen-year-old son of Octavious Tate, one of the richest men in Houma. The Tates owned a shrimp cannery and lived in a big house. They had a pleasure boat and expensive cars. Paul had two younger sisters, Jeanne, who was in my class at school, and Toby, who was two years younger. Paul and I had known each other all our lives, but just recently had begun to spend more time together. I knew his parents weren't happy about it. Paul's father had more than one run-in with Grandpère Jack and disliked the Landrys.

"Everything all right, Ruby?" Paul asked quickly as we drew closer. He wore a light blue cotton polo shirt, khaki pants, and leather boots laced tightly beneath them. Tonight he looked taller and wider to me, and older, too.

"Grandmère and I went to see the Rodrigues family. Mrs. Rodrigues's baby was born dead," I told him.

"Oh, that's horrible," Paul said softly. Of all the boys I knew at school, Paul seemed the most sincere and the most mature, although, one of the shyest. He was certainly one of the handsomest with his cerulean blue eyes and thick, chatin hair, which was what the Cajuns called brown mixed with blond. "Good evening, Mrs. Landry," he said to Grandmère Catherine.

She flashed her gaze on him with that look of suspicion she had ever since the first time Paul had walked me home from school. Now that he was coming around more often, she was scrutinizing him even more closely, which was something I found embarrassing. Paul seemed a little amused, but a little afraid of her as well. Most folks believed in Grandmère's prophetic and mystical powers.

"Evening," she said slowly. "Might be a downpour yet tonight," she predicted. "You shouldn't be motoring about with that flimsy thing."

"Yes, ma'am," Paul said.

Grandmère Catherine shifted her eyes to me. "We got to finish the weavin' we started," she reminded me.

"Yes, Grandmère. I'll be right along."

She looked at Paul again and then went inside.

"Is your grandmother very upset about losing the Rodrigues baby?" he asked.

"She wasn't called to help deliver it," I replied, and I told him why she had been summoned and what we had done. He listened with interest and then shook his head.

"My father doesn't believe in any of that. He says superstitions and folklore are what keeps the Cajuns backward and makes other folks think we're ignorant. But I don't agree," he added quickly.

"Grandmère Catherine is far from ignorant," I added, not hiding my indignation. "It's ignorant not to take precautions against evil spirits and bad luck."

Paul nodded. "Did you . . . see anything?" he asked.

"I felt it fly by my face," I said, placing my hand on my cheek. "It touched me here. And then I thought I saw it leave."

Paul released a low whistle.

"You must have been very brave," he said.

"Only because I was with Grandmère Catherine," I confessed.

"I wish I had gotten here earlier and been with you . . . to make sure nothing bad happened to you," he added. I felt myself blush at his desire to protect me.

"I'm all right, but I'm glad it's over," I admitted. Paul laughed.

In the dim illumination of our galerie light, his face looked softer, his eyes even warmer. We hadn't done much more than hold hands and kiss a half-dozen times, only twice on the lips, but the memory of those kisses made my heart flutter now when I looked at him and stood so closely to him. The breeze gently brushed aside some strands of hair that had fallen over his forehead. Behind the house, the water from the swamps lapped against the shore and a night bird flapped its wings above us, invisible against the dark sky.

"I was disappointed when I came by and you weren't home," he said. "I was just about to leave when I saw the light of your lantern."

"I'm glad you waited," I replied, and his smile widened. "But I can't invite you in because Grandmère wants us to finish the blankets we'll put up for sale tomorrow. She thinks we'll be busy this weekend and she's usually right. She always remembers which weekends were busier than others the year before. No one has a better memory for those things," I added.

"I got to work in the cannery all day tomorrow, but maybe I can come by tomorrow night after dinner and we can walk to town to get a cup of crushed ice," Paul suggested.

"I'd like that," I said. Paul stepped closer to me and fixed his gaze on my face. We drank each other in for a moment before he worked up enough courage to say what he really had come to say. "What I really want to do is take you to the fais dodo next Saturday night," he declared quickly.

I had never been out on a real date before. Just the thought of it filled me with excitement. Most girls my age would be going to the fais dodo with their families and dance with boys they met there, but to be picked up and escorted and to dance only with Paul all night . . . that sent my mind reeling.

"I'll have to ask Grandmère Catherine," I said, quickly adding, "but I'd like that very much."

"Good. Well," he said, backing up toward his motor scooter, "I guess I better be going before that downpour comes." He didn't take his eyes off me as he stepped away and he caught his heel on a root. It sat him down firmly.

"Are you all right?" I cried, rushing to him. He laughed, embarrassed.

"I'm fine, except for a wet rear end," he added, and laughed. He reached up to take my hand and stand, and when he did, we were only inches apart. Slowly, a millimeter at a time, our lips drew closer and closer until they met. It was a short kiss, but a firmer and more confident one on both our parts. I had gone up on my toes to bring my lips to his and my breasts grazed his chest. The unexpected contact with the electricity of our kiss sent a wave of warm, pleasant excitement down my spine.

"Ruby," he said, bursting with emotion now. "You're the prettiest and nicest girl in the whole bayou."

"Oh, no, I'm not, Paul. I can't be. There are so many prettier girls, girls who have expensive clothes and expensive jewelry and—"

"I don't care if they have the biggest diamonds and dresses from Paris. Nothing could make them prettier than you," he blurted out. I knew he wouldn't have had the courage to say these things if we weren't standing in the shadows and I couldn't see him as clearly. I was sure his face was crimson.

"Ruby!" my grandmother called from a window. "I don't want to stay up all night finishing this."

"I'm coming, Grandmère. Good night, Paul," I said, and then I leaned forward to peck him on the lips once more before I turned and left him standing in the dark. I heard him start his motor scooter and drive off and then I hurried up to the grenier to help Grandmère Catherine.

For a long moment, she didn't speak. She worked and kept her eyes fixed on the loom. Then she shifted her gaze to me and pursed her lips the way she often did when she was thinking deeply.

"The Tate boy's been coming around to see you a great deal, lately, hasn't he?"

"Yes, Grandmère."

"And what do his parents think of that?" she asked, cutting right to the heart of things as always.

"I don't know, Grandmère," I said, looking down.

"I think you do, Ruby."

"Paul likes me and I like him," I said quickly. "What his parents think isn't important."

"He's grown a great deal this year; he's a man. And you're no longer a little girl, Ruby. You've grown, too. I see the way you two look at each other. I know that look too well and what it can lead to," she added.

"It won't lead to anything bad. Paul's the nicest boy in school," I insisted. She nodded but kept her dark eyes on me. "Stop making me feel naughty, Grandmère. I haven't done anything to make you ashamed of me."

"Not yet," she said, "but you got Landry in you and the blood has a way of corrupting. I seen it in your mother; I don't want to see it in you."

My chin began to quiver.

"I'm not saying these things to hurt you, child. I'm saying them to prevent your being hurt," she said, reaching out to put her hand over mine.

"Can't I love someone purely and nicely, Grandmère? Or am I cursed because of Grandpère Jack's blood in my veins? What about your blood? Won't it give me the wisdom I need to keep myself from getting in trouble?" I demanded. She shook her head and smiled.

"It didn't prevent me from getting in trouble, I'm afraid. I married him and lived with him once," she said, and then sighed. "But you might be right; you might be stronger and wiser in some ways. You're certainly a lot brighter than I was when I was your age, and far more talented. Why your drawings and paintings—"

"Oh, no, Grandmère, I'm—"

"Yes, you are, Ruby. You're talented. Someday someone will see that talent and offer you a lot of money for it," she prophesied. "I just don't want you to do anything to ruin your chance to get out of here, child, to rise above the swamp and the bayou."

"Is it so bad here, Grandmère?"

"It is for you, child."

"But why, Grandmère?"

"It just is," she said, and began her weaving again, again leaving me stranded in a sea of mystery.

"Paul has asked me to go with him to the fais dodo a week from Saturday. I want to go with him very much, Grandmère," I added.

"Will his parents let him do that?" she asked quickly. "I don't know. Paul thinks so, I guess. Can we invite him to dinner Sunday night, Grandmère? Can we?"

"I never turned anyone away from my dinner table," Grandmère said, "but don't plan on going to the dance. I know the Tate family and I don't want to see you hurt."