The House on Prytania (Royal Street #2)(44)
Author: Karen White

 

I watched as Sarah and Melanie once again shared a glance, and for the first time since the birth of the twins, I felt a twinge of jealousy. Not because I was no longer an only child, but because what Melanie and Sarah shared wasn’t something I could ever be a part of. I shook off the feeling like an ill-fitting coat, ashamed that the thought had crossed my mind, even if it had been just that once.

 

We met our tour guide and a small group of other visitors at the cemetery gate on Basin Street. When the guide asked us where everyone was from, I had to think for a moment before answering. “New Orleans,” I said, testing it out for the first time since moving there and buying my house. It felt oddly satisfying, as if I’d finally answered the question I’d been asking myself for a long time.

 

The guide, Mary, had a great sense of humor and was very passionate about her job and the cemetery, creating a light atmosphere despite my constant worry about Melanie and Sarah. Melanie wore her earbuds and was humming softly to herself as she pretended to listen to the guide. Sarah’s lips were pressed together tightly, her face stoic as we walked down the first narrow aisle, which was flanked by decaying tombs nestled neatly between pristine marble mausoleums and rusted iron fencing. Flaky orange spikes and fleur-de-lis topped metal gates with broken hinges and missing rails, while the tombs were watched over by crumbling angels and cherubim and other statuary. I found the benign desecration oddly appropriate for a cemetery in New Orleans, a city known for its sinners as much as its saints, the lines separating good and evil sometimes blurred.

 

As we passed the various monuments, all set out in rows like houses in a neighborhood complete with street names and signs, it became clear why the aboveground cemeteries were called “Cities of the Dead.”

 

Next to a wall of what Mary referred to as “oven tombs”—appropriately, since the rounded brick fronts stacked one on top of another strongly resembled bread ovens—we stopped at a family mausoleum with over a dozen names inscribed on the stone plaque on the front, the first interment in 1855.

 

“It’s not very big. How do all those coffins fit into that single tomb?” a member of our group asked.

 

Mary smiled excitedly, as if she’d been waiting all morning for this question. “They don’t,” she explained. “We’re here in October, when the temperatures are much lower than in the heat of summer. The temperatures inside these tombs in the hotter months can reach one hundred fifty to two hundred degrees, assisting Mother Nature in a faster decaying process. The rule is that after a body is interred, they wait for one year and a day before reopening the tomb. At that point only bones are left. A cemetery worker will then take a pole and push the remains to the back of the tomb, making it ready for the next family member. This is where the expression ‘I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole’ comes from.”

 

There were murmurs of appreciation from the group and a bobbing nod from Melanie. I could hear the faint melody of “SOS” coming from her earbuds. I slid a glance toward Sarah, noticing her tightly clenched hands, and her lips that were now almost white from being pressed together.

 

I nudged her. “You okay?” I whispered.

 

She nodded without looking at me, her gaze focusing on the wall of tombs.

 

Mary continued. “Sometimes, like in the great yellow fever epidemics of 1878 and 1905, there were too many members of the same family dying, so they had to resort to temporary tombs until the year and a day had passed, and then the remains would be interred in the family vault.”

 

“People bled from their eyes.” Sarah’s voice rang out clearly. “And vomited blood. Some of them weren’t dead yet when they were put in the tombs.”

 

Everyone turned to look at Sarah. Mary’s smile slipped. “That’s right. You’ve been studying your New Orleans history! More than forty-one thousand people died of yellow fever during the great epidemics between 1817 and 1905. Entire families were wiped out. You can imagine the rush the city was in to inter victims. At that time, the going belief was that the bodies of the infected could continue to spread disease, so time was of the essence.” She smiled uncomfortably at Sarah. “So, yes, sometimes mistakes were made.” On a cheerier note she added, “And from that comes another familiar saying, ‘saved by the bell.’ People were so fearful of being accidentally buried alive that there began a new practice where people would be buried with bells that they could ring for attention if they woke up inside a tomb.”

 

Everyone, except for Sarah, smiled and nodded. Melanie noticed and unclenched Sarah’s hands and placed one of them in her own. Melanie popped out one of her earbuds. “We can leave now. Or I can let you use one of these. It’s up to you.”

 

Sarah shook her head, her chin jutting forward stubbornly, just as I’d noticed our dad doing during an argument. I did the same thing, as had been pointed out once or twice. “I’m fine.” She indicated the group, which had moved on. “Let’s catch up.” She dropped Melanie’s hand and walked forward to join the group.

 

We continued to follow Mary, listening to the interesting histories of the tombs and the families who resided within them, as well as stories about the larger monuments of the fraternal and military societies within the city. We were standing near one of these, a monument for firefighters with an old-fashioned fire truck carved into the front, when I realized that Sarah wasn’t with us.

 

I poked Jolene in the arm, and when she shook her head after I’d asked if she’d seen where Sarah had gone, I told her to stay with Melanie and said that I would go find my sister. When Mary wasn’t looking, I ducked behind a tomb and began walking, calling Sarah’s name while looking in the spaces between structures.

 

I found her standing outside the freshly painted iron gate of a well-tended family tomb, the two large urns standing guard at the sealed door filled with fresh flowers. A large stone lion, its mouth open in mid-growl, perched at the ready atop the mausoleum, the muscles and sinews of his legs and chest taut and primed, ready to pounce on an intruder.

 

Sensing my presence, Sarah spoke without looking at me. “I guess this family doesn’t believe in angels for protection.”

 

I started to laugh, relieved that Sarah was acting normal, but then I saw the family name etched into the marble. broussard.

 

“Why are you here?” I asked.

 

“She brought me here.”

 

“Adele?”

 

Sarah shook her head. “No. The little girl. She took my hand and brought me.”

 

“What little girl?” I asked, looking around.

 

Sarah gave me a half grin. “Not the kind you can see.”

 

I nodded, feeling for the second time that day the small flash of unwanted and unexpected jealousy. “Who is she? Or was, I mean.”