He felt the steel in the Voodoo queen’s tone and saw the concern for her granddaughter in her eyes. “We’ll come.”
Holly’s brow dipped briefly. Then she nodded and followed her grandmother across the gangway to the dock. Instead of turning toward land, she led them to the end of the dock where a small skiff was tied to a post. Her grandmother waited for Simon to get in first, then Holly. They held out their hands for Madam Gautier and helped her into the rocking boat.
She settled at the till, started the engine and drove the little boat out into the inky-black waters of the bayou.
After a few minutes, Holly looked back at her grandmother. “You missed the turn to your island.”
Her grandmother stayed her course. “We’re not going there.”
“Where are we going?” Holly asked.
She glanced left then right, her brow furrowing before answering, “No questions.”
Simon did a three-hundred-sixty-degree study of the land and water around them. The way Madam Gautier was acting, she suspected they were being followed.
A movement out of the corner of his eye made Simon glance toward the shadows beneath a stand of cypress trees several yards behind them. A bird burst out of the branches and flew low across the water. Nothing else moved, but that eerie feeling that someone was watching persisted.
Chapter 12
The tension in the little skiff was so taut that Holly felt as though she would snap in half if anything jumped out at them. Her grandmother could be secretive, but something about her actions, the fact it was the middle of the night, and they were heading out into the maze of the bayou with no idea where she was taking them...
Holly sat on the bench beside Simon and slipped her hand in his. He stared forward, studying the channels in the starlight.
Holly had spent her youth on the bayou. She knew many of the channels and had navigated them day and night. Where her grandmother was taking her wasn’t a place she’d been to often. She paid attention in case she had to find her way back. Hard enough in the daylight, it would be even harder at night.
Her grandmother navigated the waterways with a steady hand as if she’d taken this particular route many times. Her confidence made Holly wonder if she really knew her Mémère. So many questions bubbled up in her mind.
Her grandmother had been clear. Asking questions wouldn’t be allowed or tolerated.
For thirty or more minutes, the little skiff wove through the channels, taking them deeper into the less-traveled areas.
When Holly thought they might be lost, the skiff slowed, rounded a bend and aimed straight for the weeping branches of a willow tree.
Simon and Holly parted the soft curtain as the skiff entered a shadowy grotto beneath the tree.
Holly glanced back at her grandmother, unable to make out her face in the gloom. Was this the place? This grotto deep in the bayou?
Her grandmother steered the skiff through the other side of the willow’s curtain into what appeared to be a dead end. The skiff floated slowly toward a small island that rose out of the dark water. Its steep, unwelcoming banks were covered in twisted vines, discouraging anyone from setting foot on its soil.
As the skiff neared the steep banks, the island shuddered.
Holly and Simon stiffened at the same time and raised their arms in defense.
“It’s okay,” her grandmother said. “It won’t hurt you.”
The banks suddenly parted, a soft grinding noise accompanying the movement. Then, as if out of nowhere, a pale, yellow light appeared, casting a cone of light over the end of a wooden dock. The dock led away, disappearing into a strange, black abyss.
The skiff floated up beside the dock.
Simon looped a line around a piling.
The grinding, mechanical noise sounded again as the island closed around them, trapping them inside.
Holly’s pulse quickened with the sudden instinct of fight or flight.
“We get out here,” Mémère said softly.
“Where are we?” Holly asked.
