"No!" Rebecca clutched Anton's arm. Toby had disappeared around the corner. "He's going to ... we can't let him ..."
Her mind was a fuzzy mess. Why was Anton just standing there? If Toby wanted to burn a house down tonight, there
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was one prime target: Aunt Claudia's house on Sixth Street. The stories about Toby's pyromania weren't just idle gossip: He'd probably doused the place with gasoline already.
"We have to stop him," said Anton, and he took off down the street, skidding as he skirted the corner of Prytania. Rebecca pounded after him, running as fast as her numb, shaky legs would allow. Toby was way ahead of them: He'd had too big a head start. All he needed was seconds to light that fire. Aunt Claudia's little house was a dry wooden box; it would go up instantly. And for all Rebecca knew, her aunt and her father were inside.
"Stop!" she shrieked, but she knew this was just as futile as all her pleas on the steps of the Bowman tomb. Except this time there was no Lisette to save her -- or to save the house. Toby was right: There was a burning house in the prophecy. Rebecca and Aunt Claudia had never imagined that it might be theirs.
Anton ran in long, loping strides, and he was gaining on Toby. Rebecca pushed herself on, willing Anton to catch him. The boys had reached the Bowman mansion when Anton threw himself forward, tackling Toby around the legs. Toby fell hard onto the sidewalk, and the two of them started rolling like one long, angry snake, thrashing on the ground. They were punching each other, Rebecca saw as she ran up. Toby kneed Anton hard, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to get up and run off again.
But Anton surged forward again, dragging Toby back, and then he smacked Toby straight in the face. Both of them reeled, Toby flopping onto the ground. Anton staggered
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over to the low iron railings along the Bowmans' front yard.
"This is the house that'll burn!" he shouted, blood trickling from his nose. His eyes were wild. "This is where it's all going to end -- right here!"
"No, Anton!" Rebecca couldn't believe he was really going to do this. Anton had the silver cigarette lighter in his hand; he was striking the wheel, flicking up a flame. He crouched, reaching through the railings.
A large plastic tarpaulin heaped with lumber and other building supplies stretched across the yard to the side gallery. Anton lowered the flame to the frayed edge of the tarp. Toby eased himself up: He was leaning on his hands, his mouth an 0 of amazement. He couldn't believe it, either, thought Rebecca. He couldn't believe that Anton was prepared to burn down the Bowmans' house to save Rebecca's.
She couldn't see the lighter anymore, or its tiny flame, but moments later it was clear that Anton had made contact. The tarp was alight, crackling with flames. Fire licked at the pile of lumber, and then it must have reached something much more flammable, like a can of paint: With a "pop" the fire suddenly tripled in size, dancing toward the house.
Anton stood up slowly, looking at what he'd done. Then he hurled his lighter hard, throwing it onto the gallery. It wasn't too late, Rebecca thought, looking around -- someone could still stop this. All she had to do was dial 911, and a fire engine could race up and put this out. But she didn't have her phone with her: It was too bulky for her shorts pockets, so she'd given it to Aunt Claudia this afternoon.
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"Call the fire department," she ordered Toby, though he appeared too dazed to hear her. "For god's sake, before it's too ..."
She was interrupted by a louder, more explosive series of pops: There had to be paint cans lining the side gallery. The flames licking at the posts now ran in longer and longer lines as though someone was drawing them along an invisible string. An acrid smoke filled her lungs, and the heat of the fire sizzled her cheeks and bare legs. Fire darted up the side of the building, obscuring the chimney; a window exploded. Anton seemed to wake from his stupor.
"We have to get back," he said to Rebecca. "This place is going to blow."
Toby, still on the ground, was laughing and shaking his head.
"You're crazy, man," he told Anton. "I thought I was meant to be the bad one. What the hell have you done?"
Anton took Rebecca's hand and pulled her onto the street. She could hear doors opening and slamming, the murmur of voices. Lights were going on up and down the street; in the distance, the whine of a siren sounded.
"Move unless you want something to fall on you," Anton said to Toby.
"Don't worry." Toby pushed himself off the ground, then stood wiping the blood off his face. "I'm out of here. This is all yours, bud."
"Come on," Anton muttered to Rebecca. The Bowman house was ablaze, flames shooting into the sky, its gray facade crackling into a ridged, papery black. Smoke billowed into
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the street, and flying smudges of ash showered onto their heads. A door in the old slave quarters opened, and the elderly butler ran into the driveway; he was clutching a damp towel to his face, making for the side street, as far as Rebecca could tell. There were people running in the street, shouting; the sirens were getting closer. Nothing was clear anymore, the street a thick smoggy gray.
Anton was leading her past the cemetery and down Sixth Street, both of them coughing and spluttering. Aunt Claudia: Was she safe? Had they taken her somewhere? The door to the leaning yellow house was locked, and Rebecca didn't have a key. She pounded on it, but nobody answered. Without any discussion, Anton tugged a loose brick from the rickety steps and slammed it into the window. The pane shattered, and he used the brick to knock the remaining jagged pieces of glass onto the floor of the parlor.
"Miss Claudia!" he shouted, lowering his head to peer in.
"Can you see them? Can you hear them?" Rebecca was almost hysterical. The usually quiet neighborhood was roaring with noise now, flashing with police lights and sirens, unnaturally lit up by the burning Bowman mansion.
"No," Anton told her, reaching in to fumble for the window latch. "How do I get this thing open?"
He answered his own question by wildly smashing another pane.
"Be careful." He pushed up the window sash and helped Rebecca climb in. "There's glass everywhere."
"Oh my god!" Rebecca crunched across the room, making her way to the hallway. Lights were on there, but the
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kitchen was empty, everything exactly where they left it earlier in the day. Anton opened each of the bedroom doors in turn.
"I can't see anyone," he called. "Have you looked ... what?"
The splintering sound of exploding glass in the distance made them both jump. The front door rattled, as though it was giving way, being forced open.
"Rebecca!" It was her father, roaring for her. "Are you in here?"
"Yes!" She threw herself into the hallway. Her father stood just inside the front door, his face bruised and scratched, Aunt Claudia pressing in behind him.
"She's here, Paul," her aunt said. "I knew she'd be here."
"Thank god you're all right," he said, and Rebecca hurtled into his arms, burying her face in his heavy coat. "It's all over, honey. It's all over."
She could hear Anton's footsteps, slowly thudding up the hallway.
"Thank you, Anton," said Aunt Claudia. "Thanks for bringing Rebecca home."
"The Bowmans' house," Anton said, his voice cracking with emotion. Rebecca lifted her head to look at him. He was wiping at his face with the back of his hand. "Is it ... is it too late?"
They moved onto the front porch in a dark clump, Rebecca still clinging to her father. The night sky glowed a burnished orange. Rebecca's eyes stung with smoke and tears and ash, and she couldn't trust herself to speak at all. In the distance, flames danced from the roof of the Bowman mansion,
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shooting into the sky. Anton gripped the railing, staring out at the fire. Marilyn the cat scooted up the stairs, weaving around Anton's legs and rubbing up against the post.
"Mama!" A breathless Aurelia was running toward them, thundering down the sidewalk. She stopped
at the other side of the gate, beckoning wildly. "We've been out watching the fire! You can see much more up on Prytania -- come on!"
"We'll stay right here, thank you," Aunt Claudia said firmly. "And I think you should come up here as well, out of harm's way."
"But, Mama," Aurelia pleaded. "It's fine up there, really. Claire's parents are there and everything. It's like ... it's like Rome is burning! The barbarians are at the gates!"
Rebecca rested her head on her father's shoulder, and they stood there together, in silence, watching Rome burn.
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EPILOGUE
On a sunny Saturday in mid-May, two teenagers made their way into Lafayette Cemetery. One was a seventeen-year-old girl, tall and dark, carrying a simple wreath of pungent olive leaves. The boy was even taller, his hair brushing his collar, his fingers paint-stained and cut. The school year was over, and they'd spent the last week working on a house in Tremé. It was an old Creole cottage, one of the oldest homes in the city of New Orleans. With the help of a local charity, and a group of enthusiastic volunteers from their schools, they'd managed to gut the house, clear out all the rubble from its collapsing roof, and give the exterior a fresh coat of pale blue. Work on its renovation would continue throughout the summer, even after the girl returned to her hometown, New York City.
In Lafayette Cemetery, its calm ruffled by the usual Saturday morning tour groups, the stone angel still lay in broken pieces at the foot of the Bowman tomb. One of the tour guides steered her group of half drunk convention-goers past that particular alleyway, lamenting the grave's recent state of disrepair. She pointed to the blackened ruins of the Bowman mansion and told them how the famous curse on the house had finally come true. A terrible and mysterious fire had taken place there, the night of the Septimus
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parade -- terrible because it had destroyed one of the finest houses in the Garden District, and mysterious because the fire department seemed to have no idea at all how it started.
The boy and girl waited until the tour group drifted away before walking up to the Bowman tomb, carefully picking their way around the stone shards littering its steps. The girl reached forward, leaning the wreath against the door.
"Good-bye," she said, and took a step back. The boy reached for her hand, and they stood for a moment in silence among the broken wings and shattered torch of the toppled angel, reading the name recently carved into the marble sealing the vault's door.
lisette villieux bowman 1836-1853
One of the city's oldest curses had ended. At long last, one of the thousands of ghosts of New Orleans was resting in peace.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Richard Abate at Endeavor, Aimee Friedman and the team at Scholastic, and two excellent readers -- my husband, Tom Moody, and my niece, Rebecca Hill, who helped me so much with this story.
Readers interested in learning more about the rich and complex history of New Orleans might want to start with Ned Sublette's The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square. And anyone keen to help rebuild and renew this unique American city should visit www.makeitrightnola.org or www.habitat-nola.org.
Paula Morris, Ruined
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