Untitled

Just a forgotten WIP that I pulled out of the files - unedited and raw, but one of many forgotten first chapters.

L’Amoreaux sat on the bluff overlooking the Sabine River just as it had for over 150 years. Generations of the St Jacques family had lived there, died there, buried in the family cemetery on the edge of the property. Even those who had left came back upon death to be buried there on the hill. No one really left l’Amoreaux, no one could ever escape. Even now, with the death of its last occupant, the house waited for its new arrival, a new soul to feed upon. Death waited at l’Amoreaux.

Chapter One
It was a foggy dew morning, the kind when drops glittered on the edge of nature and the wetness stole into your bones. The man inhaled deeply, let the breath out to mingle with the gray mist. Pulling the lapels of his jacket snug around his neck, he leaned against the tree. His eyes, the same soft gray as the morning, scanned the landscape around him, searching out objects shrouded in fog of gray and white. The smell of winter was in the air, the cold front chasing on the tail of autumn’s wake. Pulling away from the old bois d’arc, he walked through the meadow to the road, bits and pieces of grass clinging to his boots. Reaching the Harley he paused and looked back at the meadow. Wisps of mists, gray tendrils wrapped around the trees, covered the ground where he had been. The place of his childhood, its enchantment calmed his soul, called for his presence, the child who had left so long ago. Shaking the sentimentality from his head, he climbed onto the motorcycle, barely escaping the clutch of the mist that now surrounded the bike.
Pulling back onto the road, he passed the green sign on the outskirts of town ‘St. Jack, Texas, pop. 900’. 899, he thought grimly, remembering the reason for his trip. The last time he had seen St. Jack was through the back window of a battered Chevy, a child still in the grip of terror. Now, some 30 years later a man still in the grasp of demons, determined to set himself free as he buried the one person who had held the key. Raw anger, the emotion that was his constant companion, clawed at his throat as he rounded the bend and the sight of the town water tower came into view. ‘St. Jack’, it proclaimed, ‘home of the Huguenots’. It’s mascot the last remaining vestige of the French people that had settled there in the mid 19th century. The name had originally been St. Jacques, but through the years before incorporation had been Texanized to plain St. Jack. His family, of course, had kept the name St. Jacques. A source of pride and arrogance, the symbol of power traced its way back to Etienne St. Jacques, its ruthless patriarch. The eldest of four children, his mother had kept with Southern tradition and gave him her maiden name. Morgan St. Jacques, the last of his line, was coming home.
Turning off the road before it curved into town, he followed the two lane track as it wound along the edges of old farmland, headed for a patch of trees in the distance. Stray tendrils of fog scurried across the dirt road, their destination the small creek that snaked through the green fields. L’Amoreaux waited for him at the end of the lane, the road having stopped at its iron gates, the same as everything else did. It belonged to him now, much to the chagrin of his greedy cousins, the seed of younger sons of younger sons. But Morgan didn’t want the home, its presence an aberration to the freedom in his soul. Settling down in one place was not the life he had planned, the life he now loved. Freedom kept you running, demons at your heels. Staying put allowed them to settle in your mind, waiting to drive you crazy as they had his brother. Stephen, gentle Stephen, would have laughed at Morgan, laughed at the irony of the gift from a grandfather he had not seen for three decades, yet had never left his side.
Morgan stared at the wrought iron gates, the initials E and G gracefully entwined as they had been for decades. Etienne and Genevieve, the lovers. Etienne had built this home for his bride, the beautiful Creole from New Orleans, whose face was as beautiful as her soul was dark. They had owned close to 200 slaves at one time, 200 tortured souls whose cries sometimes still filled the night air around the old slave quarters. Morgan and Stephen had spent many a night staring out the window of their bedroom at the play of mist around the decrepit old buildings. They had never questioned the sight of the smoky wisps or the low moans that had accompanied them. Neither had they questioned the parents of their friends who would never let their sons spend the night at the old plantation. Morgan got off of the bike and approached the gate, shaking the cobwebs from his memory just as he dusted the web from the catch on the iron bar. The gate gave way easily, swinging open without even the expected creak of hinges. Morgan felt a chill in the autumn air and again pulled the leather jacket closer. Gravel crunched under his feet as he stepped onto St. Jacques land. At least the old man had given in on one thing, he thought, remembering the spring showers and the impassability of the dirt road. There had been some good things to remember about l’Amoreaux, rabbit hunting on a spring day, fossils in the Sabine River, Shay, her white blond hair filled with the daisies that scattered across the eastern meadow each spring. He hadn’t thought of her in years, the little girl of his childhood. She’d be married now, with a lot of kids and a broken down husband tending the family farm. Shay O’Neal. She and Stephen had been his constant companions, confidants in the way only children could be. He'd missed her at first, then forgotten, just as he’d forgotten a lot about l’Amoreaux. No time for sentimentality, asshole. Morgan kicked a piece of gravel and walked back to his bike.