Juliette lay on the tattered settee and allowed her gaze to wander the room. Belle Jarod's walls were once again the color of pale butter thanks to endless hours of scrubbing the last days. They reflected the daylight pouring through the glassless windows and she imagined her mother, stretched upon this settee as she was now, hair flowing over the cushion to pool upon the floor. How very far Juliette had come, she realized, from loathing the thought of Maureen to comparing herself to her.

Had Chantz suffered because of Juliette's actions? Because, like Maureen, she could not contain her emotional and physical yearnings?

She deserved to be lost!

It was she who should have been strapped to that damnable post and whipped! No torment she could inflict upon her body would satisfy her own aching need for penitence.

Yet, despite it all, she continued to hunger for Chantz.

During the daylight hours she had worked her fingers to the bone as if by doing so she would sweat away the memories of his mouth and hands on her flesh. But at night... she must lie here in the dark, a prisoner of this room and of her body that was a host both for torment and for pleasure.

With mounting desperation, she attempted to focus her thoughts on Chantz as she last saw him, unconscious and bleeding, and she fought with all her energy for the hate she felt for Maxwell and Tylor, for Max's deceit and Tylor's cruelty, to replace the burning for Chantz that continued to mount.

"Miss Julie?"

Juliette opened her eyes.

"Lord, girl, you is a mess," Liza whispered, and touched Juliette's cheek. Wild gladness and relief flooded Juliette and she wanted to take Liza in her arms and clutch her- even more, she wished for Liza's strong, dark arms to encircle her.

Yet, she felt too weak and sore to move.

"Can you sit up?" Liza asked gently.

"Liza, is that truly you?" Juliette asked, despising the weakness in her voice. "Am I hallucinating again?"

A rush of wind whipped through the shutters, scattering leaves around the ball and claw legs of the settee, bringing with it smells of impending rain; a coolness in the air sent a sharp chill down her spine. No, not chill, but the surge of energy that both invigorated and frightened her. A storm threatened. Its energy moved against her flesh.

"Is it you?" she repeated.

Liza nodded and took her shoulders, tugged her to a sitting position on the settee. She smoothed Juliette's hair back from her face and regarded her with an intensity that brought hot discomposure to her cheeks.

"Gots to hurry. Can't be gone long. Can't be havin' Boris Wilcox findin' me gone from the field. I woulda come sooner but Boris been watchin' us like a hawk the last days 'spectin' one of us would try to see you. Maxwell done sent him to the levee today, though, what with the threat of rain comin' on.

"Look here. Rosie done sent you some food for now- she be sendin' more tonight, once the sun go down. By that time Wilcox be so far into his rum he don't know his tail from a hole in the ground."

"Boris Wilcox?" She watched as Liza spread a napkin over Juliette's lap, revealing a portion of ham and corn bread and a half-dozen pralines. Her jaws spasmed and hurt so badly she could not open her mouth.

"What do you mean, Boris Wilcox?" she said through her teeth. "Where is Chantz? What's happened to Chantz?"

Panic crushed down on her again, as did guilt and the suffocating emotion that had tormented her since she stood in yonder parterre of wild Cherokee roses and elderberry bushes and discovered upon looking into his eyes that she had, in some way, loved him and ached for him since he saved her from the fire that destroyed her home.

Liza dropped onto the settee beside her, and her hands lay limply in her lap. She stared at the window, her face expressionless.

"He and Emma done gone from Holly. Tylor fired him but Max try to undo that real fast, 'cept Emma told him to his face that she wouldn't be havin'her boy misused no more by him and Tylor. Chantz still be unconscious when she had Louis load him into a wagon along with their few belongin's and rode him right out of Holly and into the dark.

"Boris showed up next mornin'. All hell done broke loose. When he ain't strappin' us for not workin' proper he be cussin' the babies. Three of the boys done took off. Boris done turned his paddy roller friends on 'em. I 'spect they be found soon enough," she said sadly and with a heavy sigh.

Juliette stared down at the food on her lap, her spasm of hunger having passed. Her face burned and her eyes felt raw. She covered her face with her hands.

"This is all my fault. All of it!" she cried angrily.

"Not all of it, Miss Julie. Tylor what done the worst." She shook her head. "It been comin' a long time. Chantz as much at fault as anyone. He a grown man. He got more self-restraint than anyone I know. Had he wanted to keep his distance from you, a dozen strong mules couldn't have dragged him into your arms."

"Where is Chantz, Liza? Where did Emma take him?"

"To the shanty, I s'pose,'til Chantz can get back on his feet."

Liza looked around the room at the leaves Juliette had swept into piles and at the walls from which she had scrubbed years of dust and soot. "You been workin' these last days."

At last, she forced herself to pick at the dark pink pork, carefully placed a sliver on her tongue, and, closing her eyes, savored it before chewing. Like an angry fist, her stomach clenched and she forced herself to breathe evenly.

"There are four livable rooms. This one, the dining room, and two west bedrooms upstairs."

"You been sleepin' here?"

"On this settee."

"Rosie be right about you. You crazy as a betsy bug. Surely the craziest white lady I ever seen. Ain't you scared by yourself at night?"

She nodded and reached for the bread. Her mouth felt full of water and she was forced to swallow twice before sinking her teeth in the sweet baked cornmeal.

"Not since the first night," she finally replied, then swallowed. Her eyes drifted closed in pleasure. Rosie had buttered the corn slab and drizzled it with honey. "There are raccoons at night. And birds roost. This morning when I awoke there were two dozen black-breasted grassets lining the rafters."

Juliette smiled wearily. "From one of the upper rooms I can see the marshes. At dawn a low purple mist covers them so only the tops of the highest trees can be seen. And the pond- blue herons float just above the water and hunt for frogs. At dusk there is a yellow-crowned night heron that perches on the trunk of the dead gum near the water's edge."

"You can't just sit here alone doin' nothin' but clusterin' leaves and scrubbin' walls, Miss Julie."

"I don't intend to."

"What you gonna do, then? Go back to Maxwell and Tylor? That's what they is waitin' on. They think you gonna come back soon as you git hungry enough."

She chewed the ham, her thoughts on how sweet and salty it tasted. Overwhelmingly salty. At last, she swallowed and looked around, into Liza's eyes. "I'm going to rebuild Belle Jarod, of course."

She bit into the ham again, a bigger bite, so big she could hardly chew. Hunger suddenly became a beast yawning inside her. She could not think beyond feeding it as quickly as possible.

"You gonna what?" Liza asked without blinking, her gaze following Juliette's hand as she grabbed a praline, pinched off the pecan on top, and tossed it away. She had eaten enough damn pecans the last three days to last her a lifetime.

She shoved the confection into her mouth, along with the ham, and her eyes rolled closed and the sugar and salt melded into a melange that made her whimper and her eyes tear.

"Can't be rebuildin' the Belle alone, Miss Julie. One thing to sweep up a lot of leaves and trash, another to put a roof on this house-"

"I'll see Belle rebuilt if it's the last thing I ever do."

She nearly choked on the declaration as she attempted to swallow and speak too. The words reverberated angrily in the room, causing Liza's eyes to widen and her body to shrink back slightly against the settee.

"I'll sell my soul if I must, Liza. I'll see this house rise up above the river again. I'll see those fields lush with cane and the docks stacked high with Belle's hogsheads."

Liza waved the statement aside with her hand and shook her head, a scowl pulling down the corner of her mouth. "That as likely to happen as my marryin' Andrew."

Pulling her skirt snug over her belly, Liza studied her flat stomach and her voice dropped to a bitter tone. "Can't see me raisin' no baby without a daddy. Can't see me raisin' no chile to watch him sold down the river to spend the rest of his life workin' like a damn mule in the sun, gittin' whupped by no-account folk like Boris Wilcox or Tylor Hollinsworth."

"You won't."

She placed a praline between two slabs of corn bread and pushed it into her mouth with great relish.

From the corner of her eye she saw Liza's head turn as she stared at Juliette as if she were a lunatic. She felt crazy in that moment. She felt like the village idiot- a farmer's wife the Reverend Mother was forced once a month to lock in the cellar while the sisters took turns praying for her tormented soul through the door.

"You're leaving Holly," Juliette declared between chews, cheek bulging with bread and praline. "You're coming here to live with me."

Liza's eyes grew large and her hands clasped harder in her lap.

"I don't know how yet, Liza. Just trust that I shan't allow you to remain at Holly with Boris or Tylor or Maxwell now that Chantz is gone."

"I can't be leavin', Miss Julie. I gots Simon to care for. He cripple-"

"Then Simon shall come, too. And Little Clara and Rosie..."

Wiping her mouth with the back of her dirty hand, she gazed out at the wilderness that moved forward and back as if shifted by ghosts. Thunder rumbled and leaves tumbled over the floor. Again she felt the energy of the approaching storm. It centered like a hot spark in her chest and something crawled inside her, a sense of destiny, perhaps: a destiny that had brought her back to the place of her birth, to surround herself with this destruction while she considered her fate.

How long did she sit there, watching the storm weave its way through the wild growth, tossing the tupelo gums and maypop vines and live oaks to and fro?

When she looked around, she discovered Liza had gone. Carefully, she tied the napkin around her food, reason telling her that should the weather turn very bad Liza would not manage to bring her more despite Wilcox's drunken oblivion.

The first taps of rain sounded upon the trees. Harder and harder the drops fell as Juliette moved out of the salon into the foyer and watched the rain drive in spears into what had once been her father's library. The drops bounced off the old cypress floors and sprayed her bare feet.

Memories stirred again- ghost images of rosewood furnishings and book-lined walls, a deep chair sitting before the window of open shutters, the evening sun pouring over a woman's face that was troubled and tear streaked. She looked sadly toward her husband who was focused on ledgers open on his desk, and when she spoke to him he didn't notice.

"Si seulement vous ressentiez autant d'emotion pour moi que vous eprouvez pour votre maudite canne, Jacques. Ma solitude vous emeut si peu?" I wish your passion for me burned as fiercely as that for your damned cane, Jack. It matters so little to you that I am lonely?

There came a sound behind her, and she slowly turned.

Several Negroes stood shoulder to shoulder at the open door. Water beaded on their hair and dripped from their clothes. There were three men, one with a scrawny chicken on his shoulder, and an old woman with very fat cheeks that almost hid her watchful and suspicious eyes.

They all stared back at her, their faces a mixture of fascination and fear.

Odd that she experienced no fear. Odd that they did not feel like strangers to her. Or mayhap she'd simply been alone too long.

"Lawd have mercy," the woman finally said, the words followed by a deep rumble from the clouds. "Done tol' you I seen a haint."

A young man little older than herself moved forward. His old shoes were held together with twine and there were holes in the knees of his pants. He half crouched as he stepped over the threshold, into the foyer, as if he anticipated having to make a quick getaway. He inched closer, one black hand lifting and stretching toward her, eyes widening, body beginning to tremble so fiercely the rain spat from his hair onto his shoulders.

His finger poked at her and he jumped back.

Juliette frowned and raised one eyebrow.

Again he prodded. At her shoulder, then her breast.

She jabbed him back and he skittered toward the door, his shoes leaving muddy marks on the floor.

"She real?" the old woman asked the quaking young man.

"Real as I is!" he declared excitedly.

"I'm Juliette," she said, and they all gasped and retreated a step. The chicken, with a flap of its wings, landed on the floor and strutted toward Juliette, making a low cluck in its throat.

The woman elbowed her way between the men. Her girth took up most of the entry as she paused, looked Juliette up and down with her lips pursed and her brow deep folds of contemplation. Her skirt looked sewn from a flour sack, her blouse of the poorest quality cotton. She wore a man's boots with buckles on the sides and her thick stockings sagged around her ankles.

"Juliette," she repeated in so heavy a dialect Juliette could hardly understand her. "Done go un growed like yo mama. Yassum. Like d'lady Maureen." Her smile stretched over her broad, black-as-night face exposing ivory yellow teeth that were long and rectangular as piano keys.

Suddenly her arms stretched wide and she lumbered at Juliette, swept her into her plush bosom with a grip that cut off Juliette's breath. Her face nestled into the rolls of fat in the woman's neck where a piece of what smelled like nutmeg hung from a string. Again, memories emerged. Her hands, of their own accord, twisted into the woman's dress and she felt overwhelmed with a sense of elation that confused her.

"Lawd lawd," the woman repeated. Conversation snapped back and forth between them, working the men into an excited frenzy punctuated by spurts of loud laughter.

The big woman squalled, crushing Juliette to her. Her hot tears leaked down onto Julie's cheek as she rocked her from side to side and stroked her matted hair.

Her name was India. Her sons Jasper and Custis- twins, though they looked nothing alike- called her Mamaloi which in the West Indies, Juliette learned, was a noted priestess of voodoo. Though Jasper stood tall and reed thin, Custis stood no higher than India.

India's brother was named Gaius, and though he was younger by a number of years than India, his hair had already begun to gray. It was he who proudly owned the chicken, or koklo, that he called Jesu.

Juliette learned they were free blacks, thanks to her mother. India and Gaius were brought from the West Indies to Louisiana by her father even before he knew her mother. Before he placed the first brick of the Belle's foundation, before he planted his first ratoon- when he was barely more than a boy himself, perhaps Juliette's age.

As the storm raged, Juliette curled upon the settee with her head resting in India's lap. She labored to understand her words while from the other rooms came the murmurs of India's sons and brother, an occasional clatter, the swoosh swoosh of leaves being swept into a pile. Gaius entered with his arms full of wood and proceeded to stack it into the fireplace, withdrew a Lucifer match from his pocket, lit it, and ignited the dry tinder.

Juliette learned her father had become consumed with his desire to make the finest cane outside of the West Indies, that his slaves were imported from the Indies and knew the secrets of growing exceptionally good cane.

Jasper and Custis returned with skinned squirrels they had somehow killed. They skewered them on sticks and situated them over the fire so their grease dripped and flames spat in response. The smell of the cooking meat made her jaws ache.

She learned that her mother would not abide slavery, and would marry her father only on the condition that he allowed them the opportunity to buy their freedom by repaying the money which he had spent to purchase them. They did so by providing labor. To entice them to remain at Belle after attaining their freedom, he offered them a plot of land on which they were free to sow their own crops, a portion of which they gave back to Belle in exchange for the land. They came to be known as sharecroppers.

Along with the cooked squirrels came wild onions and cabbages plucked from the old gardens. Custis, having scrubbed an iron pot from the kitchen, boiled the onions and cabbages over the fire. The aroma mixed with that of the rain and the wet, earthy smells of decay heightened her senses and her appetite.

She learned that India cared for her mother. Her face glowed with the memories and Juliette watched with perverse curiosity when India's entire body shook with mirth as she related Maureen's trials and tribulations of running the largest cane plantation in the area. Juliette was struck by the realization that she had never seen an expression of appreciation associated with her mother. She felt... unbalanced by it. As if her solid world tipped slightly under her feet. Perspective became warped.

Custis used the drippings from the squirrels to season the cabbage.

She learned that her mother taught India how to read and write. She learned that once, when her mother discovered Harlan Carrington, Horace's father, beating a child she wrestled the stick from him and thrashed Harlan so severely she was taken to jail and her father forced to pay a heavy fine for her release.

She learned that her mother helped to secrete abused slaves away from their masters and bring them to the North to freedom. Juliette learned that had Maureen been caught... she would have hanged.

The meat of the squirrel was tough and stringy, but delicious, the cabbage somewhat bitter, but she ate it regardless along with the remaining corn bread Liza had brought her.

At last, her belly full and mind drowsy, she lay with her head on the settee support, her arm thrown over her eyes to hide her tears as she allowed the gossamer memories to curl like smoke in her mind- images of her mother sitting in a swing below the old oak, her perched on Maureen's lap with her arms around her mother's neck, the scent of magnolias filling up her world of Cherokee roses and violets and lavender.

She awoke, alone. The shadows were long and the rain slashed. Had she dreamed them, India and Jasper and Custis and Gaius?

Struggling, she sat up and looked at the fireplace, at the glowing ashes, the pot of cabbage and the plucked carcasses of eaten squirrels.