Page 3 of Ace (The Deuces Wild #4)

Savannah ran, her heart in her throat, wings on her bare feet, and her red rosary slapping like Mardi Gras beads around her neck.

Today was the day. She could sense it. The willows whipping at her bare legs and arms as she ran through them declared it.

The wind breathed it. Her beloved Gran Mere was dying.

Worse, she’d predicted she’d be leaving today.

Savannah just hadn’t wanted to believe that the one-hundred and three-year-old matriarch of her family could actually foresee, much less predict, her own death.

She’d predicted dire consequences before, even death, but those had all been more like curses cast upon others.

Sure, they were still foretelling, and they came true, but choosing your personal day to die? Who did that?

So Savannah had refused to believe, and because of the pig-headed, stubborn denial she’d been born with, she’d wasted the morning feeding the scruffy cat that had arrived last night looking for clean water and a dry bed.

Sanctuary. The name of Savannah’s unwanted pet rehabilitation center that saved as many unwanted pets as she could manage. Just not her great grandmother.

The air hung hot, humid, and heavy in these remote parts of Louisiana.

Frogs and crickets chirped from the shade all day long.

Katydids droned overhead in their relentless, grating way.

An alligator rumbled somewhere off in the stands of drowned sycamores and oaks.

Down the lane and just past the road, dying trees still stood knee deep in more water than they could handle since Katrina had cast her evil magic.

Feathery fingers of silvery-gray Spanish moss dangled in the breeze from gnarled cypress trees.

The giants of the bayou, their roots were forever planted in brackish swamp water, their twisted, scratchy branches reaching like arms and fingers to the sky.

Savannah loved this eccentric hideaway with every last bit of her wild and reckless heart.

Everything about it was imbued with the life and love of the sassy lady who owned these few parcels.

Gran Mere might not look nor act the part, but she was a proud property owner, and here in the South, that meant something.

Calming herself lest she burst into the houseboat like the reckless child she could still be, Savannah knocked quietly at the door that Gran Mere painted a vivid red only months ago.

‘Always choose to be a lady,’ Gran Mere would say. ‘Even when folks are nasty to you, look them in the eye and don’t stoop to their level. Don’t be anything less than the true woman of worth you are. The world doesn’t need any more crazy.’

Wasn’t that the truth?

“Come in, cher,” came the weak reply from within.

Frightened now, because Gran Mere had never sounded so small nor so frail, Savannah stepped out of the messy world Nature created and into the refined, clean, and orderly world of a generation past. The scent of lavender, along with the lemon cleaner Gran Mere used religiously, suffused the welcome cool air that filled the cramped interior of the houseboat.

Central air was what separated civilized folk from the rowdy Cajuns who also lived in the shadows of these same trees.

Not that Gran Mere looked down on anyone.

She would never. She just liked her comforts, and not sweating all day long was a big one in her book.

From the outside, the home still looked like a houseboat.

But inside, it was magic and potions and the witchcraft Savannah had grown up with.

Chantilly lace doilies, French antique china, as well as a human skull, raven feathers, and bundles of white sage smudge sticks adorned the two piece, mid-nineteenth century Louis XV china cabinet that dominated the small dining area, what sailors called a galley.

Opposite the cabinet, a triple back settee of the same French era boasted cut velvet, moss-green scroll work and rose-colored flowers on ivory silk filigree. Elegant. Gran Mere might be eccentric, but she was the most elegant woman Savannah had ever known.

Curled up in her red and black brocade bathrobe on the green settee, she was the epitome of elegance.

A blood red boa draped her neck like a regal queen.

Even in death, Gran Mere strived to be that Southern woman who would never be seen as anything less than proper.

But her skin was too white this morning and her eyes too bright.

Covering her mouth, she coughed politely into the white handkerchief clutched in her slender but bony fingers, then dabbed her lips and her nose to be sure she wouldn’t offend.

Ever the genteel lady, she’d nonetheless raised two rowdy boys singlehandedly, then lost them both; the oldest, Stanley, to the Army, then to the Vietnam War.

The younger, Gene, to the Navy, then to the road after he’d come home from some covert affair in Africa.

By then he was older, yet he’d fathered Savannah’s mother.

When she succumbed to ovarian cancer when Savannah was a mere babe, Gene’d had enough.

He dropped his only grandchild at Gran Mere’s place and never looked back.

Since then Gran Mere had provided sanctuary for her orphaned great granddaughter, instead of letting the state, with its eternal lack of wisdom, take the little girl. It was also when Savannah began to learn the ways of what folks around here called the witch.

“It’s time,” Gran Mere whispered bravely, her voice as dry as an autumn leaf. “Come here, cher. Kneel beside me one last time. There are things you need to know.”

Promptly, Savannah ran to the settee, dropped her knees to the soft cashmere Turkish carpet and obeyed.

She sat back on her heels in case she needed to run if Gran Mere asked her to get something.

Maybe one of her homemade potions. One of her scrolls where she’d written recipes of her brews.

Or her doctor. Surely Doctor Rudy John would run to Gran Mere as quickly.

“Silly girl,” Gran Mere said softly as she reached out and cupped Savannah’s chin.

Her hands were cold, but her eyes were as sharp as ever.

Still seeing all. Still reading Savannah’s thoughts as if Savannah had spoken them out loud.

“I don’t need a doctor. Not anymore. Wouldn’t bother with one if I did.

It’s too late for worldly nonsense, and that man might think he’s smart, but he hasn’t a lick of the wisdom you do. You know that.”

“I do know,” Savannah murmured, her heart caught high in her throat, choking her. But still a silly enough girl to fear losing the only mother she’d ever known.

“I am going to miss you, cher,” Gran Mere murmured, her beautiful blue eyes gone distant, the sparkling light deep within them dimming.

It was happening. Savannah pushed inside the safe circle of her great grandmother’s arms, holding onto her one and only refuge although she knew she couldn’t stop Death from stealing Gran Mere away.

She was losing everything. Her world and her best friend.

She swallowed hard, ashamed that now Gran Mere would know she wasn’t strong enough to hold back her tears. Gran Mere had never cried. Not once.

Her fingertips tapped weakly at the back of Savannah’s head.

“Promise me you won’t linger here once I’m gone, baby girl.

I’ll be with my Antonio. Let me go, Savannah.

Look for the wild roses that grow deep in the bayou.

Watch for the warlock. He holds a black magic in his heart, one only you can overcome.

You alone hold the key to bring him down, my dearest. Whatever happens, be fearless and strong.

Be the blessing the world needs more than it ever needed me. ”

“But I need you,” Savannah cried out as her heart broke.

“I’m not brave. I’m not! And I don’t know enough.

Not yet. I’ll never, ever know enough to let you go!

” If that whiney rant didn’t make her sound like a petulant child, nothing would.

How her fingers ached to cling tightly to the only mother she’d ever known, who even now, was slipping away.

But that was not how life worked, and Savannah knew full well she wasn’t strong enough to hold back the grains of sand in the unforgiving hourglass called Time.

Grain by grain. Breath by breath. She knew the instant Gran Mere’s spirit fled her tired, old body.

It just lifted out of her like a spirit set free.

All the stiff, uppityness Gran Mere was known for throughout the parish drained out of her on the quietest sigh. Her last breath.

As if she could stop the inevitable, Savannah pulled Gran Mere’s frail body against her one last time.

But it was too late. Like the wind on an old tin roof on a hot summer day, Gran Mere was gone.

Her body was still warm, but with the kind of warmth in the jacket you’d taken off and set aside. The cooling down kind of warm.

Rap! Rap! Rap! A snappy knock at the front entry crashed the deafening stillness of the tender, tragic moment. Squeezing her eyes against the deluge of tears lurking in her heart, Savannah began the chant to expel the idiot from Gran Mere’s narrow porch.

“Leave and never come back,” she murmured as she pressed her nose into her great grandmother’s cheek and cried like the lost child she was once again.

The lovely scent of rosewater filled her senses, but this time hope did not spring eternal.

The deed was done. The woman who’d brought those roses to life on her skin was eternally gone. Gran Mere had left them behind, too.

Rap! Rap! Rap!

Savannah’s eyes narrowed. “Leave and never come back,” she repeated, then repeated it again and again, banishing the troll who would dare disturb this sacred place, now of all times. “Leave and never—ever—come back.”