Page 22 of Driftwood Daffodil

Turning the boat, I steered towards the left. The only light out here were the soft silvery beams of the moon bouncing off the murky water, but I knew exactly where I was going. The hum off the motor and various dips and plunks of bayou wildlife werelike home to me. As was the small island that was hard to see in the middle of the afternoon, let alone at night.

The bow of the boat dipped up as I reached for a post to the left. I assumed that’s what was left of a dock. I knew every tree and structure in this part of the swamp. I had since I was a kid. There were no roads or trails leading to this island. Just moss and water.

Honestly I couldn’t remember how I found this place. Did I swim, or was there a bridge or trail that washed away? Then again I didn’t remember much from that day other than my mother’s coffin and smell of death.

I finished tying the boat off and stepped out into the tall grass.

Sometimes when I closed my eyes I could still hear the search party calling my name.

It took almost two days for anyone to find me. I wasn’t sure if it was hunger or guilt that pulled me towards them, but whatever it was they were happy to see me.

My father was not.

That was the first time I got the you need to man up lecture. I was six-years-old when I learned how to bottle up my emotions, because made men couldn’t show weakness. One had to be strong to be in this life, or else you’d be cut off at the knees.

Atlas got that. While he taught me what it meant to be a Mancini, Romeo was off doing his own thing. I didn’t even see him at the funeral.

That was when I decided I’d be like Atlas. Strong and powerful. The kind of man who didn’t take shit from anyone. A real leader. That didn’t stop my mother’s screams from haunting my dreams, or the guilt from filling my chest when I caught my father crying alone at night.

My mother’s death fractured our family.

Atlas destroyed it.

Ducking down I cut through the Spanish moss hanging off two cypress trees and walked into a small clearing. On the far right edge stood what was left of a stone cottage, surrounded by daffodils. Nothing else grew here. There was no grass, or moss covering the ground. Just the patch of yellow flowers circling the broken structure.

Despite growing up in Louisiana, I was never one to put much stock into things like curses and voodoo. But sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder about this place.

In 1843 a woman named Darya LaBelle lived here. According to the journal I’d found she was a voodoo priestess who had fallen in love with a plantation owner, Mathew Atkins. His wife decided to take her anger about the affair out on their child. Darya repaid her cruelty with a curse derived from the poison of a daffodil.

I didn’t know what happened to Darya, there was no record of her or her death. The only record of her existence was the leather bound book I found buried in the ruins. There were a few signs that someone lived here. A few broken dishes, a picture so faded with time that I couldn’t make out what it was, and a grave marked with a small wooden cross.

The entire Atkins family was wiped out by a mysterious plague in 1845. Not necessarily unusually for that time. A common cold could take someone down.

The daffodils however…

I ran my hand over the soft yellow petals that shouldn’t be here. Flowers like this didn’t grow wild here, let alone thrive. Yet, there they were, standing bright and proud in the broken place. I think that was why I kept coming back here. Seeing those daffodils almost made me believe in magic again.

Magic didn’t exist of course, but it was nice to think that some of the stories my mother told me were real. Even if it was for just a second. She would’ve loved this place. My mother was aconundrum. She always saw the beauty in things, despite the life my father lived.

The mob was dangerous. There was no guarantee what the next day would bring. Life, death or something in between. Yet my mother always smiled. I even saw it on the day she died. That smile was the last thing she gave me before pushing me in the cupboard. Like it was another fairytale she was telling.

Unfortunately reality was much darker, and it always came crashing back.

My phone dinged with a text that made me pinch the bridge of my nose.

Carissa: Are you coming over tonight?

That was vise number two.

Carissa Barone, Darius’s mother.

Carissa: I haven’t felt you in so long.

My cheeks puffed with a grumbled huff as I sat down on what was left of the house’s broken steps.

Atlee wasn’t wrong when he teased me about a dry spell. I told myself it was because I wanted something real, and I did. But I was also trying to cut ties with bad habits. And Carissa Barone was about as bad as they came. If Darry knew what I’d been doing with his mother, let alone how long it had been going on… He’d never look at me the same.

Hell, I didn’t look at me the same.

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