Swamp Witch...Part Three

So few people understood Tainted Keitre, the name her people called Honey Island Swamp. The swamp had earned its more common name because of a small island inside the twisting interior of the swamp where honey bees chose to build their hives and swarm. It was an island that the locals chose to avoid. Tainted Keitre had more than its share of secrets, some of which were true and some only legend. Mercy knew them all and the mysterious wetland of gnarled cypress trees, wide ancient live oaks, tall straight pines, and "black" water bayous was her shield against what she considered an insane world. She knew it was insane because she had lived in it.
The troubled unrest and frantic politics that cruised like a poision in New Orleans to the east and Baton Rouge to the west. Manachec, a shrimping village to Arbre Noir's north, was quickly losing its native mystique since they had built Interstate 55 through with it. The upraised highway brought constant noise to the quiet waters and curious tourists viewed down on Manachec with wonder at the shrimp boats docked in front of homes and thoughts of the songs of BLUE BAYOU and JAMBALAYA drift through their minds but they have no idea what that swamp life was really like.
Mercy did!
Disturbed by Henri's gadgets into her world, her thoughts once again focused on Jura, her fraternal twin. Her drug addict, drunken brother who swore to everyone that he had seen and encountered Grands Pieds, the locals' name for the swamp version of Big Foot. She knew her empathic skills were dangerous to her but her connection to Jura was both empathic and twin kin. Her heart was pure and kind and Jura's was evil and cruel. Had he not stolen ever last thing that their dear grandmere had? The old lady had died in a miserable nursing home in Baton Rouge, never knowing what they were saying to her since she only spoke French and Jura had her commited while Mercy was in England on a scholarship to study ancient artifacts. By the time, she had found it out, her grandmother had died and Jura had disposed of everything left and had either snorted it or drunk it away. Mercy did not care about the money, only her grandmother who had raised the early orphaned twins, and upon returning home, Mercy sought prosecution against her brother but to no avail. She had then decided to live the rest of her life as Grandmere had in her memory.
It would have worked except the annoying link between brother and sister. That terrible "folie à deux" that haunted Mercy and she swore she would rid herself of it even if she had to resort to the backwater Voo Doo she knew that Jura believed in!

(to be continued)