Where the bayou meets the moon

The Louisiana night pressed in—thick, watchful, and waiting. Demetri’s voice broke the hush: “What’s the catch of dealing with the witch at the crossroads?”

The air reeked of wet earth and cypress, heavy enough to taste; fireflies drifting between palmetto fronds like embers. Katydids sing their lullaby, and somewhere deep in the swamp an alligator’s bellow rolled across the water and into Demetri’s bones. This place felt older than the road itself—a crossroad where promises never vanished; they merely get buried into the muck, frozen in time.

He studied the woman opposite him: mid-thirties, average height, red curls spilling over a tailored black suit, eyes icy blue-gray, lips the bruised pink of crushed rose petals.

“Catch?” she echoed, each syllable a silken thread pulling tight. “Life is compromise, boy. Only you decide what your desire is worth.”

She opened her arms, letting the damp night breeze tug at her jacket. The air was thick with the scent of cypress and humidity, heavy enough to cling to her skin. A bullfrog croaked somewhere in the reeds, and the sudden splash of something unseen rippled through moss-choked water. Along the bank, crushed oyster shells glitter like bone shards scattered under the moonlight. She tilted her head, eyes catching the silver glow above.

“So why bring me here—where the bayou meets the moon?”

Memories rushed in—late-night road trips, Harry Potter marathons on their battered couch, Helena’s laughter when she beat him at chess, the soft weight of her head on his shoulder during chemo. Guilt cinched his chest like a garrote.

“Have you ever felt unconditional love?” he asked.

“Stalling won’t change the price.” Her patience thinning like sugar in hot tea.

“She was my twin flame,” he whispered. “And I failed her. This is all my fault. I should’ve been the one to die.”

“I’m Gaia.” She extended a pale, manicured hand.

“Demetri.” His handshake trembled, fingers cold despite the sticky air.

“Good. Now talk.” Gaia demands as she flicks imaginary dust from her lapel, nose wrinkling. “Always these filthy crossroads. Why can’t these meetings be at a cigar lounge with velvet sofas.”

Demetri chuckles, swatting a mosquito that had landed on her arm; a bead of blood smearing across his palm, bright in the moonlight. “Welcome to the bayou, ma’am. It comes with mosquitoes.”

“Charming, mon chéri.” She arched a brow. “Now tell me why I’m feeding the local baby vampires.”

“My sister Helena died three months ago—acute myeloid leukemia.” His voice frayed. “She fought and won the first time with my bone marrow transplant; went into remission, married Jason, started teaching third grade. Then—” He snapped his fingers. “On their second anniversary the cancer roared back while they were trying for a baby. A second transplant failed and the hospital refused another. Said it wasn’t fair to others. But it was my marrow—my choice who gets it!”

Gaia’s gaze narrowed. “And you think clawing open that wound is wise?”

“I need to see her—to say I’m sorry. She deserved more than twenty-five years.” He glanced skyward. The night was cloudless, stars sharp as pinholes. “Strange—no thunder, no clouds. I expected something more witchy.”

A quiet smirk slipped from Gaia. “You summoned me—how?”

“A girl in astrology class sent me to Emilee for a reading. Emilee plucked a hair for a truth test, mixed it with some weird liquid, and then told me to be here at three a.m.” Demetri shrugs.

“So can you help me?”

“Perhaps. I’m Gaia Laveau—descendant of Marie Laveau, Sister of the Moon, light-bound to the Goddess Nyx. But nothing is free.” Her smile thinned to a scalpel. “Nyx will demand ten years of your life.”

“Take them.” Demetri demands without hesitation.

“As you wish…” Gaia concedes, an unforgiving smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

The night stilled. Cicadas cut off mid-chirp as silence floods the bayou.

Gaia pressed frost-cold fingers to his sternum while guttural, ancient words slipped from her lips. White-hot pain flared through his bones. Wind ripped through the cypress tops. The moon burned, showering silver sparks across the broken concrete.

Shadows writhed like eels until they parted—and Helena materialized, barefoot on the cracked pavement, edges flickering like an illusion in flame. Her hair, once honey-brown, glowed umber and her eyes carried galaxies of sorrow.

“Hey, little brother.”

Tears blurred his sight as he rushed to her. “I’m sorry…this is all my fault! I tried—”

Helena lifted a spectral hand. “It’s not, brother. You did everything you could. I felt every ounce you gave—your marrow, your prayers, your fear. But saving me was never your path.”

He cradled her ethereal form. Her voice brushed his ear like wind through a sugarcane field, equal parts comfort and warning. For a heartbeat, the world itself seemed to pause. Even Gaia grew silent, her breath caught by the sacred bond unfolding between the siblings.

“But I will save you this time,” he murmured, sliding the mosquito-smeared blood along her translucent arm, tracing a crimson glyph with purpose that Gaia failed to catch. His eyes never left Helena as his voice dropped to basalt, carrying words no outsider should know:

“Ex sanguine Mariae Laveau, te ex tenebris evoco.

Animam meam tibi do, pretio libertatis illius.

Vincula mortis rumpantur. Fiat voluntas mea.”

Moonlight detonated as Helena’s form cracked like porcelain struck by a bell.

The ground shuddered beneath them, fissures splitting through the concrete like veins of light. Cypress branches whipped though no wind stirred, leaves rattling like bones. Heat surged from Demetri’s chest, spilling through his veins until every heartbeat felt like a hammer strike.

Helena’s outline flickered, her body splitting into shards of shadow and flame, as though the world itself fought to reject her return. The air thickened with the metallic tang of blood and humidity. The stars above blinked, then flared, as if the heavens strained under the summoning’s weight.

Helena’s cry cut the silence. “Demetri, what did you do?”

Gaia’s face twisted in fury, realization dawning too late. “You reckless fool! That’s the Laveau Blood Rite—meant only for our line! You tricked me—you’ve stolen a power that was never yours to wield!”

Demetri’s smile was calm, resigned, as light bled from his pores. Beneath his hands Helena’s skin warmed; her pulse fluttering like a newly emerged butterfly.

She drew breath—ragged, real.

“You’ll pay,” Gaia hissed as shadows coiled around her wrists, dragging her toward their depths.

“Do your worst,” Demetri said, his outline thinning to mist. “My soul is forfeit—but she lives.”

He met Helena’s widening eyes, touching her cheek one last time. “Live, Sis. For both of us.”

Then he fragmented—silver motes drifting over the still bayou. Frogs began singing again. Spanish moss swayed in a breeze that hadn’t existed moments earlier.

Helena looked up at the moon, tears hot on her living skin. Behind her, Gaia vanished in a vortex of shadows, cursing in tongues older than water.

And somewhere beyond the treeline, Demetri’s sacrifice settled among the reeds—another promise buried where the bayou meets the moon.