They had lunch at Felix’s, polished off Bloody Marys, downed a dozen oysters each, shared a crawfish etouffee, and walked to Canal Street to stake out their places behind the metal barriers. They met the people next to them and when the floats rounded the corner onto Canal Street, she screamed and yelled with the best of them.
Cate loved catching the throws, and soon the plastic bag Landry had brought along to stow her treasures was full. When a fire department ladder truck rumbled down Canal, signaling the end of the parade, they walked back to his place.
After they rested for an hour, she went through her bag of goodies one by one, sorting the beads from the kewpie dolls and the plastic coins from the drink cups. She said it had been a glorious afternoon and more fun than she ever imagined.
After a late dinner, they arrived at the French Market at nine for their ghost tour. Most evenings this part of town would be quiet by now. The only bars nearby were local hangouts, but during carnival it was hard to find a quiet spot anywhere in the Quarter. Some rowdy college students stumbling along the sidewalk almost knocked Cate down, and they detoured through Latrobe Park, where there were less drunk pedestrians.
Since Landry opted for no mask, their guide, a twenty-something guy named Ross sporting a top hat and a face painted like a skeleton’s, recognized him. “Dude, I love your shows. What the hell are you doing on my tour? You can tell people about this stuff way better than I can.”
“My girlfriend wants the authentic ghost tour. She’s already heard everything I know. I thought I’d give her a break and let someone else take over.”
Besides Landry and Cate, the group comprised Tiffany and Kayla, forty-something friends from Los Angeles, and an older couple from Alabama. They bombarded Landry with questions and autograph requests, and he firmly declined. This time he was along for the ride. The guide encouraged him to speak up any time he wanted, but he said it was Ross’s show and promised to keep quiet. Cate quipped it would be the first time that had ever happened, which drew a laugh from the others.
Their first stop was the infamous LaLaurie Mansion on Governor Nicholls Street. A private home today, it was one of the Quarter’s most famous haunted houses. Centuries before, the demonic Madam LaLaurie imprisoned and tortured slaves in the upper parts of the house. Unsuspecting guests at her frequent dinner parties had no idea there were captives writhing in agony above their heads.
“Is this the spookiest spot in the Quarter?” Kayla asked. Ross said so many mysterious and unexplainable things had happened over three centuries that any number of places might be candidates for most haunted.
After two hours seeing ancient buildings and hearing ghostly stories, they walked down Chartres toward Canal Street for their last stop. They took a left turn on Toulouse; with no stores or bars, the block was dark and deserted. Things were different a few hundred feet away in the lights of Decatur Street. Rowdy revelers were hard at it even as midnight approached.
As they approached a dark three-story building, Ross said, “This ancient structure has seen so many horrific things that it’s taken on a malevolence of its own. Psychics call it a real-life horror house. They call it proof that it’s not always ghosts who cause hauntings. Sometimes a building itself is so infested with the evil in its past, it becomes the source of the terror. According to the stories, a notorious slave trader and his wife lived here. She caught him in bed with a servant girl, threw them both off the balcony, forced a servant to dig their grave and then she threw him in too. Buried him alive right in the courtyard. Their ghosts still haunt the place today.”
As they stopped in front of the building, the lady from California named Tiffany stifled a scream and put her hands to her face. Her friend asked what was wrong, and she cried, “My dream! That recurring dream I told you about!”
“So what? You’re not dreaming. Want me to pinch you?”
“Stop it! This isn’t a joke; it’s the street in my dream. This is the building. See that busy street a block ahead of us and people wearing costumes? They’re in my dreams too.”
Landry said, “You see this building in dreams? Perhaps you saw it on TV, or when you were here another time.”
“I’ve never been to New Orleans in my life, but I recognize this building. I can describe everything inside. There’s a fountain in a courtyard where a stairway leads up to a balcony with a railing. Tall doors are standing open and a girl is up there. She’s scared — scared of someone behind her. An older woman. Then she falls —" Tiffany uttered a miserable sob. “Oh God, this is the place where it all happened! It’s real. It’s real!”
The tour guide was shaken and confused. Ross was a college student making a few extra bucks doing a stupid ghost tour, and nothing like this had ever happened. He’d dealt with drunks, but this girl was terrified. He said, “If you’ve never been here before, how could you know this building? That makes no sense.”
“It makes total sense. Everything the girl says makes total sense.” The words came from somewhere behind them, from the darkness on the opposite side of the street. Landry walked over and found a man sitting in the doorway of another vacant building.
“Why did you say that?”
“Because it’s true. The dream part, the inside, the girl who falls off the balcony — I saw it just like she did. I have those dreams too.”
“Bet he has all kinds of weird dreams,”
