Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 7

people, the Coopers of Mississippi, were Pentecostal snake handlers until two generations ago, holding on well after the practice fell from favor. It wasn't until police drove up from Vicksburg to investigate after a snakebite victim died in the hospital there that they finally gave it up.
    That I preferred to handle a different kind of snake was a stoning offense. I didn't doubt that if my great grandparents still lived, they would stone me. I'd heard it for years now: Abomination!
    My roommate at Tulane knew. He'd said only, "Don't bring any strange men back here, and we'll get on fine, Remy."
    I'd said, "You don't bring any strange women back here, and we'll get on fine, Todd."
    We didn't speak much, but I was certain if he'd seen my rescuer bring me home, he'd have said something. He wasn't altruistic enough to keep it to himself. I once left the cap off a pen and woke in the morning to see a passive aggressive note about it. A strange man putting me to bed would have merited at least a half page on my inconsiderate behavior.
    I pondered these things as I wandered Ursulines Avenue. Historic buildings still crowded the pavement, nestled amid riotous greenery, and hid from the sidewalk behind wrought iron fences. It seemed in the early light that they moved and I stood still.
    After a while, I realized I was no longer on the avenue but rather traversing a series of side alleys around a neglected building complex. The morning bells sounded from very near. I scanned the area trying to locate which church had the gall to bombard the air and demand my presence at its altar.
    My shin banged against a crumbled stone wall, and I stumbled. My forearms broke my fall, but the air was knocked from me. In the mossy shade, I rolled onto my back and stared at the blue sky, just visible beyond the leafy canopy overhead.
    "Have you come back to me?" The familiar voice I could hear only in my thoughts startled me to my feet. It had not sounded this way last night: desperate, lonely, trapped. I shivered despite the heat.
    "Hello?" I called into the stillness. "Hello? Sir?"
    There was no answer, but the Knowing was back. It moved me toward a swampy grove I'd only half-glimpsed from the pavement. Gnarled roots caught at my feet first, then the wet, sucking ground. It wasn't mud but that spongy turf one found at the lowest spots in this swampy city. As I stepped down, my foot sank into nothingness.
    I scrambled, gripping for handholds as the ground gave way.
    I fell twenty feet and landed with a thud that sent up a cloud of dust. I lay in mud made of my own sweat mingled with a thick layer of soot.
    This is wrong , I thought. Derelict basements in New Orleans flooded without fresh waterproofing and pumps or whatnot to keep them dry. This place was dry as old bones except for my damp skin.
    After ten minutes or an hour, I rose. With only the faintest glimpse of sunlight through the hole made by my arrival, I couldn't tell how much time had elapsed. Golden motes danced in the rays as if rejoicing at the touch of the outside world. I'd rejoice myself when I got out of here. At the moment, my ankle hurt too much for dancing. I must have sprained it when I fell.
    This place must still be used , I told myself as I took in the stone bench--No. Pews. I was in an old chapel.
    At the farthest reach of the light, there were stone pews turned on their side as though they had been thrown there during the last flood. Someone had surely righted those closest to the center. The ash-covered floor showed time-softened tracks suggesting as much.
    As for the ceiling, there was nothing left of the roof but charred stumps of timber. Over the years the roots of the trees and grasses had formed a thick mat overhead, twining together as they layered atop the stone buttresses at the sides of this...what? Cathedral? It seemed too intricate to be just a prayer hall.
    With a sigh of relief, I spied a hurricane lamp with a small tin beside it on a nearby pew. Inside the tin was a Zippo lighter, modern enough to fuel my hopes for an easy way out. I removed the lamp's chimney and adjusted the wick, then held my breath as I lit it. It caught fire at once, and I put the Zippo into my pocket and the chimney back in place.
    The chapel felt smaller now that I could see into the shadows. It had not extended much beyond them, and there was a warped ironbound wooden door set in a frame at my right just beside a large stone sculpture of an angel. A tarnished plaque on the