Slipping through a door in the far left corner of the main hallway, he led her upstairs to a single room with vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors.  Once used for storage, Ben had it remodeled and now cherished it as a sanctuary when he was left with a lot of thoughts and no place to sort them out.  It was quiet… almost deathly quiet… and for a moment they thought they could hear their hearts beating.

            “Wow… this is… nice.  Really nice.”, the woman noted, still speaking softly.  “Wish I had a place like this of my own.  Do you get a lot of work done here?”.  Ben wasn’t listening.  His mind was still on his exchange with Abigail.  As the woman ventured on, he slumped down in his desk and tried to look composed and serious.

            “So… um… anyway….”, the woman stammered shyly, “I was hoping I could meet with you for some technical consultation.”.  Without waiting for a response this time, she pulled a folder out of her backpack.  Weird, Ben thought to himself as he watcher her open it up, I didn’t notice she was carrying that with her.  “I’m writing a story with some historical context… it’s actually historical fiction, but I want to make sure I have some of my details straight.  Do you think you could help me?”.  The pleading look in her green eyes snapped him out of his funk.

            “Well, I hope so… I mean, I can’t guarantee anything, but… I’d be happy to try.”, he said, peering at the contents of the folder.  It was nothing more than a manuscript and some handwritten notes, messily written on lined paper.   He found himself mostly interested in the manuscript, a rough draft of a story.

            As the summer played itself out, day after day, one hour flowing inconsequentially into the next, peace forced itself onto the village.  The women were numb, almost cathartic, to the world around them.  The men toiled mindlessly, the heat gripping them and sending one or two down every so often.  Still, none of them gave up, and by late September, their homes were built.  They had even had enough wood left over for a small chapel, and a shack for imported goods that were promised back in early July.  The heat finally broke and cool winds embraced the settlers from the ocean, like angels who had finally found their way home.  Now the women prepared for the winter, and canned berries and tomatoes.  The men relished their handiwork, and fished for all sorts of delicacies they could now have tax-free, such as lobster and shrimp.  If the goods never made it to Louisiana, all would still be good.  They had shelter, food, and faith.

            “Mr. Gates?  Hello…. um….”.

            His attention snapped away, he closed the folder quickly and looked up at the woman, smiling slightly.  “Sorry, I was absorbed in your story.  Is this the one you needed help with?”.

            “Yes.”, she answered quietly.  Ben noticed she was blushing fiercely, not wanting to make eye contact at first.  “But you don’t have to read the story itself… if you don’t want to… um, I just need to confirm some details.  See, here’s what it’s about… there is this woman who’s a psychic, and she sometimes helps out the police.  Well, everyone thinks she’s schizophrenic, so she’s locked away in an asylum and then she escapes during this big fire…”.  Noticing the puzzled look in Ben’s eyes, she stops abruptly and shifts gears.  “The majority of the story is about these dreams she has about Louisiana, about living there in a past life.  There’s a lot of detail I want to put in the story, but I don’t want to get anything wrong.  So that’s why I came to you.”.

            Ben pondered over what she had said, drumming his fingers on the folder and fighting the urge to sneak another look at the manuscript.  “Well, you know, you can just look up factual details on the Internet.  It wouldn’t be that hard to find out what you need to know, and I don’t know if I would be of any more help.”.  He stood up to walk around the desk, but the woman continued.

            “But there’s one part of the story that I can’t find any references on at all.  I’ve looked really hard, but I can’t find anything.  It’s based on an old folk legend.  Have you heard about the curse of the red moon?  About Rene Rendoulet?  I know only a little bit about him, and it’s enough to make a really great story, but I don’t know enough.  I’ve even considered going to Louisiana myself, but I have no idea who I’d talk to.  I’m facing a brick wall here.”.

            “Look, I’m really sorry… I am… but, I just don’t deal with folk legends.  Unless, of course, they have a basis in actual American history.  Then maybe I could help you.  But…”, he concluded, “otherwise, I really wouldn’t know anything.”.

            The woman looked truly crestfallen, and for a moment Ben felt as if he’d let her down.  He hated the way that felt, especially when he realized that she was another person searching for something that may or may not even exist, just like he’d done a few times in the past.  “Hey… um… tell you what.”, he offered, gesturing to a nearby chair.  “Why don’t you tell me more about it… maybe I know someone who could help.”.  As the woman sat down, looking quite grateful for the attention she needed, it occurred to him that he didn’t know her name.  “I don’t know if I ever caught your name, Ms….?”.

            “Tracy.  I’m Tracy.”, she muttered shyly, fidgeting with the strap of her backpack, which she laid on the floor next to her chair.  For a moment, he caught himself looking at her delicate shoulders and thick blonde hair, then turned away.  I’m staring at her… I’m freaking her out!, he chided himself silently as he sat down, facing her squarely. 

            “Oh… nice name.  I like that.”, he said, then winced inwardly at how ridiculous he must have sounded to her.  She didn’t seem to notice. 

            “So there’s this story, about this man who came to Louisiana, right around the time that it was first being settled… he was kind of eccentric, and everyone thought he was a witch or had knowledge of magic and stuff.”.  She emphasized the last few words with an animated gesture, her eyes wide and unblinking.  “Well, he went crazy at the sight of the red moon…”.

            “Red moon?  What, like a harvest moon?”, Ben interjected.

            “See, that’s the part I don’t understand.  I assume that’s what it was.  And then he put a curse on the whole village, a plague… it sounds like it was nothing more than yellow fever or malaria, but still, he was credited with some pretty nasty stuff.”.  For a moment, she silently looked over his shoulder at the desk.  “I have some other notes written down, but they’re all poetic license.  I’m using him as a main character in my story, and I’ve romanticized a bit to make him fit better.  But I want to know if there’s any more information about him… you know, stuff that’s already out there.”.

            Ben thought quietly for a moment.  He really didn’t know of any way he could help her – she was a fiction writer, not a historian, archaeologist or treasure hunter.  She could probably make up something far more interesting than anything he would find in a book.  “Well, you’re welcome to look at the books downstairs.  There are quite a few books on the history of settlement in Louisiana, so maybe you’ll find something interesting there… in the census, maybe… but I really don’t know anything.”.

            Quietly, she picked up her backpack and shuffled around to the desk for the folder.  “That’s okay.  I appreciate your time.  I’ll just have to keep looking.”.  She turned to face him once more.  “Are you sure you don’t know anyone who knows about folklore?”.

            “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”.  Ben dimly realized that he’d been doing more apologizing in the past fifteen minutes than in the past few years.

            Without another word, Tracy stuck the folder in her backpack and left, her eyes on the floor in deep concentration.  He watched her leave, shutting the door behind her, and sat for a few more minutes, absorbing the fresh silence of his office and thinking about their conversation.  Maybe he would find a way to contact her later, and she’d let him read more of her story… it sounded interesting.  As he pondered over this, he realized that he didn’t know her last name, so he couldn’t even call her.  “Women don’t stay around long, do they?”, he muttered bitterly to himself as he got up to sit at his desk, when something caught his eye.  Laying on top of his papers was a hand-drawn map, slightly worn at the edges.  It looked like the map of a fairly small region, each point neatly marked and labeled, and one in particular caught his eye.  He picked it up to read it more closely… There’s no way.  It’s not possible!, he thought to himself wildly.  It must have fell out of her folder.  Why didn’t she mention anything about a map?  If she knew who he was, she’d know he’d be interested in something like this. 

            He ran down the stairs and out the door, just in time to see her pulling out of the parking lot.  Straining to remember her tag number, he dashed back into the museum and wrote it down on scrap paper.  If there was someone who knew about the legend of Napoleon and the jewels he sent with one of his men who settled Louisiana, it might bring him one step closer to… well, that part he hadn’t quite figured out yet.  But he’d be closer to something.  But first, he needed to reach Tracy.  Suddenly, her story was becoming much more intriguing.