Cajun Tales!

If you ever drifted slow along the misty water at sunrise, paddling quietly through curtains of Spanish moss, you might hear the swamp’s secrets—soft as a breath, or as bold as a heron’s cry echoing over jade-green water. Old cypress knees reach up through the shallow pools, and wild iris blink blue as the sky before rain. And if you’re lucky—or unlucky, depending on who tells it—you’ll sense a hush fall as you near the bend in the bayou, that turn where stories gather like driftwood. 

Back on a bayou, there lives an old woman, no body know how old but as you pass an eye on her, it plain to see, her old gray hair, and her skin of her face tight over high cheek bones, the one eye she seem to pass on you, the other always just out of the light or covered by that thick long gray hair, that one Blue eye, clear, twinkling, and seems to not have another just like it. That blue eye that makes you forget all the rest of her did she really hunch a little, I don't remember but she has blue eyes! 

Her house look like it grew up out of that cypress swamp where it stood, there being a short little dock, on the bayou, with Just a pirogue, on its side, a small porch with a moss draped roof, with two Naturally growing cypress, for post. 

Celeste, being her name since birth, doesn’t know where or when, the truth being she had always been here and probably always will. She being the traiture, on this part of the bayou, in Cajun country. She always has a cure, or potion. Celeste knew everyone, and all the happenings, it was fun for the daring youngster to approach and ask a question trying to stump Celeste. But Celeste could always finish your thought for you with the right answer; you could not beat the magic, Of Celeste. About the only thing you could see around the place was a big old gator. It was said Celeste had hand raised the gator, and it was hers, some say they even talk, after sundown, on the bayou. 

Coco “Dri” was what Celeste calls him, it rolled off easy, for a thing so small and smiley looking in the beginning, long ago; he sure got some smiling to do now, with all them teeth. 

Coco & Celeste had a special bond; some say the Gris Gris of a past love. 

To see Coco in the water gliding like the currant, so quiet, and then go from sight like a ripple of water, to see him emerge from that dark water of the bayou with a 200 pound wild pig in his jaws, it gives me the chills just to think. 

The first time Coco came into the village that spring day, with Celeste, the whole place lit up, you couldn’t see a stray dog anywhere on that one mule street. It caused such a stir, but the next time Celeste came in, it was like she was always there, Coco just eased up the bank of the bayou and lay next to her pirouque, 4 feet longer than Celeste’s 10 foot boat, and so much wider, He must weigh 1200 lbs., just sleeping there, like you could walk up and touch him. 

Early in the fall Celeste came into the village to trade her trinkets, of good luck, her healing potions, and the other goings on the locals had with her. 

Jackson, who owned the local mercantile, ask her why Coco not with her because from his high porch he could see the bank of the bayou where Celeste docked her bateau. Celeste looking up into that autumn sky, then at Jackson, saying he sometime goes off by himself for a time. 

Jackson thought about her then and wondered what she look like besides that blue eye peeking out from under her guard solie.  

Where  the moss hangs heavy, the frogs sing secrets, and the lamp never goes out.

Dem men came to de bayou to hunt, trap, an' take de life outta dis place. Celeste done lost de powder an' it fell to de ground. She knew it would be days 'fore dem men got to her bayou, if dey made it dat far. But she also knew dat Coco was smart an' wouldn' be caught easy, or even seen by dem men. Celeste knew Coco done felt her presence, like he always did when she did her conjure on de bayou in de dead of night. Coco would make his way back to her on de bayou. Early de next mornin', she was in de village to let de people know dat strangers were on de way, an' to prepare demselves for dey comin'!

Celeste, 'fore leavin' de village, placed a gris-gris against dem men, de hunters of de bayou, dat were comin' to kill an' steal. De gris-gris was wrapped in a lily pad an' bound with Spanish moss from a big ole cypress, an' de contents were a secret, but it...   

Celeste could smell ‘em now. They stunk of death and gasoline, that motor of theirs churnin’ through sacred water, leavin’ tragedy in its wake. In her mind’s eye, she saw the dead and dyin’ along the bends they’d passed—eyes wide with terror, lives snuffed out for the love of money. Piles of bones, scales, and the leftover pieces of the wild—discarded like trash where they fell.

They had big plans for her love, Coco Dri. But this day? This day would be different. They were gonna be sorry.

Celeste stopped at the spot where the owl said they’d camp that night. She laid her gris-gris deep in the roots of a cypress knee—wrapped in lily pad, bound with Spanish moss, filled with secrets only the swamp could whisper. When her shadow left that place, the clouds began to billow, and the wind howled through the moss like somethin’ evil crawlin’. A low growl rose from the trees—hungry and ancient. 

🌒 Darkness fell.

The men tied their boat to the cypress knee. One of ‘em was already missin’. Dropped at the new landin’ up on Ole River, trophies and all. That place where folks first step into the bayou.

Celeste cringed when she felt the wind shift—comin’ through the moss, movin’ through the backwater toward the hunters’ camp. They thought they’d sleep. But then the buzzi  

Not the kind from skeeters or swamp flies. No—this was deeper. Like the hum of a thousand wings, stirred by somethin’ ancient. It came low at first, like a whisper in the moss. Then it rose, crawlin’ through the trees, shiverin’ the water, makin’ the cypress knees tremble.

Bo Lejeune sat up straight, shotgun across his lap. T-Jules didn’t move, but his eyes were wide, fixed on the fog rollin’ in from the bend. The frogs had gone quiet. That’s when you know.

The fire sputtered. The wind shifted. And from the shadows came a sound—half song, half sorrow. A melody that didn’t belong to no bird or beast. It was the Chanteur des Grenouilles.

They say he sings for the ones who’ve been wronged. For the bones left behind. For the bayou itself.

Celeste, back in her pirogue, felt the air tighten. Her gris-gris had stirred the veil. Coco Dri was movin’ now—glidin’ through the blackwater like a shadow with teeth. He wasn’t just comin’ for her. He was comin’ for justice.

The hunters thought they were sleepin’ in a quiet camp. But the bayou don’t forget. And that buzzin’? That was the sound of the swamp wakin’ up.

They’re hunting something that ain’t quite animal. Something that’s been stealing traps, leaving claw marks too wide for gators, and whispering in the fog. Some say it’s the “Chanteur des Grenouilles”—the Frog Singer—a spirit that calls out to the lost and lures them into the water.

Bo and T-Jules don’t believe in stories. But they do believe in signs. And the signs say it’s time to go look

• Benoît “Bo” Lejeune – The one in front with the shotgun. A former preacher turned trapper after a tragedy he won’t speak of. Folks say he once baptized a loup-garou by mistake.
• T-Jules Fontenot – The poleman. Raised by his grand-mère in a shack with no walls, just moss. He knows every bend of the bayou and every sound it makes. Doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it’s usually a warning. 
• Bo once led a congregation in a swamp chapel that sank during a flood. He lost his wife and child that night. Since then, he’s been chasing shadows.
• T-Jules grew up trapping nutria and gators, but he’s got a sixth sense for things that ain’t right. He’s seen lights in the water and heard songs with no mouths to sing them.

They’ve been partners for years, bound by silence and survival. They don’t trust many, but they trust each other. And when the frogs start singing at midnight, they know it’s time to move.

  The edge of Jackson’s mercantile gallery, shaded by the overhang and framed by moss-draped beams. The gallery sits slightly elevated, with wooden steps leading down to the bayou’s edge.  

   A wiry, ageless woman with high cheekbones and long gray hair partially veiling one side of her face. Her one visible eye—strikingly blue—gleams with quiet knowing. She wears a patchwork shawl and a skirt that brushes the ground like reeds in the wind.  A woven cypress basket brimming with small bottles, bundles of herbs, gris-gris wrapped in Spanish moss, and charms made of bone and shell. A faint shimmer seems to rise from it, as if the potions hum with life. 

 The light is golden and fading, casting long shadows across the gallery. The bayou behind her glows with dusky purples and greens, and frogs begin their chorus. A heron lifts off in the distance. 

 Quiet anticipation. Celeste finishes her trades with a few villagers—one hands her a pouch of coins, another a bundle of fresh-cut meat. She nods, murmurs something low, and turns toward the water. 

 She steps into her pirogue, the boat rocking gently. As she pushes off, the water ripples outward, and the swamp seems to lean in, listening. Her silhouette fades into the dusk, heading toward the bend where stories gather. 

And Coco Follows, like a Shadow that knows your "Name".

 “L’histoire continue, cher…” “The story continues, dear…” 

 "Cher, when the frogs go quiet, that’s when the bayou starts talkin’. And this time, it’s whisperin’ about a shadow that walks with no footsteps..." 

 “Bienvenue, cher. You found your way to the bend, and that means somethin’. The wind’s been waitin’ for you, and so have I. Every month, I’ll send you a little piece of the swamp—stories stitched with memory, recipes stirred with love, and maybe a whisper or two from the other side...” 

  The hunters think they’re sleepin’. But the swamp don’t forget. Celeste’s gris-gris is buried deep in the cypress roots. Coco Dri is movin’ like a shadow with teeth. And the Chanteur des Grenouilles is hummin’ a melody that don’t belong to no bird or beast. 

 “Coco don’t splash when he moves—he remembers.”