"What the hell happened to you?!?!" AJ declared as Howie walked down the aisle of the venue to the stage.

"Damn, Howie! When those girls took off after us and we lost track of you we thought you were a goner! You just disappeared around that one corner!"

Brian and Kevin ran out from backstage, hearing AJ's declaration across the sound system during his sound check. Both of his friends embraced him.

"Are you okay?" Brian asked urgently.

"I'm fine." Howie laughed slapping Kevin's arm to reassure him. "I ran into this bookstore and hid out. I ended up falling asleep in front of this fire she had going."

"She?" AJ asked, peering down at the three as they stood in front of the stage. "There's a woman involved in this story?" he asked devilishly.

"Yes, she owns the bookstore." Howie said.

"Does she have a name?" Kevin asked.

"Howie?!" Nick declared, walking up stage to meet the others, "I heard AJ say you were here. . .what happened to you?"

"He met a woman," AJ smirked, "and slept over at her place."

"AJ, I did not! I. . ." Howie began, but they heard the costumer holler out for them to get backstage and get dressed. They abandoned Howie's story for a later time.

It wasn't until the next morning before Howie had a chance to tell his story. Nick had flooded into his room with his breakfast room service. The rest weren't far behind. The four others picked at Howie's food as he told the story of her hiding him out, drying his clothes and wrapping him in a blanket and giving him the book and tea. The tea was one of his favorites and she had doctored it for him perfectly, but he hadn't told her anything about himself. She seemed to just know what he was thinking, know what he needed.

AJ chided him, saying she probably knew all about him and was just playing him. He ridiculed Howie for being a hopeless romantic and that she had just made a fool of him. Brian piped up, defending Howie's notion that the girl didn't know who he was. They had lost him in the mysterious French Quarter, she could've been some voodoo princess. Nick's imagination went wild with that and even suggested they use the concept for a video. Kevin seemed to be the only one who noticed when Howie turned away from their meaningless chatter to walk to the hotel window. Kevin followed him, seeing Howie peer vacantly out the window to the street far below them.

"She had some affect on you." Kevin said quietly. The look in Howie's eyes said it all to Kevin.

"AJ's wrong." Howie whispered.

"Of course he is, what the heck does he know?" Kevin smiled. "We have the afternoon off and I'd like to meet her. Why don't we go back today?" Howie glanced at the others as they cleared his plates, "We don't have to tell them." Kevin added.

"No, I want them to come, too." Howie said with a nodded.

Nick and Brian were game, but AJ flatly refused. Kevin threw him over his shoulder and dumped him the last seat of the minivan under loud protest. Their driver took them past the record store where they had been mobbed and Howie sat up front, pointing out where he had left the others and the route he had taken. Howie seemed to know exactly where he had been, because he found the corner where he had caught the cab back to the venue for the show. He couldn't pin point where the bookstore was exactly, so he demanded the driver stop and they all get out.

Howie began to walk down the street he swore where the bookstore was, but there was no bookstore on this block. They stopped in front of two boarded up stores, one was a shoe repair and the other an old dry cleaners. He looked around and then pointed across the street.

"It has to be here. I remember the old barber pole that was across the street." He headed over there without a hesitation.

"This is nuts!" AJ declared, "There are probably a hundred barber poles in this old part of the city."

Brian and Nick followed Howie and Kevin grabbed AJ by the back of his shirt. "I believe everyone is headed in this direction." He smiled sweetly. With dramatic flare, AJ was forced along by Kevin's insistence.

Howie went into the barbershop to see just three old black men. Two were sitting around a checkerboard talking. The third man was sweeping up after a hair cut. They seemed all right with three of them, but eyed AJ suspiciously with Kevin hovering over him.

"Excuse me?" Howie began.

"Michael?" one of the old men asked, seemingly leaning forward to see him better. "Come here, boy." He encouraged.

"Uh. . ."Howie began.

"That's not Michael." A second one said.

"I'm not Michael, my name is Howard." He said.

"Who is Michael?" Brian asked.

The men glanced at each other. "Where you from, boy?" the first asked.

"Me? I'm from Orlando, Florida." Howie said.

"No, not you, him." The second man said, pointing to Brian.

"Me? I'm from Kentucky." Brian smiled.

"What's your name?" the first man asked.

"Brian, Brian Littrell." He said. "This is Nick, AJ and my cousin, Kevin."

The man considered his answer. "Nope, don't know any Littrell's from Kentucky." The first man nodded.

"I was wondering, what happened to the bookstore?" Howie asked.

"What bookstore?" the second man asked.

"The one that was across the street yesterday." Howie insisted.

"Dang, boy, that's an old shoe store and laundry. There's no bookstore on this street." The first man said.

"I was here yesterday, maybe you saw me. I was being chased. . ."

"Oh, I remember that." The first man said. "You had that brown jacket on and all those girls chasing you. You just ran on down the street. The girls seemed to get lost and some doubled back here, but you must've given them the slip. A good looking boy like you." He smiled with a wink.

"NO!" Howie said in frustration. "I know it was here. I remember walking out and seeing this place. There was a girl there, her name was Raven. . ." and with that the third man who had been silent slammed down this broom and declared, "I'm not listening to another minute of this." He pushed his way past AJ and Kevin, grabbed his coat and hat and left the shop.

"Oh, oh. Now you've done it." The second man said.

"I didn't do anything. He did it." The first man said, pointing to Howie.

"What is going on?" Brian asked. The two men exchanged looks and set aside their checkers game.

"This is just nuts." AJ sighed. "We obviously are on the wrong street, or Howie is making up this whole thing."

"No, you're on the right street." The second man sighed. "Did she give you that book?" he asked, holding out his weathered hand for it. Howie handed it over to him. He opened it and found the bookmark that had been new yesterday, but was old and brittle today.

"Where is the bookstore? Where is Raven?" Howie asked impatiently.

"Sit down, son. C'mon, all you boys sit down over here." The first man said, waving them all in close. Nick plopped right down on the floor in front of the men, close enough for one of them to reach out and tousle his blond head. The man handed Howie back his book.

"No one had seen Raven in a long time." The first man began. "I think you may be the first in 5 years. Her shop was right there," he pointed across the street and the two that were boarded up, "but her brother sold the building after her death."

"What? But I just saw her yesterday." Howie declared.

"I know, son. Harold, the man who just left, he's seen her, too. That was nearly 40 years ago. . .he's still in love with her to this day." The man said.

Howie was totally confused, shaking his head in disbelief. "You see," the old man continued, "Raven Dwayne died 42 years ago, yesterday, of the influenza. She was beautiful, wasn't she? Petite as a mouse, just the perfect size for you, right? Black curly hair, black eyes, and beautiful white skin. She was the classic Cajun girl next door." He smiled at Howie.

"Howie's middle name is Dwaine." Nick said quietly.

"Is that so? What's your last name?" the old man asked.

"Dorough." Howie said. Both the men nodded together, "She was engaged to marry a Dorough, Michael Dorough. I don't know what ever happened to him, I think he left for New York."

"This can't be. I was being chased and ran into the corner of the bay window and fell backwards. I was able to get up and get inside the shop. She hid me under a window seat and made the girls leave. She took my jacket, shoes and sweater to be dried by the fire. I had this quilt she wrapped me in and she gave me tea, that book and I fell asleep by the fire." Howie said, rubbing his forehead, trying to make it all clearer. "She. . . ."

"What?" the first old man asked.

"At one point there was this one girl who was looking in the window. She could see me, but Raven did this thing with her hand and said the girl couldn't see me and I watched the girl outside leave."

"Raven's family was an old Cajun clan in New Orleans. I had heard tales of her using magic, but it wasn't anything they ever spoke of." The second old man said.

"She made the tea, exactly how I like it. She seem to be able to read my mind." Howie said, his fingers traced the path her fingers had taken down his own bearded jaw line remembering her touch lightly following it's line.

"She's good at that. She knows what people need. If you're wondering, Michael had a beard, too." The first old man said.

"How did this all happen?" Howie asked this wizened man.

"You may have just hit your head harder than you thought. Maybe you were inside that building, I sure don't remember seeing you go in or out."

"How did that other guy see her?" Nick asked.

"Harold? He had been thrown from his horse about a mile from her family's home just outside of town. She rode up to him on that stormy night and took him to where his horse had finally stopped running. She followed him back to his barn, but once the horse was cleaned and put away, she was gone." The second old man said. "He has loved her to this day. Never did marry, poor man."

"How did I get the book?" Howie asked.

But both the men just shrugged, "I just don't know." The first said.

"Did Harold get anything? Like Howie did?" Nick asked.

"My goodness you're full of questions." The second man laughed patting Nick's head. "No, Harold didn't get anything, but he's not a Dorough either."

"When I saw her, she was dressed in modern clothes and had a modern hairstyle." Howie said, grasping on to any detail he had.

The old men nodded, "The last time I've heard of anyone seeing Raven was some 5 years ago. They said the same thing. I can't tell you why she does it."

"What happened 5 years ago?" Brian asked.

"Oh goodness. This boy was high, taking drugs out back of the building when he saw her. He said she washed his face with a warm, wet wash cloth that smelled. ."

". .like lavender." Howie finished.

"Did that happened to you, too?" Kevin asked.

Howie only nodded, "My face and hands, they were muddy from falling on the wet pavement. I had told her I would come back to visit, but she said I no longer had a need to."

"For whatever reason, she was there to help you. Maybe through the veil she sensed that you were a Dorough, I just don't know."

The first man said, "All the stories I've heard about Raven have been those of her helping dark-haired, dark- skinned men who were in some sort of danger."

"Perhaps she's still here looking for Michael." AJ offered. The first old man narrowed his eyes on AJ, as though sizing him up.

"I can't say for sure, but I know that she has a profound effect on these men." Without a word, Kevin gave Howie's shoulder a squeeze and a hand rubbed his back reassuringly.

The old man closest to Howie laid his hand on Howie's arm, "She came to you because you needed her help. Only you know what really happened while you were in her care, but remember she helped you so you could live. Don't spend anymore time looking for her." He said.