At the edge of Lake Maurepas, where the Manchac swamp thickens into old-growth cypress and the road ends, there used to be a town called Frenier. A few hundred people lived there — trappers, fishermen, laborers working the cypress lumber camps. A woman named Julia Brown lived there too, a voodoo practitioner known locally as a traiteur who healed and cursed in equal measure. The story, as locals tell it: Julia Brown spent the last years of her life singing a song about how she would take the whole town with her when she died. On September 29, 1915, the day of her funeral, a Category 4 hurricane made landfall directly over Frenier. Nearly every resident died. The town was never rebuilt. The graves are still there, visible from the levee road. Whether Julia Brown was a healer, a prophet, a curse, or simply a poor woman who died badly and got attached to a coincidence — depends entirely on who is telling the story. The swamp itself doesn't offer an opinion. The cypress knees stand where the houses stood. The roots hold the mud. The water goes where it wants.