by Mia Sheridan
For a moment Jonah had gotten lost in the earnest passion in her voice, and he had to take several seconds to go back over her actual words to respond. “Clara, I don’t know that I believe in ghosts, but unless you can speak to them, I don’t see a way to solve any of this.”
Clara sighed and Jonah regretted his words. He hated to say something to dampen her exuberance, but he also wasn’t going to pretend to believe things that had no basis in real life.
There was not only no point to that, but it was dangerous to him on a personal level. Jonah was not a man who could afford to get lost in fantasy. There was no telling where his mind would go if he gave it free rein to dream. Even if the topic involved those long dead and gone.
“There’s a way,” she murmured. “I realize all the ghost stuff is supposition, but . . . I still think there’s something to be found if we know what we’re looking for.”
The foliage rustled around him and he sat up, a shaft of pearly moonlight highlighting a thorny rosebush empty of all blossoms. Next to it, a walking fern, which was mostly disguised in shadows, shook. Jonah’s skin prickled, as if Angelina herself had heard him speak his doubt and was about to prove how wrong he was.
The fern shook more vigorously and a small bunny jumped suddenly through the leaves, startling him. Jonah rolled his eyes, sinking back into the bench as the rabbit stared at him, wiggling its pink nose.
“Let me know if you find anything else in that file, okay?”
Clara yawned. “I will. I better go. Hey, Jonah?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
June, 1861
“Angelina, follow me to the parlor please,” Mrs. Chamberlain said, her voice clipped, as she stood at the doorway to the kitchen before turning and immediately walking away.
Angelina wiped her hands slowly on her apron, fear pooling in her belly. She’d done nothing but lie low for the past three months, as John had said. She barely had the strength to do more than that anyway—the heartache of missing him made her feel weak as if an invisible layer of fog constantly surrounded her.
Angelina shot her mother a quick look where she stood slicing an onion at the counter, the knife moving smoothly and steadily in her adept hands. Her mother frowned back, her eyes questioning. Angelina forced a smile to her lips, shrugging nonchalantly as she turned from the kitchen to follow Mrs. Chamberlain.
The windows were open in the parlor, a rare summer breeze causing the gauzy curtains to float into the air, and bringing with it the scent of garden roses. Garden roses.
The memory of the first time she’d laid eyes on John came back to her then, infusing her with strength.
Mrs. Chamberlain stood at the fireplace, her back to Angelina. “Yes, Mrs. Chamberlain?” she asked softly as her gaze landed on Astrid who sat on the other side of the room, her pallor ghostly, her eyes downcast.
“Something nagged at me after that party when you brought Astrid the mask. I couldn’t figure out what it was until a few days ago. And then I did. You were wearing your Sunday best, Angelina.” Mrs. Chamberlain turned toward her slowly, holding a book in her hands. “Why was that when you were only delivering something to Astrid?”
Angelina clasped her hands together, her mind spinning quickly. “I”—she swallowed heavily—“I didn’t want to embarrass you, Mrs. Chamberlain. It was a party.”
Mrs. Chamberlain’s eyebrows rose slowly. “It didn’t make sense,” she said as if Angelina hadn’t spoken at all.
Her hands rose and she waved the book she was holding around, turning her nose up at it as if it emitted a bad odor. “I never understood the need to keep a diary,” she said. “Especially when one has so many dirty secrets.”
Angelina glanced at Astrid as Mrs. Chamberlain turned away again and Astrid’s eyes met hers, the bereft look on her stepsister’s face sinking all of Angelina’s hope, and making her realize that Mrs. Chamberlain hadn’t really needed an answer to her question. She already knew.
“I’m sorry.” The words were whispered and they dropped heavily from her mouth, weighed down by surprise and terrible fear.
Mrs. Chamberlain turned back toward Angelina again. “Dirty, filthy secrets,” she said, her gaze raking down Angelina’s body in disgust.
“Mrs. Chamberlain,” she said, her voice cracking, her mind searching for some way to explain what Astrid had already revealed in her diary. But maybe she hadn’t revealed everything. Maybe there was still a chance. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
Mrs. Chamberlain laughed, a nasty sound full of mocking. “No? Well, let me ask you this. Do you understand what happens to old used-up slaves like your mama when their owners no longer have a need of them and toss them away like the garbage they are? Do you understand what happens to negro whores who seduce white men from wealthy families with their evil voodoo? Is that what you did, Angelina? Put a spell on John Whitfield? Made him falsely believe you were something worth having?”
Horror washed over Angelina, so suddenly and with such strength that she reached for the wall, holding on to it so as not to fall.
“Mama,” Astrid said pleadingly.
“Shut up, you little ingrate! You filthy liar! How dare you speak a word to me?” Mrs. Chamberlain’s face strained with anger as she screeched the words, her skin almost purple with rage.
Astrid sank back in her chair, her face full of misery, her hands grasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were bright white.
“Now,” Mrs. Chamberlain continued, “here is what is going to happen. When John returns, you will cease your whoring and animal seduction and allow the proper relationship between John and Astrid to develop. Is that clear?”
The blood buzzed in Angelina’s head and her knees grew weaker. Angelina couldn’t speak, her lips slack and useless, unable to form words. Again, Mrs. Chamberlain didn’t seem to require an answer and turned away, toward Astrid. “Is that clear, Astrid?” she practically hissed.
“Yes, Mother,” Astrid agreed.
Angelina’s eyes moved sluggishly toward Astrid. Astrid was gazing at her lap again, her expression blank. She’d helped them, yes, when she believed their secret would remain undetected. But Astrid was no match for her mother. She never had been.
“Now then,” Mrs. Chamberlain said, reaching for a match on the mantel and striking it quickly. She held the diary over the fireplace grate and brought the match to it. The pages ignited quickly, the flame billowing so that Mrs. Chamberlain was forced to let go of it. It fell into the fireplace where it continued to burn to ashes.
A sob rose up Angelina’s throat, her hands shaking as she willed herself to remain calm. This was a warning. A bone-chilling warning of what was to come.
The war John was fighting had found Windisle Plantation. The storm approached. And Angelina was its eye. Defenseless.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I called you last night,” Marco said. “You never called me back.”
Clara grimaced and turned toward him. She sincerely felt bad for basically ignoring his attempts to get hold of her the last week. “Sorry, Marco. By the time I got your message it was late.” The truth was, she’d been talking to Jonah and had seen his call come through. It’d been an easy choice to let it go to voicemail.
“And I knew I’d be seeing you today. You were amazing out there, by the way. You’re going to knock them dead at the performance.”
“Thanks,” he stepped closer, leaning his head forward and peering at the place where she still had a bruise on her forehead. She’d dabbed stage makeup on it before heading to work, but she’d apparently sweated it off. “What happened?”
Clara brought her fingers to the sore spot on her forehead. “I walked into a door.”
Marco raised a brow, looking dubious. “You? One of the most graceful, sure-footed people I know, walked into a door?”
Clara laughed, uncomfortab
le with her obvious lie—she’d never been good at coming up with believable falsehoods but wasn’t willing to get into how her bruise had actually occurred.
“Even the most graceful trip or stumble every once in a while.” Sometimes graceful people fall over fences onto their faces as a matter of fact, she thought with an internal cringe.
“I guess. Anyway, I—”
“Hey Marco,” Roxanne said, coming up behind him, a flirtatious smile on her face. He turned toward her. “I was wondering if you have some time tonight to go over the scene in the—”
Clara took the opportunity to duck away and head toward the door. She didn’t want Marco to offer her a ride. She didn’t want to engage in idle chitchat with anyone. She wanted to get on the bus and lose herself in her own thoughts, the roar of the bus’s engine allowing her to drift from the world around her back in time to Angelina’s. And maybe, if she let her mind wander, some of those elusive puzzle pieces would begin to fit together.
She also wanted to spend more time looking through Justin’s folder, the folder now kept safely in her duffel bag.
Thankfully, the bus was coming around the corner as Clara walked to the stop at the end of the block. She jogged to make it just as the doors opened and she swiped her phone, smiling in greeting to the driver.
Each time she boarded a bus, it reminded her of her father, how hard he’d worked day in and day out for her. How he’d come home with a smile on his face even though he must have been exhausted. The thought always caused a pang of love to tighten her chest. It’d been so long since they’d sat and talked about their days, about the funny things that happened at work, to the frustrating prima donnas she’d dealt with dancing. How she missed him. Down deep to her soul.
Clara took a seat on the mostly empty bus, leaning her head back and enjoying the white noise of the engine, and for the first time all day she sat still and gave her muscles a rest.
Physically, she enjoyed the stillness, but the ten minutes didn’t serve to connect any drifting puzzle pieces in her mind. Clara sighed in frustration, sitting up and lifting the Chamberlain family file from her bag.
She rifled through it, reading over a few of the documents she’d already looked at, and then opened a manila envelope near the back that contained several old letters to Herbert Davies that appeared to be business correspondence, but that she already knew were letters from his wife, Astrid.
She hadn’t had time to read through all of them the day before, because the script was so formal and full of flourishes that reading was slow-going.
She’d read enough to know that Astrid was working with Herbert in his construction efforts, but no more. But she took the time then to read through a few more, stopping at several lines that Astrid had written in all capitals and underlined in two heavy strikes of ink. “We must never choose safety over right. Safety is the blanket under which cowards sleep. Safety smothers hope and extinguishes all fight.”
Clara read the lines once, then again. They had obviously meant something deeply to Astrid. Clara noted again the way the writing grew bold and slightly shaky as if her hand had trembled as she’d clutched the pen and scrawled the words.
Clara returned the letters to their envelopes slowly, feeling troubled. But why? What was she missing?
Her brow drew inward as more puzzle pieces appeared, still without any matches. The picture was there, she felt it. She just needed to arrange the pieces properly so it became clear. She’d call Jonah when she got home and ask him what he thought.
Safety is the blanket under which cowards sleep. Who had been the coward? And what safe option had someone chosen over right?
She straightened the large stack of papers in the folder, the family tree at the top catching her eye.
Clara ran her finger down the list of names she’d already looked at, her finger stopping at Jonah’s as she circled it lightly, her finger halting when she noted the date. “Oh my God,” she whispered, stuffing the folder quickly into her bag as her stop came into view. And of course, he hadn’t said a thing.
Clara looked at her phone, noting the time. She had just enough to make it to the shop about ten blocks from her house where she’d seen something that would be perfect for the occasion of which she’d just learned.
**********
Clara took a deep breath before rapping loudly on the gate where Myrtle had let her out a few days before.
If she hadn’t been shown the gate, she would have never known there was an entrance other than the one covered in thorns at the front of the property.
What she now knew had at one point been an unpaved driveway, was so overgrown by reedy grass that it looked like a field, and apparently, even the sedan that Clara had seen parked inside and knew must be used at least occasionally, could not keep it flattened permanently.
If an outside observer looked around that side of the wall, they would see that the river all but butted against it, only separated by that weedy strip of what looked like marsh.
It looked unstable, and perhaps dangerous, and she certainly wouldn’t have ventured beyond the tall grass had she not known that there was an entry gate beyond it.
“Who’s there?” Myrtle demanded.
“It’s Clara, Myrtle,” she said and there was a pause before Clara heard Myrtle unlatching the gate and then pulling it open.
“Clara dear, is everything okay?” She stood at the entrance, blocking the opening, squinting mightily without her thick glasses, and Clara’s heart squeezed.
This old woman who could barely see was acting as Jonah’s protection, a barrier of love from the outside world. And somehow Clara knew she would fight viciously to defend him.
“Yes, Myrtle, everything’s fine.” She held up the gift, offering it to Myrtle. “It’s a birthday present for Jonah. Will you give it to him for me? I called his phone but he didn’t answer, and then I called his name at the weeping wall, but he didn’t answer there either, and I’d . . . I’d really like him to have this.”
Myrtle took the small blue gift bag, her expression half troubled and half contemplative. “This is very thoughtful.”
Clara smiled, beginning to turn away when Myrtle reached out a hand, stopping her.
Clara turned back to Myrtle questioningly and Myrtle opened the gate wider, stepping aside. “He’s out back. There’s no light out there. I suppose . . . well, I suppose if you call out, if you let him know you’re there, he wouldn’t mind if you delivered it yourself.”
“Oh,” Clara breathed, uncertainty enveloping her. “I wouldn’t want to upset him, Myrtle.”
“No,” Myrtle murmured, her unfocused gaze sliding away from Clara as she chewed at the inside of her cheek. “But . . . yes.”
Clara frowned, not knowing exactly what to make of her conflicting comments.
Myrtle moved her eyes to Clara again, and she put a hand on her arm. “You must give him warning that you’re there. Don’t surprise him.” Myrtle handed the gift bag back to Clara.
“I promise, I won’t.”
Myrtle ushered her inside of the gate and told her which path to take, giving Clara one more tip of her chin as Clara turned away, following Myrtle’s directions.
As she rounded the house and began heading toward the trees, the light waned, only darkness before her.
She set the gift bag on a garden bench, wanting both her hands available before she stepped into the dark.
“Jonah?” she called softly, a chill moving down her spine, born of doubt and excited anticipation. She was close to him. He was here, somewhere, just beyond her reach, but not for long.
She tossed his name into the lightless void in front of her again, letting her voice lead the way, making no attempt to quiet her footsteps.
Was this how Angelina felt but minus the hope—the promise—that the man she was searching for would hear her call? What an awful, desolate feeling, to know that the man who made your heart swell and your blood tremble was there, so close, and yet completely and utterly ou
t of reach.
What torture to wonder if he might be looking for you too.
“Jonah?”
Clara stepped forward, the canopy of trees and moss covering the moon and shading the surroundings in tones of darkest gray. She held her hand up and watched it disappear as she moved it away from her face.
“Jonah?” she called again, her heart thumping rapidly. “It’s Clara.”
She heard footsteps to her right and whirled in that direction, staring sightlessly into the inky blackness.
“Maybe you like monsters? Is that it, Clara?”
Jonah. His voice was deep, raspy, the voice she’d know anywhere, though she couldn’t quite discern his tone.
Despite his unknown mood at her showing up uninvited, relief flowed through her along with the thrill of his presence.
“You’re not a monster, Jonah. But if you insist on calling yourself one, then yes, I must like monsters.”
“Silly Clara,” he said, but now his tone had changed, and though his words mocked her, his silken voice held warmth. “You’re in my lair now, you do realize that, right?”
“Y-yes,” she said as the direction of his voice changed and she turned blindly toward it, unable to see anything, not even his movement.
He chuckled then and it drifted to her, falling over her like magic, causing goosebumps to erupt on her skin.
“You’re playing with me.” It was a statement, but also a question. She should be annoyed, perhaps, but she couldn’t help her excitement.
Clara did not consider Jonah a monster, but apparently, she still enjoyed being his prey. Am I really considered prey if I want to be caught? she wondered, as a tremble of delight moved through her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Myrtle said you were out here. She thought it would be okay if . . .” Clara bit her lip, shifting where she stood, feeling strangely naked standing together as they were in the dark.
“If what?” He was closer now, but she hadn’t heard him move, and it felt as if tiny bubbles popped under her ribs.