Aldridge hung his head a moment before answering, as if hesitant to elaborate. But he’d come this far. “Yo’ don’t know the Hembree house like I do,” he said. “I work there. I know how to get in and out without much bein’ seen. Even if someone sees me, it wouldn’t be strange. But if they see yo’, they’ll set the dogs on yo’.”
Lewis’ brow furrowed with confusion. “Are you wanting to go instead of me?”
Aldridge was still looking at the ground. He kicked at it with his worn boots. “I ain’t a-wantin’ to go at ’tall,” he said, “but yo’re gonna go no matter what I say. I’m afraid if yo’ do, yo’ won’t make it. They’ll kill yo’ before yo’ can get to the house.”
Lewis could see that his brother was trying to help him. Any tension the conversation had brought about was now evaporating.
“I know that,” he said quietly. “I’ve already thought of that. Victory is going to meet me on the dock by the river. I’ve got money to pay the ferryman to cross the Yalobusha and then we’ll go north from there.”
Aldridge shook his head. “Yo’ don’t know how they watch that girl,” he said. “I see how they treat her, like a child who needs to be tended every second. If she leaves the house, her pappy’ll follow her. It’s wide-open land between the house and the river. She’ll be seen.”
Lewis was starting to feel more apprehension for Victory than for himself. “She knows the house and the land,” he said. “She’ll know to stay out of sight.”
Aldridge lifted his dark eyebrows. “And if she’s caught?” he asked. “What then? What if they make her tell ’em where she was goin’?”
Lewis tried to explain. “Aldridge, she has obviously gone out before without being caught. We are going to have a child, after all.”
Lewis shook his head, interrupted from his explanation when they heard Ma’ama call out to them from the house telling them that supper was on the table. Purely out of the habit of obeying Ma’ama’s commands, they began moving for the house again, slowly.
“She won’t tell them,” Lewis said. “She won’t say anything.”
“Yo’ trust her with yo’ life?”
“I do.”
Aldridge grunted, an unhappy sound. He put a hand on Lewis’ arm again, stopping him for the last time.
“I’ll go to the dock and see if she there,” he said. “Yo’ wait at the ferry crossin’ down river. If she’s there, I’ll bring her to yo’. If she’s not, then yo’ need to take the ferry anyway and get away before they come for yo’. If she not there, it means they got her and she’ll tell ’em what she knows, I swear she will.”
Lewis’ jaw ticked faintly. “Aldridge….”
The older brother cut him off. “They won’t pay no never-mind if they see me,” he insisted. “If they see yo’ waitin’ on the dock and Ms. Victory runnin’ to yo’, yo’ know what they’ll do. Lewis, yo’ got to let me help yo’. Yo’re walkin’ into the belly of the beast and yo’ don’t even know it. Let me go!”
There was wisdom in Aldridge’s words, as much as Lewis hated to admit it. He began to shift around, uncomfortably. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Yo’ know I am.”
“And you’ll bring her to the ferry crossing?”
“I said I would.”
Lewis’ dark gaze lingered on his brother. “You wouldn’t try and talk her out of it?”
Aldridge shook his head. “She’s in this as much as yo’ are.”
Lewis couldn’t deny that. “She is,” he said quietly. “But I have faith that there’s something better for Victory and me, somewhere that isn’t this southern state that smells of compost and reeks of hate. We’re going north. After supper, I’m going to the ferry landing and I’ll wait for you to bring Victory to me there.”
Aldridge sensed that this was all so final, as if there was no turning back, ever. Lewis had made up his mind and he was going with or without his brother’s help. He was still frightened, still nearly panicked by the thought of what Laveau Hembree would do if he found out about his daughter and Lewis, but there was also a sense of determination now to help his brother. He had to.
He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t.
“I will,” Aldridge said. “I’ll find her and bring her to yo’.”
Lewis nodded, knowing there was nothing more to say about that. Still, there was something else he needed to tell his brother.
“I know you don’t agree with this,” he said, touching the man on the arm, “but this is something I must do. I love her, Aldridge. We are going to make a life together.”
Aldridge bit off the argument on his lips. Lewis wouldn’t listen, anyway. “If yo’ do, yo’ll write to me and tell me where yo’ are?”
Lewis smiled faintly. “I won’t put my name on the letter, but you’ll know it’s me.”
“How?”
Lewis’ smile grew. “Because the letter will be very simple,” he said. “It will say ‘In the Dreaming Hour….’. And then you’ll know it came from me.”
Aldridge wasn’t sure what the significance was of those words, but he didn’t ask. Lewis didn’t make a lot of sense sometimes, so he let it go. He and his brother continued on to the house, sitting down to supper with the other members of the Ragsdale family.
It was a special meal for the brothers and, in particular, for Lewis. His last meal with his Ma’ama, his parents, Pearl and Ezekiel, and his aunts, uncles, and younger siblings. He felt so safe and happy here. He was going to miss his Ma’ama chewing, open-mouthed, on her pork rinds and he was going to miss his father taking out his upper denture plate and scaring the younger kids with it. He was going to miss his family terribly, but it couldn’t be helped.
In fact, Lewis spent more time looking at his family than eating and when the meal was over, Aldridge slipped off into the night and Lewis grabbed his money sock and his meager belongings, heading to the ferry crossing on the banks of the Yalobusha where he and Victory would cross the river, head north, and finally find their own particular brand of happiness. He had nothing but hope that night, nothing but joy for the future.
But that joy was shattered when Aldridge failed to show up at the ferry and was never heard from again.
Lewis and Victory never made it to Illinois, after all.
CHAPTER ONE
Pea Ridge, Mississippi
Present Day
~ The Ghosts of Mississippi Past ~
The funeral was being held in an old antebellum home that had been converted into a funeral parlor back in the nineteen fifties. The house was big and rambling, with peach-colored walls and scenes from Greek mythology painted in the ceilings. It was meant to look opulent but the unfortunate truth was that it simply looked garish.
A well-dressed woman with auburn hair and green eyes stood by the front door, drinking in all of the visual cheesiness and inhaling the musty smell inherent to the old houses in the southern states. Something between dirt and rot. That wasn’t exactly the smell she wanted filling her nose as she gazed down at her grandmother’s corpse, that event being just moments away.
God, she just didn’t want to be here.
Having just flown in from Los Angeles on a red-eye, Lucy Bondurant had made the two-hour drive from the Memphis airport in time to make it to the service of Victory Hembree Bondurant, a gracious but firm woman she simply knew as Mamaw. Childhood memories lingered in her mind as she forced herself to enter the funeral parlor where Victory lay in the next room – Lucy knew that because she could see the tail-end of a coffin and people milling around in there, including her parents. She could see them through the doorway, speaking to people she didn’t recognize.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to head into that room filled with death and grief.
You can do this. Get your ass in there.
Lucy’s mother, Mary, quickly caught sight of her only child. A slender woman with neat blonde hair, Mary hugged her daughter but Lucy’s attention was mostly on her father. It was, after all, his
mother who had passed away and he had been inordinately close to her. Lucy knew that Mamaw’s death had hit him hard.
“Hey, Dad,” she said softly, hugging her tall and handsome father. “How are you holding up?”
Bill Bondurant wiped at his nose, sniffling, trying to pretend he was doing just fine. “I’m okay,” he said, brushing off her question for the most part. He didn’t like it when the focus was on him. “How was your flight?”
“It was fine,” she said, eyeing her father’s pale face. “Is Pop going to be here?”
They were speaking of Victory’s husband, Hardy, still alive and extremely old. Bill nodded to Lucy’s question.
“Yes,” he said. “In fact, the assisted living home is supposed to call me any minute. They’re bringing him over in one of their special vans. Daddy isn’t really mobile anymore, you know.”
“I know,” Lucy said. Then, she hesitated. “Have you been to see him yet? Does he know what’s going on?”
Bill shook his head. “We went to see him last night, straight from the airport,” he said. “He kept calling me Johnny and wanted to know where Willie was.”
“He spoke? That’s a surprise.”
“It wasn’t anything more than saying ‘where’s Willie’, but he did speak. I haven’t heard him put two words together in a year.”
Lucy smiled. “Well, at least he recognized you as being part of the family. That’s something.”
Bill lifted his eyebrows ironically. “Maybe he did,” he agreed, his gaze moving towards the coffin. “But he was asking for me as a kid. He was the only one who ever called me Willie when I was little. Mama always called me Bill.”
Lucy wasn’t really focused on what he was saying because she knew he was looking at his mother’s coffin. The time had come for her to look at it, too, although she was dreading the moment. She had never been very good at funerals but she summoned the courage to look over. Catching sight of her grandmother’s sunken face, she felt a distinct shock. A hiss escaped her lips.
“Oh… Dad,” she muttered. “That doesn’t even look like… oh, God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Bill’s gaze was fixed on his mother. “I know,” he said quietly. “Mama had been sick for a while, you know. She lost a lot of weight. When they prepped her body, they took out her dentures. That’s why her face looks so caved in.”
Lucy wasn’t even sure she could get next to the casket with Mamaw looking like that. The funeral director had done a horrendous job on the woman. It didn’t even look like Victory, a once-beautiful woman. It looked like some kind of wax dummy from a cheap Boris Karloff flick.
Rather than comment on it again, however, she just shut her mouth; she could tell that her father was already upset enough so mentioning the state of his mother’s body wouldn’t do him any good. He knew it looked shitty. Summoning her courage, Lucy took her father’s hand.
“Go with me to say goodbye, okay?” she asked softly.
Bill simply nodded, holding his daughter’s hand tightly as they went up to the solid mahogany coffin built in Batesville, Mississippi. Mamaw had always been very clear about what she wanted to be buried in and there was no question that it would be a Batesville casket. It was a beautiful casket as far as caskets went with sleek lines and white velvet interior.
Gazing down at the distorted face of Mamaw, Lucy could feel her eyes stinging with tears. It wasn’t just the state of the body; it was the simple fact that she was dead. No more grandmotherly hugs, no more tomato gravy and biscuits. No more stories about Mississippi while she was growing up and no more chasing fireflies at sunset.
All of that was at an end.
“Her… her dress is very pretty,” Lucy said, a lump in her throat. “Did you pick it out?”
“She did,” he said, looking at his daughter, his eyes twinkling, albeit dully. “You know she planned out every inch of this funeral. She wanted it exactly a certain way. You know Mama has always been like that and I think that same determination kind of rubbed off on you. I see a lot of her in you, Lucy.”
Lucy forced a smile, swallowing away the tears that threatened. “I am proud to be just like my grandmother,” she declared softly. “I don’t take any crap, either.”
“That is the truth,” Bill agreed, “but you know she was that way because of her father. You had to stand up to that old bastard or he’d step all over you.”
Lucy knew about her great-grandfather. In fact, the town of Pea Ridge still knew about the man although the generation of people who had known him personally had mostly died off. It had been a long time ago, back in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, but it was something people around here still knew about.
It was an evil that still lingered.
“I know,” Lucy said, her gaze still on her grandmother. The subject of her great-grandfather was a touchy one but, having not grown up in Pea Ridge with that stigma hanging over her head, she was a little more immune to the shame of it. “Mamaw didn’t talk much about him but I do remember hearing stories now and then. You remember him, don’t you?”
Bill nodded. “He died back in the sixties when I was about ten years old, so I remember him very well. He was always great with me because I was the son he’d always wanted. He only had one child, my mother, and I believe he always resented the fact that she was a girl. I never saw him be particularly nice to her, not ever. It was animosity that ran deep because she put in her will that she didn’t want to be buried next to him. We’re burying her next to my grandmother.”
Lucy thought of Mamaw, a genuine steel magnolia with Satan for a father. “She never talked fondly of him,” she said. “He was her father but I never got the impression that she loved him.”
“I don’t think she did,” Bill said. “Though she never talked a lot about her younger years, I always got the impression that he was really hard on her back when she was growing up. I’ve heard a few things about Laveau but I don’t think this is the time to talk about it. Suffice it to say that my grandfather was a bad dude back in the day, even to his own daughter.”
“But you’ve heard stories?”
“Like I said – we’ll talk about it another time.”
Lucy let the subject go and reached out to gently touch her Mamaw’s hand. Maybe they’d talk about the stories at some point, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe it didn’t even matter anymore because Laveau Hembree’s time was long past. They couldn’t ever put the past behind them if they continued to dredge it up.
Beneath her fingers, Mamaw’s skin was like velvet but cold to the touch. Slightly creeped out, Lucy removed her hand.
“Sweet dreams, Mamaw,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes again. “I hope you are warm and safe and happy now, wherever you are.”
Bill started to say something but activity near the entry caught his attention and both he and Lucy turned to see a man in a wheelchair roll in through the front door. There were two male attendants with him and also a woman who was possibly a nurse, as one of the tall African American attendants rolled the wheelchair forward into the foyer.
Lucy’s eyes widened at the sight. “Oh, my God, Dad,” she gasped. “It’s Pop!”
Bill was already on the move, heading towards the front door as a very old man was being brought into the funeral home. He went straight to his father, his expression full of concern.
“Someone was supposed to call me when he arrived,” he said to the man pushing the wheelchair. “Is he okay? Did he tolerate the trip over here well?”
The attendant nodded his head. “Mr. Hardy did just fine,” he said. “We tried to call you but you didn’t answer.”
Frowning, Bill looked at his cell phone to see he had a missed call. He’d never heard it ring. With a shrug, he put the phone back into his pocket.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I guess I didn’t hear it. Has Dad said anything since I left him last night? Does he know why you’ve brought him here?”
The female stepped forward. Sh
e was young, and Caucasian, and wore too much makeup. “I sat in the back of the van with him and told him why we were coming here,” she said. “He didn’t acknowledge me so I have no idea if he really grasps what’s going on. I doubt it.”
“Pop?” Lucy came up to her grandfather and crouched down in front of the chair. She looked into his face, smiling. “Hi, Pop. Do you know me? It’s Lucy. It’s so good to see you.”
Hardy Fowler Bondurant was still a big man with big hands, a little on the thin side but still healthy. It was his mind that had been destroyed by disease even though the body had remained relatively the same. He wore thick glasses over brilliant blue eyes and still had a head of full gray hair.
When Lucy put her hand on his and squeezed it, he seemed to recoil but she didn’t let go. She squeezed it again.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she said again, trying not to break down in tears at the sight of her beloved grandfather and what dementia had done to him. “It’s been such a long time. I think I saw you last about five years ago on the Fourth of July. Do you remember? We rented that cabin out by the lake and shot off Roman candles. Remember we launched one into Dad’s rental car? We set the interior on fire.”
She was giggling, squeezing his hand, and he wasn’t recoiling so much now. He was actually looking at her and Lucy smiled at him, holding his leathered fingers with both hands. She thought maybe that him looking at her might have been a sign that he was coming to recognize her. He seemed to be focusing on her, at any rate.
“Dad had to pay a fortune for ruined car seats,” she went on. “I think he’s still mad at me. I told him you were the one who gave me the fire crackers so it’s really your fault.”
Lucy glanced up to see her father rolling his eyes at her. Bill put his hand on Hardy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Daddy,” he said. “I made her pay for the ruined seats. She didn’t get away with it.”
As Bill and Lucy snorted at each other, Hardy suddenly shifted in his seat. “Lucy,” he whispered.
Lucy and Bill froze, looking at Hardy in shock. Joy filled Lucy’s expression as she gave Hardy’s hand another big squeeze. “Yes, Pop,” she said excitedly. “It’s Lucy! It’s me!”
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