The Sugar Hill Collection

by M. L. Bullock

  And I obeyed him. We made sweet love. We lost ourselves in the beauty of our bodies, and once a desire was sated, another arose. The love we made love was a kind of healing love, and when we were finished we were spent.

  “Only once more, my love. Once more. I must feel you again.” He’d drunk more whiskey and was feeling no pain now. As our frenzied desire again drew to a conclusion, the door to the room swung open. I could not see who it was; Chase’s back was in the way. Then I heard a gunshot, and Chase fell off me and onto the floor in a heap. When the smoke cleared and I stopped screaming, I could see that the bullet had grazed my shoulder and I was covered in my husband’s blood.

  His murderer stood in the doorway. It was not who I expected at all. It was Chase’s right-hand wife, Athena Pelham Dufresne. Her freakishly large eyes stared at me, and they were full of hate.

  After a few seconds she put the gun down. The shot never came. She lowered her weapon, then walked over to him and shot him again. Then she turned to me. “I will not kill you, for death is too good for you. Besides, tonight my cousin Coquette will do away with Ambrose Dufresne. He will be dead too. And then we women will be free!” She laughed so hard that she slapped the table under which Chase’s body lay. It was then that I noticed she was pregnant. And had been for many months.

  “I never want to see your face again, Susanna. Do not come to Sugar Hill, or I will kill you. Just as I killed my unfaithful husband—and yours. You should thank me, you know. All these Dufresne men are devils. Even Ambrose. He would have seduced me too, if I had let him. Told me I was his soul mate, if you can believe that.” She waved the gun around as if it were a toy. “Goodbye for the last time, Susanna.”

  She walked out of the smoke-filled room, glancing at our husband’s corpse one last time. When I thought it was safe, I slid down to the floor besides Chase. He was dead. He was most assuredly dead. I curled up beside him and held his body until Nicole finally came upstairs with the sheriff. The next few hours were a mist of despair.

  I was shaken from my reverie when Ingrid appeared, back from the shop and terribly upset. “Miss Susanna! We must leave here! The Ramparts are on fire—that madwoman Coquette and her cousin Athena have set the place on fire. They want to kill us all! Grab your bag and let’s go! They are evacuating our street.” I stepped out on the porch and could see she was telling the truth. The family in the Black House across the street was packing in a mad rush and screaming in fear as the fires inched closer to our street.

  “What about Chase? I can’t leave his body here.”

  “Fine, we’ll bring him with us, miss, but we have to go.”

  We raced into the house, and the two of us dragged Chase’s body to the carriage, where my driver helped us get him inside. I had my purse, my ledger and not much else. We rode away and left the Ramparts before the fire destroyed everything. Hundreds of men appeared with pails of water, attempting to save the buildings that were already blazing. Grainger drove us deeper into the Ramparts. Didn’t he know we had to get away?

  “What are you doing?” Ingrid called to him.

  “I’m not leaving without Mister Ambrose. It’s not far!”

  Ingrid began to argue, but I told her to let it go. There had been too much death recently. Too much of everything. I laid Chase’s head in my lap and kept him close to me as the carriage banged across knots, stumps and whatever else it could find. Soon we were stopped in front of a house. Grainger hopped down and ran toward the building.

  “Oh goodness. This will kill old Grainger. He loves Ambrose like a son.” How did I not know that? “He’s surely dead, if he’s inside there, miss.” I got out too. I stood in front of Coquette’s house and waited for some sign that Ambrose was safe. None came.

  Then I heard him whisper in my ear, “You are my soul mate, Susanna Serene. You always will be.” I collapsed on the ground before the little white two-story house that burned. Someone picked me up and put me back in the carriage and we rode away to Sugar Hill.

  I don’t know what I expected to happen, but I didn’t expect to find that Athena had abandoned the place, that she’d admitted to her father she had killed her husband. No, I didn’t expect that at all. We took Chase inside and laid him out in the dining room. There would be many funerals tomorrow. From what we heard from the servants at Sugar Hill, the fire had all but destroyed the houses on the north end of the road. Thorn Hill alone had survived. But I would never return there. As much as Chase might have wanted me to, I wouldn’t. I would never leave his side again. He would lie at rest here, at Sugar Hill. And when I died, I would go with him. At last.

  You are my soul mate, Susanna Serene. You belong to me.

  I closed the front door and pretended I did not hear him. I closed my heart to him completely. He’d lied to me about a great many things, I soon discovered. I found a plethora of information about Ambrose in Arthur’s old desk. For example, I never knew until much later that he had been Chase’s half-brother, the son of Arthur and his left-hand wife. And to think, the old man had told the world that his son was his nephew. Shameful. Just for that, I burned his mausoleum the same night the Ramparts burned down.

  Nine months later, I gave birth to twin boys; one was blond, with pink skin and a serious nature, and the other had dark, shiny eyes, olive skin and a mouth that never stopped screaming or searching for my breast. It was if the half-brothers were born again, and the thought frightened me. I would raise my sons, Dominick and Champion, to the best of my ability, and I would pray they would become better than their fathers. For I believed with all my heart that I bore a child to each man. Somehow, that had to be true. Their lines continued.

  I prayed they would be better men than either.

  Epilogue – Jessica

  I volunteered to watch the grill while Jamie went in search of more ketchup. He was quiet, pensive, but who could blame him? He’d been under the influence of a determined spirit. It was good of Avery to give him a second chance, but my “sensitivity” told me that they weren’t quite right for each other. No. Something wasn’t quite right with Jamie. Not just yet.

  And it was nice that Avery wanted to have this shindig for us before we rolled out of here in the morning. I lobbied to stay longer, but the Paranormal Channel had somewhere else quite a ways from here for us to explore. I never expected to explore a mine, but apparently that was where we were headed. Some haunted mine up at Ruby Falls in upper Alabama near the Tennessee state line. I hated the idea of leaving here. We’d only scratched the surface of the paranormal activity at Sugar Hill. What had we learned? What had I learned? I learned that there was so much more to paranormal investigation than classifications, shadows and whispers. At the heart of most hauntings there were people, some living and some dead. I hoped I never forgot that, no matter how high our ratings got—and believe me, they were high now.

  Jamie gave me a thumbs-up, and I smiled proudly. It was nice to be me again, just plain old me. Not sensitive, psychic me. Just Jessica Chesterfield, plain-Jane girl, chronic doodler and aspiring artist. Jamie took over his spot at the grill, and I pulled my notepad out of my knapsack. I found a nearby bench and began sketching an early blooming azalea bush, but my attention soon shifted to the gazebo. I could see it quite clearly from here. It was old and in need of repair; it looked like it should be torn down, but it was still standing. I was glad to see that.

  But I didn’t draw it as it was. I drew it as I saw it with my heart. I saw it painted white, the green vines wrapping around the lattice, the faces of stone children poking out from the topiaries. Yes, I could almost imagine being inside the gazebo. I could see the two together, the man and the woman. They both had dark hair, his face handsome and fierce-looking, his full lips longing to kiss hers. I saw her tremble as she removed the pins from her hair. With a look of pure desire, she slid out of her gown and stood before him.

  And I sketched. He watched her, wanted her, desired her more than life itself…

  My pencil shuffled across the pa
ge.

  “Jessica! Have you gone deaf? Do you want one or two?”

  “What?”

  Megan was looking at me like I had two heads. She didn’t even notice the sketchbook in my hands. “One hamburger or two? Jamie wants to know.”

  “Oh. One, please. No mustard.” She went off to tell him, and I turned back to my sketch. I stared at it like I’d never seen it before. What had I drawn? Where did that come from? I shook my head and rubbed my fingers over the pictures. Then Avery stood beside me and looked down at the pages.

  “You see them too?” she asked.

  “Yes, I see them. They haven’t left. I wonder if they’ll always be here.”

  She smiled sadly and said nothing else as she examined the page. She touched Ambrose’s face with her fingers, and then Reed came to whisper in her ear. She forgot about Ambrose for a moment—that was good. She went with Reed, and they walked down a path to another part of the garden. Jamie didn’t appear to notice. He probably should have.

  One day she would have to choose. And soon. I wondered if she knew that.

  As surely as I knew my own name, I knew I would be back here. I would be back at Sugar Hill. One day, Avery would call me, and I would come back. Somehow, we were connected now. All of us were connected.

  “Hello, Handsome,” I said to the older man as he slipped quietly into the party through a gap in the hedge. He carried a basket of peaches in his hands. Nobody else seemed to notice him. “Those look like delicious peaches. May I have one?”

  “Yes, but just one. These are for Miss Avery. She likes peaches.”

  I agreed to take just one, and as I reached for it, I listened. It was as if I could hear a radio playing somewhere, an old familiar song.

  “You feeling all right?” Concern clouded Handsome’s face.

  “Must be a radio playing somewhere, ’cause I thought I heard jazz. I think it was Billie Holiday.”

  Handsome smiled so big I thought his face would split. “You heard her too! Yeah, she’s singing. Singing up a storm, like she always does when there’s trouble a-brewing.”

  “Is trouble brewing?”

  “Yes, ma’am. There’s always trouble brewing these days. But we’ll be here. Me and Miss Billie. We’ll be here.”

  “I am glad to hear that, Handsome. And I’ll be here too. Whenever I hear the music, I’ll come. I’ll help.”

  “You promise? Miss Billie don’t sing for everyone. She likes you, though. She sings for you.”

  “Yes, I’ll always come. I will never let her down—or you, Handsome.” I dug in my pocket for a business card. This was the first time I’d ever given one away. “Take this. Call me if you hear her singing again and she mentions my name. I want to help you—and Avery. Please call me, Handsome.”

  “I will, Jessica. I will.”

  He hugged my neck and handed me an extra peach. We sat on the bench together, eating the juicy peaches and listening to the music. Handsome sang loudly, and soon I was singing with him.

  There was no reason to pretend I couldn’t hear Billie. Let Mike and Megan think I was crazy. I didn’t care. Becker wasn’t around; he was undoubtedly saying his goodbyes to Summer Dufresne. No, that couldn’t be right. She was over by the grill flirting with Jamie. I wondered where Becker had gone, but I didn’t bother to find him. I listened to the music and sang along with Billie.

  I wouldn’t leave this place for long. Then I had a thought. A true thought. I knew it was true as soon as I thought it.

  When I return here, I will never again leave.

  It didn’t matter. Whatever that meant, it didn’t matter because at least I could finally hear the music.

  Text copyright © 2017 Monica L. Bullock

  All rights reserved

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Nancy Drew, Velma Dinkley and Jill Munroe.

  I hope I made you proud.

  She comes not when Noon is on the roses—

  Too bright is Day.

  She comes not to the Soul till it reposes

  From work and play.

  But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices

  Roll in from Sea,

  By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight

  She comes to me.

  She Comes Not When Noon Is on the Roses

  Herbert Trench, 1865-1923

  Prologue – Susanna Serene Dufresne

  Sugar Hill 1837

  From the bright, empty Mirror Room, I watched the three of them. Three young heads together, laughing and walking, stopping at points of interest on the grounds of Sugar Hill. I couldn’t hear their voices, but I had been young once. These conversations would not be very different from the ones I had with Ambrose and Chase all those years ago. Young and foolish we had been.

  I fought the urge to scream at them, to force them out of that happy place, for it would do no good. Young hearts always believe they are the wisest. From my vantage point, I observed them as they navigated wide swathes of the flower-lined walkways in the gardens below. Annalee walked in the center, and Dominick and Champion took turns linking their muscular arms with hers. They largely avoided one another outside of her company, but when she was with them, they appeared happy and animated. It was almost summer now, and the yellow verbena had begun to bloom, the heady flowers sagging in the afternoon Alabama heat. Had it really been sixteen years since we’d arrived at Sugar Hill? Sixteen years I’d been without Chase? I glanced at myself in the mirror. Yes, clearly it had been.

  My hair had lost its luster. My skin grew wan and pale. The bloom of my youth had vanished, and in its place was a tired husk of a woman. A woman who daily wished for death. I wanted nothing more than to be with my long-dead husband, Chase.

  For a second, laughter rose from the garden and reached the open windows. Again their words eluded me, but their joy rang clear. I chewed on a ragged fingernail, a nasty habit I’d taken up recently. What would Etienne say about my nail chewing?

  Evil old witch. Another unhappy ghost of the past. At least she had the courtesy to stay dead, unlike so many others here at Sugar Hill. I shivered thinking of the old ghost that haunted me. Placee…placee… you will die, placee!

  Rising temperatures could not keep the trio of young people indoors, and compared to the limp flowers, Annalee appeared as fresh as a sprig of mint in her light green dress. My daughter’s dark brown hair was silky and shiny, and she wore it in her typical neat fashion, pulled up with only a few tendrils streaming down her narrow back. Although I couldn’t see her green eyes clearly from here, I could tell by her expression that she was happy, delighted to be the center of her companions’ attention. Even if her companions were her brothers.

  Yes, although her figure was girlish and slim, the green and white dress flattered my Annalee. The skirts were wide, and the sleeves came to her elbows. She was such a pretty young lady, so clearly oblivious to the struggle she would soon face.

  As perfect as life was for her here at Sugar Hill, the world outside would not be so welcoming.

  She was my daughter, the daughter of a left-hand wife, a placee—and to make matters worse, an unfaithful placee. I felt a new wash of shame. Would this regret and shame ever end? Annalee’s looks were exotic, and even though the practice of placage—the taking of a left-hand wife—had been summarily banned here in Belle Fontaine shortly after my marriage to Chase, these types of arrangements quietly continued. Many young men and some older ones, politicians and members of the growing crowd of well-to-do businessmen, had sent letters of introduction hoping to meet the fabled beauty, Annalee Dufresne.

  It would be an advantage to be married to such a lovely girl who was so connected with the Dufresnes, a wealthy family that practically owned all of Belle Fontaine. That was thanks in part to Chase’s brilliant business deals, Arthur’s shrewd eye for ships and my successful silk trading company.

  Yes, they politely wondered if she would be attending the upcoming Quadroon Balls. She would not, I wrote them
back furiously, nor would she be available for any such arrangement. I had never told her, but I had it in my heart that Annalee would never marry. Why should she? I was wealthy, thanks to the combined fortunes of Ambrose and Chase. She would want for nothing, nothing at all. She need not be indebted to any man. And I would fend off any so-called suitors as long as necessary, but it was becoming apparent that I could not keep her at Sugar Hill forever. No. That would not be wise. There was too much left unsaid. Too much magic here, magic that had already proven it could turn on you and ruin you. Never believe in magic, I warned myself once when I considered casting a spell against Champion. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t trust magical spells any longer.

  And as if it heard me, the ring on my finger warmed, reminding me that I had promised myself to my soulmate. And that soulmate had not been Chase but his cousin—his brother—Ambrose. I loved one man, my Chase, but in a moment of weakness and hurt I had pledged myself to another. Now the three of us were locked together in agony, Ambrose dead and still lingering at Thorn Hill, hoping I would come to him there. Chase’s ghost here, trapped in the Mirror Room, waiting to see a reflection of me when the sun went down each day. Surely, we were all in a hell of some sort.

  And when I died, where would I go? And with whom?

  I shook the thought away and studied the trio again. I had raised Champion as Dominick and Annalee’s brother, but he was the son of my Chase and his white wife, Athena. I lost my own dear Champion to a fever when he was but an infant, and Fate had provided me with another—a sullen, dark eyed little thing whom his mother had named Morgan. I gave him Champion’s name, a move I have since regretted, in the hopes I could make him mine. But he would never be. I think he resented me. I hadn’t planned on telling him the truth of his parentage, but he found out thanks to gossiping servants. I tried to show motherly affection to the child at first, but he was always a standoffish creature, not prone to accept or give hugs. He had no desire to receive affection from me, and frankly, I was relieved. I wondered why Athena’s brother would not take him, but he had left the country and I had no idea where he had gone. I was resigned to care for the child, and it helped that he looked nothing like his mother. But he could not take the place of my dead son. Although he could be charming when it suited him, he did not make any attempt to warm my heart toward him.