The Ultimate Seven Sisters Collection

by M. L. Bullock

  “I’m serious. Do you believe in curses, like the Kennedy curse or the Rockefeller curse?”

  “Are the Rockefellers cursed?”

  I shrugged, aggravated that he was missing the point again. “Just something I heard. So you admit that you believe the Kennedy family is cursed?”

  He snorted at the idea. “I didn’t say that. I mean, they’ve had an unusual amount of bad luck. They might be cursed, if that’s what you want to call it. I think it’s just luck, though. Some families are luckier than others.”

  “What makes them lucky?”

  “I don’t know. It’s too early in the morning for philosophical discussions, Rachel. You up for dinner tonight? I’m thinking deep-dish pizza from Mushrooms.”

  “I’m thinking of washing my hair.” I opened the car door and grabbed my purse.

  “Hey! Don’t leave mad. What do you want me to say?” He got out of the car and leaned over the roof of his Volkswagen.

  Chip had money. Not Ashland Stuart money, but he came from a wealthy family. He wasn’t the handsomest guy on the block, but he wasn’t bad-looking either. My biggest complaint was that he lacked imagination. I knew I shouldn’t have hooked up with him the first time, let alone again. We were just too different.

  “I’m not mad. I just can’t make it tonight. I have some major studying to do, but I’ll call you. Okay?”

  He believed me. I could tell because he beamed from ear to ear. Boy, did he have large ears. Come on, Rachel! Stop being so damn picky! He tapped the top of his car happily and watched me unlock the office door before he drove away, completely oblivious to the fact that we were headed for another—permanent—breakup. I would have to deal with that later.

  I flicked on the lights, tapped the security code on the alarm pad and made some coffee. CJ never drank coffee anymore, not since her pregnancy, so I made a half a pot. I was firmly committed to drinking every bit of it. I felt tired this morning. Not so much from Chip’s snoring but from my constant work on this family tree project for Carrie Jo. I dropped my purse on my desk and went to the conference room, where I arranged the sheets of paper to show CJ my ridiculously detailed research. I looked at it again. Yep, I wasn’t imagining things. An entire page of male ancestors dead between the ages of 30 and 40, and most on the lower end of that time frame. I felt a wave of clamminess hit me. This can’t be right, I’d thought in the beginning. This has to be some kind of weird coincidence.

  Then I began digging deeper, and that’s when things got real hairy. The Stuarts were plagued by freak accidents. For example, one guy got hit by lightning while fishing; another was working on a car, and the dang thing fell on him. Too weird. Things were okay on his mother’s side of the tree, but his father’s was an entirely different story.

  I knew Southern family trees often had tangled roots, but this was crazy. I had traced the Stuarts back to the Cottonwoods—but not Jeremiah Cottonwood. Ashland was related to Isaiah Cottonwood, Jeremiah’s brother. In the words of my father, “That puts a whole ’nother spin on that, Sparky.” Sparky. Who nicknamed their daughter Sparky? My brother Andy used to tease me and call me “Sparkly” just because he knew it ticked me off. I’d rain down curses on him for all the good it did. Nothing bad ever happened to him. I was lousy at cursing, and I sure as heck knew something about curses. My mother firmly believed in them, as did her sisters, and as a child I tossed salt over my shoulder, avoided crossing streams while wearing a skirt and never, ever stood on a stump—all activities that could have brought down the curses upon myself and my family. Publicly I scoffed at the idea of curses. I often agreed with my childhood friends—curses were superstitious nonsense for scaredy-cats—but after they went home, I crossed my fingers, said the prayers and did whatever it took to keep the curses away.

  I knew that what I was looking at was nothing short of a curse. A straight-up curse. I had to tell Carrie Jo. And if she thought I was crazy, well, she wouldn’t be the first friend of mine to think so.

  “Good morning, Rachel!” she called from the front door. “Coffee smells great! Have a cup for me.”

  “I will! You need anything?” I called back, delaying a face-to-face meeting for a few more seconds.

  “Nope. I’m peachy keen,” she said as she poked her head in the doorway. “Oh, cool. Let me go drop this stuff on my desk, and I’ll be right back.” As she turned to walk away, she groaned and froze, reaching for the doorframe.

  “What is it? You okay?” I sprang to my feet, nearly sloshing hot coffee on my starched white blouse.

  Her face was pale, which wasn’t like CJ at all. All throughout her pregnancy she had amazing skin. Before that she had a nice warm-looking tan. At the moment she appeared near death. “You don’t look so hot, girl. Can you walk? I think you should sit down.”

  “I think you’re right,” she gasped, holding on to the door like a wavering drunk. Finally, whatever pain had hit her subsided. “Okay, I think I can move now. Darn! My side is killing me.”

  “You have to go to the doctor, Carrie Jo. You could be in labor.”

  “Can’t be. This pain is in my side. I thought labor pains were in the back or the front.”

  “I’m not a baby expert, but if I had pain anywhere and I was pregnant, I’d be on my way to the OB-GYN. Can I at least call Ashland?”

  “No. Please don’t do that. Let’s just keep an eye on it. See? It’s easing up now.” I gave her a disapproving look, and she added, “I’ll call my doctor in a few minutes. Promise.”

  I watched her as she sat at the desk and the color finally returned to her face. “Wow, that was a sharp one. I wonder if I pulled something.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Trying to tie my shoes,” she said with a laugh. “I’m fine. Stop worrying about me. The pain is gone now. What did you want to show me? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t super-curious.”

  “I’ve got everything spread out in the conference room, but I can bring it in here if you like,” I offered.

  “No. I’m good.” She cracked open a water bottle and smiled up at me. Carrie Jo had a beautiful face, a cleft chin, startling green eyes and naturally curly hair. She was a natural beauty, and I often wanted to ask her the brand of coral-colored lipstick she wore. It really played up her light olive skin. You could easily describe her as the girl next door, but she was also usually the funniest girl in the room. I both admired her and felt a bit envious. She’d had some amazing luck in life, including landing the chief historian job at Seven Sisters. Of course, her bestie had almost killed her, and quite a few of her friends had died. I suddenly felt ashamed for the envy.

  “Great. Whenever you’re ready, just come to the conference room.”

  “Okay, be there in a second.”

  After a few minutes she joined me and sat next to me, looking over the sheaves of paper. “Beautiful work, Rachel. How’s it going in school? Ready to graduate?”

  “Dear Lord, yes. Did you get the graduation invitation?”

  “Yes! And if I’m not having a baby, I’ll be there.” She laughed and made a face that let me know she was ready to get on with the whole childbirth experience. I didn’t blame her. She was all baby now. Her arms and legs were much thinner than before, and it seemed like the baby was stealing all her nutrients. But then again, what did I know?

  With a smile I handed her the first piece of paper. I used the Alari software to create the family tree. I thought it would be easy enough, but filling in the slots on the electronic tree had been anything but. Alari verified each entry, and when it couldn’t find source records it forced the user to provide verification via GEDCOM, Rootsweb or one of the dozens of other genealogical sites. I sat beside her and allowed her to look through the papers before I spoke up.

  “So this is the completed version. It took me about forty hours of research to find all the connections.”

  “Oh no. I had no idea I was asking you to work that many hours. I expect to compensate you, Rachel. This is wonde
rful work.”

  I shook my head. “No way. This is my baby gift. Remember? As you can see, Ashland comes from a long line of tangled relations.” I smiled tentatively at her. Maybe I shouldn’t tell her anything. She had enough going on now. What with the pain and the baby.

  “Hey, what’s the deal? Is this right?”

  I peeked at the paper she was holding. It was the information about Isaiah Cottonwood and his connection to Ashland. “Yep, it’s right.”

  “So Ashland is not a direct descendant of Jeremiah Cottonwood? I can’t say I’m disappointed. I’ve never heard of Isaiah. Or maybe I have, but I just don’t remember him.”

  “He never came up in our previous research, Carrie Jo. Funny thing is, Ashland is both a direct descendant of the Cottonwoods and a cousin to the Beaumonts. See here? In 1870, Dara Beaumont married this guy, and that’s the cousin. Not unusual when families stick close to home. Apparently in this family group, people kind of hung around and didn’t move away when they got older. Except Calpurnia, but she didn’t have much choice. See?” I pointed to another section of the genealogy.

  “I wonder what this will mean for his estate.”

  “I’m not sure, CJ.”

  “Here’s something even more surprising. There is a codicil to Jeremiah’s will.”

  “Yes, I heard about that.”

  “You knew?” I asked, surprised.

  Her cheeks went pink. “Not until recently.”

  “Here is a copy of it that I made from the archives downtown. It clearly transfers all property rights to Isaiah. Jeremiah must have been quite a jerk. This codicil was created just a month before he died, and with it he basically took the family fortune away from his daughters and his in-laws and gave it to his brother. Which sucks since most of the money probably belonged to the Beaumonts originally.”

  “That does suck,” Carrie Jo added, still staring at the pages. I promised myself I wouldn’t say a word unless she did. The idea of talking about a curse seemed ridiculous to me now. Except for the evidence. I handed her a copy of the spreadsheet that displayed the birth dates, death dates and ages of the deceased. Maybe she would notice it herself. She said, “Good work, Rachel.” She scanned the printed sheet down to the bottom.

  Carrie Jo stared at Ashland’s name for a second and then scanned back up. She saw it too! With wide eyes she looked at me. “And you are sure about these ages?”

  “I doubled-checked everything, CJ. It’s all accurate. I even had Chip look at it with me. You know he’s got a photographic memory.”

  Carrie Jo didn’t say much but kept staring at the page. “Why so young? I mean, I know people back then didn’t live as long as we do, but 35 seems very young to die. And it’s men only? How many generations does this phenomenon go back?”

  “Near as I can tell, right around the time of the codicil. Isaiah’s sons, Jacob and Christian, died at age 31 and 34, respectively, but his two daughters both lived into their sixties. Next generation, these three men, all dead before 35. And it goes on until today.”

  “And Ashland is about to have a birthday.” I could hear the fear in her voice.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing, Carrie Jo. I mean, I noticed it too, but what could it mean? The Cottonwood line has had some bad luck, but a lot of families experience tragedy. Try not to worry about this.” I regretted pointing this out; the look on her face said it all. “Don’t obsess over this stuff. It’s nothing to worry about.” Or nothing you can do anything about, anyway.

  She didn’t look at me but kept staring at the papers. She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Maybe not, but I know someone who can tell me what I’m looking at—I hope.” I watched her dial the number, and my heart beat faster. “Hey, Henri? You got a minute? I’d like to come see you. I need your opinion on something. Sure, I can be there in a few minutes. Yes, breakfast sounds great. No, Ashland isn’t with me. Just Rachel. Great. We’ll be there in 15.”

  She put the phone down and stared at the papers again. I was dying to ask so I did, “How can Henri help?”

  “He’s a bit of a spiritualist. He knows a thing or two about supernatural subjects. You up for some pancakes? He’s got extra.”

  Happy to finally be included in something beyond answering phones and creating reports, I nodded with a smile.

  “Grab your purse and let’s go. We need to bring these papers too.”

  “I’ve got these. You get your purse. I’ll drive, CJ.”

  “I’ll let you.” As I slid the papers into the envelope, a shadow crossed the window outside. The sky suddenly seemed darker. Was there a storm brewing? This changeable weather was one of the things I disliked the most about Mobile. You could be lying out in the sun in the backyard one minute and getting drenched the next. A flash of lightning popped across the distant sky. It came from the direction of the harbor.

  Yep. There was definitely a storm brewing.

  But what kind?

  Chapter 4—Carrie Jo

  The two of us didn’t talk much as we drove to Henri’s. I could tell Rachel wanted to say something to comfort me, but what could she say? Suddenly everything I’d been through the past few days made sense. The arguments, the bad luck, the feeling of oppression. Sounded like a curse to me, but I was no expert.

  Henri now lived in the apartment over Detra Ann’s antiques store, but honestly that wasn’t much of a move. Cotton City Treasures was only two streets over from his old digs. And it wasn’t a permanent move, now that they were getting married. I loved his apartment, though. It was in an old building with fabulous gargoyles perched at the corners of the roof. A rarity in Mobile. There weren’t many such objects in the downtown area. There was an interesting pyramid building with two sphinxes at the door. Some kind of Masonic lodge, probably. I’d never asked about it, but it was on my to-do list. If I ever had the time.

  And if I could ever get the supernatural stuff cleared away. Between the ghosts, the dreams and the specter of Death, I’d been a little busy. Now I suspected that something else hung over us, over Ashland and our child. Maybe that was why I had been so resistant to the idea of having a son. Did I somehow psychically know that the Cottonwood boys were cursed? I needed to show the evidence to Henri and let him tell me what he thought. He came from a family who understood curses and hexes, as he had related to us many times.

  I did the math while Rachel drove. Two men in that generation, then three, then two, then four more. I couldn’t remember the second page, but I would never forget seeing Ashland’s name at the bottom. No way could I tell him about this.

  “Oh my God!” I said as a flock of crows hovered in front of our car. They hung in the air for a moment, then flapped their wings and flew away. “Holy smokes! What was that about?”

  “I…have…no…idea,” Rachel said slowly. She was gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white.

  We pulled in front of the antiques store, and I waved at Detra Ann as I got out of the car. I looked over my shoulder to make sure the evil birds weren’t stalking me. She waved back but didn’t stop to chat. An excited customer was purchasing a blue and white tray and asking the pretty ponytailed blonde a bunch of questions about other items in the shop. I pointed to the stairs, and she nodded at me as the breathless patron kept up with her queries.

  I didn’t know how Detra Ann worked with the public, but she loved it. It took someone special to take a public relations degree and use that to run an antiques shop. One of the things I loved about her new business was that every item came with a story. Not just word of mouth, either. No, Detra Ann had hidden talents. She wrote what she knew about each item and made sure the new owner got a copy of her story. The community and its visitors loved her place. It’s like she was born for this.

  We walked up the narrow stairs to the apartment and opened the glass door that led to Henri’s loft. After Lenore died, he had sold his house and moved in here instead. I didn’t blame him. It was a gorgeous open space with warm painted walls and to-die-f
or fixtures and extras.

  “So what’s up, ladies?” Henri tossed off his apron, which read: Boo-yah. “Who wants some pancakes? I made enough for a small army—I had a feeling I’d have guests this morning.” He rubbed his hands together as he served us with gusto. He was obviously proud of both his premonition and his pancakes. I took a bite. He had reason to be.

  “I’ll take a few of these. As always, it smells like heaven in here.”

  “You want the syrup warmed?”

  “Whatever is easiest, Henri. Thanks for this.” Rachel blushed as he handed her a plate of hot pancakes. I smiled a bit. I never knew Rachel had a crush on Henri, but then again I had been kind of self-involved for the past few months. I knew she liked Detra Ann, though, so I didn’t worry about any shenanigans there.

  After he poured the juice and set everything on the table, I handed him the stack of papers. “Take a look at this and let me know what you think.”

  With a curious look he accepted the envelope and put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.

  “Glasses, huh?”

  “No jokes, CJ. My eyes may be old, but I’m not.”

  I chuckled and covered my mouth with my hand as I chewed a delicious bite of pancake. I was hungrier than I thought. And to think, I’d walked away from Doreen’s omelet this morning. But then again, our housekeeper’s cooking didn’t stack up against Henri’s. I’d often told him he needed to open a restaurant. So far, I hadn’t convinced him.

  “Okay, what am I looking at?” He stared at the papers and looked up at the light. “Did it just get dark outside? The news didn’t say anything about bad weather this morning. That storm is way off the coast.” He hopped up and flipped the light switch, and the beautiful fleur-de-lis embellished chandelier filled the dining room with warm light.

  “What storm?” Rachel asked.

  “Looks like we have a late tropical storm brewing off the coast, but it’s pretty far away.” He went to the window and looked outside. It had gotten dark quickly, first at the office and now here. As the old folks used to say, it “looked like the bottom would fall out of the sky” any minute.