Then take a good nap in his chair.
He started for the back door but stopped with his hand on the knob. Piano music sounded from the living room. Anna Belle’s piano, the one Calvin had purchased for her lessons with Eliza. The playing wasn’t tentative or rote, as he’d expect from a young boy, but confident. Ellsworth heard hints of greatness, even as Raphael flowed through warm-up drills.
Anna Belle caught Ellsworth’s confusion and smiled. “I didn’t know he could play until last night.” She lowered her voice. “He’s extraordinary, Ellsworth. He doesn’t even need the music in front of him. He just plays.”
Her voice was background static. As much as his mind wanted to be out of the house, his body moved across the kitchen floor and stopped in the threshold separating the rooms. There he was on the bench, sitting upright in a pair of brown trousers and a white button-down too big for his skinny frame. His bare feet barely touched the floor. His skin was the color of coffee after a tablespoon of milk was stirred in. His hair was dark, cut close to his scalp, notable for the coin-sized patch of white an inch above his right ear.
They found him sitting against a tree. He stayed still too long.
The boy stopped playing and turned toward the two adults. “Michael Ellsworth Newberry, how do you do?”
Hearing the boy speak for the first time, Anna Belle choked back a sob.
Ellsworth didn’t answer. He was too taken in by the boy’s emerald eyes, as bold and green as any he’d ever seen. He leaned against the doorframe, heard Calvin’s voice from the most recent nightmare. “Look into his eyes . . .”
Ellsworth did.
Raphael’s smile lit the room. “I can see your color, Mr. Newberry.”
Ellsworth’s good leg buckled. Anna Belle caught him by the elbow.
Raphael’s thin fingers settled gracefully on the keys. He played like a virtuoso, but it was what he played that brought about the lump in Ellsworth’s throat.
Mozart’s Piano Sonata no. 8 in A Minor.
CHAPTER 6
Anna Belle followed Ellsworth toward the road.
“Ellsworth, stop! You’re going to fall flat on your face.”
He knew he was walking too fast—the cadence between his prosthesis and the cane was uneven—but he had to get away from that house and that boy with the eyes green as summer leaf. How had he known to play that sonata?
“I don’t want to talk about it, Anna Belle.”
His hips were out of rhythm with his feet. The cane slid against gravel and spun from his grip. He went down in the middle of the road and tasted dust.
“Ellsworth!” Anna Belle came running and offered help.
He brushed her hand away. “Off me, Anna Belle. I can manage.” He sat for a moment in the middle of the road to gather his bearings.
“What was that in there?” asked Anna Belle.
“You heard the same as I did.”
She nodded, knowing darn well it was Eliza’s favorite Mozart piece, but also looking as perplexed as he was. He squinted through the sunlight at her. She shook her head. “Don’t look at me like that, Ellsworth. I did not tell Raphael to play that. He . . . he must have just . . . I don’t know. He’s an intuitive boy. But get on up out of the road. There’s a car coming.” A bright-red car with a fancy grill and headlights on tunneled under the trees on the avenue of oaks, spitting dust and gravel in a cloud behind it. “And he seems to be in a hurry.”
It took him a minute to figure how to get up from the gravel, and ultimately he allowed Anna Belle to grab his elbow. The car was approaching fast.
“Where’s my hat?”
“You didn’t have a hat. Come back inside. Talk to Raphael.”
“I should have worn a hat.”
She brushed gravel dust from his shirt. “Those were the first words I’ve heard him speak.”
Ellsworth straightened his collar, looked toward Anna Belle’s house. “What is he?”
“You mean who is he?”
“I mean what I said. Something’s not right inside him. You’ve seen his eyes.”
“I’ve been seeing his eyes for more than two years now.” She jabbed an index finger into his chest. “Since before all you men went off to war and came back jingled. Those beautiful eyes kept me out of the lunatic asylum. Do you know how hard it was to wait, not knowing if the men of Bellhaven were ever going to return?”
The approaching car passed the plantation house on the hill and slowed fifty yards from their position on the road. Anna Belle said, “You say there’s something not right about him? I say there’s nothing but right.”
“Then tell me what you know about him.”
“He keeps me company. He sits with me. I can sleep at night because I know I’m not alone. Sometimes I cry, Ellsworth. I miss the way things were. And you know what he does when I cry? He doesn’t look down at the floorboards. He pats my hand. That’s what I know.”
Ellsworth turned toward his house. “I’m tired.”
“I’m not finished.”
“You never are.”
“What about these blooming trees and flowers? And all the redbirds returning like they did the night the town hall burned?”
“Coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. How do you explain the birds, Ellsworth?”
“I don’t explain’m.”
“Or should I call you Michael?”
“I go by Ellsworth, Anna Belle. Haven’t gone by Michael since I was a kid.”
“And what was that about him seeing your color? What color?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“I think you do. You turned pale as a wind-dried sheet. I feel something in these woods, Ellsworth. And I think you can feel it too.”
“I can feel my nub rubbing against this peg—that’s what I feel. And I need to sit down.”
“You’re a stubborn troll, Ellsworth Newberry.”
“You bump your gums too much, Anna Belle.”
The car skidded to a stop on the gravel. Ellsworth shielded his eyes against the windshield glare and instinctively put an arm around Anna Belle to protect her from the impact. She didn’t push him away. He pulled his Smith & Wesson from his holster and pointed it at the man getting out of the open-air car.
“Whoa. Hold on there, pal.” The man closed the door to his fancy car. “You shoot all of Bellhaven’s newcomers?”
“My lands, Ellsworth, put the gun away.” Anna Belle stepped away from Ellsworth and closer to the other man. “Are you the new neighbor?”
The man nodded. He wore a three-piece pinstriped suit with a matching bowler hat. But no tie—his starched white collar was open at the neck. “Indeed. I’m moving into the old Bellhaven house.” His eyes wandered toward the blooming trees, shrubs, and flowers. “Is this normal around these parts?”
“No,” said Ellsworth.
“In fact, it’s never happened before,” said Anna Belle. “Very strange, indeed.”
The man smiled at Anna Belle. “But how can something so bright and beautiful be strange?”
Ellsworth holstered his gun. “What do you see in it—that old broken-down plantation house?”
Anna Belle smacked his arm. “Ellsworth, be polite.”
The man smirked. “Do you folks always conversate in the middle of the road?”
Ellsworth didn’t laugh—he was too busy staring at that fancy car—but Anna Belle did, and then she reached up to straighten her hair. “No, we don’t. Sorry we didn’t move.”
“Not a bother.” The man’s voice was deep, yet soft. He was easily over six feet tall. His eyes were big and brown, as was his mustache. Skin tanned by the sun. His jawline was sharp, highlighting an angled face that revealed all kinds of handsome. He offered his hand to Ellsworth. “I’m Lou Eddington.”
Ellsworth shook it reluctantly. He didn’t like the way the man had glanced at his prosthesis, as if it conveyed inferior status. “Ellsworth Newberry.”
“At one time, apparently, he went by
Michael.”
Ellsworth clenched his jaw, mumbled. “Close your head, Anna Belle.”
Eddington faced Anna Belle. “And you must be Mrs. Newberry?”
“Not a chance,” said Ellsworth. “Mrs. Newberry’s dead. She didn’t talk as much as this one.”
Anna Belle offered her hand. “I’m Anna Belle Roper. A recent war widow.”
“My condolences, ma’am.” His face sagged, but then the broad smile returned. “I’m a recent widower as well. Seems like we already all have something in common.” Instead of shaking Anna Belle’s hand, Eddington gripped it lightly and raised it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and let her hand drop.
“Don’t do that,” said Ellsworth—a thought he’d meant to keep to himself. Anna Belle noticed, but Eddington was looking over his shoulder at the yellow house on the hill.
“You asked what I see in that house, Mr. Newberry.” He smiled—straight teeth, white as an ivory tusk. “I see potential. I see promise. I see those cotton fields one day thriving again.”
Ellsworth’s eyes strayed to the car again—the gleaming grille and spotless paint, the luxurious leather seats for four or five. He had never seen anything like it except in pictures. “What is this?”
Eddington proudly patted the hood. “It’s a 1918 Rolls-Royce. Silver Ghost.”
“It’s not silver, it’s red.”
“I had it custom painted before they shipped it.” He opened the driver’s side door, which looked queer on the right side of the car and supported a large spare tire. “The body work is armored. No wind will blow this babe off the road.”
“Where’d it ship from?” asked Ellsworth.
“England. But they’ll soon begin making the Silver Ghost in Massachusetts. Springfield, to be exact.” He’d left the car running—more of a purr than a rumble. “Made to last—quality like a Swiss watch. Nineteen miles per gallon. Got it up to fifty miles per hour along the coast. Care to take it for a drive?”
“No,” said Ellsworth, although he badly wanted to. But his prosthesis wouldn’t be able to manage all the foot mechanisms, and Eddington probably knew that. Probably was trying to embarrass him in some way.
“Perhaps another time then.”
“Doubt it.”
“Well, I’d best get going. It was nice to meet you both.” The man tipped his hat and started for his car.
“What do you do, Mr. Eddington?”
“Ellsworth!”
“Well, he comes into town like a big cheese, driving a car never seen in these parts. Just curious is all.”
“Forgive him,” Anna Belle said. “He’s been through the war.”
“As have I, Mrs. Roper. Veteran of the war with Spain.”
Ellsworth scoffed. Anna Belle slapped his arm.
Eddington smiled. “It’s no bother. I’m an artist of sorts, Mr. Newberry. I suppose you could say I paint and sculpt. To be exact, I make chess sets.”
“Chess sets?”
He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to Ellsworth. His fingernails were too neat, like a woman’s. “I’ve opened a new store in downtown Charleston. On Bull Street. You should come and see the inventory.” Ellsworth couldn’t pronounce the name on the business card. Eddington said, “Eschec Mat—that’s the name of my store. Old French, mid-fourteenth century, from the Arabic shah mat, which basically means ‘the king died.’”
“The king died?”
“Have you ever played chess, Mr. Newberry?”
“Couple of times.”
“The king is left helpless. The king is stumped. In other words, checkmate.”
“We’re in America,” said Ellsworth. “Why not just call your store Checkmate?”
“Because I have too much love for the past. For history. And Checkmate sounds too boring. Too on the nose.” He’d pointed to his nose when he’d said it, like Ellsworth was an idiot instead of just a cripple and needed things explained to him with gestures. “Stop by sometime. Look around the store. I’ll give you a good deal, I assure you.”
“We most certainly will, Mr. Eddington,” said Anna Belle.
“Please, call me Lou. We’re now neighbors, after all.” He tipped his hat, returned to his car, but stopped before getting inside. He looked at the trees instead of them. “Is it true what they say about these woods?”
“What do they say?” Ellsworth asked.
“That they’re magical?”
The lump in Ellsworth’s throat rendered him temporarily mute. Anna Belle gave Ellsworth a guarded glance—she was clearly uncertain how to answer the man’s question. But she tried. “Some believe them to be magical, yes. Been a lot of odd occurrences in the woods over the years.”
“Perhaps sometime you can tell me about them over coffee?”
Anna Belle blushed.
Eddington, having gone out of his way to meet his first Bellhaven neighbors, stared at the woods for a moment before settling into his car. He backed into the town hall parking lot and purred off toward the yellow house on the hill.
“You could have been a pinch more cordial, Ellsworth.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Why?” she asked playfully. “Because he kissed my hand?”
“No. It makes me no never mind what he kisses of yours, Anna Belle.” She spun away and started toward her house. He called after her. “Butter-and-egg man comes into town without warning, flashing some fancy car that’s probably not even his.”
She went inside and slammed her door.
Ellsworth watched the bright red Rolls-Royce putter up the hill in the distance to what had once been the thriving Bellhaven plantation. A main building and sunporch with two flanking wings, one holding a library and the other a music room. Although dilapidated, it was the original structure, having survived the earthquake in ’86 and, before that, Sherman’s march in ’65. The Union troops had burned the nearby Magnolia and Middleton plantations but then halted at Bellhaven. Their horses had suddenly become skittish, neighing and bucking riders. General Sherman, after studying the woods, had ordered his men onward, sparing Bellhaven.
Eddington’s car stopped in front of the three-story mansion, and the well-dressed man got out, standing tall and facing the woods behind the house.
Ellsworth wished he wouldn’t have put away his revolver so fast when the man got out of the car earlier. Shouldn’t have been so quick to listen to Anna Belle and act polite. Their new neighbor had been heeled. He’d seen the bulge under the man’s coat—a gat big enough to do damage if he’d had the inclination.
Have I ever played chess before? Ellsworth shook his head, limped inside. Enough to know I need to protect my pieces.
CHAPTER 7
It was cold out on the veranda, so cold they could see their breath. But Ellsworth and Eliza sat out there anyway in the matching rockers Calvin had made for their first wedding anniversary.
They’d been sitting out there almost every day since, watching the seasons unfold. Bellhaven had never been stingy with flowers. Daffodils and forsythia and hyacinths in early February. Dogwoods and redbuds through April. Lilies, honeysuckle, magnolias into the summer. Crape myrtle all summer, and roses well into the fall. Eliza jotted the blooming patterns in the brown leather diary she kept on the bedside table.
Eliza always preferred the outdoors, no matter the temperature. On chilly winter days like this one she’d simply drape herself with a blanket and keep on rocking. Ellsworth didn’t like the cold, but he sat with her anyway, wanting to soak up her good moments any time he could.
Good moments had turned scarce since their newborn came out stillborn in the fall. Most days Eliza would just wander about the house, stoic on a good day, melancholy on a bad one, mostly silent. Not to mention the times she’d disappear for days on end. Traveling the trains, she called it, even when there were no actual trains involved.
Those solitary trips weren’t a new thing, though. Apparently she’d been doing it for years, even before she met Ellsworth. In fact, she’
d been on one of them the day they met—that time in a literal rail car.
Almost everyone in that car, including his mother, had died that day. Only he and Eliza had survived. They’d both called it fate, and he’d fallen in love with her in a blink.
A month into their courting, she’d told him she needed to go somewhere.
“Where?” he’d asked.
“I don’t always know,” she’d said. “But I’ll know when I board the train, and I’ll be back soon with a clear head.”
It was just something he’d have to get accustomed to, she’d said—her leaving periodically. She’d promised she wasn’t doing anything mischievous—said sometimes a woman just needed time alone. And she was never gone for more than a day or two, always returning noticeably refreshed. So he grew to accept her absences. Oh, he’d prod her a little about where she’d been, but not so much as to tinker with her improved mood. Besides, he trusted her, trusted her like the changing of the seasons and the rhythms of the ocean waves. Watching her smile was always better than any sunrise.
Now he couldn’t remember when he’d last seen her smile. Nothing he did or said seemed adequate. Even their town hall gatherings she loved failed to rekindle her glow.
The rockers’ legs creaked on the veranda. Despite the chill, some of the camellias bloomed. She pointed to the bush next to their front walk. “They survive the frost if their buds stay closed.”
Ellsworth nodded. They hadn’t even spoken much since they buried their boy in the Bellhaven cemetery. He’d buried his own sorrow in hours of countless pitches, urging that fastball closer to his dream of the big leagues. He was more determined than ever since his mother and the baby had died. But Eliza—Eliza had simply gone silent.
Recently though, at night and without a word shed, she’d cuddle close and make her womanly presence known. What followed was an odd combination of passion and sorrow that sometimes left her silently crying, her dead weight resting upon him like a warm blanket, her wild heart fluttering against his chest.
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