The Dowry

by C W Lamb

  The sun was setting and the shadows were growing longer, and she was just thinking about getting out when she was abruptly pulled under. Something with a vise-like grip had latched onto her ankle, pulling her deeper as she struggled to free herself. Looking down, she suddenly stopped struggling as the vision of her Great Aunt Charlotte appeared in the depths below her.

  With her ankle unexpectedly free, she hovered near the bottom, the vision before her beckoning her deeper. As she reached out for Charlotte, her body spasmed, and she began convulsing. She felt as if her inner being was being ripped from her, her body protesting the lack of oxygen. With no idea of what was happening to her, she made a panicked effort to reach the surface once more, only to again feel the grip of death on her leg, holding her under.

  Rebeca died, choking on the river water that flooded her lungs as he spasmed once more before floating limp to the surface of the river.

  Foxworth House, Present Day

  Robert was troubled all that day with the words from the diary. Now more than ever he believed the dead Charlotte to be the source of the mysterious activities. Reaching out from the watery grave, she was guiding her wayward reincarnate in another attempt at reconciliation.

  His suspicions were compounded with the worry that Charlie might not survive whatever her haunting ancestor had in mind for her. He was still no closer to understanding the conditions under which her soul might be united and made whole. Nor did he fully comprehend his role in all this. Beyond the preservation of the earthbound sanctuary for Charlotte’s bound half soul, he suspected he was nothing more than an observer.

  The particular entry in the diary that had been left for Charlie to find spoke of lost love and the desire to restore what had been lost. While Robert was well aware of Charlotte’s love for her dead husband Jefferson, he had no such understanding of Charlie and her past.

  From her recent behaviors, he suspected she excelled at driving men away before she ever got that close to one. He figured it was a defense mechanism, one learned early on from a young love or even, perhaps, neglect as a child. She wouldn’t be the first woman he had encountered with daddy issues.

  What he personally found ironic about the reference in the diary was that he was in love with both Charlotte and Charlie. He was living the ultimate romantic tragedy and was lost in its pages. The words of a dead woman applied not only to her ancestor, but to him as well. He wasn’t lacking companionship, he needed love, the same as the two women he thought he knew.

  Confused by the paradox, he knew the mind of Charlotte, and had been exposed to her innermost thoughts. Charlie was Charlotte in human face and form, the exterior representation. Vibrant and alive, she delighted him in her playful nature when not driving him away in a drunken rage. With her, however, he hadn’t the slightest clue as to the inner works of her mind.

  What he did know was that what he couldn’t have in the dead Charlotte was possible in Charlie, if only he could reach her. Since the moment she arrived on his doorstep, the woman had been a roller coaster of emotions.

  Calm and clever one minute and a raving emotional mess the next, she was a living contradiction. Not someone he could have ever imagined himself with in the past, he was drawn to her like a magnet and did not know why. Every day he spent with her was a new challenge.

  But if the indications were correct, their time together might be coming to an end soon. He knew he needed to talk to her about this but wasn’t sure where or how to begin. It was that thought that led him to his next decision.

  They spent the rest of that day together, quietly enjoying each other’s company. Charlie seemed subdued, as if the diary entry had exposed a wound she was attempting to heal. Robert avoided the subject, instead working to distract her with talk of his work. She was polite, listening to every word, but he could tell her mind was elsewhere.

  They slept together again that night, Robert holding her close, her back pressed up against him, his arms wrapped around her. They remained that way until he felt the slow, regular breathing of one in deep sleep.

  ----*----

  The following morning Robert rose before Charlie and made a simple breakfast for the two of them before excusing himself and heading up to his study. Looking for the emails he had received earlier in the restoration process, Robert had been given information regarding Victoria and how to reach her in an emergency. He thought it odd and useless at the time as it referred to her scheduled activities rather than an email address or phone number. He had all but forgotten them until now.

  Making excuses for leaving her home alone, he left Charlie in Hunter’s care as he headed to town. The two were out by the pool, Charlie in a slightly better, but still subdued mood.

  While a certified recluse, Victoria had a few routines that permitted him the opportunity he sought. Staking out one of her regular haunts, he waited patiently for his chance.

  “Hello Victoria,” Robert said as he slid next to the woman on the bench.

  The bench in Memorial Park sat overlooking the river in the old Five Points area of Jacksonville. A monument to the men who had lost their lives during World War I, it was a wonderfully serene location. Robert suspected she lived in one of the older homes in the surrounding area.

  “Robert? This is a surprise,” she replied as she considered the man seated next to her.

  “We need to talk, candidly,” he said, turning to face the woman.

  “About what?”

  “You need to tell me about the ghost of Charlotte Foxworth and how it relates to Charlie.”

  “So, you believe in ghosts now, Robert?” she asked, poking fun at the statements he had made from their first meeting.

  “To be blunt, I believe that Charlotte Foxworth died a tragic death and that her soul split in two. One piece is bound to the house, the reason you were so concerned about its preservation, and one part is reincarnated in Charlie,” he replied.

  “My, you have been doing your research, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, and now I am convinced that Charlie is in danger.”

  “Charlie is an unhappy, unfulfilled young woman who will never be more than she is, because she is incomplete. The piece of her bound to the house is her only chance for a real future.”

  “So, you did send the notes?” Robert replied, thinking he had caught her in an admission.

  “No, I just understand their message. I have seen one of those envelopes before, when I was very young. My father had inherited the house from his father, my Grandpa Cyrus. I remember dad was quite surprised as Grandpa Cyrus had never really recovered from the loss of his sister and blamed the house, punishing it with neglect,” Victoria said.

  “Not long after we moved in, we did the renovation you are aware of; my Grandpa hadn’t touched the place in forty years. When complete, my father was quite proud of what he had accomplished. For a family of modest means, it was quite a statement.”

  “Are you an only child?” Robert asked, suddenly realizing he hardly knew anything about the woman beyond her relationship to the house he now owned.

  “No, I had an older sister, but she passed away about two years ago, and now it’s just me,” she replied sadly.

  “I’m sorry. You were speaking of the notes?” Robert replied.

  “Yes, so I was. The other was in the hand of an Aunt, on the Foxworth side of the family, inviting her to join us for the summer. My father and mother had no idea where her envelope had come from, but were far too gracious to turn her away, invitation in hand. After her death, they feared I or my sister might be next, so we moved before either of us came of age.”

  “Neither of you were in any danger,” Robert replied as he considered her tale.

  “No, I figured that out much later, but it was too late by then. The house had fallen to near ruin and neither I nor my sister were in a position to do anything about it. She eventually married and moved away,” she supplied.

  “How did you figure it out?” Robert asked, referring to the haunting and
deaths.

  “As I grew older, I became curious about what had happened to my Aunt and began collecting family lore. To be honest, I felt a sense of guilt since it had been I who invited my Aunt Rebeca into the river that day. I gathered all the information I could find on my own, and then, I approached others of a more spiritual nature for guidance. I expect that’s why I never married; it became a bit of an obsession in the end. Plus I feared the fate of any daughters I might have.”

  “I’m afraid I can relate. Something about releasing the trapped spirit of a loved one,” Robert said absently.

  The look he received from Victoria made Robert feel he might have accidentally revealed too much. Did he actually just say he was in love with Charlotte?

  “I mourned for Sarah Baines and Rebeca Foxworth, but eventually understood what was taking place. They were actually just a part of Charlotte, trapped in another body. I came to expect that it would occur once more in my lifetime and then, one day, this came,” she explained as she produced another parchment envelope from her handbag.

  Handing it to Robert, he extracted the expected folded sheet from within. Opening the parchment, the familiar handwriting held two simple sentences.

  The cycle begins once more, for a man will come to view Foxworth House at noon tomorrow. Make it his and I will do the rest.

  Robert handed the note back to Victoria and he watched her return the note and its envelope back to her handbag. Once he had her attention, he began his tale.

  “I did as you and researched everything I could find on the subject. Like you, I learned about the split souls and the attempts in the past to reconcile, but not how to make it happen. Did you ever learn how to make this work?” he asked, the frustration clear in his voice.

  “No. As you say, the two halves of her soul have tried in the past to come together twice before. Each time they failed, the missing piece undiscovered before the attempt and someone died. I knew about Charlie, but not where she was. No one had seen her in years, so I thought her lost and safe from danger.”

  “What do I do? How do I save her?” Robert asked, unsure of where to go from here.

  “To what end, Robert? Who are you trying to save, Charlotte or Charlie?” Victoria asked.

  As he sat there, he suddenly realized he didn’t know the answer to that question.

  ----*----

  Leaving Victoria, Robert headed back to the house, where he discovered Charlie sitting with Hunter at the end of the pier. He didn’t need to check the contents of the half-filled glass at her side to know she was back to drinking again.

  “I love it here, it’s so peaceful,” she commented without even turning to see who it was behind her.

  Slipping off his shoes, he sat down next to her, dangling his feet in the warm water as they both watched the river slowly rolling northward. After a moment, Charlie slid her hand under his arm, wrapping herself against it and leaned to rest her head on his shoulder.

  “Am I going to die?” she asked calmly as she pressed into him.

  “Not if I can help it,” Robert replied firmly.

  Placing his hand in hers, Robert began to feel the tension drain from her body as she relaxed against his arm. It wasn’t much longer before he realized she had fallen asleep as he held onto her. Working carefully, he managed to get up and lift her limp form, all without waking her. He suspected the alcohol had played some part in her unconscious state, but, then, so did the exhaustion from her stress. Her sleep last night had been fitful and on more than one occasion he had to hold her until she returned to sleep.

  Grabbing their shoes, he carried her up the pier and into the house, placing her in his bed. Slipping her under the sheets, he put her shoes nearby and closed the door behind him. He then led Hunter back into his study, where he began pulling volume after volume of the spiritual references off the bookshelf.

  Sitting behind his desk, he began the laborious task of working through the books he had acquired, specifically locating the sections on the subject of lost souls and spiritual recovery. Flipping each open to the particular section of interest, he soon had them spread across his desk. To an outside observer, he would appear to be in total disarray as he had books propped up and laid open all over the place.

  For him, this was an easy way to jump from reference to reference, crosschecking statements and speculations from the various authors. As he referred to each, he began making notes on a nearby pad, attempting to associate cause and effect from disparate sources. In the end, however, he threw his hands up in frustration.

  Deciding on a different tack, Robert began to trace out the family tree of the three fatalities. Beginning with Charlotte herself, he noted her death in 1872, in the summer of her 32nd year. According to the records of the time, her body was never found, and it was only by eyewitness accounts from a steamboat crew that they had evidence of her loss.

  Next came Sarah, Charlotte’s niece and daughter of Christina. Although a Baines at birth, she was a Foxworth by blood relating to Charlotte’s and Christina’s common father, Jacob Foxworth. Born in 1872, just after the death of her aunt, she also perished in the summer of 1904, the 32nd year of her birth, and off the same wooden dock as her aunt. Her body had been recovered by the family.

  Finally, there was Rebeca Foxworth born in 1916 and died in 1948. Robert noted the variation here, where she was not of Jacob’s direct line, but rather a descendant of his brother. Still a true Foxworth by any other definition, she followed the same pattern of drowning the summer after her 32nd birthday, in the river off the pier. As with Sarah, Rebeca’s body was found, recovered by Victoria’s family members.

  Checking the information he had been forwarded from his attorney’s office after inquiring about the woman, Robert confirmed that Charlie had turned 32 years of age in May. The sounds of wind and rain from a building late afternoon storm outside reminded him that the summer months were once again upon Foxworth House.

  The common factors in each case had the Sara, Rebeca and Charlie all described as Charlotte’s twin and all with troubled pasts. Birth years appeared irrelevant and no identifiable pattern on year of death.

  Looking over the family tree he had sketched out as he worked, Robert came to one conclusion. As a true Foxworth woman in the summer of her 32nd year and Charlotte’s look alike, Charlie was headed to her doom if he couldn’t decipher the key to uniting her souls.

  Stepping away from his desk, he slowly headed downstairs, noting his bedroom door still closed, and Charlie presumably sound asleep inside. In the kitchen, he started a pot of coffee as he considered his dilemma. Everything he had available was quite informative concerning split souls, the cause and effect, both in haunting and reincarnation.

  Charlie was the poster girl for a reincarnate split soul, as she was discontented, disorganized and restless. Beyond the physical resemblance to her long dead ancestor, Robert saw behaviors in her that he related to entries in the diaries and letters he had immersed himself into. There was so much Charlotte in Charlie that he almost imagined her returned, whole.

  Both had periods of intense energy and emotion, although the lack of focus on Charlie’s part led to the chaos she created. He also sensed an undercurrent of great emotion, hidden behind a facade intended to protect the vulnerable side of both the women. In Charlotte, it was buried in her driven work ethic, while Charlie protected her emotions with alcohol and anger.

  Robert believed he had touched the true nature of both women. He had reached Charlotte through her writings and in the love of this house they both shared. In Charlie, he had stripped away the protective shell hidden behind her drinking and touched the warm and loving side of her nature. In both he had found someone he could relate to and could share love with.

  A clap of thunder brought his mind back to the present as he moved to the kitchen window. Outside he could see a late afternoon summer storm rolling in from the east. Besides the threatening black clouds in the sky, the wind had started to whip at the trees. Even his po
ol was starting to ripple as the wind slipped off its surface.

  Pouring his coffee, he began a slow walk back upstairs when a second, larger thunderclap rocked the house, sending Hunter skittering for cover. Robert sympathized with the hound, who had a severe dislike for the lightning and thunder these storms provided. Coaxing him out from under the table in the dining room, he turned and made his way back up the stairs.

  There he found the bedroom door wide open and the room empty, but the shoes were still there next to the bed. Visually checking Charlie’s room and the bathroom from where he stood, he could see both empty, so he moved into his study. There, he found Charlie standing over his desk reviewing the books he had laid open there.

  “What’s all this?” she asked, appearing more sober, but slightly unsteady on her feet.

  “Did the storm wake you?” he asked, as a flash and a boom outside seemed to emphasize the question. Both watched as Hunter bolted past Robert and went under the desk between the two.

  “I’m just doing some research,” Robert added as he stepped up next to her, setting his coffee down on the desk.

  “These are all hers, aren’t they?” Charlie asked as she turned and lifted one of the diaries he had stacked to one side.

  “Yes, and these are books on ghosts and reincarnation,” he replied, answering the first question and realizing the words sounded silly when spoken.

  “You think I’m her, don’t you?” Charlie asked, an edge of surprise in her tone.

  “No, not really. These books suggest that you are a reincarnation of only half her soul. The other half is in here, bound to this house,” he explained, losing steam as he did so. It was one thing to think these thoughts, but when he explained them to another, they sounded really crazy.

  “Is that what this has been all about? You and me, last night and before. You think I’m her? Is that why you let me stay here?” Charlie said, her confusion and anger building as she considered his words.