by Karen White
My lips were numb from the cold and something else I didn’t want to name. “What did she say?”
Her eyes met mine. “We are not as we seem.”
I shivered inside of my coat, the old memory pressing at my brain again. “What does that mean?” My voice was swept away by a gust of wind, and I realized again that my mother didn’t need to hear me to understand what I was saying.
She looked past me, toward the toppled gravestone. “I don’t know. But there’s something in that house. Something evil. A presence in the house that’s been there since I was born.”
I swallowed. “Is that why you sold it?”
She nodded but didn’t meet my eyes.
“Then why do you want to buy the house back? If it’s haunted by an evil presence, why?”
My mother didn’t answer right away but didn’t move her gaze from my face, either. “Because it’s our house, Mellie. Because it was in our family for over two hundred years.” She paused. “And I’m stronger now. I can fight it now.” She closed her mouth tightly, as if she were afraid unguarded words would leak out, and I knew right away that she was hiding something. The nuances of a mother’s face are never lost on her children, even long after a child may have wanted to forget.
My hands balled into fists again. “Don’t stress yourself on my account, Mother. I have my own house now, so it’s immaterial to me what you do with the house on Legare. Just don’t try to pretend that you’re concerned about my legacy, because we both know that would be a lie.”
She took a step in my direction, her breath fanning out toward me like a web. “There’s so much you don’t understand, Mellie, and I don’t expect you to sit down with me and listen while I try to explain it to you. Just know that my dreams and what’s happened here and what’s written on her gravestone are all related. Your grandmother needs us to stand together on this, to face what’s coming.”
I looked at her for a long moment, seeing only a stranger. I watched as the wind blew the fur around her face and flattened the winter grass like a giant’s footprint and knew there was more to why she was here. But like her reasons for leaving, her reasons for returning were no longer important to me.
“I’m pretty good at facing things alone, Mother. You taught me that, after all. And it would take a lot more than just a riddle on a tombstone and a silly dream to make me spend any time with you at all.” I drew my hand out of my pocket to look at my watch, realizing that I couldn’t tell the time because my hand was shaking so badly.
I continued, forcing my voice to remain calm. “I’m going inside to talk to the person in charge, and then I’m heading back to the office. If I don’t see you before your trip back home—wherever that is—have a nice flight.”
She didn’t try to stop me this time as I turned on my heel and headed toward the church. I’d almost reached the front doors before she finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Mellie. I’m sorry I had to leave. I know you don’t believe that now, but I had to go.”
I kept walking, feeling the tears freeze in my eyes.
“I smell the ocean, Mellie. And I know you do, too.”
I pulled open the door and stepped inside, the babble of voices rising behind me like the tide. I let the door bang shut behind me but not before the wind blew in the pungent scent of the sea.
The rest of my day didn’t go any better. Two of my offers were rejected—one without a counter—and another house I had under contract in Ansonborough failed the inspection. Repair estimates were hovering around ten thousand and the buyers were balking.
I was in a foul mood when I returned to my empty house and the cold turkey potpie Mrs. Houlihan had left for me in the oven. I ended up feeding half of it to the dog, and then, in a moment of desperation, I decided to take him for a walk.
The day had warmed up considerably, and even now—with the sun setting in wintry pinks and oranges on the horizon—the temperature was bearable. I pulled on my coat and gloves and dressed General Lee in the new argyle sweater Nancy Flaherty had knitted for him and headed out the door. I was embarrassed to be seen with him, having never before been offended by dog nudity, but he’d begun shivering uncontrollably when the thermostat hit below sixty. Nancy told me I could either buy him a condo in Florida or I could accept the sweater.
As usual, I allowed General Lee to decide which route we’d take and we headed out at a brisk trot, the dog a couple of feet in front of me, his nose leading the way, pausing now and again to sniff a front step or growl at a stranger. General Lee had taken it upon himself to become my guard dog, attempting to keep strangers at bay until he had a chance to inspect them. Even then, he was picky about whom to make friends with and would continue to growl if they didn’t pass his inspection. Unfortunately for him, despite having the heart and soul of a police dog, he appeared about as threatening as an argyle-draped sofa cushion.
I was so busy thinking about counteroffers and inspection reports that I didn’t realize where General Lee was taking us until it was too late. He stopped in front of a set of wrought iron gates on Legare Street, and I had to blink twice before I realized where we were. My gaze swung to the house number stenciled in gold on the mailbox attached to the gate and I blinked again: Thirty-three Legare.
The square brick Georgian house with the two-tiered portico dominated the garden that grew up around it, which had been brightly colored and intricately designed like jewelry for an already-beautiful woman. I remembered having tea in these gardens with my grandmother and I felt the old sadness return.
Eager to leave, I tugged on the leash but General Lee seemed adamant about staying. I was about to pick him up and carry him back home when I realized we weren’t alone. Startled, I turned to examine the lone figure standing about ten feet away from me near the fence, her study of the house apparently interrupted by our arrival. As usual, I wasn’t wearing my glasses—my one nod to vanity—but I was struck by how familiar she looked.
The stranger began to walk toward me, giving me a better chance to see her in the fading light. She was shorter than my own five feet eight inches and slender—what most people would call petite. Her wavy blond hair hung loosely around her shoulders and Burberry overcoat, and I saw as she grew closer that she carried a notepad and pencil.
“Do I know you?” I asked, studying her more closely, trying to place where I’d seen her before.
“Not in person,” she said, stepping closer so I could see the long lashes over clear blue eyes.
I froze, finally realizing why she seemed so familiar. “Emily?” I whispered, my throat tight with shock.
She looked at me oddly. “I used to get that a lot.” She bent down and scratched General Lee behind his ears, and I belatedly noticed that he hadn’t let out a peep and was trying to roll onto his back to allow this stranger to scratch his belly.
I tugged on his leash to bring him closer to me. “Who are you?”
She stood and faced me and I felt the shock course through me again. Sticking her hand out toward me, she said, “I’m Rebecca Edgerton. We spoke briefly on the phone. About your mother.”
Absently, I shook her hand, unable to tear my gaze away from her face. And then the word “mother” brought me back to attention. I yanked my hand away. “Oh, the reporter from the newspaper. I remember.”
“I thought I might come see the house she grew up in. Start at the beginning of her story.”
I continued to stare at her, unable to shake my first impression. “You look so much like . . .” I couldn’t say the name again.
“Emily. I know. I’ve let my hair grow so I guess the resemblance is even stronger now, but when Emily and I worked together at the paper we would get confused for each other all the time. People used to say that when Jack stopped dating me and started dating Emily he wasn’t even aware that he’d switched girlfriends.” She laughed, the sound broken, pierced like a veil.
I took a deep breath, more relieved than I could explain.
Rebecca’s brow wrinkled. “I di
dn’t realize you knew her.”
“I, um, I didn’t, actually.” I thought for a moment, trying to come up with a better way to explain that I knew what a dead woman looked like because I’d seen her ghost. “Jack must have shown me a picture.”
She nodded. “Oh, well. That explains it then.”
There was something in her expression I couldn’t read, something unexpected that made me take a step back. “Well, it was nice meeting you.” I pulled on the leash, annoyed to notice that my dog had made himself very comfortable by nestling at her feet. “Come on, General Lee. Let’s go home and eat dinner.” He stared at me blankly, not moving.
Rebecca took the opportunity to close the distance between us. “Since you’re here, maybe you could answer a few questions. Nothing too personal, I promise. Just enough to get me started. If I say anything out of line, just tell me and I’ll stop.”
The dog was looking up at Rebecca with adoring eyes, and I figured it had to be the blond hair. He was male, after all. “I really don’t think so. We’re estranged, and I’m afraid your story will have a negative tone if you start with me. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”
“I want the truth; that’s all. I hope to get enough interviews to make it a balanced article, but I’m beginning to think that I can’t write it at all without insight from her only child.”
“Unfortunately, you’re going to have to. I know very little about my mother. The truth or otherwise. She left my father and me when I was only seven years old.”
Rebecca looked down at her notebook and flipped a page. “Yes. I’ve got that. It was right after your mother’s trip to the emergency room. A miscarriage, I believe.”
“A what?” I stared at her blankly, not sure I’d heard correctly.
She glanced up at me. “A miscarriage. A serious one. She almost died according to the hospital records. I guess you would have been about six or seven at the time because it was after your parents separated. You and your mother were living here with your grandmother when it happened. I assumed . . .” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I thought you would have known.”
The back of my mouth tasted like rust. I remembered my father showing up at my grandmother’s house and my excitement when I thought he was there to take us both home. But he’d left me there and carried my mother to the car in his arms like a baby. Later my grandmother told me that she’d had appendicitis and needed to stay in the hospital for a couple of days but would be fine. And I had believed her despite how thin my mother looked when she returned or how a baby’s crying had been added to the litany of sounds I chased but never found in my grandmother’s house.
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t know.” I tried to smile. “They probably thought I was too young to understand how babies were made”—my smile dropped—“or lost. How did you find out?”
She shrugged but her gaze remained intense. “It’s part of my job. I just know where to look and who to ask. I saw an old newspaper article in the archives about your grandmother’s death, and there was a brief mention of how it followed on the heels of your mother’s hospital stay. It didn’t say why she was there of course, but I have an anonymous source at the hospital who looked through the records and found out about the miscarriage. All confidential, of course.” She paused for a moment. “The information you need is always there if you’re willing to be persistent and look hard enough.”
I felt we weren’t talking about my mother’s illness anymore. Suddenly uncomfortable I took a step back. “I really need to get home now. . . .”
She looked disappointed. “I understand. But just one more thing—please. I want to show you a picture. I promise I will only take one more minute of your time.” She smiled, and she looked so much like the dead Emily that I paused, giving Rebecca her chance to whip an enlarged photo of my mother at an opera charity event in New York from her oversized purse.
“You look a lot like her.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d always hated it when people told me that—mostly because it wasn’t true but also because I liked to pretend that we weren’t even related.
Rebecca held the picture closer to my face. “She’s wearing the most beautiful necklace and earrings in this photo. Do you know anything about them?”
I stared down at the photo, at the diamond-and-sapphire collar necklace and matching chandelier earrings. I remembered my grandmother allowing me to play dress-up with them, sometimes using her silk bath-robe as my gown as I paraded up and down the hallways. “Yes,” I said. “They were my grandmother’s. My mother must have inherited them when my grandmother passed.”
“So they’re family heirlooms?” Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“I suppose you could call them that. I do know my grandmother said that they had once been her mother’s. How much further back they go I have no idea. To be honest, I think they’re a bit gaudy and if they were mine, I’d probably sell them.”
“Like your mother sold this house.”
I jerked my head up to meet her eyes. “I think I’ve answered enough questions.” I yanked hard on the leash this time, forcing General Lee from his reclining position at Rebecca’s feet, and began to walk away, pulling the reluctant dog. “Good night, Miss Edgerton. It was nice meeting you.”
“You can call me Rebecca.”
I continued to walk away. “Fine, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again. Good night.”
I was about to turn the corner when I heard her say, “Don’t bet on it.”
Pretending not to hear her, I tugged on the leash and pulled General Lee around the corner with me, wondering what it was about Rebecca Edgerton, besides her resemblance to Jack’s dead fiancée, that made me so uneasy.
CHAPTER 4
The rest of my week seemed to pass in slow motion. With the high drama at the beginning of the week—marked by my mother’s sudden appearance and my grandmother’s bid for attention from the grave—I suppose it was inevitable. But even at work time crept by, my usual enthusiasm for my job somewhat muted as if I were being forced to view my life through half-closed eyes.
On Friday morning as I dragged myself into the office, Nancy Flaherty met me at the door, her golf ball earrings swaying in time to her movements. “You look terrible,” she said as she took my coat and briefcase.
“Thank you, Nancy. And how are you?”
She draped my coat over her arm, then reached behind her to the receptionist’s desk and picked up a steaming mug of coffee before pressing it into my hands. “I’m thinking your grumpiness lately is because you’re missing Jack.”
“Because I’m what?” My indignation was forced, mostly because I had the sneaking suspicion that she could be right. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s been kind of peaceful without him barging into my house to do research at all hours of the day and night,” I said, referring to the book he was currently writing about the former residents of the house I’d inherited. “And I don’t have to put up with any of his ridiculous observations or silly comments.” I took a sip of my coffee, studying it carefully so I wouldn’t have to meet Nancy’s knowing eyes. I would never admit to her, or anyone, that despite the presence of Mrs. Houlihan, my dad, Sophie, and Chad, the house had seemed a little empty without Jack’s overwhelming presence. Even General Lee hadn’t been able to fill the void.
I raised my head, narrowing my eyes. “And why are you being so overly nice to me this morning?” I asked, indicating the coffee and my coat, which was still slung over her arm. “What’s wrong?”
She pursed her lips as if deciding whether to lie to me or just blurt the truth out. Apparently deciding on the latter, she said, “Mr. Henderson’s waiting in your office. He wants to speak with you.”
Although Dave Henderson was technically my boss and the owner of the company, he spent most of his time playing golf—which was what accounted for Nancy’s continued employment. There were few other employers who could put up with such a marked devotion to the game of golf to the exclusion of just a
bout everything else—including running a business. Dave had been forced into an early retirement by his wife and cardiologist, which produced a collective sigh of relief by every employee of Henderson Realty. The relief was temporary at best, though, seeing as how he made a point of showing up at the most unexpected times, making sure everybody knew he was still the boss and keeping an eye on productivity. Mostly I saw Dave at sales awards dinners and the weekly sales meetings, where he served as main cheerleader and lead butt kicker. But he was rarely in the office on a nice day—even in the freezing cold. If the sun was shining, Dave was on a green.
I put the coffee mug down, feeling suddenly ill, the donuts and latte from Ruth’s Bakery that I’d wolfed down earlier threatening to make a reappearance. “Any idea why he wants to see me?”
Nancy gave me a nervous smile. “I’m not sure. But I think it has something to do with Jimmy. They were in his office yesterday and there was a lot of yelling going on.”
“Oh, crap,” I said, picking up my briefcase and mentally girding my loins. If Dave Henderson was waiting in my office instead of on a green somewhere, it couldn’t be good.
I stood outside my closed office door for a full minute, finding my composure, before turning the handle and standing on the threshold with a bright smile. Dave was sitting at my desk, reading the latest edition of the Post & Courier. My Day-Timer calendar, which I kept closed on the corner of my desk, was open as if he’d just been going through it. He wore a golf shirt under a warm Windbreaker and khakis, like he’d been yanked off of the sixteenth hole somewhere, and my mood shifted from simple apprehension to sheer terror.
“Good morning, Dave. It’s so good to see you.” I plastered a smile on my face so he wouldn’t know I was lying.
He continued to read the paper without looking up. “Interesting story in today’s paper. They’re going to raise that sailboat they found off of Sullivan’s Island a few weeks ago. The divers they sent down discovered the name of the boat, apparently one that’s been missing since the earthquake of 1886. It’s in a relatively shallow area and they’re thinking they can raise it intact. If not, they’ll just salvage what they can.” He rattled the paper as he turned the page. “People are almost as excited as they were when they discovered the Hunley.”