by Karen White
The first thing I felt was the icy rain, hitting my face as I stared up at a nearly black sky. I sat up, catching sight of Jack, who was struggling to stand. Frantically, I searched for my mother and found her crumpled on the ground near Meredith’s marker. As I forced myself to stand, I felt something sharp biting into the skin on my palm. I glanced down at my closed fist and slowly opened my fingers, one by one, revealing the dull glint of a gold locket.
The light shimmered around me, the air viscous like embryonic fluid feeding me the strength I needed and holding me together as I moved toward my mother. I placed my hand on her back, relief flooding me when I felt her take a breath. She moaned and turned over, looking up at me with glassy, feverish eyes.
“Thank God,” she said, and grasped my hand and I felt the fizz of electricity shoot through me and back to her. She didn’t let go, even as I pulled her to her feet and we both looked up at the sky and the funnel of mud and leaves that circled above our heads. I made to jerk back but my mother held on, and I knew that I couldn’t let go ever again.
“Give it back to her,” my mother shouted over the increasing wind. “Give it back to her, and tell her to find the light. To leave us in peace.”
I looked down at the locket in my hand, then drew my arm back and threw it as hard as I could toward the funnel of air. A sound like the screeching brakes of a train pierced the air as the locket evaporated into the spinning cloud of debris. Every hair on my body stood on end as I held my ground and didn’t look away.
“Go!” I shouted. “Leave now. Find the door and the light and leave this place forever. You have what was yours. Now go.”
The air hummed with electricity as the funnel whirled faster and faster, sticks and leaves whipping at my face, but I didn’t back down. “Be gone!” I shouted and the funnel exploded into a million balls of light and ice, spraying us with hail and knocking us back to the ground.
We lay there, breathing heavily, the air suddenly clear. Above us, dark clouds unfurled around the rising moon, wiping away the storm clouds as if an eraser had swept over the horizon. In the distance, I heard the call of sirens, relief consuming me now that help was on its way and I didn’t need to fight anymore.
Jack staggered toward us, his face determined and I managed a thumbs-up before I lay back on the ground next to my mother, tasting rain and dirt and the metallic tinge of electrified air, and I knew that somehow I had found the strength she’d known I had all along to save us both.
CHAPTER 28
I placed the last suitcase in the trunk, then tucked General Lee firmly under my arm before shutting the rear trunk of my rental car, my own car still in the shop undergoing massive body repairs. I only wished there was an equivalent in the human world, as my mind and body still felt bruised and battered, although it had been two weeks since the night of the storm.
I stared up at my mother’s house, no longer feeling the undercurrent of a pulsing heart or dreading opening the front door to whatever might be lying in wait. I drew in a deep breath, taking in the warm air that was scented with the promise of spring. Although the official start of the new season was still a few weeks away, the gardens of Charleston were already pregnant with emerging bulbs and bud-laden stems, holding their secrets for just a little longer.
The front door opened and I watched as my mother emerged from the house, followed closely by my father carrying a breakfast tray. After a night in the hospital, where it was determined that she was suffering from nothing more than poor blood iron, she’d returned to her old self. Well, almost. Because the woman who looked at me now wasn’t the same person who’d once hesitated before touching me or watched me with guarded eyes. I found myself sometimes missing the old version of herself, as now she felt no need to hold back when it came to mothering me. She felt free to comment on everything from my hair, makeup, wardrobe, dog-training methods, and diet without reservation. And although I pretended to be annoyed, I didn’t really mind it. I suppose because regardless of a woman’s age, she will always have the need to be mothered. Some things remained off-limits, however, such as Jack and my relationship with Marc Longo, if only because such things were unexplainable.
As I approached the garden, I watched as my father settled my mother in a wrought iron chair—discovered in the attic along with the matching table and other chairs—then draped a blanket gently over her shoulders. He then proceeded to place dishes and silverware onto the table, and a vase full of pink roses nearest to my mother’s chair.
It was hard not to roll my eyes, but I managed. Despite coming to terms with my mother’s new presence in my life, I hadn’t yet managed to reach that point with my parents’ burgeoning relationship. Now that I understood my mother’s reasons for leaving all those years ago—although not completely agreeing with them—I could stand back and view the events of thirty years before more clearly. My father—whose alcoholism had done much to tarnish his image in the intervening years—was no longer the knight in shining armor that I’d envisioned as a little girl. Instead, I’d begun to see him as my mother had: intractable and closed minded when confronted with things that didn’t work inside his world order.
Granted, he’d seen much more of the world than I with his years as an army officer, but I was his daughter and my mother supposedly the love of his life. And I couldn’t help but think that he should have pretended to accept, or at the very least condoned, the fact that my mother and I could see things that he could not. Maybe if she’d had his support in that darkest point in her life, she wouldn’t have felt the need to abandon us both.
He looked up and smiled as we approached, and General Lee wrested himself out of my arms to receive a table scrap from my mother. I was still his favorite human, but he was easily enticed with food offerings. Unfortunately, he didn’t possess the family gene for a high metabolism, and he’d started to bulge out of the argyle sweaters that Nancy continued to knit for him.
My mother held up her cheek for me to kiss and my father enveloped me in a bear hug before I sat down in an available chair. “The garden is lovely,” I said, admiring the burgeoning knot garden he’d been reconstructing from old photographs, and the neatly clipped boxwoods that lined the brick patio area. The dormant annual beds still slept, waiting for their place to shine within the coveted gates of a Charleston garden.
“If I can get your mother to agree, I want to move the fountain to the back, so it can be enjoyed from the kitchen. I think Sophie’s gotten to her, though, as she’s resistant to alter anything that was original to the house.”
I took a donut from a plate and eyed it thoughtfully. “Which means you’d need to have a consent form signed by God and witnessed by the Board of Architectural Review to allow it to happen. Better think of a plan B, Daddy.”
He poured a cup of tea for my mother, then slid a plate with a donut on it in front of her. I almost stopped him to ask for ID and find out what he’d done to my real father.
My mother turned to me. “Don’t forget your coffee cup—the one with the sales graph on it. I put it on the kitchen counter so you wouldn’t leave it behind.”
“It’s not like she’s going away forever, Ginny. She’ll be back.”
“I know. It’s just that I think she’d want to say good-bye before she left. To the kitchen,” she added slowly, her eyes heavy with meaning.
Both my father and I regarded her silently. Slowly, I slid my chair back and rose. “Well, then. I guess I’d better go get it.”
I left them to finish their breakfast in the garden, then entered the house through the front door. I smelled the hint of gunpowder in the air, and I began to realize what my mother had meant. We’d discussed Wilhelm’s presence in the house, and how he’d remained earthbound for us, but that it was time to set him free. I hadn’t understood at the time that she was allowing me the chance to exercise my newfound understanding of my psychic abilities.
“Wilhelm,” I said out loud, summoning him. I closed my eyes, focusing inward, finding the power I was only beginn
ing to comprehend—and appreciate—although I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to that point. “Wilhelm,” I said again, opening my eyes. He stood in front of the stairs, his boots shiny, his hat tucked under his arm, and his musket gripped in his left hand. He bowed, and looked me in the eye. My gaze traveled down to his boots and that’s when I noticed that I couldn’t see through him anymore. It was as if in discovering my own strength, I’d given some to him.
You look beautiful this morning, Melanie. More so than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.
I smiled. “Did you used to say that to Catherine?”
A mischievous smile crossed his face. You are very clever, Melanie, because you are correct. Catherine was very beautiful.You remind me of her. But perhaps you already knew that.
I blushed, remembering how he’d kissed me, feeling foolish that I hadn’t guessed why. I considered him for a moment, thinking how he’d carried his musket for over two hundred years in penance for an event he’d had no control over. His presence had been a warm memory of my childhood; his help in protecting me from Rose had probably saved my life more than once. But it was selfish to expect him to wander this house aimlessly, mourning for his lost love. It was time to say good-bye.
Swallowing the thickness in the back of my throat, I said, “She’s waiting for you, Wilhelm. On the other side. She wants to be with you again.”
His eyes were unsettled. I went back for her. Into the water to be with her forever. But instead I stayed there by the shore for long years, watching for ships. Guiding them away from danger. Until baby Nora, and I came here. I don’t know how to leave this place.
“You were a good protector, Wilhelm. But you’re not needed here anymore. It’s time to go, to find Catherine at last. I can help you. My mother said that helping you leave can be as simple as letting you go.”
I want to. I do not know how.
I remembered the door, and the bright light behind it. For me, the door had been closed, but for Wilhelm the light would be burning brightly, the door leading to it opened wide. “Look for the light. It will show you the way.”
But who will take care of you?
“My mother and I will be together, and Rose is gone.” I smiled, trying to appear more confident and sure than I felt. “We’ll be all right. But it’s time for you to move on.”
His face began to glow as a smile transformed his face. I hear Catherine. I hear her calling me.
“Follow her voice. She’ll lead you to the light.”
He stepped toward me and I looked into his eyes, seeing the flecks of brown in them that I’d never noticed before. He leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips. Good-bye, Melanie.
I heard a quick intake of breath and I turned to see my father standing inside the door, watching us and I realized that he could see Wilhelm as clearly as I did.
Wilhelm straightened and clicked his heels together before placing his tricorn hat on his head. And then, with military precision, he saluted my father, then slowly began to fade away until nothing was left of him except the faint whiff of gunpowder smoke and the warm tingling on my lips where he’d kissed me good-bye.
I pulled into the driveway at my Tradd Street house, squinting to see if I’d really seen a banner strung across the front door. I hoped they hadn’t used masking tape since that might ruin the ridiculously expensive paint that Sophie had insisted I use because it had been blended to perfectly match the color of the original used more than one hundred and fifty years before. Every time Sophie mentioned touching up the paint on the door from workmen bumping it or from the sun fading it, I just heard the huge ch-ching of a cash register. I kept threatening to replace it with a storm door with plastic windows just to see her look of horror.
I grabbed General Lee from his car seat and slowly walked through the garden to the piazza, listening to the soft trickle of the fountain. I stood back to read the sign: WELCOME HOME, MELANIE! I smiled, figuring it had to be Chad and Sophie. I didn’t know anybody else whose enthusiasm reached out to somebody who’d been staying only blocks away while her wood floors were being refinished. I paused, my smile fading. Then again, I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d found something else in the house that would require not only a prolonged absence, but also a huge outlay of funds and they were trying to soften me up before felling me with the news.
Dispirited, I turned the handle and opened the door, prepared to be pelted with confetti or at the very least a work order and deposit check that needed to be signed immediately. Instead, I was greeted with silence and an empty foyer. I put General Lee on the floor and he scampered to the back of the house in the direction of the kitchen. After dropping my keys and purse on the hallway table, I moved inside, smelling the reassuring odor of wax and fresh wood—a tangible reminder of all the money it had cost to restore the floors. But from what I’d seen, they looked beautiful and would serve as the perfect backdrop for the home I hoped to create when all the work was finished. Whenever that would be.
I was about to head upstairs to my room when I spotted wrapped packages on the dining room table. Warily, I approached, then peeked at the tags, which were all addressed to me. Feeling somewhat despondent, I sat down and began opening them.
The first was from Jack: a small blue T-shirt, apparently for General Lee, which had splayed across the back, BITCHES LOVE ME. I tried not to laugh, and ended up sputtering instead. I still wasn’t sure where Jack and I stood. We’d seen little of each other since the night of the storm, and I knew that he’d joined Rebecca at her family’s summer home on Paw leys Island for a few weeks while she recuperated. I’d visited her in the hospital, where I’d been forced to sign her pink cast and listen to her call me “cousin.”
I’d returned the box of jewelry to her and called it even. She didn’t argue, and instead began talking about hosting a barbecue to introduce me to the rest of the family. I remembered the days when I thought of myself as an only child as a bad thing, and found myself thinking of them with nostalgia.
There was a gift bag with tissue that held a can of paint, to “touch up the front door” as the tag read, from Sophie and Chad, and a tube of Chanel lipstick in hot pink from Rebecca—her favorite color, which she thought would look great on me, too. There was also a framed oil miniature of Belle Meade as it must have looked in the early 1800s, with only the words “thank you” written on the card in Rebecca’s rounded, girlish handwriting.
The sound of voices and a door slamming brought me into the foyer again in time to see Chad, Sophie, and Jack coming in from the kitchen. They all stopped when they saw me, and it was apparent from the looks on their faces that they’d been discussing me. Or the house. Or both.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, secure that whatever it was it couldn’t be the roof because I’d already paid to have it replaced.
“Did you see your gifts?” Sophie asked, pointing to the dining room.
“Yes, actually, I did. Thank you. I think the T-shirt might be a little small on me, Jack, but I’ll give it a try.”
He raised an eyebrow and sent me his killer grin, and I almost forgot that we were wrong for each other and that I’d practically thrown him into the arms of another woman on purpose.
I faced Chad, knowing he’d be the easiest to crack. “The floors look beautiful. It’s hard to believe that you did them all by hand without an electric sander.”
I saw the alarm in his eyes and knew that I had him. I zeroed in for the kill. “So, what’s wrong with the house now?”
Without looking at Sophie, he said, “There’s a pretty thick crack in the bricks on the back of the house and Soph thinks there might be something wrong with the foundation.”
I stared at him and blinked soundlessly for a good minute, having absolutely nothing to say. They all began talking at once, but I held up my hand. “I’m going upstairs to change, and I might even lie down a bit. I need a little time to recover first before I can listen to any more.”
I’d barely taken a step toward t
he staircase when the knocker sounded from the front door. When nobody else moved, I made my way to the door and pulled it open.
Amelia and John Trenholm, Jack’s parents, stood on the piazza, looking uncertain and trying to see past my shoulder. Amelia smiled tentatively. “Hello, Melanie. I’m glad to see you looking so well. Is Jack here? We’ve been trying to find him, but he’s not at home and he’s not answering his cell. We were driving by and saw his car outside.”
I pulled back, opening the door wider, just as I caught sight of the third person standing on the piazza with them. She was a young girl of about twelve or thirteen years old. She wore platform shoes, low-rider jeans, halter top, heavy blue eye shadow, and was at that moment sticking a wad of bright pink bubble gum on one of the front columns of my house.
She turned to me and smiled and my eyes widened. The girl had black wavy hair and dark blue eyes, but it was the dimple in her left cheek that gave her away.
“Jack,” I said slowly. “You might want to come out here.”
He came to stand next to me and had opened his mouth to say something when he caught sight of the girl and stopped.
Her grin widened when she saw him, and I knew the effect wasn’t lost on him, either.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said, leaning nonchalantly on the railing. “Surprise.”
I looked from the girl’s multipierced ears to Jack’s astonished face and suddenly having a cracked foundation didn’t seem like such a big problem after all.
“I’ll let you talk in private,” I said before sweeping back into the front hall of my Tradd Street house, smelling the scents of varnished wood and new paint that reminded me I was home, then closed the door behind me.
Karen White is the award-winning author of eleven previous books, including the first in this series, The House on Tradd Street. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two children near Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her Web site at www.karen-white.com.