by D. M. Pratt
“Wake up,” Eve heard herself say in a voice so distant no one else could possibly hear her. Wake up from what was the question that echoed back to her. Again and again she commanded herself to wake from the hellish nightmare, to push past the wild swirling and very confusing images that held her captive inside their strange, funnel of meaningless information.
These tortuous terrors now came every night. Always fragments of images that were becoming more and more complicated and twisted. Some were new and whole, some the same broken and shattered: flashes of events, people, places, pieces of a broken puzzle that didn’t fit together. And the voices, whispering and insistent, a jumble of words that were not quite understandable, too muffled to be coherent, but never completely silenced. Eve opened her mouth to scream, but the more she tried to call out, the more she couldn’t. Now even the air from her lungs stopped flowing. Finally she screamed and with her desperate scream the visions retreated and all she could see was Beau rushing in to hold her.
Her scream still echoing in the room, she watched, trembling as Beau switched on their bedroom light. Eve’s feelings of hopeless misery and helpless fear slipped away as he bundled her into his arms. He held her and kissed her tears away, stroked the river of honey hair that had grown luxuriously thick since her time in the hospital. Beau would bury his face and hands into her curls. He loved to forage through her silken forest of hair to find and gently kiss her flesh until she calmed, relaxing into his embrace. His kisses warmed and melted her until she surrendered to his touch. Then, she would softly whisper, “Make love to me.”
He made love to her as only he could do. His touch, his lips on hers, his hands caressing her skin would conquer all her ghostly fears, driving them farther away with each kiss. Then he would slip slowly and methodically inside her again and again, until she was wet and wanting all of him. Beau rode into her with the force of a hundred gentle waves sliding into shore then retreating again and again into the ebb and flow she loved so much. Together they fell into the ever building rhythms of a sensual tide and with each stroke he would carefully bring her back until the present was all she could think about and all she could feel. Her husband-to-be, her son, her home, her friends, and her world came rushing back around her. They were real, warm and safe tingling through her as Beau quickened his stride, pushing in and out of her until he masterfully brought her to orgasm and commanded Eve back to joy.
Her euphoria would last a few days, sometimes even a week, then her scattered memories rushed back in and brought the inky blackness of night’s prison. They held her captive until the dim shadows of morning’s first light crept back across her bedroom floor. Even then, fragments of her lost memories seeped into her mind once again, filling her with dread that something dark and scary was hiding deep inside her. This mental fog clouded her dreams, both her daydreams and her nightmares. It lingered, waiting, billowing with an inaudible yet urgently important message, too foggy to see clearly. Eve thought of these days as shrouded time, cocooning everything in a cowl of stormy clouds that rolled across her world, blocked the sun and pained her every thought.
“It’s all the stress,” Beau kept reminding her. “Just like a storm, darlin’. It’ll pass.” But something in her throat clenched and made her catch her breath. To make it pass she knew she needed answers to questions she was afraid to ask. Eve made it through the days by staying busy with Philip and the house. Philip would giggle and squeal and fall into her arms and make the world right again. At night she learned to watch her open-eyed visions in silence as the rush of images bombard … her mind finally faded and stopped. Eve would make herself go back to sleep allowing the last of the strange mental pictures to drift away like clouds blown by high winds as she tucked herself into the safety of Beau’s arms … until the next time the headaches cracked her thoughts and flooded in.
There was no way she could handle these “attacks” alone, but neither Beau nor Cora, Eve’s very best girlfriend, were capable of understanding. She returned for sessions twice a week and shared with Dr. Honoré some of the images from her strange nightmares and even the occasional auditory hallucinations that plagued her. Dr. Honoré said that post-coma patients did experience both auditory and visual hallucinations sometimes.
“The release of endogenous dopamine could be a residual of the trauma to your head,” Dr. Honoré explained.
Eve could consider haloperidol-based drugs and cognitive therapy if the hallucinations became more prominent, but at the moment she wanted to keep nursing and her doctor felt they were unnecessary. Ultimately, it was about time: allowing the brain to heal and allowing the love of her family to surround her and take away her unfounded sense of paranoid delusion. Her doctor’s words sounded all too logical until a headache gripped her and the flashes of incoherent, violent images sped past her mind’s eye, showing up when she caught a reflection moving through a mirror or an unnatural shadow wriggling on a wall. Eve promised herself she would learn to live with it until whatever it was in her brain went away. In her heart she simply prayed she could survive.
Chapter Two
Every day the Gregoire mansion waited for Eve to arrive. The painters, wood workers, masons, and fabric hangers, who Eve’s friend, Cora had insisted on her hiring were coming closer to finishing the massive list of requested changes in the main house. Together they had transformed the mansion room by room. They had re-plastered the faded blue and painted the walls a warm, soft cream done in a faux texture with a hint of mustard gold. The color was finished with the slightest kiss of lavender all blended under a Venetian sheen that suggested the first hint of summer dusk.
Cora had been a Godsend. Decorating was in her blood and the air she breathed. She had them strip the years of paint off the plaster crown moldings and patch and refinish them in a rich, bold white the color of ivory clouds. The moldings framed the silk moray fabric that stretched along the entry stair walls and into the master dining room. The wainscoting that lined the entry, lower halls and climbed the curved stairway, Eve matched to her molding, but in a shade warmer to enhance the hues that flowed up from the grand, travertine floors of the entry. The stone was buffed flat to look raw, muting the shine to a dull haze. The house seemed to come alive under Eve’s touch and Cora, with her whirling energy, iron fists with the workers, hilarious wit, laughter and a few bottles of great French wine from her extravagant cellar, made it fun. Everything fell together as the house awoke into modern life.
Once or twice when the headaches got her, Eve tried to share what she was experiencing with Cora, but Cora laughed and asked only that she please share whatever psychedelic drug of choice was making her trip like a bad sixties movie.
“Better still, I don’t want any unless we can get you to make it into a happy high and have much more fun, Suga.” Cora said and focused them both onto the task at hand. “Now I won’t hear another word. Promise? There is much too much to do.”
“Promise,” Eve replied, knowing she would try to get Cora to help her figure out the Gregoire mystery.
Cora had been Eve’s best friend since she moved to New Orleans from Chicago. They met on a double date, got crazy drunk, dumped the guys and partied the rest of the night. They also almost died in a speed boat on Lake Charles, but Eve pulled Cora out and saved her life; a fact that bonded them for life. Cora was a seriously old moneyed, TFB (Trust Fund Baby) and had never worked a JOB a day in her life, but Eve knew better than most that, her dear friend was the hardest working woman in New Orleans’ old family, high society. Cordelia Belle Bouvier, Cora to her friends, had twelve generations of southern history flowing in her veins. She and Beau’s family bloodlines were among the oldest and most respected in the state. Cora sat on the Board of Directors of six charities, two banks, a liquor company and two universities. She was smart, beautiful, young, and very rich and she loved Eve like the sister she never had.
“You, you northern hussy, need to buy yourself a wedding dress. I’m taking your ass to Paris for Fashion Week and
we are goin’ to go crazy! You better warn Beau you need his black American Express with no limit,” Cora told her.
“I could never max out a black card,” Eve said.
“That’s the point of it being black and bottomless. No one can max it out. However, I’ll teach you how to give it a workout, suga,” Cora replied making them both laugh so hard they cried.
Today Eve was alone. She found herself in one of the mansion’s four attics. Vast rooms inside pitched roofs with round windows covered in dust. There she’d found stacks of old paintings of Beau’s family covered with tattered, muslin cloth. Some paintings dated as far back as the seventeen hundreds. Each told a story about his family history. Their faces looked austere and stern to Eve. The men looked strong and determined to live life to the fullest in a world long forgotten. There was a powerful, cruel edge in the eyes of the men and a frightened plea in the eyes of the women that disturbed her. As she dragged the muslin off the largest painting, Eve covered her mouth and coughed from the haze of dust particles that danced on the sunlight around her. She gasped as she found herself staring face-to-face into the azure eyes of Pearlette and Gofney Lafayette Gregoire, Duke and Duchess of Maurice, dressed in the lace and velvet, gold and pearls that symbolized their wealth in both the old and the new world. There was a cold timelessness about their features she found disturbing. She found an ancient bible and looked on the page that listed the marriages and christenings. A handful of pages were torn out at the beginning and, on a rag of a page, she saw what looked like the name Gremoire. It was hard to read and had been scratched out and changed to Gregoire. She Googled them both. She found no reference to Gremoire, only a variation on the name found in some of the earliest writings in France that had something to do with dark, demonic magic. Eve was sure that was a mistake so she moved on to Google Gregoire, but here she discovered only snippets of their history, much of which had been lost to time or destroyed thanks to the fires that devastated their sprawling French chateau during the height of the French Revolution. They were harsh landlords feared and disliked by the people of the region. They were listed as killed by guillotine, but here they were… proof they’d escaped and come to America. They changed their destinies by fleeing the bloody blade of the guillotine to become the matriarch and patriarch of the Gregoire American lineage.
Eve could see their character and resolve in the set of their eyes, the tilt of their chins and the strength of their broad, erect shoulders and the same cold stare in Gofney’s eyes. Philip had his eyes, the eyes of a conqueror. Eve vowed Philip’s eyes would never be cruel… never. There was no question these were brave and strong adventurers who left their French chateau and vast lands in France to come to America and settle in the new world. Her son came from strong, noble genes. Eve ran her fingers across the ancient oil, cracked with age, and wondered what their journey from France must have been like; months across the turbulent Atlantic, into the gulf where they would change to a barge. The first glimpses of the wild, primordial bayou, filled with snakes and alligators, Indians and pirates, slaves and free blacks. Finally, up the Mississippi until the bustling frontier city of New Orleans unfolded like a blossom--exciting, deadly and beautiful. They’d bought land titles from Louis the Sixteenth long before the revolution, perhaps trying to help save France, perhaps visionary enough to see the inevitable demise of the aristocrats and the coming blood bath of the guillotine. Then, once in America, they fought charlatans, Native Americans, weather and bouts of Yellow and Scarlet Fever. They built the first wood and rock frame version of the mansion and carved out a life for themselves and their seven children with the ten thousand acre deed that would set their wealth for generations to come.
One Sunday, when the workmen were gone, the house was silent. Beau had taken Philip for a drive, so Eve returned to her secret adventure in the attic. This time she searched for the weathered old leather trunk with an arched lid and brass hinges and handles. It contained a treasure of old books, letters and papers. Most had fallen apart over the years from neglect, but a few of the books, maps and the antique bible that had caught her interest were still readable. Her French was modern, yet she could still make out who was who on the opening pages, which revealed the Gregoire family genealogy dating back to the twelfth century with detailed records mapping the family lineage. There was one more mention of the oldest lineage that tied to the name Gremiore. Again, the name was scratched and torn away. Every family book she looked into, dating back before the sixteenth century, always ended with the remains of the tattered pages, torn out and intentionally removed.
Eve brought the Bible down from the attic to show Beau, but, once again, he acted a true Southerner by saying he cared little about the past. Eve saw a flash of anger pass across his face before it was replaced by a sweet smile.
“This is the past and it’s done…unchangeable,” he said. “Let’s lay it to rest and live life here in the present. Please.”
He kissed her and she promised, but in her heart she knew she couldn’t. Family history meant something to her and besides, rummaging through the attics distracted her mind from the haunting images that plagued her. As a matter of fact, the headaches never came when she was up there among the historical treasures. The Gregoires have what she never did, a written chronicle of their family’s evolution. It was the history missing from her family. Her mother was an orphan who never knew anything about her real parents or their past, so these fascinating, ancient family histories of Beau’s had a very special meaning to her… her son would have the history she did not.
She read passages from some of the letters she found to Philip while he nursed or when he was falling asleep, sharing with him the names of his six times great grandmother and grandfather, aunts and uncles, cousins and on and on and their trials and tribulations, triumphs and joys. There were letters that detailed how many of their children had died, some as stillborn babies, some killed by raiders, pirates and Native Americans attempting to re-claim the land stolen from them. Some of their children were lost in the American Revolution and some of the next generation in the War of 1812. Then, there were years of peace: weddings, births, deaths, until mother nature intervened and brought droughts that destroyed the cotton and food crops and then, when things looked their blackest, kindly gave them long periods of abundance once more. They bought more land and in hard times sold thousands of acres. The Yellow Fever in 1830 and then again in 1850 took so many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. Eve could see the tears Suzette, a pale-skinned, fair-haired slip of a girl, wept as she wrote. Suzette’s tears dried deep into the page, smudging the ox blood ink and leaving tiny concentric circles splattered like raindrops: sad stains etched by time onto the page forever. Eve brushed her fingers across the sepia-colored paper. She could feel the kindred soul of the young woman they once belonged to sadly watching those she loved die of the fever and being left behind, cursed to live and carry the family name with her brother and sons. Suzette said in one letter she accepted the burden of what she had taken on when she married into the Gregoire family, but she learned about the truth too late to change what had been destined.
“Had been destined,” Eve whispered to herself, pondering the meaning as she ran her fingers across the words.
Beau and Cora insisted she keep her focus on the job at hand and again Eve promised, but Eve found herself compelled to return to the attics and dig through the dust-covered past every chance she could get. There were answers there to questions she wasn’t sure how to ask, but her journalistic mind drove her along with the whispers and images that haunted her thoughts. It seemed to her that being in the attic and digging through the past quelled the dreams as if to say, we will be still if you keep looking for the truth.
The central attic held memorabilia left from the Civil War. The war claimed the lives of Maurice De Cuire Gregoire and four of his seven sons. A tattered piece of the red, white and blue stripes and stars of a flag, the thread-worn fabric faded and frayed, made Eve realize that
two of the brothers had fought on the side of the North. One son and one daughter were all who were left to his wife Claudette. She, with her two children, picked up the pieces of the remaining lands and spoiled crops and rebuilt. They survived, lifted their heads, and carried the Gregoire name into the future. Maurice had saved them by opening bank accounts in the North. When the South fell and the Confederate dollar became worthless, Claudette loaded her eldest living son into a buggy, rode to New Orleans, caught the paddle ferry up the Mississippi River, and finally boarded a train to New York to retrieve their northern cash, which would allow them to rebuild, buy seeds and land and pay workers.
The attics held many other wonders: old clothes, hats, paintings, and photo albums with tintypes and black-and-white photos of happy times, trips to Europe, China and Egypt. An entire album was dedicated to a safari in Africa with too many pictures of dead elephants and lions. That cruelty had made her put the books away and stay out of the attic for weeks. But one cool day she found herself in the west attic amid remnants from the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War.
Over the centuries the Gregoire family had also known a few scandals. The most interesting she found in the north wing’s attic. The greatest scandal of them all involved Beau’s grandfather and the Le Masters side of the family. From the letters Eve found in the north attic, buried in a pile of papers stuffed into an old wood and silver letter box, she learned that none of the Le Masters were liked. In fact, they were downright hated.
Millard made numerous attempts to come by with gifts for his grandson, flowers for Eve and heartfelt peace offerings for Beau, but as their legal case became more and more tangled Beau finally asked him to stay away. He’d screwed things up so royally it would take an army of attorneys and a small fortune to undo what Millard had done. Eventually Millard stopped trying. The last gift he sent Philip was a little, sterling silver bracelet that looked as if it had been in the Le Masters family. Beau told Eve to please send it back. Instead she placed it in a cedar keepsake box and hoped for better times and forgiveness.