“Why they leave their damn toys all over?” Judith scooped up baby dolls and teddy bears and dumped them in a toy chest. Someone had spilled a bowl of cereal and milk right next to the bed. Judith didn’t see it until she put her foot in the puddle. She let out a growl, kicked off the wet shoe.
“We gotta find our daddy,” said Cassie.
“Oh, I found his room, but he ain’t in it.” Judith picked up the wet shoe and shook it. “There was letters with his name on ’em. Open letters on a table. From somebody-and-somebody, esquires.”
“Lawyers.” Cassie grabbed her hand. “Miz Eula’s meetin’ with lawyers tomorrow. There’s something goin’ on about the will.”
“I’ll show you the letters.” Judith abandoned the spilled cereal, slipped into her wet shoe, and pulled Cassie out the door, leaving the unmade beds. Out in the hall, the elevator made a musical ding.
“Hail,” Judith whispered with terrible despair, “what if it’s Miz Frances?” But it was Miz Eula who emerged from the elevator, terribly thin, wrapped in a white bathrobe, her iron-gray hair loose in a frizzy billow. She looked both ways, as though crossing a dangerous street.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said when she saw them. She reached into the pocket of the robe and pulled out a crumpled page. “The auction’s tomorrow, and first the lawyers are coming. You must come with me to the meeting to establish your claim.”
Cassie took the letter and tried to read it, but the only thing she could really understand was that issues in the will were unresolved and that the auction was set for the next day at three in the afternoon.
“Without your claim, you get nothing,” said Miz Eula. “Your father gets his share but not you.”
“But we’ve come all this way,” said Cassie.
“It wouldn’t matter if you’d come from the moon,” said Miz Eula.
“We’re progeny,” said Judith.
“I’ll take you to the mansion,” said Miz Eula.
* * *
That evening, though the weather was clear, Judith came into their storeroom with an umbrella and a flashlight. She leaned the umbrella against the bed, reached under the mattress, and pulled out the horse pistol. Cassie was almost glad to see it.
Judith dropped the gun and the flashlight into the umbrella, like it was a pocket. The umbrella bulged a little, but no one would have guessed what was inside.
There would be no point in Cassie asking about the gun. Judith wanted to take the gun because she had a gun to take.
“’Bandoned house,” said Judith. “Might be haints.”
“You ain’t gone hit a haint with no bullet.”
“No,” said Judith, “but we’ll be ready fer ennythin’ more solid.”
Judith gave Cassie the umbrella. Cassie hefted the awkward weight of it and hooked it over her arm.“Better not rain,” Cassie said.
“It ain’t gonna rain.”
“Then we gone look stupid carryin’ this umbrella. You put bullets in the gun?”
“Sure did.” Judith smoothed her dress, the blue one the Glades had given her. “We gonna get our due,” she said, so gravely that it surprised Cassie at how adult she sounded. “We not gonna be poor no more, wearin’ these old hand-me-downs. We gonna have more than a penny to our names.”
Cassie wanted to point out that not only did they each have far more than a penny; Judith had sung them up a notch from their poverty. The Glades had gifted them with cash. In Cassie’s opinion, this adventure into the snake-filled woods that Bethesda and Iris had been talking about was almost unnecessary. The sole reason was to show Bill Forrest that he still owed his family, and while that was important, it might not be important enough to invade an old house filled with Miz Eula’s ghosts. She didn’t say any of that. Judith was set on this path, and it was time to follow.
Cassie hefted the umbrella. “You gone tell Miz Eula we gotta gun?”
“Now why would I tell her that?”
“So she don’t bring her own.”
“If she do have one, it’s gotta be small. She don’t have the strength to lift a cuppa coffee.”
“Still,” said Cassie, “I wouldn’t want to be around if she start shootin’.”
Judith went over to the door and opened it. “Me neither.”
Miz Eula was waiting for them in her freshly pressed taffeta under the only light in the parking lot. It was late, and the sun had vanished behind the trees, leaving only the indigo bowl of the sky. She motioned them over with stick-figure gestures and pushed the car key into Judith’s palm. Miz Eula sat in the passenger seat and insisted that Judith drive, which put Cassie in back with the umbrella, the gun, and flashlight. The car wasn’t much newer than the one Cassie and Judith had driven from Mississippi to South Carolina, but it was cleaner.
“Which way?” said Judith.
“East,” said Miz Eula. “Straight out of town. Follow the railroad.”
* * *
There were few other cars and no trains either. The dark seemed pure and empty, quiet except for the sound of the car itself and the night calls of birds. Cassie rolled down the windows. The sweet evening fragrance of honeysuckle blew in.
“I’ll show you where to stop,” said Miz Eula. “But the drive is a shambles. We’ll have to walk in.”
“How long a walk?” said Cassie.
“A good half mile,” said Miz Eula.
“Kin you walk that far, ma’am?” Judith.
“I assure you that I can.”
They missed the entrance twice, not because it wasn’t marked but because it was. A gas station had been built at the end of the mansion’s drive; a business for however long, then abandoned. The gas pumps were gone. What remained were a concrete apron and a boxy building with plate-glass windows, all shattered.
The first time they passed the entrance, Miz Eula remarked that she didn’t remember any buildings on this road. The second time Cassie held the flashlight as they passed and made Judith creep forward so the old woman could peer into the woods. After the second U-turn on the empty highway, Judith pulled in to the remains of the gas station and angled the car so the headlights shone into the trees.
“This has to be it,” said Miz Eula.
“When was the last time you were here, ma’am?”
“It was winter,” said Miz Eula “No. It was spring.”
Judith turned off the engine, and Cassie helped Miz Eula out of the front seat. Cassie hooked the umbrella over her right arm.
“Will it rain?” Miz Eula said.
“You never know,” said Cassie.
Judith pointed the flashlight into a darkness made more dense by thick brush. Crickets and frogs called from deep in the forest, and Cassie could smell the wet decay of a marsh. Miz Eula hung on to Cassie’s left arm, getting her footing as they made their way from concrete into the tall weeds. She weighed hardly anything and smelled faintly of camphor. She was hot but dry, almost feverish through the black taffeta. The bones in her thin arm poked into Cassie’s ribs.
The trees parted slightly, and Judith shone the flashlight over a rutted track where heavy rains had cut uneven channels into what had once been a drive wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side. The smell of swamp grew stronger.
“You sure you want to do this, ma’am?” said Cassie over the creak of insects.
Miz Eula gripped Cassie’s arm even more tightly, teetering in her narrow black shoes.
Judith glanced back at Cassie. “You want me to take the umbrella?” meaning she wanted the gun, but Cassie wasn’t ready for her to have it. There were too many imaginary things to shoot at just yet. The real things were ahead in the house, and there were only three bullets.
Miz Eula was breathing hard, but she didn’t show any sign of stopping, not so long as the phantom house lay ahead. Cassie could feel that pull herself. She glanced at Judith, striding along, swinging the flashlight so that the beam rushed up into the dense branches and then down again, like she knew where she was going and
didn’t need the light anyway.
Miz Eula leaned more heavily on Cassie’s arm. Up ahead, the roaming flashlight beam glinted off something that might have been a window. Cassie felt her heart jump.
“Hand over that umbrella,” said Judith. “I think I see the house.”
Miz Eula swayed in the dark, breathless and hot. “The house. The house.”
“Turn off that light,” Cassie said.
Judith obeyed and took the umbrella, felt noisily around inside it, and gave it back, lighter. The three of them stood at the edge of the black canopy of trees, letting their eyes adjust to the depth of the night, and the size of the house, burdened by years and weather, its roofline sagging against the stars, its walls plastered with ancient advertisements for snuff and shoeshine, cigarettes and whiskey.
“It was a dry goods store,” said Judith, sounding surprised. “Jus’ like Tawney’s back in Heron-Neck.”
“Bigger than Tawney’s,” said Cassie.
The front stairs were still sheathed in marble and gleamed eerily in the shine from the stars, but the porch, the gallery as Grandmother would have called the ruined stoop that ran all the way around the first floor, was wooden and rotten.
“Watch where you put your feet,” said Judith, flashlight still turned off. The horse pistol was a dull, iron shape in her hand, looking more like a club than a gun.
The three of them edged across the broken porch, making for the front door.
“It’ll be locked,” said Miz Eula. “You’ll have to break in through the windows.”
The windows were shuttered, but as the three of them came closer, they could see that at least one shutter had already been pried open. Judith put a tentative hand into the even deeper blackness that was the window.
“There ain’t no glass,” said Judith. “Someone’s got here ’fore us.”
“Go in,” Miz Eula hissed.
“I ain’t goin’ in without no flashlight,” said Judith. “They snakes in there. I know it.” She groped at the window, then caught her breath like she’d heard something. The three of them froze, listening in the dark for a sound from the house, bounded by the calls of night birds, frogs, and crickets.
“He’s here,” whispered Miz Eula.
“Who’s here?” Judith squinted at her in the dark.
“She’s talkin’ about the past,” whispered Cassie.
“There is no past,” moaned Miz Eula. “There’s only now.”
“What we’re askin’,” said Judith, “is if you think someone’s in there right now.”
Miz Eula trembled, hot as an ember.
Cassie heard Judith cock the horse pistol.
“Turn on the flashlight,” said Cassie. “If anybody’s inside, they’re bound to’ve heard us.”
Judith pointed the flashlight into the empty house. Cassie craned forward to see blank walls and a rotting floor. There was no furniture. No fixtures, no carpets or chandeliers. What was left of the wallpaper lay in heaps. The mantle from the fireplace was missing, with only a blank frame of bricks around a yawning hearth to show where it had been. There wasn’t a single thing worth auctioning off. There was nothing left but crumbs.
“Did you ever live here, Miz Eula?” said Judith.
“Yes,” whispered Miz Eula, “and then he banished me.”
They climbed in through the glassless window. Judith went carefully ahead, checking the floor, toe-first, the pistol held out at arm’s length as though it could sense intruders, aim on its own, and kill them before she had to think to pull the trigger.
“Can you see them here at Christmas?” whispered Miz Eula as they crept through what must once have been a grand sitting room. “Can you see my William, his new wife plump-cheeked and unmindful, his son and daughter, the mistletoe, the slaves, half sisters, half brothers to his legitimate heirs? The slaves, dressed for the occasion, laying the table in the next room. The slaves that were his own children.” She shuddered as though she might shake apart and all that would hold her together would be the black taffeta. “We said good night to our wedding guests from those stairs.”
Judith shone the flashlight along the tilting banister. “They don’t look so safe. Ev’ry third step’s missin’.”
“Can’t you feel the ghosts?” said Miz Eula in a whisper. “My son, my Charles, a brave young man.”
Upstairs, something heavy fell and broke. Someone in the shadows near the top of the stairs let out a curse.
Judith aimed the gun and the flashlight up into the dark.
“It’s him. It’s him,” gasped Miz Eula. “William!”
Judith began to shout. “You! You up there, you-all come on out where I kin see you!” She shoved the flashlight at Cassie and held the horse pistol in both hands.
Cassie stuck the flashlight out, her hand shaking, the umbrella hanging like a flightless bat. Miz Eula quivered on Cassie’s other arm. And whoever was upstairs shuffled into view.
“Don’t shoot,” said a man’s voice, and in a moment, he appeared, heavyset, at the top of the stairs. His arms were loaded with all that he could carry. “Who the hail’s down there? Don’t shoot!”
“William!” cried Miz Eula.
“Eula?” said the man.
“Jesus Christ,” said Judith, not lowering the gun. “Daddy?”
They heard him take a breath at the top of the stairs. “Judith?”
“You stay right there!” Judith shouted. “Momma was right when she tol’ me you was nothin’ but a rat!”
“Honey, din’t Momma tell you I was comin’ up here for her? For us? Din’t she tell you I was comin home jus’ soon’s I could?”
“You lef’ us for a hoor!” Judith said, as firmly as she could. “You lef’ us with nothing!” And whether she meant to or not, she fired the primordial gun.
The noise was like a cannon. The bullet left a trail of sparks, which lit the room for an instant and left a choking stink. The bullet hit something with a terrible thump. Miz Eula screamed and collapsed into Cassie’s arms. Cassie dropped the flashlight. The flashlight rolled over to a hole in the floor, dropped into it, and the whole place went dark. Bill Forrest let out a sound just loud enough to let everyone know that the bullet had missed him, and the house groaned. A chunk of the ceiling fell. Bill bolted invisibly down the stairs. The ransacked booty in his arms dropped away as he descended, crashing like pottery or rolling like coins.
“Dammit!” said Bill as he hit the main floor. He switched on his own flashlight and yanked the pistol away from Judith. “Your momma sent you with this?”
“I came on mah own!” Judith shouted. “I came to tell you I’m progeny too!”
More ceiling fell. Splinters and dust cascaded over them.
“Miz Eula?” Cassie crouched over the taffeta husk in her arms. “We got to leave!”
“What’s she doin’ here?” Bill demanded and shone his flashlight in the old woman’s face. Miz Eula’s eyelids fluttered. She looked pale as paper, limp, and bloodless. “Now looky, Judy, you done give her a heart attack!”
There was a quick movement to the left, and Bill swung his flashlight over to reveal a night watchman, who was small and old and clung to a baseball bat as though there were dangers in the old mansion no bullet could stop.
“Whoever y’all are,” he said, brandishing the bat, “you’re trespassin’, robbin’ hoodlums, just like the rest of ’em. The police are here. Y’all just stay right where you are.”
Flashing red lights poured over them, flashed on the peeling walls, turned blinding white and then red again. Male voices came from another part of the house, speaking in commanding tones. Red light washed across Miz Eula’s face, and she opened her eyes long enough to see Bill Forrest leaning over her.
“My William,” she whispered, “I’ve found you.”
There were two police cars outside the back of the house, where long ago the slaves would have come and gone. Now there were four policemen with guns. One grabbed Bill by the arm and yanked the still
-smoking horse pistol away from him. They put him in handcuffs and shoved him into a police car. One of them crouched over Miz Eula.
“Call an ambulance!” the policeman shouted. He paid no attention to Cassie because she was, of course, Miz Eula’s maid and a passive player, if a player at all.
“A little late for you to be wandering around in an old house, ain’t it, missy?” one of the policemen said to Judith. “And with this old lady too. Ain’t you see the NO TRESPASSIN’ signs?”
With lights on, Cassie did see that this side of the mansion was generously covered with NO TRESPASSING signs.
“We came in the other side,” said Judith, without apology. “We came to get my inher’tince.”
“Your inheritance?” said one of the officers. “This place been empty for years. Hardly anything worth taking. You could’ve waited for the auction tomorrow instead of trying to vandalize the place.”
“Vandalize?” said Judith.
Cassie left it to Judith to tell either the infuriated truth or outrageous lies. She held Miz Eula’s head in her lap. A floodlight showed the back half of the property. The woods had been cleared and replaced with a lawn, wide and neatly trimmed. A long, paved driveway passed a sign that said MANSION MINIATURE GOLF. Just down the hill from the sign lay a shadowed wonderland of windmills, castles, elephants, and ogres. Just beyond that were tables covered with white sheets, set up for the estate sale. The police were right. What was left to auction off?
“Miz Eula,” said Cassie. She took Miz Eula’s hand, cool and limp. “Can you see all that?”
When the ambulance arrived, a broad-shouldered white man hurried over, pushed his fingers against Miz Eula’s bird-neck, and listened to her taffetaed chest. He straightened and told the policemen that she was dead.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The night clerk wouldn’t let them into the Veranda. He didn’t believe Judith and Cassie were employees. It was two in the morning. Without their gray uniforms, they looked like vagabonds.
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