I could see my mother’s petite figure through the big bay window. How did I miss her? I sighed and nodded. Ash didn’t need me losing it right now, and so far Momma had behaved. I promised myself I would get to the bottom of her appearance here right away, though. I couldn’t have my baby around someone so judgmental, so unpredictable.
Stop being so negative, Carrie Jo. What if she’s changed?
I had given her chances before. I loved her, no doubt about it, but it was easier not dealing with her. Not talking to her. Not hoping things would change. Yeah, that was way easier than seeing her, daydreaming about a “normal” relationship. Here we were, dealing with a curse, and she showed up out of the blue. What was up with that? She did seem different, but maybe that was also a ploy. The old Deidre Jardine would have recited at least five Bible verses at me by now. I wondered what she was up to. I hoped and prayed this wasn’t about money.
Doreen came barreling out the door. “Here she is! Mrs. Stuart! I am so glad to see you. You had me worried! No baby yet, huh? No worries. He will come in his own good time. I stocked your pantry for the storm, but I didn’t know all these people would be here. Do I need to make another trip to the store?”
I smiled at her and followed her into the kitchen. “Hey, everyone!” I waved to the rest of the group camped around the widescreen television in the living room. “No, Doreen. This is fine. You didn’t even need to do that. If we need something else, I’m sure one of these guys will go. I hope you made me some fruit salad. I’m starving.”
“Of course. Right on the top shelf. Just for you.”
“You go home and be with Stephan. Are you staying in Mobile?”
“Oh no. I never stay for these storms, and I wish you would go too. We go to Stephan’s mother’s house in Evergreen. No storms there.” I smiled at her and insisted that she go home. The skies were darkening, and according to the local weather reports that blared from the next room, Hurricane Jasmine would be bearing down on us in the next few hours. I didn’t know what it was about hurricanes that made my friends want to gather around a television. But I imagined that was the way it would be for the next few days. I was glad. I wanted them close to me right now. And close to Ashland.
“I am sorry about your puppy, Mrs. Stuart. He was a sweet dog.”
“Thanks, Doreen. Me too. You go to Stephan now. I’m fine. We’ll see you when this is over.”
With a nervous wave, she grabbed her purse and left out the kitchen door.
Doreen’s powder blue Ford backed out of the driveway, and I waved at her as she pulled into the frantic street. Pretty busy out there. Hm…maybe I did need to pay attention. It was dark enough for the streetlights to come on already. Yep, this was going to be a doozy of a storm.
“Hey, babe. I have to go to the boat. I never did get her secured, and I’d hate to lose her. We’ve had some happy memories there.”
“Ashland…shh…” I said, giggling and kissing him. We had long speculated that we’d conceived during an overnight trip on the Happy Go Lucky.
“Relax. No one can hear me.” He kissed me back. “Henri’s going with me. Won’t be gone but about an hour.”
“Sure, but hurry back. No hanging out on the boat.”
“In this weather? No way, crazy lady.” He laughed and shook his head. “Be back in a bit.”
“Better be,” I said, kissing him square on the lips before smacking his behind playfully.
“Be kind to your mother,” he said to me before he walked out the door. For a second I thought I heard Chunky Boy whine after him as he always did. Chunky Boy and Baby Boy. What a pair they would have made! I sniffled and felt someone beside me.
“You want a cup of tea?” That someone was my mother.
“Yes, but could you make sure it’s herbal? Caffeinated drinks make the baby very active.”
“Good idea. I was hoping we could talk. Your friends went upstairs to put your shower gifts away. Looks like you were really blessed with all those gifts.”
I followed behind her. My back felt sore, but I reasoned it was from the hospital bed. That had been one long night and one stiff mattress. “I have to ask, Momma. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here? I haven’t heard from you in over two years. Now you’re here?”
She put the lid on the teapot and set it on the stove. “Cut to the chase, hmm? Sometimes you remind me of your Aunt Maggie so much.”
“I don’t want to talk about Aunt Maggie, Momma. I want to talk about you. And me. It can’t be like it used to be. I won’t let it be. That’s not what I want for my child.”
She nodded and looked me square in the eye. She didn’t argue or get defensive. “Okay, cards on the table.” She sat across from me at the small, round breakfast table. “About a year ago, I had what they called a cardiac event.” I waited to hear what else she would tell me. I would hold my sympathy until after I heard the rest of the story. Not that she would lie about such a thing. Deidre Jardine was many things but not a liar. “I am fine now. They put two stents in me, but I can do everything I used to do.”
“Sorry to hear that. Does heart disease run in our family?” I wasn’t asking for me. What about the baby?
“Not that I am aware of. I know it’s a bit of a shock seeing me after so long, but I’ve come to realize something.” Just then the teapot screamed and Deidre got up to pour our cups. I didn’t hurry her, but I was dying to hear what she had to say.
Setting the cup in front of me, she stirred in a cube of sugar and put her spoon down. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me. For wanting to keep me away. I needed help, Carrie Jo, and I didn’t know how to ask for it.”
“What kind of help, Momma?”
She laughed nervously. “I’m still not sure. But I have made peace with the Big Man Upstairs. That happened when I thought I was going to die. You know how you hear that your life plays before your eyes when you are dying?” I nodded, unable to sip my tea or even move. I couldn’t distract her now, just when she was about to tell me something significant. I could feel it rising, like the crest of a wave. “Well, that’s not what happened to me. I didn’t see my life—I saw yours.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And I had no idea. It was like I could feel what you felt, see what you saw. I realized that while I thought I was protecting you, loving you, saving you, Carrie Jo, I was terrorizing you instead. Every incident. The time I came to the classroom to get you after Ginny’s stepfather…I walked through that whole thing as you.” When she met my eyes, the hazel color appeared a bit green now. I had forgotten they changed color like that. “You needed someone to protect you from me. I hurt you. In my desire to shield you, I did the thing I dreaded. Please believe me, protecting you was really all I wanted to do.”
“Protecting me from what?”
“From who I was. And who I was afraid you’d become.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” The baby moved around, and I rubbed my stomach to still him. “Tell me what you mean.”
“Where do you think you got your dream walking from?”
“Dream walking?”
“Yes, that’s what my mother used to call it.”
“Used to call what?” I asked incredulously.
“Going back in time and sometimes forward, through dreams.”
I heard a puppy whine somewhere. Must have been the neighbor’s dog. A vehicle with a screaming siren whizzed past my home and down the bumpy street. I held my breath as she whispered the truth at last.
“You, my daughter, come from a long line of dream walkers.”
Chapter Ten—Ashland
“Ash, you have to call me back. Like ASAP!” Libby’s voicemail sounded urgent, as if someone’s life hung in the balance. As Henri navigated the traffic, I dialed her office number. I had enough stress in my life right now without Libby losing her mind on me. She wasn’t the one being sued. By multiple people.
Without saying “Hello” or “How’s your wife?” she immed
iately began throwing a tantrum. “It’s like I said! Someone opened the floodgates. It’s open season on Ashland Stuart. What the hell did you do? Post your net worth on a forum? We have another lineage claim! Myron and Alice Reed, whoever the hell they are! And just to make it worse, plaintiffs Rhodes and Hines have teamed up and are asking for nothing less than half—of everything!”
“Hello to you too, Libby. In case you haven’t noticed, we are in the middle of a hurricane right now. Can’t this wait? I can’t imagine the wheels of justice moving so quickly that I need to head to the courthouse right this minute. That has never been the case.”
“Screw the hurricane! Aren’t you listening? You are in major trouble, Ashland.” She was talking too loud in my ear; I held the phone away from my head and seriously considered throwing it out the window into the gray, choppy waters of the Mobile Bay. I should never have hired Libby. Once again I let my loyalties to friends and family get me into trouble. And my track record with lawyers wasn’t the greatest. Henri shook his head in surprise at Libby’s tone but kept his eyes on the dangerous roads.
I put the phone back to my ear. “Okay, reality check, Libby. You work for me, remember? Bring your voice down and breathe between sentences. I don’t need this right now, so say what you need to say and be done with it. Now what happened?”
“I got a phone call about a half hour ago from a clerk in Judge Carmichael’s office.”
My phone beeped, and I glanced at it quickly. It was Rachel. Probably wanting me to pick up something for Carrie Jo, like those chicken-flavored crackers she snacked on constantly. I’d have to call her back after I handled this situation. “And?”
“It’s true. All of it. Those jerks down at Rodney and Waite came up with this idea—no doubt about it. It’s bad, Ash. Whoever drew up your mother’s will left a lot of loopholes for crazies to jump through. Unbelievable! The only thing you can do now is settle with these people, and quickly. Then we can make the changes to the original document official and stop the bleeding. I think you need to start thinking of a number you can live with, and let’s get them to the table. It’s the only way you’ll be able to walk away with at least the shirt on your back.”
My blood boiled as I listened to the not-so-surprising news. Who in the world sues someone just because they share some DNA? Now the Reeds too? This was unreal. “What? Listen, I’m not prepared to talk about this today.”
There was suddenly a deafening silence. “This isn’t like you, Ashland. How can you be so blasé about being sued? Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Come see me now, and we can get the prelim stuff squared away. I’m sure Carrie Jo would understand. How can I help you if you won’t let me?”
“I’ll come to your office Monday, after this storm blows through. My wife comes first, Libby. In case you weren’t paying attention, we are about to have a baby.”
“Well, I know,” she said with an extra edge of snark to her voice. “I was at your shower, remember? But I would think you’d want to protect your child from all these lawsuits. And I doubt this storm is anything to worry about. It’s down to Category 1 status now. Just come by. I’ve got lunch.”
“Goodbye, Libby.”
I hung up the phone, shaking my head, turned on the radio and stared at the rising water. We had time to make our trip to the Fairhope Pier and back, but beyond that would be sketchy.
High winds are expected. Hurricane Jasmine has produced gusts up to eighty miles per hour, and she’s just getting started. Let’s go to Meg, who has an update on this surprisingly powerful storm…
“When it rains, it pours, huh?” Right on cue, fat raindrops slapped the windshield and soon covered the car in sheets of water.
“Literally. If there was any doubt about it before, there isn’t now. I’ve definitely stepped in a streak of bad luck. Are you sure you want to be riding in a car with me?” It was a joke, albeit a bad one, but Henri didn’t laugh.
“Stop making that your confession, Ashland. You’ll only make a curse stronger by agreeing with it.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I paid no attention to the spirit that stood in the waters off the causeway. We were driving too fast for him to reach us. At least, I hoped.
“Curses aren’t bad luck. Bad luck happens to everyone. That’s not the same thing as a curse.”
“I’m listening.”
“Curses that affect generations of people have to have some weight behind them. You can’t just speak a few negative words about someone and hope it hurts them. For a true curse to work and affect a family for generations, there had to have been some major wrong done to someone. Its source must be a great injustice. A wrong that needs to be made right.”
“I get that, and I believe it, but how am I supposed to know what that is?”
“Do you believe in God, Ashland?”
We sloshed along the causeway and turned off the bridge onto Highway 98. The watery streets were nearly empty, except for a few people making last-minute provisions. I thought about his question; it was important to answer truthfully. “I’ve always believed there was, and I still do, but I have a lot of questions for him. If I ever get to see him.”
“Do you talk to him at all?”
“Are you asking me if I pray? Sure, I pray.” My mood went from bad to worse. This wasn’t the time to be having a heart-to-heart about my spiritual life. “What’s your point, Henri? Cut to the chase.”
“Well, I’m trying to say that I don’t have the answers, and even if Lenore was here with us, she wouldn’t either. Carrie Jo can’t find out, because she’s in no shape to perform her ‘dream’ detective work. Rachel knows about curses but nothing specific about your case. Yet you say you’re seeing ghosts again, right?”
“Yep, unfortunately.”
“I think God is trying to talk to you, Ashland. I think you have to trust him to show you the truth. If you haven’t already, ask him to reveal the source of the curse to you. Tell him you are willing to make right whatever wrong has been done. That’s what I would do, if I were in your shoes. Because when you boil it all down, it’s about you. This is your battle, and it always has been. From the finding of the Beaumont treasure to the battle in the ballroom. You’ve been the focus of all this spiritual activity, although it’s not always been in an obvious way. God sent you Carrie Jo, and us, if I may say so, but this battle has been for Ashland Stuart.”
The car came to a stop at the marina, and we sat in the parking lot. The windshield wipers sloshed back and forth, slinging the water onto the already soaked pavement.
I knew every word he said was true. It had been about me. I’d spent all my time trying to protect Carrie Jo, but Seven Sisters had been my house. The Beaumont treasure was also mine. The ghosts had been from my past. Now this curse threatened my son and someday my grandsons. Unless I stopped it.
“Pray with me, Henri. I don’t know what to say.”
He nodded and grabbed my hand. “Lord, nothing is hidden from you, for you see all things—everything in the past, present and future. I know you can see this man’s heart and his desire to break this curse over his life and his family. Please, Lord, speak to Ashland. Speak in a language he will understand. Show him what he needs to know. Show him what to do. Give him what he needs to set himself and his family free. We put this in your hands and trust that you will give the answer. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen,” I whispered. I wiped my eyes and stared at my boat rocking in the marina. I hoped he was right. “Well, no time like the present.”
“Need some help?”
“Sure, come on. Let’s move her away from the floating dock—that’s the worst place to leave a boat during a hurricane. Hey, actually, you should move the car to the other side of the marina. That’s where I’m taking the boat. I’ll meet you over there.”
“All right.”
I got out of the car and was soaked to the bone before I’d taken two steps. I walked quickly to the Happy Go Lucky and dug for the keys in my wet pants poc
ket. I untied the boat and turned the key.
Click, click.
“Come on, are you kidding me?”
I adjusted the throttle and turned the key again.
Click, click.
Smacking the dashboard in frustration, I tapped the gas tank gauge. How the heck was I out of gas? I went below deck and grabbed a half-empty can. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough to get me the few yards I needed to travel. The boat rocked and rolled in the rough water of the Mobile Bay. My phone rang in my pocket again, and I suddenly remembered I needed to call Rachel back. I climbed the steps, shielding my eyes from a spray of water with my hand.
I couldn’t answer the phone now. Suddenly the wind became so savage I could barely stand up. I waited until the blast of wind passed, then raced to the tank. With clumsy hands I poured the gas into the tank and replaced the gas cap. Closing the outer cap, I stowed the empty can under the railing, latching it secure with a bungee cord. Just as I stood up, the boat lurched, sending me hurtling across the deck.
As I struggled to get up, I thought I saw someone standing near me. It wasn’t Henri. It was a woman—it had to be. She wore a moldy dress with a torn hem. I tried to look up to see her face when I felt and heard the sound of wood hitting the side of my head. Wait! I thought as the blow came. The boat tilted again, and this time I rolled into the water.
The shattering pain overwhelmed me. I slipped down, down, down…
Chapter Eleven—Olivia
As I waited for my host to join me in the garden, I watched a line of black ants steal sugar crumbs off the top of a forgotten cake. I felt no need to interrupt their work, nor did I feel a great deal of sympathy for the person who would leave such a treat unprotected in a den of ants. I did not accept the mint tea offered me or eat any of the sweet delicacies before me. Isaiah took his time. I knew it was his way of toying with me, reminding me who had the upper hand.
Of all the confrontations I could have hoped to avoid in this life, and I was not one to fear anyone, this would be the one I dreaded the most. I was about to face the man I rejected to marry another. Why did men believe that a woman who possessed a modicum of attractiveness could not possibly be sensible? That a woman must always be guided by the heart or its inclinations?
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