Not Quite Clear (A Lowcountry Mystery)

by Lyla Payne

  I didn’t have to ask to be sure.

  “My reasons are my reasons. I’ll not explain them, and you’ll try to remember to hold your tongue until you’ve walked my path.”

  It’s not a good answer but it’s the only one she’s going to give me. There’s no question of this agreement between us not being a true partnership. If Clete’s holding all the cards in our relationship, Mama Lottie owns the casino. She’s the house, I’m the mouse, and that’s how all this is going to work until it’s over and done.

  Over and done means Amelia getting better, back on her feet, and back to the girl I love more fiercely than anyone else. It means her baby, Jack, living a good long life. It means our family being free from the shackles of the past, and Anne Bonny and Calico Jack finally, after all this time, resting in peace.

  “You’re stalling,” Daria breathes my general direction. “She doesn’t like it.”

  The snake swirls down her leg in one smooth movement, landing in the grass. My heart hitches, my eyes burn, but the words are here.

  “I’m amenable. I’ll help you get back at them as long as they don’t get hurt.”

  “Oh, Graciela. There are so many ways to hurt someone. You really should have been more specific.”

  My eyes press closed, waiting to feel the disgusting brush of scales against my own legs, as though the snake represents the transfer of responsibility, the burden of ruining a perfectly respectable, if slightly misanthropic, family.

  The snake doesn’t touch me, though. I open my eyes to find Daria staring at me with slight horror, and Mama Lottie looking like the cat that ate the canary for the second time tonight.

  “Well, how do we get started?”

  “I already gave you a sign of faith, getting rid of the current vessel threading that wretched curse into your lives, so now it’s your turn to do the same for me. I need a piece of a living member from a certain surviving line of the Drayton family.”

  My stomach twists. “First of all, what exactly do you mean by ‘piece’?”

  “Hair, blood, fingernail. Skin scraping in a pinch, but those are easy to lose and you don’t strike me as a particularly responsible individual.”

  “Thanks.” The sarcastic response comes out on autopilot, without a thought as to if it might piss her off. Mama Lottie doesn’t seem to notice, and my mind wonders how I’m going to steal DNA from the Draytons.

  Which leads to my next question. “And by ‘living member of a certain surviving line,’ you mean…who, exactly? Because there are kind of a lot of them that have been born since you last took an accounting.”

  “Direct descendants of Miss Sarah Drayton,” she snaps. “One member of each direct line.”

  The answer comes so quick it makes my head spin. I try to go over Sarah and Charles’s family, to remember how many children they had and how many children they had in order to assess how long it’s going to take me to track them all down, but it’s impossible. I’m too nervous, too sick over what I’m aiding and abetting, and too anxious to be done helping.

  “Okay. It might take me a few days to track them down.” I put a hand on my hip, summoning courage I don’t think is in there. “Are you planning to beat me up again if it takes longer than that?”

  She shrugs, not admitting to the invisible wall but not denying it, either. Maybe she thinks showing me the mist trick seals it. “At this point, it only helps you to get me the first ingredients. Your cousin, she’s running out of time.”

  I know this. We all know this, but hearing the words fall from Mama Lottie’s dead lips makes it real. And it makes it sound like a curse itself. Or a threat.

  The mention of Amelia straightens my spine. My determination is stronger this time, no regret or hesitation behind it. “I’ll do it as soon as possible. But you have to look out for Amelia. If anything happens to her or Jack, the deal’s off.”

  Mama Lottie studies me for a long time. I study her right back until a sharp slice of pain lances my palm. I wince, jerking toward Daria, and look down to find a two-inch gash that looks as though it’s been made by a large knife.

  Blood drips out of the wound, drawing a lacy pattern on my wrist. In front of me, Mama Lottie’s image blurs through the stinging tears in my eyes. She holds up her own palm, bearing an identical, crimson slash mark. She moves as if she’s wiping her hand across an invisible pane of glass and I feel pressure against my hand.

  A gasp struggles free from my squashed lungs, and I look down to find the blood smeared over my skin.

  Like someone shook my hand.

  An agreement signed in blood.

  I just made a blood pact with a witch. And dead or not, I’m guessing there’s going to be no backing out now.

  Millie’s waiting up for me at the house, despite the late hour, and it’s not until I see her face that I give myself permission to let go. Tears fall down my face like rain as my cheeks find her lap on the couch. I hold on for dear life, crying out my sorrow and loss and frustration as she strokes my hair, silent but present in the way only the oldest friends can be, and after a while—who knows how long—the emotions start to recede from the surface.

  Common sense returns, sucking my feelings away like the tide. Not until they’re gone, just until they’re drifting out to sea, staring up at the moon until the next time the Earth rotates and pushes them back to the shore.

  What’s done is done. I’ve betrayed my boyfriend without even understanding the consequences, but I’ve saved my cousin’s life. That has to count for something.

  I sit up, wiping my nose with the back of my arm even though the action makes Millie’s lip curl in disgust. There’s a glass of water on the end table and I drain it. The taste it leaves in my mouth is dusty.

  “That’s been there a couple of days,” my cousin says, even more grossed out now.

  “I can tell.” I slump back against the cushions, wiggling my toes. They’re red and swollen from traipsing around in those damn heels all night. I might be disfigured forever, all in the name of wedding fashion.

  “Well? Are you going to give up the goods or do I have to drag it out of you? I suggest the former because you look even more tired than I feel, and a fight seems like a lot of energy.” Her emerald eyes don’t flinch, don’t waver, as she looks in my face.

  If there’s anyone in the world I can tell everything to right now, it’s Millie.

  “I did it. I made the deal.” I hold out my palm, which bears the bloody mark of Mama Lottie’s seal. Millie stares at the red gash, a tad crusty around the edges but already knitted back together somehow. “I don’t know what it means, but I told her if anything happened to you or if she asked me to hurt the Draytons physically, then the deal is off.”

  “You really think she can do it? Break the curse?” Her own hands go to her round belly, the way they do so often these days, as though they can protect him.

  “I wouldn’t have gone through with it if I didn’t. She killed Mrs. LaBadie. She got rid of that snake. She cut my damn hand.” I don’t mention the incident in the library or the little girl in the road, even though Amelia knows about both of them. “She can do it.”

  “What does she want from you, though?” Millie’s fingers go to her lips, as though she’s thinking about reverting to her fourteen-year-old self and biting her nails just to piss off her mother, but she pulls them away before chomping down. “I mean, she wants your help with a new curse, but what exactly?”

  “I have to track down the direct descendants of Sarah Drayton and get some sort of DNA from one in each line. Hair or blood, but she’ll take a fingernail or skin,” I finish up, sarcasm acidic on my tongue.

  Her eyes light up, and the realization hits me the same moment. Hope, so far away, rushes back in a flutter of heartbeats and breathless gasps. “It might not be Beau’s family.”

  “Right. It could be his cousins,” Amelia confirms, reaching out to squeeze my hands.

  “Except Cordelia’s the one in charge at Drayton and Magnoli
a. What are the chances that Brand isn’t a direct relation?” I shove the hope away, unwilling to look it straight in the eye. I don’t have good luck, and now is not the time to pretend that I do.

  “You never know. Maybe they’re descended from the family that owned Magnolia.”

  “Maybe.” I do bite my nails, not caring what my Aunt Karen would say. “I’m going to check it out. The family trees through the early nineteenth century are on the Drayton Hall website so it shouldn’t be too hard. Just have to figure out which of them is Brand’s grandfather.”

  Neither of us move. Right now, we have Schrödinger’s cat—the curse is for Beau’s family and not for Beau’s family—but once I open the laptop and log in, we’re going to know for sure one way or the other.

  The touch of Amelia’s hand over mine makes me jump out of my skin, but she doesn’t let go. Sorrow and guilt line her features, but determination has never left her gaze. “Thank you, Grace. I know this decision wasn’t easy for you, and I never, ever would have asked you to do it if I thought there was another way. Hell, I never would have asked you if it was only my life on the line.” Her other hand flutters over her belly. “I have to give him a chance.”

  Her solidity, her honesty, the way she’s holding on to both Jack and me like we’re the reminders of why she’s still fighting, pushes my own guilt further away. I squeeze her fingers. “I know. I wish there were another way, too, but for the record? I would have done the same thing if it was only you.”

  Our eyes meet, hers wet now. My throat on fire.

  “You’ve always been there for me, Millie. We’re family. You and Jack are all I have left.”

  “I haven’t always been there for you, though. I don’t deserve this.” She chokes on the words, as though she’s trying to hold them back until the last second.

  I sit up, my full attention on Amelia. She’s breaking down, one piece at a time. Tears gather in her eyes, trembling on her lower lashes until there are too many to hold. The pain in her bright eyes hurts me, like a thousand punches to every inch of sensitive skin. What’s worse, she shrinks away as I scoot closer, desperate to understand.

  “What are you talking about? You don’t deserve what? Your life? A baby?”

  She shakes her head, refusing to look at me. “You, idiot. After what happened with Jake, I don’t deserve you.”

  “Millie, you’re being ridiculous. If that therapist hasn’t gotten it through your head yet that nothing that happened with Jake was your fault, maybe he is a quack.”

  “Oh, Grace. It’s not that.” She’s sobbing now, sucking in gasps of breath, her lip quivering, words spitting out in fits and starts that get harder and harder to make out. “How could you forgive me? How could I even ask?”

  I move closer again, and this time she can’t escape. Her back presses against the far arm of the couch as my hands land on her knees, holding on tight. As hard as I try to make her, she won’t look at me, and fear lances me open. “Forgive you for what?”

  She looks at me now. Shaking. Looking like she wants to die. “For not believing you,” she whispers. “That night. For choosing a guy over our lives together, for disregarding all that trust. We grew up together, we had the best relationship, and I…I just went and threw it all away like it was nothing.”

  It’s like the confession, one I had no clue had been weighing on her all these months—maybe longer—has sucked every last bit of energy from her body. She slumps forward, curling into the back of the couch as though she wishes it would eat her alive. My mouth refuses to move, waiting for information from my stunned brain.

  “Amelia Anne Cooper, are you serious right now?”

  She nods, misery sloughing out of her with every breath. “I’m so sorry, Grace. I knew. I knew you were telling the truth, but I didn’t want to believe it. I thought if you went away then everything would be okay again, even though it was never okay to start with. I’m so stupid.”

  “You are not stupid. It’s called a learning experience, and I’ve handled a few of them pretty badly myself.” I reach out and grab her shoulder, forcing her to face me. I’m desperate to fix this. I would have done it sooner had I known. “There’s nothing to forgive, Mill. I was heartbroken for you. Scared out of my mind for you, worried that no one else would be able to see and help you after you pushed me away. But I wasn’t mad.”

  “How?” she whispers. “How can you not hate me?”

  “We’re family. I love you. You love me. Even if we were separated for the next fifty years for one reason or another, I would run all night to be there if you needed me in the morning. You have to know that.”

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  “And I don’t deserve you. No one deserves love, Millie. Some of us are lucky enough to have it in our lives, anyway, so I choose to be thankful. Even if we dent it a little.”

  “I don’t want us to be dented.” More tears, more misery, but the slightest bit of light brightens her face. “I’m going to have enough skin dimples after this baby.”

  A joke. I smile through the pain in my chest. “They’re our dents, though. They just mean our mettle has been tested, and it’s strong. We’re going to get through this, too.”

  I watch her. She watches me. Between us, an invisible weight lifts up and away, as though it’s being carried off by a couple of my ghosts. Even though I can’t see or hear them and never have, it’s not hard to imagine my grandparents up there, more than thrilled to see this moment come and go.

  “I love you, Grace. Thank you for being willing to give up a man who could make you happy forever because of me.”

  “It’s not because of you. It’s because of Anne Bonny and Calico Jack Rackham, or maybe her father or her version of Jake Middleton, but not because of you. You did nothing to end up here.” I launch myself at her and snatch her in a hug, squeezing her as tightly as possible with the baby kicking between us. “I love you, too.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I’m not sure whether it’s the exhaustion from the entirety of my evening, the fact that it feels wonderful to lie next to my cousin and talk—really talk—for the first time in years, or that pretending even for one more night that this whole cursing the Draytons thing might not ruin my life after all is pretty damn appealing, but I don’t get around to pulling up family trees until the next morning.

  It’s Sunday, so the library is closed. We made some omelets and grit cakes for breakfast and ate out on the deck, but now we’re both staring at my laptop as though it’s somehow betrayed us on its own.

  The Drayton family trees are on the Drayton website, same with Magnolia. Dr. Charles Drayton married Sarah Martha Parker—the woman who raised Mama Lottie when she was just Carlotta. They had two boys, one of whom inherited the property. Charles Henry Drayton married a woman named Eliza, and they had four children, three girls and one boy. Three survived into adulthood, one never married.

  That left two. Charles Drayton the IV was Sarah Martha Parker’s grandson…and Beau’s great-grandfather. Seeing the verification there in black and white sinks my stomach into my toes but really, it’s not unexpected to learn that my boyfriend is a direct descendent of the woman in question. The woman who, for reasons still murky and undefined, lies at the center of Mama Lottie’s wrath.

  At least getting his DNA shouldn’t be hard, I think with a half-numb heart. There are probably Beau hairs scattered all over my pillows since I’ve been meaning to wash those sheets for…several days, now.

  I blow out a breath, and blink back the tears. Forward is the only way we can ever march, and the choice was made last night. There’s no taking it back now.

  Instead of melting down further, because that’s taken up too much of my time lately, I keep digging until I’ve got a list of living Drayton descendants from that line. I’m grateful Mama Lottie doesn’t want me running all over hell’s half acre turning up every last one of them because that would be a full-time job. She doesn’t seem as though she’d be willing to pay a fair
wage or give me health benefits, either, unless breaking curses counts as compensation.

  “What are you thinking about?” Amelia asks, plopping a sandwich down on the table. “You look like you can’t decide whether to laugh or cry.”

  I look up, slightly confused by where the food came from and also why the sun is so high in the sky. The sweat sticking my tank top to my stomach and my hair to my forehead suggests that more than a few hours have passed since breakfast.

  I squint up at her, trying to ground myself. “Oh, the usual. Just wishing the ghosts of the world would pay better. Retirement would be nice.”

  She shakes her head, settling in one of the other patio chairs. “You know, it really is better to lie sometimes when people ask you questions.”

  “It’s just you.” I shrug, peeking into the aluminum foil to find turkey and avocado. “Thanks.”

  “You didn’t even notice when I left.” She frowns, picking mealy pink tomatoes off her hot ham and cheese. “I’m guessing your luck isn’t magically turning around.”

  “If anything, I’m starting to think my luck might be magically bad.” I sigh, picking up half my lunch, which I hadn’t heard her leave to pick up. “Sarah is Beau’s great-great-great-great-great grandmother. So that takes care of that direct line.”

  “I’m sorry, Grace.” Sadness wriggles into the lines around her eyes, cutting deep. “How many others do you have to track down?”

  I check my notes, glad to have this to focus on instead. “Not as many as there could be, that’s for sure. She has four other very-great grandchildren and at least a few of them live nearby. The one, I might have to drive up to Wilmington to meet.”

  “Virginia?”

  “North Carolina.”

  “Oh.”

  We chew in silence, on our food and the problem at hand. Finding addresses for at least one descendant per line isn’t hard, as I’ve proven this morning. Figuring out how to wiggle into their houses and collect DNA might be a little tougher.