I’d been driving for six hours on what should’ve been a four-hour trip. Thanks to a disastrous accident on I-65, I was late for Avery’s wedding. I knew I wouldn’t see her off or have the opportunity to offer my best wishes in person, but she wasn’t the real reason for my visit to Sugar Hill.
No, this time, I was coming for Summer.
I hadn’t had a vision of her, not like the last time with Avery and that devilish spirit, but I had other experiences that let me know my friend was likely to be in danger.
It began yesterday, on the last day of post-production filming. I’d just gotten off the phone with Summer when I heard a voice whispering in my trailer. I happened to be alone that morning, and the voice I heard was definitely Summer’s. I checked my phone, thinking that I’d accidentally left the speaker on and Summer was still talking, but there was no one there. I powered down my phone and turned it back on to prove to myself that the call wasn’t still connected.
I wiped the last bit of makeup off and set the phone down to investigate. “Okay, if you’re here, I can hear you. Can you speak louder?”
I opened the vanity drawer and pulled out my audio recording device. My Haunted Plantation had many of them, but this one was my personal property. I clicked it on and made sure the volume was as high as I could get it.
“Hello? Can you speak into this little box?”
I heard whispering but couldn’t understand it.
I walked to the curtains and peeked outside. There were certainly people out and about, but there was no one near my trailer, and I couldn’t hear anything that was happening out there. The whispers in my trailer continued.
“I can hear you, but barely. It’s very difficult. I can’t make out what you’re saying. Can you use all your energy and say it louder?” I waited for a few seconds and then heard the voice again, louder now.
He has a knife!
I didn’t need to rewind the recorder to hear that since I’d heard it the first time, but I did just to double-check. I shivered as I heard the words loud and clear as if the other person was in the room with me. And the voice on the recording was definitely Summer’s. My mind raced with the possibilities. I walked up and down the trailer for a few more minutes, waving my device as I walked, but heard nothing else. There were one or two whispers but no words I could make out.
Obviously, I was experiencing some sort of transference phenomenon. Summer was sending me a message, and she might not even know it. Transference was like poltergeist activity, but it wasn’t exactly the same. Poltergeists typically manifested around teenagers, mostly girls, and Summer was well into her twenties. Like so many of the Dufresne clan, she liked to pretend that she was completely normal, but she had a gift so powerful it frightened me sometimes. And with Handsome gone now, there would be no one there to toss the salt, no one there to do battle with the spirits of Sugar Hill and Thorn Hill.
But Ambrose was defeated! How could she be in danger now?
I tapped my lip as I listened to the message again. He has a knife!
Nope, there was something else going on. I thought about calling Summer back, but what would I say? Hey, were you the disembodied voice I heard in my trailer just now? I shook my head and shoved the device in my pocket. Time to pack up and get on the road. It would be nice to live somewhere bigger than a twenty-foot space for a while. I would spend a few days at Sugar Hill and then head back home to see Mom and Dad. I was looking forward to the extended time off. Roger, my producer, wanted to have some post-production photos taken, but I’d have to beg off on that. They had plenty of shots of me investigating and telling the audience for about the hundredth time what an EMF detector did and how an audio recorder worked.
He has a knife!
Who could she be talking about? Who could be threatening Summer? I walked outside to find Roger and let him know I was leaving. He didn’t argue with me, but I could tell he wasn’t too happy. I kissed his cheek, and he grinned. “Fine, but don’t fuss at me if I use pictures that make you look fat.” That had been a running joke with us this past season, how Roger always complained that I was too thin. “You eat like a bird,” he frequently told me. The truth was, I was so preoccupied with the supernatural world that I sometimes forgot to eat. I had to remind myself that I wouldn’t be able to help anyone else if I didn’t take care of myself too.
I packed up my clothing and hummed a song I hadn’t heard in a long time.
I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through…
Suddenly sadness flooded my heart in a wretched combination of loss and grief. I shed more tears for Handsome. He was gone, but Miss Billie sang on, and now I heard her. I surely wasn’t the only one. Arnold Lee was probably hearing her too, and that comforted me.
“Yes, Handsome, I’m going back. I’ll be there soon,” I said to the empty trailer as I walked out.
“You can count on me.”
Chapter Four
Annalee Dufresne
The constant sound of footsteps outside my door woke me up. I’d fallen asleep reading at my desk earlier and had slept in my chair for a few hours before climbing into my comfortable bed. It was a book on magic, one of the few I could pilfer from Mineola’s stash of outlawed books. The local authorities looked down upon that sort of thing here in proper, Christian, Belle Fontaine, but the plantations, Sugar Hill included, were places full of hoodoo and voodoo practitioners who plied their trade amongst the slaves just like any doctor did in white society. People believed in healers and practitioners. I had also become a believer of sorts.
Tomorrow would be a memorable day. My brother was getting married, and he and his new wife would reside here at Sugar Hill. I was looking forward to this event for several reasons. Above all, it would be nice to have another woman in the house, someone besides Mineola, Ingrid, and Olive, who weren’t true companions. In fact, I mused, it could very well be one of my “keepers” pacing the floor outside my room. Mineola would do such a thing if she were mumbling one of her spells. Olive often took to worrying over the smallest thing, and Ingrid…well, perhaps it wouldn’t be Mother’s old companion since she could now barely walk.
There it was again! Solid footsteps. The floorboards always creaked outside my room whenever someone passed. Even a soft-footed person would create the telltale creaking.
Dominick? I slung the shawl off my lap and stood up. It would be nice to see my brother happy again. Between dealing with his left-hand wife and dealing with me, he’d become a solitary, sad person.
He told me one day that Livy had lost her reason. She’d taken to showing up unannounced wherever he might be and threatened to sell their daughter if he didn’t make Livy the lady of Sugar Hill. This behavior shocked us both, but it didn’t stop my brother from falling in love with Ophelia Delchamps, the orphan daughter of Sterling and Brandy Delchamps. I had no idea how they met, but he’d proposed, and she’d accepted. Unlike Chase Dufresne, who never legally divorced Mother, Dominick was determined to officially part ways with Livy. Just this week, he’d had the attorney deliver the bad news to her. I couldn’t counsel him in this matter, I told him. I had no husband and no children, and I planned on keeping it that way.
The sounds had stopped. Maybe I was hearing things. Go back to sleep, I told myself, but it wasn’t to be. Distinct footsteps echoed down the hall again. Just when I thought they were gone for good, they returned, and the pacing continued. The sound was disturbing and yet strangely familiar. I opened my bedroom door, and my feet felt cold on the bare floor between my door and the hallway.
“Who’s there?” I whispered into the darkness. No one answered, but the curtains at the end of the hall fluttered. Every hair on my arms stood up, and my mouth felt dry. I stood still as my eyes attempted to adjust to the dark hallway. The only light was a patch of moonlight streaming in through the farthest window. It was dark but not so dark that I couldn’t see the out
line of a figure. Yes! A woman was standing in the corner, her bare feet poking out, the edges of her gown fluttering with the curtain.
“I can see you there. Step out now. Olive, why are you hiding?” As if someone had poured ice water down my back, I gasped as the curtain moved without the help of human hands to reveal the face and figure of my deceased mother. As if powered by the very moonlight that revealed her, she glowed slightly like a faraway star, the kind of celestial body that I so admired.
“Mother? Is that you?”
Mother’s hair was unbound and hung over her shoulders as if she were a young girl and not the woman who had died here almost two years ago. Her face was pale, her distinctive purple eyes wide, her mouth moving in whispers I could not understand.
As I took a few anxious steps toward her, my soul cried out, Stop! Stop now! I saw her more clearly. It was as if the light that emanated from within her grew brighter as I studied her. She took on more definition, and I could see she was wringing her delicate hands—and they were covered in blood. Mother sobbed, and the whispering continued. Desperately she whispered, and I heard none of it. What was it? A confession? A cry for help? She walked one step, two steps toward me. She held up her hands so I could see the blood upon them.
“Mother?” I cried out. Torn between running away and running to her, I did nothing. This bloodied ghost with her terrified expression frightened me to my core.
But wait. Was this my mother, or simply some apparition sent to torment me? Perhaps a haint summoned by Mineola’s constant hoodoo magic or a trick of the light, triggered by some fever or ailment? Or a frightening incarnation created by Ambrose?
And as if he heard his name pass through my mind, he suddenly appeared in the doorway closest to me, his expression severe, his mouth a tight grimace. He was angry; oh, was he angry! And then my mother saw him. She cried to me, Annalee, run! Ambrose’s head turned so slowly toward her that I could imagine for a second that he hadn’t moved at all. He was like an evil statue, his focus shifting from me to Mother. Her bloodied hands fell to her sides, and she whispered something before fleeing to her beloved Mirror Room.
My hand stretched out to her, and I called, “Mother!” It was then that I noticed my bloody hands. The blood was thick and sticky. I cried out in horror and called for my mother, but she did not return to me. I could hear her weeping in the Mirror Room, her favorite place in life, and now also in death. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but Ambrose’s watch continued. His dark eyes were fixed on me, his head bent slightly, his warning looks unmistakable.
Do not go to her, or it shall be worse for you.
He faded back into the darkened shadows of the empty guest room, and Mother’s crying ceased. The curtain at the end of the hall stopped fluttering, all the light seeped out of the space as if someone had snuffed out a candle, and I stood alone in the inky darkness with my bloody hands.
But he was near me, oh yes, he was very near. And he liked the blood.
I retreated to my room and ran to my water stand. Thrusting my hands into the cold water, I used the linen rag to wash off the blood as best I could. It seemed an endless struggle, but my hands were finally clean, or so I hoped. I dared not light a candle to examine them. I ran to my bed and prayed that he would not come to me. Touching one of Mineola’s dreamcatchers as if it were magic, magic that would rub off on me, I whispered another prayer of deliverance. For two years, I’d slept without disturbance here in my sanctuary. Thanks to Mineola’s dreamcatchers, I’d had some respite from his nightly visits, but I constantly feared that one night, the magic would fail. Why had I ever agreed to his covenant?
To this day, I wondered at my foolishness. During those dark times, I couldn’t appreciate or understand the meaning of my pledge, but now I knew it was my ruin. I felt so ashamed of my hasty words, of making love with him in the boat. I felt shame for my whispered promises. So ashamed that I hadn’t even confessed them to Mineola. I prayed no one ever found out. To make a pact with such an evil spirit would send me to the deepest hell; I was sure of it. And now Mother had been here with blood on her hands—we both had blood on our hands—and there was meaning to her visit. She’d never come to me before. There was something amiss, something she wanted me to know.
As the first pink light of morning began to stretch across the horizon, my heavy eyes closed. I dreamed of bloody hands reaching for me as I traveled down a long dark hallway. Running through the ever-narrowing passageway, my eyes searched for any sliver of light, something to indicate that I was nearing a door or a window.
There was no end in sight.
Chapter Five
Summer Dufresne
This morning I perched in a window seat in my bedroom and watched the rain slide down the glass. Usually, by this time, I was completely ready for my day and had a huge cup of black coffee in my hands, but not this morning. I wasn’t in a hurry to spend all day in my office fielding phone calls from needy Dufresnes and conducting family business.
It was quiet in the house today, and the silence was welcome. Sitting quietly with my head against the glass, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the coolness. I could smell the rain through the closed window, and I longed to take a walk in it like I used to when I was a child. Back then, my biggest goal in life was to see how drenched I could get. Aunt Anne had always found that amusing. How had the two of us lost our way? I miss you, Aunt Anne. I couldn’t go back in time, though. I couldn’t turn away from my responsibilities, but this moment was just for me.
Despite my silent pledge to think of nothing, to worry about nothing, my mind revisited my encounter with Pepper and the strange activity I’d witnessed at Jamie’s grave yesterday. Could she be right? Was he not the man I thought he was? I had no doubt she was telling the truth, but how would she know all that? I sighed. Everyone in this family seemed to have some kind of psychic gift. Yes, we were a strange bunch. At least the Lovely Man couldn’t molest the women of the family anymore. If nothing else, his attachment to us was proof that one wrong decision could change everything, even for the generations that followed. But not anymore, if Avery and I and those that came after us could make the right decisions.
Yeah, no pressure there.
I opened my eyes and stared down at the bare gardens. In a few months, when winter passed, the place would explode with riotous color, and maybe I’d take my office outside a few days a week, at least until it became unbearably hot.
But all my dreamy thoughts disappeared in a moment.
I saw a man in the garden! He was tall, wearing a white shirt, a light brown vest, and light brown pants, and he ran from the garden as if he was being chased by the devil himself. I could hear nothing, but suddenly he turned around and began to yell at someone. Riveted to the scene, I was chilled to the bone as if I were standing in a deep freeze. I couldn’t see the other person since the dense evergreen hedge blocked my view, but I waited to see if he would step out of his hiding place. The man I saw, the one with the light brown hair and vest, struggled with his enemy at the entrance of the garden.
Then I saw the second man. I recognized him from the statue at Thorn Hill. These men were none other than Champion and Dominick Dufresne! Champion was dressed in the same fashion as Dominick, with long boots and fitted clothing. It was as if they’d stepped right out of their portraits and I could see them! I rose from the window seat, but I didn’t know what to do. They wrestled, and I saw a glint of silver at Champion’s hip. That was a knife! “Oh, God!” I said aloud. Was I about to witness a murder? Had Champion murdered Dominick here at Sugar Hill? I tapped on the window and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. They couldn’t see or hear me. I bolted out the door of my bedroom, still in my pink nightgown, and scrambled down the stairs. I heard voices in the kitchen, but I didn’t stop to speak to anyone. I ran through the side door and down the slick patio steps into the wet gardens.
To my surprise, they were still there, still struggling. “Stop it!” I screamed at them. “You’ll k
ill him!” For a second, I thought maybe Champion would do the deed because his knife was poised and ready to strike. “No!” I screamed again. The man flinched and twisted around to look at me, but it was as if I were invisible. He heard me but didn’t see me. “Stop now!” I shouted at him. “Please!” He looked right past me, even while the man below him struggled and released himself from the pinned position.
“Champion! Get off me at once!”
Looking dazed, the dark-haired man complied and let his knife fall to the grass while he got up, staring toward me but not at me. “Did you see her?”
“I saw no one, and you keep away from my sister!” The man with the light-brown hair was crying now. “You keep away from her, or I will kill you, Champion!”
Yes, this was Champion and Dominick. I knew it!
Champion appeared to shake himself out of the spell he’d been under. “What makes you think you’ll do better at our next encounter, brother? You always were the weaker of us two.”
Dominick was still crying, but I watched his expression darken. “You raped our sister. You can call me whatever names you like, you bastard! I swear to you, if you ever step foot in Sugar Hill again, you’ll pay for it. Now get out.”
The Hauntings Of Sugar Hill: The Complete Series Page 51