Return To Me

by LAYLE Madison

  After several minutes, he murmured, “Dominique?”

  No answer.

  Just great. She’d gone poof again, and he had no way of knowing whether she’d pop up here or back at Beau Vista.

  He continued to scan the articles, waiting for the temperature to drop and signal her return, and then he discovered what he was looking for. Well, almost. He’d wanted to find a picture of Thomas, thinking it might help Dominique realize he and her deceased lover were not one and the same. Maybe then he could convince her that it was time to let go.

  Instead, he’d found an article on Thomas’ murder. As he read, he began to mutter the words aloud.

  “According to a key witness and family member, the tragic events that led to the death of Thomas St. Maurice occurred on the porch at the top of the expansive staircase, which has long been considered the symbol of elegance and prosperity for the owners of Beau Vista.

  “Margaret St. Maurice, the grief-stricken mother of the deceased, told authorities she saw one of their female house slaves become so distraught over Thomas’ decision to sell her that she threatened him with a dueling pistol procured from her master’s study.

  “‘I tried to stop her,’ Mrs. St. Maurice, amid heart-wrenching sobs and tears, told reporters later. ‘I swear to God, I tried, but... Oh, Lord, help me. My son was gone. What else could I do? She might’ve killed us all.’

  “The investigation into the death of that slave—a Creole woman identified as Dominique Savoie, whose neck was broken in the fall down the stairs—has been closed. No charges will be filed against Mrs. St. Maurice for her alleged part in the demise of the murderess.”

  Stunned, Travis stopped reading, but he didn’t have long to ponder the bombshell the article dropped in his lap.

  “Fils de putain!” The French curses were loud, sudden, and filled with feminine fury.

  His gaze shot around the room to determine if anyone could hear her. No one even looked up...until the wind started to blow.

  “I’d like to show that putain who’s a murderess. If she weren’t dead already, I would kill her.”

  The large windows along one wall shot open as gusts of frigid air whipped around the high-ceilinged interior. Pages flapped, pens and pencils rolled off tables, and unbound papers took flight, sending university students scampering after them.

  Startled gasps and squeals mingled with the roar of the wind and the heavily accented rantings of a pissed-off ghost.

  “Dominique?”

  A rolling cart crashed into a table. Several light bulbs blew.

  “Dominique, stop!”

  The librarian fought to keep her glasses on, her skirt down, and stacks of checked-in literature from toppling.

  Travis left the projector, the rolls of microfilm, and his scattered notes behind as he backed toward the front door. “Damn it, Dominique... I’m leaving.”

  He hadn’t so much as turned on his heel before the wind stopped as abruptly as it began. Behind him, he heard a united sigh of relief and murmurs of astonished confusion as those in the library tried to recover from the freak windstorm. He kept his back straight, eyes forward, and walked out of the building without looking back.

  * * * * *

  Travis hadn’t spoken a word to her all the way back to Beau Vista, and she didn’t care, since she’d remained silent as well and was still seething over that article. If he hadn’t read it aloud, she might never have known the depths to which her former owner had sunk. All to hide the truth of what happened that terrible day so long ago.

  The car slid to a stop in the gravel drive, and he got out. She floated out of the car and followed him as he took the stairs two at a time. He slammed the front door before she’d reached the doorway so, with a heavy sigh, she passed right through the wood.

  “Dominique!”

  “I’m right here, cher.”

  He spun around to face in her general direction.

  “You want to tell me...calmly...what in the hell all of that was about?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Fine. Look, I can’t help you if you don’t help me.” He paused, squinted, and then glanced around. “Would you show yourself? I feel like I’m talking to myself.”

  She materialized but, with the orange glow of the evening sun streaming through the windows, her visible form was faint at best. She moved to hover in the shadows.

  He raked fingers through his brown hair and stared at her. “You’re obviously upset that I found out what you did to Thomas.”

  “What I...” Her heart wrenched. An electrical sting burned her eyes that were incapable of crying.

  “Many spirits remain earthbound after death in hopes of righting a wrong. I’m not here to judge you. The time for that is past—”

  She zapped him.

  “Ow!” He rubbed his shoulder, a frown on his face, his brows furrowed. “What was that for? I said I wasn’t here to—”

  “I know what you said. I heard every word, just as I heard you read every lie that putain accused me of, and I’m going to tell you now that I didn’t... I would never harm Thomas. Never!”

  The air crackled as her anger boiled.

  Travis held up both hands, a placatory sign that failed miserably in pacifying her pique. “Okay. Convince me.... Why don’t you tell me what really happened?” He leaned against the banister and crossed his ankles.

  She shimmered into a seated position, though no real chair existed beneath her.

  “His mother killed him.”

  His face was devoid of emotion, although she still sensed doubt in him.

  “Thomas was not going to sell me. He loved me.”

  No reaction. No nod. Nothing.

  “I can prove it.”

  That got a raised brow.

  Without another word she floated to the steps, and then walked up them, making an effort at sound. As she expected, he pushed away from the banister and followed.

  She led him to a quaint attic room with a dormer window so dirty that little sunlight seeped through. He flicked a switch that had been added during another renovation she’d foiled sixty years earlier, and dim light flooded the area. Dust covered every inch of the place and its sparse contents.

  He stopped in the center, turned toward the window, and she pointed over his left shoulder. When he didn’t follow her direction, she said, “That wall behind you is not the original wall for this room. It hides a small space. Master William had it built to hide family valuables from the advancing Union troops. You’ll have to punch through it for me to show you.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  She put fists on hips and glared as best she could with her visibility muted by the room’s illumination. “No, I’m dead. Are you going to believe me or not?”

  His skeptical look remained as he studied the wall. Sarcasm laced his voice. “I can’t just tear up someone else’s house. How would I explain that? Sorry, the ghost told me to do it?”

  “Fine!” She slipped through the wall and, throwing all of her energy behind the move, blasted a large hole in it. Debris rained down around Travis, who held an arm up.

  “Son of a—” He sneezed, coughed, and waved a hand back and forth.

  “And now you can tell them the ghost did it.”

  When the dust settled, he scowled at her, but he moved to the hole. She thought of the portrait and decided to direct him to her letters first.

  “Reach inside on the floor. There are letters....”

  He got down on one knee, stuck his hand through the hole, and pulled out a stack of delicate stationery, yellowed with age. She knelt beside him.

  “Thomas’ love letters to me. I’d kept them hidden in my momma’s cabin, but when they started to build the wall, I brought them up here.” Along with the portrait she’d rescued from Thomas’ room before his mother had thought to destroy it.

  After her son’s death, after shoving Dominique down those front stairs, Margaret had played the grieving mother for a time. In truth, she h
adn’t meant the bullet for her son, so the sorrow was somewhat genuine. But the moment she was alone, she’d torn the plantation home apart in search of the canvas that she’d found that dreadful day, which led to the fatal confrontation on the porch. Dominique had known then that Margaret would destroy it, so she’d spirited it away until later, hiding it right under Margaret’s arrogant nose.

  She’d told herself it was because she wanted a way to look upon her beloved’s face, although his body and spirit were gone. Now, she suspected it was her way of remembering—preparing her for the day when a son of Margaret returned to Beau Vista.

  Travis sat on the floor and carefully opened one of the letters. She held her breath.

  “Um, Dominique. I can’t read French.”

  Disappointment escaped with the sound of a sigh. She pointed to the valediction. “See? ‘Je t’aime.’ That’s I love you. He always finished with that, and there’s his signature.”

  He shook his head. “But where’s your name?”

  Damn it. Thomas never used her name, choosing to write it to ma belle instead.

  “I told you I was his sweetheart. That’s what he called me. There... That’s what ma belle means. My sweetheart.”

  He looked away, and her heart sank. He had to believe her, and if that meant showing him the portrait, then so be it.

  Chapter Eight

  “These can’t be why she killed him,” he said, interrupting her thoughts, and holding up the letters. “He could’ve lied about the identity of his sweetheart.”

  Sorrow filled her spirit, and her own spectral light faded. Her voice was strong, however, when she replied, “Yes. Ours was a secret affair. Owners could fuck their slaves, beget bastards on them if they wished, but falling in love with one was the worst of crimes.”

  “His mother found out, though, didn’t she? That’s why she killed you both.” He spoke softly, a subtle encouragement to share her memories. A comforting sound.

  “Thomas’ death was an accident. She meant that bullet for me....”

  Her mind went back to that hot, awful day. “The first sign of trouble was the voices from upstairs. Loud and shrill. Angry. Rapid footsteps coming down the stairs.”

  She reached for Travis’ hand, needing his warmth, the feel of his touch that soothed her spirit.

  “He came out on the front porch where I was watering potted plants...saw me. The look on his face was a knife in my chest.” She could still see him in that moment, standing so tall and proud, his eyes so full of love...and pain. He couldn’t fight the world any more than he could deny his heart. One or the other had to give, and it tore at her soul to know she was the wedge that split him apart.

  “Mistress Mar—His mother was screeching about how he couldn’t disgrace the family and marry some Creole harlot. She’d see me dead first. He told her he’d take me away—leave. She could tell her society matrons any lie she wanted to save face. He didn’t give a damn.”

  Travis squeezed her hand, and she concentrated on making herself as solid as spiritually possible.

  “You don’t need to say anything more,” he told her, but she shook her head, although he probably didn’t see more than a faint flicker of light.

  “Let me finish. I’ve never spoken of it before, and I need to tell someone. I need to tell you.”

  After a long moment of silence, he nodded.

  “Thomas told me to come with him, and I dropped everything right then. He took hold of my hand.... And that’s when she came out the door with the pistol. The shot was so loud.” The memory made her shudder, her spectral form falter.

  Travis’ hand lost hers, his fingers passing through her. Worry crossed his chiseled features. “Dominique?”

  “I’m here, cher. I just... I have trouble focusing when I’m emotional.”

  He kept his face turned toward her, but she could tell his gaze focused on something behind her.

  She gathered herself, let the anger she’d felt toward Margaret motivate her to finish her recitation. When she spoke, her voice was sure and steady. “Thomas bled and died in my arms. His last words to me were, ‘Ça vaut la peine...t’aimer.’” She stopped again, finding it hard to look at Travis, hard to form the words necessary to translate. The pain of loss was as hard today as it was then.

  Travis waited.

  When she continued this time, her words were softer. “He said, ‘It’s worth the pain...to love you.’ But I would’ve taken that pain from him if I could’ve. I swear....”

  “I know you would’ve,” Travis whispered, and she found strength in his understanding.

  “His hand fell from my cheek, wet from my tears, and I lost myself. I screamed... started to rise. I wanted to kill her for taking him from me, though I knew she meant to kill me. She’d said so. She said I would never live another day as long as a son of hers couldn’t own Beau Vista. Cursed me that day, she did—killed me, too, when she caught me off-balance and shoved. I remember the world spinning, the sharp pain, and then everything was quiet.

  “I’m so sorry, Dominique. It was a much different world back then.”

  “I know.”

  “But you can’t change the past by remaining here. I thought I could find something at the library, a picture of him or a memento maybe, something that would help you cross over to the Other Side. I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”

  “A picture?” She shimmered into a faintly visible form so that he could look at her again instead of through her. “Seeing a picture won’t help me, ma cher. I’ve had one with me all along.”

  “You have?”

  “In the wall,” she said. “Reach to your left.”

  “What is that? Feels like...a painting?” He pulled the object out.

  She watched him closely as he unrolled the canvas. His eyes widened, lips parted with obvious surprise. Or was that utter disbelief?

  Travis stared at his own likeness captured in rich colors and brilliant detail. However, in the portrait, he wore clothes befitting a Southern gentleman of stature and was seated in a regal pose. Behind him, with her hand on his shoulder, stood none other than Dominique, a small, mysterious, and somewhat wary smile to her full lips.

  “Oh, my God,” he whispered before he could stop the words. “This...” He looked up, searching for the faint outline of her form floating not far away. “This is why you believe I’m your Thomas.”

  She shook her head slightly. “It’s something deeper. I feel Thomas in you, cher. I see his spirit in your eyes. I know he is part of you.”

  “You believe I am his reincarnation?”

  “No, not exactly.” She sighed, a telepathic sound since she had no lungs. She was inches from him, yet he felt no breath brush across his flesh. He saw no disturbance of the dust that was everywhere. Yet she still had so many human traits he’d never seen in any earthbound spirit before.

  “Explain it to me.”

  “I can’t. I just know. In my heart. I feel you like I’ve never felt any other man who has come into this house.”

  He frowned at the portrait. The likeness was uncanny, but there were some differences. The eye color was similar, but different—Thomas’ a darker green than his own hazel ones. And the man’s hairstyle was definitely out of date. But if Travis dressed for a Civil War reenactment, he could pass for the man on the canvas.

  Still, that didn’t make him the reincarnated Thomas St. Maurice. Travis didn’t believe in reincarnation. Not when he’d seen so many spirits languish earthbound instead of moving on to live again.

  Didn’t some philosopher say there was a twin somewhere in the world for everyone? He just happened to have been separated from his by more than a hundred and fifty years. Not to mention at least a thousand miles.

  “I look into your eyes,” she continued, “and I know you are the man…the one I’ve waited for. A son of Margaret—”

  “Waited for...” But if she’d waited for him, then how could he convince her that Thomas, the real Thomas, awaited her on t
he Other Side? “This portrait doesn’t prove...”

  “I know you think I’m an insane ghost who is just hanging around to cause problems, but I...”

  “You what?” he asked, even though he knew what she was going to say. And, God help him, he wanted to hear it.

  Her hand rose to cradle his cheek. The cool, electrical touch had him closing his eyes, savoring what contact he could have with her.