And yet, he was also the Alex from my dreams. The one who’d looked at Armantine and treated her as an equal when no one else had. The one who’d wrapped her in his arms and calmed her when she discovered the broken body of her friend. No matter how many questions I still had as I stood there in the dark with him, the coldness that had settled in my chest from the dream was easing.
“I dream about you sometimes … and about a girl named Armantine.”
When I said her name, pain flashed across his face before he could turn away. His reaction told me everything I needed to know.
“She’s real, then,” I said. It was no longer a question.
He nodded.
“And you knew her,” I insisted, but he only turned away from me and stared out into the darkness beyond. The unease grew in the hollow pit of my stomach. “She meant something to you.”
At first I thought he wouldn’t talk, but then his voice floated across the thick air of the night, barely a whisper. “She meant everything,” he said softly after I’d been silent for a while.
“What happened to her?”
“She is gone.”
“But you’re not,” I said, stepping closer to him. “You’re here.”
He nodded.
“But why are you still here?”
“I am not sure, but I think the answer is out there,” he said, gesturing toward the darkness beyond us. “In the witch’s house. I think something about that place is keeping me tied to this world, to this place.”
“What do you mean, ‘this place’? Like, the plantation?”
He was looking at me, but I knew he wasn’t really seeing me. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to invent an answer or trying figure it out himself. I saw in him, then, a fragility I hadn’t noticed before, but that had probably always been there, just below the surface.
“Here. On this land.” He gestured around me. “I can only go a short distance away from the witch’s house before something calls me back there. The pond is about the farthest I can go comfortably. Being here, near the house, is … difficult. And going beyond the gate—impossible.”
“And you think something in that cabin is causing it?” I thought for a moment about the Voodoo doll my dad had found, but dismissed it as a possibility. It wasn’t in the house anymore, anyway—they’d secured it at the university right after Mama Legba had talked about burning it. In fact, it was probably one of the things Piers would be taking up to Nashville.
Alex nodded. He looked utterly lost.
“Will you tell me about her—Armantine?”
“Hers is not my story to tell,” he said softly.
Of course it wasn’t. Tired, done with the whole evening, I stood to leave.
“Please,” he said. “Do not be angry. I would tell you if I could.”
“That’s not good enough.” I set my shoulders and took a step toward him. He didn’t retreat. “I want the truth. I need the truth.”
“Are you sure, ma chère ? Now, your world is safe and whole. If I answer your questions, if I give you the truth—whatever that is—who knows how many of your illusions might shatter. Once that happens, you will not be able to put them back together. Once that happens, there is no going back.”
But my illusions were already shattered, my world already tilted wickedly on an unfamiliar axis. I had no delusions it was ever going back. I was ready to go forward. “The truth, Alex.”
“Will you help me, then? I need to free myself from this place. I need to know what is keeping me here.”
I nodded. “But I’m not going out to that cabin tonight. Tomorrow. When it’s light out.”
Alex considered me for a moment, the indecision clear on his face, before nodding tensely as though accepting my terms. Tentatively, he reached out his hand, gesturing for me to take it. “Then find out for yourself, ma chère.”
I hesitated for a moment and then took another step forward. And grasped air.
Twenty-Two
The moment my hand touched the warm air where his hand should have been, I was tossed back, suddenly, into Armantine’s world. The room I was in had large windows overlooking the river—her studio, I realized when I saw the art supplies and half-finished paintings propped up around the edge of the floor.
It was some time after that day by the pond—I recognized the sketches she’d spread on her worktable as being the same as the ones she’d done that day. She hadn’t started the painting yet, though.
And there, sitting in front of a small, blank canvas without moving, was the girl—Armantine. He knew she could sense him, yet she refused to turn.
“Are you done thinking yet, mon coeur?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she told him, turning finally to look at him.
He thought he’d remembered what it felt like to be near her, the way the blood thrummed in his veins and his heart reeled when she was close. But those memories were nothing compared to the reality of being there in her presence. The whole room smelled like her—the soft, floral scent cut through with the faint burn of the turpentine she used to clean her brushes.
I could feel the weariness in his bones, the sheer exhaustion borne by days of worrying about her. She seemed to sense it too.
“You’ve not been sleeping?” she asked, her dark eyes narrowing in concern.
He walked over and traced over the shadows under her eyes. Her skin was so soft, it reminded him of a petal. “I could ask the same of you. Did you think I would be able to go on as though nothing had happened?”
When she began to turn away from him, he took her chin gently in his hand and refused to let her hide. “That is what you thought of me, yes?” The understanding was molten lead in his stomach. He searched her face for some clue. “What cause have I given you to doubt me?”
“You’ve done nothing.” But she stepped back just the same.
“Then help me understand.” His voice was soft, an urgent plea. He stepped closer and took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed the underside of her wrist. “Explain it to me, Armantine.”
She pulled away instead. She walked to the window and studied the street below, closing him out. “You talk of love, but your love would ruin me.”
He straightened. “How could making you my wife ruin you?”
“Your wife?” She laughed then. A dry, hollow sound that held no joy. “Haven’t you realized what I am?”
He had, of course. It simply had not mattered.
“I’m not a Creole,” she confirmed. “I’m not even one of the poor Americans who come trailing into our city like fleas on a dog. I’m a freewoman, true, and my skin may look no different than yours, but my blood binds me nonetheless.” She took a breath. “My mother might have been a freewoman, but her mother was not. Do you not understand? That means something in these parts.”
“It makes not a bit of difference to what is between us.” He stepped closer. “You must know that. You must feel even a little of what I feel?”
She wouldn’t answer him.
“Armantine,” he whispered. He was losing her.
“Please—” she said, but he did not understand what she was asking for.
“I cannot simply forget about you. I cannot let you go.”
“And I will not be kept,” she said softly, defeated. “I know other girls are. I know we could come to some agreement that would assure my future. Then, when you tire of me, I would be assured a settlement. A home, perhaps. Money for any children that might result.”
The mention of children shocked him. “And you think so little of me that you believe I would agree to this? That I would willingly give you up. Give our children up?”
“It is what is done. Men do not grow old with their mistresses. This is what women in my position are faced with. What I am faced with. These agreements,” she spat. The anger and frustration she’d felt her entire life bubbled up. “They are the one thing I’ve refused to contemplate for myself. No matter that they’ve been offered. Many times. By me
n far richer and more important than you. But for you … ” Her voice softened. “For you, I would consider it. Don’t ask it of me. Please, I beg you.”
He stared at her, shocked, and then, unable to hold back any longer, he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close, pressing his lips into the softness of her hair. She struggled against him, but only for a moment before collapsing into his arms.
“This is not at all as I planned for today to go, my love,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, in a voice so small, so broken, that he had a sudden urge to destroy the person who’d made her feel as she did. And then he realized—he was the one who’d done this to her.
“It is I who should apologize. I did not fully understand the situation you feel you are in until now.”
“It’s imposs—”
“I’m leaving,” he said at the same time.
“Leaving?” She pulled away from him and he allowed her to go. “When?”
“In a week, a ship sails to France. I plan to be on it.”
“So soon?” she murmured.
“I cannot stay here any longer. I cannot be a party to what my sister has become.” He touched her cheek softly. “I had hoped you would come with me.”
“With you?”
“Of course.” He forced himself to smile, but it felt brittle even to him. “Did you think I would leave without you?”
She nodded, mute in shock.
“I had hoped we could be married before the sailing.”
“It’s impossible, Alex. The laws forbid it. There is no way for me to marry you—”
“You may be used to these odd … agreements,” he said, cutting her off, “but I do not find them to my liking. We can be married once we are at sea, if you like. If you would rather, we could wait until we arrive in France.” He did not want to wait until France.
“You would truly marry me?” she asked, the wonder and confusion stark in her voice.
“You make it sound as though I want to give you a horrible disease.” He took her hands in his. How had he gone so long without understanding what she feared?
“I thought … ”
“Yes, well,” he said dryly. “I am beginning to get an idea of your thoughts. If I had realized before now … Suffice it to say I would have made myself clearer.” He squeezed her hands gently, feeling how small, how delicate they were in his. Knowing how capable those hands were. “Come with me, Armantine. I could not bear to lose you. In France we could be together. Think of it—a life with me. We could go to Paris—a city filled with the art you love, a life we could build together. And no one need know anything about you—about us—but that I adore my wife.” He could see it, truly. The vision was there, so brilliant and perfectly within reach.
But she pulled away once more. “I need time. I need to think. You’re asking me to leave everything I love—everything that I am.”
“Not everything, love. Your uncle would always be welcome in our home. But I am offering you everything I have. Everything I am.” He kissed her wrist again, then the sensitive spot in the palm of her hand. “We could have a good life in France. I will find a way to make us a life.”
“But your family—what will they think?”
He tilted her chin up so she was forced to look at him and placed the lightest of kisses upon her lips. She felt a jolt run through her. “My mother and father will adjust themselves to my choice. I’m no farmer, love. I never was. And they will welcome you. How could they not love you as I do?” And if they did not, it would not matter.
“It’s so much, Alex.”
“I wish I could give you more time, mon coeur, but I cannot stay here any longer. I have to return to the life I left behind in France. One that I want to share with you, if you’ll let me?”
She didn’t respond. Couldn’t yet find the words.
He smiled through his disappointment. “Here, I brought you a gift.” He pulled a small velvet pouch out of his pocket. “This was my grandmother’s. My family has a long tradition. She said I was to give this to my other half when I found her.” He paused, searching for the right words. “I’ve found her,” he said finally.
Armantine’s face softened, just a little, and he felt victory course through him.
He pulled a delicate chain with a small silver locket from the pouch. How many times had his grandmother shown it to him when he was a boy? How many times had he imagined this day? “This is my gift to you, whatever you decide to do. It is an old custom, but I have already put a lock of my hair in it for you. A piece of me for you to keep. We are two halves of a whole, Armantine. Nothing can change that.”
“I can’t,” she started to say, but he was already fastening the delicate chain around her neck.
“You will. You shall accept this from me, and if you decide not to accept me, you will keep it as a remembrance of someone who will love you always.”
Armantine’s hand closed over the locket, and she lifted it up to examine it. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“Honor me by wearing it by my side?”
“I need—”
“Time,” he finished for her. “I sail in a week. There is much I need to arrange before then, so you shall have your time. In six days, I will come for your answer.”
She nodded, unable—or unwilling—to find the words.
“But know this—if you do not have an answer for me in six days, it will not matter. I would gladly wait six more lifetimes for you.” He cupped her face gently and kissed her.
His other kisses had been meant as questions, but this one was a promise. Gentle at first, it deepened as his hands framed her face and tangled in her hair. They fit together perfectly—his tall, lean form and her small, soft one—and he knew that whatever happened, he was hers completely.
He forced himself to pull back. “Remember that, love, as you think long into the night.” He was breathing heavily, and his hands shook a bit. “You are mine, Armantine. Nothing will ever change that for me. Nothing.”
He leaned in again, and just before his lips met hers, I awoke. It was still dark, and I found myself on the ground near the bench in the garden.
I didn’t completely understand what had just happened. I’d asked Alex for the truth, yes. And he’d certainly given me something. I’d been in his skin, seen what he’d felt … or, at least, I’d seen what he’d wanted me to.
I did understand one thing, though. If what Alex showed me was true, he’d meant everything he said to Armantine. And if what he showed me was true, he’d had no idea what he was really asking her to do—to give up who she was, to leave the only home she’d ever known. To risk getting on a boat with him with no guarantee that he’d marry her as promised.
No wonder she’d hesitated. No wonder he hadn’t understood.
Twenty-Three
I didn’t sleep much that night, and once the sun was finally high enough to light the entire sky, I set out to find my ghost.
It was just my luck it had started to rain by then. I walked quickly past the pond and into the second copse of trees, thankful that their thick canopy gave me a short break from the downpour. When I reached the far edge of the trees, I didn’t give myself time to rethink my decision, just darted out into the pelting rain and hurried across the narrow field to the grove surrounding Thisbe’s cabin. In the gray haze, the worn façade of the decrepit house seemed even more faded. The coppery plink of raindrops hitting the metal roof beat out a strangely comforting rhythm.
Alex was waiting for me on the porch.
“I was afraid you would not come.” He looked unsure, nervous.
“I wasn’t sure I would.” I shrugged, hugging my wet jacket closer to me. “But I promised to help you. So here I am.”
He looked at me a moment, as though weighing my words. “I am glad.”
I wasn’t sure I felt the same. Seeing the past through his eyes had certainly made me feel closer to him, but I wasn’t sure I could trust those feelings any more than I
could trust Armantine’s.
“We should go in and get you out of this weather,” he said when I didn’t respond.
I looked uneasily at the faded door in front of me. “Have you ever been in there?” I asked.
“Once. Long ago.” His jaw was set in a hard line, his brows drawn together in concentration. “Until recently, something had been keeping me out. I could go up to the steps, but no farther.”
Probably the red dust Piers had wiped away, I thought. “Well, I borrowed the key. We need to make this fast so I can get it back before my dad realizes it’s gone.” The door had been padlocked shut, in an attempt to keep locals from disturbing the work the restoration crew would be doing on the interior. I put the key into the heavy lock and popped it open.
It took Alex a little longer before he finally stepped over the threshold.
With the shutters closed and locked, the interior was too dim to see clearly, so I pulled out the flashlight I’d brought. Nothing looked any different, but the rain had intensified the overall musty smell of the place.
“Well?” I waited for his direction.
“This way,” Alex said, motioning toward the back room where my dad had found the crumbling coat and the box with the primitive doll.
We made our way carefully through the dark hallway, stepping over the debris that had not yet been cleaned up. The room looked the same, but someone had cleared the bricks from the collapsed fireplace. They were piled in a neat stack nearby.
When I looked over, Alex was staring at the low pallet in the corner. “Alex?” I had to call his name a few times before I got his attention. “Do you know where we should start looking?
“I remember this,” he said, but I didn’t think he was talking to me. Then he shook his head, like he was clearing his thoughts, and studied the room. “There, I think.” He gestured toward the fireplace.
I bent down to look, but the hearth was empty. “I don’t see anything.”
“No,” he said as I started to stand. “It is there. I feel it. Please, you will look again?”
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