by Karen White
“Jonathan Crisler Watts,” Nola volunteered, reading over my shoulder. “It was in one of the newspaper articles we got from Yvonne at the Historical Society.”
“She’s young and still has all of her brain cells,” my mother said, indicating Nola. “Just be thankful she’s here and move on.”
With a brief glance at my mother, I turned back to the letter and began to read out loud.
“ ‘Darling, last night’s passion and the feel of your bare skin against mine, the touch of your golden hair under my fingers—’” I broke off, then continued to scan the rest of the letter, my cheeks heating at the mixture of Victorian romance and erotica.
“What does it say?” asked Nola, reaching for the letter that I’d shielded from her view after the first few words.
“More of the same,” I offered as explanation. I placed the letter back in the envelope, then picked up the next and opened it, the letter revealing yet another enraptured Jonathan waxing poetic about soft blond hair and making improbable rhymes with the words “desire” and “rapture.” I examined the rest of the letters and discovered them all to be pretty much the same.
I closed the box and took it back from my mother. “I don’t understand,” I said, turning to Dee. “Why would Julia want me to see these letters from her fiancé?”
“Because Miss Julia says she’s never seen them before. She’s old, but she’s still as sharp as a tack, with a good memory. She’d remember if she’d read them.”
“So would I,” I muttered. I thought for a moment. “But somebody read them, and somebody buried them. But who?”
“That poor dog,” my mother said. “Why would somebody hurt the dog?”
“Maybe he died by accident and they buried him here,” Nola suggested.
“I’d like to think so,” I said. “But I think there has to be some connection, since he’s haunting the dollhouse with the other family members. And the head on the dog figure had been damaged, too.”
General Lee whimpered in his sleep, and I bent down to scratch him behind his ear. Looking up, I said, “Nola, look at the house and point to the spot that corresponds to the place where you found the figure of William and the dog on the floor outside the dollhouse.”
She faced the house and walked to the side by the turret. The whole side yard seemed to pulsate with energy, a black cloud visible to only the lucky few, hugging the air surrounding the turret. I refused to look up, knowing what I would see.
Nola stopped about ten feet away from the turret and approximately five feet from where the hole gaped open. “About right here.”
My mother crossed her arms over her chest. “So let’s say William fell—or was pushed—from the turret window. If the dog were outside, he would have barked. Assuming William didn’t end up on the ground by his own devices, whoever was here with him would have wanted to silence the dog in the quickest way possible.”
I nodded, thinking hard, feeling the shifting of all the pieces as they tried to find their way into the correct slots of a puzzle with pieces that seemed to be not only two-sided, but had no edges. I opened my mouth to say something, then stopped, the image of the Manigault family portrait I’d seen printed in the newspaper flashing in my mind.
I turned back to Dee. “Where was the box of letters found?”
She pointed to a spot near where the dog’s bones had been found. I turned to my mother. “Isn’t that about the same general area where Jack said he keeps finding the Anne doll?”
She nodded. “Sounds about right. Maybe she’s the one who buried the letters.”
I shook my head. “None of this makes any sense.” Turning back to Dee, I said, “And you’re sure Julia said she’d never seen them before, and had no idea how they got buried in the yard?”
Dee nodded. “Right. But why would somebody hide letters to Julia from her own fiancé?”
I took a deep breath and raised my eyes to the turret as a certain knowledge settled on me as clear as the image of the hollow-eyed man watching us from the window. “Because those letters are from Jonathan. But they weren’t written to Julia.”
CHAPTER 28
I finished stowing the pick and hoe I’d borrowed from my father in the trunk of my car. I knew he would have come with us if I’d asked, but I also knew that despite his new open-mindedness, enough doubts existed that might work to drain the energy my mother and I might need. It would have been nice to have a few more muscles to help with the digging, but I wasn’t about to ask Jack, and my mother had had the good sense not to even suggest it.
“Where’s Nola?” I asked as I watched my mother walk toward me. She wore walking shorts and sneakers—something I’d never seen her wear, much less thought she owned—and I wondered whether she might be just trying to make me feel better about my own fashion choices. Or lack thereof, I thought, as I looked down at the mom jeans and loose Greenpeace T-shirt Sophie had given me. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Accepting clothes from Sophie, purchased from Goodwill, no less, had taken a major attitude adjustment. Not as major as I’d expected, though; I didn’t seem to have much attitude left.
“I drove her to Jack’s early this morning. It seems the two of them had an outing planned, so Nola couldn’t come with us.”
I’d slept until ten o’clock, something else I’d not done since infancy, and had apparently missed Nola’s announcement and departure.
“Oh. I guess I didn’t need the third shovel then.” My disappointment seemed way too keen to be about a shovel, but I didn’t want to examine my feelings too closely because then I’d start crying. My mother was already looking at me funny.
“It’s always good to have extras,” she said as she opened the passenger door and slid in.
We spent the next hour and a half on our drive to Georgetown fighting over the radio buttons—me hitting the seventies station trying to get an ABBA song and her angling for the classical station. It made me wish I’d never asked for the satellite radio upgrade. Eventually, I plugged my iPod into the stereo so that we were forced to listen to my playlist, which was comprised of a lot of ABBA and the rest eighties dance music. I made no apologies, realizing that it wouldn’t be enough for my classically trained opera-singing mother.
Highway 17 is a lonely stretch of highway that runs through Charleston and along the coast. We passed place-names familiar to me—Sullivan’s Island and McClellanville, both towns in which I’d spent summers and other vacations with my sorority sisters from college. While I’d been at the University of South Carolina, my father had continued to move around with the army, so for vacations and holidays I preferred to borrow a home and family wherever I could find them. Not that I would have chosen to visit with him anyway, having long since gotten over the need to be his caretaker.
As we approached the historic city of Georgetown, my mother unfolded a large and wrinkled AAA map circa 1989. “The turnoff should be coming up here on the right.”
“You know, I have a GPS. All you have to do is plug in the address. . . .”
“Those things are never right. Besides, I doubt any GPS could find it. It’s an abandoned homestead where nobody has lived for decades. That’s why Yvonne couldn’t give us a street address.”
“Mother, it uses a satellite. Anything that exists can be seen. . . .”
“There it is,” she said, almost chortling. “Nothing like good old-fashioned map reading to get you where you need to go.”
“Avoiding technology just means you’re getting old,” I said smugly as I turned onto an unpaved road, effectively silencing her.
Dust erupted under the tires, seeming to swallow up the road behind us. The car bumped over rocks and small limbs, making me wish I’d taken my dad up on his offer to borrow his truck. The old-growth pine forest loomed thickly over us, blocking out much of the sunlight and giving me the impression of being inside a cathedral. None of which did anything to soothe my nerves. With grave digging on the agenda, I hadn’t really expected anything would.
“What if somebody sees us?” my mother asked.
It had occurred to me to bring ski masks and something to hide my license plate, but I’d dismissed these ideas as being products of watching too many MacGyver reruns on late-night TV, my company during my recent bout of insomnia. Still, my being caught digging up a grave would look really bad when reported in the Charleston papers. Especially if they included a photo of me in my mom jeans.
“I don’t think we have anything to worry about,” I said. “Yvonne checked the records and verified that the house and property have been abandoned since the nineteen fifties, when Jonathan’s parents died. One of his brothers in north Georgia inherited it, but nobody’s lived here since then.”
“So we’re trespassing,” she said.
“Yes. But that would be the least of the charges if we’re caught.” I pressed down on the brake, stopping the car. “If you want to turn back, speak now.”
I followed her gaze out the back window of the car, to where all we could see was a swirling haze of orange-colored dust, and then to the sides of the narrow road with ditches leading down into the forest. She looked at me. “I think we’re beyond that now. Don’t you?”
I nodded, knowing she was right in more ways than one. I pressed my foot on the gas pedal, moving the car forward with the oddest feeling of being glad that there was no turning back.
The Victorian farmhouse, when we finally came upon it in a clearing, appeared to be waging its last stand against the encroachment of the forest. It was exactly how I had pictured it—with the peaked roof, large deep porch, and the straight lines of the porch supports straight out of a book of Americana. This style of house probably existed in most regions throughout the country, calling to mind large families and chickens in the front yard. Not murder and empty graves. The only difference between my mental picture and what I saw before me was that the house seemed even more abandoned and forlorn than I had imagined.
No glass existed in the windows, allowing for gaping holes through which one could see collapsed ceilings and fallen walls. A large tree poked through the roof, the dislodged slate shingles half-embedded in the ground below where they’d fallen, as if in testament to the violence of the storm that had thrown them there.
I put the car in park and turned off the ignition. “I’m assuming the family cemetery is out back.”
“That’s what Yvonne said.” My mother faced me. “You don’t like cemeteries very much.” It wasn’t a question.
“Nothing good ever happens while I’m in one.”
She took my hand and squeezed. “Remember, we’re stronger together. Don’t forget that.”
I squeezed back, then let go to exit the car. We stood in the deafening silence filled only with the background drone of thousands of unseen insects. I could smell the nearby marsh and the ubiquitous Lowcountry pluff mud, a scent I’d loved from the very first whiff. People say that’s how you can tell a true South Carolinian—if they don’t wrinkle up their noses at the unique smell of rotting vegetation.
“Do you feel anything?” she asked as we faced the desolate house whose yard seemed to be swallowing it whole, with weeds that grew through the slats in the porch floorboard.
“No. Not yet, anyway. Maybe there’s no reason for them to be here.”
My mother regarded me. “Or maybe we haven’t given them a reason yet.”
I swallowed heavily, trying to focus on the task at hand. I unlocked the trunk and handed a shovel to my mother, then took out the pick and another shovel for me. We were rounding the side of the house when I heard the distinct sound of a car door slamming.
I started and stopped. “Oh, no—somebody’s here!” I quickly calculated how long it would take us both to run to the car and back out over the long gravel drive, before looking over at my mother, whose expression wasn’t registering alarm or even surprise. Instead she actually looked apologetic.
Anger quickly replaced my fear. “Are you expecting someone?” I asked, moving ahead slowly while my suspicions rose, then were confirmed when I heard Nola’s voice.
“They’re here,” Nola announced, just as my mother and I rounded the corner to the back of the house.
Jack and Nola stood by his pickup truck, each holding a shovel. All we needed was a couple of pitchforks to reenact a medieval witch hunt.
“What are you doing here?” Jack and I asked simultaneously.
We looked at Nola and my mother, both of whom suddenly looked very, very guilty.
“Mother! What were you thinking?”
Very calmly she approached us. “I was thinking that we needed Jack’s help. Nola agreed.”
Nola stepped between Jack and me. “And it would be nice if the two of you would make up. I feel like that dude on The Bachelor trying to choose between the two of you. It’s just wrong.”
Jack was staring at me, his expression one of confusion. “What happened to you?”
You, I wanted to say, but didn’t want to give him any more power over me. I couldn’t meet his eyes, remembering the humiliation of our last encounter. I stuck out my chin. “I’m on vacation. This is what people wear on vacation.”
The old familiar smirk lifted half of his mouth. “On a retirees’ cruise to Cancún, maybe. Where did you get those clothes?”
I tried to be offended but couldn’t. Even if Jack wasn’t mine, it was good to know he was still Jack. Regardless, I didn’t think either “Sophie” or “Goodwill” would be acceptable responses. Instead, I pulled together the last shards of self-respect and asked again, “Why are you here?”
“For the same reason you are, I’m thinking.” He slid a glance at his daughter. “Nola told me about Julia’s letters. She’d heard enough to be able to let me know what was in them. But, being the intelligent person that she is, instead of telling me what she already knew, she allowed me to reach the same conclusion you apparently have—that Jonathan was the other body buried with William.”
Curious enough to forget my humiliation and the stabbing pain in the vicinity of my heart that came each time I looked at him, I asked, “What made you think that?”
He scratched the back of his head. “Well, his death from influenza in 1938 was too coincidental. First William, then the house fire, then Jonathan—all in the same year. There was no influenza epidemic that year, which doesn’t really mean he couldn’t have died from it; it’s just that his death was too . . . neat.”
“And there’s no such thing as coincidence,” Nola said, beaming.
“Fast learner,” Jack said, rubbing the top of her head as if she were a little kid. Frowning, as if he were trying not to show too much interest, he turned to me. “What about you? How did you figure it out?”
“The letters waxed poetic about the beautiful blond hair of the person Jonathan wrote to. According to the Manigault family photos that I’ve seen, Julia’s hair was dark brown. William’s was blond.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Anyway, Nola acted appropriately surprised when I told her about my conclusion and casually mentioned that if we could find Jonathan’s grave and discover it empty, we’d have a pretty good guess as to who was buried alongside William Manigault. I imagine she even convinced Yvonne not to tell me she’d already given you the same information on where to find Jonathan’s grave when I met with her yesterday.”
Nola focused on a rock on the ground in front of her with scholarly intensity.
Jack and I stood facing each other, our eyes not exactly meeting. “Well,” I said, “glad to have my conclusions collaborated. But I think Nola, my mother, and I can handle it from here on out. After all, none of this concerns you.”
My mother stepped forward. “Let’s not be so hasty, Mellie. Jack’s already here, and we could really use his considerable muscle to help with the digging. It will make it go twice as fast.”
As much as I wanted to contradict her, I knew she was right. An extra set of arms would make it all go so much faster—even if they were Jack’s arms. I figured that maybe I could work
with my back to him so I wouldn’t have to look at him. Or hear him breathe, which would bring back way too many memories. With a heavy sigh that sounded a lot like Nola, I said, “Whatever.”
“No.”
The three of us turned to stare at Jack.
He crossed his arms. “No,” he said again. “I think Mellie should ask me nicely. As she pointed out, this has nothing to do with me. If she wants to borrow my muscles, she’ll have to ask.”
I felt my mouth drop open. “There is no way in . . .”
My mother spoke up. “My sciatica is really acting up, Mellie. I don’t think I’m going to be much help with the digging. Which would leave only you and Nola. And she weighs about eighty pounds soaking wet. So before you make any hasty decisions, please think about it.”
I tried to imagine doing all that digging by myself, and couldn’t get past the part where I’d need to break the surface somehow. Just thinking about it depleted my energy reserves, not to mention the time issue. The fear of discovery was never far from my mind.
I took a deep breath and sighed deeply. Looking at a spot behind Jack’s shoulder, I said, “Would you please stay and help us dig?”
“Since you asked so nicely,” he said, with a hint of a smile lingering in his voice.
I slid my gaze to meet his, noticing again how blue his eyes were, and how they weren’t mocking me but appeared instead to be searching mine. I looked away, for the first time not able to even guess what he might be thinking.
“Then come on,” I said, hoisting a shovel and pick, then marching past Jack.
“Nice jeans,” he said as I walked by, giving me a couple of ideas of what I could do with the pick and shovel besides digging.
Just as Yvonne had described, a small family cemetery lay situated behind the house, down a rock path that had been rendered almost invisible by tall weeds. A rusty wrought-iron gate surrounded the clearing with its small number of unkempt tombstones, their rounded tops made visible only by the shifting breeze.