by Eboni Snoe
“Jason is the one who threatened you,” Cay said as he held his father’s head in his lap. “He wanted to buy the property out of Probate Court, but when you came along, the situation took an unexpected turn, and somehow he got you to choose him as your lawyer.”
“He put a flyer advertising his firm in my mailbox the first week I moved here,” Sasha said. “When Sherry summoned me to Guana Manor I needed a lawyer quickly.”
“Yes.” Cay nodded. “You see, he wanted to represent you, even though he knew all along the Bethel Agreement didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. Something that even I never knew until now.” Cay’s eyes brightened. “Because no one had ever challenged it. He thought he could use representing you to his advantage. And he did. He made it seem as if my family was behind all the things that had been happening at the Bethel House, but Jason had been responsible all along.”
“I told you you couldn’t trust attorneys,” Mr. Ellis added. “But the Bethel Agreement isn’t legal?” His gray brows knitted in consternation.
“No. It isn’t worth a cent, Father,” Cay told him. “It was part of Grandmother’s obsession to make the Bethels pay for what she felt they’d done to her. You see, once she was in love with a white man named Louis J. Bethel. But when she wanted him to marry her, he rejected her because she was black.
“But Grandmother wasn’t the only island woman he had been involved with. Hazel and Amos’s mother was another. She was the one he cared for the most. It was Louis J. Bethel who provided the money for their mother to start a life here on Magic Key, and Grandmother hated her for it.
“The money my grandfather made through fishing on his fishing boat in the islands initially paid Grandmother’s way here. It was his money that helped to start the Ellis fortune and buy Guana Estate, which even then surrounded the Bethel property.
“The Bethel Agreement was a fabrication.” He looked down at his father. “We never owned the Bethel land. It was a lie perpetrated by a woman scorned.”
“But it’s quite a coincidence that my birth father’s and my Aunt Hazel’s last name is Bethel, and Louis J. Bethel’s last name is Bethel, too,” Sasha stated.
“It’s not a coincidence,” Cay told her. “When their ancestors were slaves, Louis J. Bethel’s ancestors were their masters. Your ancestors took on the name of their slave masters, like all slaves did.” Cay turned a cynical smile toward Jason. “So this is your history as well. You just decided to be a member of the wrong family.”
“This can’t be right,” Jason continued to protest.
“But it is right, and you were caught up in it just like we all were. You wanted to use Sasha to get to our fortune, but you didn’t know you were using your own flesh and blood,” Cay said. “It wasn’t until today that Baltron and I figured out that you were the one behind what was happening at the Bethel House. Baltron saw your car parked close to the back of the house the day the bleach was poured inside. But it wasn’t until this morning, when he saw you driving it, that he identified the vehicle.”
“What was wrong with you, boy? Why were you so keen on getting your hands on my money?” Mr. Ellis lamely patted his chest.
Jason looked deflated. “I thought if I could take something away from you…your wealth or your dignity…by dragging you through court and perhaps even putting one of you in jail, I would feel avenged” —he looked at the ground— “and Sherry would want me. See that I was as good as the Ellises.”
“Oh, hell, what does Ms. Sherry have to do with this?” Mr. Ellis grumbled.
Sherry looked into Jason’s troubled eyes, and her tears began to flow again.
“Years ago, because I wasn’t rich and I didn’t have a family name, Sherry chose your family over me. If I had had the money and the status, she would have married me. I know she would have, because I loved her and she loved me.”
“Ach-ch,” Mr. Ellis moaned. “Women.” He shook his head. “All of this for a woman with no scruples, no morals. It’s a damned shame. Women.” He closed his eyes in pain. “Mother included.”
Sherry put her hand on Jason’s arm. “I never meant to hurt anyone, Jay. I never meant to hurt anyone. I was just trying to look out for myself. That’s all.”
The loud sound of fire engines whirred from the other side of the trees. Moments later two firemen accompanied by Olive emerged at the edge of the circle. “Look’s like some sort of bonfire,” one of them said. “Is everyone okay?” the other called out.
“My father’s been burned,” Cay replied. “I think he’s got second- and third-degree burns, and he needs to go to the hospital.”
“We’ll bring a stretcher over right away.”
Chapter 39
“Let’s get some medicine on these burns before we take him in,” the paramedic advised. “Everybody please move back and give us some room to work.” He looked at Mr. Ellis. “I’m going to remove this t-shirt now. It’s bound to hurt a bit, but I’ve got to get it off.”
Mr. Ellis nodded his head and closed his eyes.
The paramedic began to remove the cloth. During the entire process Mr. Ellis didn’t make a sound. Once it was done the paramedic leaned closer.
“I thought you said your father had third-and second-degree burns.” He looked at Cay. “This man’s legs look as if they have barely been burned at all.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Mr. Ellis stared with his mouth wide open.
Cay got down on his knees. “But I tell you, his legs were badly burned. I don’t understand it. They were totally engulfed by flames.”
“They were burned,” Sasha said, substantiating Cay’s assessment. “We all saw them.” A chorus of “That’s right” and “I saw them” echoed through the group.
The paramedic gave them an uncertain look.
“It was the water,” Cay said softly.
“What water?” the paramedic questioned.
“The water from the natural spring.” He looked at Sasha. “The curse has been lifted because I believed.” Tears came to his eyes. “I called on God from the deepest part of me and the water healed his legs.”
The paramedic stood up. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but as it stands this man’s injuries aren’t serious.”
“You believed, Cay,” Olive proclaimed, slapping her hip. “There’s been a healing today because you believed.”
“A healing in more ways than one, Olive.” Cay put his arm around Sasha, who tentatively looked at Jason.
Cay helped his father get to his feet, and the group looked toward the Bethel House. Cay stayed close to Mr. Ellis’s side just in case he needed him.
“Well, I’ll be da— …blessed,” Mr. Ellis exclaimed. “There’s a rainbow above the Bethel House. A rainbow with no rain.”
The ends of the arched prisms stretched over one side of the Bethel House to the other. Everyone stopped and stared.
“It’s a sign,” Sherry said. “A sign that things will get better.”
“I believe you’re right.” Sasha looked at the ribbons in the sky with awe. She grabbed Cay’s hand. “I think Precious and Hazel were right.” She looked into his eyes, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly.
When they reached the vehicles Cay helped his father climb into his Cadillac. Baltron and Olive followed. Sherry stopped in front of the SUV, then turned to Jason, her eyes bright. “May I come with you?”
Jason was quiet for a moment, then he opened his arms and Sherry went inside them.
“I think we’re going to have to start all over again,” Jason said to Sasha over Sherry’s head. “I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done. I was blinded by my own pain and ambition. I’d like to get to know you as my sister—that is, if you’d like?” He rushed on, “I never would have hurt you, really, and I hope you can forgive me.”
Looking up at the rainbow, Sasha replied, “I think I can. And anyway, you’re the only family I’ve got.”
“For now,” Cay whispered in her ear as Jason smiled. Moments later the lawyer
and Sherry drove away.
“What are you going to do?” Cay asked Sasha.
“I’m going inside.” She looked at him with steady, dark eyes. “You want to come?”
“Sure.” Cay put his arms around her. “I have nothing to hold me back.”
“Nothing?” Sasha questioned.
“Nothing in this world or in the next,” he replied.
Sasha stopped in the doorway. “You know, I don’t think that springwater should be sold. Given away to anyone who discovers it, but sold…” Sasha shook her head. “Never. However, I’ve got that key lime orchard back there. I’ve heard the key limes are second to none when it comes to making key lime pie. I could sell them…” She began to explain as Cay closed the door to the Bethel House.
“I’m sure you could, Sasha. I’m sure you could.”
Cay and Sasha lay in spoon fashion on her bed. He tightened his arms around her, and she closed her eyes in gratitude. When Sasha opened them again, she continued to gaze out of the window into the night sky.
“Cay, did you realize when we look at the stars, we are looking at the past?”
“I remember studying something like that in school. About the light having such a long distance to travel and by the time we see it thousands of years have gone by,” he spoke softly behind her. “But I don’t remember my professor putting it so simply.”
Sasha smiled. “But it is true. And so at this very moment we are experiencing the star’s past, and how it twinkles in the present, which is also its future. You and I are experiencing every single one of those things right now. It’s amazing.”
“No one will ever be able to say that I only love you for your looks or for this.” He patted her bottom.
Sasha chuckled. “Cay…” She turned over to look at him.
“Yes?”
“Did you believe the springwater might heal your father’s legs when you asked for it?”
He paused for a moment. “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking about that. I wanted to stop his legs from burning, and I knew the water from the spring would be much cooler than the temperature of his flesh. I only wanted to stop the burning.”
“Even when you started to pray?”
“Oh, that. I just wanted the pain and suffering to stop. Not only my father’s physical pain, but the emotional and mental anguish my family had been dealing with for as long as I can remember.” He paused. “I didn’t think the water would heal him. But now I can’t help but wonder: If I had given Precious the springwater, would she be alive today?”
Sasha turned her back to Cay again. “I don’t think that was in the plan for Precious, or in Precious’s plan.”
“What do you mean?” Cay asked softly.
“I mean, it’s obvious to me Precious and Hazel had a reason for being here on Magic Key and they fulfilled it. They were put here to open us up. To encourage us to look outside of what we feel is reality. Expand our perceptions of the possibilities.”
Cay couldn’t resist placing a kiss on the back of Sasha’s ear.
“Think about it, Cay,” she continued in hushed tones. “Precious was on a life quest to prove the existence of Atlantis. A place most scholars would simply scoff at if you mentioned the word. And, of course, that in and of itself means most people accept that Atlantis did not exist. We never question it. So when someone like Precious comes along, we believe she’s strange or a little crazy for believing the opposite. But Precious took it further than simply saying she believed it. She set out to prove it, and she generated plenty of attention in doing that.”
Cay sat up on his elbow. “But it would have been different if she had proved it and if she were still alive. None of that is true.”
“I know. But she and Hazel had plenty of people talking about positive, magical things. Hazel was also a catalyst because, from a logical standpoint, she was a complete stranger who gave Precious a foundation to build from. She gave Precious her home, the Bethel House. Why would she do that considering the history between the Bethels and the Ellises? Why? There was a bigger picture.” Sasha got a little excited. “A bigger plan. So when Precious died in the manner that she did, which she knew she would, it caused an even bigger stir. More people heard about it and became aware of her entire story and the things she believed.”
“I don’t know if she knew she was going to die,” Cay replied. “Precious didn’t believe in death. She believed we never die.”
“Well, maybe there’s some truth to that as well, Cay. I never told you this, but Hazel and Precious came to me in a very powerful meditation. That’s why I went to the Circle of Stones that night. They asked me to come. And if you remember, I told you I saw a rainbow appear on that stone. Now, after seeing that rainbow above the Bethel House today, I know it was really there. It was a sign that what we believe is impossible sometimes is possible. Like Mr. Ellis’s legs healing so quickly. All we have to do is be open to the possibilities of our lives.”
“You’re a piece of work, Sasha Townsend,” Cay told her, bringing her to him.
“Does that mean you want to work on me some more?” she purred invitingly.
“A lover’s work is never done.” Cay placed a soft kiss on her lips.
“And I’m going to be your greatest masterpiece.” Sasha pulled him down on top of her and kissed him deeply.
Feeling satisfied and full of joy, Cay replied, “One that will take a lifetime.” He kissed her again.
About the Author
EBONI SNOE is the author of several books including Beguiled and The Passion Ruby. She made her Avon debut with Tell Me I’m Dreamin’. She and her family make their home in St. Petersburg, Florida.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 1999 by Eboni Snoe
Inside cover author photo by Terry L. Ford
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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-94798
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