by Tara Brown
“I'm so sorry, Emily. I'm so sorry. I never knew. I never knew you were here.” I sob.
She grips me and trembles. “Forty-eight years I've waited.”
I'm ashamed. I'm always ashamed.
She pulls away and turns from me. “Let's go bring Tessa in. She'll dance until she passes out.”
I look around in disbelief. “Can we fix it? I can do the work. I can hire the help.”
She smiles. “You would do that? You would stay?”
“How could I leave you now?”
She beams, and for the first time, I really see my sister. She arches an eyebrow at me. “How did you know Momma was from Blackwater Bayou?”
I watch her eyes and wait to see if she is gonna flip out again.
“Grandmamma Holt. She was from over that way. Said the magic of Louisiana is in Blackwater Bayou.”
She crosses her arms and nods. “Ramón's Grandmamma was from Blackwater Bayou, the same as Momma? So they were both witches? That’s how she knew her?”
I gasp. “Momma was a witch?”
“Yeah.” Emily nods. “She's something all right.”
I look around and almost whisper, “Is Maria evil?”
“Lord, no.” Emily laughs again. “Momma kill her—for them vampires, like the ones that killed me. Maria's been a ghost since she was seventeen.”
“Better than sixteen, I bet.”
Her eyes grow dark again. “Better than sixteen,” she agrees.
We walk out to the old dance floor and I feel it in the air. I think it will always be there, like a stain on the earth. The dead linger here.
“I loved him so much, Lorelei. So much.” She leans against a fallen pillar, still thinking about that boy she loved back then.
“I'm so sorry, Em.” I hate myself.
She looks at me wickedly. “I bet you know that feeling, don’t you? You know what it feels like to love something so much.” She steps toward me and pushes my chest. I stumble back. The force in her anger is overwhelming.
“YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DIE FOR SOMEONE? I DIED FOR YOU! YOU KILLED ME, LORELEI!” She is screaming and scaring Tessa who has stopped dancing and is watching us.
“I never knew. I never knew what he was.”
She covers her face and screams, “MARIA WARNED YOU! DON’T GIVE ME THAT SHIT! SHE WARNED YOU AND YOU IGNORED HER! YOU KNEW!”
“I never knew! I swear! I didn't know what Maria meant!” I walk to her and wrap my arms around her. She sobs but nothing leaves her eyes. I hold her and ignore the excuses that float through my mind. Everything I have is a petty excuse, compared to the death of everyone and everything.
Tessa smiles at us. “You girls must be ready for bed. I am. Lord, I'm tired tonight. All that dancing. All that jazz music. Whew.” She wipes her brow and walks to us.
I start to laugh again. Emily laughs with me and I notice more of the garden is dug up. The oak we walked past is tipped over. I pull her back and look at her. “You have to stop wrecking the house.”
Her eyes glint in the light. “I can't help it.”
“Where did the dead go? The others?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I wasn't here right away. I was just floating for a while. When I got here it looked pretty old and decrepit. Tessa was living here alone.”
I speak to Tessa. “Where did the bodies go? Who cleaned up and boarded things up?”
“Some men came in the beginning and said some rituals happened. Said that a bunch of folks was murdered in the rituals. Then other men came and took the bodies.” She shudders. “I was here as they were taking him. I tried to fight them and hold him, but they took him away.” She is talking about Daddy. It's nonsense but I know what she means.
“If Maria is a ghost, where is Momma?” I ask.
Emily gives me an icy stare and puts her finger to her lips. “We don’t speak of some things here.” I don’t know what that means, but I assume it has something to do with Tessa.
We put Tessa to bed as the sun starts to rise. I smile at Emily. “I have to go to bed.” I don’t trust her. I don’t trust my sleeping body in her care. She is volatile and hates me still, on some levels. I blame her for none of it. I would forgive her anything, but I can't ask the same. Not when I took everything.
“Where you gonna sleep?” she asks softly.
I shrug and walk to the front door. “I'm going back to my truck. I'll get a motel room. I need total darkness.”
“Okay. I'm sorry about your room, Lorelei.”
“I'm sorry for everything else.”
She smiles and I walk out the front door and try not to lose myself in the driveway or the remains of the oak alley. I walk and swear I can feel his eyes on me. I pick up the pace, running to my truck.
Chapter 11
Staying in a motel is annoying. Not as annoying as the general contractors I've met with. Being home is a horrid, haunting feeling. I swear, at every moment Whit's eyes are on me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement. My hairs on my arms raise. I should have picked somewhere else to meet with the contractors. Sitting in the window of the coffee shop with Luke, the contractor I'm gonna hire, feels too vulnerable. There are windows straight across the entire front wall. I ignore the feeling and turn my attention back at Luke. He makes me smile. I am definitely hiring him. Partly because he is sexy and partly because he restored an old house a few streets over from mine and did a great job. He has the pictures spread across the wooden table. I pore over them and force my brain to focus on the moldings and finery.
“Well, this is some work, Luke,” I mutter.
He grins and I try not to let my mouth water. I force my eyes back to the windows.
The parking lot is dark, but I swear I see his dark eyes through the glass. I'm determined to still hate him. Even though holding a grudge goes against my natural instincts and loving him is the easiest thing I have ever done. No, I have hated him for almost fifty years; I can easily eek out another fifty.
I reach my hands across the table and hold Luke's. I see the way he swallows hard and stutters. He is so cute.
“Lorelei—Miss Huntington, anyway, I don’t—uhm—what was I saying?” His accent is from Tennessee. It's adorable. He has dark-blue eyes and dark hair. His smile is sweet and I can't help but toy with him. Touching him makes me hungry.
I smile. “I think you were saying the original staircase is gonna have to go.”
He wipes the sweat from his damp brow and nods. “Right. Yes, ma'am. The whole staircase and all the window wells. There is almost nothing salvageable. That house is as ugly as homemade sin right now. But I can make her a real beauty again. I didn’t think anyone would want to fix that old place up, not after the—well, you know.”
“I don’t really. Tessa is my—uhm great-aunt. She is loony. She never spoke of it much.”
“It was a tragedy.” His eyes grow wide as he leans in like we're gonna share us a secret. “They say that back in the sixties, your family had this party for Lorelei Huntington. Your other great-aunt, I guess?”
“The one I'm named after.” I should have chosen a different name. I'm a dummy.
“Well, she was marrying the governor's nephew. The party was huge and some bad voodoo priests came and sacrificed the family. Everyone says the house is as haunted as a graveyard. My men ain't gonna be happy about working there. But once we clean it up, should be fine and dandy. Crazy townsfolk.”
“What do you mean?” I pry. “What kind of haunted?”
His gaze darts around and he whispers even more quietly, “Some people say that the ones who died, burned in the house in the west wing. It was an accident and all, but the others say it was voodoo. They say Mrs. Huntington never aged. She was a bad woman who never aged.”
I want to tell him the damned story but I don’t. I nod along and smile. “Spooky.”
He smiles. “I think it's a bunch of hooey. But you know people in the South, if they got something to chew on they ain't never letting it go.”
>
I laugh and nod and remember the way it was, back when the hooey happened.
“Anyway, we can do this but you need to know, it's gonna cost.” His face is serious again.
The bad part is coming, the money part.
“So we are looking at—well, at least half a mil. At least.”
Tessa has it. I try not to grip his hand that I'm still holding, awkwardly.
“Okay. Well, money ain't the reason someone restores an old haunted house. Y'all must know that. Only someone truly batshit crazy restores an old house.”
He smiles and I feel mushy inside. He has dimples in his cheeks. I could eat him up.
Suddenly, I realize literally I could eat him up. I pull my hands back and get up. “Well now, you know where to reach me.”
He’s clearly uneasy at my sudden change in behavior. “Can you transfer me the first hundred tomorrow so I can start ordering the supplies?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay good. Here is my card with the email address. The contract will be with your lawyer first thing in the morning.” He takes my hand and kisses the top of it. I’ve missed Southern gentility.
“Night, Luke.”
He flashes his dimply smile. “You look awfully young to be in charge of such an undertaking.”
“Oh, I am.” I flash him my best grin. “But what can I do? Crazy Great-Aunt Tessa is living there and it's condemnable.”
“Oh, I agree. I agree completely. We need to get her out of there.”
“She won't leave. I've convinced her to sleep in the old hiding house, but she will only agree to go there on certain nights. She’s nutty. So we might have to work around her a little. Shuffle her around. Anyway, we can figure that out later. Night.” I give him one more squeeze and leave the restaurant. I slip his card into my pocket and head for my truck.
My dead heart tries to come back to life when I see Whit sitting in my driver's seat. I almost stop walking but I don’t. I force myself to walk past and throw the keys in the window at him. “Keep it, asshole.”
He climbs out and laughs at me. “Lorelei, wait.”
Almost fifty years goes by and he wants to meet up like this? All nonchalant and shit. I don't think so.
I break into a run. He can't catch me. He never could.
What I don’t account for is the guy at the far side of the building. He grabs my arms as I fly by. He throws me to the ground and lies on top of me.
I know him. I don’t fight. I'm too stunned silent.
The guy sitting on my stomach is the valet. The valet at the governor's and also the police officer who gave me a drink of sweet tea. He looks the same as he did forty-eight years ago. I knew him from somewhere then, and now that he is holding me on the ground, I know where from.
He was friends with Ramón. He was a close friend of Ramón. The kissing kind.
“You killed him?” I gasp.
He frowns at me. “Did you hit your head?”
“Get off her.” Whit pushes him off me.
I stand and brush myself off and glower at Whit. “You killed Ramón too?” The tears start. The black tears of the hate in my heart.
The man next to him looks sick. “I woulda walked through fire before I hurt him.”
“It doesn't matter now.” Whit grabs my arm and drags me away from the man.
“How come he was there? He was the cop and the valet, and he dated Ramón.” I look back, stunned. Too stunned to ask about the millions of other things we need to talk about.
Whit's firm grip holds me tightly. He walks me to the side of the building, talking in a low angry tone, “I have some things I need to show you.”
“Yeah, you already showed me that, Whit. I'm not interested in a repeat of that performance. Besides, you can't kill me and my family twice so your show is sort of lame now.” Coming home was a mistake. I wish I could leave, but I can't. I can’t leave Em or Aunt Tessa.
But I can always run.
I shove him hard and break into a sprint. He and the other man chase me. I hear their footsteps for a minute, but they don’t stand a chance.
I run until I reach my land. I stop running and walk through the wheat field, letting the wheat tips scratch my hands. It sounds the way it used to. The hiding house is in better shape than the mansion. The front porch stairs seem to be the most weathered spot on the house. I open the front door. It sticks, but I push and it comes open. I step inside and remember. I can't do anything but remember. Every moment is attached to something.
My last moments with him were in this house.
I open the cellar door and walk down the old stairs to the dank basement. I sit in the corner and try not to notice the bugs or the dirt. I close my eyes and I'm gone. I don’t dream anymore. I just fade into the black.
When I wake I don’t feel refreshed like I usually do. I feel sad. His face is floats in my mind. He looked good, so good. My love is the same as it always was, unnatural and forced.
His eyes and his lazy grin are the same. So many years have passed and he is the same. I need to hate him. I need to honor them and hate him. I stretch and think about getting the money to Luke and the lawyer's office. My lawyer will let me sign at night. I lied about having a shift-work job.
“I love you.” His voice breaks my silence. “I still love you.”
I sit up sharply. My heart grips tightly to my insides. It desperately wants to feel things. Fortunately, my brain takes over and a sneer crosses my face. “Get out of my house.” My chest almost explodes with the pain.
“This isn’t your land anymore.”
My brow furrows. “Well, Tessa don't want you here either.” I get up off the ground, dusting myself off.
He is leaning against the wall near the stairs. “I told you I would find you. I would always come for you.” He pushes off the wall and takes a step toward me. I step toward the stairs and wonder if I can get up them before he grabs me. “Lorelei, we need to talk. I just need a couple of minutes.”
“You took my whole life, you don't get to ask for anything.” I take a small step toward the stairs. I'm not listening to him. I'm listening to the sounds of the house. Is anyone else with him or is he alone? I can outrun him but not if they grab me.
He inches a step closer. “I have missed you. Every minute I have missed you. So many times I wanted to talk to you and I didn’t know how, but you came back.”
My face is tense. I scan around for another way out. He steps in front of the stairs in one of his huge steps. His long legs look the same. The smell of him is in the air and doing weird things to me.
He puts a hand out.
I swallow hard. I take a step back.
He crosses the space in two steps. I turn my back and cower into the wall and wait for his hands to come down on me or his fingers to bite into my flesh.
He grabs me and pulls me into him. He is warm just like I remember. His body is hard. He presses against me and kisses the top of my head. “I have missed you, my love.”
I turtle. I'm powerless against him. I wait for it to end. For him to see just how dead I am and leave me alone.
He turns me and pulls my arms down. He tilts my chin up to him. My eyes dart to the side. I'm terrified of him.
He brushes a hand down my cheek. “You are so beautiful. Just the way I remember you.”
My jaw trembles.
He looks worried. “Say something.”
“I hate you.” He flinches but I continue, “You missed me because I ran. I have run for fifty years almost. I have stayed one day ahead of you every day of my life. My horrid, lonely life.” My hand lashes out and slaps him hard.
He takes the shot but his eyes turn dark, stormy. “I saved you. I changed you because I love you. We're meant to be together. You believed that too.”
I shove him away from me. “Yeah, I did. ‘Course, that was before, when I thought you was a normal boy. Before you went and killed my family.”
“You hated your family.”
I shove hi
m again. “I loved my sister.”
He face shows regret, but what good does that do me now? He takes my hands and kisses them. “I still love you. More than ever. I want to make things right between us.”
“Bring her back to life!” I rip my hands back and turn away from him.
His fingers bite into my arm. “Don’t turn away from me.” His Scottish accent comes out.
I rip my arm from him. “Don't manhandle me, Whit. I hate you. That’s it. There is no us. There is no fixing us. I hate you. I hated you forty-eight years ago and I hate you more now. We're done. END OF STORY!” I shout into his face.
He grabs me again but this time he drags me across the basement and up the stairs. He pulls me through the small house and pushes me through the front door. I stumble and fall in the dirt out front.
“You never just give me a minute to talk. You want to hate me, Lorelei? Let me give you an actual reason to hate me.” His voice is savagely angry.
Terror pulses through my body. From the dirt, I watch him walk down the front steps. “I don’t need a reason, Whit. I have plenty.”
I lunge at him and drive him into the front porch. The force breaks the wood and we crash into the side of the house. He grabs my face and presses his lips into it.
I let him kiss me. Not because I want him to. I don’t. Not really. I let him kiss me so I can plot my escape.
His lips smother me, kissing, sucking, pulling at me. His hands lift me into the air. My back crashes against the house. His body is pressed completely against mine.
He is crushing me into the floor and I look at him like I'm gonna play along. Only I don’t. I roll us over, squishing him into the floor, and then I jump up.
I run.
I run out the front door, and I don’t stop until I'm sitting on the swing in the backyard of the Palatino family's house. My butt against the swing feels too big, it always did. Angie always had a tiny ass. I look up at the huge mansion. I imagine her screams were blended with my family's. The screams all sounded the same. I can't differentiate who is who in my mind. It doesn’t matter. The chorus of the screams in my mind needs to be my constant reminder of why I need to steer clear of him.