They were quiet for a few moments with only the sound of Dallas humming softly. Elise remembered the song from Tuesday night bridge. “Things are seldom what they seem . . .”
“I met someone the other day who says he’s a relative of Peyton’s.”
“Ty?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“About the only relative Peyton has left. Nice boy. His parents are dead so he’s alone except for Peyton. Ty was adopted, a nephew of the Roberts actually. He was just a baby when his parents were killed in a car wreck. Poor little Ty had to be pried loose from his mother’s arms. Maude and Earl weren’t young, and they’d never had any children. Didn’t matter though. They took him in without a thought. They couldn’t have had a more devoted son if he’d been their own though. Ty is okay. You should get to know him.”
Dallas made another sharp turn. “Let’s detour a little and ride along the river. The smell of the water clears my head.”
“I love Apalach,” Elise said shyly.
“Why how sweet, darlin’. There’s a lot to love, isn’t there?”
“I think so. Much more than I’d ever have dreamed from a fishing village.”
“That what your folks call us? A fishing village?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I guess that’s what they see. I see a way of life. But fishing village is okay too. Has a nice ring to it.”
“I think that’s what they liked, the sound of it.”
Dallas laughed. “Yes, I can just see Margaret rolling that around her tongue like a piece of toffee.”
As they drove past Miss Fletcher’s they both looked, but she wasn’t on the porch. “That’s the saddest thing,” Dallas said.
“Oh, I think so too,” Elise replied. “I don’t think she should have retired.”
“Retired?”
“From teaching. She has so much knowledge, and she just lives to share it with somebody.”
Dallas slowed the car and looked around at Elise. “Nadine Fletcher never worked a day in her life.”
“But she told me she did,” Elise insisted. “She’s always talking about her students. She misses them so.”
“Elise, I was born and raised here. Nadine Fletcher was already in trouble by the time I started school. But I know one thing. She never graduated.”
“But . . . I don’t understand.”
“We’re almost there. I don’t have time to go into it now. We’ll talk about it on the way back. Or get Peyton to tell you. He’s the town historian. Not much ever went on here that he doesn’t know about. But now, I want to tell you about the
Lovett sisters. Aunt Lacey is the shy one, and you can tell from the pictures on the living room wall that she was a pretty little thing when she was young. Aunt Jenny was plain and never forgot it. There was Lacey so slender with long blond curls and poor Jenny, stocky with coarse black hair that hasn’t been tamed to this day. When Aunt Lacey’s husband died and she moved back home, Aunt Jenny wasn’t a bit happy about that turn of events. She’d had all her daddy’s attention until then. Lacey was his pet.” Dallas tapped the horn and waved to an elderly man.
“Aunt Jenny hasn’t made life easy for her sister. Claimed she had to be tough to make Lacey snap out of her grief. Looks to me like she’s still trying to make her snap out of it,” Dallas said wryly. She eased the car up the incline and parked on the spacious circular drive, tapping the horn lightly before getting out. “Want to let them know somebody’s here. They don’t get many visitors.”
As they went up the steps, Elise had trouble taking a deep breath, and she rubbed her chilled arms.
Dallas paused and said, “My Tom repaired these porch railings before he died. He was always doing things for them.” When they reached the door, Dallas raised the brass bridle that hung from a cast iron horse’s head, but the door opened before she could make a sound.
Two withered old women stood just inside the open door. “Why, Dallas Anderson,” the larger of the two women said and hugged Dallas. “Oh, Dallas, you are a sight for sore eyes.”
“Aunt Jenny, Aunt Lacey, forgive me for neglecting you. I just haven’t been myself since Tom died.” She reached behind Aunt Jenny and clasped Aunt Lacey’s hand.
“Well, child, you’re here now and that’s what matters. But come in, come in. I wished I’d’ve known you was coming. Lacey would’ve baked a cake, wouldn’t you, Lacey?” Lacey nodded but didn’t utter a word.
“I didn’t tell you ’cause I didn’t want you going to any trouble.”
They started into the house when Dallas looked back and saw Elise standing mesmerized, staring at the winding stairway from the open door. “Aunt Jenny, Aunt Lacey, forgive me. This is my new friend, Elise. I told you I wasn’t myself. Here I am being rude and leaving the child standing alone on the porch.”
Elise found herself with unaccustomed poise and maturity. “I’m so pleased to meet you, and what lovely names. I’ve never known anyone named Lacey before.”
“It was a pet name,” Jenny scoffed. “My father called her that because she wanted lace on all her dresses. The name fit ’cause she got all the lace she wanted. She was always silly that way.” Aunt Jenny pushed her glasses firmly on her nose and looked closely at Elise. “I think I’ve seen you walking past the house.”
That it was more of an accusation than a comment wasn’t lost on Elise. “Yes, ma’am,” she replied, “you may have. We moved here from Atlanta, and I’m busy exploring.” So someone was staring at me from behind the curtains.
“Lord, help. I forgot I brought you a fresh coffeecake. Elise, honey, would you mind getting it from the back seat of the car for me?”
Elise figured Dallas hadn’t forgotten. She just wanted to fill the old women in on her and her family. As Elise walked leisurely down the steps, she felt a rush of cold air and thought of the young bride fleeing the steps on her wedding night. It was as though a cloud covered the sun, and she was unaccountably sad when she walked back into the room with the coffeecake. She heard Dallas say, “. . . in the riverboat house.”
Aunt Lacey patted Elise’s hand and took the cake to the kitchen. “I’ll put on water for tea and be right back,” she whispered.
While Dallas and Aunt Jenny talked, Elise sat in a rocker facing the winding staircase. She tipped her head back in order to see the top of the stairs. Dallas and Aunt Jenny were engrossed in conversation when Elise stood up and walked to the stairway. She put her foot on the bottom step and then turned, looking over her shoulder, embarrassed. “I, I’m sorry. I just . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She really had no explanation for her action.
Aunt Lacey came back in the room then. She looked at Elise’s foot on the step. “That’s where our father was sitting when his sister came running down the stairs.”
“That’s enough, Lacey,” Aunt Jenny interrupted, but Lacey continued. “He was just a little tyke, and he was sleepy. The adults were upstairs dancing, and he sat there in his blue velvet wedding outfit sound asleep with his head against the railing. He woke up to see a flaming white figure dash past him. He thought it was a fiery angel. And in a way it was. My poor father never got over that moment. He carried that image to his grave. His beautiful sister, flames feeding on her wedding finery. Such a terrible tragedy.”
“Is the ballroom still there?” Elise ventured.
“I figured you’d heard the story,” Aunt Jenny said, making no attempt to hide the disgust in her voice. “Of course the room is still there. It’s never been used since that night, though. We keep it dusted, that’s all. The door is closed on those memories.”
Elise drew a deep breath for courage. “I hate being rude, being so bold, but could I see it?”
She saw the stony look on Dallas’s face but pushed ahead. “Please?” She was beyond being polite. One way or another, I have to see that room.
Dallas cleared her throat. “Elise, Aunt Jenny and Aunt Lacey don’t give tours of the ballroom. I’ve never seen it myself.”
&
nbsp; Aunt Lacey stood and raised her head defiantly. “Jenny, I think we should let her see it.”
“No, Lacey. We’ve heard more than enough out of you today. Mind your own business.”
“But, Jenny, I feel it. Something tells me it’s what we ought to do. Maybe it’s her name, but I think she should see it. Our aunt’s name was Annelise, you see, like a part of yours.”
Dallas murmured, “I’d forgotten. Yes, Annelise.”
Aunt Jenny never said a word, and her mouth turned down at the corners, but she led the way up the stunning stairway. At the top of the stairs, she removed a key from a small shelf inside the case of a grandfather clock. She inserted the key, hesitated a moment, and opened the massive double doors.
Elise caught her breath. The floors were pale as honey and huge gilded mirrors lined the walls on either side. “There used to be sconces,” Aunt Lacey whispered, “but our grandfather had them all removed when Annelise died.”
A current of cold air seemed to pull Elise into the ballroom. The last thing she heard was a small cough from Dallas before the music began. Elise glided onto the floor. She twirled and dipped and danced with abandon, she who’d never felt a moment’s grace in her life. She whirled past the gilded mirrors, her own image lost among the blurring colors she glimpsed. The music coursed through her veins, carrying her faster and faster around the room, and then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. She nearly fell with the suddenness of it, and then slowly, gently collapsed at the feet of the three women.
They watched her in fascination and horror. She looked up at them and burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It must have been the music.”
“Music?” they inquired in unison.
“Yes, ma’am. The music. It was hypnotic.”
Dallas spoke sternly. “There was no music, Elise.”
“Oh, but you must have heard it. I heard it so clearly, a beautiful lilting waltz. You heard it, didn’t you Aunt Jenny? Aunt Lacey?”
Both women shook their heads ever so slightly from side to side.
“But I can’t have imagined it. It was so real. It was the music. Otherwise I would never have danced like that. Could never have danced like that. I’ve never been a good dancer.”
Dallas replied dryly. “You could have fooled me.”
“That’s the tea kettle whistling,” Aunt Jenny said sternly. “Lacey, go make tea, and I’ll lock up.”
Elise was horrified at what she’d done, but at the same time she felt it had been beyond her control. When she and Dallas were in the car again, she kept apologizing and trying to explain to Dallas. Finally she said, “Maybe it was just my imagination, about the music, I mean. All the stories, that beautiful room, maybe I just thought there was music.”
“That’s probably it,” Dallas conceded. “But there’s something I’d better tell you. I suppose your family is the only one in town who doesn’t know it, but the house you live in was built for Annelise.”
Elise didn’t correct her. She listened to the story over and over, gleaning from each telling another bit of information.
“Annelise loved riverboats. Her father bought the plans from a young admirer of his daughter and had him build the house in the shape of a boat for her. She never saw it. Everyone kept it a secret. Some day it was to be a wedding gift. When she became engaged, her father asked her fiancé not to spoil the surprise, to save it for their wedding night. When she died, Coulton—that was his name, Coulton—said he’d never forgive himself for not letting her see it.
“No one was allowed inside, and then Coulton declared he’d sleep there one time. Imagine, him in the bridal bed alone. People thought he’d kill himself for sure. Oh, but I don’t want to talk about it. So much hurt and anger, and Annelise dead.
“It was rumored there was a painting of Annelise in the riverboat house, a wedding gift for Coulton. No one knows what happened to it.”
Elise swallowed hard. “Do you suppose he saw it?”
“Who can say? Years later a local family bought the place, but by then the house had reverted to the Lovetts. No one ever saw Coulton or the painting again, not that they didn’t look for it. They searched every place they could think of. It disappeared as sure as Coulton did.”
“I wonder what happened to him?”
“Oh, there were stories that he became a riverboat gambler. Others said he died an alcoholic. I don’t suppose anyone ever really knew, but it was like he left a curse on that house. I hope your family, not being from here, can change all that.”
“I hope so too. I appreciate your telling me and for taking me to meet Aunt Jenny and Aunt Lacey. I’m truly sorry if I humiliated you. I don’t know what came over me. You’ve been very kind. My parents, my mother especially, are so grateful for all you’ve done. Please don’t tell her what happened today.” Please don’t tell the bridge club either.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Let’s just try to forget it.”
“I’d like that.” Impulsively and totally unlike herself, Elise leaned over and kissed Dallas on the cheek before getting out of the car. “I really am sorry,” she said and ran from the car, tripping over the carriage stone. Dallas got out of the car to help her up. “Are you okay?”
“I know that’s there.” Elise stared at the dark shape. “I begged Mom not to take it up, and here I go and trip on it—again. It’s like it gets in MY way! I’m okay. My knee’s skinned a little is all. Nothing that’ll keep me from dancing,” she said, and laughed. Oh God, where’d that come from?
But Dallas laughed too and drove off feeling a little less strange about the day’s events.
Elise stood awhile looking at her home, feeling its sorrow. Inside she climbed the grand stairway to her parents’ rooms, to what had undoubtedly been the bridal suite. She walked slowly across the room toward the front window, trying to avoid looking at the ornate cheval that had come with the house. The real estate agent told Margaret that Sarah had moved to a small place in Tallahassee and couldn’t accommodate the mirror. With her artistic eye Margaret was thrilled to get it and had positioned it at an angle to the bed so that it reflected the giant oaks in the front yard. As Elise walked past the mirror, she started to avert her gaze when something caught her eye. There had been a momentary reflection of long dark hair in the mirror, she was sure of it. She took a step backward, but she couldn’t bring herself to look. She ran down the hall and reached the bathroom just in time to lose her breakfast.
At about the time Elise was being sick, Dallas was walking into Peyton Roberts’ store. Peyton looked up from the register and whistled. “Here comes the prettiest girl in town.”
“Not today, Peyton. We need to talk.” She called to the back, “Hey, Bobby, can you watch the store while your boss treats me to a Coca-Cola?”
“Whoa now, Dallas, I’m the invitee. You should be buying the drinks.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes today, Peyton. Let’s just get out of here so we can talk.”
They started walking down the street when Dallas stopped. “This won’t do. Let’s go to my house.”
“This offer just gets better all the time. Maybe I should go back and tell Bobby to lock up now.”
“Peyton, I keep telling you this is serious.”
They walked to Dallas’s car without speaking. She pressed her keys into his hand. “Here, darlin’, how bout driving for me?”
“You really are rattled, aren’t you?”
“Frankly, yes I am. I’m hoping you can help un-rattle me.”
“Well, I have a preferred method for that, but I’m not sure it’s what you have in mind.”
“Honest to God, Peyton, I don’t know what I have in mind. I just know something isn’t right.”
Peyton parked the car under a large oak in Dallas’s front yard. “I love this house. It’s nothing big or showy but has wall-to-wall charm. I always envied Tom coming home to this every night.” He raised his eyebrows when Dallas let the remark p
ass. She really was upset.
As they walked up the steps, Peyton remarked, “You ever consider painting this place blue? I always thought it cried out to be blue. I even told Tom that once, but he just laughed at me.”
“No, I never did. If I felt better, I’d laugh at you too. Have a seat, and I’ll put on some coffee, or would you rather have a Coke too?”
“No, coffee’s fine. The way you’re acting I might even need something stronger than coffee.”
“I have some wine cooling. Let’s have that. And I’ll fix us a couple of sandwiches if you haven’t had lunch yet.”
“Sounds good to me. I haven’t had a home-cooked sandwich in a long time.”
“If you’re hinting for a meal, that could be arranged too.” The kitchen was the color of butter cream with a pale blue breakfast nook set in a bay window. “We’ll eat here since you’re so fond of blue.”
As they sipped their wine and ate ham sandwiches, Dallas told him what had happened that morning. “I don’t know why it disturbed me so, but it did. Peyton, I truly believe she heard music. You should have seen her.”
Peyton whistled. “She’s a sensitive girl, and I guess she’s taken all these stories to heart.”
“And remember, she lives in Annelise’s house.”
“That’s true. Does she know that?”
“I told her. Today. But it wasn’t until after the business with the music, on our way home.”
“I’ve studied a lot of the paranormal literature, Dallas.”
“I know. I didn’t bring you here just because of your good looks.”
“You think I’m good-looking?”
“Stop it. This is serious.”
“There are lots of things we can’t explain, Dallas, not by any means we understand. It’s like religion. We’ve got no proof. You take it on faith or you don’t. Some say there’s energy left from traumatic experiences. This energy can be picked up by living people. I’d say Elise would be especially susceptible. She even asked me about Lawrence Myers the other day.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. How would she know about him?”
“She’s walked out to the house. That’s all I know.”
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