Eyre House

by Caitlin Greer

  Her hand slid slowly down my chest, lingering. Thinking got really hard about halfway down my abs. Which was clearly the point. Ginny threw me a wink and walked away.

  “Eight o’clock!”

  I glared after her and then bent to pick up the hose again.

  Five minutes to 8:00 found me sitting on the back terrace fidgeting. My hair was still dripping from my speed shower, and I’d tossed on a clean shirt and jeans. I knew we’d be walking through part of the tour, and I wasn’t at all interested in finding ticks or other things on me later. Or in giving Ginny any ideas about checking me for them.

  I had just checked my watch for the third time when I caught sight of her in the doorway. She’d bent over to pick something up, and was slow to rise. Her face looked pale and shocked.

  “Ginny?”

  He gaze shot up to me, but whatever look I thought I’d seen was gone. Her hands quickly tucked into her back pockets as she leaned against the door jam with a smile.

  I was happy to see she’d opted for jeans, too, but I couldn’t help letting my eyes run up and down her. She wore a cute, green sleeveless top that bunched at her breasts and then flowed loose to the hem. Surprisingly sensible boots poked out from under her jeans.

  “Do I meet your approval?”

  I yanked my eyes back up to her face, only to see she had her trouble grin on again. I clenched my jaw and looked away, reminding myself she was off-limits. I really needed to remember that she was trouble.

  “You look fine, and you know it.”

  She looked gorgeous, actually. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.

  Ginny laughed. “Thank you.” She grabbed my wrist and tugged me down the steps. “Time to go!”

  I let her drag me to the Jeep. The flyer she’d given me said the tour started at the Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society, where we’d be loaded on a bus and driven over the island to different “haunted” locations. I wasn’t too thrilled about riding on a bus, but the photo made it look more like an old fashioned trolley, so maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

  “Have you done one of these before?” Even shouting, the wind whipped half her words away.

  I nodded. “I’ve done the Charleston tours, both the Ghost & Graveyard and the Ghost & Dungeon ones.”

  “You should do the Darkside tour. It’s amazing!”

  I shook my head. I actually liked the Charleston tours, but I wasn’t about to give her any more ammo. “How many of these have you done?”

  She laughed. “All of them! Hanna and Alix and I go on at least one every year for Halloween. This one’s my favorite though, because you get to walk through the old plantation ruins.”

  We pulled into the museum parking lot with time to spare. The guides, dressed in period costume, signed us in and fussed their way through the group, making sure we all had flashlights and water bottles. There were only about twelve, fifteen of us as we loaded on the blue trolley-bus. I glanced behind me at Ginny as I boarded, but she just grinned and shoved me forward, then plunked down next to me. I raised my eyebrows at her, and she grinned wider and wiggled closer on the bench seat.

  “We’re so glad you could all join us this evening for the Edisto Island Ghost Tour. We’ll start things off at the ruins of the old Sea Cloud Plantation and Bleak Hall in Botany Bay, and wrap up the evening at the Edisto Presbyterian Church graveyard, with stops at a number of other places along the island.”

  The guide continued to go on about the history of Edisto as the trolley-bus lurched forward out of the parking lot. I didn’t really hear a lot of it. I was too busy failing to ignore Ginny’s arm looped through mine, and her body pressed up against my side. It got almost impossible to not think about her when she dragged my arm over so my hand rested on her thigh. She hugged my arm like it was a teddy bear, letting her fingers play across the sensitive inside of my forearm and bicep. I cleared my throat and swallowed hard, trying to focus on the tour guide.

  “…Confederate soldiers, returned home to their families…”

  Ginny’s hand drifted down my forearm, dancing across the back of my hand.

  “Knock it off, Ginny,” I hissed at her. She just smiled and kept playing with my hand.

  I swallowed again as my fist relaxed and my hand spread across her thigh. She traced along the edges of my hand and between my fingers, while her other thumb drifted across my bicep. I clenched my teeth. Ignoring it was not going well. I wanted to slide my hand up and down her thigh, and feel her shiver.

  I was saved by the bus lurching to a stop.

  We piled off, wandered around the ruins by flashlight, and listened to the stories as the sky turned deep red and then dark. They talked about how the island had been evacuated at the start of the War Between the States and how the Union Army had taken it over shortly after. A good number of the slaves were left behind as Union and Confederate forces battled back and forth for control. The Union occupiers eventually left to invade Charleston, but it was four years before the evacuated families were allowed to return to what remained. Bleak Hall had been burned to the ground; Sea Cloud was only partially intact.

  We climbed back on and drove through Botany Bay to the beach, while the tree frogs started in their coastal choir. There at the beach, they told a story about childhood sweethearts who grew up and married, until he sailed for the West Indies and was wrecked in a hurricane. I had to admit, the idea of his widow pulling his body out of the wreckage-strewn surf really struck me. Ginny looped her arm around my waist, snuggling in close, and I reacted before I could think. My arm found itself around her shoulder, holding her there.

  Fuck.

  I dropped my arm. She pouted at me.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Doing what? This?” Her fingers slipped under my shirt before I could grab them. I pinned her wrists before she could do anything else, but she leaned in to whisper. “Because you’re hot, and I want you. It’s just that simple, sugar.”

  And then she walked slowly back to the bus.

  Well, hell. What guy didn’t want no-strings sex? She was clearly good at this. Probably never got caught.

  You’re making excuses. Shit.

  I scrubbed my face with my hands and ran back to the bus. Ginny watched me walk on, and then turned to look out the window with a smirk. I glared at her, but was distracted by something on the seat.

  I picked it up and sat down. What I’d thought was paper turned out to be a picture. An old one, with tattered corners framing two grinning kids with blonde-streaked auburn hair, and smiles that were missing teeth. I flipped it over and found faded writing on back: Ginny and Jaime, age 8

  Holy shit.

  “Ginny…”

  She turned to me as the bus lurched forward, her smile quickly vanishing. She snatched the photo out of my hand. “Where did you get that?”

  “It was on the seat. I just picked it up.”

  She stared at it, smoothing out one edge, and took a breath. “I…um… I found it at the house just before we left. It must’ve fallen out of my pocket. Sorry.”

  I watched her tuck the picture back into her jeans, but after a quick glance out the window, she was all smiles and sexiness again.

  The tour bounced us around the island, loading and unloading us onto plantations and churches. We saw floor stains that supposedly wouldn’t come out and a “mystery tree” that the few younger kids loved. Heard a lot of ghost stories surrounding the War Between the States, which was pretty typical, but they had a few earlier ones, too. Throughout all of it, Ginny took every opportunity to try and break me.

  It was working.

  Part of me continued to make excuses for why I let her. The rest of me knew it was because I kinda wanted her to. The funny thing was, when she wasn’t trying, there were moments where I could see something else flicker in her face. Tempting moments of truth, like when one of the kids on the tour accidentally ran into her. She smiled and laughed with him before sending him back to his parent
s, and it was a much different smile than the one she turned on me.

  Strangely enough, those glimpses were way more enticing than her touches.

  At some point, we stopped at the ruins nearest Eyre House. The air hung heavy with the ocean’s salt and the dry, almost musty smell of the Spanish moss. Our guide spun some Romeo and Juliet yarn about warring families whose kids fell in love and died in the marshes that had since become beach. Shot by their own families. It was kind of tragic, in a way.

  After the story, I turned to make a remark about it to Ginny. Except she wasn’t there. Which was really odd, because she’d just been there. I clicked on my flashlight and panned it around the ruins. No sign of her.

  “Dammit,” I cursed under my breath. I never would have let her drag me on this thing if I’d known she was just going to disappear. “Ginny?”

  My flashlight beam swung around, a perfect circle of light against the deepening dark and the fog that had begun to move in. I really hoped she hadn’t fallen into some ancient cellar or anything. And then I remembered how Tom told me her brother had died, and I freaked out a little more. “Ginny? Come on, this isn’t funny.”

  The group started moving away towards the trolley-bus. She wasn’t with them. I rolled the light over the trees and back to the ruins. Still nothing. “Dammit all to hell. Ginny!”

  A hand slipped up the back of my shirt. For a split second, all the ghost stories I’d heard earlier about star-crossed lovers and murder made a shock run down my spine.

  And then Ginny laughed.

  I spun around, almost clocking her with the flashlight. “What the fuck? Where did you disappear to?”

  Her hand drifted along my side, and I sucked in a breath. “Relax, Evan, honey. I was just talking to the guide.”

  I clenched my teeth and tried to ignore the circles her fingers were tracing. She wasn’t with the guides—I’d checked. “The guides are over there, and you just came the opposite way. What were you doing wandering alone out there? I thought you were lying unconscious at the bottom of some old cellar.”

  And then I wanted to kick myself for saying that.

  Her wince was more noticeable because her hand froze. “Heard that story already, did you?”

  “Shit, I’m sorry, it was a bad choice of words—”

  “It’s fine.” She smiled in the darkness, but it wasn’t believable. “I’m over it.”

  “It was thoughtless—”

  She laughed, high and clear and soft, like she’d literally reached up and put a mask on. “What, Evan, you’re worried about me?” Her other hand slipped under my shirt, wrapping around my waist. I sucked in another breath.

  “I was worried about my job. You shouldn’t go wandering like that.”

  “Hm.” Her chin rested on my chest, just below my jaw. “I don’t believe you. Besides, I made it my mission to know all the ruins on this island. I could live in them, and no one’d ever find me.”

  I could make out every detail of her face at this distance, even in the dark. Her eyebrow twitched up a tiny bit, inviting. If I bent my head, our lips would touch.

  Danger, Will Robinson. I could feel her hot breath on my neck, short-circuiting my brain. “Well, fine,” I stammered. “What if some crazy—”

  “You’re cute when you care. But the Jack Daw ruins are abandoned and sealed. It’s not like there’s anyone out here to meet.” Her fingers kept tracing patterns, creeping lower on my back. What was she saying? “But it is the ideal place for a tryst, actually…”

  The trolley-bus bell rang, telling us it was time to load up and move on. Ginny pulled away, her touch lingering on me as long as possible before reappearing from under my shirt and grabbing my hand. The bus had lurched onward before I’d regained my breath.

  Our last stop was the Edisto Presbyterian Church—or rather, the cemetery. Ginny leaned in close as the headlights panned over the church, her arms once again wrapped around mine. “This is my favorite stop. It’s terrifying and heartbreaking, and the girl in the story lived in the plantation just southeast of our property.” She grinned and tugged my hand, pulling us off the bus.

  The guide shuffled us around behind the church until we stood in front of an old tomb with no door. J.B. LEGARE was printed in bold letters above the doorway.

  “In the mid-1800s, diphtheria swept the Island,” the guide started. I stared at the mist that curled around the tomb and listened hard as Ginny’s body snuggled against mine.

  “Young Julia Legare was visiting family on the island when she succumbed to the disease. Diphtheria is an ugly way to die. It forms a sheath inside your throat, tormenting you with fever and pain until you slowly suffocate. Poor Julia was only one of many to succumb to the deadly plague, and her family was devastated.

  “There were no preservation techniques at the time. Bodies were buried or interred quickly before they could begin to decompose in the coastal heat, and Julia was no exception. Her body was placed in this mausoleum the very same day she died, and the great marble door locked tight. Such a tragedy, the death of someone so young and vibrant.”

  Ginny shivered under my arm but smiled up at me.

  “Years later, tragedy again befell the Legare family. Julia’s brother was killed in the War of Northern Aggression, and his body shipped home to be interred with his ancestors. But the greater tragedy was discovered when the tomb was opened.”

  Ginny’s arms tightened around me. Reflex made me pull her tight.

  “The great marble slab was drawn back, only to reveal that poor Julia’s body was not where they’d left it. Instead, it lay against the door, falling to bits when the tomb was opened.

  “Julia, you see, had not been dead.”

  Ginny buried her head in my chest. “Good Lord, I can’t imagine. That’s horrible.”

  “I thought you’d heard this before.”

  “I have. It’s still horrible.”

  I looked down in horror at the wetness I suddenly felt on my shirt. “Are you crying?”

  She waved me off as the guide continued.

  “The family doctor had pronounced her dead, but Julia had only sunk into a deep coma. She woke to darkness and death all around her, and we can only imagine the terror that gripped her heart. The family was further horrified to see the shattered remains of her hands and the claw marks on the door. She had died still trying to escape.

  “With nothing left to do now but mourn her again, the Legare family entombed their daughter once more, this time beside her brother. The door with Julia’s pain so cruelly etched into it was closed once again.

  “Still grieving the awful discovery, several family members returned days later to pay their respects. But the door that had taken four men to close stood open. It was re-closed, only to be discovered open by the church’s clergy. Again it was shut, and again found open.

  “Julia, it seemed, would not allow it to remain shut.”

  “Damn. Neither would I,” I whispered to Ginny.

  “No.”

  “You are crying.”

  “Hush.”

  I hushed, but I could still feel her fist tightening in my shirt.

  “The family tried everything. Chains and unbreakable locks. Bars. Every time, the door was found open. Nothing could keep it shut. The last time, Julia’s ghost grew so angry that the door was blown clean off the mausoleum. You can see it now, broken in pieces and lying in front of the tomb. The bodies inside were buried in the ground, and no one has tried to close the door since.

  “It is thought that Julia is finally at rest now the tomb has no door. But some believe she waits here still, guarding the mausoleum, doomed to watch and make certain no one is ever shut away to their death again.”

  The guide finished his story to the sound of quiet applause and then told us we were free to walk around. I looked down to where my hand rested over Ginny’s fist, still twisted in my shirt. She sighed shakily. I feathered my thumb over her skin before I remembered Tom’s warnings, and that she wasn’t m
y girlfriend. She was my boss’s daughter. Confirmed man-eater. Possibly broken by her brother’s death, though if she was, she was really good at hiding it. Either way, very off-limits. That didn’t stop me from reaching up to swipe at the tear that slipped down her cheek.

  “Why is that your favorite story, if it makes you cry? Doesn’t it hit a little too close to home?”

  I kicked myself again after the words were out of my mouth, but Ginny just gave me a soft smile, even as she stiffened against me.

  “Maybe it gives me hope.”

  I had no idea what to make of that, but she took a shaky breath and pushed away before I had a chance to figure it out. I followed her in silence until we found ourselves around the back of the Legare mausoleum. The fog was getting thicker, pouring in off the ocean, and turning the lights into hazy halos. Ivy climbed up the back of the tomb, covering the stone walls and shivering in the wet ocean breeze that contrasted so sharply with the last of the day’s heat. The forest had encroached pretty heavily here, and the trees more than half-surrounded the crypt now.

  Ginny stopped at the corner of the crypt, staring into the entrance like she couldn’t look away. “I lied, you know. I’m not past it.”

  I froze behind her, not sure I’d heard her whispered words right.

  “I think about him all the time. How he must’ve felt. Cold and in pain. Confused. I dream about how he called my name, like he couldn’t tell I was there. The darkness. Is death cold?”

  “Ginny…”

  Her eyes stayed glued to the dark interior of the tomb. “I won’t go back there. I couldn’t bear it if he was stuck there, haunting his ruins. Like Julia. But part of me… I couldn’t bear if I went looking and he wasn’t there.”

  Her voice choked, and I couldn’t help it. My feet pulled me the last few steps to her, and I was already reaching to hold her when she turned. Her eyes glittered with tears, not matching the half-smile she forced. She pushed us back further until we were completely hidden.

  “Thanks for coming with me tonight.” Her voice was suddenly husky. Not teary, but wanting. The kind of wanting that immediately made my heart pound in my ears. “I hope you had fun.”