“But what happens if these people get hurt? I haven’t forgotten about Austin Simmons. He’s gone, CJ.”
“Hey, that was Austin’s choice. He chose Isla, like he always did. He wanted to go back, God only knows why. Maybe it was his destiny—like you are mine.”
Ashland got up from the bench, and we hugged one last time before going inside. Apparently, our timing was perfect because Midas and Cassidy were looking for us.
“Hey, everything okay?” Cassidy studied us carefully. Midas was right behind her.
“I think we just needed a minute. Please, tell us what we can do to help you.”
Midas handed Ashland a cord and said, “Help us get these downstairs cameras set up. You said the Blue Room was a good place for a temporary HQ?”
“That’s right,” Ashland said as he took the cord. For the next hour, we got a crash course in setting up ghost hunting equipment. I wasn’t sure if it was knowledge I would ever use again, but it felt good to be doing something. And I could see that my husband felt the same way. After it was over, we gathered around the kitchen table and naturally I offered everyone something to drink. Midas said no, all business. Cassidy opted for water, but both Sierra and Joshua took me up on the offer.
“We’re going to let these cameras roll tonight. The original plan was to do the walk-through and then come back for investigation tomorrow night, but I don’t think that’s necessary. You clearly have activity going on, and after that big boom I don’t want to leave. Some of the team will be leaving. Sierra and Joshua have to pick up their daughter, right?”
“Yes, but I wish I could stay,” Joshua said as he looked at Sierra hopefully. She wasn’t going for that at all.
“Beverly and Leeland have to go too. But Cassidy and I would like to stay a while if that’s okay.”
“Sure, we’d love that,” I said as I squeezed my husband’s hand. “Wouldn’t we, babe?”
“Yeah, but if we’re going to be at this a while, I’m going to have to eat. Who’s hungry?”
And then all the worry and anxiety and tears melted away in the warmth of new friendships. We said goodbye to Sierra and Joshua. For some reason the other two investigators, Beverly and Leeland, couldn’t or wouldn’t come in the house. I didn’t say anything about it, but I did think it was strange. And the night wasn’t over yet. I hoped Midas and Cassidy were ready for what lay before them.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t. Not at all.
Chapter Ten—Lafonda
“Mama, you’re making a sight of yourself.” I set the tray down and began to gather her soiled laundry. I wanted nothing more than to open a window and air the room out, but somewhere in the back of my mind I warned myself that was not a good idea. What if she decided to hurl herself from the window? To my own surprise, I paused at the windowsill even as Mama ranted about the noisy children.
Imagine. To finally be free of Mama…but I should not think such things. If Mama has been a disaster, it has only been to herself.
“Mama, there are no children here. Lady Rose doesn’t have any children, and she is our only tenant at the moment. Yvette’s family isn’t here. If you don’t calm down, you will frighten away Lady Rose. I’m sure no one will want to stay at Seven Sisters with all this noise.” I checked the latch on the window just to be sure that she couldn’t open it. I needn’t have worried. They needed a carpenter’s attention; the wood had shifted slightly, making it difficult to open them. Mama barely had the strength to open her snuff box, much less this stubborn window. But I would open it for her, if she asked me to.
No, Lafonda. Don’t think such things. You will be no better than her. Mama cannot help herself.
But that’s not really true, is it? I argued with myself. She killed Jonatan by murdering Max Davenport, and all for what? To garner Jonatan a wife. I knew her dirty little secrets, and I hated her for them.
I moved my hand away from the window and clutched the dirty sheets as she shouted, “Make them stop, Lafonda! This is our house. They don’t belong here! Send Lettie to me now!”
In a moment of sympathy, I touched her arm. “Lettie is gone, Mama. The fever took her, remember? She was the first to die and then all the others.”
She snatched her hand away and frowned at me, her entire face darkening. “You lie. She was just here, silly girl. I spoke to her about my hair.” I could see that she wasn’t really sure about what she was saying or thinking. She rubbed her collar nervously. How she could stand to wear those high tight collars in this heat was beyond me, but I counted myself fortunate that she was at least dressed today. Some days she did not get out of her nightgown. She spent more days sleeping and crying than not. Why should today be so unusual?
“I need Lettie’s help with my hair. You wouldn’t deny me that kindness, would you? She shouldn’t be taking care of those sick people. She is my maid, not yours. She’s not a housemaid. Just look at my hair!” Mama collapsed in her vanity chair and put her hands in her dirty hair. “It has to be brushed, and I can never do the pins properly.” Suddenly Mama was crying, and all the hatred I felt for her vanished. I tossed the sheets away and reached for the brush.
“There are no more sick people here, Mama. They’ve all gone. I’ll brush your hair for you; I know exactly how you like to wear it.”
Her tears dried up, and she dabbed at her face with a dirty handkerchief that she pulled out of the vanity drawer.
I recognized that handkerchief. It had once belonged to Memphis Overstreet, my sister-in-law. I spotted the dainty letter M and the pink rose she preferred. “Where did you get that?” I asked as I clutched the brush, my fingers locking around the wooden handle.
“What is it?”
“That handkerchief belonged to Memphis. Where did you get it, Mama? I have never seen it in your possession before.”
She tossed the handkerchief back in the drawer like a guilty child and slammed it shut. Mama was behaving like a child trying to hide a stolen sweet. Two smudges of pink stained her cheeks as she opened the tin that held her bobby pins. “You aren’t going to make the twist too tight, are you? Lettie knows how to do all this. You could just do us both a favor and send her to me.”
“Lettie is dead, Mama. I’m sorry that you do not want to hear it or that you don’t believe me, but she has been dead for months. Tell me the truth, where did you find that handkerchief?”
“How dare you question me? I’m your mother, not a child. Certainly not your child, you barren wasp of a girl! If you do not want to help me, then leave me alone.”
“No, it’s you who are the wasp, Mama!” I decided it would be best for me to leave. I picked up the soiled laundry as I slapped the brush on the vanity table. I couldn’t hide my anger and my heartache one more second. She wasn’t going to tell me the truth about the handkerchief no matter how much I scowled at her. Now she dared insult me in such a way? It was a shame that in her lunacy she could not comprehend that I was her caregiver. As I walked out of the room, I once more paused at the window.
What are you thinking? Leave Mama to do what she wants—at least she isn’t leaving her room.
I stepped out into the hallway and took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air that rushed through the upper floor. Yvette and I had opened all the windows up here before we began moving my things this morning. The work was coming along nicely, and the atmosphere felt lighter by the minute. At least in most of the house. Mama’s room needed serious cleaning as well, but I wasn’t prepared to fight with her about it. And she would certainly oppose intruders, as she referred to Yvette and sometimes me, coming into her room.
I headed downstairs to deposit the dirty linens in the basket for one of the housemaids to boil and scrub. It had become regular practice here at Seven Sisters to do such things. It kept the sickness away. Cleaning kept death away. But look at my hands! Just look at them. If I thought they were rough when Jonatan and I spent all our days digging out roots and tearing off twigs with our bare hands, they were certainly horrible now.
I missed those days. Yes, Jonatan, I remember it all. The occasional scratch and dirt under the fingernails that always set Mama’s hair alight, but now…
“Ma’am? Did you hear me? You have a guest in the parlor.” Yvette met me in the hallway, her face puffy.
“Another guest? How have we suddenly become so popular? If you’re referring to Lady Rose, she’s hardly a guest now. She’s a tenant.”
Yvette’s face reddened, and I suddenly felt alarmed. “I supposed that the maid told you, but he’s been here a while. I thought I would mention it.”
“Who is it, Yvette?”
“It’s the young man again. The one you chased out of here the other day,” Yvette warned as she cut her eyes toward the ladies’ parlor. I could feel the lines of my face tightening. What was it going to take for Paul Davenport to get the message? Even as I thought about slapping his face, a small sliver of my heart wanted nothing more than to take his hand and pretend that nothing ill had passed between us. To pretend that he hadn’t played on my affections as efficiently as his brother had manipulated Jonatan. But of course, I was too practical for such frivolous thinking. And once he had broken my trust, he would never gain it back. I had very few friends to begin with even before the loss of Jonatan and Papa. We moved about so much that making serious friendships had proven difficult even through written correspondence. But the man I used to know as Philip had been so different, or so I had supposed. If I allowed my heart to return to that moment when we met in the Moonlight Garden, then I perhaps could easily pretend he had not betrayed us all.
It wasn’t to be. I had decided during these months of sickness and death that I would never again play the fool. Imagine my surprise when I stepped into the ladies’ parlor to discover that Philip was not there. I saw the back of him retreat through the open door that led to the Rose Garden. The air crackled with tension as if I’d stepped into a heated conversation—one that I certainly should not have missed. I heard a woman sob; standing near the open door with her hand raised and her shoulders heaving was Lady Rose. She must’ve heard me, for she spun about on her heel and said in a whisper, “This place is full of ghosts.” I watched in amazement as she retreated out of the door. A look of anguish crossed the older woman’s face as she vanished into the Rose Garden.
I shouted after her, “Come back! I agree with you.” What had just happened? I suddenly wished that I had arrived sooner, for surely something had passed between them.
Philip? It would do no good to pretend anymore.
I cared for Philip or Paul, whatever his name truly was. And I would very much liked to have seen him despite all my threats, but he was gone without so much as a word to me. He was gone, and my tenant was weeping in the garden.
Torn between finding Philip and comforting Lady Rose, I was distracted by the sounds of footsteps running beside me. A child’s footsteps. But as I had told Mama earlier, there were no children currently residing at Seven Sisters. None at all. None of the maids except Yvette had children, and hers were not here. They were at home with her oldest daughter, who kept them while she worked. Following the sound of running feet, I stepped into the hallway just in time to see a little girl with curly brown hair disappear into the study. I waited as the air went gray and I felt a strange sort of dizziness and a great deal of anxiety. A child was here! But whose child? I stood frozen to the spot, and fear hit me again. Why was I experiencing such trepidation? This was my house and no one else’s. I was certainly not going to wait for the child to plunder my desk or destroy any of Papa’s books. There were many precious things in my father’s study. That’s when I heard the safe door squeak.
“Stop!” I barked as I opened the door and stepped inside the study. “Come out!”
I hurried around the desk to see what happened to the child. Was she under there? It would be easy for a little one to find a hiding place in this room. There were many chairs and pieces of furniture large enough to hide behind. “It’s no use hiding. I saw you come in here. Come out, little girl.” I moved the chair and searched under the desk, but she wasn’t there.
The safe was standing open. All the money and my jewels were there, but there was one more thing. A large black marble sat atop a stack of currency. My mysterious guest had disappeared, but she had left me a gift. Was I going to take it? This wouldn’t be the first time I had found a strange item in the cast iron safe.
But this was the first time I’d seen the hand that had placed it inside. And the first time I knew for certain she was a ghost.
Lady Rose was right—Seven Sisters was full of ghosts.
Chapter Eleven—Midas
“So, you’re saying that you were scratched by the entity? That’s never good. When they’re strong enough to interact physically with the living, all bets are off. And you think this was Jeremiah Cottonwood?” I scribbled on the notepad and listened as Carrie Jo and Ashland shared their most terrifying paranormal encounters. This was a great way to get to know my clients and record more information about their experiences. I was extremely disappointed that the activity had died down, but I was about ready to call it a night. We all needed our rest for tomorrow night’s session.
“Yes, and I was Calpurnia in my dream. Jeremiah had brutalized his family when he was alive and wanted to continue the abuse after he died. I think he always hated the fact that Calpurnia had escaped this prison, she and Muncie together. He was her friend, the best friend she ever had. They left together, and it took a long time for us to figure out where they went, but now we know. I would never have dreamed that Calpurnia would come back to Seven Sisters, but she has—I’ve seen her in a dream. She came back during Lafonda’s time, Ashland. And she saw Philip.”
Cassidy shook her head as she flipped another page in her sketchbook. I could only imagine what life would be like as a psychic dreamer, but whatever Carrie Jo might think, I completely believed her. Every hair on my body was standing up. I had seen too much, experienced too much to deny the truth when I heard it. Cassidy reached in her pocket and pulled out a ponytail holder. Wrapping her hair up into a neat bun, she picked up a pencil and studied Carrie Jo.
“Would you mind if I sketched you while we talked? It helps me to sort out what I’m seeing. I don’t dream, Carrie Jo, not like you. But I do have visions, a compulsion to draw the entities that I see. And this place is full of both residual and active spirits. Maybe if I can sketch the right face, we can figure out who is hanging out in that upstairs room. I’d like to draw you.”
“Sure,” she said with a shrug.
“I know we’re all tired, but honest opinion from the both of you—do you think it’s Jeremiah who is slamming doors and harassing your niece?”
Carrie Jo and Ashland looked at one another. She answered for them, “No, we don’t. He’s gone, moved on after the death of our friends. I like to believe that Terrence Dale and Bette helped him move on to wherever it was he needed to go. As far as I can tell from my dreams, there were many people who lived here over the years, but most of them are somehow related to the Cottonwoods and the Beaumonts. Except the Delarosa family. They came here from Spain. Lafonda’s father, Nobel, was a shipping tycoon. At least for a time. When they moved to Mobile, he bought this house from the bank with the intentions restoring her to her former glory. He died, and so did his son, Jonatan; his wife, Jacinta, and their daughter, Lafonda, remained here.”
“Nobel wanted to find the Beaumont fortune, but he didn’t tell anyone about it except a guy he hired to help him dig up the garden. His name was Paul Davenport—he’s the guy who pretended to be a Beaumont. I think he wanted to ingratiate himself with Lafonda,” Ashland said as he leaned back on the couch. He looked tired suddenly. Yeah, we had to go home.
Carrie Jo added, “Right. Paul pretended to be a Beaumont. Look, I know this is confusing for you two. Ashland and I have been living with this place and these people for so long that I take for granted how much I do know. It’s a shame, really. I spend so much time with the dead, at least
in my dreams. I’m really ready for our home to be free and clear of activity. I’m ready to lay my head down at night and not have ghosts trying to talk to me. I want Seven Sisters to be a happy place for my family and friends. All of them. We’ve lost a lot of loved ones dealing with this house.”
“Which brings me to my next question, why would you want to stay here? It is a beautiful place, but look at what you two have had to endure. Why don’t you just close the house or sell it and walk away?”
Carrie Jo and Ashland looked at one another. Carrie Jo tried to smile, but it quickly died. “I guess if we have to, we will, but if there is any way we can close any remaining spiritual doors, any portals, we want to do that. That would be option A.”
“But option B is okay too, if that is what it takes. My family comes before anything else, even my heritage,” Ashland said as he touched his wife’s shoulder softly. Yes, these two certainly loved each other. They’d make it, I had no doubt of that, and I got what they were saying. They wanted to at least try. Who was I to say no?
“Who do you think is here? Who is causing all the trouble?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait long to find out.”
“We’ve been running those cameras for at least an hour now. Let’s go take a look at them. Cassidy and Carrie Jo, will you check the footage?” I asked hopefully. “Ashland and I will go up and check everything. I’d like to leave them running all night if that’s okay.” I hadn’t sat down good at the folding table before I realized that all the cameras were black. There wasn’t anything to show at all.
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