by Linda Fallon
“What are you going to do if he doesn’t show up?” Daisy whispered.
Eve stared at her best friend. Her heart thudded too hard. “He’ll be here.”
“But if …”
“He’ll be here!”
Daisy laid a hand on Eve’s shoulder, cocked her head and smiled pleasantly. Daisy Willard was everything Eve was not. Fair and beautiful, delicately feminine. She always knew what to say.
“Of course he will be here. I don’t know what I was thinking to suggest that he might not. He adores you, Eve. You’re right. He will be here at any moment.”
It was a blatant and very sweet attempt to soothe Eve’s rattled nerves.
Daisy straightened a bit of lace on Eve’s sleeve. “That nice Lionel Brandon,” she said too casually. “Did he mention me this morning when you saw him?”
“Um, no,” Eve said.
“I met him briefly, last night, as he and his friends checked into the boarding house. He’s very dashing, don’t you think? He looks rather like a nicely dressed Viking.”
Eve turned her attention to the waiting crowd in the church proper. She didn’t have time to ponder Daisy’s interest in Lionel. A Viking? Good Lord.
“He is attractive, I suppose,” she said in a casual voice. “But I do doubt that you two have anything in common.”
“We have you and Lucien in common,” Daisy said brightly.
Eve ignored her friend. The wedding guests were getting restless. People fidgeted, the whispers grew louder.
When the door behind her opened, Eve breathed a sigh of relief, then turned around quickly. A gust of cold wind pushed her skirt and her veil back, before the church door closed again.
It wasn’t Lucien who’d come bursting in out of the cold. It was a boy, surely no more than twelve years old with a sheet of crumpled paper in his hand.
“Are you Evie?” the boy asked breathlessly.
“Yes.” Her heart leapt. Now she knew something was wrong. Lucien had sent this boy. No one else called her Evie.
She hesitated before taking the note. Yes, something was certainly wrong. If not, Lucien would be here himself. He wouldn’t do this to her again. He wouldn’t leave her waiting in the church in her wedding gown, not if he could help it.
“I came as fast as I could,” the boy said. “He said I had to hurry. I ran home and told Ma what was going on, and then I got here as quick as I could.”
“I’m sure you did,” Eve said as she unwadded and unfolded the note the boy had pressed into her hand.
Her blood ran cold as she read the note. One sentence was repeated over and over again. I didn’t forget. I didn’t forget. I didn’t forget. The page was filled from top to bottom with that sentence. The writing was not consistent. It often changed in midsentence from crude, childlike penmanship to an elegant script to small, perfectly formed letters. There were at least six different styles of handwriting here, that she could discern at first glance.
“Where is he?” she asked the boy.
“I found him at the old Honeycutt Hotel.”
Right where Garrick had said he would be.
“I hunt over that way just about every day,” the boy continued, “and his horse was out front of the hotel and had been for more than a day. I was worried that something might have happened. After I looked in on him and he asked me to deliver this note, I took his horse home, told Ma what was going on, and took my Ma’s horse for the trip, since I’m more comfortable with Buttercup than with a strange animal. You don’t have to worry about his horse, though. My Ma’s taking care of it.”
“Very good,” Eve said crisply. She wanted to cry, and she wanted to scream that she didn’t care about the horse or how the boy had gotten here. Her chest was tight and her stomach was in knots, the scream caught in her throat. But there was no time for hysterics. “What’s wrong with Lucien? Is he injured? Is he sick?”
“I don’t rightly know, ma’am,” the boy said in a lowered voice. “He was just sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth sorta slow and easy, and he kept talking.”
“Talking about what?”
“I don’t know. Most of the time it was just gibberish.” The boy leaned in close. “Ma’am, I don’t think he’s quite right in the head, but he insisted that I deliver this to Evie at the Plummerville Methodist Church, and here I am.”
“Thank you …” Eve said, glancing down at the note again. “What is your name?”
“Elijah, ma’am.” He looked past her to the waiting wedding guests. “My Ma woulda gone to check on your friend herself, but she hurt her hip a few weeks back and she doesn’t walk too well.”
“That’s quite all right,” Eve said absently.
Elijah craned his neck to see into the church. “Are you getting hitched today?”
Eve sighed. “Apparently not,” she said under her breath. She folded the note and grasped it tight. “Elijah, I want you to wait right here for a moment, and then I would like you to take me to this hotel.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said dutifully. “You’d better hurry, though, if you want to get there before dark.”
She nodded and turned around with a dramatic swish of her full skirt, and finally began her walk down the aisle, skirt lifted off the ground so as not to impede her quick step. Daisy was right behind her. “Eve,” Daisy whispered as she hurried to keep up. “What are you doing?”
“You heard what the boy said. Lucien’s in trouble. I’m going to get him and bring him home.”
As Eve approached the altar, the Reverend Watts stepped from his station to the side of the front pew. Hugh moved forward, too, and Eve waved them both off as she turned to face her guests.
“I’m afraid there’s not going to be a wedding today,” she said emotionlessly, while her heart pounded and that stifled scream crawled into her throat once more.
Aunt Constance stood quickly. “Not again!” she snapped. “Eve, this is simply unacceptable behavior.”
Eve looked at her aunt. “I’ve just received word that Lucien is ill, and I’m going to fetch him.”
“Ill?” Hugh stepped around the preacher. “Where? What happened?”
“There’s no time to explain,” Eve said. “I must hurry if I’m going to get there before dark.”
Aunt Constance moved toward Eve with dainty steps, lowering her voice as she said, “You are not going to chase after a man who has left you waiting at the altar twice. It simply isn’t done.”
There had been a time when Eve would have agreed with her aunt. The last time Lucien had done this to her she had been devastated. She would not have gone after him, no matter what kind of note he’d sent.
But now she knew without doubt that he loved her, and she would not let him stay all alone in a deserted old hotel where he had obviously been trapped or weakened or made ill by the possession of unhappy spirits. The note, with its variation in handwriting styles, told her that much. He should have known better than to go to such a place alone!
“I have to go,” Eve said softly.
“What will I tell my friends?” Aunt Constance asked haughtily.
Eve sighed. “I really don’t care what you tell your friends. At the moment, I only care about Lucien.”
Aunt Constance pursed her lips in disapproval.
“I’ll go with you,” Hugh said, stepping into the aisle to meet her.
Lionel and O’Hara stood and nodded their heads. “We’ll ride along,” Lionel said in his deep, soft voice. “Perhaps we can be of help.”
“Me, too,” Daisy insisted.
“And us.” Garrick, president of the Plummerville Ghost Society, stood, and so did Katherine and Buster.
“It’s really not necessary for all of you to come with me,” Eve protested. “I’m sure I can handle … whatever I find.”
“You’d rather go alone?” Garrick asked. “You don’t know what you might find there. Besides,” he said sheepishly, “this is at least partially my fault.”
“It’s just that I
have to hurry,” Eve explained.
“I’m going too,” Aunt Constance said with a nod of her well-coiffed head.
“No!” Eve protested. If they were going to find what Eve thought they might find at this hotel, she definitely didn’t want her staid aunt and uncle along for the trip. “If you would see to closing up the house for me, I would appreciate it. You can stay if you’d like, or … go on home. I have no idea when I’ll be back.”
Aunt Constance pursed her lips. “I still say it’s not at all proper to go chasing after a man who has left you at the altar not once but twice!”
She couldn’t explain, not in the little bit of time she had. It would certainly be best if they reached the Honeycutt Hotel before dark, as Elijah had suggested.
“I have to go,” Eve said, turning and practically running down the aisle. Her friends and Lucien’s were right behind her.
*
It would be night soon. Dark again. The sky outside the windows was growing gray. The spirits loved the night.
The first night in this place had not been so bad, in the beginning. He’d walked about the place with the candelabra in his hand, explored empty rooms, and then come downstairs to rest for a few hours before heading home. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to his work. His mind had wandered, it had opened, and the spirits had grabbed him from the inside out. He’d been overpowered so quickly defense was impossible.
Yesterday had passed in a misty daze. But the day hadn’t been nearly as bad as the night that followed it. Last night this room had grown so dark, and the hours of blackness had been so very, very long. He’d lost all track of time. Was it just past midnight or almost dawn? Had he been lying here hours or minutes? The spirits had descended upon him in the dark, they’d danced around and inside him. Lucien wasn’t sure he’d live through another night like that one.
He lay on his back on the lobby floor, feeling oddly boneless, staring up at the ceiling. This old hotel that had been unoccupied for six years was a lively place. It was filled with ghosts who didn’t know they were dead, empty spirits, and mischievous phantoms who delighted in being seen.
They all wanted to talk to him, to talk through him. Usually he had a high degree of control when it came to channeling, but the spirits in this house had seized him. Possessed him. All day yesterday, all night last night, they had used his body until he had nothing left. He had no physical strength, and his mind … his mind was in shreds.
Something else was here, too. Watching. Waiting. Taking pleasure in Lucien’s pain. He couldn’t quite grasp what that evil was … but he felt it, and it made him cold to his bones.
In his occasional lucid moments he thought of Eve, and those thoughts kept him sane.
He was so cold, lying on the floor. Cold and then hot. And he was utterly alone. He had been alone most of his life. Until Eve had come into that life he hadn’t much cared, or even noticed. But now—he didn’t want to be alone anymore. He wanted her with him, badly.
The sky outside the windows grew darker. Something pattered sharply against the panes of glass, like a shower of tiny pebbles.
Sleet. Sleet and a wind so strong it blew the bits of ice beneath the porch overhang. He tried to laugh, and inside he did. He did. No sound came out of his mouth, though, and he didn’t move at all. The sleet would be followed by snow. The winding road to this place, which was filled with potholes and even a low ditch at one point, would be impassable. No one would find him, and he would not survive the night.
A voice that was not his own drifted from his mouth. “You’ll like it here.”
He had asked, a hundred times, that the spirits that held him here let him go. Yesterday, in a lucid moment before he had grown so weak, he had tried to leave by way of the front door. It had refused to open. He’d then tried a window. It had also been stuck. The door at the back of the house, off the kitchen, would not open.
But this morning, when the boy had come in and found him, the front door had opened quite easily, for him.
The house and the spirits in it didn’t want Lucien to leave.
“With your spirit here,” the strange voice coming from his mouth continued, “we’ll be more powerful than ever.”
“I won’t stay,” Lucien insisted in a gruff, low voice.
“You will.”
He closed his eyes and thought of Eve. She was the only good thing in his life, the only good thing he had ever had. And he had left her waiting for him, once again. He had humiliated her, broken her heart. That’s why she wasn’t here. She wasn’t coming, because she had been unable to forgive him a second time. She wasn’t coming. No one was coming. And if the spirit who was currently inside him was right, he would never leave this place.
Sleet! It was bad enough that the gulley across the road had forced them to abandon the wagon that she, Daisy, and Katherine had been riding in, now sleet whipped across her face.
Eve and the other women each rode with a man on horseback. None of the ladies were accustomed to such methods of travel and they all held on tight. Eve rode behind Hugh, Katherine rode with Buster, and Daisy was currently holding onto Garrick for dear life. O’Hara and Lionel and Elijah rode alone, with Elijah leading the horse that had been pulling the wagon.
“There it is!” Elijah cried.
Eve peeked around Hugh to catch her first glimpse of their destination. The Honeycutt Hotel was a huge monster of a building, square and solid and standing three stories high in the last light of day. The sight made her shudder. There was nothing for miles around, except for Elijah’s home, and it was not close enough to be in sight. The boy had said it was well beyond the hotel where he’d found Lucien.
Why would anyone build a hotel out here in the middle of nowhere?
Freezing rain pelted against her face. It was almost dark. She wanted to urge Hugh to move faster, but she knew he was going as fast as the weather and the condition of the animal they rode would allow. Lucien was in there. Hurt? Alone?
“Hurry, Hugh,” she said softly.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” he assured her.
It was a long few minutes. The cold air whipped through the black wool cloak she wore over her wedding gown; sleet stung her cheeks. Now that the hotel was in sight, she didn’t dare hide her face behind Hugh’s back. She wanted to keep the place in sight.
As they drew closer, Hugh spurred his horse past Elijah. They reached the steps that led to the wide front porch before the others, and Hugh helped her down.
“Wait!” he called as Eve ran to the front door. “It might not be safe.”
She heard Hugh, but nothing could stop her. No warning. No concern for her own safety. She threw the front door open, and even though it was dark in the cavernous lobby she saw the outline of a body lying on the floor. He didn’t move.
“Lucien,” she whispered as she ran toward him and dropped to her knees. “Dear God, what happened?”
Her heart stopped. The man she loved, the man she was supposed to spend a lifetime with, was dead. He didn’t move. She laid her hands on his face, finding him still warm. Too warm, in fact. She lowered her head so she could be close to him. She held her breath as she listened closely. Yes, he breathed.
“Wake up,” she said softly. “Look at me, Lucien.”
His eyelids fluttered, and then his eyes opened.
“Am I dead?” he whispered.
“No.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. Did he have a fever? Perhaps.
“But you’re here, and you’re so beautiful. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I’m dead, and you won’t tell me …”
“You’re not dead,” she insisted.
Lucien’s eyes rolled back in his head, his body twitched, and then he looked at her again and smiled. In a voice slightly higher and more clipped than his own, he said, “Not yet.”
Four
Eve used all her strength to pull Lucien into a sitting position. He leaned into her, limp and lifeless, as the others began to parade th
rough the door. A brave Elijah led the way. “There are candles in the kitchen, I believe,” he said, pointing out the way. Katherine and Buster hurried in that direction together. “And there should be plenty of blankets upstairs. Y’all should be comfortable enough for the night.”
“No,” Eve said. “We’re not staying here. We have to get Lucien out of this place. Now.”
Hugh knelt down beside her and lifted Lucien’s arm, laying his fingers over the pulse at his wrist. “We can’t leave here tonight, Eve. I’m sorry. It’s almost dark, the sleet is coming down hard, and Lucien is in no condition to travel.”
All she could think of was that he should be cold. His overcoat was thrown over the back of the sofa, his suit jacket was on the floor several feet away. All he had to protect him from the cold was a white shirt, his trousers, his socks and shoes.
“They want him dead,” Eve whispered, as if the spirits couldn’t hear her if she kept her voice low. “He can’t stay here.”
“Lucien is no longer alone,” Hugh said in a soothing voice. “We’ll protect him.”
“How?”
Hugh smiled softly. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine, now that we’re here.”
Since Bernard Abernathy’s death four years ago, Hugh Felder had been like a father to Eve. Kind and supportive, quiet and reserved, he was more family to her than Aunt Constance would ever be. And he was Lucien’s family in that same way. Hugh had guided them both, as he had guided Lionel and O’Hara. At one time they had all been lost, and Hugh had shown them the way.
O’Hara walked around the room, searching dark corners and talking to himself, laying his hand against the wall, here and there, pausing to absorb the information he gathered in that way. When he passed Daisy, he brushed up against her, much too closely. Daisy jumped and leapt out of his way with a muted screech, and O’Hara responded with a gentle smile. Every family, whether by birth or by choice, had a black sheep. He was theirs.
Katherine and Buster returned from the kitchen with candles and matches, and began to light them one by one until the lobby of the Honeycutt Hotel was bathed in a soft, warm glow. Katherine righted a candelabra that had fallen onto its side and lit the short candles there.