by Lyla Payne
Shockingly, I feel the desire to defend Mama Lottie rise inside of me. “You mean they didn’t ask questions because they didn’t want to give up a woman who had such valuable abilities.” This time it’s not a question.
“Maybe.” He looks worn out in that moment, and in his child’s face I see a man who lived a full, long life and appears desperate to lay down his troubles and move along. He’s the oddest ghost—aside from the two Mama Lotties—I’ve ever come across. “Maybe, but we don’t deserve her wrath. She doesn’t know everything. I keep trying to tell her, but she won’t listen to me.”
I recall how he screamed the same thing at her the night of the reunion when I’d run into them both—that she was wrong, that she doesn’t understand and doesn’t know everything. But what information is she missing?
“What doesn’t she know, Charles Henry?”
“That she’s the one who killed James.”
The words hit me like a load of boulders crashing down a mountainside, gaining strength as they go through me. It’s as hard to believe as it is to deny—I’ve seen her fly into rages myself, and she forgets even her own objectives in the process. Charlotta said in her journals that even James feared his mother above anyone else, that he worried more about her finding out about his relationship with Charlotta than her father, the boy standing in front of me.
He waits, shifting from foot to foot with impatience, as I consider the possibilities. There must be more—the expectant expression on his face says there’s more—but what?
“How?” I ask.
“She didn’t know he was like her.”
The little girl version of Mama Lottie appears out of thin air, with a pop that explodes in my ears and leaves them ringing. She advances on Charles Henry like a tornado, moving so fast and cloaked in a dark cloud that sears my nerves with terror. “Get out of here, Charles Henry. Get out this instant!”
He looks at me once, resignation and fear cloaking his childish features. “He was like her.”
She crashes into him before the last word leaves his lips. The sound of a scream tries to rip me in two, otherworldly and as cringe-worthy as metal scraping against metal, and then they’re both gone.
I heave oxygen in and out, bending over to put my elbows on my knees to avoid a panic attack while the infection of horror slowly leeches out of my blood. Nothing I’ve experienced before now prepared me for violence between spirits, or the very real fear that Mama Lottie, in whatever form she chooses, can hurt me.
I need to get Daria to talk to me. I need to speak with my father about our family, our abilities, and what they mean—or can mean—for my future.
Right now, I don’t do any of that. I sit on the edge of the bed, shivers racking my bones, and try to force myself to believe that I’m safe here, where I have always been safe.
It’s not true, though. Mama Lottie got to Amelia in this house. She’s gotten to Charles Henry, and who knows if I’ll ever see him again. She could get to me, if she wants. And that’s the truth.
I finally summon enough courage to open my eyes, and find the room empty. No Henry Woodward, and not for the first time since he quit coming around, I think that I wouldn’t mind the company. The shower helps make me feel human again, washing away the dried sweat and stench of fear lingering in the wake of what happened this morning. It’s barely daybreak, the weak sunlight just daring to peer over the river and attempt to warm up the world of Heron Creek.
Downstairs, I start the coffee and grab the paper off the porch out of habit. Neither Millie nor I read the damn thing, but it gives me something to do while I wait for caffeine and the clarity it brings. There’s nothing of interest—and nothing about Amelia going missing, either. I frown, thinking that I need to check in with Travis since no one from the state or federal police has been by to talk to me or scour the house. Maybe we still haven’t reached the required amount of time missing for them to get involved.
I toss the paper aside in favor of a mug of coffee and choose staring blankly out into the trees behind the back deck over reading any more about Mr. Glass’s missing chickens or the forecast for possible snow on Thanksgiving. That’s still two weeks away, so I don’t see the point in thinking about it.
The things Charles Henry said ring in my ears—that Mama Lottie had been the one to kill her son, and she hadn’t known that he had been like her.
I’ve run through the options about a hundred times and always come back to one single possibility: James must have inherited his mother’s gift for the occult. For healing, for casting spells, I don’t know. Why would he have hidden it from her, though? And why would that lead to his death at her unknowing hand?
A growl tumbles from my throat unbidden. It frustrates me beyond belief that I keep gathering baskets and baskets of questions without unearthing nearly enough answers. It’s time for the people who can help me to step up to the plate, whether they want to or not.
I set my mug in the sink and fill one to go, then snatch my coat from the front closet and my car keys from the hook, and wrench open the front door.
A shriek burns my throat at the unexpected sight of a man on the porch, his knuckles poised to knock.
“Cripes, Gracie Anne. It’s just me.” Beau’s voice punches through my high-strung nerves, and in a breath, it settles my desire to fight my way past. “Are you okay?”
“Absolutely not,” I pant, bending over for the second time since I woke up this morning to put my hands on my knees and catch my breath. “What are you doing here?”
“I walked over to get the car. I was just going to check in on you.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t even noticed that the silver Buick was still in the driveway. “Are you going to meet with Marcia?”
“Yes, in an hour or so.” He pauses, a concerned wrinkle between his eyebrows as he looks at me. “What happened?”
“Oh, you know, just more awesome ghostly visits stopping me from getting a good night’s sleep.” The sarcasm feels good, like armor sliding down into place.
“I’m sorry.” Beau looks like he wants to reach out and hug me the way he would have last week. His arms twitch at his sides, and sadness fills me.
Could things have really been fine just a week ago?
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Gracie. All of this stuff with Lucy bubbling back to the surface…” He trails off, running a hand through his thick chestnut hair.
I do my best to reinforce my walls, because this is it—when he tells me it’s over for good. It must be. Surely all of these memories of Lucy, of what a perfect human being she’d been, only serve to point out the million ways that I’m not.
“I want us to try again,” he says instead. “Do you think we could?”
His question shocks me into silence. Beau moves forward, taking both of my hands in his and pressing them tight to his chest. Our eyes lock, his gaze earnest and hopeful, and I allow it to infect me because I want to believe we can make this work.
“Are you sure?” I manage. “I don’t want…I don’t want you to say that if you’re not sure you can put everything behind us. Take it slower.”
“I’m sure. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you, and even though we’ve had our troubles, I feel like having it all out into the open can only make us stronger.” He pulls me to his chest, his thumb on my chin as he tips my face up. “I don’t want to give up.”
“Neither do I,” I breathe. Then our lips touch, pulled together by a familiar magnetic force.
The kiss is too brief and soft, filled with quiet questions and hesitant answers. It feels like a new beginning, but even though I want that with Beau, it’s hard to relax when it seems as though so many other things in my life balance on a precipice of ending.
He pulls away, a small, private smile lighting his handsome face. My heart races as I lean in for just one more kiss, wondering when life will settle down enough to let us reconnect properly.
“Now tell me where you were off to in such a
hurry,” he says.
“I was going to see Daria. She hasn’t been returning my texts—probably because she told me, in no uncertain terms, that she was done with Mama Lottie—but I have to go out to Drayton Hall, and I don’t want to go alone.”
“I could go with you,” Beau offers. It’s quick and honest, and reminds me that he was going to try to talk to his mother about lifting her ban on my presence. “My mother won’t do anything with me there.”
I still worry about what Mama Lottie would do when confronted with a member of the family she hates, but this time I don’t let it control me. Finding Amelia takes priority.
“Okay.” Now that I’m willing to bring Beau into this mess, it occurs to me that maybe Drayton Hall isn’t where I need to go. At least, not today. I’ve tried getting answers out of Mama Lottie and it hasn’t worked. If last night was any indication, she’s not going to let anyone else tell me the truth, either. “Actually, maybe we could go to your parents’ house in Charleston?”
That startles him. “Why would you want to do that? I was hoping to avoid my mother.”
“Aren’t we all,” I say, my tone dry but as teasing as I can make it, so he knows I don’t hate his family. I don’t. They created him and his siblings, none of whom are making themselves easy to hate these days. “But there might be something in your house I need to see. Did you ever notice any old journals, like the ones on display at Drayton Hall?”
“Like the ones that Sarah Martha and Charlotta kept?” He nods. “There are more. My mother said there’s nothing of interest in them.”
“She lied. There are details about Charlotta’s illegitimate child and what became of his father.” I pause, licking my lips. Knowing there’s no way for Beau to unhear any of this. “Mama Lottie was the grandmother. I tried to tell her the truth, but she claims your family is responsible for James’s death.”
“Wow.” Beau looks as dumbfounded as I’ve felt over the past several days. “That would certainly give her reason to hate us. More reason, even.”
I shake my head, so happy to have someone to talk through this with now that Amelia is gone. Leo and Mel have their own problems, and besides, this affects Beau in a way it doesn’t them. It occurs to me now, like a bright beam of light, that we should have always been in this together.
Regret, cold and horrible, coats my insides like slime. I’ve been a major idiot.
“The ghost of one of your ancestors has been showing up. Last night he told me that Mama Lottie herself is responsible for James’s death, but that she either doesn’t know or won’t admit it. That James was like her, which I think must mean that he knew how to do the whole healing voodoo thing, and so it’s really—”
“Gracie, oh my laundry. Breathe, sweetheart.”
I do as he suggests because I am feeling a bit lightheaded. It’s just that now that there’s a real chance to prove the Draytons aren’t responsible for all of Mama Lottie’s troubles, I can’t wait to get going.
“Okay, better?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes. Sorry. It’s just…I really need to know what happened to them. To him, to the baby. All of it.”
“And you think Charlotta put it in those journals that my family has hidden away, why?”
“We won’t know until we read them, but I assume because illegitimate children aren’t something prominent families like to talk about.” I shrug. “It’s antiquated, but this is the South. And your mother is…your mother.”
He shakes his head at my lame attempt at avoiding an insult, then checks his watch. “I’ll take you, but it’ll have to wait until after I meet with Marcia and get those files. I’m going to drop them at Brick’s office afterward so he can go through them with his staff.”
“That should be faster.” I’m not thinking about Brick or the files, not right now. Frustration fizzes in my blood, but I can find a way to fill a few hours. “I still need to go see Daria. I’ll do that, and we can meet at your parents’ house in, what, a couple of hours?”
“Make it three. I’ll see if Birdie can do us a solid and get my mom out for lunch.” He kisses my cheek and squeezes my hand, and maybe it’s all going to work out for the best. “I can’t wait to see you later.”
“Me neither.”
We go our separate ways, Beau climbing into his Buick and heading for Beaufort and me pointing my much-maligned Honda toward Daria’s house on the outskirts of town.
It’s nice being alone on the road. Since everything went down with the Middletons, I’ve had an abundance of help, which is great, but there’s something about being alone, with the open road in front of me, that makes it easier to breathe.
The peace lasts for a mile or so before worry creeps back in and overtakes me. Daria hasn’t even answered my texts to tell me to go piss up a rope or send me an emoticon giving me the finger or anything. With the way people have been disappearing these days, I can’t help but wonder what I’m going to find at her mobile home slash office.
There’s no way to find out other than knocking on the door. I park and get out of the car, slipping a little on her gravel drive and gathering the tatters of my courage tight enough to rap.
My fears dispel in a whoosh when she pulls the door open, looking as disheveled as ever. Her hair is turquoise now, getting lighter in color as it approaches the tips, and frizzes out from her head in a way that would turn on Frankenstein’s monster like nobody’s business. She glares at me from eyes ringed by day-old makeup and folds her arms over her braless chest, giving no indication that she’s cold standing in the open doorway in nothing but a thin tank top and a pair of boyshort underwear.
“Seriously, Daria, you can’t answer the door like that. What if I’d been a rapist or something?”
“If you were a rapist or something it wouldn’t matter what I was wearing, Graciela.” She rolls her eyes, still blocking my path.
I need an invitation inside, and she’s not wrong. “Fine. But it could have been someone, like, on the verge of being a rapist and seeing you half-naked would have solidified his career choice.”
“You’re a shitty feminist, do you know that? What I wear doesn’t make men decide to rape me. They do that because they’re entitled, arrogant assholes who are told from a young age that they rule the world because of a piece of meat that dangles between their legs.”
As usual, there’s nothing to say to one of Daria’s rants. All I can do is shake my head. “Can I come in?”
“That depends. Are you going to stop saying stupid-ass shit?”
“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best.”
She lets me in despite the poor response and shuffles toward the back room where she lives. We pass through the office area, crammed with papers, a desk, a couple of computers, and three printers, none of which I’ve ever seen her use.
In the back room, she plucks a pair of yoga pants off the back of the couch and slips them on, then ties her hair into the world’s poofiest ponytail. I move some files off the loveseat and flop down, surveying the mess with a mix of admiration and horror.
“Been busy?” I ask, trying not to sound as defensive as I feel. It’s not like Daria and I are best friends or anything, and we don’t have the history that I have with my childhood pals in Heron Creek, but my feelings are hurt that she didn’t respond when I needed her.
“Yeah.” Her voice stays scratchy even after she takes two giant swigs from what looks like a tequila sunrise. “Not sure what’s doin’ it, but spirits have been all stirred up. The phone’s been ringing off the hook.”
The look she shoots my way is wary, but also annoyed.
“You could have called me. I still owe you that favor,” I remind her.
“Could have. But I figured staying away from you might be the best thing for the time being.”
I try not to take the barb personally. Knowing Daria even as well as I do, she doesn’t mean to be cruel. “I need to know if there’s another way to protect myself, other than the grounding process. Mama L
ottie…she hurt me the other night. If I see her again, I need to be prepared.”
Her face goes pale, but she tries to hide her fear as she shakes her head. “Not that I know of, not really. Some people say witches can give you protection spells, things like that, but it’s all hogwash.”
“What is? Witches?”
“I would never presume to say that about someone else’s life experience. Not after all the weirdness of mine.” She takes another long pull off her drink, nearly draining it. “I believe there’s truth to witchcraft in all of its many forms, but that it doesn’t have much interaction with the life after this one. In most cases.”
“So if she flies into one of her rages there’s nothing I can do to stop her from killing me?”
“You can leave her be. That’s my advice.”
“I can’t do that, Daria.” My frustration rises, making me wonder if I should make an appointment with Amelia’s therapist and get some anxiety meds.
The thought of Amelia shakes loose another reminder: to tell Clete he can back off the search into the Middletons. If Charles Henry says Mama Lottie has Amelia, I believe him.
My eyes meet Daria’s, and the tears gathered in hers drop cold fear into my belly. A heavy weight presses against my chest until I’m about to hyperventilate. Nothing scares Daria. Nothing except Mama Lottie.
“She has Amelia,” I whisper. “She took her, and I have to figure out how to get her back. You don’t have to help me, but if you could just answer some questions…”
I trail off because I’m ready to cry again myself. Daria takes a minute, drinks the rest of her beverage, makes another, then comes to sit across from me on the couch.
“Okay. I’m petrified, Graciela, I ain’t gonna lie, but that is some bullshit. She can’t have the living. She can’t. It’s not her right.” She nods, determination and fire lighting her still-wet gaze. “Shoot.”
“Thank you, Daria.” I take a deep breath. “Now, have you ever had to try to help a spirit cross over who doesn’t want to? Or who you have to convince?”