Reflections of Love

by Autumn Sand

  Marcus steps back inside, and I tuck the ribbon into my pocket quickly. “The police are on their way now. I think we should wait for them downstairs. I told the men to go home.”

  Casually, I reach behind me to touch the book and know I need to find a place to hide it before the police arrive. Marcus spins on his heel and walks toward the opening, while I turn around one last time to make sure there isn’t anything that I missed.

  “Coming?” Marcus asks from the other side of the hole.

  I cough. “Umm, yeah.” I step through the opening and back into my bedroom. The sunshine from the window hits the mirror and casts a blinding light in my eyes. I look up toward heaven, wondering if this is Franny or Henri signaling me, or could it just be something as simple as the sunlight? Can things ever really be considered simple again?

  For some reason, I don’t think it can be, not after this discovery. I have a feeling things just became more complicated.

  With one hand touching the book through my sweater, and my eyes toward the heavens, I whisper, “I will find you, my love.”

  Chapter 25

  Between the police, the coroner, some members of the historical society, and someone the governor’s office sent over, there was nothing but constant traffic in and out of the house for hours. Now, they’re finally gone, and the house is eerily silent. The questions they had for us were fairly simple enough to answer, since neither Marcus nor myself could have possibly been alive during the time of the murder. We could only explain how we came to the conclusion of knocking down the wall. After signing some witness statements, and dealing with the overwhelming press that suddenly parked right in front of my house, I can finally read Henri’s missing journal.

  Sitting downstairs in my newly refurbished kitchen with a cup of coffee, I open up the pages of the journal I concealed from Marcus and the police. As I begin to read it, I occasionally stare at the ceiling, wondering if Franny is waiting for me. I’m afraid to see her. I’m afraid to tell her what I’ve found. I’m a coward, and I need time to decipher this piece of the puzzle surrounding her ultimate disappearance. I also know I’m running out of time before I’ll be unable to prevent her death. This is July, and according to the De Wolfe slave records, Franny disappears in August.

  June 10, 1861

  My beloved is showing signs of recovering. Doctor Willoughby believes she will live, but will not be quite herself ever again.

  He skips some days of entries, and I wonder if it is because he is by Enid’s bedside, or painting. From the passages, you can tell he loves her very much.

  June 20, 1861

  Franny, Simon’s bastard from his beloved slave Louellen, has been acting odd around the house. I’ve found her sneaking out of my studio several times. When questioned, she says she’s cleaning. Nothing seems out of place so, for now, I will let it go.

  June 23, 1861

  My beloved was able to walk with assistance for the first time in months. Her body is frail, and you can see the bones through her skin. I placed the portrait of the two of us near her bed because she said it gives her pleasure, and there is nothing more that I want than to give her pleasure.

  June 27, 1861

  My beloved sat in her wheelchair in my studio, to watch me paint this afternoon. Her skin has some of its colorings back, and her eyes are once again alive. It was a gorgeous day for two people so deeply in love. My paint strokes were the best I’ve ever done, and I know it is because of her.

  June 30, 1861

  Something strange has happened, and I fear there has been irreparable damage done. To us, and our love. I was painting in my studio as my beloved slept in her room. I lost track of time as I painted, as I so often do. She came to my room with the assistance of a slave. I was happy to see her, and as I walked to where she stood, that is when Franny entered my room. My beloved flew into a blind rage and accused me of laying with her husband’s bastard. With a strength I was unaware she had, because of her illness, she struck the girl repeatedly with her walking stick. The girl dropped to her knees and pleaded with my beloved for her life, and swore she did not mean any harm. My beloved collapsed in my arms, and I whisked her to her bed, giving one last glance at the girl on the floor, clutching her stomach, while tears, mixed with blood, streamed down her face.

  My hands clutch the kitchen table as I shake with rage. She hit her. She beat her bloody! Blood coursing through my veins pounds in my head to the tune of a death march. That is what I am feeling; I want to kill the already dead Enid. Then it dawns on me that Franny was in that position because of me, and my need to see her as often as I could. She took risks at the cost of her life to see me. I’m the reason that she disappears. I know it; me coming into her life set off a chain of events that neither of us can control. I wasn’t saving her, as I thought; I was killing her.

  I rise quickly, and my chair’s screech reverberates through me and stabs me in my heart. What have I done? I glance down at the journal, and I know I must keep reading to get to the bottom; to see if I have enough time to save her.

  I skim through the next few entries of how Enid, in anger, tears apart his studio at night. Another, when she banishes Franny from her sight. With each entry, you see the mental deterioration of Enid, as her anger toward Franny grows, and her mistrust of Henri begins.

  Why didn’t Franny say something to me? She hid all of this from me, and still risked her life by coming to me? I let out a shaky breath. I’m unsure if I am strong enough to keep reading. Her pain is my pain, and I feel it in my bones, my soul, and my heart.

  The next entry I read, I have to reread because I’m scared of what I see on the page.

  July 20, 1861

  Inside my room today again, was Franny. She is talking to someone in the mirror. I see his image in place of her own. I stand, peeking through my door like a thief, as she talks to a man who is not smartly dressed. She is sitting on a chair with her summer shawl draped around her. She tells the man that she must go, and he pleads with her to stay a little longer. She promises to visit him again. She rises and walks over to the window. In doing so, she shifts her shawl and rubs what is undoubtedly a swollen belly. Immediately, I rush into the room and close the door, locking it. She turns around in fear, her eyes begging me, her silence cementing our fates, I feel. I open my mouth and say, “How.”

  She’s pregnant. Franny is pregnant. How did I miss it? I run my hands through my hair in desperation. Okay, for a few months she has taken to sitting in front of the mirror as we talk. But she explained it away, simply as being on her feet all day. Why didn’t she tell me?

  I look at the ceiling, as if I can see her through the wood and cement. Doing quick mental calculations, I realize she must be seven months pregnant now with our child. I have to get her out of there and bring her into the present with me. My child won’t be born a slave.

  Blindly, I run through the house and up the stairs, stumbling along the way. Finally reaching my bedroom, I stand by the door arch and stare at the mirror. I’m afraid to enter because once I do, things will forever change.

  Her image appears in the mirror as if my soul summoned her. With each step I take toward her, I notice slight differences I didn’t pick up on before. Her hands stroke her swollen stomach lovingly. Her face glows, and she is even more beautiful than I remember. She looks up, seeing me, and smiles.

  Taking in my expression, her smile slowly turns into a frown, and her eyes worry. I collapse to my knees in front of her.

  “You're pregnant.”

  Chapter 26

  “We came as fast as we could,” Dennis says, as his wife walks into the house behind him.

  Dennis was the only person close enough to my house who would understand what I had to tell them. Seated in my living room, I pour them each a drink as I explain in great length everything that has happened since the day I came to this house. They listen intently and without interruption. Occasionally, I check their faces for any signs of judgment as to what I’m saying, but I only
find signs of amazement and sympathy.

  “You see, I have no choice. I have to get them out. His last journal entry was July twentieth and today is the twenty-seventh. From the records we found at the historical society, and the inventory they did of the slaves, Fran is not mentioned in August. I’m out of time,” I say, as I pace the floor in front of them.

  “But you said you were only able to make physical contact that one time,” Dennis says.

  “I know, I still don’t know how. The best I can figure was that perhaps it was the stars in alignment or something. But yes, I haven’t been able to go back again.”

  His wife Wendy looks on as we discuss the possibility of me trying to save Franny.

  “I think I might know of a way,” she says. We both turn and look at her, waiting for her to proceed. “Do you have something of hers?”

  Remembering that I have the ribbon from her hair that was in Henri’s death grasp, I nod.

  “Good. That’s a start. I’ll get the rest.” She stands and holds her hand out to her husband, and asks for the car keys. He hands them to her, unease in his eyes. “It’ll be alright,” she reassures him, and off she goes.

  “What is going on?” I ask, as I stare out the window and watch her drive off.

  “She comes from a long line of hoodoo priestesses,” he says with a tremble.

  “Hoodoo?” I sit across from him, and wait for him to continue.

  “Yes, it’s a West African religion carried over by the slaves to these here parts. Her family comes from a strong line of hoodoo. They can conjure the dead.” He shakes his head.

  “Conjure the dead?” I parrot.

  “Mmmhmm. Sure can. I witnessed it a few times myself. The last time she did it, it damn near kilt her. She swore to me she would never do it again.”

  “Wait. She can die doing this for me?” I can’t have another death on my hands; perhaps I need to find another way.

  “Listen, I saw it in her eyes that her mind was set to help you and your unborn child. T’aint nuttin’ we can say or do to change her mind.” Tears fall down his cheeks, and I don’t know what else to do but to pray. Pray that we can all make it out alive.

  Upstairs in my room, we kneel before the mirror as Wendy prepares everything. I have so many questions as I watch her do the ritual, but I’m afraid to interrupt. She prays and kisses certain objects, then holds them in the air above her head, like an offering to God. Dennis’s eyes never leave his wife, and he occasionally assists her when needed. They’ve definitely done this before, I think to myself, as I watch them work in unison.

  “Evan.” She says my name, and I blink rapidly, so caught up in observing I forgot simple things, such as sound. “I can get you there,” she says, “but I will need help in getting you all back. You will need to find somebody for me when you arrive.”

  “Find somebody? How?”

  “She is a slave on the plantation. She’s my great great great great grandmother. She can do it, and if I’m guessing right, she’s expecting you.”

  I shake my head in astonishment. “Expecting me, how?”

  “There’s been a story that has been passed down for generations in my family. A story of her vision of Franny, and what I now believe to be you.”

  Chapter 27

  I’m floating, floating through what feels like space. My body feels weightless, and I feel free. “Inhale, Evan.” I hear Wendy’s voice from afar. I inhale and cough out the smoke that has surrounded me. “Remember to find Zhenga; she will show you the way home.” Her voices carries through space like a tunnel.

  Suddenly a hard force pushes me up further into the air. My heart is in my stomach as I am suspended upside down and then, with another shove, I am pushed down, spiraling out of control so fast I’m too scared to breathe. I open my mouth to scream, but my cries are lost in the place of no time.

  With a hard jolt, I’m thrown back to earth like a fireball. When I make impact, the air whooshes out of me, and I pass out.

  “He be fine chil’. Don’t you fret none.” From somewhere in the deepest part of my mind, I hear a woman’s voice, frail with age.

  “Why doesn’t he wake?”

  Fran? Is that my Fran? I want to open my eyes, but my body feels leaden.

  “He will wake. Zhenga said so.” A third woman’s voice speaks.

  “I told you he would come, didn’t I? Ain’t he here now? I told you that you will meet the man you are meant to love when I blessed that mirror.”

  More pieces of the puzzle of how Franny and I came to be falls into place. Zhenga is the orchestrator of it all.

  “B-but he won’t wake.” Fran’s voice sounds even more panicked.

  “Shh chil’. Eb’thing gone be a’right.”

  I try to speak through my mind. I want to tell Franny that I am okay, that we will be okay. She will come back with me, to my world, my time. We will be together, and she will be free. We will raise our child with our love. I have so much to say to her, but I can’t. My mind is working, but my body is not cooperating.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. “I knows you kin hear me. Your body is healing from your fall into our place.” Her cold hand moves from my shoulder. “T’aint be long now. He be up way fo’ sunlight.”

  “Mama, we’s gonna be free.” I hear Franny’s tears of joy.

  Silence falls on the room, and then a fear creeps into me. Did something happen? Have we been spotted?

  “I’s can’t, baby.” I hear her mother’s voice tremble.

  “B-but…”

  “Zhenga won’t be able to.”

  I hear rustling of fabric. “I don’t understand. I can’t leave you.”

  “You must.” Her mother’s tone is sharp. “I did this fo’ you.”

  “Zhenga? Please, you have to.”

  I listen intently for Zhenga’s reply, but then a gulp of air escapes my lips and I cough. I sit up and continue to cough, yacking up a black mist that circles around my head like a halo, then slowly disappears.

  “He’s awake.” Franny collapses in front of me and wraps her loving arms around my neck. I now know what heaven feels like because I am once again in her arms, and I will never let her go again.

  I inhale her hair, the scent of juniper and cotton. My eyes are closed as I thank God for this moment.

  “There’s not much time left,” Zhenga says. I open my eyes and see her smiling down at me.

  “Thank you,” I whisper. Franny’s kisses my cheek, and I wipe the tears from hers.

  “Come. We has to sneak you both to the house. We needs the mirror for this.”

  With the help of Franny and her mother, I rise. My legs feel unsteady, but I push through. The four of us run through the woods toward the house. My house, but not my house. There are cabins in the back, and lines of laundry hanging. Where my car garage stands in my time, there is only empty space. We walk the four steps at the back of the house, that lead to a mud room. I want to explore more, but there seems to be no time.

  “Wait,” Fran pants, as she tries to catch her breath. Her small stomach rises and falls rapidly.

  “I’ll carry you.” I bend and pick her up in my arms. Her cotton calico dress sways against my knees. She places her arms around my neck and smiles.

  “Come.” A gaslight shines in our faces. “Hurry. She’s asleep,” Henri whispers.

  Henri? He’s here to help? Questions, so many more questions, but again, no more time.

  With the light’s path, he shows us the way up the back steps, into his art studio. I place Franny down on her feet, and her mother grabs a chair for her to sit. I kneel before her and take her hands into mine.

  Tears of joy falls down her cheeks and then she lets out a scream of pain.

  “Franny?” I croak.

  “Hmm, it’s…hmm, it's too late,” she whimpers, her face suddenly ashen.

  “What?” I turn and look at her mother, who is crying. Henri has a stricken look on his face. “Do something. Send us back now.” I demand, Zhenga
looks at me with pity, and then her eyes fall to Franny. I follow her sight and see the blood red stain spreading across her dress.

  “Mamma!” Franny cries, and her mother rushes to her.

  “Quick, lay her on that couch ova der,” Zhenga commands. I remain frozen; it’s Henri who has sense enough to react. He reaches for her and carries her to the fainting couch. The same couch where we found his corpse!

  Fear that I have never known comes over me and takes over my heart, like death sweeping in. No, this is not how it is supposed to happen.

  “Push chil’,” Zhenga says, as Franny’s legs are open, her dress pushed above her waist.

  “No, my baby can’t be born here.”

  “Too damn late for that,” Zhenga snaps. “Tis was da will of da lawd.”

  I drop to my knees, my head bent over my clasped fingers. I’ve never been a praying man, never really knew if I truly believed in a higher being. But now, in this moment, I use up what I believe to be a lifetime of prayers, and I spend it on the woman I love and our unborn child.

  “I don’t know if you are there,” I say the words out loud, Franny’s screams in the background urging me forward.

  “But if you do exist, I’m begging you to save them.” My tears fall to the floor in a puddle of sorrows, for the happiness that will never come.

  “Push.”

  “Don’t take her from me. I know I’m not worthy.”

  “I-I can’t push no mo’.”

  I turn to look at her and cry harder. “Please. I’m begging you. Please let them live. “