Witch Angel

by Trana Mae Simmons

  “Well, yes,” Alaynia admitted. “But the alternative, unless you have plenty of money, which I didn’t have, is to let the house go to ruin. Or find a historical society that will take on the maintenance of it. There’s a big lack of funds for stuff like that back in my time, however.”

  Another clap of thunder sounded, then rolled away in diminishing waves. The sky opened up, and sheets of rain poured down the open sides of the front porch, giving a surreal appearance to the landscape beyond. The bright flowers took on a fuzziness when seen through the rain, reminding Alaynia of the mistiness of the cemetery at night and calling her attention back to the discussion she had planned to have with Tana.

  She shifted again on the settee. “Tana, who is the spirit haunting Chenaie? Or, is there more than one?”

  Chapter 24

  For the next half hour, Alaynia sat enthralled with the story Tana related. She had always been fascinated with the history of the houses she restored—the past lives of the former occupants. But now she was hearing about the people of Chenaie—her Chenaie. They were also her own relatives—only by marriage, but nevertheless her family. She had been without family all her life.

  Some of what she would tell her, Tana explained to Alaynia, she had heard from the slave grapevine, since they all loved to gossip about their owners. Some things she had learned later on from Zeke. To begin with, Alaynia had to understand the deep love between Shain’s grandfather, Basil St. Clair, and his wife, Laureen, and their disappointment in their only son, Christopher. Chenaie had been a monument to their love, and they could not understand the cold distance Christopher always kept from both them and the land. They desperately wanted Christopher to care about Chenaie as much as they did, but finally began pinning their hopes on any children Christopher might father.

  Alaynia’s heart wrenched when she heard how Laureen had died and of Basil’s horrible grief. But Shain’s grandfather had proven strong, and continued to keep Chenaie a lovely and prospering plantation, in memory of his wife.

  Within the bounds of society’s strictures, Basil had made Chenaie as pleasant as he could for his slaves. He could not bring himself to flaunt the rules of conduct, since it would have meant his family would be ostracized—and family meant everything to Basil. Therefore, he never offered his slaves a chance to buy their freedom, as Tana had heard of one plantation owner down by New Orleans doing. But Basil did reward elderly slaves who had been in his service most of their lives with freedom when they were too old to work, and he allowed them to stay on at Chenaie. That had become a somewhat accepted practice of plantation owners just before the war. When his father died in 1849, Christopher continued the philosophy at Chenaie, although more from lack of interest than any feelings for the people of Chenaie.

  “No matter how they were treated,” Tana mused in a soft voice, “they were still not free people. When the war broke out, most left. They preferred the unknown and their freedom to life in bondage. On the day Basil returned to protect his Chenaie, there were only Miss Catherine, Miss Jeannie, and Zeke living there. Miss Jeannie was only two.”

  “Came back!” Alaynia said with a gasp. Though she had thought herself prepared for this, her heart thudded and she struggled for breath, much as she had in the barn with Jake that day. She finally licked her tongue around her lips, barely moistening them. Staring at Tana, she realized the woman was waiting for her to gain control before she continued speaking.

  “Go—go ahead,” she managed. “I’m assuming you mean he came back from the spirit world.”

  “No,” Tana denied with a small smile. “He will always remain a part of the spirit world. He is, after all, a spirit, and he cannot be a man again.”

  Alaynia clenched her fists, determined to follow this through, although the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose as though a surge of static electricity had passed over them. She glanced down at her forearms and saw evidence that the sensation was actually physical, not just her mental imaginings. The tiny hairs stood at attention, rather than lying in place. Quickly running a palm down one arm, she smothered a gasp when the sensation increased for a split second, then disappeared.

  A crash of lightning split the air, and finger-flickers of light cascaded into the room. Shadows danced around her and Tana, and suddenly Tana groaned and slumped back against the settee. Horrified, Alaynia instinctively reached for her, pulling the unconscious woman into her arms. Tana slouched almost bonelessly, and immediately a spreading sensation of spider webs crawling over her body filled Alaynia with terror. She had felt this before—at the window in the Camellia Room and in the graveyard.

  She tightened her arms on Tana while she stared wildly around the room. The sensation crawled down her back, through her stomach, and prickled along her legs. Another spear of lightning crashed, and a dim blue light filled the room. Choking in fear, Alaynia let Tana fall against the back of the settee again and scrambled to her feet.

  She backed away, brushing at her body. The sensation remained with her, intensifying to the point where she could almost feel the tiny legs scrambling over her body. The light in the room fuzzed the objects, then brightened them, as though someone had placed a revolving black light globe in the center of the ceiling. She hit the edge of the door and swung around desperately. But the door slammed shut. When she reached for the handle and jerked frantically, it refused to budge. Whirling again, she flattened her back against the door and stared wildly around the room.

  The eerie light danced crazily, the cracks of thunder and lightning outside the cabin accompanying it. She screamed and covered her ears. Suddenly Tana sat up on the settee, and Alaynia surged toward her, only to stop as abruptly as though she’d run into the immovable door behind her. Tana’s eyes were still closed, but she opened her mouth to speak.

  “Sorry, girl. Can’t help the display. I’ve only tried this once before.” The voice came out in a slow, Southern drawl—definitely masculine—instead of Tana’s melodious voice.

  “My God!” Alaynia gasped. “Who are you?”

  The light continued to dance eerily around the room on the edge of her vision, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from Tana’s almost motionless face.

  “No time to explain,” the voice said. “Just make your decision carefully. That’s all I ask.”

  “Wh-what decision?” Alaynia choked out.

  “The decision of your heart,” it replied. “And tell Shain to be careful. I can’t help. It’s up to him.”

  “Basil, what are you doing?” a feminine voice screeched through the air, and a split second later the room was normal.

  Alaynia’s eyes widened in disbelief as Tana gazed curiously at her from the settee, as alert as though she hadn’t been slumped unconscious an instant before. Alaynia scrutinized the room, but it appeared ordinary, only shadowed by the lack of light from the windows due to the cloud-covered sky. Outside, the storm was fading, though rain still pattered on the roof.

  A knock sounded on the door, and Alaynia choked on a scream as she swung around to stare at it.

  “Mama,” Little Jim said from beyond the door. “Mama, the door’s locked.”

  Repressed hysteria bubbled in Alaynia’s throat as she gaped at the iron latch, tipped into place above the door knob. She tried to force herself forward and lift it, but her legs refused to budge. A second later, Tana glided past her and opened the door.

  “I didn’t want to come in, Mama,” Little Jim said. “Just wanted to tell you I was gonna check the garden and pick up any ‘maters the rain knocked off the plants.”

  “Keep your slicker on, son,” Tana admonished. “And hang it up back here on the porch before you come inside. Don’t be dripping all over my clean floors.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Tana turned, leaving the door open. Clean, rain-scented air drifted into the room, but Alaynia continued to imagine she could smell the ozone-layered atmosphere of a few minutes earlier. And she was still frozen in place, unable to move.

 
; Tana reached for her, and Alaynia collapsed in her arms. Shaking horribly, she allowed Tana to lead her over to the settee and shove her gently down. As soon as Tana released her, she covered her face and bent forward over her knees. Behind her closed eyelids, dots of light danced, reminding her all too strongly of the room as it had been when the voice spoke to her.

  She started to jerk upright, but Tana smoothed a hand over her head and said, “Take a deep breath and relax, Alaynia. You can tell me what happened in a minute, when you are able.”

  Instead of obeying, Alaynia straightened and stared at Tana. “You know! You must know what happened.”

  “No.” Tana shook her head and curled her fingers around the hand Alaynia reached out. “But something has. I can tell from the change in you. One moment you were sitting beside me—the next you were across the room and so frightened I could feel your fear.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Alaynia said determinedly. “You were unconscious for a least a minute. Maybe longer. I couldn’t tell you even now how long he was here. Then she came. She called him ...” Alaynia took a deep breath. “She called him Basil. It was Shain’s grandfather, Tana. He was speaking from inside you. I’ve no idea who the woman was—all I heard was her voice.”

  Tana nodded slowly, seeming undaunted by the fact that Alaynia had just told her a spirit had taken over her body. But a tiny shiver ran through the dark hand Alaynia held tightly in her own. “Tell me what happened,” Tana said. “What did they say?”

  Alaynia frowned in concentration, trying to overcome the memory of the terror she had suffered. She desperately needed to share the experience with Tana. Shain would never allow her to talk about it, although she was quickly realizing that the entire episode directly involved her relationship with Shain. And part of what she had heard had been for Shain.

  “You fell unconscious,” she told Tana, clinging tightly to the other woman’s hand, although Tana hadn’t tried to pull free. “There was an eerie light in the room, and I could feel something—like something was invading the space where we sat—invading you ... and me. I’ve felt this before, only at Chenaie, and never this strong. It was like a chill, but it really wasn’t cold, and it lasted a lot longer than the chills we all get sometimes. You know. When we say someone must have walked across our grave?”

  Tana nodded, but Alaynia still felt her description was sorely lacking. She continued, “It ... was like hundreds of spiders crawling over my body. And it kept spreading, until it was all over me. And intensifying, until I had no doubt that there was something actually here. Actually in this room with you and me.” She searched Tana’s face, but her gaze remained shuttered. “You spoke, but I knew it wasn’t you. It wasn’t your voice—it was a man’s voice. He apologized for scaring me, then asked me to make my decision carefully. When I asked him what decision, he said the decision of my heart.”

  Seeing a flicker in Tana’s eyes, she said, “He was talking about my feelings for Shain, wasn’t he?”

  “The words are always riddles, which we have to find the meaning of,” Tana replied. “It could be, but I do not think he was referring to the argument you just had with Shain. He would not come through for something as slight as that.”

  “Slight? Tana, this problem between Shain and me is threatening our feelings for each other—our love.”

  “Perhaps,” Tana agreed. “But perhaps there is a deeper decision for you to make, rather than just whether you wish to continue to assert your hard-won independence.”

  Tana’s hand twitched in hers and Alaynia stared down. Her fingers were tightly clasped around Tana’s, surely hurting the other woman. She quickly loosened her hold and flexed her hand, playing over in her mind once again the words she had heard in that masculine voice issuing from Tana’s mouth.

  “A decision,” she murmured. “I thought I’d already made my decision, when I said yes to Shain’s proposal—when we were married. But ...” After a second, she continued, “But the moment I found out Shain was trying to mold me—that he had just been humoring me—I was ready to throw everything back in his face. Try to hurt him. Instead, I should have tried to work things out.”

  “Marriage is a commitment,” Tana said. “A lifetime commitment—not just for the good times, but for the hard ones, also.”

  Suddenly Alaynia gasped. “Tana, he said something else. He said to tell Shain to be careful—that he couldn’t help him. I have to get back to Chenaie and tell Shain that his grandfather is trying to warn him about something.”

  At the doubtful look on Tana’s face, her shoulders slumped. “But he won’t believe me, will he? He’s not going to believe a ghost spoke to me.”

  “You said there was a woman, also,” Tana prodded.

  “Just for a second. She called him Basil, and asked him what he thought he was doing. A second later, everything was back to normal. Everything except my pounding heart and scared-senseless brain, that is.”

  Silence lingered as she waited for Tana to speak. “Well,” Alaynia demanded finally, “what’s the meaning of all this?”

  “I cannot tell you. No more than I can tell you why you are here—or if you will decide to leave. Even if you should stay or leave. What happened was not one of my visions—not a forewarning or a glimpse of what is to come. It was your own vision.”

  “It wasn’t a vision. It happened. Basil was here, until the woman ... whoever she was ... interrupted.”

  “But they did not include me in the happening,” Tana explained. “I was only the channel. I am your friend, Alaynia, but there is only so much I can do. I cannot explain to you what I do not understand myself.”

  “Oh, lord.” Alaynia moaned and clasped her head. “This would be so much easier to handle, if only Shain would talk to me about it—share it with me. I can’t shake the feeling that all this is leading up to something horrible. Maybe my presence here is causing these things to happen. It’s not natural, you know, for a person to travel to a different plane of existence—to travel through time. Maybe my doing that has caused all kinds of havoc.”

  “And maybe it was meant to be.” Tana shrugged. “Maybe there is a purpose for it. Who can know?”

  “Basil would,” Alaynia said decisively. “Damn it, I have to talk to him again.”

  Tana shivered delicately. “Alaynia, I do not think ...”

  “Thinking hasn’t done a damned bit of good so far,” Alaynia interrupted. She rose to pace the floor. “I’ve thought and thought and thought, until my brain’s scrambled with thinking. It’s time to take some action and get to the bottom of this. How can I concentrate on working out the problems in my relationship with Shain, if I don’t even know for sure if I’ll have a future with him? If Basil brought me here, he could just as easily send me back. I have to know if he has that power, or if my decision to stay here is stronger than his power to return me to my other life.”

  Tana nodded reluctantly, but Alaynia could see the fear on the black woman’s face and pooled in the depths of her brown eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Tana,” she reassured her. “I won’t ask you to help me. I’ll do this on my own.”

  Straightening her shoulders rigidly, Tana stood. “No! You must not! You must ask Shain to be with you, or I must be there. You do not understand. It could be dangerous.”

  “I’ll be careful. Don’t fret about it. Now, I really need to get back to Chenaie.” She walked over to the door and looked out. “It’s still raining. I thought after that storm, the rain would stop. Usually a violent storm like that passes over quickly.”

  “We have not had rain for a very long time,” Tana said as she joined her and stared at the sky. “The clouds are thick. I think the drought has finally broken. Little Jim will be glad he does not have to carry water for the garden every day, but I hope we do not get all the delayed rain at one time.”

  “There was ... uh ... will be a horrible flood.” When Tana glanced at her in alarm, Alaynia hastened to say, “Not now. I mean, well, I don’t know w
hat will happen now. But back in my time, it rained for weeks. The tributaries into the Mississippi flooded, and the Mississippi did, too. Levees broke, and land for miles on each side of the river was covered with water. I flew into St. Louis during that time, for a trade conference, and it was a horrible sight from the air.”

  “Flew?” Tana murmured.

  “Oh, dear,” Alaynia said with a laugh. “When we have some time, Tana, I’ll tell you all about planes and even rocket ships. Right now, I’m more interested in how I’m going to get back to Chenaie without getting soaked.”

  “I have a rain slicker that my son has outgrown. I will get it for you, while my son gets the horses ready.”

  * * * *

  The rain continued the rest of the day and throughout the evening. Alaynia spent the time in her newly-refurbished work room, scaling out the plans for the landscaping around Jake’s house. Jeannie eagerly joined her, with Tiny curling up beneath the work table while the young girl shared her limited knowledge of the different blooming periods of the plants Alaynia was thinking of using on the grounds. Throughout the long hours, however, Alaynia kept straining for the sound of Shain entering the house.

  At one point, she swallowed her pride and asked Jeannie if she’d seen Shain. Jeannie only shrugged and said the last time she’d seen her brother, he’d been leaving with Alaynia to visit Tana. Perhaps he was checking the irrigation systems, Jeannie suggested, to see how the rain was affecting them.

  He didn’t show for supper, either, and Alaynia returned to her work after the lonely meal. Jeannie informed her that she wanted to re-read the letters Alaynia had given her that morning before she discussed them with Alaynia, and retired to her room. After realizing she had been staring at her plans for an enormously long period without the lines registering in her mind, Alaynia threw down her pencil and gazed out the window facing the graveyard.

  The darkness beyond acted like a mirror, reflecting the interior of the room and her own shadowed body back at her. She gave a tiny start before she realized the figure in the glass was herself, then shook her head at her jittery nerves. Determined to overcome her trepidation, she walked over and sat on the window seat, curling her arms around her upraised knees as she peered through the window pane.