by Karen White
I was surprised to find my father’s truck gone and no painting vans parked outside the house. Mercifully, the fuchsia hues of the entranceway as well as the Nero-esque ceiling mural in my bedroom had been banished under historically accurate (at least in color, if not in process) paint. But we’d found it increasingly difficult to get painters to come back, regardless of how much money we offered to pay them. The revolving door of painting professionals kept telling us stories of paint cans overturning, brushes being thrown, and cold hands pushing them from behind.
I opened the front door, smelling the scent of fresh paint, and feeling again a throbbing sensation in my bones, like the heartbeat of the old house. I closed the door behind me, listening to the hollow thud echoing off the bare floors. I stayed where I was, unsure of what to do next. My mind reeled with loose pieces of information, like confetti in a parade, and I found myself seeking the one person I’d never thought I would.
“Mother?” I called out.
“In the kitchen,” came the answer, and I quickly walked to the doorway where the hideous swinging doors had thankfully been taken away. My mother sat at the table with her back to me, staring out the window. She wore her gloves, and the journal lay on the table.
“I need someone to talk to,” I said quickly, as if I’d forget all the words if I didn’t.
“I know.”
She turned in the chair and looked up at me, and I saw that her eyes were sunken in her face, her skin nearly translucent over the fine bones of her face.
I approached her with alarm. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “She’s very strong, Mellie. I feel her reaching for me.”
I sat down across from her, pulling the journal away. “Stop. You’re making yourself ill.”
Speaking as if I hadn’t said anything, she said, “She’s very near. I think she knows that you’re too strong, so she’s going after me now. I’ll be fine. I’ve fought her before. I just need to—rest.” She closed her eyes and her body swayed in her seat.
“I’m taking you up to your bedroom so you can lie down. Where’s Daddy?”
With her eyes still closed, she answered me. “He went to Summerville. To get clippings for the garden . . .” Her voice trailed away, and for a moment I thought that she’d fallen asleep sitting up. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at me. “I haven’t been alone. Wilhelm’s been here. He won’t show himself, though. He’s ashamed. Of what he did to Catherine.”
She frowned as she looked at me. “What about you, Mellie? You look so sad.”
Just her compassion was enough to make me want to cry. I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it now.” I didn’t ask that she not answer the phone or door if Jack called or came by because I was pretty sure that he’d do neither.
I stood, then moved to her side. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.You need to rest.”
She didn’t argue and allowed me to help her stand. Pointing at the journal, she said, “Bring that up, too.”
I hesitated only a moment before sticking it under my arm, then helped my mother up the stairs. I was surprised at how heavily she leaned on me, how frail she appeared, and I felt a tremor of apprehension. The whole house seemed to breathe with it, blanketing the air with stale fear.
As she sat on the side of her bed, I knelt to take off her shoes, then helped her slide under the covers. I moved to take off her gloves, but she shook her head. Tucking the covers around her, I said, “I spoke to Sophie today. She found a memorial marker for Meredith, installed by Rose Prioleau in 1890. It listed her birth year as 1870 and the year 1886 was listed as her year of death.”
“So she was sixteen when she died.”
“Yes, but . . .” I thought for a moment, sifting through the puzzle pieces, selecting and discarding them just as quickly. “The girl found on the Rose was older.”
Our gazes met, and she lifted her eyebrows. “Did Sophie find anything else?”
I nodded. “Rose’s father adopted Meredith when Meredith’s parents died in a shipwreck and raised her as Rose’s sister.”
“Well, then. That explains a lot, doesn’t it?” She pointed to the journal that I had placed on the nightstand. “I found something out today. An entry that you probably read before but didn’t mean anything. I bet it will now.” She reached across the journal and clumsily flipped through pages until she reached the one she sought. “Read this entry.” She handed the journal to me and I began to read.
Father has a surprise for both of us for Rose’s birthday. I already know what it is, though, since Father borrowed my locket to have a duplicate made—but with R’s initial instead of mine. She wants to be just like me, and it scares me a little because sometimes I believe that she wants to become me. She likes to make me sit down next to her in front of a mirror so she can see how we are almost like twins. It is only when she stands or tries to walk that our differences are visible. She played a little joke on C last week, when she had me sitting in the drawing room and pretended to be her when he came in. I agreed only because it is so difficult to deal with her anger when things do not go her way, but now I fear that she will want to pretend to be me the next time he calls. I will have to send him a warning, so he will not give anything away.
I thought for a minute, tapping my fingers against the yellowed page. “Rose married a man named Charles, four years after the earthquake. Four years after she left Charleston to travel Europe with family friends.”
“Four years is a long time. Long enough for people to forget the physical differences between two girls who resembled each other so much that they might have really been sisters.” My mother’s gaze met mine. “We are not as we seem.”
I pressed my fingers against my temples. “No, I suppose we’re not. So who are we?”
My mother sat back against her pillows. “I’ve seen the pictures of Rose and Charles on their honeymoon, and I’ve seen the portrait of the two girls. And there’s the fact that the girl found on the boat had a hip joint problem. If I were a gambler, my bet would be on Meredith being our ancestor—whoever she really was.”
She licked her dry lips and I gave her a glass of water that sat on her nightstand. With narrowed eyes, she regarded me over the glass. “The question then is how Meredith supposedly died in 1886 yet gave birth to my mother in 1900.”
“Then if Meredith wasn’t the one found on the Rose, who was it?” I probably knew the answer, but until my mother spoke, I held out hope that I was wrong.
“Everything points to Rose. She wants us to ask, but we’re not ready to speak to her yet.”
“Why not?” I asked, the small yet heavy feet of fear marching down my spine.
She took a deep breath, as if to draw in strength. “The forensics report showed that her skull was cracked, as if she’d suffered blunt-force trauma. She has reason to be angry. To want revenge. And that makes her very dangerous.”
“But why us?”
“Because this was her house, her birthright. But instead of living here, and having children and grandchildren living here, she ended up at the bottom of the ocean, wearing a locket that wasn’t hers, while someone else lived the life she was supposed to have.”
I sat down on the bed, feeling sick. “There’s more to this that I only recently discovered. Alice Crandall—the girl in the portrait at Mimosa Hall—is Rebecca Edgerton’s great-great-grandmother. The sapphire-and-diamond jewelry that your mother gave you originally belonged to Alice’s mother, who went down on a ship in 1870. When Rebecca saw a photo of you wearing the necklace and earrings, she knew there had to be a connection. That’s why she approached us in the first place.”
A soft smile lit her face. “So if the jewelry was recovered, then a baby might have been, too. A baby wearing a heart-shaped locket, identical to the one her sister Alice wore except with an N. And then it was simply a matter of changing the initial on the locket and renaming her Meredith.”
I shook my head. “I can almost feel sorry for Rose. Her fat
her finds a baby and brings her home, then asks Rose to accept her as her sister. Except the imposter is more beautiful, and perfectly formed, and loved to sail like their father. It must have been difficult for her.”
My mother closed her eyes and I took the glass of water from her. I straightened my back as another thought occurred to me. “Does this mean that we’re descendants of a murderer?”
My mother shook her head. “Don’t say that. We don’t know the circumstances. And from reading the journal I can’t help but believe that Rose had a hand in her own undoing.”
I sat up, remembering something I’d heard. I turned to tell her, but her eyes were closed, and for a moment I thought she’d gone to sleep. But she opened them, touched my arm, and said, “Tell me.”
I somehow didn’t find my mother’s ability to read my mind as disturbing as I probably should have. “Wilhelm told me that he saved her, the writer of the journal. If our assumptions are correct, and it was Meredith—or Nora—then maybe he was the one who found her after the shipwreck. Maybe she managed to survive the sinking and somehow ended up on shore.”
A small furrow formed between her brows. “But he would have been dead for one hundred years by the time of the shipwreck.”
I sent her a sardonic grin. “Right. Like we wouldn’t know how that works.” I sighed. “From what I’ve read in the journal, Rose couldn’t see Wilhelm, which probably meant that she didn’t have a sixth sense, which would make it likely that no one in her family did, either. But I’ve heard stories. . . .” I looked down to make sure she was still awake and found her gaze focused intently on me.
“Go on,” she said, her voice soft.
“I’ve heard of instances,” I continued, “where spirits can make themselves known to others by expending all of their energy for a brief moment.”
“Who told you that?”
“Grandmother Sarah.”
A soft smile lifted her lips. “I’ve seen it happen. Usually it’s when the spirit is making his final good-bye to loved ones, or during an emergency when a life is at stake.”
“Like when a baby is in danger of drowning.”
My mother nodded. “Wilhelm said that he protects us in reparation for what happened to his Catherine. And why he continues to protect the women of this family—Meredith’s descendants.”
“Wilhelm told us that Catherine drowned.” I frowned, remembering the books on the table in Jack’s condo, regardless of how much I wanted to forget that entire scene. “Jack believes that the Prioleaus in the latter half of the eighteenth century might have been wreckers. Their plantation on Johns Island would have given them access and opportunity. Whether or not they lured ships up onto the rocks or were simply opportunists feeding off of a ship’s bad luck, it’s entirely possible that they built their fortune on the misfortune of others.” I swallowed, trying to bury my humiliation at the mere thought of being in his condo while he and Rebecca were back in the bedroom. “He marked a passage in a book that concerned the disappearance of a British schooner in 1785 off of Johns Island. The passengers, crew, and cargo were never seen again.”
“And 1785 is the year Wilhelm’s Catherine died.”
“I thought the same thing. And I keep thinking about the carving in the beam in the hidden room: ‘prisoner of the heart.’ Rebecca mentioned how some Hessian soldiers were hidden by Charleston citizens when the British fled the city. What if Wilhelm was held prisoner here in the house in exchange for doing some dirty work for the family, like scavenging cargo?”
My mother nodded, her eyes never leaving my face. “And even if the ship was wrecked by Mother Nature and not by intervening human hands, no mercy was shown to survivors, as they would be witnesses to the scavenging.”
I thought for a moment, almost hearing some of the puzzle pieces clicking into place, and feeling dread as I reached a probable conclusion. “So if Wilhelm was doing his job, and scuttling cargo from a ship that his Catherine was on—but didn’t know it—and she drowned while he did nothing to save her, his guilt would have been unbearable.”
“So he spends his centuries making amends for the woman he loved but couldn’t save.” My mother turned her face to the side, revealing the black-and-blue imprint of a human hand.
I stood, staring at the bruise. “What happened?”
She struggled to a sitting position. Her face was nearly as pale as her pillowcase, and she tried to hide it with her hand. “I told you. She’s getting stronger. She’s trying to weaken me so that she can then go after you.”
“Why were you trying to hide this from me?”
Her eyes were hard. “Because I didn’t want you to feel fear. Fear is what will make you weak; it is what she will be looking for. It is what will allow her inside your head and she will win.” She leaned toward me and grabbed my arm. “She can hurt you. Her hatred is that strong.”
“What does she want?”
She didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.” I leaned closer to her and she met my gaze again. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“Because I feel your fear right now. She’s near. Can’t you feel her? She’s waiting for her chance.”
I backed away. “I don’t want this. I’ve never wanted any of this. Why can’t we just walk away—leave this house to her?”
“You know that you can’t. She’s followed you before, and she won’t rest until she’s won. Until . . .” She stopped speaking, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.
I glanced sharply at her. “Until what?”
Instead of answering, she laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. “Get the door.”
“I didn’t hear . . .” Before I’d finished my sentence, the front doorbell rang. I moved to the window and looked out onto Legare and saw Jack’s black Porsche parked at the curb.
“It’s Jack,” I said, unable to keep my voice steady.
She took a deep breath. “You should let him in.”
“No. You don’t know what he did.”
She opened her eyes halfway. “I suppose I do, actually. But you should still let him in. He needs your help.”
“I can’t. . . .”
She sat up on her elbow, her eyes angry. “He’s going to need you soon as much as you need him now, so go answer the damned door and stop arguing with me.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t remember my mother ever yelling at me, and despite the anger I felt, there was something comforting in it, too. Like she and I were growing accustomed to our roles and didn’t need to make nice anymore.
Without a word, I went downstairs, taking my time, making him wait. And the whole time I was trying to figure out what my mother had wanted to tell me, and wondering if I should tell her that I felt Rose’s presence now, as close as a scarf about to be squeezed tightly around my neck.
CHAPTER 26
I stood inside the door for a long moment before finally unlocking it and pulling it open just enough to frame my face.
Jack was clean shaven and his hair wet as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, reminding me of an altar boy or a boy presenting his best face before being scolded by his mother. His clothes were cleaned and pressed and he smelled of soap and shampoo and that other unnamable scent that I just referred to as Jack.
“Are you sure you’ve got the right house? I thought Rebecca lived in Ansonborough.” I was proud at how even my voice sounded, not giving away any of the hurt and humiliation that seemed even worse now that I was facing him again.
“Look, Mellie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you were in that situation; I can’t imagine how embarrassing that must have been for you.”
“Embarrassing? Walking down the street with the back of my skirt tucked into my panty hose is embarrassing. That scene in your condo was . . . mortifying. And degrading.”
“Degrading?” He raised his eyebrow and I sensed his anger. “It would only have been degrading if you and I were involved in a relationship, Mellie, and you made i
t perfectly clear to me that you didn’t want one. I’m certainly no saint, but I would never cheat on a committed relationship. Your apparent disinterest led me to assume that I was free to pursue other interests. So I did. You can’t have it both ways, Mellie.”
I wanted to slam the door in his face, but I couldn’t. Because there was no escaping the fact that he was right. I just needed to make sure that whatever happened next I never let him see how much I hurt or regretted missing my chance to lose some self-control.
“Can I come in, please? I have something to show you.”
I opened the door a little wider. “Can you just show me out here so that you can be on your way?”
Without saying anything else, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a gold chain. He held it up in front of me, the sun’s reflection off of it like a conspiratorial wink. I squinted to see it clearly, to make sure that I’d seen what I thought I had. Hanging from the center of the chain on a tiny gold loop was a golden heart locket with the initial A engraved in the middle of it.
I stepped back in surprise and Jack took the opportunity to push the door open farther so that he could move inside to the foyer.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I already knew.
“Rebecca left it on the floor of my bathroom. I’m thinking it fell off as she was getting dressed and she doesn’t know that it’s missing yet.”
I decided to ignore the implications of why Rebecca might have been getting dressed in his bathroom. My eyes met his. “It’s Alice’s, isn’t it? And if Rebecca’s had it in her possession, then she must have known about the connection between her family, the Crandalls, and the Prioleaus.”
