by Amie Nichols
“I know.” I just want to drop it now. “Look at it, it’s so sad.”
“Yeah, I think something bad happened here,” she says like she just read my mind. We stand at the gate like this for a while just staring.
Luke stands beside me and I turn to him. He stares into my eyes and they look sad. “I love you,” he sighs. I grab his waist in my hands and rest my forehead on his chest looking down at the ground. He lifts my chin up with his finger so I’m looking up at him. He leans down and kisses me softly on the lips. I know he’s sorry, and that he is trying to protect me.
“I love you too,” I return his kiss.
“I love you too, Lilly,” Jacob chimes in, and when I look his way he has a cheesy smile on his face which makes me laugh. “Okay, now that everyone loves everyone again, I would like to do some damage to these locks,” he says with bolt cutters in one hand and a lock saw in the other. “Let’s do some breaking in.” He winks at me and turns to Luke handing him the saw.
Chapter 25
Wanting to get away from the loud screeching of the metal being cut, Emma and I walk along the brick wall wading through the weeds. “I hope we find some answers today,” I tell her as we see a hollow section of the wall. It’s a little window. We take turns looking in, but really can’t see anything through the overgrowth.
We’ve walked for about twenty minutes when we decide we’re not getting anywhere and decide to turn back. As we get closer to the gate, we hear the guys yelling that there in. We start a slow jog to get there faster. When we reach the driveway, Luke and Jacob are already in the truck and motioning us to hurry up. Emma and I jump in the bed of the truck and sit on the edge as Luke’s starts driving down the lane.
It’s very eerie with the tall bald cypress trees lining the lane. Their large bases almost touch one another and silvery grey moss hangs from the limbs that reach so high only a few beams of sunlight can make it through.
Luke drives slowly so we can look around as we go. I see the top of some building off to the left of the lane. The grass and weeds have over taken whatever it is. “Maybe it’s a shed,” I tell Emma pointing toward it. The closer we get to the house the creepier it gets. All the windows are boarded up and the paint’s peeling off the wood. There’s a huge front porch with a swing, one side is hanging down with the chain broken. Luke pulls up to front of the house and we all hop out.
All of us stand there in a row staring at the huge mansion. Why would daddy let this place rot like this? This plantation is huge, one of the bigger ones. He would’ve made a lot of money from it.
Luke and Jacob make their way up to the huge front double doors. They are padlocked also. As they start working on it, Emma and I walk around toward the back of the house. It’s a very typical southern plantation as far as I can tell. At the back of the house we stand on a stone patio taking it all in. Whatever is out on the grounds we can’t see because of the grass and weeds being so high. We hear the back door rattle, and jump back startled. The door opens revealing Luke and Jacob standing in the doorway.
The first thing I notice when I enter the house is the smell, it’s a musty smell. It is very dark, but some cracks in the boarded up windows lets in enough light that we can see. Luke hands out flashlights to all of us and we start to look around. The kitchen is very large, larger than ours at home. It has beautiful marble counter tops and deep brown pecan cabinets. I run my fingers along the cool marble leaving imprints in the thick dust that covers it as I go. I open one of the cabinets and see that it still holds its contents. The fridge and stove look more than 30 years old. There’s a big kitchen table with 8 chairs around it in the center of the room.
An oversized formal dining room is off the kitchen with an enormous wooden dining room table. It has 12 chairs seated around it, each one big and bulky with very thick carved legs. A massive matching armoire sits against the wall with Cypress Grove James Family Plantation est. 1856 etched into its glass doors with the most beautiful etching of a Cypress tree under the writing. I open one of the doors and see that there is a full set of fancy fine china still neatly stacked. I pick up one of the plates and study it. They’re royal blue with the same writing as the doors and the same cypress tree inlayed in silver.
“Those are beautiful,” Emma says standing next to me. I turn over the piece and also inlayed in silver it reads Royal Doulton 1864.
“It’s very old,” I notice, Luke standing next to me now looking at it also. “It’s like the house was just left, they didn’t move anything out,” I say looking at Luke and Emma.
“Preserved in time almost,” Emma nods in agreement. “Why would your dad do this?” She looks at me still holding the fine china in my hand. I place it gently back in the armoire and shut the glass door.
Walking into the front room, there is still a couch and a couple chairs covered by sheets with layers of dust. Off the front room is a large study. In the middle is a wooden desk and beside it is a file cabinet. There’s a floor to ceiling bookshelf against one wall and the shelves are lined completely full of books. Jacob walks up to it and shines his flashlight scanning the books. He grabs one of the books and looks over at us as after he reads the title of the book.
“What is it?” Emma says walking over to him. “Incantations and Spells,” Emma reads the front. Luke and I join them as she places the book on the dust covered desk.
“It’s more like a journal,” I say as I open the book and seeing it is all hand written and looks very old. The pages are yellowed and brittle. There are two names scribbled on the inside cover. The writing is in old cursive and is hard to read as Emma and I shine our flashlights on it.
Ceila Bellevue is, the first name written and under it is another name with an inscription.
I love you sweet mamma, January C. James
Emma and I look at each other after we read the inscription. There’s a crinkled black and white photo taped underneath the names of a beautiful woman and a little girl. The woman is pregnant and the little girl is holding her momma’s hand looking up at her with a huge smile. There’s an “x” scratched roughly over the belly of the woman. Like someone was trying to erase the pregnant belly in the picture. I stare at the woman, her eyes warm and her hair long and flowing. She’s the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
“She almost looks like you,” Emma says standing next to me shinning her flashlight at the picture.
“No, she is amazingly gorgeous,” I remark thinking that I look nothing like that.
“So are you,” Luke says now standing on the other side of me. “She does look like you,” he states leaning down studying the picture. “What’s with the scratches though, someone did not like the baby I take it,” he says rubbing his finger over the woman’s belly where it has been scratched.
I can’t help but think of the article from daddy’s safe about the woman who had been burned and had recently given birth.
“You don’t suppose that is Samantha, do you?” Emma says softly, saying what we are all thinking. “She does look a lot like you. I could see someone mistaking you for her,” she continues. Jacob has now joined us and we all stare at the picture. No one says anything for the next few minutes. You could hear a pin drop in the room.
“Who’s the little girl then? That is definitely not you,” Jacob says, “but it is uncanny how much that woman does look like you, Lil. She has to be related to you somehow,” he says leaning in closer to look at the picture.
“Well my guess is that the woman is Ceila,” I say pointing to the first name, “The little girl is January.” I run my finger down to the writing. “So whether she is related to me or not, I don’t know, but I am taking this book with me. That much I do know.” I start to flip through the pages of the book and Emma stops me on a certain page.
“Look, a love spell,” Emma says reading one of the pages.
To make him love you:
Dried Orris Root
Cypress oil
Rose Oil
Light can
dle and drip wax in a circle. Mix oils and root
Recite 7 times
I call thee, beloved one,
To love me more than anyone
Seven times I prick my heart
I bind thee heart and soul to me
As I do, so let it be
There are pages and pages of hand written spells. Some are so faded you can’t make out any words.
“There are more of them,” Luke says now joining Jacob back at the book shelf shining the lights and scanning the shelves. Emma and I join them.
Hoodoo Lore
The Rider’s Grimoire
Loas of the Crossroads
Rituals of Gris Gris
These are just some of the books that line the shelves.
I pull The Rider’s Grimoire off the self and sit on the floor. Placing the book in my lap, I open it and shine my flashlight on the yellowed pages.
The first page explains of the crossroads as being the juncture of powerful energies. That by having the Grimier you will be protected from your enemies. I notice that there is a folded page that is sticking out a little at the top. Jacob, Luke, and Emma are standing around me, all of their flashlights beaming down on the book. I grab the top of the book and open it to the folded page.
It is a page that had been ripped from this same book and folded over once, but I can tell it had been folded down much smaller at one point. It’s very fragile and I’m careful as I unfold the crinkly piece of paper.
It’s hard to read from all of the creases, but I am able to make out most of it and I read it aloud to everyone:
How to get rid of an enemy:
To Summon “the rider” you must bury a silver coin at the crossroads. Bury it at the very center of where the roads cross. This must be done at exactly midnight on the fifth day of the fifth month.
Stand on the southwest corner of where the roads meet and recite your enemy’s name 5 times. “The rider” shall appear before you. You must not look in his eyes until he invites you to do so.
“The rider” must do as you wish, but at a great price. Negotiations shall take place, as he will choose the proper payment for your request. The deal must be made, there is no turning back. If you should try and break the deal, a human sacrifice will have to be made to save your life.
Beware to all those who wish to summon “the rider.” Proceed with most fear and caution.
“I don’t like this, Lilly,” Jacob says. Knowing how he feels about this stuff I am sure his skin is crawling right now. “All of this is some sort of black magic."
“Jacob’s right, this is super creepy,” Emma says, which surprises me since she is the one who has wanted to get into all of the voodoo stuff. “Let’s keep searching,” she says and I can tell she is ready to leave the room.
Luke opens the file cabinet and looks up at us. “It’s empty,” he says. “Everything else in the house is still in its place, but the one thing that might give us answers is empty. Go figure,” he says. It’s obvious he is frustrated when he slams the file cabinet drawer shut.
I grab the Grimoire Crossroads book and the Incantations and Spells book wanting to take them with me. I wrap them in my arms as we leave the room.
Chapter 26
We make our way to the front foyer. There’s a grand stairway in the center of the room and halfway up it is a large landing where the stairs split. One goes to the left and the other to the right.
Luke takes my hand and murmurs, “Let’s check it out.” He gently pulls me up the stairs with him. Emma and Jacob follow. No one says anything, we take it all in. We reach the landing and Luke stops motioning with his hand, “Which way first?”
I head to the right and walk up into the hallway.
We step into the first room and it’s a smaller bedroom. All of them on this side are smaller and nothing special. A couple of them still have beds in them and meek little dressers. There are four in this hallway along with two small bathrooms on either side of the hall. Towards the back of the hall there is a very large linen closet. White sheets covered in dust still line the shelves. There is a back stairway that Jacob runs down real fast returning a minute later.
“It goes to the laundry room and the back of the kitchen,” he explains and we all know what that means. This was the servant’s hall back in the day. The servants and slaves were all live in, but they usually were not in the house. Most of the time, they lived in small buildings outside away from the main house.
More compassionate owners would actually allow their help inside. It was barely heard of and the James Family must have been one of the few that treated their help as humans.
“Well, let’s try the other side,” Emma says walking back to the grand stairway.
As we reach the top of the left side, we can tell instantly that the right side was obviously the servant’s hall.
The hallway on this side is much larger with more ornate woodworking. The first room we enter is huge, so it must be the master. A very large four-poster bed still remains in the room. The pedestals are at least three feet in circumference with majestic carvings all the way up to the top. One side of the room has a very large walk in closet. The other side has an enormous master bath. There’s an immense sunken tub and a separate shower that is very large.
“This is amazing,” Emma exclaims. “It just makes it all that much more confusing though. Why did Ted board this place up?”
“That’s the million dollar question,” I respond. “I would love some answers myself.”
We head into the next bedroom and it's big also, but was probably a kid’s room. The next bedroom over is locked and sealed with some sort of caulking all around the edges.
“Wonder why this one is sealed off like this,” Luke says giving us a puzzled look.
“I guess we are going to have to break in here also,” Jacob states since the door is firmly locked and sealed tight.
“Good thing we are getting really good at this,” Luke says to him laughing as they study the door.
“You guys could be professional burglars,” Emma laughs with them. I force a chuckle, but I’m just not in the laughing mood right now. This house makes me feel so sad.
They decide mutually that the best way to get into this room is with brute force, and at the same time. They both kick at the door. It flies open breaking the doorknob off.
“Smooth,” Emma teases as she walks in the room. I follow behind her and I gasp. It’s a nursery. Pristine, clean, and everything is in its place. It’s as if it has been freshly painted. There’s a crib, a changing table, and a rocking chair in the corner. The closet is lined with baby clothes hung carefully on little pink hangers. I open the drawer of the dresser and it too is full of pink, purple, and yellow baby clothes.
“How's this room so clean when the rest of the house is covered in dust?” Jacob speaks what we are thinking.
“It’s been sealed off.” Luke points at the boarded up windows that have been sealed airtight.
“It’s almost like,” Emma starts to say and then stops to look at me.
“It seems like the baby never came home,” I finish her sentence. “None of this stuff has been used,” I say picking up the unopened bottles of baby powder and baby lotion with more unanswered questions.
“What if this room was supposed to be,” she stops again and I stare at her not wanting her to say it. It can’t be. This room was not meant for me. This is a room of someone who wanted their baby, not for one that was given up.
Luke grabs my hand and brings it up to his lips. “Just another piece in the puzzle, and we will put it together,” he brushes his lips on the back of my hand. “Let’s go out and search the grounds. A little fresh air will do us some good,” he says and it seems as though we are all a little on edge.
We walk in the backyard wading through the weeds and tall grass looking for we don’t know what. I can’t help but think about that room. Some woman loved her baby and was anxiously awaiting its arrival. It’s so sad that the baby n
ever got to sleep in that room. There was so much love put in there. Luke keeps a tight hold of my hand as we walk the grounds. We come across a wishing well made of stone with a stone bench that encircles it. I feel that this place was such a happy loving home in its day.
Jacob and Emma start shouting our way that they found something. They are far from the house in front of a large overgrown tree line.
“Come on, you’ve got to see this!” They shout, as we get closer to them. We see what they are shouting about. Another wrought iron fence, but this one houses something different. It’s a small cemetery with rows of gravestones in the front and behind them are five large mausoleums that line the back of the fence. The gravestones are obviously much older and they are in poor shape. JAMES is formed in the metal of the gate that leads into the cemetery.
“This must be the family cemetery,” I say thinking how creepy it is that they buried their family so close to the house, but I have heard of this sort of thing before. This is what they used to do a long time ago, especially very wealthy families who had their own cemeteries.
In the center of the graves, is a dogwood tree all by itself. Its red flowers are in bloom and it seems peaceful as it cast a shadow on the graves.
We walk inside the graveyard and start to read the names on the tombstones.
Gerald P James, Born Eighth day of February 1806, -- Died twelfth day of November 1860.
We move from stone to stone reading what we can make out. Then we head to the back toward the crypts.
We see one is for Joseph K James, Born October 22, 1932—Died February 3, 1987. Joseph’s wife, Ceila Bellevue James, born January 30, 1934—Died July 7th, 1965.
“Well, I guess we know Ceila Bellevue was not your mom because she died way before you were born,” Emma says clearing up that mystery.
