Dr. Kirkwood grabbed Ginna’s arm to try to pull her away from Neal, but her grip was like a steel vise. She refused to let go of Neal.
“Ginna, don’t. It’s not helping.”
Ignoring Kirkwood’s pleas, Ginna repeated, “We need you, Neal. Both Virginia and I do.”
Suddenly, Neal’s eyes opened. He was staring right into Ginna’s face. His own face looked ashen. Perspiration beaded his brow. “Ginna?” he whispered.
“Oh, Neal!” She leaned close, hugging him, kissing him. “I was so afraid you were gone for good. You scared me so! Don’t ever leave me like that again!”
“I could have saved her. I should have.”
“It’s all over, Neal. What’s done is done and was meant to be.” Dr. Kirkwood kept his voice level and calm. “Let it go.”
Neal didn’t reply. He held Ginna close and took a deep, shaky breath. “I know it’s over, Doc. Whether or not I can let it go remains to be seen.”
“It will take time, but, believe me, you will get over this.”
Suddenly Neal frowned and glanced about the room. “Where’s Virginia?”
Ginna leaned down and whispered, “Sh-h-h. I’ll tell you later.” Then she rolled her eyes significantly toward the doctor. “When we’re alone, Neal.”
But Kirkwood had heard. “Who are you talking about? Who’s Virginia?”
Neal said nothing. Ginna passed off the doctor’s question with a shrug. “Probably someone else he met on the plane.”
“That’s not true!” Kirkwood snapped. “If so, Neal would have mentioned her to me during our sessions. This has nothing to do with the crash. Ginna?” he said, in a warning tone.
Neal seemed oblivious to their conversation. He was still wide awake, but he seemed to be thinking of something or someone else. Ginna knew. He was thinking of Virginia.
“It’s nothing, Dr. Kirkwood. Believe me. Neal’s talking about Virginia Swan, a woman who used to live here.” Thinking quickly, she fabricated, “Neal and I have been researching some of the Swan family’s history. Virginia was Melora Swan’s daughter. We’ve been trying to find out what happened to her. There don’t seem to be any records. She’s become something of an obsession with us.” In a quieter voice, she added, “I think it’s a good sign that Neal’s thinking about her, instead of the crash. We were talking about Virginia, just before he slipped away.”
“That Elspeth!” He sounded disgusted. “You’ve been listening to her tall tales, haven’t you? It may be true that one of her ancestors was a slave at Swan’s Quarter, but I think she’s made up half her stories just to entertain Pansy and Sister and anyone else who’ll listen to her. If she knows so much, she would have told you that Virginia Swan had a child out of wedlock, a child who was raised here at Swan’s Quarter by her grandmother, Melora Swan, after the rest of the family was gone.”
Ginna’s heart raced. “How do you know that?”
“The Swan family Bible. All the births, marriages, and deaths are recorded there.”
“You never told me this Bible existed.”
“You never asked.”
“Is Virginia’s date of death listed?”
He paused for a moment, thinking. “No. I don’t believe so. Nor her marriage. Only the birth of her daughter. That’s the only time the child is listed, either, except for a notiation of her baptism and the fact that her grandmother was the only relative present on that day.”
“Virginia’s daughter—what was her name?” Ginna was so excited she could hardly speak.
Kirkwood thought for a long time. “Something unusual. Oh, what was it?” Then he brightened. “I know! It was Channelle.”
“Named for Channing,” Ginna murmured aloud, but speaking only to herself.
“I didn’t know you were interested in the history of this place and the Swan family. Neal either, for that matter. When did all this come about?”
“After we met, and I realized that Neal bore a striking resemblance to Channing McNeal, the man Virginia Swan was supposed to marry.” She started to mention the glass plate in the greenhouse, but decided against it. Instead, she said, “There’s a miniature of McNeal in my bedroom. The likeness is uncanny. It could be Neal himself.”
“Seems like it must have been a mighty tragic family situation. Unwed mothers weren’t looked upon highly, back in those days. I’m not sure Neal should be delving into all this.”
“But isn’t it better for him to think about the Swan history than to dwell on the crash?”
“Not if he’s getting so caught up in that history that he believes he’s been shot by a Confederate ghost.”
Neal had closed his eyes again. However, now he seemed to be napping peacefully. The other two talked in low whispers, so as not to disturb him.
“Neal didn’t say he’d been shot by a ghost. That was what you told him, wasn’t it?”
Dr. Kirkwood was visibly agitated now. “I never told him any such thing, because I don’t believe that’s what happened. It was Big George who put this fool notion into his head. And Elspeth has done her best to make everyone believe it. She’s been seeing Confederate ghosts in those woods for years. I’ve always just passed it off as one more of her fantasies. Now she’s got everyone on the place believing that the woods are haunted. As if I didn’t have enough problems around here!”
“Then why didn’t you call an ambulance for Neal last night?”
“He obviously didn’t need one. I got the bullet out with no complications.”
“But you told me that any patient at Swan’s Quarter who had any kind of accident had to be sent to the hospital. You made me go, and all I did was have a little fainting spell.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call what you had a ‘little fainting spell.’ Neal’s different. He’s strong and healthy.”
“But rules are rules, Doctor. That’s what you told me. Besides, I thought all gunshot wounds had to be reported to the police, by law.”
He nodded, frowning. “You’re right about that. The thing is … how do I fill out this report? I’ll be the laughing stock of the county, if I put down that he was shot by the ghost of a Confederate soldier.”
“You don’t believe that, so why put that in the report? It could have been an accident, a hunter shooting at what he took to be wild game.”
“We don’t have any hunters around here that use Minie balls, and I’ll have to turn over the bullet with my report. But, you’re right, Ginna, I do have to call the police, so they can investigate. I’ll just put down ‘shooter unknown.’” But just the same, this place will be in an uproar for days, with them investigating and asking everybody questions. Elspeth’s sure to volunteer her ‘eye witness’ report. I dread thinking about it. I guess I’d better go make the call right now—get it over with. Call me when Neal wakes up.”
Ginna nodded. “I will.”
She was glad to be alone with Neal, after Dr. Kirkwood left. If he meant to call the police now, then there wasn’t much time. And now that she knew Virginia had given birth to Channing’s daughter, she was more anxious than ever to go back in time and find out the rest of the story.
“Neal,” she whispered. “Neal, wake up. We’re going to find Virginia. She needs us.”
Neal roused slowly, smiling. “Virginia, my darlin’,” he said, in Channing’s deep Southern accent.
“We have to hurry.” Ginna helped him up from the bed and handed him his trousers. It wouldn’t do for Neal to be seen, up and about, wearing only his hospital gown, nor, once they got back to the previous century, would Channing be pleased to find himself dressed in such a shocking fashion.
“Where are we going?” Neal still seemed drowsy and confused.
“To the greenhouse. It’s almost time.”
“Time? Time for what?”
She let that question go unanswered and quickly led Neal out of the room.
Luckily, they met no one, as they tiptoed through the hallway and out the
back. It was almost lunchtime, and most of the residents were waiting in the game room to be called for their noon meal. Elspeth had clued Ginna in on the senior citizens’ obsession with being on time, or early, for the opening of the dining room doors. “You get to be as old as us and any meal could be your last ’Wouldn’t want to miss one, you know.”
Neal was leaning heavily on Ginna. He still seemed very weak.
“It’s not much farther,” she encouraged. “Can you make it?”
“I’m fine,” he said, just as they reached the greenhouse door. “But this is the last time, Ginna. Remember? You said you’d marry me as soon as we get back from checking on Virginia and Channing.”
She smiled brightly and went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He really was fine. He remembered now what they had been talking about, before Mr. Henderson and Christine came. And, yes, she would marry him after this one last visit back in time.
One person had spied Ginna leading Neal out the back way. Elspeth was leaving her room, headed for the dining room, when she heard Ginna’s voice. The old woman watched from the shadows, as the pair disappeared out the back way. She nodded and smiled, approving of their actions. She alone knew exactly where they were going and why; she knew the rest of Virginia and Channing’s story and the fact that it had yet to end.
“High time!” she muttered. “High time, indeed, that those two got together, once and for all.”
As tempted as Elspeth was to follow Ginna and Neal, so that she could make the trip with them, she decided against such action. Her presence might disturb the flow and cause them to wind up in the wrong place or time.
“Best leave those young folks be, for the now,” she whispered. “Time’s running out and shouldn’t nothing go wrong, this late in the game.”
When she reached the game room, she found all the others still waiting there, anxious and fretting, most of them, because the dinner bell had yet to ring.
“Oh, Elspeth, here you are at last,” Pansy whined. She patted the couch beside her, inviting the other woman to sit down.
“Dinner’s late today!” Marcellus Lynch grouched.
“’Tis not!” Elspeth countered. “Why, it’s only quarter to twelve. It just seems late to all you early birds who got up with the crack of dawn to eat breakfast.”
Suspecting that Elspeth was having a bad day, and not wanting to be around the grouchy old woman, Lynch got up and walked to the far side of the room to join another group.
“Where’s Sister, Pansy?”
“Gone to powder her nose. You just missed her.”
“Good! That’ll give me and you a chance to talk, private.”
“About what?” Pansy’s eyes went wide. No one ever wanted to share secrets with her, least of all Elspeth. She felt a measure of excitement flow through her.
“About Ginna and Neal. And keep your voice down. I don’t want everybody hearing what we have to say.” She leaned close and whispered, “They’re in the greenhouse!”
Pansy made a large, silent 0 with her mouth, and her eyes grew even wider.
“They’re fixing to go back, I just know it, even though I warned Ginna that it might not be safe.” Elspeth grinned. “I figured that would do the trick, get them to go back again. So, Pansy, things might work out, yet.”
“Even after the ghosts shot him? I’d think he’d be scared.”
“Neal’s a brave boy. Besides, I’m sure this is Ginna’s idea. She knows the secrets—almost all of them.”
“But she doesn’t know about me, does she?” Pansy wiped perspiration from her face with her lace hanky.
“Not yet, I don’t think. But she’s bound to find out.”
Pansy whimpered softly.
“Now don’t you start that.”
“She’ll think bad of me, once she knows. I’d hate that. I love Ginna like my own daughter.”
“Then you ought to have enough faith in her to believe she’ll understand. You weren’t to blame, any more than poor Virginia was at fault for what happened to her. But, don’t you see? Once they go back in time, they can put things to rights.”
“You really believe they can change what happened to Virginia and Channing and their baby, so long ago.”
Elspeth gave a stern nod. “Not only that—I think that by changing the past, it’ll change all that’s happened since. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but, mark my words, stranger things have happened.”
“We can’t tell Sister.”
“Certainly not! She’d laugh in our faces. She doesn’t know about the fourth dimension. She wouldn’t know it if she stepped in it.”
Silence fell between the two women. Elspeth seemed deep in thought, while Pansy worried the embroidered violets on her lace handkerchief.
All of a sudden, Pansy sniffed and dabbed at her nose.
Elspeth gave her a sharp look. “Now don’t you start that!”
“I can’t help it. I always figured it was my fault, what happened to my daughter. If I’d only known I was carrying her, I’d have married her daddy, before he went off to fight in the Pacific.”
“If you’d had a brain under all that fluff, you’d have told him to keep his damn pants zipped! That was your one and only mistake, old girl.”
Pansy turned teary, pleading eyes on Elspeth. “But we were so in love. How could I refuse him, when he was going off to war? He begged so sweetlike—said he might never come back, that we might never have another chance.” Her voice broke. “And he didn’t, and we didn’t.”
“I know, I know.” Elspeth patted Pansy’s trembling hand, in rough compassion. “A lot of nice girls fell for that line and wound up just like you did, Pansy. But what your daughter did wasn’t your fault. You can’t go on blaming yourself forever. What did happen to her man anyway? You never told me.”
“I never knew, exactly. She said he died.”
“And you believed that?”
Pansy shook her head and dabbed at her eyes again. “I never knew what to believe. Then she went away. I haven’t heard from her since.”
Elspeth knew she had to change the subject fast. Pansy was on the verge of all-out hysterics. “Well, you found Ginna. That’s something to be thankful for. And right now, she and Neal are in the greenhouse, about to go back and make everything all right.”
“Oh, I pray so!”
The dinner bell put an end to their conversation. Patients who normally shuffled about Swan’s Quarter, seeming to have difficulty putting one foot in front of the next, were up and hustling to get the choicest seats in the dining room. Elspeth and Pansy joined them.
The sun touched the glass plate negative in the greenhouse wall, just as Elspeth was taking her first bite of juicy country ham. The salty, smoky flavor tingled her taste buds for only an instant, before time stopped at Swan’s Quarter.
No one was there to see the flash in the greenhouse or the sudden disappearance of Ginna and Neal. Their transformation was swift and silent.
When Ginna woke up, back in time, she wasn’t surprised to find that she and Neal had once more been separated. She found herself—or rather Virginia—in her bedroom at Swan’s Quarter, her bandanna knapsack stuffed and ready. All she had to do now was wait for dawn and the departure of her father and brothers. She felt restless, too nervous to sleep. Where could Channing be? How long would it take her to find him?
Her thoughts turned suddenly to her brother’s words about shooting a Yankee, out back in the woods. He had gotten away, Hollis said, but he was definitely wounded. Virginia wondered if the poor man had a sweetheart somewhere waiting for him. Her heart twisted at the thought. If Channing were shot, would some Rebel woman take pity on an enemy soldier and tend his wound?
“Please, God, I pray so.”
At that moment, she decided what she had to do. Quickly, she pulled on her brother’s trousers and shirt. It was dark outside and raining. That poor soldier could die of exposure, if he were badly hurt. She had to find
him and do what she could to help.
Neal woke up moaning, after the flash in the greenhouse. His right arm was burning like hell. He was cold and wet and shivering. He had been through this before. He remembered it, all too well.
“Come on, Big George,” he groaned. “Come get me. Bring some blankets.”
He drifted off briefly into unconsciousness. When he roused again, the pain and the cold were still there, but he was no longer Neal Frazier. Channing McNeal remembered sneaking through the woods behind Swan’s Quarter. He had to make sure it was safe, that there were no Rebs about, before he approached the house. But he had gotten careless in his eagerness to see Virginia. He had let a Confederate patrol sneak up on him. The man who had shot him hadn’t recognized Channing in the darkness. He knew these soldiers, though. He knew their voices before he saw them. It was Hollis’s face he had seen in the flash from his pistol, a moment before the Minie ball tore into his arm.
Ironic, he thought. Colonel Swan had been afraid they might meet on the field of battle. Instead, the confrontation had taken place right here at Swan’s Quarter, when all of them had been seeking a brief respite from the war.
Channing heard the bushes rustling near him. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he struggled to drag himself farther back, under a bush. If they found him, he would surely be sent to one of the notorious prison camps farther south, where he would spend the rest of the war rotting and starving.
“Hello?” came the soft call. “Are you here? I know you’re hurt.”
He was drifting off again, losing consciousness. In his present state, Channing could almost imagine that the voice calling out to him was Virginia’s.
“Please, I want to help you. Where are you?”
“Virginia.” Her name from his lips was more a moan than a word, but she hurried quickly toward the sound.
As she neared his hiding place, she spied the shine of rain-slick boots sticking out from under a large bush. She dropped to the ground beside him.
Swan's Way Page 22
